The last flight of the Beagle: part 3
Giving up
This is my ongoing scifi / fantasy / crime fiction serial. New chapter every week.
The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1980s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real
Previously: The former SDC detectives have pulled off a heist to retrieve Kaenamor’s lost journal. They’ve crash landed into the middle of Addis Ababa, with a rogue AI in hot pursuit…
Addis Ababa. Max-Earth.
2550. March.
Stillness, at last. Quiet.
Each of Kaminski’s limbs felt heavy, his entire body languorous and reluctant. The slow morning after a long night, burrowing back down beneath the covers, delaying the responsibilities and noise of the day. As hangovers went, it was a bad one. He’d been boxed about the ears, everything was bruised, and he had no notion of where he was. He wasn’t even lying down, but was hanging awkwardly in an uncomfortable seat.
That wasn’t it, was it?
His eyes focused, though his hearing remained a distant, echoing, deep rumble, as if he was submerged. He was so tired, more so than he had ever been, and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. Had he been sleeping? He couldn’t remember.
Movement, and someone came into view, crouching in front of him. He blinked, squinted, everything still blurry. “Lola?” He blinked some more, his vision clearing enough to see the vomit on her dress. “You’ve been sick,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, fiddling with his restraints. Why was he tied to his chair? It all seemed a bit silly. “Shit,” she said, tugging at the belts across his chest, “something’s got jammed. Clarke!”
Oh, yeah.
They’d been in a spaceship crash landing. That’s what had happened. Add it to the list of absurdities. It was weird that they weren’t dead. Kaminski had been certain of death. More certain than usual, that is. The hopelessness of their predicament made even a flicker of hope a waste of time. Yet, they were still alive. The cabin was on its side, everything mangled and twisted, Kaminski’s seat still attached to what was now a wall.
“I’ve got Chakraborty,” came Clarke’s voice from off to the side. “She’s out, but breathing. I think she bit her tongue. Christ, this is a lot of blood.”
“Zoltan, come on,” Lola said, putting one hand to his face so that he had to look at her. “I need your help. We need to get you out of this. The ship’s on fire.”
That was more like it. Burning ship, fire, trapped. That sounded much more like the Specialist Dimensional Command. The incompetent adventures of Kaminski and friends.
“I’d rather have a cigarette,” he muttered, surprised by the fragility of his voice. He was underwater, his head pounding, his brain running at half speed, his muscles aching from the effort of holding his limbs together during the descent. It would be altogether simpler to just stop, to stay in the seat. He smiled thinly at Lola and tried waving a hand. “You go on ahead.”
Someone else was tugging at the restraints now, Lola’s friend from Palinor. Whatever her name was. “This would be so easy if I could wield,” she said.
There was a crashing sound and he peered around the side of the seat to see twisted metal and plastic fall from what had once been the lift shaft to the other levels of the ship. A figure was getting back to their feet. The pilot.
“Shit,” Kaminski said, nodding in his direction, “he’s in a worse state than me.”
The pilot’s arms were gone, as well as half of its chest from the left shoulder to what would have been the lower ribs. The face was torn, revealing a translucent plastic frame.
It was Justin, he remembered. Good job, really.
The robot limped over to Kaminski’s seat, gently but insistently pushing Lola and Yana aside. It stood on one leg and lifted the other, reaching out with its bare foot and gripping the restraints. A single tug and they were gone, ripped from their mounts. Kaminski tumbled from the seat and fell to the metal floor. His right knee exploded in pain.
“Get up if you want to live, Detective Kaminski.” The pilot turned and walked to the other side of the cabin, where they started working on the battered airlock door.
Lola grabbed his hand. “Come on, Zoltan.”
He snatched it away. “No. I’m tired, Lola. It’s all such a drag. You go.” His kneecap felt as if it was in the wrong place.
The heat was more intense. The darkness of the crashed ship was illuminated a flickering red.
“What’s going on?” Clarke was there, next to Lola, then leaning over him. “Kaminski, get moving.”
“No, I’m done.”
The old man was bigger than him. Kaminski had always been quite slight, wiry, awkward in his skin. Clarke crouched down, grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him up from the ground into an awkward kneeling position. His knee objected. “You are not done, you selfish bastard. You’re getting up. You’re not done, because I’m not done. And if I’m not fucking done, neither are you. Unfinished business, me and you, right? Callihan. Bakker. Five years of exile. We’ve got to take down these fuckers, and I don’t think I can do it alone.”
“Did you know,” Kaminski said, his voice slow and drawn-out, “that there’s a fire?”
“Yeah,” Clarke said, hauling him up until they were both standing. Kaminski was impressed; the old man was stronger than he looked. “That’s why we’re leaving.”
His knee could barely support his weight. “You can. I’ve got nothing left in the tank.”
Clarke tightened his grip on Kaminski’s collar and pulled him closer until Kaminski could smell the other man’s breath. There was blood around Clarke’s mouth. “You don’t go, I don’t go. But I’m not dying here, so you’d better get a move on and stop being a little prick.”
“What’s the point, Clarke? They keep beating us, over and over.”
A vein was pulsing on Clarke’s forehead. His face was rage. “That’s why we keep going. Until we put them in jail or in the fucking ground. Every single one of them. That’s what I’m living for. And you’ve got Nisha. She needs your help. So stop behaving like a twat.”
Daylight flooded into the cabin, a white shaft highlighting the smoke that was filling the space.
Jiraa ran around the outside of the ship, trying to find an entrance. He could see a line of police advancing from the portal station, but they were a ways off and more concerned with setting up a perimeter to protect pedestrians than getting to whomever was inside the ship.
A spaceship wasn’t meant to lie on the ground, on a major road in the middle of the city. He couldn’t tell the front from the back or top from bottom, a process made even more difficult by the damage. It was enormous, too: bigger than he would have imagined from watching endless loop videos of ships docking with the space elevator.
After a half circuit, he found what looked like an oval-shaped airlock door. He barely had time to consider it before it cycled open with the sound of scraping gears, smoke expanding out onto the street. On the other side was a man with horrendous injuries: their arms were gone, half their face, their clothes burned and ragged.
“Hello,” the main said. “My passengers need assistance.”
It was a pilot robot. Jiraa could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He peered into the airlock and saw two women carrying a third. They were battered, their smart clothes torn and dirty, the third woman seemingly unconscious. Blood covered her from her mouth to her waist.
“Hi,” he said, approaching with a smile, “I’m Jiraa. Are you OK? Can I help? Let me take her. Is there anybody else?”
Jiraa had always been strong and the unconscious woman wasn’t big. He took her from the other women and lifted her up over his shoulder, like he’d seen in safety videos when he’d worked for a summer as a lifeguard while travelling on Mid-Earth.
He glanced back as he carried her out, to see two men emerging from the smoke. Similarly bashed up, and one of them was limping. The next sensible thing to do was to get to the police cordon. The pilot host was already on its way, walking in an awkward lope with its shattered body.
Even carrying the woman, Jiraa caught up to the pilot just as they were approaching the police. The pilot collapsed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and components, a white liquid leaking into the tarmac. One of the police officers stepped forward, a stern woman with an intense stare.
“Thank you for your assistance,” she said, rotating her shoulders. “This body is much better.”
He looked to the broken host on the floor, then back to the police officer. “You’re the pilot?”
“Call me Justin. I am a quantum AI. These police hosts require direct handshakes, to prevent unauthorised takeovers, hence having to get close. Are you capable of carrying that woman further?” She — they — turned to the other officers. “All host officers please withdraw to the neighbouring streets. Your presence is a risk. All human officers, I would appreciate your assistance escorting my friends to the portal.”
Without argument, half of the line of police turned and began marching away.
Another sonic boom echoed out of the sky. There couldn’t be another ship coming down, surely?
Jiraa turned, looked up. A black shape was descending, altogether different to the crashed ship. It was oblong and obsidian, light seeming to slide off its surface, the afternoon sun glinting off its odd protrusions. Jiraa couldn’t get a sense of how big it was, his eyes unable to comprehend its scale or distance.
“Run as fast as you can,” Justin said. “Do not stop. I have arranged for security to allow you immediate access to the portal.”
Jiraa didn’t know what was happening, but obeying the police officer seemed like the best approach. He gripped onto the unconscious woman’s back and legs and started towards the entrance to the portal station.
As he ran, he noticed that the police host robots had stopped marching away as instructed and were instead standing stationary at the edge of the street, facing away, staring at nothing.
Meanwhile.
Most of this chapter was written on a train back from London. For a time, I didn’t think this chapter would make it out this week, as my brain has been locked into New Job Mode and had little space left for much else. Fortunately, here we are. Just about made it.
Endings are very much on my mind these days, so this piece from
was timely and on point:
If you’re not familiar with Neill’s work, he specialises in comics for younger readers. Roughly the 8 - 14ish age bracket. I encountered him through The Phoenix, a comic for children that began publishing the same year my son was born. It’s a beautiful thing: cover-to-cover original comics, no plastic tat glued to the front cover, and frequently hilarious.
I mean, look at the back cover of their April Fool’s issue this year, which pretended to be a magazine for brick enthusiasts:
One of the best critiques of generative AI I’ve seen.
Anyway, back to Neill: his magnum opus is MEGA ROBO BROS, about a couple of robot kid brothers who have a bunch of adventures, struggle with adolescence and identity, and infuriate their parents. If you have children of appropriate age it is essential reading, but I’d also quite happily recommend it to any grown-ups. Hidden depths, and all that.
Neill worked on MRB for a decade and recently released the final volume. It makes my 3+ years on Tales from the Triverse seem rather trifling. I can’t fathom the emotional hit from completing a story that’s been with you for that long. The interview linked above is all about that, so if you’re in the process of wrapping up a major project you’ll likely get where he’s coming from.
Some other bits:
Skybound have put up a Kickstarter for a complete collection of all the 1980s Transformers comics. These were seminal works for Small Simon. There are references to be found in Triverse. My wallet quivers. I should write about those 1980s comics over on
.Rather late to the game, we just started watching Adolescence. Only one episode in and, yes, it’s very, very good.
As noted, I just this week started a new job working at the Creative PEC. Published today is an interesting roundtable discussion summary about AI and copyright as it relates to the creative industries. Worth a read.
Author notes
An aspect of writing fiction that I find endlessly curious and exciting is when character behaviour does something unexpected. I wasn’t planning on Kaminski giving up, but at this moment it felt like the appropriate response. He’s been on the sharp end of a lot of the bad things in Triverse, and it’s important to remember that none of our protagonists are Action Heroes. The stressful and relentless events take their toll, and if the characters are too comfortable with it all we start to lose their humanity, and a connection to reality.
Hence Kaminski’s response here. Checking out is a perfectly reasonable response to being in a plane crash, especially one triggered by an active attack from a third party. These are overwhelming events, and everyone has the potential to snap. Kaminski’s always been the cynic.
He wants to be a police detective, smoke, investigate cases, think about evidence, go home. He really doesn’t want to be stealing from a museum and being in a spaceship crash landing. Or being trapped in a shipping container, or shot at, or arrested, or any of the other things that have happened to him.
His response here, to shut down completely, is illogical, of course, and frustrating for us to read as well as for Clarke and Lola to have to deal with. But that’s people, innit?
The portals in Triverse often represent moments where the story leaps into a new phase. As I’ve mentioned previously, the dimension in which a story is taking place often influences its tone and the specific events. Lola’s flashback was high fantasy (with lashings of grimness). The rest of this season has been leaning heavily into science fiction: spaceships, asteroids, space stations, robots. As our protagonists attempt to reach the Addis portal back to Mid-Earth, we’re approaching another shift.
Needless to say, I’m very excited about it all. The next chunk of chapters are going to be pretty wild.
Honestly, I didn't find his reaction frustrating but more relatable! It might be because I've been in a bit of a slump too but it was nice to see that Kaminski is only too human, that despite everything supernatural & sci-fi going on in this story, not everyone has this hardass persistence to keep going all the time without even blinking. I enjoyed reading it & it definitely gave the scene some unique flavour!
Zoltan "giving up" is not entirely unexpected. As you've noted, it's been a highly stressful situation, and we've already seen Holland lose it.
Zoltan has one thing which should get his head back up next chapter - his love for Nisha, who is injured and unconscious. If that love is the healthy relationship I believe it is, Zoltan will get his shit back together for her.
*re-reads my own comments from last week to refresh self on own thought stream*
I didn't, but SHOULD HAVE expected half the police to be robotic. I also - stupidly - assumed Justin wasn't in a body, but directly in the control software of Beagle, since, while a quantum AI thinks quickly and can manipulate a body much faster than a human can act, there's still delay in implementing pilot decisions via hands than direct software command - but, these ships would be designed for routine use where response speed isn't a primary design consideration, and a pilot body is a good reference point for passenger communication instead of talking to the air. Also, there's nothing that says Just Enough* wasn't just hanging out in Beagle's computer during maneuvers, shifting to the body after the crash.
Anyway, Probably Better has an available robot army. Terminator chase it is. But can Justin start grabbing more police bodies to slow pursuit as half of the bodies have a Terminator brawl^? Only the author knows for sure!
Terminator chase is probably less destructive to the city than shooting up the portal station. Of course, if I were the evil AI I'd both bombard the station AND use my robots on the ground. There's two more portals. It's not like trade would halt if it takes a year to clear away the rubble in Addis - and such would strengthen the power and influence of London, which might not be bad from the conspirator viewpoint.
Hey, why present either/or when one can have both?
Jiraa is pretty awesome. Hope he makes it.
*I've noticed in my own comments I've consistently parsed "Just Enough" to the AI when presented in a ship or terminal, and "Justin" to the AI when in a robot body. I suppose this is me also assuming that Just Enough "puts on some extra personality" when interacting as "Justin."
^Next week I'll pull a different media reference for bot battles. There are plenty of other choices. Maybe, at least right now, "Justin" is "Robocop" while Probably Better is a phalanx of "ED209s."