News from the Clouds Read online

‘Wow, so you mean it might be possible for people here to talk to people in say, Gardenia or the cities of the Squares?’

  ‘Yes, it is possible now, here. The only problem is that the technology in other dimensions does not always exist. The understanding of the vagaries of space–time and a multidimensional universe are not, well, they are not yet universal. If you think about it, in my dimension, the one you just came from, it took a further 200 years from your arrival for us to understand or even accept the possibility of other dimensions.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, leaning against the wall opposite the conference room. ‘So even though they live in ditches and float about on clouds here, their science is more advanced.’

  ‘Correct.’

  I sighed. I understood that I was at the same point in time, well, the same year at least as I had been in Gardenia and the Squares of London, but what I didn’t comprehend was how these people in the Chicago Culvert could possibly have developed such incredible scientific knowledge. I’d seen breathtaking technologies and scientific do-dads in the other dimensions I’d visited. The people of the clouds didn’t have tethered satellites, maglev transportation systems, massive self-powering mega cities or kidonges. But they understood particle physics and string theory like I understood hydraulics and pump actuators.

  It had to be down to the environment they lived in. They were battling the elements to a degree the human race had never faced before, they were stuck underground for the vast majority of their lives. I suppose they could have got drunk, had parties, fornicated and debauched themselves as the storms raged outside. What it seems they had done instead was a lot of thinking.

  The glass door hissed and Brad emerged as it slid away. The rest of the group stood behind him, some of them clearly whispering to each other as they realised who we were. Once again I was grateful for the presence of a very tall woman from the future – Theda definitely got most of the attention.

  ‘May we talk briefly?’ asked Theda.

  ‘Of course,’ said Brad. He turned to the small group behind him. ‘Would you excuse us for a moment?’

  The group wandered off, occasionally giving a glance back to us as they departed.

  ‘Gavin and I were wishing to ask you if you have any data on the next cloud arrival.’

  Brad nodded and started to walk in the opposite direction to his departing group. ‘I have been very involved, as you know, Theda, very involved in the dimension sub-committee, however, let us have a quick look in MT1.’ He turned to me and smiled, ‘That’s the culvert meteorology and transportation department. I think you’ll like this, Gavin.’

  We went through another doorway and down some steps into a long corridor with an even lower ceiling. At the end was a huge door that looked like it was made of stone. Brad stopped outside.

  ‘I just have to inform you, Gavin, I am slightly worried. One of my students was asking a lot of questions about you today. Have you said anything to anyone in the culvert?’

  ‘No,’ I said, glancing nervously at Theda. ‘I’ve been very careful.’

  Brad rubbed his chin for a moment. ‘Mmm, interesting. Clearly word is spreading. The student I’m referring to was actually born on Cloud Three, he’s a fascinating young man who is clearly in conflict with his family, however, we cannot be too careful. His questions were very pointed, although I have the feeling he’s not certain of the exact time period you came from. Some of his research notes were about a war between England and Germany in 1914. Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Well, the first and second World Wars,’ I said. ‘They were a bit of a nightmare.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Again, Brad did the chin rubbing. ‘He seems to think you come from that era, but that was a little before your time.’

  ‘A lot before my time, my great-grandfather fought in World War I,’ I said.

  ‘Well, hopefully we can get you on a cloud and away before this becomes a problem. Let us proceed.’

  The huge door that looked like stone slid open with ease as Brad approached.

  Once past the door we were faced with another even longer flight of stairs, down into the proper bowels of the Earth. Once we got to the bottom we turned right, through another of the stone-like doors and into a room that, even at this stage of my travels, really took me by surprise.

  I want to underline that my general emotional state during my stay in the culvert could adequately be described as stable, even flatlining. Nothing phased me, no new weird technology had any effect on me whatsoever: walking repair bots, floating clouds, massive culverts covered in carbon ceramic tiles, weird brown 3d projections of impossible-to-comprehend time and space-defying dimension concepts. It was all much of a muchness until I entered the Chicago Culvert’s meteorology department.

  There, in front of me, was the world. A ten-metre-high solid planet floating in the middle of a huge space. It was complete with visible atmosphere, ridiculous detail in the land masses, seas and cloud formations and to top it all off, it was rotating very slowly.

  Standing and sitting around the room were a small number of people who seemed busy in conversation, but not with each other, however. They seemed to be talking to some distant party. They weren’t using microphones or any visible equipment I could see, they were looking at the globe and talking, some of them in languages I wasn’t familiar with.

  ‘We need to stay back,’ said Brad, ‘they are in communication with the clouds and there is a bit of high drama at the moment because they are looking for an ambient window for the launch of Cloud Eleven.’

  ‘From the Beijing Culvert?’ asked Theda.

  ‘Correct,’ said Brad. ‘Let’s circumnavigate and have a look at the weather conditions.’

  We walked around the side of the room along a slightly raised walkway. I could not take my eyes off the planet before me. I was trying to understand how it floated so serenely above the floor. It looked utterly solid, I felt certain it wasn’t a projection, it was a solid object that must have weighed hundreds of tons.

  ‘Just incredible,’ I said as we walked around a dark, raised section of the circular room.

  ‘We are very proud of it. This is the most secure part of the culvert.’ Brad turned to me and whispered, ‘I mean secure from the weather. We don’t suffer from terrorist threats or possible war-like aggression from other people. I know this was often a problem back in your era.’

  I nodded my understanding.

  Brad then continued without whispering. ‘This is the world’s most advanced weather prediction system, we can predict weather up to six months in advance with 98 per cent accuracy down to the last kilometre. What we are seeing here is the weather pattern for next week.’

  Brad pointed to the globe. I could easily identify the coast of China, although I did notice that all the landmasses were coloured brown, not green. The sky over where Beijing should have been looked clear to me but there was no sign of a city on the surface of the slowly spinning blue–brown planet.

  Far away, south of Japan, there was a vortex of clouds over the Pacific, the sort of weather pattern I would have recognised as a hurricane. I then noticed these cloud patterns made up the majority of the cloud formations and some of them were continental in their scale.

  ‘So, it’s looking good. Cloud Eleven is three times the size of Cloud Ten, it’s going to take four days to inflate and during that time when it is still tethered to the ground it is in great danger from winds. The construction was completed a year ago and they have been waiting to launch all that time.’

  ‘Wait, three times bigger than Cloud Ten?’ I said, ‘But that’s inconceivable.’

  ‘Not really, the systems and structures have been designed to steadily get bigger. The residents of the Beijing Culvert are already constructing the chassis of Cloud Twelve, that will be over 200 kilometres across.’

  I had t
o hold my head; it felt like it was going to melt. A man-made, lighter-than-air structure more than 200 kilometres across. I suddenly wanted to stay in this dimension just to see something like that; a floating mega city was something worth hanging around for.

  ‘One moment,’ said Brad. He leant forward and spoke briefly to a woman who was standing just below us. She glanced at him, smiled and glanced at me. Her smile was rather flirtatious. Well, I thought it was. She nodded and said something to Brad.

  He stood up and turned to me. ‘Professor Glynne said that as it’s for you, Gavin, they will return the map to the present time so you can see current weather conditions here; let us circumnavigate again.’

  ‘You are very lucky,’ said Theda. ‘I have spoken with Professor Glynne before, I don’t think she would make such a concession for me.’

  I smiled. I didn’t know what to say. It felt odd, the fact that although no one seemed to pay me any attention, they all seemed to know who I was. It was very unlike the experience in London, here it was all understated and quiet, as was the room and the giant spinning world within.

  I followed Brad around the raised walkway until the North American continent came into view. It was hard to pick out at first as the western half was covered in one arm of a truly vast weather event. The centre or eye of the storm was between the Californian coast and Hawaii, but the cloud arms almost covered half the Pacific and half the American land mass. I had never seen any weather pattern like it.

  ‘Three hundred and fifty kilometre per hour winds,’ said Brad. ‘A bird storm.’

  As I heard Brad explain, a question started to develop in my mind, it was answered before I could say anything.

  ‘A bird storm doesn’t have birds in it,’ said Theda. ‘It’s called that because of the shape of the two storm fronts that circulate around the ultra-low pressure area in the centre. The outer tips of those cloud-wings you can see? That’s the danger zone. Winds at that point can reach 500 kilometres per hour.’

  ‘See there?’ said Brad, pointing to the sphere. ‘Just above the mouth of the Mississippi, that’s Cloud Nine.’

  I stared at the giant globe and couldn’t make anything out. That’s when I got another shock. Suddenly the globe expanded beyond comprehension, virtually filling the space it was housed in. The surface was suddenly mere inches from my face and there, in perfect focus, as clear as day, was Cloud Nine.

  ‘So it’s not far and it is hoping to head this way,’ said Brad.

  At that point Professor Glynne walked up to us. Her head was actually inside the Earth, so it was a bit confusing until the giant solid-looking planet shrunk back to its original size.

  ‘Just as well you are not a meteorologist, Doctor,’ she said with a kind smile. ‘Cloud Nine is travelling away from us at speed. It will not be able to make contact with Chicago at this time. We are hoping another cloud will be able to, if they come in from the north, but as yet we have no solid data on this.’

  ‘So, I’ve got time to go for a walk?’ I said, turning to Theda.

  ‘Yes, Gavin, it looks like you have.’

  20

  Out of all my adventures in the future multiverse, I found walking with Noshi to be nearly the most embarrassing.

  Not that he was unpleasant and, indeed, referring to Noshi as ‘him’ maybe doing her an injustice, I’ll never know. However, as we left the culvert with a sizeable crowd of similarly adorned people through an enormous sunken doorway, Noshi held my hand.

  It is probably not hard to imagine how awkward I found this. Not that I have anything against holding hands and I think I may have done so once or twice with Beth when we went on early dates, but it has never been something I make a habit of.

  No doubt I held my mum and dad’s hands when I was a toddler, I don’t recall, but I have never walked along with another man and held hands.

  Maybe that’s a bit sad. I have seen Italian men and Arab men holding hands as they stroll along and it looks fine, I may have had a couple of ‘blimey, they must be gay’ thoughts, but I quickly got used to the sight. In fact on a purely intellectual level I think it’s a good thing, much better than walking along punching someone, but I have to admit walking hand in hand with Noshi made me a little tense.

  It also took my focus off the experience I was having walking away from the culvert and being engulfed in the stultifying heat.

  After countless days of windstorms ravaging the planet, the air was suddenly very still, thick and hot.

  There was not a trace of cloud in the sky and it was easy to get disoriented on the vast brown plain beneath my feet and the shocking blue dome above my head.

  After about an hour of walking and holding hands, Noshi let go.

  ‘I think you’ll be okay now,’ he said, and of course it was only at that moment I realised what he’d been doing.

  He wasn’t holding my hand in a gay way, or a patronising way or even in a ‘culture I don’t understand’ way. He was holding my hand to ensure I didn’t fall over.

  The ground we were crossing was very uneven; we had been walking over piles of broken rubble for miles. This was not easy, there wasn’t a smooth flat walking surface available, the whole place was riddled with potholes and trip hazards.

  Every now and then as we trudged on I would spot a very unusual shape breaking the horizon. The endless flat nothingness that surrounded me meant my eye was naturally drawn to something out of the ordinary. As we got nearer to some of these peculiar landmarks, I understood them to be large pieces of concrete or the twisted remnants of a steel beam.

  The concrete had been grit-blasted into smooth, almost sculptural shapes, the steel I-beams and reinforcement rods were polished smooth and shiny.

  My fascination at these objects meant I slowly fell behind Noshi, who ploughed on as if he were walking through a picturesque park on a Sunday morning.

  I glanced up at him every now and then just so I didn’t lose sight of him. I had to concentrate on where I put my feet all the time as the landscape was so difficult to navigate.

  I could see that Noshi had reached the summit of a low hill. I’d seen it looming in the distance for what seemed like hours – the generally flat brown landscape made judging distances very hard.

  There were no trees or buildings to pass to give you a sign that you were actually making headway. Noshi had been ahead of me for much of the walk, he was very fit and clearly used to getting across the barren, broken terrain I’d been stumbling over.

  I was wearing amazingly competent walking boots that Noshi had brought with him to my tiny apartment early that morning. These were the first boots I’d really liked since I left 2011 and without them I think my feet and ankles would have been cut to ribbons.

  We had been walking across a broken wilderness of hundreds of years of industrial output, mashed, crushed, broken and flattened by forces beyond the control of mere mortals.

  It was hard not to be depressed by what I saw. The waste was overwhelming, there had been such unfathomable destruction over such a long time it was impossible not to feel your humanity crushed by the horror.

  Strangely though, and I suppose this was a perfect example of the indomitable nature of the human spirit, Noshi seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

  ‘You get a great view from up here,’ he shouted down to me as he stood on a lump of what I imagined was once part of a building.

  I eventually managed to clamber over the massive lumps of concrete, some of them having sand-blasted bare metal reinforcement bars jutting out from the broken surface.

  I stood up next to Noshi once I’d made it to the rugged pinnacle. I was breathing hard and my vision was slightly impaired by the peculiar goggles I had been told I must wear. However, what greeted me was a sight I shall never forget.

  A massive vista of barren, sandy brown destruction
. Nowhere did anything break the skyline by more than a couple of metres, just proper, post-apocalyptic devastation as far as the human eye could see, which from where we were situated was many hundreds of kilometres.

  The sky was crystal clear blue, blue beyond comprehension, such a deep blue colour it almost made me weep.

  ‘Can I just remove the goggles for a moment?’ I said. ‘I want to see what it really looks like.’

  Noshi looked down at his wrist, scanned the horizon and nodded.

  ‘Just for a moment,’ he said, ‘but the light will hurt, it’s very bright.’

  He was right, as soon as I pulled the goggles up to my forehead I was dazzled by the brilliance. I managed to squint for a few seconds to get an unimpeded view. The sky was an even deeper blue than I’d seen through the goggles; it was such a clear sky, a prehistoric and untampered-with blue.

  ‘It’s sort of beautiful,’ I said after a long silence.

  ‘I think it is,’ said Noshi. He handed me a white cushion of liquid, a newly inserted straw stuck into the top. I drank and of course, as is often the case with me, I only realised how thirsty I was once I started drinking. Rather like realising I’d had a feeling a couple of hours after I’d had it.

  On my left forearm was a read-out built into the suit. Not some plastic add-on, it looked like a series of numbers printed on cloth in matt ink but it was constantly changing. The air temperature was 48 degrees Centigrade, my heart rate was at 138 beats per minute and that was all I needed to know. It was hot, the air was still and I was knackered.

  ‘There’s not really anywhere to sit in the shade is there?’ I said with a half-hearted chuckle. Noshi didn’t respond and I held the now empty liquid satchel down by my side because I felt a bit guilty. I had downed the lot without a second thought.

  ‘Is there any area, like a valley or something, where there’s still stuff around that’s, well, recognisable from, well, from before?’ I said.

  Noshi shook his head. ‘Not that I’ve ever seen. Not around here that’s for sure. If you travel a long way east there are still some big hills and the eastern side of those still have some organic growth dug in between the rocks. Moss, lichen and the like, nothing big like a bush or tree but from a distance it can look a bit green.’