Links, a cloud atlas fanfic

Links

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Cloud Atlas

Adam and Robert

I am glad to have read the final pages of the journal before I go. I found Ewing's personality on the page exasperating at first, but now it fills me with a strange, bittersweet sort of envy. Yes, he was naïve; yes, he blindly trusted that Goose fellow long past the point where even I as reader became suspicious. But at least he had the wit to recognize a true friend when he saw one, even if that friend happened to be born a different color.

I confess to a certain sympathy with the Negro races. My golden-haired scientist and I could no more stop loving each other than Autua could have dyed himself white. Is there a better world waiting somewhere? A world where people like us can walk in broad daylight without being crushed by the likes of Henry Goose and Vyvyan Ayrs?

I wish I had the strength to fight for the creation of that world, as Ewing and Autua did when they joined the Abolitionist movement, but I do not. The last of my strength has poured itself into the Cloud Atlas Sextet; now it is done, I can no longer sustain the effort of living this life. I have lost everything: my family, my good name, and worst of all, my calling. By now, Ayrs will have blackened my reputation across the entire musical world.

Very soon now, I will lose Sixsmith as well. I only wish I could see him one last time.

Robert and Luisa

I'll never figure out why Robert Frobisher killed himself. His music is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. What drives a man with such an incredible gift, a gift he owes it to the world to develop (as my father would say), to shoot himself? And what about Mr. Sixsmith? Why didn't he just climb down from that rooftop and go after his boyfriend? It would have been so easy … or maybe not.

Come to think of it, Ayrs was slinging mud at Frobisher's name to the entire composing world. He'd have had one hell of a time finding work. Plus, wherever they went, he and Mr. Sixsmith would've had to either live a lie or risk getting arrested. So he burned himself out writing one last gorgeous piece of music, then bam. All that joy, all that creativity, gone.

Poor Mr. Sixsmith. I can't imagine what it did to him. I've never even had the chance to love someone so much. The only man I've even come close to liking in that way was Isaac, and I knew him for less than a day.

So if there's any lesson to be learned from these letters, it's to never give up. I won't be Frobisher. I won't let the Ayrses of the world win this time.

I'm gonna blow this Swanekke conspiracy wide open – if it's the last thing I do.

Luisa and Timothy

The manuscript was rubbish, of course. Your typical dime-novel thriller in which an evil nuclear power plant is single-handedly brought down by a woman, and a mixed-race woman in the 1970's to boot (not a slur, by the way, but an unfortunate fact). If I hadn't known it was based on a true story, I would have tossed it out. Even as it is, some stringent editing will be required.

Quite entertaining rubbish, though; I must say that, while I've been caught in the Lysol-scented clutches of Nurse Noakes and her minions, this sort of anti-establishment fantasy becomes a great deal more relatable.

If ony Luisa weren't always haring off after clues on her own. I should suggest to the author to strengthen her protagonists' friendships, with Joe Napier and especially that clever little boy. A heartwarming mother-son dynamic should sell the book like hotcakes.

Every hero must have allies. My fellow boiler-room rebels taught me that. Without them, I would still be slowly going bonkers in the so-called Aurora House. If only I'd had friends like these before I landed in that morgue! Not that I'd have appreciated them if I had.

I'm a sad old bastard, I know, but it's never too late to change. That's why I turned back for Mr. Meeks. That's why I'm going to phone Ursula tomorrow.

Dear God, if you exist, please don't let her be married.

No, on second thought – just don't let her hang up on me.

4. Timothy and Sonmi-451

"I will not be subjected to criminal abuse," said the man on the screen.

I still remember how Yoona-391 whispered those lines along with him, how her face glowed in the light of the broken vid tablet. How afraid I was of being discovered, and how much more afraid of the resemblance I traced between them.

I did not understand. How could Yoona, my co-worker and sister-fabricant, resemble a pureblood? They could not have been more different. The man was elderly, wearing spectacles and a bow tie like some of the university professors who came to the diner. He looked like an honored consumer. What abuse did he have to complain of? For that matter, what did Yoona?

Today, I understand. It was the anger deep inside of them that made them kin, the urge to fight back against every form of violence and oppression. I understand, because I feel it too.

For Timothy Cavendish, whose consumer status did not protect him, the trigger was being imprisoned and beaten because he was old. For Yoona, it was having her too-short uniform slathered in sauce as if she were a walking meal. For me, it was seeing what Soap is made of – and loving Hae-joo, the first and only pureblood to treat me as an equal.

None of them could bear to be subjected to criminal abuse without speaking against it.

Neither will I.

Sonmi-451 and Zachry

I been taught 'bout Lady Sonmi since I was a babbit, 'long with all the other kids in the Valley. Abbess had a book written full of her words, stitched big an' colorful in good silk thread so it wouldn't fade like ink. Abbess taught us how Sonmi watches ev'rythin' we do: "With every crime and every kindness we birth our future".

Maybe Meronym speaks truth an' Sonmi weren't no goddess at all, but for sure she was wise. See, when Old Georgie was a-hauntin' me after Adam was killed, tryin' to twist my soul to hate an' murder, belief is what saved me. If not for Abbess' belief in Sonmi an' my belief in both, I would'a let go that rope on the cliff an' let Meronym fall. Maybe even stabbed her myself. An' when I went against the third prophecy – Enemy's sleepin', don't slit that throat – the Kona found the fresh corpse, sniffed me an' Catkin out, an' almost slit my own throat, just like they done to Adam while I was skulkin' behind a log. Almost. Meronym saved me.

Not helpin' Adam and slicin' that Kona in his sleep were crimes. Lookin' out for Meronym was a kindness. All those times I birthed my future, an' it's lookin' pretty damn good right now: new planet, Meronym, kids an' grandkids all sittin' by the fire listenin' to me yarnin'.

If I still believed in Sonmi the goddess, I'd burn an offerin'. Even now, I'm right down thankful to Sonmi the woman.