Cloud Atlas

Content Warning: This section depicts slavery and discusses racism and sexual abuse.

In a distant, postapocalyptic future, a man named Zachry narrates a story from his youth. When he was nine, he was at a place named Sloosha’s Crossin’ with his brother Adam and his father, whom he refers to as Pa. They make camp and send Zachry for firewood. While in the woods, Zachry is taunted by a mysterious spirit named Old Georgie who wants to know whether he’s “Zachry the Brave or Zachry the Cowardly” (249). When he returns to his family, Zachry is horrified to find that a rival group called the Kona attacked and killed his father. The Kona take Adam to be enslaved. Zachry runs to a man named Abel, telling him what happened but not mentioning Old Georgie. He still thinks about Georgie’s taunting words, asking whether Zachry is brave or cowardly. At 14, Zachry undergoes his people’s coming-of-age ritual. He spends a night in “the Icon’ry,” where he experiences visions of Sonmi. She speaks to him from the past, telling him revolutionary ideas.

Although Zachry’s people—the people of the Nine Valleys—live in almost stone-age conditions, they’re aware of a technologically advanced people. Twice a year, these people arrive in the market on “the Great Ship o’ the Prescients” (258). They trade goods and materials but don’t offer anything more technologically advanced than what the people of the Nine Valleys already have. One day, the Prescients ask whether one of their people—a woman named Meronym—can come to live with the People of the Nine Valleys. Meronym is assigned to live in Zachry’s family home “for half a year” (261). She studies Zachry’s people and helps with their chores and work. Despite her assistance, Zachry is convinced that she can’t be trusted. He searches through her possessions for proof of her bad intentions. He finds “one big silv’ry egg” (276), a device called an orison. It contains holographic video messages in which a woman speaks in an unfamiliar language. As he holds it, the device transmits a video feed of a man who demands to know why Zachry has Meronym’s orison. Zachry is afraid that the device is supernatural “like Old Georgie” (278). He places it back among Meronym’s possessions, fearing that he has been cursed.

In the following days, Zachry’s sister is stung by a scorpion fish and is badly poisoned. Zachry pleads with Meronym to help her. Meronym is reluctant. She doesn’t want to use her advanced technology in a place where people don’t have it. Eventually, however, she relents and hands Zachry the cure. She wants something in exchange, however, and asks Zachry to take her on a hike up the nearby Mauna Kea. Zachry’s people fear the mountain, believing that it’s haunted. Zachry, however, feels indebted to Meronym. As they hike, she tells him about the time before the apocalypse, referred to as “the Fall.” She mentions that very few cities are left in the world; most are now empty and overrun by jungle. She blames the previous generations for being too greedy and hubristic.

The top of Mauna Kea is home to Old Georgie’s “dreadsome” temple. It houses the observatories from before the Fall, but Zachry’s people have no idea what they are. Meronym scans the observatories’ interior with her orison. When Zachry confesses to using the device, she tells him that the recording he watched was of Sonmi. Unlike what Zachry’s people believe, Sonmi wasn’t a goddess but a “freakbirthed human.” Zachry is shocked. He hears Old Georgie whispering to him, encouraging him to murder Meronym. After pondering it, Zachry doesn’t kill Meronym—and when she nearly slips from a rope, he chooses to help her rather than (as Old Georgie urges him to do) cut the rope. Remembering the words of Sonmi that he once glimpsed in his vision, he associates them with his current situation and returns “back to the Valleys” (296) with Meronym.

The time comes when Meronym is set to leave the Nine Valleys. On her final day, she hikes to the market with Zachry. She talks about how Zachry’s people relearned old ways after “the Fall was fallin’” (298), such as how to make a fire. They spend the night in the market town of Honokaa. When Zachry wakes up, he smells burning. The town is being attacked by the Kona. Most people have been killed. Zachry tries to run, but he’s captured and knows that he’ll be “slaved an’ carted back to Kona jus’ like [his] lost bro Adam” (304). The Kona brutalize Zachry and the other enslaved people and march them through the forest. When the Kona stop the march to make camp, they sexually abuse one of the enslaved individuals. However, they’re interrupted by a mysterious figure in a helmet with a laser gun. The figure kills all the Kona and removes her helmet to reveal herself as Meronym, complaining that she’s “too old for this” (308). She helps Zachry free the other enslaved people. Zachry briefly sleeps. When he wakes, he overhears a conversation between Meronym and man named Duophysite. Zachry joins the conversation, speaking to Duophysite through the orison. He says that a “plague” has killed many of the Prescients, and Meronym needs help reaching Ikat’s Finger, where she can set sail for Maui. Meronym talks to Zachry about her experiences living with other societies.

Zachry tries to find his family. When he discovers that his village is deserted, he fears that they’re dead. He passes a sleeping Kona and—against the advice given to him in his vision of Sonmi—slits the man’s throat. Another group of Kona arrives; Zachry and Meronym slip past them and hide under a waterfall. They pass the time by talking about the afterlife, reincarnation, and civilization. As they fall asleep, Zachry notices a comet-shaped birthmark on Meronym’s neck. The following day, they encounter another group of Kona. After a short battle, they’re chased to a bridge. Remembering Sonmi’s words, Zachry speculates that the bridge “ain’t safe.” They hide, and as the Kona cross the bridge, the bridge collapses. They eventually reach Ikat’s Finger and take kayaks to Maui. Zachry looks back at the island where he has spent his entire life. In the future, Zachry’s child discovers an orison among Zachry’s belongings, and when it’s rubbed between the hands, a hologram of Sonmi appears.