‘Discreetly obscured,’ I repeated, for no reason other than it struck me as odd. I had already been seen by thousands of people, I’d talked to a few of them.
‘So, if I understand,’ I said after some silent thought on my part, ‘it’s okay for me to say I came here from the Squares of London or Gardenia, but not that I came from Kingham in 2011?’
‘Better not to mention Gardenia either.’
‘Okay, so I’m from London in 2211. Is that what I should say?’
‘If anyone asks, it’s preferable that you try and avoid the topic altogether. As I’m sure you are aware, news travels fast, people are interested that Theda has come back from the future, they are interested that you have come sideways from another present. That much we think we can contain, but if people knew you came from the fossil age, there may be considerable disquiet. We don’t want that.’
‘No, we don’t want that,’ I agreed.
9
‘T his is the sun lounge,’ said brad. ‘you may wish to top up your vitamin D.’
For the first time in my guided tour of Cloud Ten, I saw something that could be described as anywhere near luxurious. Above me a deep blue sky and the strong warmth of the sun hitting my skin, all around me large cushions along with more structured day beds and large chairs. Many people seemed to be lying around and after a few moments I registered that they were completely naked. Old men, young women, children, teenagers, doddery old ladies all dotted about without a stitch on.
‘I’d take advantage while you can,’ said Theda, who was already halfway through removing her flight suit. She was German, so obviously being naked in public was second nature to her. I’d worked in Germany enough to know that they weren’t ashamed of their bodies in the way British people were. This whole cloud had to be full of Germans – that was my explanation.
I didn’t quite know what to do. I glanced at Brad who just nodded and said nothing.
‘I will rejoin you later,’ he said, and walked back the way we came.
I felt distinctly uncomfortable at the prospect of nudity even though my distant ancestors were supposedly from Germany, on my father’s side anyway, the clue being in the name Meckler.
I shrugged and stripped off and surprised myself by feeling quite happy about it. I didn’t stand out; I blended in.
‘This is bloody weird,’ I said to Theda, who by this point was stretched out on a day bed with a cloth over her eyes. Yes, that was the sum total of cloth-type products anywhere near her. Awkward.
‘It is very important to the people here,’ she said without moving. ‘In the culverts there is very little direct sunlight and even less chance of taking time to lie in it. Every spare moment is devoted to maintenance and growing food so when they get a chance to spend time on a cloud, this is one of their most important activities, apart from dreaming.’
I lay back on a big cushion and realised that I wasn’t actually exposed to direct sunlight or the elements; there was a barrier between me and the outside world. I couldn’t see it but I understood it had to be there. We were many thousands of metres above the planet’s surface, so if this area was open to the elements I’d freeze solid just after I’d suffocated.
It was warm and quiet, but not silent, I could hear murmured conversations going on around us. I saw in the distance what I took to be a family getting dressed, a man and a woman with two small children. They looked very happy as they joshed around with each other, the dad playing some tickling games with the youngest child as they struggled to get their suits on.
I lay back and allowed the sun’s rays to warm me. In fact very rapidly it felt like they were roasting me.
‘Intense,’ I said as I rolled over. I felt quite proud of myself not ogling the various naked bodies around me. Being a product of the twentieth century, nudity had a sexual element to it no matter how above it all I tried to be. There was something about universal nudity that put the kibosh on such erotic notions. If you see a naked 22-year-old woman standing next to a naked 93-year-old bloke, something happens that isn’t particularly erotic. Well, it wasn’t for me.
‘I feel like I’m cooking,’ I said eventually.
‘Don’t worry, the canopy is a very effective UV filter,’ said Theda. I glanced at her as she, too, turned over. I was at once appalled and fascinated and I wish I hadn’t looked. I’m not saying this because she was repulsive or deformed, far from it; her body was lean and muscular and clearly in very good shape, but it just felt strange and a bit too intimate. I did flash on a couple of things as I looked away. One, what it would have been like to be next to Nkoyo, from the Squares of London, in the same circumstances, and then what it would have been like to be next to Grace from Gardenia.
I stopped myself thinking about that and sighed in relief because I was lying face down as the sun’s rays scorched my backside. I felt bad because I hadn’t even considered what it would be like to lie in the sun lounge next to Beth.
I tried to imagine Beth being naked on top of a cloud. It was impossible to imagine, she’d hate it, she’d think it was mad and would find the vision of hundreds of naked people who don’t believe in God lying around in a plastic UV-shielded bubble perverse in the extreme.
‘We are in a pressurised bubble on the top level of the cloud,’ Theda said quietly. ‘There are dozens of them dotted around the upper levels. Most of the passengers on-board will spend an hour a day in one of them, when they get back to their culverts their friends will often comment on the splendour of their cloud tan.’
‘Okay,’ I said, not really understanding anything she was saying. ‘So people live in culverts all over the place because the winds are so strong, and they grow food and hunker down and try to survive and then every now and then a cloud passes and they get on-board and have a holiday. Is that an adequate description of life here?’
‘I don’t think it’s a holiday, certainly not for children. They do most of their schooling while on-board a cloud. You may have noticed some large classrooms as we came up Elevator 20.’
‘Classrooms?’
‘Yes. As we went up there were some areas where we could not have alighted from the elevator, you may have seen them if you didn’t have your eyes closed. There would have been a kind of balcony area and large rooms behind full of children.’
‘I think I saw some balconies,’ I said.
‘Well some of those were schools, some are parts of the University of the Sky which is an international educational institute. Most of the research into technology and climate control is done while people are on here, so many of the people you will have seen on Cloud Ten are students, academics, engineers and scientists.’
‘Wow, climate control, that sounds a bit ominous.’
‘I would suggest it is essential work,’ said Theda flatly.
‘So from what you’ve seen, the climate is very different from your, um, your world.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Theda as she turned on her side, now facing me. I did glance but then I looked away and wished I’d chosen a cushion to lie on that was a bit further away. She didn’t seem the least bit fazed to be lying next to a naked man she hardly knew.
‘It is very harsh and the population is much lower. As far as I can tell from conversations I’ve had, it’s not much above one billion.’
‘Wow,’ I said. That really did shock me. Everything back in 2011 predicted a massive increase in population, it seemed there were still plenty of people around in Gardenia and there were simply gazillions in the Cities of the Squares. ‘One billion is nothing.’
‘There simply aren’t the resources to support more. Viable agricultural land has diminished to a few per cent of what it would have been in your era 200 years back. All coastal areas are either uninhabitable or flooded beyond use, sea levels have risen dramatically so you would possibly not recognise a map of the glob
e any more. It was hard enough for me and I know our sea levels are much higher than they would have been back in 2011.’
‘And do they know what caused this weather?’
‘Of course,’ said Theda flatly. ‘As Brad indicated to you earlier, they know precisely and they’re not very happy about it. They dream about it, Gavin.’
‘Dream about what?’
‘About what it was like in your time, indeed in historical periods even before your era. I haven’t told you this before, I feel I can predict your reaction so I have hesitated.’
‘My reaction to what?’
‘Here on the clouds they have the technology to record and create dreams.’
Theda looked at me. I was trying hard not to react. I wanted her to think I was not quite as backward and ignorant as I might initially appear. I failed.
‘Quite so,’ she said with a smile. ‘You find that distressing.’
‘No. Well, no, incomprehensible maybe.’
‘They have dream recordings from before the winds. They really understand what it was like back in your day. When you sleep in the pods you will be able to dream about your time. I know what it was like. I have been there; I have experienced the past in a most convincing way. I think you will be surprised.’
10
I admit it, i had a little panic attack when I woke up in my sleeping pod. It happened before I was properly awake, I felt I couldn’t breathe and my arms and legs started lashing about. I thought I was having a nightmare that I’d been buried alive; I was trapped in a small box and I couldn’t get out. It all got rapidly worse when I realised I actually was in a small box and couldn’t quite recall how I got into it.
I had claustrophobia I suppose. I don’t know for sure because I’d never had it before, but there was something about the low levels of light, the closeness of the walls and ceiling that just got to me.
I was also very aware of movement. I think that may have been what woke me with such alarm. I became panicked and very confused, I was trying to work out why I was trapped underground but falling. I went through all sorts of mental contortions trying to work it out; maybe I was in a self-flying machine as there were no controls. I needed something to grab and steer with. There was nothing.
I eventually managed to control my fears and climb out of the box and my mental state went from screaming panic to deep embarrassment in an adrenaline-fuelled heartbeat.
I was getting out of sleeping pod number 32 on floor 2011.
As usual I had no idea what the time was, where I was or if I would be able to ask anyone to help me. The long corridor outside my sleeping pod seemed deserted. Everywhere I’d been on Cloud Ten had always been busy, always full of people and yet suddenly I was alone.
I stretched and yawned, scratched my head and tried to work out how to respond to this utterly bizarre moment. I could just get back in my cosy pod and wait for someone to come and find me.
That’s when the memory of my dream hit me and it was like being hit by a bus. That’s the thing; I’d just been on a bus going down Oxford Street in London. I think it was a hybrid bus, certainly not something I’d ever been on in real life, but the dream was so vivid I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.
I was on a bus in London and outside the wind was howling along the street, the rain was horizontal and I could see people walking along struggling with their umbrellas.
I could feel the fabric of the seat I was on. It was incredibly detailed and real, all sorts of images from my dream came back to me and this wasn’t an experience I was used to.
I don’t deny that I have dreams, I’m sure I do, however, I very rarely remember them when I wake up. I hadn’t remembered this one when I woke up, I just felt trapped and enclosed in a box. It was only after getting out of the pod that the vivid memory started to return. It was frightening because it wasn’t a hazy memory of a dream, a sequence of events that made no sense. It was more like being in a movie, created by someone else but featuring me. I was actually experiencing the events. Everything around me, the fabric of the city, the bus, the people on the street, the taxis, the cyclists, the shops and buildings were all very familiar. It was Oxford Street. I distinctly remember looking in the window of Boots and seeing a very fat girl looking at make-up. It was London back in my era, no doubt about it. Other than the hybrid bus, everything was as it should be.
I felt a bit sick and wanted to be anywhere but on a damned cloud floating above Siberia. I started to shuffle down the corridor of sleeping pods as the previous day’s experiences started to come back to me: the explanation of the cloud, northern Siberia, Theda and spooky American Brad and the sun lounge, Theda naked and hearing cryptic information about the weather and dreams that had been recorded and could be played back. It didn’t really help.
Then a figure suddenly appeared at the far end of the rows of pod doors. It was a young woman dressed in the regulation flight suit but with a kind of orange shawl around her shoulders. She walked past me giving me a cursory nod. I turned and watched her continue on her way. She stopped, put her hand on a pod door and it immediately opened. It was only then I realised it was number 32. She was getting into my pod, well, the pod I’d just half fallen out of.
I stood motionless as she very expertly clambered inside and the door closed behind her. Had she been coming to see me? Was she some kind of sexual companion that the spooky Brad had arranged? Was I meant to go back and join her?
It may seem ridiculous now, but this place was so weird anything seemed possible. Nothing I’d previously experienced in any of the time zones, realities or bizarre cities I’d been in could have prepared me for waking up on a massive man-made cloud and having a young woman climb into what had effectively been my bedroom.
Then I remembered Wekesa had explained to me that people sleep in shifts. Somehow the woman must have known I’d vacated the pod and she could get inside and sleep there.
My nose wrinkled involuntarily. I hadn’t exactly tidied up when I’d got out. I was in such a panicked state I had literally just clambered out. I stared at the long rows of doors trying to remember if I’d left anything in there. I patted myself up and down, I didn’t have anything except for the suit I was wearing and the band around my wrist, but I hadn’t exactly left it fresh and tidy.
‘Don’t worry, Gavin, the pods are self-cleaning,’ said Theda. She was suddenly standing beside me. I looked up.
‘How do you do that?’ I said.
‘Do what?’
‘Creep up on people like that. Where have you come from?’
Theda gestured over her shoulder. A pod door was just closing behind her and I assumed that was where she was sleeping.
‘I don’t think I was creeping,’ she said. ‘I was sitting at the back of the bus and so when you got off I knew you had woken and I decided to join you.’
‘What bus? You mean the dream! Were you having the same dream?’
‘Yes.’
‘How? That is sick, you were on the bus with me?’
‘Yes, I kept my distance because I thought you might find it too disturbing, if I had sat next to you and told you we were both dreaming in the same place you might…’
‘Might what? Go mad?’
‘Yes, something like that. It is very confusing and I don’t wish to add to your stress. I am finding the experience of being here and the power of the dream machine just as stressful as you.’
‘I think I might have gone mad. I feel burnt out, I don’t know what to do.’
‘Try to relax, you are not in any way damaged, just follow me.’
I followed Theda as she walked back along the corridor. I was very grateful for her company as I wasn’t sure which way to go, far less what to do with myself.
Once we’d reached the kind of vestibule area near the dimly lit canteen I
started to remember some of my travels the day before. The shape and structure of the cloud was so confusing I could not seem to get my bearings.
I normally had a good grasp of buildings I was in, I understood how they fitted together and I could generally find my way around them. The cloud threw that skill out of the window. Nothing looked that familiar as we walked through the now busy vestibule. Even calling it a vestibule is pointless; it was more a kind of big balloon with a lot of smaller long, thin balloons going off it in various directions. One thing I did notice was that the lighting seemed more intense than it had the night before.
‘I have no idea what time it is,’ I said.
‘Time is flexible,’ said Theda flatly. She carried on walking almost as if my asking about the time was annoying and childish.
‘That really doesn’t help,’ I said, bouncing along the unstable floor. ‘I can’t deal with theoretical physics right now.’
‘I am not trying to confuse you. It was decided to schedule your sleep periods to avoid exhaustion so you went to sleep when it was appropriate for you to sleep. If you want to know what time you went to sleep it was about 11 o’clock in the morning, but that was morning above the Krasnoyarsk Culvert, in what you would know as Russia. It is now three o’clock in the afternoon in the Calgary Culvert, that is, in what you would have known as Canada.’
‘Yes, I know where Calgary is,’ I said. ‘So we’ve moved from eastern Russia to Canada while I’ve been sleeping and dreaming about a bus on Oxford Street 200 years ago.’
‘Yes, correct. We are now descending to try and make a docking at the Chicago Culvert. No doubt it was the movement that woke you.’
I obediently followed Theda into the canteen and joined a long queue heading toward what I took to be a kind of server area. Even here, somewhere I’d been before I’d slept, seemed bizarre and almost dreamlike in its complexity and confusion. There was a queue but it was almost as deep as it was long. It was basically a crowd of people all facing the same way, a bit like an audience at an open-air rock concert, however, it was quiet and very orderly.
News from the Clouds Page 8