Cloud Atlas: A Novel

by David Stephen Mitchell

  “Just be grateful your last paycheck didn’t boing. On my desk by eleven tomorrow, with a pic of one of those snappers. A question, Luisa?”

  “Yes. Is there a new editorial policy no one’s told me about that excludes articles containing truth?”

  “Hey, metaphysics seminar is on the roof. Just take the elevator up and keep walking until you hit the sidewalk. Anything is true if enough people believe it is. Nancy, what’ve you got for me?”

  Nancy O’Hagan has conservative clothes, a pickled complexion, and giraffe-size eyelashes that often come unstuck. “My trusty mole got a picture of the bar on the president’s airplane. ‘Wing-dings and gin slings on Air Force One.’ The dumb money says the last drop’s been squeezed out of the old soak, but Auntie Nance thinks not.”

  Grelsch considers. Telephones ring and typewriters clack in the background. “Okay, if nothing fresher comes up. Oh, and interview that ventriloquist puppet guy who lost his arms for It Never Rains … Nussbaum. You’re up.”

  Jerry Nussbaum wipes dewdrops of choco-Popsicle from his beard, leans back, and triggers a landslide of papers. “The cops are chasing their own asses on the St. Christopher case, so how about a ‘Are You St. Christopher’s Next Slaying?’ piece? Profiles of all the snuffs to date and reconstructions of the victims’ last minutes. Where they were going, who they were meeting, what thoughts were going through their heads …”

  “When St. Chris’s bullet went through their heads.” Roland Jakes laughs.

  “Yeah, Jakes, let’s hope he’s attracted to flashy Hawaiian colors. Then later I’m seeing the colored streetcar driver the cops had on the rack last week. He’s suing the police department for wrongful arrest under the Civil Rights Act.”

  “Could be a cover story. Luisa?”

  “I met an atomic engineer.” Luisa ignores the indifference chilling the room. “An inspector at Seaboard Incorporated.” Nancy O’Hagan is doing her fingernails, driving Luisa to present her suspicions as facts. “He believes the new HYDRA nuclear reactor at Swannekke Island isn’t as safe as the official line. Isn’t safe at all, in fact. Its launch ceremony is this afternoon, so I want to drive out and see if I can turn anything up.”

  “Hot shit, a technical launch ceremony,” exclaims Nussbaum. “What’s that rumbling sound, everyone? A Pulitzer Prize, rolling this way?”

  “Oh, kiss my ass, Nussbaum.”

  Jerry Nussbaum sighs. “In my wettest dreams …”

  Luisa is torn between retaliation—Yeah, and letting the worm know how much he riles you—and ignoring him—Yeah, and letting the worm get away with saying what the heck he wants.

  Dom Grelsch breaks her impasse. “Marketeers prove”—he twirls a pencil—”every scientific term you use represents two thousand readers putting down the magazine and turning on a rerun of I Love Lucy.”

  “Okay,” says Luisa. “How about ‘Seaboard Atom Bomb to Blow Buenas Yerbas to Kingdom Come!’?”

  “Terrific, but you’ll need to prove it.”

  “Like Jakes can prove his story?”

  “Hey.” Grelsch’s pencil stops twirling. “Fictitious people eaten by fictitious fish can’t flay every last dollar off you in the courts or lean on your bank to pull the plug. A coast-to-coast operation like Seaboard Power Inc. has lawyers who can and, sweet Mother of God, you put a foot wrong, they will.”

  9

  Luisa’s rust-orange VW Beetle travels a flat road toward a mile-long bridge connecting Yerbas Cape to Swannekke Island, whose power station dominates the lonely estuary. The bridge checkpoint is not quiet today. A hundred-strong demonstration lines the last stretch, chanting, “Swannekke C over our dead bodies!” A wall of police keeps them back from the line of nine or ten vehicles. Luisa reads the placards while she waits. YOU ARE NOW ENTERING CANCER ISLAND, warns one, another, HELL, NO! WE WON’T GO! and, enigmatically, WHERE OH WHERE IS MARGO ROKER?

  A guard taps on the window; Luisa winds it down and sees her face in the guard’s sunglasses. “Luisa Rey, Spyglass magazine.”

  “Press pass, ma’am.”

  Luisa gets it from her purse. “Expecting trouble today?”

  “Nah.” He consults a clipboard and hands back her pass. “Only our regular nature freaks from the trailer park. The college boys are vacationing where the surf’s better.”

  As she crosses the bridge, the Swannekke B plant emerges from behind the older, grayer cooling towers of Swannekke A. Once again, Luisa wonders about Rufus Sixsmith. Why wouldn’t he give me a contact number? Scientists can’t be telephobic. Why did no one in the super’s office in his apartment building even know his name? Scientists can’t have aliases.

  Twenty minutes later Luisa arrives at a colony of some two hundred luxury homes overlooking a sheltered bay. A hotel and golf course share the semiwooded slope below the power station. She leaves her Beetle in the R & D parking lot and looks at the power station’s abstract buildings half-hidden by the brow of the hill. An orderly row of palm trees rustles in the Pacific wind.

  “Hi!” A Chinese-American woman strides up. “You look lost. Here for the launch?” Her stylish oxblood suit, flawless makeup, and sheer poise make Luisa feel shabby in her blueberry suede jacket. “Fay Li”—the woman offers her hand—”Seaboard PR.”

  “Luisa Rey, Spyglass magazine.”

  Fay Li’s handshake is powerful. “Spyglass? I didn’t realize—”

  “—our editorial scope includes energy policy?”

  Fay Li smiles. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a feisty magazine.”

  Luisa invokes Dom Grelsch’s reliable deity. “Market research identifies a growing public who demand more substance. I was hired as Spyglass’s highbrow face.”

  “Very glad you’ve come, Luisa, whatever your brow. Let me sign you in at Reception. Security insists on bag searches and the rest, but it’s no good having our guests treated like saboteurs. That’s why I was hired.”

  10

  Joe Napier watches a bank of CCTV screens covering a lecture theater, its adjacent corridors, and the Public Center grounds. He stands, fluffs up his special cushion, and sits on it. Is it my imagination, or are my old wounds aching more of late? His gaze flits from screen to screen to screen. One shows a technician doing a sound check; another, a TV crew discussing angles and light; Fay Li crossing the parking lot with a visitor; waitresses pouring wine into hundreds of glasses; a row of chairs beneath a banner reading SWANNEKKE B—AN AMERICAN MIRACLE.

  The real miracle, Joseph Napier ruminates, was getting eleven out of twelve scientists to forget the existence of a nine-month inquiry. A screen shows these very scientists drifting onstage, chatting amicably. Like Grimaldi says, every conscience has an off switch somewhere. Napier’s thoughts segue through memorable lines from the interviews that achieved the collective amnesia. “Between us, Dr. Franklin, the Pentagon’s lawyers are itching to try out their shiny new Security Act. The whistle-blower is to be blacklisted in every salaried position in the land.”

  A janitor adds another chair to the row onstage.

  “The choice is simple, Dr. Moses. If you want Soviet technology to burn ahead of ours, leak this report to your Union of Concerned Scientists, fly to Moscow to collect your medal, but the CIA has told me to tell you, you won’t be needing a round-trip ticket.”

  The audience of dignitaries, scientists, think-tank members, and opinion formers take their seats. A screen shows William Wiley, vice CEO of Seaboard Inc., joking with those VIPs to be honored with a seat onstage.

  “Professor Keene, the Defense Department brass are a little curious. Why voice your doubts now? Are you saying your work on the prototype was slipshod?”

  A slide projector beams a fish-eye aerial shot of Swannekke B.

  Eleven out of twelve. Only Rufus Sixsmith gets away.

  Napier speaks into his walkie-talkie. “Fay? Show starts in ten minutes.”

  Static. “Copy that, Joe. I’m escorting a visitor to the lecture theater.”

  “Report to Securit
y when you’re through, please.”

  Static. “Copy. Over and out.”

  Napier weighs the set in his hand. And Joe Napier? Has his conscience got an off switch? He sips his bitter black coffee. Hey, buddy, get off my case. I’m only following orders. Eighteen months till I retire, then it’s off to fish in sweet rushing rivers until I turn into a goddamn heron.

  Milly, his deceased wife, watches her husband from the photograph on his console desk.

  11

  “Our great nation suffers from a debilitating addiction.” Alberto Grimaldi, Seaboard CEO and Newsweek Man of the Year, is king of the dramatic pause. “Its name is Oil.” He is gilded by the podium lights. “Geologists tell us, just seventy-four billion gallons of this Jurassic ocean scum remain in the Persian Gulf. Enough, maybe, to see out our century? Probably not. The most imperative question facing the USA, ladies and gentlemen, is ‘Then what?’ ”

  Alberto Grimaldi scans his audience. In the palm of my hand. “Some bury their heads in the sand. Some fantasize about wind turbines, reservoirs, and”—wry half smile—”pig gas.” Appreciative chuckle. “At Seaboard we deal in realities.” Voice up. “I am here today to tell you that the cure for oil is right here, right now, on Swannekke Island!”

  He smiles as the cheers subside. “As of today, domestic, abundant, and safe atomic energy has come of age! Friends, I am so very, very proud to present one of the major engineering innovations in history … the HYDRA-Zero reactor!” The slide screen changes to show a cross-section diagram, and a primed section of the audience applauds wildly, prompting most of the theater to follow suit.

  “But hey, now, enough of me, I’m only the CEO.” Affectionate laughter. “Here to unveil our viewing gallery and flick that switch to connect Swannekke B to the national grid, the Seaboard family is deeply honored to welcome a very special visitor. Known on Capitol Hill as the president’s ‘Energy Guru’ “—full smile—”it gives me profound pleasure to welcome a man who needs no introduction. Federal Power Commissioner Lloyd Hooks!”

  An immaculately groomed man strides onstage to great applause. Lloyd Hooks and Alberto Grimaldi grasp each other’s forearms in a gesture of fraternal love and trust. “Your scriptwriters are getting better,” Lloyd Hooks murmurs, as both men grin broadly for the audience, “but you’re still Greed on Two Legs.”

  Alberto Grimaldi backslaps Lloyd Hooks and replies in kind, “You’ll only wrangle your way onto this company’s board over my dead body, you venal sonofabitch!”

  Lloyd Hooks beams out at the audience. “So you can still come up with creative solutions, Alberto.”

  A cannonade of flashes opens fire.

  A young woman in a blueberry jacket slips out of a rear exit.

  12

  “The ladies’ restroom, please?”

  A guard speaking on his walkie-talkie waves her down a corridor.

  Luisa Rey glances back. The guard’s back is turned, so she continues on around a corner and into a grid of repeated corridors, chilled and muffled by humming air coolers. She passes a pair of hurrying technicians in overalls who eye her breasts from under their caps but who do not challenge her. Doors bear cryptic signs. W212 DEMI-OUTLETS, Y009 SUBPASSES [AC], V770 HAZARDLESS [EXEMPTED]. Periodic higher-security doors have keypad entry systems. At a stairwell she examines a floor plan but finds no trace of any Sixsmith.

  “You lost, lady?”

  Luisa does her best to recover her poise. A silver-haired black janitor stares at her.

  “Yes, I’m looking for Dr. Sixsmith’s room.”

  “Uh-huh. English guy. Third floor, C105.”

  “Thank you.”

  “He ain’t been around a week or two.”

  “Is that a fact? Can you tell me why?”

  “Uh-huh. Went to Vegas on vacation.”

  “Dr. Sixsmith? Vegas?”

  “Uh-huh. So I was told.”

  Room C105’s door is ajar. A recent attempt to erase “Dr. Sixsmith” from the nameplate ended in messy failure. Through the crack Luisa Rey watches a young man sitting on the table, sifting through a pile of a notebooks. The contents of the room are in several shipping crates. Luisa remembers her father saying, Acting like an insider can be enough to be one.

  “Well,” says Luisa, strolling in. “You’re not Dr. Sixsmith, are you?”

  The man drops the notebook guiltily, and Luisa knows she’s bought a few moments. “Oh, my God”—he stares back—”you must be Megan.”

  Why be contradictory? “And you are?”

  “Isaac Sachs. Engineer.” He gets to his feet and aborts a premature handshake. “I worked with your uncle on his report.” Brisk footsteps echo up the stairwell. Isaac Sachs closes the door. His voice is low and nervy: “Where’s Rufus hiding, Megan? I’ve been worried sick. Have you heard from him?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me what’s happened.”

  Fay Li strides in with the unimpressed security man. “Luisa. Still looking for the ladies’ room?”

  Act stupid. “No. I’m all finished with the ladies’ room—it was spotlessly clean—but I’m late for my appointment with Dr. Sixsmith. Only … well, it seems he’s moved out.”

  Isaac Sachs makes a “hah?” noise. “You’re not Sixsmith’s niece?”

  “Excuse me, but I never said I was.” Luisa produces a pre-prepared gray lie for Fay Li. “I met Dr. Sixsmith on Nantucket last spring. We found we were both based in Buenas Yerbas, so he gave me his card. I dug it out three weeks ago, called him up, and we arranged to meet today to discuss a science feature for Spyglass.” She consults her watch. “Ten minutes ago. The launch speeches went on longer than I’d expected, so I slipped quietly away. I hope I haven’t caused any trouble?”

  Fay Li acts convinced. “We can’t have unauthorized people wandering around a sensitive research institute like ours.”

  Luisa acts contrite. “I thought signing in and having my bag checked was the security procedure, but I guess that was naïve. Dr. Sixsmith will vouch for me, though. Just ask him.”

  Sachs and the guard both glance at Fay Li, who does not miss a beat. “That isn’t going to be possible. One of our Canadian projects needed Dr. Sixsmith’s attention. I can only imagine his secretary didn’t have your contact details when she cleared his appointments diary.”

  Luisa looks at the boxes. “Looks like he’s going to be away for a while.”

  “Yes, so we’re shipping him his resources. His consultancy here at Swannekke was winding up. Dr. Sachs here has done a gallant job of tying up the loose ends.”

  “So much for my first interview with a great scientist.”

  Fay Li holds the door open. “Maybe we can find you another.”

  13

  “Operator?” Rufus Sixsmith cradles the receiver in an anonymous suburban motel outside Buenas Yerbas. “I’m having trouble placing a call to Hawaii … yes. I’m trying to call …” He reads out Megan’s telephone number. “Yes, I’ll stay by the phone.”

  On a TV with no yellow or green, Lloyd Hooks backslaps Alberto Grimaldi at the inauguration of the new HYDRA reactor at Swannekke Island. They salute the lecture theater like conquering sportsmen, and silver confetti falls from the roof. “No stranger to controversy,” says a reporter, “Seaboard CEO Alberto Grimaldi today announced the go-ahead of Swannekke C. Fifty million federal dollars will be poured into the second HYDRA-Zero reactor, and thousands of new jobs will be created. Fears that the mass arrests seen earlier this summer at Three Mile Island would be repeated in the Golden State did not materialize.”

  Frustrated and weary, Rufus Sixsmith addresses the TV. “And when the hydrogen buildup blows the roof off the containment chamber? When prevailing winds shower radiation over California?” He turns the set off and squeezes the bridge of his nose. I proved it. I proved it. You couldn’t buy me, so you tried intimidation. I let you, Lord forgive me, but no longer. I’m not sitting on my conscience any longer.

  The telephone rings. Sixsmith snatches it up. “Megan?
”

  A brusque male voice. “They’re coming.”

  “Who is this?”

  “They traced your last call to the Talbot Motel, 1046 Olympia Boulevard. Get to the airport now, get on the next flight for England, and conduct your exposé from over there, if you must. But go.”

  “Why should I believe—”

  “Use logic. If I’m lying, you’re still back in England safe and sound—with your report. If I’m not lying, you’re dead.”

  “I demand to know—”

  “You’ve got twenty minutes to get away, max. Go!”

  Dial tone, a droning eternity.

  14

  Jerry Nussbaum rotates his office chair, straddles it, places his folded arms on its back, and rests his chin on them. “Picture the scene, me and six dreadlocked freaks of the negroid persuasion, a handgun tickling my tonsils. Not talking dead-of-night Harlem here, I’m talking Greenwich goddamn Village in broad goddamn daylight after a sixteen-pound steak with Norman goddamn Mailer. So there we were, this black bro’ frisks me down with his bitonal paw and relieves me of my wallet. ‘Wassis? Alligator skin?’ ” Nussbaum does a Richard Pryor accent. “ ‘No fuckin’ class, Whitey!’ Class? Those bums made me turn out my pockets for my every last cent—literally. But Nussbaum had the last laugh, you bet he did. In the cab back to Times Square, I wrote my now-classic ‘New Tribes’ editorial—no point in false modesty—and got it syndicated thirty times by the end of the week! My muggers turned me into a household name. So, Luey-Luey, what say you take me to dinner and I teach you how to extract a little gold from the Fangs of Fate?”

  Luisa’s typewriter pings. “If the muggers took your every last cent—literally—what were you doing in a cab from Greenwich Village to Times Square? Sell your body for the fare?”