Cloud Atlas

me when he was on campus. He withdrew his hand from the fire and inspected his fingers. “All lite, no heat. Youngsters nowadays wouldn’t know a real flame if their nikes were set alite.” He told me to call him Professor instead of Sir.

One thing I can’t work out. If Boom-Sook Kim was such a buffoon, how had he attained this holy grail of psychogenomics—stable ascension?

Later, I asked Hae-Joo Im the same question. His xplanation ran: Boom-Sook’s thesis jockey sourced his supply of psychogenomics theses from an obscure tech institute in Baikal. The original author of my x-postgrad’s work was a production zone immigrant named Yusouf Suleiman. Xtremists were killing genomicists in Siberia at that time, and Suleiman and three of his professors were blown up by a car bomb. Baikal being Baikal, Suleiman’s research languished in obscurity for ten years until it was sold on. The agent liaised with contacts at Papa Song Corp to instream Suleiman’s ascension neuro-formula to our Soap. Yoona~939 was the prime specimen; I was a modified backup. If all that sounds unlikely, Hae-Joo added, I should remember that most of science’s holy grails are discovered by accident, in unxpected places.

And all the while Boom-Sook Kim was blissfully unaware of the furor his plagiarized Ph.D. was causing?

Only an obdurate fool who never squeezed a pipette could remain unaware, but yes, Boom-Sook Kim was such a fool. Maybe that, too, was no accident.

How did you find your new regime in the Unanimity Faculty? How was it as a fabricant, actually attending lectures?

As I was moved on Sextet Eve, I had six quiet days before the new regime began in earnest. I walked around the icy campus only once: I am genomed to be comfortable in hot eateries, and xposure to the Han Valley winter on Mount Taemosan burned my skin and lungs. On New Year’s Day I awoke from curfew to discover two gifts: the battered old sony Wing~027 had given me and a star for my collar, my third. I thought of my sisters, my x-sisters, thruout Nea So Copros enjoying Starring Ceremonies. I wondered if I would one day depart for Xultation, my Investment repaid. How I wished Yoona~939 could attend my first lecture on secondday with me. I still miss her.

What was your first lecture?

Swanti’s Biomathematics; however, its real lesson was humiliation. I walked to the lecture hall across dirty slush, hooded and unnoticed. But when I took off my cloak in the corridor, my Sonmi features provoked surprise, then unease. In the lecture hall, my entry detonated resentful silence.

It didn’t last. “Oy!” a boy yelled. “One hot ginseng, two dog-burgers!” and the entire theater laughed. I am not genomed to blush, but my pulse rose. I took a seat in the second row, occupied by girls. Their leader had emeralded teeth. “This is our row,” she said. “Go to the back. You stink of mayo.” I obeyed, meekly. A paper dart hit my face. “We don’t vend burgers in your dinery, fabricant,” someone called, “why’re you taking up space in our lecture?” I was about to leave when spidery Dr. Chu’an tripped onto the stage and dropped her notes. I did my best to concentrate on the lecture that followed, but after a while, Dr. Chu’an’s eyes roamed her audience, saw me; she stopped midsentence. The audience, laughing, realized why. Dr. Chu’an forced herself to continue. I forced myself to stay but lacked the courage to ask questions at the end. Outside I endured a barrage of aggressive snideries.

Did Professor Mephi know about the students’ unfriendliness?

I think so. At our seminar, the professor asked if my lecture had been fruitful; I chose the word informative and asked why purebloods despised me so. He replied, “What if the differences between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?”

I speculated such a suggestion could be seen as a serious deviancy.

Mephi seemed delited. “Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods’ consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror.”

I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.

Mephi replied, “History suggests, not until they are made to.”

When, I asked, would that happen?

The professor spun his antique globe and answered merely: “Dr. Chu’an’s lecture continues tomorrow.”

It must have taken courage to return.

Not really: an enforcer escorted me, so at least no one flung insults at me. The enforcer addressed the second row of girls with courteous malice. “This is our row. Go to the back.” The girls melted away, but I felt no triumph. It was the girls’ fear of Unanimity, not their acceptance of me, that prevailed. Dr. Chu’an was so flustered by the enforcer that she mumbled her entire lecture without once looking at her audience. Prejudice is permafrost.

Did you brave any more lectures?

One, on Loow’s Fundaments. By request I went unescorted, preferring insults to xternal armor. I arrived early, took a side seat, and kept a visor on as the lecture hall filled. I was recognized nonetheless. The students regarded me with mistrust, but no paper missiles were launched. Two boys in front turned around: they had honest faces and rural accents. One asked if I really was some sort of artificial genius.

Genius is not a word to bandy so casually, I suggested.

Hearing a server talk made the pair marvel. “It must be hell,” said the second, “to have an intelligent mind trapped in a body genomed for service.”

I had grown as attached to my body as he had to his, I responded.

The lecture proceeded without event, but when I left the hall, a small riot of questions, miked walkmans, and flash nikons was waiting for me. Which Papa Song’s had I come from? Who had enrolled me at Taemosan? Were there more of me? What were my views on the Yoona~939 Atrocity? How many weeks did I have before my ascension degenerated? Was I an Abolitionist? What was my favorite color? Did I have a boyfriend?

Media? On a corpocratic campus?

No, but Media had offered rewards for features on the Sonmi of Taemosan. I hooded and tried to elbow my way back to the Unanimity Faculty, but the crush was so thick, my visor was knocked off and I was floored and badly bruised before two plainclothes enforcers could xtricate me. Boardman Mephi met me in the Unanimity lobby and escorted me back to my quarters, muttering that I was too valuable to xpose myself to the prurient mob. He rotated his rainstone ring vigorously: a habit when tense. We agreed, from then on my lectures should be dijied to my sony.

What about the xperiments you were obliged to undergo?

Ah, yes, a daily reminder of my true status. They depressed my spirits. What was knowledge for, I would ask myself, if I could not use it to better my xistence? How would I fit in on Xultation nine years and nine stars later with my superior knowledge? Could amnesiads erase the knowledge I had acquired? Did I want that to happen? Would I be happier? Fourthmonth arrived, bringing my first anniversary as a specimen freak on Taemosan, but spring did not bring me the gladness it brings the world. My curiosity is dying, I told Professor Mephi one pleasant day, during a seminar on Thomas Paine. I remember the sounds of a baseball game drifting thru his open window. My mentor said we had to identify the source of this malady, and urgently. I said something about reading not being knowledge, about knowledge without xperience being food without sustenance.

“You need to get out more,” remarked the professor.

Out where? Out to lectures? Out on the campus? Outings?