David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

The bolt’s steel tip glinted. Dying in one of these boys’ dares would be futile and stupid, but fabricants cannot dictate even the terms of their deaths. A twang and an airwhoosh later, the crossbolt crisped into melon pulp. The fruit rolled off the hat. Min-Sic applauded warmly, hoping to thaw the situation. I was awash with relief.

However, Fang sniffed, “You hardly need laser guidance to hit a huge great melon. Anyway, look”—he held the melon’s remains—”you only just clipped it. Surely a mango is a worthier target for a hunter of your stature.”

Boom-Sook held out his crossbow to Fang, daring him to match his own skill: hit the mango from fifteen paces.

“Done.” Fang took the crossbow. I protested, despairingly, but Boom-Sook told me to shut up. He drew an eye on the mango. Fang counted his paces and loaded the bolt. Min-Sic warned his friends that the paperwork on a dead xperimental specimen was hell. They ignored him. Fang aimed for a long time. His hand trembled, slitely. Suddenly, the mango exploded and juiced the walls. My doubt that my ordeal was over was well founded. Fang blew on the crossbow. “Melon at thirty paces, mango at fifteen. I’ll raise you a … plum , at ten.” He noted a plum was still bigger than a snow leopard’s eye, but added that if Boom-Sook wanted to admit he was indeed, as Min-Sic had said, full of shit and decline the challenge, they would consider the sorry chapter closed, for a whole ten minutes. Boom-Sook just balanced the plum on my head, gravely, and ordered me to hold very, very still. He counted his ten steps, turned, loaded, and took aim. I guessed I had a 50 percent chance of being dead in fifteen seconds. Gil-Su banged on the door again. Go away , I thought at him, No distractions now …

Boom-Sook’s jaw twitched as he cranked back the bow. The banging on the door grew more insistent, just centimeters from my head. Fang blasted obscenities about Gil-Su’s genitals and his mother. Boom-Sook’s knuckles whitened on his crossbow.

My head was whipcracked around: pain sank teeth into my ear. I was aware of the door flying open behind me, then of xpressions of doom on my tormentors’ faces. Lastly, I noticed an older man in the doorway, snow in his beard, out of breath, and thunderously angry.

Boardman Mephi?

Yes, but let us be thoro: Unanimity Professor, architect of the Merican Boat-People Solution, holder of a Nea So Copros Medal for Eminence, monographist on Tu Fu and Li Po; Juche Boardman Aloi Mephi. I paid him little notice at that time, however. Liquid trickled down my neck and spine. When I dabbed my ear, pain seemed to electrocute the left side of my body. My fingers came away shiny and scarlet.

Boom-Sook’s voice wobbled: “Boardman, we—” No help was offered from Fang or Min-Sic. The Boardman pressed a crisp silk handkerchief against my ear, and told me to keep the pressure steady. He took a handsony from an inner pocket. “Mr. Chang?” he spoke into it. “First aid. Hurry, please.” Now I recognized the sleepy passenger who had accompanied me from Chongmyo Plaza eight months before.

Next, my rescuer stared at the postgrads: they dared not meet his gaze. “Well, gentlemen, we have made a very ominous start to the Year of the Snake.” Min-Sic and Fang would be notified by the disciplinary board of major debits, he promised, and dismissed them. Both bowed and hurried out. Min-Sic left his cloak steaming on the ondul but did not return. Boom-Sook looked inconsolable. Boardman Mephi let the postgrad suffer for some seconds before asking, “Are you planning to shoot at me with that thing, too?”

Boom-Sook Kim dropped the crossbow as if it were superheated. The Boardman looked around the messy lab, sniffing at the neck of the soju bottle. The octopoid rapine on 3-D distracted him. Boom-Sook fumbled with the remo, dropped it, picked it up, pressed stop, aimed it the right way, pressed stop. Boardman Mephi spoke, finally. He was now ready to hear Boom-Sook’s xplanation of why he was using his faculty’s xperimental fabricant for crossbow practice.

Yes, I’m curious to hear that, too .

Boom-Sook tried everything: he was inxcusably drunk for Sextet Eve; he had misprioritized, ignored stress symptoms, chosen friends unwisely, gotten overzealous while disciplining his specimen; it was all Fang’s fault. Then even he realized he had better shut up and wait for the ax to fall.

Mr. Chang arrived with a medicube, sprayed my ear, dabbed coag, applied a patch, and gave me my first friendly words since Wing 027. Boom-Sook asked if my ear would heal. Boardman Mephi’s abrupt answer was that it was none of Boom-Sook’s business as his doctorate was terminated. The x-postgrad blanked and whitened as he saw his future slide downstrata.

Mr. Chang held my hand and informed me my earlobe was torn off but promised a medic would replace it in the morning. I was too afraid of Boom-Sook’s recriminations to worry about my ear, but Mr. Chang added we would now leave with Boardman Mephi for my new quarters.

That must have been very welcome news .

Yes, xcept for the loss of my sony. How could I bring that along? No feasible plan came to mind. I just nodded, hoping I could retrieve it during Sextet Recess. The spiral stairs took up my attention; descents are more hazardous than ascents. In the lobby, Mr. Chang produced a hooded cloak for me and a pair of icenikes. The boardman complimented Mr. Chang on the latter’s choice of zebraskin design. Mr. Chang answered, zebra skin was de rigueur in Lhasa’s chicest streets this season.

What reason did the Boardman give for your timely rescue?

None, as yet. He told me I was being transferred to the Unanimity Faculty on the western lip of campus and apologized for letting “those three toxed xec tapeworms” play games with my life. The weather had prevented a timelier intervention. I forget what well-oriented, humble reply I gave.

The campus cloisters were festive with Sextet Eve crowds. Mr. Chang taught me to shuffle thru granular ice to gain traction. Snowflakes settled on my eyelashes and nostrils. Snowball fights ceasefired as Professor Mephi approached; combatants bowed. The sense of anonymity afforded by my hood was delicious. Passing thru cloisters, I heard music. Not AdV or popsong but naked, echoing waves of music. “A choir,” Boardman Mephi told me. “Corpocratic sapiens can be callous, petty, and malign,” he said, “but higher things, too, thank Chairman.” We listened for a minute. Looking up, I felt as if I was rushing upward.

Two enforcers guarding the Unanimity Faculty saluted and took our damp cloaks. This building’s interior was as opulent as the Psychogenomics Faculty had been spartan. Carpeted corridors were lined with Iljongian mirrors, urns of the Kings of Scilla, 3-Ds of Unanimity notables. The elevator had a chandelier; its voice recited corpocratic Catechisms, but Boardman Mephi told it to shut up, and to my surprise, it did. Once again, Mr. Chang held me steady as the elevator sped, then slowed.

We xited into a spacious, sunken apartment from an upstrata lifestyle AdV. A 3-D fire danced in the central hearth, surrounded by hovering maglev furniture. Glass walls afforded a dizzying view of the conurb by nite, obscured by the haze-brite snowfall. Paintings took up the inner walls. I asked Mephi if this was his office.

“My office is one story up,” he replied. “These are your quarters.”

Before I could even xpress surprise, Mr. Chang suggested I invite my distinguished guest to sit down. I begged Boardman Mephi’s pardon: I had never had a guest before, and my manners lacked polish.