The professor: part 1

Lola gets a new case

The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1980s 1970s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real

Previously: An arrest warrant has been issued for Detective Lola Styles. She’s escaped from Bruglia with Princess Daryla and they’ve now made contact with the rebellion…

3203. Late Frostfall.
The Appilan Rainforest.

Each morning she woke with a start, still surprised by her surroundings, always startled by the wood and canvas shelter and the air thick with moisture. It must have been at least two months by a Mid-Earth calendar, but Lola was no longer bound by twelve months and the routine of shift work and office hours.

She sat up in the bed, yawned, and rubbed her eyes. The jungle had no respect for the seasons: here, it was always hot, always humid. A light film of sweat covered her forehead, and her back, where she’d been lying, was damp. Clothes were never fully dry there, and trying to dry oneself after washing was a lost cause. She unclipped the insect net and swung her feet down to the fur rug. It felt cool on her skin, compared to the bed sheets. Locating her sandals, she first checked for any lurking insects then slid into them. There had been many lessons to learn about living out in the wilds; small tips that would keep you alive and out of trouble, such as: shake out your shoes before wearing. Daryla was already up and out, hunting or maybe deep in another planning session over breakfast with Krystyan and Lykasra.

Their new pals. A prominent cell in the rebellion, seeding unrest and insurgency around the continent. Not something that Lola had included on her bingo sheet. There was her life before joining the SDC, which was that of a fairly normal, middle-class girl from the south-west, who enjoyed holidays in Cornwall and got decent grades at school. Then there was everything after she’d got the promotion and transfer to become Clarke’s partner. She hadn’t realised that she was walking into a disaster that was already in motion. The circumstances of her appointment were not a secret: everyone knew about John Callihan’s death. Every twist since then had pushed her further down an unpredictable path, first through the portal, then away from Bruglia, and now camping out with a group her former employers still classed as terrorists.

Exhilarating as it was, she’d had more than one moment of wondering what was on television on a Saturday night back in Britain. She craved a crappy game show. Anything she could watch while disconnecting her brain. It had been an uneventful if winding journey from the Peak to the camp. Nothing had gone wrong. Slava knew what she was doing and got them south safely. They were so deep into the trees that nobody could possibly find them. The Appilan rainforest was enormous, bigger than any forest on Mid-Earth and covering an area more than half the size of Africa.

Peeling off her vest and shorts, she yanked clothes from the makeshift chest of drawers tucked into a corner of the hut and dressed. It still amused her that someone had carted an actual chest of drawers all the way out there. Despite the camp being well-equipped and Daryla’s reassurances, Lola was unable to relax. Aside from anything else, she was acutely aware that she had no idea where she was. Left alone, she’d barely last a day in the forest. There were creatures big and small absolutely desperate to eat her, she’d very quickly realised. She was still wholly reliant on the others to keep her alive.

Ah, the others. That was, at least, an upside.

Glancing in the small hand mirror that lay on the chest of drawers, she shrugged and made her way out through the canvas flap that served as a door, being sure to seal it behind her to ward off any intrepid beasties. The jungle was never quiet, always shouting at the top of its lungs, even if there were no animals in sight. The songs of a hundred species of bird, the croaking of amphibians and reptiles, howls and calls from animals familiar to her as well as unique to Palinor.

Sat around a small cooking pot were Slava and Maxim. Pulling up a chopped tree stump, Lola joined them and peered into the pot, drawn in by the smell. There was no fire, of course, only Maxim’s outstretched hand. The direct application of heat from an elementalist cooked the food more quickly and, more importantly, kept smoke to a minimum. The idea that anyone would be able to find their camp made no sense to Lola, given the scale of the rainforest and the density of its innards, but Krystyan insisted it was a possibility.

“Oh my god,” Lola said, breathing in deeply, “that smells so good.”

Slava raised her eyebrows. “You want some, do you?”

“Is there enough?”

“Well, that depends,” Slava said. “What did you contribute?”

“Contribute?”

Maxim shifted his posture. “Did you catch the animal?”

Slava chipped in. “Gather the herbs?”

“Make up the sauce?”

“Chop the greens?”

“Peel the beans?”

Looking from one to the other, open-mouthed, Lola pointed back towards the hut. “I just woke up.”

Maxim shook his head. “Typical Mid-Earther.”

It was true, of course. She knew it, they knew it, everyone in the camp knew it. Her dreams of adventure and living wild had not come to fruition in quite the way she’d imagined: she was in the right place, surrounded by a fellowship of valiant warriors, but she was a tourist, a hotel guest, an accidental holidaymaker who had taken a wrong turn.

Of all the rebel crew, Maxim was the most intimidating. It wasn’t Lykasra, the resident koth who could snap Lola in two if they wanted, and was presumably still asleep or already out of camp on a task. The others all had their skills, but Maxim was the one that seemed to bristle with energy, like a bomb ready to blow at any moment, such was their wielding capacity. Daryla had to weave signs and mutter spell words for much of what she did, although she’d got it down to a subtle art. Maxim had to do the opposite, casting spells to restrain and reduce his magic output so that it didn’t incinerate a square kilometre of forest. There was always a shimmer, like a distant heat haze, rippling around the surface of his skin.

He glared at her, the accusation clear: she was superfluous. A hanger-on. A unnecessary addition that would probably get them all killed.

His smile broke first, tweaking up at the edges, then he creased into laughter and slapped Lola’s knee. “Your face!” he exclaimed. “You looked so sad.” He reached over and put an arm around her shoulders; she felt the heat. “I’m kidding.” He pointed at Slava. “We’re kidding. Come on, here.” He spooned some of the food into a bowl and passed it to her. “Eat. Enjoy. On the house.” He returned to concentrating on the cooking pot, shaking his head in amusement.

“Right,” Lola said, managing a wan smile. “Thanks, guys.”

“Watch out,” Slava said, gesturing towards the treeline at the edge of the clearing. “Here comes trouble.” She winked in Lola’s direction.

It was Pylpo, one of the younger members of the crew. An aen’fa in her early twenties, she was the appointed medic on the team, having been a house slave to a famous doctor. Until she’d run away, and tried to get through the portal to Mid-Earth. It hadn’t worked out.

Dropping from the trees somewhere high above, she landed delicately, as if hopping down a single step. Lola could never get over the athletic abilities of most aen’fa; the least-fit aen’fa could run circles around anything she could do. That was why aen’fa weren’t allowed to take part in sports back on Mid-Earth. One of the reasons, at least.

“Hi, Lola,” she said as she strode across the grass to where they were sat, emphasising her name as if it had special meaning. She leaned over and whispered too loudly into Lola’s ear. “If these two are bothering you, let me know. I’ll sort them out. Or you can come hang out in my tent. Up to you. No pressure. Also—” and she turned to Slava, holding up a small, metal cylinder, “we’ve received a message.”

Taking the cylinder, Slava twisted the end and frowned with concentration as she opened it. “It’s got a micrologist’s lock,” she said, wincing as she carefully removed the cap. “I need to hold the pins just right, or the whole thing goes up in flames.”

“Good job I didn’t try to open it,” Pylpo said, grinning. “Budge up, Styles.” The tree stump was too small for more than one person, but Pylpo insisted on making it work, shoving Lola to one side until they were both perched awkwardly on it, pressed up next to each other. She’d had eyes for Lola as soon as they’d arrived at the camp with Slava, that much had been evident even to Lola, who was long accustomed to being oblivious about such things. It was flattering, and cute, and a little embarrassing. It didn’t hurt that Pylpo was particularly beautiful, either.

“What does it say?” Lola asked, trying to distract herself, as Slava extracted a single sheet of paper.

Scanning the letter, Slava’s face betrayed no hints of its contents. “Pylpo, start closing down the camp. We’ve got a retrieval mission. I want us ready to move as soon as Krystyan and Daryla return.”

“Yes, sir, ma’am,” Pylpo said, jumping to her feet.

Maxim sat up a little straighter. “Retrieval mission?”

“A professor, apparently. A Professor Zale Simova, of Fountain University. He’s on the move and needs extraction.”

“From the university?”

She shook her head. “No, he’s already left the city, but he’s on the run. Bruglian city guard are after him. We need to find him first.”

Lola knew the name. “Professor Simova?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’ve been to some of his lectures. He’s a physologist. Does a lot of research into portal theory, I think?”

“You know him?”

“I’ve spoken to him a couple of times. He helped out with the victim of a sexual abuse case we dealt with at the SDC. He was part of the joint team of British and Bruglian doctors. They did an amazing job.”

Slava nodded, then frowned in the direction of the canopy above. “He must have done something to piss off the academics.”

“Like what?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out. Pack your bags, Mid-Earther. Looks like you’re going on your first mission.”

Photo by Theodore Moore on Unsplash

---

References & callbacks

Thanks for reading!

New location! New(ish) characters! New storyline! Exciting. If you want a refresher on some of these characters, here’s a quick index:

• Professor Simova has indeed been in it before. He first showed up in Railroad: part 2 (December 2023). The case involving Yvette Field was waaaaay back in Accusations (May 2022).

• We’ve met the rebels before. First in Expeditions & interrogations: part 10 (August 2022), where they caused a ruckus in a market. Then we met a bunch of them in the middle of an operation in Bombings: part 2 (December 2022). And then we got a much clearer view of the gang in A distant rebellion (August 2023).

Updates & cool stuff

Apologies to those of you following along with my Babylon 5 rewatch. Didn’t manage to get an episode review out this week (I’m also slightly scared of the next episode). Will be back on schedule next week.

Some good stuff I’ve stumbled upon this week:

• Mike Sowden
  shared this one. It’s from 2021 but it every bit as relevant today — more so, if anything, and it was somewhat prescient about where social media was headed. Don’t build your castle in other people’s kingdoms.

• Is Hollywood going out with a whimper? All sorts of interesting stuff in here. I’ve found it fascinating in recent years how Hollywood is pumping out more films and TV shows than ever, but very little of it is having real cultural impact.

• Neal Stephenson
  (yes, that one) very clearly lays out why Idea Having is not Art. This has been a tricky thing to explain since MidJourney first appeared on the scene in 2022. Prompting an AI engine is not the same as being an artist, and Neal does a good job of explaining why, without descending into hyperbole or judgement or doomsmithing.

I’ve got various bits and pieces coming up. As usual, it’s a matter of finding the time. I have a video about community-building in the newsletter space. I really want to do more Scrivener tutorials. As and when I get access to the new Substack-powered live streams I’m keen to give it a go with some live readings.

Oh, is anyone else doing Inktober? I’ve made a start:

Inktober gallery: first 3 days

Right, let’s do some author notes.

Author notes

Tales from the Triverse has always had an interconnected, knotty plot that references back and forth along its own timeline. I’ve enjoyed pulling together the links to earlier stories recently, as it really emphasises some of those connections, and how they exist in publishing time.

Today’s chapter references stories as far back as May 2022. I find that subtly amazing! It surprises me that I’ve been writing Triverse for that long; it’s even more surprising that people have been reading it that whole time. That some of these threads are now becoming apparent is rewarding for me, and hopefully for you.

Foreshadowing in an online serial, especially one that is being published as I go, is a challenging thing to pull off. All those chapters I referenced were written long before I knew I’d write today’s chapter. I didn’t necessarily anticipate Professor Simova returning to the story, at the time of writing him into ‘Railroad’ back in December 2023, and yet here we are, with a new plotline focused on him.

That’s the magic trick, I think: foreshadowing in an online serial is about throwing lots of balls into the air, and then catching some of them. To an observer it looks pretty clever that you managed to catch so many of the balls: never mind all the ones you dropped. Sometimes a background detail is just a detail; other times it becomes a vital bit of foreshadowing.

I’m leaving Chekhov’s entire arsenal lying around, very irresponsibly. Anyone could pick up those weapons. Or nobody. That’s the nature of online serial writing, and threading in subplots and elements that may or may not resonate at some point down the line.

Meanwhile, we start to shift here back to a rough structure that is more familiar. Since the crackdown and the SDC crew having to go on the run, the story has been in flux. We’ve seen Clarke trying to wrestle normality back into his life. Lola has been agonising over her place and purpose. Those character moments reflect the difficulties in transitioning a story from one thing to another. We’re not quite done, but the major upheaval is done: ‘The professor’ will make a return to a more typical Triverse storyline. Hopefully Lola will even get to use some of her detective skills.

Right, I’m going to park it there for today. As always, thanks for reading and thank you for your support.