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 reunited in Addis. It’s the first time Lola Styles has been outside of Palinor, and that the others have risked travelling back to Mid-Earth. Lola has been filling them in on her adventures…
Addis Ababa.
1980. February.
Kaminski’s fingers danced on the table, tappity-tap, a distraction from the lack of having anything to hold between his fingers. Max-Earth had weaned him off the worst of his cigarettes, but he still liked to have something with which to fidget. He picked up a drinks coaster from the table and started flipping it from side to side.
“You know,” he said, leaning back in his seat, “I really thought the vaksha thing was going to explain your new look.”
“Right,” Holland said, from the end of the long conference table. “That was disappointing.”
Chakraborty glared at him. “Frank! For fuck’s sake.” She turned to Lola, who was sat with a wry smile on her face. “But, yes, please do explain.”
“I’m getting to it,” Lola said. “There’s not really a way to do a short version of all this.”
Letting out a loud, slow breath, Holland crossed his arms. “So I guess there’s no skipping to the end?”
“Not really.” Lola poured herself a glass of water, glanced over at Clarke, who was sat with his fingers laced together, a deep frown furrowing his face.
Kaminski was still marvelling at the five of them being in the same room. Five years had gone by in a flash, the distance between then and now seeming insurmountable. The SDC was a distant memory, temporally and spatially. It was the old life. In a lot of ways things had improved for him and Nisha. They had a comfortable life, Nisha was healthy again — Max-Earth medicine had swiftly sorted out the remaining nerve damage from the dopur poison — and they were getting by just fine. Nobody was after them, they lived day-to-day doing odd jobs around the local area, the Sol wage keeping a roof over their head and bread on the table.
“So who was it that you met?” he asked. “Slava? Who is that?”
“Myroslava,” Lola said, as if that explained everything. She shook her head impatiently, as if it was ridiculous that they didn’t already know. “She’s a spy, or assassin. I’m never sure which. Perhaps both. She’s with the rebellion.”
Holland snorted while suppressing a laugh. “The what now?”
“The rebellion,” Lola said, ignoring his tone. “It’s a movement that’s been building across western and southern Palinor for decades, slowly. In the last six, seven years they’ve started making themselves known.”
“You sure you haven’t been reading too many fantasy novels, Styles?”
Lola looked at Clarke, then jabbed her thumb in Holland’s general direction. “He hasn’t changed, then?”
“I don’t really do change, Styles, love.”
Kaminski lifted a hand. “Come on,” he said, gently. He pointed at Holland. “He might say that, but that man changed at exactly the right moment. Saved all our arses.”
“Yeah! And look where it got me. Exiled to the fucking future for the rest of my days.” Holland grinned that shit-eating grin of his. “Could be worse, though.”
“You could be dead,” Clarke said, speaking for the first time since Lola had started telling her story. “This Myroslava, and the rebellion. How does that fit into everything else?”
“You’ve met some of them before,” Lola said, smiling knowingly.
“I have?”
“When we were in Bruglia together, for the prisoner escort. Remember? In the market, there was nearly a fight.”
Clarke frowned. “The princess saw them off. Was that the rebellion?”
“Some of them. Krystyan was the one giving the speeches.”
“Ah,” Clarke said with a nod, “I thought he was a bit of a cock.”
“Probably fair. Princess Yana was there, she’s married to Myroslava. Maxim would have been there, I think.” Suddenly her eyes lit up. “Wait! I should have said first: you’ll never guess who else I’ve met?”
“You’re right,” drawled Holland, rolling his eyes, “I can’t guess.”
“Pylpo and Zlati were newer recruits when I joined. They knew Laryssa.”
“Who the fuck is Laryssa?” Holland leaned on the desk, not trying to hide his evident boredom.
The name caught in Kaminski’s memory. “Wait, why do I know that name?”
“Oh!” said Chakraborty, hammering on the table. “The girl that washed up on the banks of the Thames. We were on the case. That was a ‘Laryssa’, wasn’t it?”
“Not just that,” Kaminski said, looking to Clarke.
The older man was pinching the bridge of his nose, his jaw set tightly. “That was one of Callihan’s last cases, too. Missing person. That’s what led him to the human trafficking, which got him close to figuring out the routes they were using to ship the component pieces for the new AI megaship.”
Holland whistled, long and low. “Alright, this just got interesting. Sounds like you made some interesting contacts after all, Styles.”
Detective Birhane stood and took a step forward from where he’d been lurking on a chair in the corner of the room. “I suggest we all take a break. I’ve arranged for coffee, some food, it’s available in the room next to this one. No need to go back out into the station.”
Not needing to be told twice, Holland was the first through the doors, muttering on his way out. “Too many fucking names, if you ask me.”
Lola was about to follow Kaminski and Chakraborty through to the other room, when she realised this was likely the best moment to talk to Clarke.
“Can you give us a moment?” she asked Birhane, who smiled, nodded, and discreetly closed the doors behind him.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Clarke said, looking a little dazed.
“There were times I didn’t think I’d see any of you again.” She looked up at the ceiling, feeling the weight of the moment. “For the longest time, I thought you were all in prison.”
“It was a close thing.” His face never looked anything but grumpy and tired, but behind those sunken, creased eyes she could see that he was happy. He indicated her arms. “I don’t know what this is,” he said, gesturing. “Are you OK, Lola?”
“I think I am,” she said, her nerves fraying a little. “It’s not been easy. These years have been harder than I could have imagined. They weren’t what I thought they would be.” She was avoiding getting to the point; she didn’t know how he’d react, and part of her wanted to hold back, to not say anything, not yet, just in case.
“Is there something else?” Clarke wasn’t a fool. He could tell she was stalling. “Is there a reason we’re standing here when everyone else is getting their lunch?”
“Listen, Clarke,” she said, “there’s a lot to explain still.” She waved her arms. “Obviously. But there’s something else that I wanted to talk to you about.”
He could tell she was worried. “Of course. It’s been five years, Lola. No point holding anything back.”
Taking a deep breath, she ran on the spot a little, paced back and forth, as if readying herself for a sprint. She’d practised this in her head over and over, yet in the moment all the words escaped her. “I don’t want things to change between us.”
“Things have changed, Lola,” Clarke said, throwing his arms wide, “but I’ll always have your back. You’ll always be my partner.”
“OK, then.” Another deep breath. “OK.” She tried to focus, to get it all in the right order. “OK.”
Clarke smiled, kindly. “Take your time.”
“Right.” A nervous laugh escaped and she grimaced, feeling increasingly like an ineloquent teenager. “I’m gay.”
He stared at her, nonplussed, or shocked, perhaps, for several seconds. It felt like minutes. Then he leaned on the table with one arm, ran the other hand along his jaw, and laughed. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? This is a big deal for me. Telling you.”
“No, I understand that,” he said, still chuckling. “But why were you so worried? I thought it was going to be something bad.”
Lola’s stomach was lurching, she felt giddy. “I didn’t know how you’d react.”
“How did you think I’d react?”
“I don’t know! I thought you might find it weird.”
He nodded. “So you like women? I can’t say that I understand, but Lola, it’s none of my business. And you shouldn’t concern yourself with what I think.” Clarke rubbed his jaw again. “Maybe back in the day I’d have reacted differently. But not now. If it makes you happy, then I’m happy. End of story.”
The relief washed over her. She felt tears brewing and pushed them back in. “You’re the first person I’ve told on Mid-Earth.”
Another laugh from Clarke. “That’s quite the honour. Why me?”
She looked down at the carpet. “I don’t know. You matter to me.” She’d been weighed down by the anticipation, had feared his reaction more than most of the beasts she’d faced on Palinor, save perhaps for what had happened in Lairn. Ridiculous, she recognised, and it wasn’t that she wanted or needed his approval. But she did need him as a friend, for what was coming next.
“Alright, let’s not get carried away.” He put a big arm around her shoulders, and she was back five years ago. Not that they’d been tight friends at the time, but absence had shifted both of them to a new connection. Clarke patted his stomach. “I need a sandwich. They’d better do sandwiches here.”
Lola smiled and felt safe, just for a moment. The fight was still to come, and she had to convince them to help her with the museum, and there was so much more to tell about what had happened to her on Palinor, but the scariest part, at least, was done.
Thanks for reading.
Earlier this year I had a brilliant conversation with author T K Hall:
Adventures in traditional and self-publishing
Possibly the best thing about writing a newsletter is how it facilitates meeting other writers.
I was therefore thrilled to read that the second book in his trilogy is to be imminently published, on 3 October:
Especially if you’ve struggled with any form of writer’s block, Tim’s journey to publication (and then away from it, and back again) is essential reading.
What’s next?
I’ve been looking ahead a little to what I do after Tales from the Triverse completes. I thought that was going to be this year, but it’s more likely to be early/mid-2025. Regardless of the exact date, the project will be done sooner rather than later.
This entire newsletter has been based around Triverse from the beginning, alongside the Monday ‘Write More’ articles. So what happens when there’s no more Triverse?
I have a bunch of ideas I want to try out, such as running an actual, paid, live writing course with a cohort of serial fiction writers. That would be fun. I also want to challenge myself to try entirely new things: a comic, a computer game. Some short stories.
While experimenting with those new things, I’m wondering about re-serialising one of my other books here. It would be an opportunity to do an edit and revision, serialising in an accelerated manner. That way I progress on a critical edit, while still leaving space to be working on new projects. And, of course, the vast majority of readers of this newsletter have not read my previous projects.
We’ll see.
Finally, apparently this is how I spent my time on Substack over the summer:
Author notes
Structurally, Triverse is very fluid at the moment. I know the story I need to be telling, and have a clear idea of events, but how I go about doing that is a more complicated affair. I wasn’t sure about going back to the future to reconnect with Clarke and the others — the other option was to keep going with the highly indulgent Lola mega-flashback.
I decided it was time to check in with the others, just to keep the flashback rooted in current events. It also makes it easier to skip over some of the housekeeping stuff in Lola’s story, and get straight to the good bits. And being able to have Kaminski and Clarke make some of those long-term connections is a more satisfying way to explore those links, and ALSO reminds and reinforces that these guys are detectives, and are paying attention.
The back half of the chapter presented itself during the writing. There I was, happily typing away, when I realised that Lola had not actually come out to Clarke or her old colleagues. She’s been living quite happily on Palinor, but that’s literally a different world. She was able to become who she wanted to be there, without shackles of her past, or the cultural expectations of Mid-Earth Britain. Telling Clarke should be a big moment for her, and for him.
I based the scene on direct experience. A good friend of mine arranged to go for a coffee one day, about eight years ago, and after talking about lots of other things she got a little quiet, a little nervous, and then told me she was gay. As with Lola’s worries here, she really thought that I might react badly, even though I hopefully had never actively done anything to make that seem likely. But the fear was there. I suspect — not being in the LGBTQ community myself — that there are different stresses related to coming out to old acquaintances, because you know it’s going to recontextualise that relationship, and there’s inherently baggage to contend with.
I liked that it’s a very normal, very grounded scene. Two people having a chat, being honest with each other, trusting each other. No big portal antics, or AI megaships, or magic. It’s a very human moment, which I think arrives in the story at the exact right moment, before we dive back into the grander escapades.
I think I jumped ahead a bit and skipped this by accident: now I'm glad I came back. This was nice. Decency in an indecent time, to paraphrase a line from The Dark Knight.
Oh, yay for Max Earth medicine fixing Nisha's nerve damage. That's nice. With a bit of luck some of our SDC people are a bit less self-destructive with the booze.