Looks like the rain didn't let up last night; walking out onto my unfinished balcony (a spectacular 43 story vertical drop) I can see the rust filled droplets still clinging to the underside of the support beams. But oh, what a view! The sun’s just rising over the bay now, which is about 2 miles away and the clouds and humidity have turned the sky orange with the sun, a yellow ball of fire, hanging in the middle. There’s the hum of people doing their thing and far below; packed streets host rows of honking cars and millions of feet all pounding away at the sidewalk trying to get somewhere in a hurry.

Other parts of the Arcology are still being built up through the hard work of private companies and tenants with marginal technical skill. Even as I write this I can see some old man in his boxers, a vest and tool belt climbing on to his roof with a power saw. Looks like he’s cutting his roof off… (no idea)
Pete, my roommate, is just back from work. He works in healthcare, taking care of record banks so patients can be swapped and shipped back and forth between hospitals without getting lost. Pete works from 11pm until 6am and gets home at roughly 7:15am. He’s just joined me now to watch the sun rise and smoke a joint before heading to bed. We chat of online games, touring through space marking out territory and eliminating rogue drones in our favourite MMORPG, or of Magic a collectable card game from our youth. Eventually I head to get breakfast from the kitchen followed by a shower and Pete heads to bed, not to be seen for several hours.

I’m heading down to the markets today; rows of stalls selling every vegetable you can think of and several selling things that would never come to mind. The market itself is about the size of a city block and has the concept of an open courtyard, 3 stories of windows rise up the walls before being capped by the level above. As is typical of the Arcology, the level above, which once occupied the roof, has been cut away to let some natural light in… but not much, so everything still needs to be lit by little electric lights hanging from EVERYTHING. There are stalls of sushi being made by elderly Japanese women who speak no English beside little glass huts where younger Chinese women make dumplings at break neck speeds; their husbands beside them frying or boiling them and collecting money from hungry passersby. Children huddle around feet playing with plastic toys bejewelled with coloured lights and stickers; occasionally a family member will hang out from a window above and yell something in a foreign dialect or drop supplies to the stall below. Many stalls communicate with walkie talkies so one can almost always hear the uninterrupted squawk of static emanating from every side: Grandmothers with battery operated units yell at grandsons to bring down supplies while old men with precariously wired walkies seem to drone on about nothing in particular. Due to the improvised nature of everything in the Arcology a great tangle of wires hangs over the market, powering everything from 7th hand bread ovens to the little one bladed fan that attempts to cool the ancient in the lotto hut surrounded by dancing anime figures and blinking Christmas lights.
Drops of water constantly fall from above so every stall has its own form of awning or overhang. It’s loud, it’s crowded and there’s no better place to take in all the people who live in this ridiculous civil setback. I bet if it was ever quiet you could hear the electric hum of a thousand shoddy wiring jobs. You might think that at night it would be a bit better but having ventured down here I can tell you it’s not. There’s always someone selling something or people getting drunk off cooking wine in the dark corners.


*Due to air system designs, floors 49-51 are constantly covered in water and some days you can walk into full blown fog. I don’t know the specifics but it means that water’s always leaking down everything and more often than not it’s raining somewhere inside!