News from the Clouds

by Robert Llewellyn

  It wasn’t like looking at a city, there were no streets or individual buildings, no towers or transportation systems visible, it looked like a super huge mega-factory surrounded by a ridiculously enormous wall.

  ‘Quite a sight,’ said Theda eventually. I nodded, then scanning around the crowds on the inflated terraces I could see people talking and pointing and commenting excitedly as we continued to rise high above the plain.

  After about ten minutes, a low sound started to become audible above the chatting, shouts and hubbub around us. By this time we must have been at least a thousand metres above the surface; the culvert was still very much in evidence partly due to its size and partly due to the trajectory that Cloud Eleven was taking. We were travelling upwards gently and in an easterly direction and it was getting cold, really cold.

  By the time we stood up and moved along with the slow crowds of people before us, half the seating banks had already been vacated. The low sound, it was a gentle repetitive tubular bell tune, was becoming slightly more insistent. As we climbed the many stairs back to the huge square above I found I was getting short of breath.

  ‘We need to get back into the cloud,’ said Brad. ‘The air is getting thin and it will get very cold out here.’

  By the time we’d finally managed to make it to the peculiar entrance I was freezing and wheezing. We had been climbing steadily all the time and I’d say we were maybe 3,000 metres up by the time we slid in through the bizarre white flange door. I could feel warm air rushing out as I pushed my body through the slit, but as soon as I got inside my ears popped quite badly. It was a very sudden increase in pressure and I was momentarily a bit deaf.

  It’s important to point out that all this time we were surrounded by thousands of people. It reminded me of either arriving at or leaving a huge public event like a concert or sporting match. Thousands of people were slowly milling around, vaguely moving in one direction along a massive tubular corridor. It was clear that Brad, Theda and I were not alone in not being sure quite which way to go. There were a lot of people around us talking very busily and pointing in various directions. I heard snippets of many languages, every variation of race and creed was present among Cloud Eleven’s enormous passenger manifesto.

  We rose up through the interior of the cloud by a similar seat-based elevator to the one that had lifted us on-board. I think we must have gone up a couple of hundred stories of the structure and emerged into a wonderland. It was like a food hall in a high-end mall in Asia, somewhere like Singapore, just a hundred times bigger.

  Theda went off to procure food and I sat down at a vacant table in the middle of this huge space with Brad.

  ‘What a place!’ I said as we settled. ‘I mean, this is just incredible, this is just so much better than living in a dark ditch.’

  Brad stared at me with the slightest grin on his small face. ‘Not bad, is it?’ he said eventually. I then felt guilty because the dark ditch was actually his home and I remembered how proud Americans generally were of their hometowns. I decided to quickly change the subject.

  ‘I can’t begin to imagine how this works. I don’t mean the cloud itself, that’s completely beyond anything I’ll ever understand, but the system. The kind of, well, the economic system that allows us to sit here, eat food, have a space to sleep, everything.’

  ‘Well, you are registered,’ said Brad flatly. He said it as if I should know that, as if I should have known all along. A very Squares of London experience.

  ‘Am I?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course, otherwise, if you think about it, Gavin, you wouldn’t be here.’

  Theda returned carrying a large white bag. She plonked it on the table between us and sat down.

  ‘I am starving,’ she said. ‘All that fresh air. It has given me a Deutsch richtige appetit.’

  The big white bag contained a few small white bags. Bags which when lifted looked quite literally like balloons or condoms filled with liquid. However, as soon as I put one down on the table it reformed itself into a wide high-sided bowl. A solid bowl.

  ‘Cool tech,’ I said, grinning at my companions.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Brad. ‘There are many new innovations which have been rolled out on Cloud Eleven.’

  I watched as Brad and Theda picked implements resembling spoons from the big bag in the centre of the table. I did the same, scooping some of the creamy liquid from the bowl and gingerly putting it in my mouth. A liquid entered my mouth and immediately turned into a selection of solid objects. Delicious, crunchy solid objects – food. I couldn’t guess what I was eating. Mildly curried shrimps with vegetables? Or it could have been a sweet chicken stew with noodles.

  I chewed and swallowed.

  ‘Wow,’ I said, wiping my mouth with a small piece of material that had released itself from the swollen balloon of liquid as it turned into a bowl. ‘That has to be just about the weirdest thing I have ever put in my mouth. What the hell was it?’

  ‘Next gen transit sustenance,’ said Brad. ‘We have it in Chicago for emergencies but we don’t eat it much. Some people actually prefer this stuff to freshly picked vegetables and fruit.’

  ‘You understand that you decide what it is when you eat it, don’t you?’ said Theda while wolfing down the weird cream-coloured goo.

  I looked at her chewing for a moment. ‘So what are you eating?’ I asked.

  ‘Wiener schnitzel, sauerkraut, roast potatoes and fresh garden beans,’ she said with a big grin. ‘What about you, Brad?’

  ‘Lasagne,’ said Brad, as he held a creamy spoonful hovering in front of his mouth. ‘Beef lasagne, not bad really. I’ve been dreaming about it for weeks.’

  ‘How do you decide?’ I asked, as incredulous as you might expect.

  ‘Well, what have you been eating?’ asked Theda.

  ‘I don’t know!’ I said.

  ‘It’s kind of a good idea that you do know,’ said Brad.

  ‘It keeps changing!’ I squeaked. ‘One minute it’s a kind of Thai noodle chicken thing, the next it’s a mild prawn curry with rice.’

  ‘Best to decide on one,’ said Brad nonchalantly. ‘But then again, whatever floats your boat.’

  ‘I quite fancy what you’ve got, Theda,’ I said. I hadn’t eaten anything other than vegetarian meals for weeks so I leant forward to get a spoonful of Theda’s weird cream that was really wiener schnitzel. She knocked my hand away impatiently.

  ‘Eat your own!’ she said. ‘That is most unhygienic.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I replied. So I took another spoonful of my own cream stuff, shoved it in my mouth and sensed the texture of breaded veal. Not after a bit of chewing but pretty much as soon as I put it in my mouth.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said through the mouthful of food, ‘bloody extraordinary.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Theda. ‘This is my first experience of this technology. I had heard people discuss it but I’ve never tried it before.’

  ‘Let me tell you,’ said Brad, leaning back in his chair. ‘This stuff is way better than anything we’ve had in Chicago. They’ve really moved on.’

  ‘The whole cloud is wonderful,’ said Theda. ‘Everything has moved on.’

  Brad nodded.

  ‘Okay, Theda, perhaps you can let me know this,’ I said, holding up my wristband. ‘Brad told me I’m registered. I don’t know how anything works here. Like how we get this food. What transactions are needed to make it possible for me to be here, eat this, have a room of my own and everything?’

  ‘You are enquiring about an economic model?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, what’s the economic model? I know you had money in Munich, I certainly had loads in London, I was quite rich apparently.’

  ‘Yes, you were very wealthy, but here there is no such system, more like embedded credit and debt. I think that’s the best way to describe
it. You worked in the garden in the Chicago Culvert. That would have helped toward your credit. You were also kind and considerate to others and that builds credit in your favour, plus as you were a guest you had an automatic balance increase. There is no way of keeping track of such credits or debits, the general wealth of the community is considered far more important, not individual wealth as you or I may be familiar with.’

  I was eating through mouthfuls of meat, roast potatoes and beans as Theda spoke. It had occurred to me at one point to spit a bit into my hand to see if it looked any different but I decided that would be a bit rude, not to say potentially revolting.

  ‘So there is no monetary system?’ I said eventually.

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘So how is a machine such as this cloud produced? A project of this colossal scale requires enormous input, materials, manpower, R and D, everything.’

  ‘As I believe you discovered in London,’ said Brad eventually, ‘the cost of many of the things you struggled with 200 years ago has reduced to near zero. Energy for instance. We produce more than we need, we can store it, move it and use it without much concern. The materials used to make this cloud were produced remotely and automatically using advanced printing techniques. I use the term “printing” as I believe you may understand that, I might say weaving or blending the base components on a nano scale. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Well, yes, I get the overall notion. So what you’re saying is there weren’t, like, teams of engineers cutting out sheets and joining them together with glue to make this?’

  ‘Precisely, it was essentially grown from base material in the most advanced culvert on the planet.’

  ‘Beijing,’ I guessed.

  Brad nodded. ‘They have the most advanced and biggest fabrication systems. But what you have seen so far is merely the start. The support and control systems on Cloud Eleven far outstrip anything any of us have seen before.’

  Before long I was completely stuffed. I hadn’t had a feeling like that in months.

  ‘That was probably the weirdest meal I’ve ever had,’ I said, finishing the sentence with an enormous involuntary burp, which was a bit disgusting.

  ‘Charming,’ said Theda. She grinned at me.

  ‘So, here’s the plan,’ said Brad, wiping his mouth with some kind of tissue. ‘At some point we will dock with the other clouds. You will transfer to Cloud Eight, Theda. Gavin, you will transfer to Cloud Nine. It may then be some time before they can navigate to your target positions, but that is what they intend to do. There are a few technicians from Chicago currently on Cloud Ten. They’ve been carrying out experiments on similar power anomalies to the ones you experienced, so I will be communicating with them about their findings.’

  ‘Experiments?’ I asked.

  ‘They’ve been sending probes through the cloud anomalies, probes that have the technology to send back data before they dissolve.’

  ‘Dissolving probes!’ Even with my jaded attitude to all the extreme technology that surrounded me, the idea of a dissolving probe piqued my interest.

  ‘It is a very small object, a nano particle probe that travels through the cloud and as it drops on the other side it sends back data. It then dissolves into water vapour so as not to cause disturbance in the time fields.’

  ‘Wow.’ That’s all I could say.

  ‘So with information from these teams I will explain what’s going to happen when you reach the anomaly. I will remain on-board Eleven as I’ve been invited to Beijing to consult on some new materials they are planning to use on Cloud Twelve. It’s a shame you won’t get to see that as it’s clearly going to be a monster.’

  ‘I am very sorry to miss the opportunity,’ said Theda. She turned to me. ‘Has Brad told you about Cloud Twenty? No, clearly he hasn’t.’ Of course she could tell that I had none of that information because of our kidonge connection, so I didn’t even shake my head.

  ‘Cloud Twenty is already being planned. It will be 300 kilometres long, 150 wide and house 11 million people in a permanent floating city. Before long there will be people alive who have never experienced living on the ground, they will be genuine cloud dwellers.’

  I think my mouth was hanging open.

  ‘Exciting times,’ said Brad. He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ll say my goodbyes now, Gavin. I wish you well on your travels and in good time I will check up on your history, see how you got on in life.’

  ‘That’s a spooky thought,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think the human mind will ever be able to adapt to meeting someone who has technically been dead for over 150 years, but it’s been a fascinating experience meeting you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’d like to say the same. I don’t mean to be rude, it has been amazing meeting you and the incredibly resourceful people of the clouds, but I know I’m going to forget everything so it feels a bit pointless.’

  ‘Gavin, what you have brought to our world, what you have shown us beyond question is that your journey has not been pointless. You have brought us a wealth of understanding denied to previous generations. Thank you.’

  24

  After spending a few weeks in the Chicago Culvert, being on Cloud Eleven was not only a blessed relief, it was incredibly restful.

  I had a very comfortable adaptable bed arrangement in my room that was perfectly positioned to take in the ridiculous splendour of the skies as we floated serenely above the storm-ravaged Earth.

  I would wake up each morning and the transparent nanomaterial in the window would fade from blackout to super clear as my eyes became slowly accustomed to the brightness of the day.

  It was impossible not to feel comforted, slightly smug and incredibly lucky in such truly fabulous surroundings.

  It was during this period of calm that I started to half understand some of the resentment among the general populace toward the people of the past. It’s not something anyone from 2011 could easily comprehend. If I thought about the people who had lived before me, the kings, statesmen, soldiers, workers, peasants, mothers and fathers who had lived and died before I was born, I don’t think I had ever for one moment resented them.

  In fact, quite the opposite was true. If I ever did think about them it was generally with some admiration.

  Basically I’d always loved old technology. I was fascinated to see the crudity of construction and clearly I had the sort of brain that could look at a coupling on an early steam engine and work out not only how they came up with the idea but how they put the idea into practice. I suppose that’s an engineer’s brain.

  I have a very happy early memory of walking around the Science Museum in London with my dad and brother when I was a young boy. I spent a long day staring in wonder at the incredible machines that had been built hundreds of years before my time. The beam engine pumps, the early steam cars and locomotives, rudimentary batteries and marine engines. Amazing big brass gauges and pipework all held an intense fascination for me.

  I didn’t resent the people who made them. What they had done back then had developed over generations so that I was lucky enough to grow up in a time of technological achievement and comfort that would have been impossible to imagine in the not-too-distant past.

  I was always impressed with technological progress, with new machines, gadgets and inventions that made life richer, more fulfilled or easier.

  That mindset had definitely changed in the world of the clouds.

  The past was a dark place full of stupidity and destruction; the human race had been almost destroyed by the short-sighted ignorance of previous generations, including mine.

  It all seemed a bit unfair. I wanted to tell them it wasn’t all our fault, we didn’t know any better, we didn’t do it on purpose and there is no way we could have known what was going to happen.

  It became clearer w
hen Theda and I were sitting watching the sun go down from one of the 92 sun lounges dotted around the upper formations of Cloud Eleven.

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ I said out of the blue. Theda had just been explaining the pressure variants on-board, how the pressure lower down the cloud structure was slightly higher than up where we were, which enabled the whole thing to maintain its shape. I mean, I was interested, but the blame thing was really on my mind.

  ‘What have you done?’ asked Theda.

  ‘Nothing, that’s just the point, it’s not my fault that everything turned out so shitty for this world. It’s ridiculous that the people here blame the past for their woes, it’s not like we did it on purpose.’

  ‘From what I understand the blame is very specific,’ said Theda. ‘They don’t blame the people of 1811, or indeed 1911. However, by the time you left in 2011, there was plenty of understanding about what was taking place and yet it seems they did nothing.’

  ‘It just doesn’t make sense,’ I said. ‘We didn’t have any hard evidence back in 2011, it was all speculation and a lot of people thought it was based on questionable science. It was all about what might happen. It was almost a belief system, a bit religious, that’s what I didn’t like about it. It was a bit like the voice of God: “You have sinned, you will be punished for burning fossil fuels.” That’s why I questioned climate change. And I’ve seen worlds where it didn’t happen and those people didn’t blame my era. Well, they might have been critical, but they didn’t blame us.’

  ‘I think you misunderstand,’ said Theda. ‘Think of it this way. If you had been walking down the street in 2011 and you were introduced to a military gentleman from say, around 1914, an English man, a military figure who was hell-bent on fighting a glorious war against my country. A man who took delight in all the military stupidity that war represented. How would you react to him?’