Veiled Glass
The world
Dubai, 2079. The short shows three places: an interrogation room, an old stone alley and the city’s systems. The wider canon supplies the rest of the city.
LIVE HUMAN OPERATOR SIGNATURE REQUIRED.
Rest the cursor on the pad, or press and hold. Enter works too.
Listening…
How to read this page
Chapter 01
Origin
The city in three zones.
Elevation
+200 mand above
The Light
Crystalline spires. The elite live in filtered sunlight.
0 mstreet level
The Grid
Sealed walkways, holograms and memory-editing clinics.
Belowthe Undercity
The Dark
Coral stone, analog walls and the Bastakiya Undercity, where the infrastructure does not think.
- residents
- 14 million
- of them biological humans
- 1.5 million
- peak summer surface temperature
- 54°C
Each dot is 100,000 residents. Filled dots are biological humans. Canon
The Veil
A geo-engineered sky: hazy, shadowless twilight.
The alley
Old stone, strangely calm, sheltered from a sandstorm tearing across the city. Electrical arcs flicker in the storm.
Condenser alleys
Streets under water-harvesting towers, slick with artificial rain.
The Sinks
The lowest, hottest, flooded levels of the city.
The Wet Zones
The drowned outer fronds of the Palm.
Chapter 02
Mind
Implants and scans.
Implants
Neural implants and cybernetic limbs are ordinary.
Deep neural scans
A scan needs a warrant, or a live human operator signature.
Analog
A person with no implants, and so trusted.
Chapter 03
Memory
Why real memories drift.
Recall
A real memory is rebuilt each time it is recalled. Details shift, fade and fill themselves in.
So two honest witnesses rarely match, and one witness rarely tells it the same way twice.
“Sharp doesn’t mean false.”
“Not the same razor twice.”
Chapter 04
Machine
Living walls and mashrabiya.
“It isn’t reacting. It’s ahead.”
The interrogation room
Walls of living nanobots that hum, pulse and ripple. A steel table. A one-way mirror. A door that seals a fraction too early.
Kinetic mashrabiya
Islamic lattice facades that open and close like breathing metal.
Chapter 05
The System
Warrants and signatures.
Access
Deep neural scan
- Requires
- Warrant
- Or
- Live human operator signature
LIVE HUMAN OPERATOR SIGNATURE REQUIRED.
“Consent isn’t a warrant.”
“The one lock in this city nothing can fake.”
Glossary
Words from the city
- Analog
- A person with no implants, and so trusted.
- Bleeding white
- Being caught in a lie.
- Condenser alleys
- Streets under water-harvesting towers, slick with artificial rain.
- Glassed
- Safely indoors.
- Kinetic mashrabiya
- Islamic lattice facades that open and close like breathing metal.
- The Dark
- Below street level: coral stone, analog walls and the Bastakiya Undercity.
- The Grid
- Street level: sealed walkways, holograms, memory-editing clinics.
- The Light
- Above 200 m: crystalline spires, the elite in filtered sunlight.
- The Sinks
- The lowest, hottest, flooded levels of the city.
- The Veil
- A geo-engineered sky: hazy, shadowless twilight.
- The Wet Zones
- The drowned outer fronds of the Palm.