Stealing the Oceans: Humanity Struggles for Survival in This 1000 Year Epic When a Mysterious Force...

Stealing the Oceans: HumanityStruggles for Survival in This 1000 Year

Epic When a Mysterious ForceThreatens to Drain the Oceans Dry

By Rick DobleCopyright © 2013 Rick Doble

All rights reserved.This document contains the same text as the eBook with this ISBN: 978-1-304-21403-4

COVER & PHOTO CREDITS: The cover image is a still screen grab from a NOAA video, Touring the Ocean Bottom, as are all of the rest ofthe images in this eBook. This shot of the Atlantic Ocean floor shows Iceland at the top right with the Atlantic Ocean seafloor below and

Greenland to the left, with the underwater 'cliffs' , ledges and basins next to Greenland. (NOAA)

Permission is granted to reviewers, students and others who cite this work to quote up to 200 words,as long as the title of the book and the author are credited.

This eBook is dedicated to Clinton Brooks. Without his encouragement and his understanding of the forces involved in my story,

I would never have written this eBook.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1: FALLING SEA-LEVELS...................2

PART 2: THE CITY UNDER THE DOME..............33

PART 3: OVERVIEW OF GREENLAND CLIFFS.........62

PART 4: THE CHIP.............................67

PART 5: FROM THE CITY DIRECTORY..............105

APPENDIX.....................................140

AFTERWARD....................................147

Stealing the Oceans Rick Doble Page 1

PART 1: FALLING SEA-LEVELS


Ocean Levels Appear To Be Falling

The Nautical News Blog Afterthoughts SectionNews Notes2222-02-02 (2222 February 2)

For the fifth year, since 2217, a small yet discernible decrease in the ocean levels has been detected. The drop is about half a centimeter per year. This is particularly noteworthy because it is the first time that ocean levels have fallen since the middle of the 19th century.

When we queried several oceanic scientists, none could give us a reason. Stay tuned.


Reasons For The Oceans' Fall

Proposal For A Student Paper On The Falling Ocean Levels:2280 January 17

When the sea-levels began to fall starting in 2217 and continuing for the next 20 years, several theories were put forward as to its cause:

== that the slightly increasing distance of the moon's orbit had affected the oceans== that the human consumption of desalinated water was making a dent== that measurements had not been that accurate until recently and so it just appeared that there was a decrease in the sea-levels

Eventually two theories seemed the most likely:

One camp believed that a different type of spreading of the ocean floor by the tectonic plates was causing a small decrease in the sea-level. A second camp thought that the magnetic poles were in the process of reversing which affected the sea-levels.

Two scientists, Dr. Ralph Kilkenspire and Dr. Frederick Aspen, who had been rivals since graduate school, made the falling sea-levels their cause celebre and championed their own theories while lampooning the other's. Fueled as much by their dislike of each other as the falling ocean levels, these scientists spent the rest of their lives working to get their particular theory accepted. Dying within a month of each other in 2277, they left the scientific world in turmoil as the dilemma had never been resolved.

To this day, the ocean levels continue to fall, but no satisfactory theory has been put forward to explain this phenomena or to refute the two theories.


Mapping The Ocean Floor

News ReleaseDetailed Mapping of the Ocean Floor Topography Funded by UNOAUnited Nations Oceanic Administration2281-09-14 (2281-September-14)

The United Nations Oceanic Administration (UNOA) announced that it has agreed to fund a 20 year project to map the topography of the Earth's ocean floor -- the bathymetry of the seafloor -- in fine detail. The project should be finished by the start of the new century around 2300 with maps and data available soon after.

The UNOA decided that this mapping was necessary since the scientific community was unable to find the cause for the continuing steady but slightly accelerating fall in sea-levels. Two different competing theories have never been resolved satisfactorily, yet the ocean levelscontinue to recede.

"We know much more about the surface of Mars than we do about the surface of the sea floor," said Dr. Albert Jakko, head administrator of UNOA. "It is time that we correct this gap inour knowledge, since life on Earth is dependent on the oceans."

While satellite maps of the oceans have been available for centuries, the old resolution of 1/2 kilometer is not nearly accurate enough. The new study will have a resolution 10,000 times higher than previous studies.

Using a combination of highly coordinated state-of-the-art satellites, ROV submarines equipped with cameras, sonar and GPS, coordinated with surface craft using seismic reflection survey techniques, the goal of the study will be to create a comprehensive 3D map. This study will not only detail the geological features of all underwater aspects of the oceans, but also their composition, water temperature, currents, salinity, and marine life both micro and macro. Special attention will be paid to underwater volcanoes and tectonic plates as these two aspects have been singled out by the scientific community in explanations about the fall of world sea-levels.


The Black Dot

The Atmosphere News Blog Afterthoughts SectionNews Notes2322 March 15

For the last five years a satellite has recorded a tiny black dot in the mesosphere. While not unusual in itself, what is odd is that it has remained fixed above the Pacific Ocean since it was first discovered and has essentially not moved. In the last year other satellites have beenemployed to observe it as well. Scientists hope that viewing it from several angles will reveal its nature.

The black dot is so small, it is possible that it has been there for a number of years and only now has just been noticed. Further study is required.


The Atmosphere News Blog Afterthoughts SectionNews Notes2332 March 15

10 years ago on this date we reported that satellites had noted a tiny black dot in the mesosphere that had remained stationary for 5 years. Now 10 years later, this spot still remains unchanged and our knowledge of it is no better, even when aided by the latest and most sensitive satellites.

If it were a weather phenomena as some have suggested, scientists would have expected it to change considerably over this time period. No other possible explanations, however, have been put forward. The black dot does put out a small amount of radiation which makes iteven more unusual.

We hope that a graduate student(s) might take this on as a subject for their independent study.


Hole In The Sky Goes Viral

2374 Year

In 2351, Carlos Fuentes, who was getting his graduate degree in Atmospheric Science, decided to make the black dot the subject for his thesis. He put together all the existing information, cross referenced it and added the few fuzzy low resolution photos taken many kilometers away and greatly enlarged. What emerged was a featureless round black dot 1/1000 of a millimeter. Stumped he put his research together into a video, renamed the black dot, the Hole In The Sky, and posted it on YouTube, asking people to send in their ideas aboutwhat the dot could be.

He received a number of responses:

== that it was a temporary phenomena that was created by a alignment of the sun and Earth with a certain kind of solar wind== that it was a kind of weather pattern, a micro-tornado == that a combination of gravity, magnetic forces, sun, planets, and cosmic rays was the cause

Then, to his surprise, the video went viral and people were suddenly intrigued. The phrase'Hole In The Sky' struck a cord and people used it to express a contemporary anxiety that hadnot been named. "Some days, I feel like I just might fly through that Hole In The Sky," a depressed woman tweeted not wanting to cope with her daily life.

Songs were written:

That Hole In The Skyis like the hole in my heartwhen you left mehigh in the skyI am thinking of youwhen you left mewhat can I dothinking of youI want to drive throughthat Hole In The Skyand forget youbut here I amstuck on Earthwith a hole in my heartand you've left me

Two large street murals in New York and L.A. used the Hole In The Sky as their central theme with light beaming down from that point. This spawned a number of t-shirts with this beaming light design that became wildly popular in 2398 until the turn of the century.


Jumbo Passenger Jet Goes Down

Breaking News ReportWORLD NEWS NETWORK (WNN) Mysterious Airline Collision and Crash in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean2411 September 21

A Qantas passenger jet from Sydney to Guam has just crashed and sankabout 200 kilometers from Guam only minutes before it was to land. The accident occurred in mid-air and appeared to be a collision although there were no planes or obstacles in that area.

The surviving passengers told a strange story. The jumbo jet was flying over the Pacific, in known territory with maximum visibility when it hit something in the middle of the air. Some passengers said they saw a wing cut in two, almost like a buzz saw had sliced through it. They watched as most of the wing fell to the ocean and the plane lurched the other way and crashed into the Pacific.

Surprisingly a few were able to get out and into life boats before the fuselage sank. Unfortunately the wing that detached from the aircraft andthe plane's body sank to the ocean floor, which in this case was the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean. It was a place where thewreckage could not be recovered.

Officials are at a loss to explain the reason for the seeming collision, but in any case all airlines have been routed far around the location of the accident.

World News Network (WNN) will post more information as it becomes available.


Astronauts Inspect The Hole In The Sky

2467 Year

Astronauts Mikhail and Andre were chosen to inspect the Hole In The Sky. Both had decades of experience repairing satellites and working on the space station along with multiple degrees in science and engineering.

This job was a bit tricky as the Hole In The Sky was located in the mesosphere, too high for weather balloons and air craft and too low for orbiting satellites to measure in fine detail.

Instead it took a decade to design a spacecraft that could both reach the hole and also hover (in a manner of speaking), staying in close proximity while the astronauts were tetheredyet still in the Earth's gravitational pull.

The joke, Mikhail and Andre told each other, was that they were just like a ball that had been bounced too high, but eventually would fall down to Earth.

Yet Mikhail and Andre were excited and eager to accomplish the mission. Most aspects of space travel close to the Earth and moon were well known. However, this was not. They would be the first to explore this new realm.

Equipped with specially designed glasses that could 'see' in virtually the entire electromagnetic spectrum, known as EMS-Glasses, they also had state-of-the-art displays to help their investigation. The glasses could be tuned like an old radio station to any frequency or put on automatic, and then a false color simulated image would appear on a virtual screen in front of their eyes. In addition they could snap photos, take GPS coordinates and add their comments. This data would all be sent to observers at Ground Control who could then make suggestions in real time about how to examine the Hole In The Sky.

The mission was so complex, that the World Organization For Space -- that combined NASA and other countries' space agencies -- decided it should be done in several stages. Notunlike the early Apollo Space missions, the Meso-Ship as it was known, made a trial run to the mesosphere to see if it could hover properly and stay in one position. After succeeding, the two astronauts and a pilot then went up to the mesosphere again and tested that the two astronauts could exit and reenter the craft.

Once having overcome these two hurdles, the mission was on track for its ultimate goal, toexamine the Hole In The Sky in depth -- hands-on so to speak -- with sophisticated equipmentguided by human eyes.

The day of the mission was clear and dry. Within an hour Mikhail and Andre were in position. Tethering themselves to the Meso-Ship, they zeroed in on the Hole In The Sky, which could only be pin-pointed with information from satellites.

Circling the hole, they tuned in different frequencies on their EMS-Glasses until Andre's display lit up with quantum thermal radiation. It was particularly odd that the source of the radiation went far beyond the Hole In The Sky itself, ten meters in fact, when it completely disappeared and the radiation dropped to zero.


Sending back a flood of information to Ground Control, their supervisor asked them if they could move any closer. Mikhail objected saying that he thought that they should be especially careful. Andre disagreed and came within 10 meters of the hole.

It was at this point that his glasses in infra-red indicated that a kind of tail protruded from the hole in the direction of the Earth. It was like a long straight tail on a kite, he thought. This was unexpected. Moving even closer, he let his automatic frequency searcher take over to see which part of the spectrum might show up. The signals he was receiving were small but clear. It appeared that a tiny thread came out from the hole and continued down as far as he could monitor toward the Earth.

And it was at this point Mikhail heard a deafening scream. He looked up to see Andre writhing as blood flew from his space suit. His arm had been cut in half and the suit's pressurewas gone. In a matter of seconds Andre was dead.


Identifying The Cause

Dr. Lodlow had been studying the problem for 25 years. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. But he

now, at last, felt that he had all of the pieces, or at least enough of them to get a sense of the big picture. But what it was still alluded him.

So far the oceans had fallen about 7 meters and that rate was accelerating.

Was the drop in ocean levels related to the Hole In The Sky? Perhaps it was a micro-tornado of water molecules that was being sucked up and spewed out above the atmosphere? That seemed unlikely plus no instrument saw water coming out at the other end where it should be, if that theory were correct.

He concluded that the Hole In The Sky had all the earmarks of an Einsteinian anomaly; it spewed out quantum radiation in the right frequencies and amounts and then those readings went to zero within ten meters.

The pace of the oceans' fall was extremely regular although geometric in progression. Yet the total amount of water appeared to be about the same each year. He was quite sure that due to the wide expanse of the world's shorelines, the measured vertical fall of water was minimal at first and then increased rapidly as the basin that held the world's oceans became smaller. It was like draining a large bathtub that was wider at the top and narrow at the bottom.

"What could it be?" he wondered as he walked around the village green of his small New England town. He tried to think of examples that were similar: a water pump, a siphon, an electric current through a wire.

That night in his dreams he saw a 200 liter container of water on a ledge with a hose in it that feed a smaller container on the ground driven by siphoning. It was not a very interesting dream as it repeated all through the night -- water being pulled from the one high up to the one below by the force of gravity, once the flow had been started.

The next night he dreamt of drilling for water -- of a huge rig that was punching a hole in the Earth until water gushed out.

On one of his afternoon walks he thought about the two dreams, suspecting that the answer was in there somewhere.

And then it hit him. Later he would say it was like a slap that he actually felt, so strong that he had to sit down on a bench and catch his breath.

He thought of the Sherlock Holmes' axiom: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

And there it was. The improbable of improbable answers. The water disappeared beyond the Hole In The Sky because it went 'underground' in a sense, it went into a wormhole. As a leading expert on Einsteinian physics, he knew that a thread of water, just one molecule thick could work very efficiently with a wormhole and not require vast amounts of energy.


The small container, that was receiving the siphoned water, was another planet somewhere in the universe. The other planet, in a sense, was drilling for water, and when it came across it, simply found a way to pump it back. And while, theoretically the wormhole could go anywhere, he knew from his studies that it was probably in the Milky Way.

As he told his daughter later that night, the mix of emotions at that moment was overwhelming: on the one hand he had mastered a problem that no one else could solve which would make him one of the most famous people in the world; on the other hand the Earth was being robbed of its most precious resource -- as almost all planets did not have water -- and the Earth's environment would be changed forever and human beings might not survive.

The conclusions were so startling, he told no one except his daughter -- and spent 2 yearschecking and rechecking his data, plus adding new information as it became available. But each step only confirmed this horrible truth.

After two years he released his findings to a top secret panel of experts who were asked to test his hypothesis. Appearing before the committee, he said, "This is one case, where I fervently hope that I am wrong -- so please prove me to be incorrect."

Yet each expert in the end, did agree that Dr.Lodlow had found the answer, no matter how unpleasant.


Rogue Reporter

Dave Smith hated his name. There were thousands of Dave Smiths, no hundreds of thousands. He wanted to make a name for himself, to stand out. So he waited for that one news story he could scoop, that would make his chosen name of D. Arnold Smith be remembered for years to come.

Like most good reporters he had a nose for news. When he got to know Dr. Frankin Lodlow's daughter, he could sense that he was onto something. Her father was one of the most famous oceanographic scientists with additional degrees in quantum physics and relativity. Dating his daughter, he overheard a flurry of video-conferences and saw a number of express mail packages come to the Lodlow house.

He knew enough to surmise that Dr. Ludlow was working on the pesky problem of the oceans' fall, a fall which was accelerating every year and starting to become a major concern.In 2222 when the fall was first reported, it did not seem that significant, about half a centimeter a year, but now the fall was up to 3 centimeters a year.

So D. Arnold Smith hung around and waited for an opportunity to present itself. It took months, but eventually Dr. Lodlow began to trust him. He took Dave into his confidence. "I ampleased you and my daughter get along so well," he said, "so what I am going to tell you is in the strictest confidence." Dave nodded. "Nothing you see or hear at our house is to be sharedor repeated to anyone. Agreed?" Dave nodded again.

What Dr. Lodlow did not know was that he had thrown red meat to a hungry dog. D. ArnoldSmith now knew he was onto something and so again he bided his time.

Just as he had hoped, one afternoon, Dr. Lodlow rushed off, and his daughter was in town-- and Lodlow's computer was still on which it never was. Using his reporter's instincts he quickly found what Dr. Lodlow had been hiding: that the oceans were being stolen by another civilization in the galaxy through a wormhole. And that the mysterious Hole In The Sky and laser-like saw blade that had cut an astronaut's arm and the wing off of an airplane was a stream of water, molecule by molecule, leaving the Earth.

Yet even Dave Smith had to sit down when confronted with this news. It was mind boggling, fantastic, and it would make him one of the most famous reporters of all time.

Quickly he sent a copy of the original report to himself. Then he made some excuse to Lodlow's daughter when she returned and rushed back to his apartment.

And there it was on his computer. Like a diamond, a gold nugget, the holy grail, he had what he had been looking for.

Yet he was still a professional reporter -- so he spent the next week making sure that this was not just a preliminary report, or a speculative report or an unsubstantiated report. Instead he found that its various findings had been verified by a number of independent scientists andresearch groups. Checking, of course, took some doing as he could not admit that he had the key report. So he checked that each separate finding within the report had been substantiated, not letting on that he was aware of the report's conclusion.


Then for 24 hours after he was certain, he could not bring himself to release what he had found, not sure what the consequences would be. Yet after sleeping on it, he had made up hismind. The name of D. Arnold Smith would be famous.

Contacting a fellow reporter at WNN cable news network, he asked a number of what ifs. The reporter became increasingly interested. Finally Dave Smith talked with some higher-ups at the network and then emailed them Lodlow's original document.

Within hours the network gave it a green light and the story aired.


Breaking News

Breaking NewsWORLD NEWS NETWORK (WNN)Secret Report Reveals Reason for Falling Sea-Levels2492 MARCH 15

WNN has confirmed that Dr. Frankin Lodlow in a secret report has determined the reasons for the oceans' fall. Dr. Lodlow's report is based on 10 years of the most recent and accurate data. He is the leading expert in sea-level research.

What we are about to report sounds fantastic, yet it has been verified by scientists, researchers, labs and satellites around the world.

An alien civilization is siphoning water from our oceans in a single stream, molecule by molecule, from the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean up to the mesosphere where the water is being sucked into a wormhole.

Dr. Ludlow believes the civilization is probably in the Milky Way and also that the alien civilization is not malevolent. By this he means it was simply looking for worlds with water, drilling for water in a sense within the galaxy, and just happened to come across our planet, not knowing that human civilization inhabited the Earth.


Disbelief

The WNN report was at first ridiculed. Saturday Night Live even did a skit. Yet this did not stop reporters from camping outside of Dr. Lodlow's house.

Not used to this kind of attention or publicity, Dr. Lodlow simply clammed up. But that only led to more questions.

Next the press moved on to the various labs and scientists who had confirmed Dr. Lodlow's findings. They too were silent.

After a week of soul searching, Dr. Lodlow decided he had to face the music. He did, however, lay down some ground rules. There would be no live TV or even radio coverage. Ona cold windy day in late March, he stood outside his house and spoke.

"We were still in the process of verifying my findings when, without my knowledge, my report was released to WNN. I had kept the report secret because I both needed further verification and also time to prepare the public, if the report did turn out to be true. All the governments that I consulted insisted on this course of action."

He paused and the press for once was silent without demanding that their questions be answered -- all waiting for the other shoe to drop. When he looked up, no one was sure if it were snow that had melted on his cheeks or if it were tears, but instead of speaking he scanned the audience in front of him and slowly looked every single reporter directly in the eyes.

At last clearing his throat, he began, "The report is true. What WNN stated was accurate as far as we can ascertain. I asked all my fellow scientists to disprove what I might have found -- because I did not want it to be true. But no one has been able to -- and every piece ofadditional evidence only confirms our conclusion."

The reporters did not speak -- as Dr. Lodlow felt the weight of what he had told them descend and now weigh on their shoulders as it had weighed on his.

For a full two minutes no one said a word. Finally Lodlow himself had to say, "I'm sure you have a number of questions." Like waking from a dream, reporters slowly delved into the depths of what Lodlow's findings meant.

But he kept it simple. He would not speculate on the future of the Earth, only what he had confirmed -- other than to say that a computer model needed to be built immediately. This model could predict where and how much water would be left given that the Marianas Trench,the deepest part of the oceans, was the point where the water was being drained.

After an hour, one by one, the reporters drifted away. It was like birds who had gathered and who were now moving on, he thought. He had given them plenty to feed their networks.


The northern Atlantic Ocean floor.


Aftermath

2500-2600 Years

The confirmation of the Lodlow Findings, as it now became known, was reported around the world. While information from the report was widely aired and the talking heads had much to say, the response from the public was surprisingly muted. It was the kind of silence when people were really paying attention. Some reporters were -- frankly -- scared.

Then odd things began to happen. Across the world, thousands of teenage flash mobs descended on small stores and cleaned them out in a matter of minutes. At the same time a spike in the number of suicides was reported worldwide.

A father took his mother, father, wife, five chidden and his sister to a cabin on the Gulf of Mexico whose shoreline was quickly receding. Then he shot each one in his family before killing himself. On his Facebook page, he posted, "I do not want those I love to have to live in a world with no oceans." This story was reported across the globe and like a dam breaking, it was as if he had spoken for everyone.

First a block here and a block there was set on fire in Cairo, in Berlin, in Rio de Janeiro, in Sydney, in Shanghai, in Chicago. Then the fire spread to small towns where this kind of thing had never happened.

But worse was to come. A year after the Lodlow Findings, an entire small town in Montanatook poison. This one event shocked the world as it was not a cult, the people were of many different religions, ethnic groups, and of mixed social backgrounds. It was an illness that spread like a wildfire jumping from country to country, from town to town.

Yet the path of this plague was spotty at times, even with moments of reflection. Spontaneously statues of the god of the oceans, the Greek Poseidon and the Roman Neptune, began to appear. People brought offerings; some prayed. A few groups camped out surrounding the statue as they played music, drank wine and spent the night.

And then it would begin again, like a wave coming from the ocean itself, spreading across each continent. It was like a beached whale gasping, flailing, uttering its deep penetrating sounds, yet because it was not in water, its cry was dry and high pitched.

"Was this the end?" many people asked. And for quite a few, even though it would be hundreds of years before the oceans were gone, the answer was yes.


The edge of eastern North America on the left, the Atlantic Ocean floor on the right.


Requiem

2522 Year

That night on television Claude DeWitt watched more cities burn: LA, Miami, Houston, Detroit, DC, Boston. Outside his window in the distance he could see fire lighting the sky; like a wave it was coming toward him and he might get swallowed by its force. And there were more mass suicides: people who died hoping they would be taken by a space ship, people who were tired of the struggle, people who did not know how to mourn.

He turned off the TV, buried his head in his hands and began to moan and then uncontrollably to weep, weep for the people, weep for the Earth, weep for the end that was coming.

And then he heard it. Clear as a bell, he would say later, with a bit of humor in this dark time. He heard Debussy's La Mer. It was as though a voice sang to him. It was all there in La Mer: the sound of the ocean, the birds, the bells, the fog, the waves, the calm, the turmoil.

But he would compose much more than that. He would find sounds of water falls, sea gulls, seals, surf breaking, rain, storms, wind plus his own music. He would sample La Mer, mix in the environmental world and add a layer of his own with a chorus. He would call it, Requiem for the Earth.

"I cannot stop them from burning their cities or killing themselves, but maybe I can get them to pause for a while and feel what they have lost -- and mourn -- they have forgotten how to mourn. I will give them a place where they can mourn."

So that night he began. He did not know if it would take a week or a year, but he began. Six months later in the orchestra shell on the shore of the Charles River in Boston, where most of the water was gone, he conducted his first performance.

Halfway through he heard a sound that he had not put in his work; it was the audience weeping. Instinctively he softened the sound of the orchestra so that it played with the sound of their tears.

After that he conducted his work in Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Athens, Shanghai, Sydney, Moscow, Stonehenge and the Pyramids. And at every performance at about the same time, they wept.

For the rest of his life, for forty years, he was on tour. Gradually the burning and the suicides slowed and the questions about "what do we do next?" began to be asked. He did not know if the Requiem caused this, but he felt it was a part of the healing process -- of thinking about continuing, rather than thinking about ending.


The New Normal

As the oceans continued to retreat, a kind of order, a 'new normal' began to emerge. Suicides occurred regularly but few seemed to care. Rashes of looting were often ignored by police. A block on fire here and a block on fire there did not get much attention.

In an incident that would have been headline news a decade earlier, 186 people hired a large private skydiving plane and then jumped to their deaths, apparently not caring if they landed on innocent people. "It was as if the heavens were raining bodies," said a resident of the small town of Landon, Michigan looking up at a corpse that had cut a hole into her roof, arms and legs reaching out from the opening, as if up to the sky.

"It's like limbo," a blogger wrote, as though everyone were waiting for something else catastrophic to happen.

The total fall of the oceans was hundreds of years away, but of course the weather was gradually changing to a dessert climate. Food was becoming scarce. Water and greenhouses were protected by armed guards.

The wealthy hid behind gated communities and turned on their air conditioners.

Teens could not be persuaded to stay in school and instead congregated in roaming gangs that drifted across continents.

Colleges closed except for those few with courses in Oceanography. And many of college age constructed handmade boats that they then sailed over the disappearing oceans, unconcerned that they might not survive. No amount of pleading from parents seemed to matter. Yet with global cell phone service, most did stay in touch -- one even in the middle of ahurricane as his 7 meter ship was going down and his body never recovered.

Gangs in some towns and vigilantes in others took control of block areas -- with check points and turf battles. Many cities declared marshal law but found that with limited funds and with the tax base shrinking, it was virtually impossible to maintain.

Government officials thought they knew what they had to do. They would have to restore asense of the future. The future had become a barrier; instead of something people looked forward to, it was now like a wall that they could not climb. The future was a death sentence.

Governments looked for ways to tell their people that they had a future, that beyond the loss of the oceans there was another world and that the Earth was still their home.


Report On The Fallen Sea-Level

Transcript of the oral report by theUN Special Committee on the Worldwide Sea-Level Decline2542-02-02 (2542 February 2)

CHAIRMAN GURGEF:

This report is the first comprehensive assessment of the nature and impact of the worldwide sea-level decline. While the news is not good, one might say tragic, there are actually some positive developments and recommendations. Here is an overview of what we found -- pleaseread the full report, with detailed data about each finding, on our website.

FIRST: The assessment by Dr. Frankin Lodlow 50 years ago appears to be accurate. Another civilization is sucking our oceans dry, molecule by molecule, in an unbroken and rapidly moving thread. The bottom of this thread is in the Marianas Trench in the Pacific. Since this isthe deepest spot of the oceans, it is virtually certain that the thread will be able to drain the bulk of the water in the oceans as water will flow to that lowest point. The top of the thread is at the location that was called the "Hole in the Sky." Beyond this point the water disappears and cannot be traced by any of our instruments. We believe the water is being feed into a wormhole and going to another planet, probably in the Milky Way Galaxy. We suspect that this civilization is unaware that their actions are impacting inhabitants of the Earth -- they are simply, in a sense, drilling for water, and finding it wherever it is available.

SECOND: Every effort to break the thread and to stop the flow of water has failed. It appears that the thread has a kind of intelligence so that it rebuilds itself after it is disrupted. We have used nuclear explosions at the Hole In The Sky itself and in the Marianas Trench where the water is being drained off. We have experimented with a combination of lasers to focus and cut the molecular stream of water in a number of ways. We have tried affecting it with our most powerful magnets. Nothing has worked.

Now for the more positive aspects of our report:

THIRD: Because it is draining the oceans at a molecular level, we believe it will take over five hundred years to significantly draw down the sea-level -- which means that human beings have more than enough time to prepare for the new environment that will be on this Earth. However, this new environment will be like a dessert such as Death Valley, where the temperatures will be between 50-65 degrees Celsius or 120-150 degrees Fahrenheit during the hottest part of the day.

FOURTH: While the vast majority of the water on Earth will be gone, there will be many holding pockets, both large and small from one end of the Earth to another. Water will pool in basins, valleys, and trenches on the sea bottom, for example. With the right technology and stewardship, this water should be enough to sustain human beings and our newly formed civilizations indefinitely. We also believe that some large areas could be contained and prevented from draining by building a dam or series of dams.


FIFTH: In an odd quirk of fate, we here on Earth already have developed a sophisticated technology which if redesigned could accommodate this new environment.

SIXTH: The old saying "it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good" holds true in this situation. There will actually be a number of benefits to this new environment: the weather willbe more predictable since it was clouds and wind from the oceans that were responsible for most storms. Solar energy will be extremely reliable, since there will be no clouds blocking thesun.

This concludes an overview of our report. Please go to our website for the full text.


Initial Stop Gap Planning

UNITED NATIONS WORLD GOVERNMENT REPORT ON OCEAN AND WATER RESTORATION2582-02-02 (2582 February 02)

The newly formed United Nations World Government has developed a comprehensive plan to secure water resources and provide a new stable environment for the people of the Earth.

#1. Large areas of water that are already fairly well contained, such as the Great Lakes in the United States and the Caspian Sea will be secured using a variety of methods to prevent evaporation and drainage. Both of these areas are especially valuable as the Great Lakes contains fresh water and the Caspian water has a low salinity.

#2. Large bodies of water that can be enclosed with manmade constructions will be designed. These include the Mediterranean and also the Baltic Sea, the Red Sea, the PersianGulf, the Black Sea and Hudson Bay. Other areas could be candidates for projects such the Caribbean where both the northern and southern areas form natural enclosures, as well as the area between Japan, Korea and China.

#3. Although most of the oceans may be gone in another 500 years, there will still be largepockets of water left in pools on the sea bed. It is imperative that we utilize these natural 'ponds' to greatest advantage. We can start planning now for the best way to use this resource. We believe, for example, that there will be a large basin of water left over in the Arctic around which a city could be built.

#4. The governments of the world have pledged to find new materials and new technologies to deal with the Earth that no longer has an environment driven by the oceans. The governments will fund new designs for efficient use of water, new greenhouses that are more productive and new cities that are built for the 'post-ocean' world.


Both the northern and southern parts of the Caribbean form natural enclosures.


Massive Dams & Movable Cities

How the World Coped With the Falling Sea-LevelsA Student Report by Roger BranchWorld Journalism 214Arctic City University 2971 May 05

While it took over twenty years to build, Europeans were able to construct a dam at the Straits of Gibraltar, the largest project ever accomplished by human beings.

It drew on ideas from the early 20th century Atlantropa project put together by German architect Herman Sorgel. Sorgel's original plan was designed to drain the Mediterranean to reveal new farm lands in the seafloor. Yet in an odd twist of fate, his considerable research accurately mapped out the new shoreline -- now that the oceans had fallen -- and his research became essential for the survival of countries surrounding the Mediterranean.

Following that example other colossal dam projects to contain the Baltic, Black Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf waters began around 2600 and took altogether one hundred years to complete. Yet with the best of intentions, governments soon realized that the falling oceans required much more than simply trapping water.

With much of the world changing to a desert climate, millions of people became nomads who moved across national boarders in search of green areas. To cope with this new reality, citizens of Europe, North Africa and West Russia were given electronic Citizen Cards which allowed them to move freely within this mega-state. It was a confederation that attempted to define and secure its borders by building an extensive electric fence. National armies were disbanded and instead a combined rapid response armed forces was developed to deal with the continuing tensions between nomadic peoples and permanent populations.

While the dams plugged up large bodies of water, it did not solve the problem of evaporation which, with increasing temperatures, was becoming a major problem, not the least of which was the increased salinity of the water.

Established cities coped with the rising temperatures by trying to retrofit. Massive arrays ofsolar panels were erected over Rome, Paris, Istanbul, Cairo, and Prague which both shaded the towns and also provided electricity for air conditioners.

But by the end of the 2700 when much of the rain had stopped, Black Blizzards began to engulf the Earth.

Proceeded by huge flocks of screaming birds, dust storms turned day into night, reaching as high as the clouds. In the next 100 years thousands of storms swept across China, Europe, Africa and North & South America with winds sometimes faster than a hurricane. By the end of the century thick dust -- known as black snow -- had swallowed up towns, burying crops, animals, people, highways, airports and choking railway lines in dunes and drifts that reached three stories high.


"It was like a giant army of ghosts," a mother in Atlanta, Georgia said after she had herdedher children into a closet. "The dust clouds rolled unchecked, marching like Sherman's March to the Sea."

With swirling dry black particles came intense static electricity that paralyzed cell phones and all communications; it shut down power stations and shorted automobiles, creating lines of frozen traffic on interstate highways that were then buried in dust. Lightning reached down to the tops of buildings and started waves of fires.

Many were suffocated. Similar to the residents of Pompeii in Roman times, the dust was like a powdered lava that caught and killed people where they stood. Eventually millions lay under the drifts -- where they decayed, as no one was able to locate them and bury them.

Virtually everyone took to wearing breathing masks and goggles. Nevertheless dust pneumonia from the fine silt, known as the “brown plague,” affected millions, especially children. In addition disease spores carried by winds caused a rash of epidemics.

But worse was to come. The storms became more frequent and were often followed by oceans of grasshoppers who ate any vegetation that was still alive. In an hour all leaves were stripped off of trees, and plants and gardens had been devoured.

In the path of these storms hundreds of millions died each decade and untold millions committed suicide rather than struggle with a force they could never tame. In the course of 300 years, the Earth's population dropped from 7 billion to about 500 million. While many diedfrom storms, starvation and disease, many others did not have children and life expectancy plummeted to 40 years.

By 2850 oceans had fallen 64 meters since the first initial report in 2222. This uncovered much of the world's continental shelf such as on the eastern side of North and South America,the western shore of Europe and the South China Sea. Yet one population seemed to thrive under these new conditions. Gypsies, who understood the nomadic lifestyle, moved effortlessly along the exposed shelf off of western Europe, traveling with photovoltaic desalination trucks. They harvested seafood and vegetation that grew on the changing shore -- and then moved on when conditions shifted.

Inspired by the Gypsies, an inventor by the name of Cyrus Ledbetter in the U.S. thought he knew how to make the best of things. He designed a system he called Movable Cities -- some essential city services extended themselves onto the continental shelf where shallow underwater land had been exposed. There food and water could be found on the edge of the receding oceans. About once every hundred years, as the oceans continued to fall, these services would reach further down the slope to be next to the water. To protect against dust storms, he mapped out an extensive layered series of tall sand fences along with lightning-rodtype towers that grounded the static electricity. He believed this would make the dust fall and trap it, shielding his cities. He calculated that his plan could help humans survive for the next three hundred years -- when other ideas might take shape.

While not perfect -- it was a workable solution. Small cities in the United States at first triedthis such as Charleston, South Carolina; later, Boston, Baltimore, and Miami followed.

Toward the last 75 years of the millennium the population of the Earth gravitated to the North Pole, where water had pooled in massive natural basins. Combining the governments


of the United States, Canada and East Russia -- this area became known as Arctic City. The breakthrough that solidified the establishment of Arctic City was new technology which tappedinto the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and used heat from a recently discovered series of hydrothermal vents to produce electricity. This sprawling city held 80 million people. It was a town that had grown spontaneously since dust storms were rare, the temperatures were moderate and water was plentiful.

In addition a number of much smaller cities sprang up, many based on the various ideas of their founders -- experimental communities and cities were designed with the hope that a better answer might be found to living in this new environment.

Closer view of the southern half of the Caribbean above South America where there is a natural enclosure.


Jon Ericsson's Vision

2988 Year

Walking up the hill in his native Iceland, architect and engineer Jon Ericsson felt the same hopeless that everyone felt. As the sun set early in the winter, he looked up at the sky and saw stars beginning to peek through the dome of the night. "Is our destiny in the stars," he wondered, "instead of here on Earth?"

Sitting on an icy rock he looked down at the lights in his small city that were reflected in the snow. By some odd quirk of nature, Iceland still had snow in the winter, he thought. It looked so peaceful now -- but in several hundred years it would all be gone. Not in his lifetimesurely, but soon enough.

Later, what happened, would be hard to describe. He was not sure if it was because he was tired, because he was sad and tears had filled his eyes, or if it was a trick of the fading twilight, or light from the snow bouncing up and hitting an atmospheric anomaly -- but in any case, he thought he saw a dome covering the town.

And the feeling was euphoric. The dome was comforting, protecting; it sheltered the people yet echoed the sky; it enclosed them without trapping them. It allowed them to breathewhile protecting them from the outside.

That night he dreamt he was looking up at the ceiling of the planetarium he had seen as a boy -- the bowl of the sky as the speaker had called it.

A direct descendent of the Swedish inventor John Ericsson, Jon had grown up knowing a lot about circles and globes. His famous ancestor had invented the rotating gun turret for the US Union's Civil War ship Monitor and he had also vastly improved the screw propeller for ships. There was something magical about the circle.

He found himself looking at photos of domed buildings: the Pantheon in Rome, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, The Taj Mahal in Agra India and even prehistoric huts with domed roofs.

The dome was universal, he found and then added to himself, "both structurally strong and deeply symbolic."

Like a swell in the ocean inevitably moving to the shore, weeks and months of thought broke like a wave on the beach. He knew the dome was the answer -- in part at least -- it was a shelter from the storm, a world within a world. "So our fate is not to go the stars but to carve out a life here on Earth,"

With the oceans receding, there would need to be a new faith. Jon believed that humanity could rise again and pass through the crucible of ecological disaster, to be reborn through invention. Only this time instead of inventions for war as his famous ancestor had done, they would be for a new society, a new world.


While the idea of a circular domed city had been around for hundreds of years and had become a staple in science fiction stories, no large scale domed city had ever been built. Jon knew that it was finally time. The technology at the end of the 3rd millennium was now so advanced, a moderately sized domed city could be designed which could last indefinitely into the future.

Moreover, as an architect, he thought he could design a completely sustainable city that could exist independently and not need food or energy or water from the outside.

As Buckminster Fuller had explained a thousand years earlier, a dome cuts energy costs by 90% because its one surface is in contact with the outside air rather than the various exterior walls of hundreds of building that make a total combined surface ten times larger.

And a domed city could be a wonderful place to live, he thought, since people could walk to work, sit in a park, visit outdoor concerts all year round without worrying about the weather. Neither rain or storms or wind or even hot or cold temperatures -- since the city temp would always be set by a thermostat so to speak -- would interfere with human activities. And such an open structure might spawn a very different society -- a more open society, one with fewer restrictions, because those who lived in the city would have fewer barriers in their daily lives.

As an architect he liked to dream, but as an engineer he had to be practical. So he asked himself the hard questions. But the answer still came up, "Yes."

The one critical question, of course, was about water. Could a recycling system be designed that would result in a zero net loss of water? Again a closed dome with a grey water recycling system and state-of-the-art greenhouse cultivation should work.

Like an old weaver -- he had photos of his grandmother weaving in the 19th century -- he imagined how the threads of modern technology could fit. He then wove them together to bring his city to life: struts that could support kilometer spans, light strong transparent covering material, efficient solar cells, smart city monitoring, self-guided compact electric cars,hydroponic gardening, cell phone networks. It all added up and came together. It all made sense.

Going back to Fuller's design, he decided that a 3 kilometer diameter was just the right size for the first such city. People would be close together but with the right design not feel confined.

He would launch it as an independent corporation. It would have few rules. It would be a city where everyone could walk, where pedestrians would have the right of way -- and because of this people would mingle and meet -- rather than be separated and insulated in their cars. It might even be a better world -- a world of art and ideas, of community, of people sharing their lives.

He studied maps of the ocean floor and came across the perfect location. It was almost asif he could see it. The dome would be like a shining city on an ocean ledge next to Greenland.The city would be situated next to a large basin that held water left over from the oceans. The plateau was like a cliff that looked across over at Iceland and down to what had been the bottom of the Atlantic.


There human civilization would begin again, maybe even learning from its mistakes.

He would call his world: Greenland Cliffs.

The Earth without oceans.


PART 2: THE CITY UNDER THE DOME

NOTE: In the following story,

the city itself is as important as the characters. You might want to read:

PART 3: BRIEF OVERVIEW OF GREENLAND CLIFFS

and/or the section entitled

FROM THE CITY DIRECTORY

before you read the rest of the story.

I have left this decision up to you, the reader.


Arriving

At the peak of the Maglev virtual highway, he could see the dome of Greenland Cliffs, a bright white spot in the shadow light of the setting sun. Like falling down a roller coaster, his capsule picked up speed to 500 km/h as it slid down the arc. The dome grew larger and more transparent as he approached. Now he could see inside: the buildings, the parks, the roads, the high spire at the center of the dome. It was like a tent he thought, maybe a big circus tent with a city underneath it. Ten minutes later his capsule was entering the air locks and landing him at 'the port of entry'.

Efficiently his capsule passed through each lock smoothly and just as easily he walked through the horseshoe passages that verified his identity by reading the chip in his arm and approving the reason for his visit. At the last entry station he was quickly tested for STDs and then given a paper-thin GPS ankle bracelet and a standard city wrist-phone -- required for every visitor.

Outside in the waiting room was the city official assigned to meet him. Wearing an open shirt and shorts, Patrick thought, "They certainly are informal here." Loosening his cravat, he walked up to Michael, whose photo had just appeared on his wrist-phone, and shook his hand.

"Welcome to Greenland Cliffs," Michael said. "Sorry to get you up so early. Let me buy yousome breakfast." Grabbing a self-guided buggy (SGB), Michael showed Patrick how to get into the passenger seat while he punched their destination on the map. "We call each of thesebuggies an egg on wheels," Michael laughed. "They are so compact there is barely room for luggage." Gliding down the clean streets at 15 km per hour, Patrick could not help but be impressed, but then that is what city officials always tried to do to him, impress him.

Mike took him to the Tropical Cafe, just off the City Center -- a slightly humid greenhouse with large trees and bushes and even birds near the treetops. It almost took Patrick's breath away.

The breakfast-bot rolled up to their table. Mike motioned to Pat, "Get anything you want, it's on the city's tab." He wanted a cappuccino, scrambled eggs and toast. "That's neo-coffee, you know," Mike added and Pat nodded. Mike then repeated the order to the bot plus his own order of neo-coffee and a croissant -- then verified it with the printout on his wrist-phone and pushed the go button.

"After getting a couple of scrambled orders," Mike laughed, "I've learned to always check with the copy on my wrist-phone. Sometimes the bot's voice recognition is a bit off." Three minutes later the hot food appeared on the bot's tray. Mike grabbed each dish and put in on their table.

"My god," said Pat, "The coffee tastes like coffee and the eggs taste like eggs."

"We grow quite a few spices here that no one else does. And we can do wonders with algae and seaweed," Mike explained with a smile.

Patrick could not help but ask, "Doesn't this greenhouse use up some of your water?"


"Well, we thought it might at first, but actually we've learned to keep 99.9% of the moisture. And the plants help with air quality by processing carbon dioxide plus green leaves do wonders for people's moods."

Pat sat back in his chair and looked up. He could see birds circling just below the greenhouse 'glass', and above it the clear dome of the city, and beyond that some stars in thecloudless dry sky that now encircled the Earth. It almost made him forget that the oceans -- which he had only heard about and seen movies of -- were gone and that it was his fate, and that of his generation and all future generations, to come to terms with this alien world.


Tour Of The City

"How hot does it get here?" Pat felt compelled to ask -- everyone always asked that question sooner or later.

"It's not too bad, in the summer it's usually around 50 degrees Celsius in the day -- kind of like Death Valley Desert in the old days. We are high up in the northern latitude on the edge ofGreenland, so we don't get the full blast of the sun. I've heard many towns south of us have todeal with 65 degrees."

"Yes, that's right, -- it's not an exaggeration. I've been to places like that. So how do you keep your cool," he joked.

"Oh, the usual way I guess. We use a second clear skin under the dome with a gap of about 2 meters between them which we've found helps a lot. We have the most efficient light sensitive variable tinting built into the dome, so it filters out 90% of the light during the day andis completely transparent at night. We use thin film solar photovoltaic cells that are embeddedin the dome covering material. And we are on a night schedule in the summer months -- we found that helps to keep the temperatures and the energy use down."

"Any trouble with the populous?"

Mike winced a bit, but tried not to show it. These higher up corporate types often referred to the citizens of a town like children they had to corral.

"We do the minimum to keep everything moving smoothly. We find that works best. Of course it helps being a small town of about 60k. So we do the basics -- everyone has to wear a GPS bracelet and carry their wrist-phone with them. We have cameras on each corner and in every public building so if needed we can follow anyone throughout the entire city from street to street. And we have a state-of-the-art virtual police force who can respond in a minute or less. Later in your visit I'll show you how that works."

Pat listened carefully, but took all of this with a grain of salt. These city officials always tried to make it sound like their towns ran effortlessly. But he was willing to keep an open mind.

"As you know, I came here primarily because of The Chip. But at the same time, I want to get a comprehensive overview of how your city works. It has the lowest crime rate of all the towns in the North Atlantic Federation of Small Cities and also the longest life expectancy. Plus you've been doing it longer than any other city, about 400 years, and to boot you have complete data going almost back that far."

Mike knew enough to simply listen at this point. When someone from the outside was saying good things about his town, he did not want to interrupt.

"So if possible," Pat continued, "I would like to hit all the high points before we get to the really serious stuff about how to proceed with The Chip."

"Well then," Mike said getting up, "I have a lot to show you. We'd better get on the road," he added with a laugh. Pat did not quite understand but followed as Mike took them to a


central vator-station and got on a vator that lifted them up to the Sky Road, forty meters above the ground.

"We love our Sky Road," Mike said, "it was not in the original plans, but you can walk north-south and east-west the full length of the village ten stories in the air -- we find it gives people a new perspective, an openness they would not have if they only saw the city and its landscape from ground level."

"In the darkness of night, like now, you can see the stars and the moon clearly from the Sky Road, as we use special directional lighting at ground level that points down to the streetsand barely lights the top of the dome. Nevertheless, at street level you can see quite well at night and from here, as you can see, there is enough light to make things out ."

Looking down and over the sides of the Sky Road, Mike pointed out the city's main features, "At the center of the dome is a square, 2 kilometers by 2 kilometers. This is where buildings, apartments, the city hall, schools and so on are located. Beyond this central squareare leftover half round areas that go out to the edge of the circular dome. We call them quadrants and they are located north, south, east and west. When the city was in the planningstages, no one could figure out the best way to use them, but then it became obvious -- use them for parks, play grounds, things like that"

Mike and Pat walked about half a kilometer to the back of the dome where the apartment buildings were located. Looking down, Pat could see a checkerboard pattern with spots of green visible throughout and some patches of green that were much bigger where large cube areas intersected.

"We used models from other cities like the quartiers of Paris to create neighborhoods that were both enclosed and also open to each other. So each Apartment Complex surrounds a courtyard but is also part of a group of four complexes with a multilevel atrium in the middle. These atriums have a park, cafe, general store, arcade and a pool. Four Apartment Groups are part of a Super-Group with an even larger atrium in the middle. You can see this easily as we walk above," Mike explained.

"Those spots of green you see everywhere are Norfolk Island Pines. They turned out to bethe ideal tree for our dome environment. They do okay in the subdued light of the winter and the tinted light of the summer -- and they even help to keep the humidity at a constant level. We don't let them get more that 3 meters tall. We like them so much we put them on the city crest -- and see them as a symbol for the town."

"At the back of the dome is Half-Moon Park which is very large, 160 old fashioned acres, and takes up the entire west quadrant. We designed it after Central Park in Old New York City. It is so large you might believe you are in the world before the oceans -- we find this parkand parks through out the town are essential to people's sense of well being."

They walked back to the center of the Sky Road where a spire reached to the highest point in the dome. "That, of course, is City Hall. We put it in the exact middle so that public safety officials would be equidistant from all corners and could reach everyone quickly if needed."

"But there is even more to see up here," Mike added.


He took Pat up a spiral ramp to Sky High Park which was another twenty meters above the Sky Road. "If you want a bird's eye view, so to speak, you can get it from here." Mike said as he motioned with his hands, "You can see the entire layout both inside and out." Mike pointed to the large quadrant parks, the set of buildings that housed the Institute For Urban Order and the Perimeter Road that ran next to the outer edge of the dome. Then he pointed outside and behind to the small separate factory dome and the greenhouses plus the aquaculture and desalination area. Last he motioned toward the large natural basin that held the water left over from the oceans' fall. It was the reason for the town locating at Greenland Cliffs.

Pat, being a hands-on person, wanted to see some things up close. So they took a SGB into the greenhouses, then rode over to the blimp cargo area next to the factory.

"These blimps deliver parts and also ship out completed virtual-skeletons which we assemble here in our factory and which is our main hardware export. The blimps are tied into the roadless trucking network that developed in the post-ocean era. And, of course, they bringin a number of other goods from the outside that we need here to keep our city running."

Pat looked a bit puzzled. "Don't worry," Mike added, "I'll show you a lot more about the virtual-skeletons as we move along."

Next they were driven by a SGB to the salt water basin and aquaculture tanks. Kilometers wide and long, the natural basin -- which had been called a valley when it lay under the Atlantic Ocean -- was the city's water source. Standing beside the basin, Mike stretched out his arms to indicate its huge size. "Our water use is 99.9% efficient, so we have enough waterhere for the next 1000 years. We believe that over time we can do even better and also that we can discover new water sources. So we do not see any reason why we cannot be here indefinitely."

"How about evaporation?" Pat felt compelled to ask.

"That was a problem at first, but we solved it with a weave of interlocking force-shields thatover time have turned out to be quite efficient, just like putting a plastic cover over it."

As evening approached they took a break at one of the many cafes in the Arts Quadrant, aspot that allowed a view of the deep empty cavern, the ocean floor, where the Atlantic had once been.

"In our usual dry clear air, people can often see hundreds of kilometers. While that seems hard to believe, we are about four kilometers above the seafloor which gives us an incredible view," Mike explained.

Pat walked to the edge of the dome and looked out through the transparent covering. Lit by the full moon, the peaks and valleys that had once been underwater stretched as far as he could see. They shown like stalagmites at the bottom of a cave, often smooth and rounded, shaped as much by the action of water as by land and wind.


Visiting A C-Girl

Exhausted, Pat left for his hotel -- a square 2.5 meter room that he was not anxious to spend much time in.

He checked his wrist-phone for holographic hookers. Greenland Cliffs being a center of touchable interactive holography, he could have just about any flavor he wanted at half the price of a flesh&blood girl. But somehow he just wasn't in the mood.

So he went to the 'cell girls' section. One cute one was within close walking distance, so he called her. They switched to Skype and flirted for a moment before he asked,

"Can I come over -- now?"

"Yes," she laughed without hesitation.

And in minutes he was at her apartment which was not in a segregated 'red light' district like most other towns. Before he could knock, she opened the door. It was a welcome he would replay later many times once back at Arctic City thousands of miles away when this backwater town seemed like a dream.

Ushering him in like an old friend, she handed him a glass of wine and guided him to a couch. Not beautiful but striking, her light complexion shone out from under her long black hair. She wore a thin oriental bathrobe that barely covered a thinner negligee. And he had a weakness for chicks in bathrobes.

"Sounds like you are from out of town?" she asked.

Surprised she wanted to talk, he sipped his wine, then, "I'm from Arctic City here on business." (That ought to impress her, he thought.) And it worked.

"I've never been to Arctic City, but I've seen pictures, movies..."

"It's big, noisy, not under a dome."

"Tell you what, before we get to know each other, can we get our business out of the way, so we can relax?"

"Sure."

"Here's what I do, look at it on your cell."

Pat scrolled through her menu and decided he ought to start slow. "I'd like a #1, for starters." He clicked his choice and sent her the cash.

"Tell you what," she said, "lets go sit on the patio."

She picked up their glasses and took them to a table that looked out over the courtyard and across at the other apartments and patios that encircled it. She pushed a button which seemed to do nothing.

"We have no windows here and curtains are a nuisance but we can turn on a privacy force-shield. It's like a one way mirror; we can see out, but people can't see in."


Almost imperceptibly she guided Pat to a chair and sat across from him. "So Arctic City... Tell me more."

"Everything moves too fast, everyone wants to get ahead, all the headquarters of the major corporations are there..."

Without him realizing it, she had come over next to his chair. He gasped a bit as she undidhis shirt, next his pants. He looked out over the patio. She pulled down his underwear. Was it possible people could not see. Soon his thoughts were quite different as she stroked him to new heights and then he was flying through the dome -- above it, it seemed, light as air.

Later lying in his cramped hotel bed, still smelling her perfume on his skin, he thought, "This town is so relaxed, even the cell girls -- she was like the girl next door, comfortable -- just what I needed."


The Cities Of The Post-Ocean World

On The Cities Of The Post-Ocean WorldTerm Paper Proposal Political Science 203: Contemporary World CulturesArctic City UniversityAlexander Vronsky3417 October 19

With the fall of the oceans, established cultures disintegrated and instead the peoples of the world put their efforts into simply surviving.

This meant that the peoples of each geographic area had to make the best of what they had. Today after hundreds of years of struggle, the world has succeeded in building a new civilization on Earth. Each location has found a different solution, yet together they now form the new world order.

In Europe, the successful containment of the Mediterranean, Baltic and Black Sea supplied ample water for an established population. However, the rising temperatures and droughts plus the massive dust storms created a situation worse than the Black Plague in the 14th Century -- killing more than 80%. Some people along the edges of the waters resorted toliving in caves as their ancestors had done 50,000 years earlier. Many others retreated to the catacombs of old which protected them from both the heat and the storms. As a result catacombs in Paris, Rome, London, Naples, Granada, Odessa, Vienna and Alexandria along with existing networks of tunnels and mines have now become city centers.

The Great Lakes area in the United States held the largest area of fresh water in the worldand for a time was quite wealthy as water sold for ten times the price of gasoline. Yet as the towns and cities in North America died out and became covered in dust, this income was short lived. Eventually the Great Lakes region became a source for Arctic City after a pipe linewas built. Then most of the people who had lived near the Great Lakes moved and invested their money in Arctic City which as a result has today become the most prosperous and progressive metropolis on the planet.

Across the globe massive areas of water were captured either in natural pockets or by dam projects. As a result cities developed in locations where this was successful. For example, China, Japan and Korea succeeded in trapping a large basin of seawater between them that evolved into The Asian Federation. They used their skills with algae, seaweed, fish, and marine life to build a successful aquaculture.

In addition there were plans for several hundred small experimental cities around the globe that used a mixture of technologies to deal with the environment at specific locations. Today there are now, for example, domed cities and underground cities; in addition there are a number of above ground cities on the ocean floor that have taken advantage of natural conditions such as shading or geothermal energy.


Lost in all of this are the untold millions of nomadic peoples who are now roaming the planet and who live a primitive existence. At the same time they employ high-tech devices such as photovoltaic desalination equipment. It is estimated that a third of the Earth's surviving population lives in this manner, yet very little is known about them in the established cities of the world.

And of course, no proposed paper would be complete without highlighting Arctic City. Founded at what had once been a forbidden land, the North Pole, the warming temperatures created the ideal climate for the new environment. Free of dust storms, temperate, with huge natural basins that trapped large areas of the oceans, it had all the right elements for a thriving city. When it was able to generate electricity from the thermal vents and volcanoes of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and then pumped water from the Great Lakes, the stage was set for this great city to come of age.

Arctic City is now the crown jewel for the world's new environment and has set the standard, thriving in a world with no oceans. The millions of people who live here enjoy a pleasant and fruitful life, and the city looks forward to further progress that will benefit everyone.

Around the year 3000 the cities began to establish new highways and methods of communication. The virtual Maglev highway was implemented by a consortium of major cities.The V-highway, as it became known, today provides an inexpensive way to weave together the hundreds of separated urban centers, so that fast efficient travel to just about any part of the world is now possible without having to build a physical road. In addition it solved the problem of roads being covered by dust and of finding a way to navigate across the ocean floor.

Next a full complement of high-tech satellites were put into orbit that, today as we speak, provide state-of-the-art high-speed communications along with interactive holographic-video-conferencing which removes the need for many travel trips and allows daily coordination between distant parts of the globe.

In short the world rebuilt itself on a new model and now is poised to enter its own rebirth: the Renaissance of the 4th millennium.


The Smart-City Intelligent Operations Center

The next morning several hours after the sun had set, Pat met Mike at the entrance to the Smart-City Intelligent Operations Center.

Standing at the doorway, Mike held Pat back and said, "This is the core. The IOC operates24/7. It never sleeps. It is the heartbeat of the city. And it also is why we are a one company town; we know more about Urban Order than anyone on the planet."

Then Mike ushered Pat through three horseshoe threat detecting arches and three identitychecks.

"Wow, you sure don't take any chances."

"We can't afford to, the city could collapse without it -- even though we have a complete duplicate backup center, just in case. And, BTW, what you see here is not to be talked about to anyone except authorized personnel."

That said Mike guided Pat into a darkened round room that lay hidden in the middle of CityHall. "It looks like a War Room from an old movie," Pat thought as he walked into the center.

Mike, coughed a bit, and all the officers turned around. "Hi everyone, this is Pat Joyner, heis visiting from Arctic City -- he is with the North Atlantic Federation of Small Cities. He has fullsecurity clearance, so you can tell him anything." Each officer waved to Pat and Pat waved in return as they quickly turned their attention back to their work stations.

12 police in bright finely sequined uniforms stood before screens -- the room mimicking the geometry of the dome. Each display pointed in the direction of a city section. On every screen swarms of bright dots pulled together and then flew apart.

"Each dot is a person's GPS coordinates in real time," Mike whispered. They looked like a flock of birds Pat had seen pictures of, birds migrating over the oceans.

Next to every third officer was another worker in a colored uniform: one in green, another in yellow, still another in orange and the last one in purple. Each monitored a screen that looked similar to that of the police.

Mike whispered to Pat, "The green official keeps track of the charging or the load on the nanotube electrical storage. He also monitors CO2 levels, air pressure, temperature and water pressure throughout the entire city complex."

"The yellow officer keeps watch on apartments which includes all the automatic bots in every room, the crane in the middle of each complex plus the vator-lifts that take residents to their porches."

"The orange is for medical emergencies and fire, although more than half of fire alarms can be put out by sprinklers or by the crane at the center of each Apartment Complex as it can automatically reach into each room and spray fire retardant."

"The last one, the purple one, monitors all the mobile bots: the food-bots, the self-guided buggies, the street-cleaning-bot, the food-bot-train from the greenhouses and the toilet-bot-


train from the composting area. Plus he monitors the signal strength of the GPS system, the wrist-phone, the Internet, and the smart wireless charging signal. He also has the power to shut down any bots if they malfunction."

Pat could not help but marvel at the fine tuning. Here was the entire city distilled into one room coupled with a method for responding quickly.


The IOC In Action

Suddenly a screen popped. A moving circle enclosed a small group of dots and above it another screen zoomed in using full photographic mode that tracked this group. Flicking each person's face on the screen with her index finger, the officer brought up the Citizen's Quick Record (CQR) of each member, which displayed an overview of points on their Citizens Cardsand a list of past infractions -- along with a lifelong rating for each person. "If I want I can tap the CQR and get a detailed past history including medical records, education and employment," the officer pointed out.

But in this case they were kids just horsing around -- nothing serious. Although it could have been a fight. "The algorithm lights up when there is a 10% chance of an altercation -- leaving it to the person in charge -- that's me -- to decide," she added.

The policewoman turned to Pat, "It may not look like it, but we can tell a lot by the way people move. We can, for example, tell when they are intoxicated or becoming violent or having sex. We have two GPS points: one on the wrist-phone and one on the ankle bracelet -- and with these two points we can infer a lot about their behavior. But we never let the citizens know that. We don't want people looking over their shoulders."

She continued, "Our system has prevented a number of sexual encounters between an adult and a child, for example. Our algorithm is designed to learn each citizen's individual wayof moving -- so it can tell when an adult is just a child's friend -- but it also can flag when it thinks an adult might be touching a kid in an inappropriate way. Naturally it is up to the officer of the moment to make that determination."

"While we call it GPS from the old days, it's really dome positioning. It's much more sensitive and faster than even the best old GPS -- as a wrist-phone and bracelet can be read accurately with a change of only 6 centimeters ten times a second."

"Also you might wonder what the bright orange points are. These are people who are on probation. We keep a special eye on them, so that they don't continue their dysfunctional behavior."

Across the room, another screen popped. The top photo screen zoomed in on a man who was talking loudly and raising his arm above a woman. His wrist-phone flashed an orange light and a loud voice over the phone said, "Stop, do not move, an officer will be with you in a moment." Then seemingly out of nowhere a policeman rolled up.

Mike nudged Pat, "Pay close attention, this is where the rubber meets the road, as they used to say."

Pat looked at the screen but even more at the officer in charge. The policeman in the IOC had stepped onto a platform where he was moving his arms and speaking as the officer on the street. On another screen the policeman could see what his avatar, the virtual officer on the ground, was seeing.


"This is our specialty," Mike glowed, "This is a Virtual-Skeleton-Officer, we call him a VS-officer. His realtime image is transmitted from the sequin-sensors on his uniform to the LED pixels on the robotic skeleton. On the street he appears to be a real police officer."

"It looked to me like you were just about to hit this woman," the VS-officer said to the tall thin man on the street.

"No, I'm sorry it looked like that, I was just being emphatic."

"But you also raised your arm."

"I was trying to make a point."

"You know, of course, that we have a recording of this and can play it back." The tall man retreated a bit. "And what do you say about this," the VS-officer asked the small young woman.

"He was about to hit me, or shove me, I'm sure."

"But it did not come to that?" the officer continued.

"No, because you got here so quickly."

Turning to the man, the VS-officer said, "I'll tell you what. I don't like the look of this, but nothing happened. I am going to put 3 points on your Citizen Card which won't cost you anything, if you don't have any more points on your card."

The man gasped, "But I already have 3 points."

"Well, then it will cost you -- and it will be deducted automatically from your pay. Now is there anything else I can do for you?"

"But that's not fair," the man insisted. "I didn't do anything. And I'll be paying for those points for the next year. And if I get many more points, I could be on probation."

"Tell you what," the VS-officer said with a sly smile. "I will do something."

The man relaxed.

"I will add 3 more points because you insist on arguing with me. Now is there anything else I can do for you?" the VS-officer repeated in his sweetest tone.

"No," replied the man, "I'm sorry, I should not have argued with you." He bowed his head abit and stepped back.

The VS-officer then rolled away toward a door that had just opened in the outside corner of a building. The deactivated VS-officer, now only a skeleton frame with unlit LEDs, glided into a closet and the door slid shut.

Back in the IOC, the policeman, moved from the platform to his chair. He turned to Pat, "You got to see the real thing. Not a major confrontation of course, but real nonetheless. I can project myself onto a Virtual-Skeleton-Officer and appear to be like a flesh&blood person on the street. And what citizens are seeing is actually me, in real time, but it is also my projection.I can do anything from here I could do on the ground, except maybe get knifed," he laughed. "We have at least one VS-officer in a closet on the corner of each block. This means we can


react almost immediately to any situation. And responding rapidly with quick punishment takes care of 90% of the situations."

The director of the IOC, added, "And we can run an entire city of 60,000 with less than 100police, fire and ambulance officials. So while it ensures safety, it also saves the citizens money."

Pat, of course, knew about all this in theory, but had never seen it in the flesh. But then that was why Greenland Cliffs was the leader and was able to create an entire industry around its experience.


Board Meeting At The Institute For Urban Order

Leaving the IOC, Pat stepped out from City Hall on the tenth story and onto the Sky Road,where he walked up to the Sky High Cafe for lunch.

"These whirlwind visits, sure take a toll," he thought.

After a shrimp burger on biscuits made of green banana flour and several cups of neo-coffee he was ready for the next round -- the reason for this trip.

Pat walked the Sky Road to the vator-station that dropped him down in front of the ground floor entrance to the Institute For Urban Order. After introducing himself to the receptionist, hewas guided into a board room. There he met with the president, a vice-president, two heads of departments and Michael who represented the city.

With everyone in the room, Pat began his presentation:

"As you know, your main industry here at Greenland Cliffs is research and the creation of urban order. Your domed town has been around a long time and because it is small it serves as a good model for more small domed cities on Earth and also for space exploration. We believe that both colonies on planets and asteroids could be based on your model as well as large space ships that might have to travel for decades.

"We think that the basic problems dealing with human survival have -- for the most part -- been solved. So the real problems are going to be psychological -- how to encourage people to get along, work together, cooperate, not get on each others nerves. I think about the first biosphere experiment way back in the 2Oth century, as we learned in school -- it ended not because of a technical problem, but because people were fighting.

"I must say I am very impressed with the relaxed atmosphere of this town. And the thoughtthat went into it -- giving people a means of expression and even a sense of beauty while at the same time keeping firm control. It is for this reason that we think you are most qualified to work with these psychological factors. And that is the reason for my coming here."

Pat paused and then became quite serious.

"What I am going to say next is private information, which you are sworn not reveal to anyone except in conversations with another authorized official. No one else. Is that clear?"

Pat scanned the room, looking at each person and all nodded their heads.

"As some of you know, the North Atlantic Federation of Small Cities would like to extend and build on your success by working on a long term project, we call simply The Chip, although the technical name is the Comprehensive Monitoring Chip (CMC). The head office would like you to start thinking about implanting a chip that can read activity in the body, a chip that is very similar to what is being used right now such as in my arm," he held out his arm to demonstrate, "but it would give us more information."

"This new chip will provide advantages over the older system of monitoring that you are currently using with GPS bracelets and wrist-phones. For example, a number of vital-sign monitors can be implemented which will lead to longer and healthier lives. In the event of an


emergency a nurse-bot will be able to read this chip instantly and provide accurate and rapid treatment. The Chip will also provide early warning alerts for clogged arteries, heart attack and stroke, just to mention a few of the health benefits."

"The Chip may even go further -- it could, for example, read some brain activity and coordinate that with health monitoring."

Pat again scanned the faces of his audience to see what kind of reaction he was getting. The city officials were carefully digesting what he said.

"This is a long term project which will require research, thought, testing and may not come about for twenty or even forty years. It will be divided into a number of sections which can be designed separately and then put together as the design progresses."

"Bottom line: I think this will be the biggest project ever given to the Institute For Urban Order and if successful should make you the premier supplier of monitoring equipment."

The president cleared her throat, which she always did before speaking at a meeting. "We appreciate being offered this project, but there are many... many different aspects which will have to be integrated. There even is the chance that if done wrong it could affect a person's health in a negative way. And no one has ever tried to tie brain activity and vital signs all together to come up with a reading that is accurate."

Pat was prepared for this. "I don't disagree." He stopped for a second. "In fact, I very muchagree -- as I have been saying these exact same things to my superiors. However, this projectwill take decades and if we work together, we will have plenty of time to determine just what it is that we can and cannot do."

The president scanned the faces of her employees. "If we can have continual input into the design then, yes, we would like to work on The Chip as you call it." She looked back at her employees and they all nodded in agreement.

Pat nodded his head also, "I think that this is the best way to proceed and, in fact, is what Irecommended before I left Arctic City."

At that point the president got up, "Well, I think we are done here. Go back to your Arctic City, get a firm agreement, and we'll start work."

Suddenly everyone smiled, hand shakes were exchanged and Pat's meeting that he had dreaded was over.


Flying

After the meeting at the Institute, Mike looked at Pat and could read the slight signs of strain on his face. As the sun began to rise, Mike guided Pat out of the office building and toward the Arts Quadrant. "Pat, I have one more thing to show you and then you are on your own."

In the evening as the sun was coming up, they grabbed a SGB and headed toward the front of the dome near the cliff. After passing through an air lock and putting on oxygen masks, they walked the half kilometer in a comfortable 32 C degree temperature (90 F) to stand on the platform overlooking the chasm below. What Pat did not expect to see was a flock of large birds, hovering, diving, swooping, falling down almost to the bottom and then suddenly being swept up above him.

"Hang gliders," Mike said. "We let the dare devils express themselves; it's better than using their energy in a destructive way. The experienced ones can ride the hot drafts for hours. And they are wonderful to watch."

Pat looked out and just as suddenly he was with them, falling though the air, heading toward the bottom, yet at the last moment pulling up and taken to the heights.

Later he wondered whether was it the c-girl or the hang gliders -- but now it was in his blood. Small domed towns did not like outsiders, especially ones they had not monitored since an early age, but he would do what he could to break those rules.

Using the lookout telescope he zoomed in on Iceland, the valley next to it that was once known as The Straits of Greenland, and deep down to the ridges in the Atlantic Ocean floor.


Brochure: The Institute For Urban Order

Institute For Urban OrderGreenland Cliffs

"Where government meets the people."

A complete solution to keeping track of your citizens and improving their quality of life.

The IUO offers software, hardware, a combination and custom configurations to suit your needs.

We have been doing this the longest in the post-ocean era.

MONITORINGWe offer total services to monitor your populous, such as GPS coordinates of each person

in real time. This data can be saved indefinitely in a highly compressed format so that decades of information does not take up valuable hard drive space.

Our sophisticated algorithms can spot trouble from subtle movements in the GPS tracking.Our system is also designed to learn the unique movements that apply to your particular city and to each individual citizen in your town.

If your city has never embarked on this type of monitoring before, we have a plan that slowly acclimates your citizenry to the idea. By stressing the benefits most cities have been able to equip each person with a GPS bracelet in a relatively short period of time.

Once outfitted and fully functioning, traffic accidents can be cut by 80%, response to health emergencies can only take a few minutes, parents can be assured that their children are safe, and serious crime can be reduced to less that .05%.

Combined with a system of wrist-phones, city-wide cameras and virtual police (see below),our unique style of GPS monitoring can be used to reduce the size of your police force by 75%.

POLICE SERVICESOur 5th generation virtual police force means that an officer can be on the scene in a

matter of minutes. With a virtual police force, an officer projects his/her image onto a 3D image of him/herself (the avatar) and interacts with the citizens, all the while sitting at his/her desk at police headquarters.

We offer two kinds of Virtual Officers:

A Virtual-Skeleton-Officer (VS-officer), equipped with a camera, microphone, speaker, Internet connection and a cloak of high definition LEDs, can go just about anywhere and handle almost all situations. The officer, in this case, projects his/her image into the LEDs


making a high resolution virtual person. Furthermore that same skeleton can be used for a virtual nurse or other City Official.

In addition another type of virtual officer, a Virtual Holographic Officer (VH-officer), can handle many situations in combination with city-wide cameras and directional microphones and speakers.

THE COMPLETE SOLUTIONA comprehensive GPS monitoring system combined with a virtual police force can prevent

most altercations from occurring. Our sophisticated GPS algorithms have a 90% success rateof identifying problematic situations.

When a potential situation does occur, coordinated city cameras can kick in and the officerin charge at police headquarters is immediately alerted. He/she can then determine what response is needed.

If a possible situation occurs in a private residence, we have a system that will turn on a video recorder in that location to monitor the occurrence. If a problem arises, a virtual officer in skeleton mode can respond in minutes.

GET IN TOUCHWe can show you what we offer with a holographic-video-conferencing call or you can

come visit us here at Greenland Cliffs. We are proud of our city where we use all of our services every single day in real time. Come see for yourself.


Running Into Mariana

The next afternoon wandering around the theater district he saw her. He knew that she saw him, but pretended not -- so he would not be embarrassed, he guessed.

"Mariana, is that you?" he asked, coming up from behind. She turned and her smile was brighter than the moon. "Can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

"No," she said and he felt his stomach collapsing. "But you can buy me a glass of neo-hard-cider. It's the Festival of Autumn's Equal Night."

He had almost forgotten. The equinox had become a big deal in the post-ocean era. "Sure, lead the way." Then, "What do you call it here?"

"Equal Night for short, since everyone knows what season it is -- but officially it's the Festival of Autumn's Equal Night."

They walked together comfortably, he thought, almost like old lovers.

"It's a three day celebration because the days stay the same for three days and at the end we go to a day schedule, since there is so little light in the winter. Some people prefer this winter mode more than the summer, since we have daylight in the middle of the day."

Three neo-hard-ciders later plus an eel filet sandwich and the dome began to glow. "What do you do for fun," he wanted to know.

"There are movies."

"Oh, I must have missed them."

They took their time walking to the theaters, even though they could have grabbed the titles and schedules from their cells. They passed elaborate arrangements of LED/flicker-lights that were everywhere: in the windows, on the edge of the sidewalk, on tables, in SGBs. Later Pat decided that time had stopped, not the arrow of clock time of course, but that he and Mariana had reached a plateau of time.

Walking along the edge of the dome, Pat realized that this part of the walkway was designed after an old fashioned esplanade -- as hundreds of people streamed by them in a line. But tonight the citizens were in costume, mostly Greek gods.

It appeared that Neptune was the favorite, followed by Zeus with thunderbolts. The womenchose Persephone, goddess of the underworld and autumn and winter, along with Demeter, goddess of the harvest, but the favorite was Athena, the patron goddess of Greenland Cliffs, the goddess of wisdom.

"Hard to explain," Mariana said, answering Pat's unasked question. "The Greek thing has always been part of the city -- we see ourselves as Athens reborn and feel that Athena is protecting us. Athena is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill. We look to her for guidance."


Pat did not know what to say -- it was completely unexpected to hear about a rebirth of ancient Greece and more that Mariana apparently knew a lot about it.

"We love our city. Even though it is not perfect, most of us would die for it."

When they got to the theaters, they found:

Cyber Attack #7: on a round stage in 3d holographyHurricane by John Ford: a movie made in 1937, about a storm overtaking an islandThe Odyssey: holographic telling of the most famous sea storyZombieFication: ordinary people turned into robotic slavesPrometheus Live: another holographic movie from Jason Achilles' latest tour -- a local artist who has become an international pop star

"You choose," Pat said -- Mariana not realizing that it was a test -- a test that would tie their fates together.

"Well, if you really mean it, I want to see John Ford's Hurricane."

She had passed with flying colors. An old flat small black and white movie with bad sound from a thousand years ago was a movie lover's dream -- and Pat loved old movies.

The film already started when they walked into the theater; the audience was mouthing thelines:

Trim the sailTrim that sailTrim the sail, Sully

The moviegoers anticipated the action, allowing themselves to be pushed by waves and wind on the screen.

"It's a local tradition here on the eve of Equal Night," Mariana whispered as they found a seat. "Everyone has seen this since they were children,"

The great storm is comingthe wind that overturnsthe land!

The audience shouted, then paused before exclaiming:

Get ropesanchor your homesTake to the trees if the seas shouldcover the land

Pat looked at the rain, the wind, the water, the island flooded and tears filled his eyes. He turned so Mariana would not see, but she did and kissed a drop on his cheek.


Later on a park bench, they looked out to the chasm beyond the dome. In the full moon, it was like a forest of rock, an alien planet with its own beauty.


Spending The Evening

Walking slowly back in the brightening twilight of the Greenland Cliffs 'night' they meandered through food stalls closing up, stalls with flesh&blood cooks and no bots, which was a festival tradition, along with the lingering smell of dishes cooked on the open directionalmicrowave burners.

Standing in front of a closing stall, inhaling the pungent odors, Pat impulsively turned to Mariana, "I've got nothing to do -- and lots of time to do it"

Without missing a beat she replied, "Well...why don't you come up and see me."

If there had been any doubt in Pat's mind, it flew through the top of the dome. She was one in a million, no probably a billion and he had found her in the most unlikely of places.

But Mariana was in no hurry. She held out her hand and led Pat up a spiral ramp to a roof garden. There another world of people talked and drank and watched the sun come up. And as it did Pat could see that these terraced rooftop gardens formed a winding network that stretched all the way to the edge of the dome. A ribbon of light softly outlined the long curving pathway and ramps to higher levels. Sprinkled with the signature Norfolk Island pines, along with bushes, flowers and grasses, gazebos and lawn furniture, it almost took his breath away. "Worlds within worlds," he thought and smiled. And she smiled back as though she could readhis thoughts.

Sounding a bit like a tour guide, she explained, "The rooftop gardens were a much later addition to the town. The city found that these gardens cooled the buildings below while opening up a different kind of space for everyone. And by that time they had learned how to keep moisture from escaping the dome, so there was no water loss."

Returning to Mariana's apartment they took the vator-lift up to her porch. Just as they stepped out Mariana grabbed Pat, holding him back, as she pushed the bedroom button on her wrist-phone. "I usually do this before I get home, but I forgot this time. So keep your distance as the furniture gets rearranged."

The flex-rigid inflatable living room furniture deflated and collapsed into the ceiling, while the flex-rigid bed, bedside table, vanity, and closet folded out from the wall and inflated. Soft even lighting blanketed the room, digital art slowly changed on a wall and the privacy force-shield came on signified by a yellow light on the ceiling near the porch.

"Okay," she said and led Pat into her room. Mariana stripped off her clothes in a matter of seconds, flinging them onto a chair, then grabbing a bathrobe. Pat stood by a little awkwardly.

"Here, this is yours," she said handing him a bathrobe, "...don't worry...as I told you last night no one can see in, even though the porch is open. It's odd I know to a person from another town. But in this cramped city, we have both openness and privacy in our own domains."

Without a word, they took their time, drinking some wine on the porch, moving slowly until they sat of the edge of the bed, Pat untied her robe followed by long slow kisses on her


cheeks and lips down to her nipples. Then she pulled his bathrobe off, guided him down onto the mattress and straddled him.

"Oh, my god," he could not help saying. Like a see-saw he remembered from childhood they rose and fell like an ocean wave -- not rushing, but savoring the inevitable crash of the wave on the shore.

Later, exhausted and warm they fell asleep to Clark Gable's 1938 film Mutiny on the Bounty that covered one wall of the apartment -- feeling the sea surround them as they sailed free to a distant tropical island.


The Equal Night Celebration

The next afternoon was the promenade.

"It's a tradition here. I never miss it."

He struggled with the few clothes he had brought, knowing he did not look as spiffy as he liked for the occasion.

"You're a Roman, so people will give you a little leeway."

"A Roman?" he asked.

"Yes, that is what we 'Greeks' call you guys from the out of town offices."

"Oh," he said. "Are you ashamed to be seen with me?" not wanting to know the answer.

"No, not at all, but are you ashamed to be seen with me?"

"No, not in the least." And he looked into her eyes, so she would know he was telling the truth.

Out on the street in the darkness, hundreds of people were holding LED/flicker-lights, walking majestically around the Perimeter Road. When Pat looked up, a similar parade of lights streamed along the Sky Road. Altogether the lights outlined the city from the ground to the sky, from the edge to the center, like a huge jeweled Easter egg he had seen photos of -- like a giant space ship heading toward a distant star.

At a corner, a government host handed him and Mariana each a LED/flicker-light and soonhe was part of the parade, maybe even part of the town itself, he thought in the back of his mind.

Yet in the evening he was not prepared for the concert. It seemed like the entire town had turned out. The mood was solemn, not like the night before or even the afternoon promenade.And then the conductor walked on stage. At the moment he held up his baton, the audience was silent -- deathly still, uncomfortably still.

And then it began: The Requiem for the Earth, now called the Requiem for the Oceans. Behind the orchestra on wall sized 3D-LED screens that surrounded the musicians and the audience, multiple photographs and videos showed oceans crashing, boats sailing, surfers riding five story waves, sunsets across the water, water breaking over rocks, the tide coming in, the tide going out.

About half way through Pat heard the slightest sound of a woman weeping. And then another and soon hundreds became part of the symphony's sound. The conductor blended the orchestra's song with the sobs. And uncontrollably Pat too wept. After a minute he turned to Mariana. Her head like a Greek statue, she looked straight ahead, tears etched along the curve of her cheeks.

As the music reached its conclusion, the 3D-LED screens changed from multiple pictures to one seamless sweeping aerial shot of the ocean's seafloor with its mountains, volcanos, cliffs, trenches, basins still holding water and islands now elevated four kilometers from the


bottom. The camera glided across the empty Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Ocean, Arctic and Antarctic's seafloors covering the audience with its landscape. And slowly the weeping subsided. Soon there were no cries.

When the people got up to leave, they were almost smiling.


Back To Arctic City

He dreaded it, the trip back. Two crowded backwater Maglev V-highways with slow checkpoints at all interchanges and then a supersonic flight to Arctic City. No matter how you sliced it, it took 6 hours.

And once back, his only thought was how to return. Like the Hole In The Sky, there was now a hole in his heart that only felt complete under the dome.

Instead of the mini-Maglev shuttle from the airport, he took the mono-rail that screeched because it had needed to be upgraded years ago. He wanted to pass through his old neighborhood where he had been raised. Graffitti now covered the outside of each rail car, and gangs roamed the streets like lions in a jungle on the block where he used to live. "Welcome home," he thought.

The next day at headquarters there was more.

"You don't let these backwater characters figure things out. You tell them what to do." His boss was on a rampage. He slammed his hand down on the table. "That's why we sent you there. So what do you have to say for yourself?"

"I think I made the right decision. These people have been around longer than we have. They know more about urban order than anyone on the planet. If we don't let them be part of the process, it won't go smoothly. We need their input and then we can work with them to get what we want."

"Okay, we'll do this for now -- but keep your eye on the ball."

Walking out of the meeting, Pat felt his breath finally exhale. "Good job," his assistant told him. "You know he was just testing you, to see if you could justify yourself."

Pat aimed for a chair next to a table in the coffee lounge not letting anyone see how faint he felt and that another bout with his boss was more than he could handle.

"There has to be a way out."

He, of course, could live in the luxury of the Towers of Arctic City -- the dozens of 5 kilometer high skyscrapers connected by hundreds of skywalks that formed a self-contained city. Supposedly they had anything he could ever want: apartments, restaurants, parks, nightclubs, swimming pools, movie theaters, shopping malls and cell girls -- yet they left him cold. There was something unnatural about standing behind glass 1000s of meters in the air looking down on the rest of the city that often struggled even to breath.

After work he went down onto the street and kicked scraps of discarded candy wrappers on the sidewalk and thought,


Going to the ground level red light district felt a bit dirty, even though it was legal and all the guys did it.



Talking with people he had just seen at Greenland Cliffs via holographic-video-conferencing did not really work.

He was starting to hate his life.

For days he wandered the streets and the parks of Arctic City and found himself humming,"It's still the same old story, a fight for love and glory" In a sense the loss of oceans had not changed anything. "A kiss is still a kiss; a sigh is still just a sigh ..."

And then it hit him. Set up an office at Greenland Cliffs and talk with headquarters via holographic-video-conferencing rather than the other way around. He needed to be there under the dome working one-on-one and getting to know people to get the job done.

The next month he slowly let drop that he was able to work more efficiently on site rather than from the central office. Whenever he hit a glitch, he let the higher ups know -- such as when a holographic-video-conference from Greenland Cliffs got scrambled.

He hoped that maybe one of them would suggest the move so he wouldn't have to -- and his patience paid off. His direct supervisor called him into his office and said, "Look I know it's in the middle of nowhere, but consider spending the next month or so at Greenland Cliffs. We think that you need to be there, hands on." Pat did everything he could to keep from smiling. Itwould be tough but somehow he would do it.

Two days later, he was on the way back, back to that white dome, the city under the circustent and back to Mariana.


PART 3: OVERVIEW OF GREENLAND CLIFFS


BRIEF OVERVIEW OF GREENLAND CLIFFS FOR VISITORS

Chartered about 400 years ago in 3022, the city of Greenland Cliffs is located on a ledge that used to be underwater next to Greenland and is situated next to "Kangerlussuaq Valley," the large natural basin where a reservoir of sea water was trapped after the ocean's fall. On a clear day a citizen can see Iceland about 200 km away.

Notations added by the City of Greenland Cliffs. (NOAA)

It is a city of 60k people who live under a 3 km diameter transparent dome 100 meters high atthe center. The dome covering is automatically photochromically tinted and darkens or lightens depends on the sun's intensity, angle, temperature and time of year. Embedded transparent solar photovoltaic cells in the dome provide most of the electricity for the city.

THE CITY IS DIVIDED INTO TWO MAIN AREAS:In the center of the dome, in a square, is a 2 km x 2 km main area for buildings: apartments, government offices, businesses, shops, schools, churches, and hospitals.

Outside the central square is the second area that consists of four semi-circles (west, south, east, north) which extend to the edge of the dome and provide the city with four 'quadrants'. They are West: the largest park known as Half-Moon Park; South: The School Grounds for school activities and sports; East: the Arts Quadrant for theater, film, night clubs, local music, sculpture gardens etc.; North: the Sports Quadrant for adult playing fields and sports competitions.

The main roads are the Perimeter Road which is close to and parallels much of the circumference of the dome's edge, the East-West and North-South Highways that cut throughthe buildings in the center of the town, and the Sky Road which goes north-south/east-west 40 meters above the city.


The city is pedestrian friendly so most people walk the short distances within the town. However, there are 300 self-guided buggies (SGBs) that can be summoned via wrist-phone ina matter of minutes. The speed limit for SGBs and bicycles is 15 km/h -- there is a governor on both that prevents them from going faster. Pedestrians always have the right of way.

You will find parks, general stores, cafes, pools and arcades throughout the city; for example, you will find all of these at the atrium center of each Apartment Group of four apartment complexes and also at the larger atriums at the center of four Apartment Groups known as Super-Groups.

In addition there are dedicated parks around City Hall, in the Arts Quadrant, and off from the Sky Road high up in the dome, in addition to the large 'wild & natural' Half-Moon Park at the back of the city.

Throughout the city in the parks and atriums you will find trees, Norfolk Island Pines, that do not grow higher than 3 meters. These have become a symbol for our friendly town -- the dome and the tree are on our city's crest and this symbol is worn by all police and City Officials along with the Latin "urbs in horto" or "city in a garden."

BEHIND THE CITY DOME ARE:== the factory dome for building Virtual-Skeleton-Officers (VSOs) and for growing carbon nanotube fibers== the ultrasonic aeroponic greenhouse where our food is grown== the soil greenhouse where sugar beets and sugar cane are grown for edible plastics== the Edible Processing Plant where we mold edible and biodegradable plastics and also make wine, beer, hard liquor, caffeine drinks and other foods== the supplemental solar photovoltaic panel array== the human waste and biodegradable plastic composting area== the blimp loading and unloading cargo area which is part of the roadless trucking network== the cemetery THE OCEAN-WATER BASIN COMPLEX CONTAINS:== the aquaculture area == the water desalination plant and fresh water holding tank== the 30 km X 3 km natural basin that holds ocean water INDUSTRY== We are the premier designer and manufacturer of Virtual-Skeleton-Officers (VSOs); we also manufacture carbon nanotubes using our own unique method of growing these== Our Institute For Urban Order designs comprehensive custom Smart City Intelligent Operation Systems for cities of various sizes and situations; our software and authorized hardware are used around the globe== We are a center for touchable, interactive holographic research -- with holographic officers being our main product, but also with a strong emphasis on the artistic capabilitiesALSO:== traffic from other cities via the Maglev virtual highway, workers to and from the factory, service trains, i.e., the food-bot-train from the greenhouses and the toilet-bot-train from the composting area, are funneled through a large underground area behind the main city dome which leads to a single entrance/exit at the west end that merges with the central East-West Road== under the city are massive carbon nanotube energy storage units that can retain electricity


for an unlimited amount of timeMORE FACTS:== Apartment and office spaces open directly to the outside as there are no windows in Greenland Cliffs -- they are not needed since the dome acts like one big window and inside the dome there is no wind or rain and the temperature is regulated.

== We monitor air quality continuously -- air from the dome is feed into the greenhouses where CO2 helps the plants grow and where in turn the plants produce oxygen that is then fed back into the dome.

== We use force-shields for privacy which can be turned on and off -- one prevents neighbors from looking into an apartment, another muffles sounds to avoid disturbing neighbors.

== Most household chores in apartments are performed by bots and automatic equipment such as food shopping and cooking plus vacuuming, floor cleaning and laundry.

== To prevent waste we make our own rigid, yet paper thin, edible plastic eating utensils. Spreading a special city syrup makes these soft if desired; citizens eat these for desert.

== The wrist-phone and GPS bracelet every citizen wears are continually charged by a "smart" wireless city-wide power transfer system.

== We do not use printed paper in our city. All such matter is available on your wrist-phone or your apartment Internet Assembly.

== During the six summer months, our 'day' is at night since this conserves energy in the veryhot summer. During the six winter months, our 'day' is in the daytime, since the solar days areshort and it is more energy efficient.

== We have a world class Virtual Skeleton and Holographic Police Force; if there is a problemyour wrist-phone will flash orange and sound a warning -- in which case you must stop where you are and remain until an officer arrives. They are usually on the scene in 60 seconds or less. Please obey all directives from these officers, they keep our city safe and running smoothly.

ABOUT THE SOLAR-LUNAR CALENDARIf you are still using the Gregorian 12 month calendar, you will need to convert your date to our Solar-Lunar 13 month calendar date using an app on your wrist-phone. See the City Directory for more about the Solar-Lunar Calendar.

SPECIAL NOTE TO VISITORS:While visiting our city, you must wear a city issued GPS ankle bracelet and also a standard city wrist-phone, both of which will be given to you at the Customs Entrance Desk. Both of these are waterproof so you can wear them in the shower or in a pool. When you leave, you must surrender these.

It is against the law to litter, spit, or to be publicly intoxicated (.15% blood level).

Visitors upon entering the city must surrender any paper products from elsewhere along with candy wrappers and snacks in wrappers -- as these are not compatible with our recycling system. In case of disposal, our system is designed to flag an incorrectly discarded paper or wrapper and the person responsible will be fined.


In addition you must not discard any products brought from the outside as these are not compatible with our recycling system. Please take anything you bring with you back when youleave.

Condoms, not made in Greenland Cliffs, cannot be used. You may obtain city standard condoms from the Health Department or from any of the authorized cafes in the city at no charge.

You may only have sex in an apartment room or hotel room. Sex in any other room or outside any room is considered public and is prohibited.

Upon your arrival you must submit to a medical test for STDs at the customs office. Your test should not take more than ten minutes and will be administered by a nurse-bot. You may not engage in any sexual activity if you are not found to be disease free. Failure to take the test will result in a severe penalty as will attempting to have sex if your are not disease free -- afterwhich you will be permanently banished from the city.

If your are cited for any violations, you will be fined, and you will not be allowed to leave the city until you have paid your fine. A record of your violations will also be forwarded to your home city or government.


PART 4:THE CHIP


The Holographic Rock Opera

Lying next to Mariana, Pat felt timelessness creeping over him, like a curtain or night falling. With the woman he loved in his arms and the afterglow of sex, he had reached that plateau again where minutes stopped.

In a dreamlike state, he heard as much as thought: A woman is like a world -- when you are inside her, that is all there is, and you do not need anything or want anything else -- her body, her landscape, becomes your terrain.

Looking up he saw a fly buzzing around the tiled ceiling. "A fly! I thought we only had these in undomed cities, like Arctic."

Mariana laughed, "Oh we have a few, very few and they are considered good luck."

Pat put his hands behind his head and studied the fly as it rose and fell, moved left and right, dive bombed and then headed back to the ceiling.

"Descartes."

"What?" she asked.

"Descartes! That is what he saw when he had his sudden realization, that he could plot thecomplete movement of a fly on an x/y/z grid. And those coordinates could accurately describewhere the fly had been. Or at least that's how the story goes."

"So...?"

"It's us, only now we are on a grid such as Descartes never could have imagined. Our GPS bracelets, computer memory, lines on a monitor, latitude, longitude, photography pixels, our electricity grid, our city...It's how the city keeps SGBs from bumping into pedestrians. It's how it is organized, how it keeps order."

"I love our city"

"And so do I, but these ideas and technologies have a way of reaching beyond -- to placesthey should not go."

"Such as?"

And then he backed off -- the idea of the Comprehensive Monitoring Chip was classified. He had to keep his doubts to himself: That it was one thing to understand and describe how things worked with the aid of a grid, that it was another thing to monitor and control people with that grid. And if that grid were extended to be inside a person's body...

"Just a thought," he said, "I wonder a lot about how the world is put together."

Mariana jumped up suddenly, "Prometheus!"

"I thought we were talking about Descartes."

"I forgot, my friend Jason is having a concert tonight, Saturday night. It's a number of shortpieces including a scene from his original rock opera, Prometheus Unchained."


"Oh, that Greek thing," Pat thought.

"Yes, that Greek thing," Mariana replied as though reading his mind.

Mariana turned on the Internet Assembly while grabbing a dress. Pat saw her 'plug' the bottom hem into a wire.

"How do you like it," she asked as the dark fabric turned to an Earth-tone blue/green/rusty red peasant pattern.

"You would look good in anything."

"No, I mean the dress?"

"It's fine, it brings out the Louise Brooks -- you know that silent movie star -- look in your eyes."

"Well how about this one," she continued pushing the screen so that the dress now changed to a vibrant red/blue/yellow disco look.

"Whoa," exclaimed Pat, "How did you do that?"

"These are my fashions, I'll show you another time. But now I'll just have to go with this one for Jason's show."

Short for time, they called an SGB that met them outside their apartment.

"Tell me a bit about what we are going to see," Pat asked as the SGB guided itself along the city streets.

"Much of it is virtual. Many of the performers are famous actors from other cities who project their holographic images onto the stage. In a small town like this, we have a number ofthese in the same performance. The holography is perfect, but the actors are still learning how to act with each other when they are on the same stage but thousands of miles apart in different cities."

"And your friend Jason..."

"Well, he is author, director and the main live performer who holds it together."

"Why the Greeks?" he had to ask.

"Over the years, artists here settled on that theme as a way to express themselves withoutirritating government officials. We learned how to do this from different times in history such as the Russian writers under the Czar who produced some of the greatest novels and United States film directors in the mid-20th century who had to work under the censorship of the Hayes code. Yet in spite of that, most of the great Film Noir movies were made during that time -- so the point is a great art form can flourish even when the government is keeping a close eye on things."

"I'm impressed," Pat said with a smile, confirmed more than ever in his choice of Mariana, the prostitute.


But all at once, Mariana's demeanor changed. "What I just said to you..." Pat nodded in response. "You cannot repeat." Pat looked puzzled. "Since you are an outsider, I let my guarddown -- but you must never say what I said to anyone -- give me your word."

Pat could not help but be surprised. "Of course, I won't say anything -- and I know how to keep my mouth shut." Mariana relaxed a bit and soon regained her composure.

With that the SGB arrived at their destination. Pat and Mariana slid out and walked through a narrow gate that opened into a theater. The stage was inside a shell half dome that mimicked the curve of the large city dome above it. As Pat and Mariana took their seats, the lights dimmed and the theater went to complete darkness.

All at once with a flash so bright people had to cover their eyes and thunder so loud the stage shook, Zeus broke through the blackness like shredding a curtain. When he finally noticed the audience, he scowled, as if to say: I own this Earth, who are these puny beings? Why are they in my exalted presence?

He raised his arms and the audience laughed. Like magic the traditional Greek zig-zag lightning bolt appeared in his hand. Looking even more menacing, Zeus stared down the crowd whose continual laughter only made him angrier.

Leaning back, he released the bolt as though throwing a javelin. It flew to the rear of the theater right to the chair where Pat was sitting. Pat instinctively tried to grab it but his arms pierced the bright yellow light. Then without thinking he rolled onto the floor. Mariana laughed.Pat pulled himself up to his knees to see that everyone was laughing but in an accepting way -- apparently this was a gag the theater played on new comers. Pat brushed himself off, sat back in his chair and smiled -- all at once the audience clapped as this meant the show was off to a good start.

Back on stage a virtual Zeus was strutting up and down throwing more holographic thunderbolts at anyone who seemed to irritate him. The audience was goading him. He threw another bolt into the middle and a wild cheer rose up. When it subsided, Zeus began:

Zeus:

Just kidding.

He looked around some more.

Prometheus is about to come on stageI've decided to let him have his momentThere is very little he can do for those puny creatures called human beingsThey have already determined their own destinybut I'll humor him for a while.

At this point he winked at the audience as though taking them into his confidence, like friends to whom he was confiding.

He almost whispered.


He thinks that he can still make a differenceprevent humans from this deluge of their own making

Then loudly.

Well, lets not spoil his fun.So ladies and gentlemenI offer you todaythe rock star for the agesPrometheus Unchained


Jason Achilles' Script

From Jason Achilles' Script: A Scene From Prometheus Unchained

Zeus gestures with his lightning bolt. There is another huge crash, brilliant light and then the auditorium and the stage go into total darkness. The curtain rises. Still dark, a loud scream is heard. Lights fade in as dim spotlights focus on Prometheus who is chained to his rock, hands and feet, in the center of the stage. The vulture is pecking at his liver. At either side of him is a guitarist and behind him a keyboard player and a drummer. Lights grow a bit brighter so that the musicians can be made out on the stage as well.

They are all dressed like heavy metal stars.

A slow, mournful, lyrical ballad begins:

Prometheus sings:

My name is PrometheusAnd I've a lot to sayTo you two legged creaturesThat rule the planet todayI was there at the beginningI made you from clay

During this song lights grow brighter. Hercules walks on stage from the side opposite Zeus. He goes to the rock and pulls at a chain. Using all his strength he breaks one of the chains that was hammered into the stone. The vulture then goes to the opposite side and triesto pull the other chain off. Hercules, who is the only one who has the strength to do this, grabsthe chain from the vulture and snaps it so it shatters into pieces. Then Hercules breaks both of the chains that are connected to the feet of Prometheus.

The music rises as Prometheus lifts himself from the rock. The music is loud, clashing, dissonant heavy metal, but no so loud that the words cannot be clearly understood. Prometheus walks to center stage where he stands with the chains still hanging from his armsand feet. The vulture is now next to him like a friendly sidekick, dancing.

Prometheus begins to dance, then prances and gestures as he sings. The chains swing about wildly as he moves. He smiles, is full of energy; all the somber mood of the beginning isgone.

Prometheus:

He looks at the crowd.

My name is Prometheus

Slight response from the crowd.


Audio plays the noise of a rock concert crowd responding plus people planted in the audience scream and yell in response.

How are you doing?

Louder response from the crowd

Are you doing okay?

Louder response from the crowd.

I've a lot to sayTo you two legged creaturesThat rule the planet today

Very loud response from the crowd.

I was there at the beginningI made you from clay

Loudest response from the crowd. Crowd goes wild.

My children how you've grownwith your rockets and your carsI know you have dreamsI've seen them in your eyesto populate the planets to reach for the stars But can't you seecan't you seethat you can't keep on a goingthis a wayThe Earth has limitsthere's only so much to go aroundYou need to start thinking about where the edges areabout boundaries and boardersabout water, Earth and skyScience has changed your lifebut not your natureNow you rule the planetyou must rule yourselves as wellThe Earth is yours,manage it with tendernessAnd once you dothe planets and the starswill belong to you...


Zeus suddenly throws another thunderbolt and a huge crash and brilliant flashing light interrupt Prometheus who stops singing and falls silent.

The audience screams and yells in a frenzy of heavy metal euphoria.

Zeus:

Enough of this nonsense.

Prometheus:

Singing softly.

My name is PrometheusAnd I've a lot to say...

Zeus:

Be quiet. Or I will chain you to that rock and this time I won't release you even after a thousand thousand years. I said you could do a little rah-rah-rah, but telling them that not only the Earth but the planets and the stars belong to them...That is too much. They do not. They belong to me and frankly their presence on this Earth has been long enough.

Prometheus:

Singing softly.

To you two legged creaturesThat rule the planet todayI was there at the beginningI made you from clay

Zeus:

I warned you. Hercules, place him back on the rock. Use all your strength so that no one else can free him


Hercules grabs Prometheus dragging him to the rock, where he pounds the chains back into the stone with nails. Then the vulture stops dancing and begins to torment Prometheus by pecking at his liver.

Zeus:

He looks out at the audience and scowls. The music gets louder. The audience screams indelight.

You will not survive. You are doomed. In a thousand years you will be extinct. And the Earth will be better for it.

The audience yells with joy, not hearing or listening to what Zeus has said.

The stage goes to darkness but not so dim that the audience cannot see the curtain falling. Slowly from the darkness comes the mournful ballad that began the act.

Prometheus sings:

My name is PrometheusAnd I've a lot to sayTo you two legged creaturesThat rule the planet todayI was there at the beginningI made you from clay

Lights fade to total darkness.


Spending The Night At Half-Moon Park

With the chords, verses and holography still echoing, Pat did not want to go straight back to Mariana's apartment. Instead, even though it was late, he asked her if they could go to Half-Moon Park, the place he had been most anxious to explore.

Just like his love for old movies, Mariana's heart leapt, and she too felt she had at last found the right man -- for this is what she had wanted.

They grabbed a vator to the Sky Road and then walked the full distance above the city, savoring the clear stars above the dome, the crescent moon, the blackness of the night sky. At the west end, they descended at the vator-station which put them directly at the entrance to Half-Moon Park.

The city had gone all out to splurge on these 160 old fashioned acres, to recreate a world that none of them would ever see.

Outside the dome was endless sand and dust -- which fortunately did not kick up often, although there were occasional dust storms. Trees, bushes, leaves, grass, streams, falls, marshes were only seen in movies and in the current popular nostalgic art -- and seen here inthis park where the former Earth's landscape had been recreated.

Walking in, Pat unthinkingly took Mariana's hand. They were like two children, both afraid and excited to enter the forest. Down dirt paths, over rocks, across bridges, they were soon inthe middle, where the dome almost seemed like a memory. Pat noticed a silver reflection and followed it. "We call it the 'old swimming hole'," Mariana said. And there it was, a stream that turned into a lake with overhanging willow trees.

The sat down on the grass and said nothing for half an hour. They could hear water splashing as it fell down rocks. For Pat it was a foreign sound.

"You probably wonder why I became a prostitute," Mariana said, breaking the silence. Pat looked at her as if to say, "only tell me what you want, I don't care about the rest."

"My parents turned me over to the care of the city when I was three. I am what is known here as a city brat. They would visit me on weekends, but then eventually that faded. Later they left the city and I never heard from them again. But don't feel too sorry. The city took good care of me and I learned to mix with just about anyone in the town. When I grew older, I got a college education and then a Masters Degree in Psychology. But when it came to marrying or earning a living, I was not sure. So I became a prostitute which gave me the money and the freedom I wanted, plus after what my parents had done, I did not want to be tied down to anyone. As you know, being a prostitute now does not have quite the same stigma it used to have, but there is still a line, an unspoken barrier, even though many have been known to marry and a few married quite well."

Pat looked at her quietly listening. When she stopped there was a long pause. They both looked at the reflection of the trees and rocks in the water along with part of a strut that supported the dome. Pat cleared his throat.


"Well, your story in a way, is better than mine -- even though my parents stayed together and raised me."

Mariana cocked her head.

"Almost as early as I can remember my parents fought, often very loudly. I learned to hide in my room, play computer games, find things I was interested in and read everything about them. I got very good at surfing the Internet, connecting one fact with another, following leads,looking up ideas -- anything to shut out that noise. When I was ten, they stopped fighting, but it was because they avoided each other. And they were not home a lot so I was left by myself -- which was fine with me as I had, by that time, preferred to be alone.

"When I went to high school, my classmates whispered which I did not understand. Then I realized my Dad was in the red light district every night and my mother had taken a gigolo. Soon my classmates started making fun of me, so as always, I retreated into my virtual world.In college I spent time with the super-computer and felt more comfortable in its company that with kids my own age. And all this meant I was really good with information technology, but not with people. But it helped me get my PhD. in computer science, specifically chip design and a minor in digital communications. Yet because my parents had such a horrible relationship, I never wanted a real girlfriend. So I always bought sex -- it was easier that way."

When Pat was through, "It was like the old saying," he thought, a weight had fallen off of both them. Yet to him it was more than a metaphor, he actually felt as though a rock was liftedfrom his shoulders. He looked at her and she smiled, with that open smile that went straight inside; it was as though he could feel her look entering his body.

For once in his life, he moved effortlessly, unthinkingly, took Mariana in his arms and kissed her like a hero in an old movie. Their embrace lasted for minutes it seemed -- and when they came up for air, they were panting. Feeling her moist breath on his face, he gently put his hand under her long black hair and around to the back of her neck. "I never thought I would fall," he said almost shaking, "but here I am and here you are -- and nothing else matters." And at that moment he really did feel he was falling into the darkness of her eyes, into the dark mascara she wore on her lids and eye lashes.

Mariana looked calmly at him, absorbing his look. Then slowly she got up and pulled him up as well. "Over here," she said. "Lets swim." They stripped down to their underwear and slidinto flowing water next to the stream. She guided him over alongside the bank, where they could stand on a flat rock. She took off the rest of her clothes and pulled off Pat's underpants.

"Just don't move your ankle with the bracelet," she warned.

"Because?"

"They can tell, take my word for it. Just take your time."

She lifted up her left leg and leaned against the bank. Pat slid inside of her. Going slow was not a problem. He would like it to last for hours. In the water, they were light and buoyant,moving together as though being connected was their natural state. He looked up and was sure he saw a slight breeze blowing though the leaves in the tree above him. After timeless minutes he heard her gasping, muffling her joy. Looking at the top of the dome, he felt as


much as heard the sound of water falling, like Mariana's body wrapping around him. And then time stopped -- and his body let go, flying into her.

Back on the bank, he was surprised to find she had brought towels. They dried off and fell asleep in each other's arms -- until they heard children on a nature walk in the morning. "Quick," she said. "We have to leave." Pat grabbed the blanket and they followed a path awayfrom the approaching childish laughter.


Freddy Warns Mariana

That evening Mariana went for a walk over to the Arts Quadrant, where she found Jason at his usual spot, hanging out at a cafe talking with students about drama, holography, music, script writing, the skill of virtual performances.

Jason and Mariana were both city brats and had known each other when the city took careof them. "City brats are different," they often said to each other in private, "We are as close assisters and brothers in a real family, maybe closer." Not needing to say anything, she sat down as Jason and those around him continued their youthful, passionate discussion of art and meaning. Just then Freddy, another city brat, showed up. Jason and Mariana acknowledged him with a nod. Freddy sat down, ordered a neo-coffee from a bot, then later added a seaweed cake.

After he was done eating, he turned to Mariana, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" She nodded. "In private?"

She looked puzzled but said, "Okay."

They got up and walked into one of the various small parks in the Arts Quadrant. They sat down on a bench that was away from people.

Freddy began, "Look, I think it's great you have a real beau. But be a bit careful. My board lit up last night at the IOC and I had to override it. I could tell you were trying to be careful but it was pretty clear what was going on. If anyone else was on duty, I am not sure what would have happened." Mariana, who rarely blushed, turned a slight shade of red. "And it does not really matter as long as I am on duty, but you do need to know when that is: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday from 20 hour to 6 hour."

"Well thanks Freddy. We city brats have to stick together," Mariana replied.

"Yes, it's one of those unwritten rules -- like not busting people who are too drunk in the Arts Quadrant if they are behaving or never bothering a City Official with small infractions lessthan 3 points."

"Yes, exactly, there are a lot of those -- which no one ever really talks about -- which is probably just as well -- we're better off leaving it unwritten."

"Tell you what, Mariana, if my schedule changes I will let you know, so you can enjoy being with your new beau and not have to worry. But always be aware, just like you were last night. I could tell your were trying not to move your ankles."

"Thanks, Freddy, you're a pal -- I'll make sure to return the favor some time."

"This is a first for you, isn't it. I mean your beau?"

Mariana blushed even more than before. "Yes, it is. And I think it's the real thing."


Brochure For Mariana's Fashions

MARIANA'S ILLUMINATED NANO FASHIONSLocated here in Greenland Cliffs but known worldwide

Mariana's Fashions offers unique LED carbon nanotube (CNT) custom made dresses whose look can be changed at will. Mariana has uploaded over a thousand digital patterns to choose from along with the ability to apply your own unique settings. She is adding new patterns every week.

Go to Mariana's Website to see the fashions available.

Offering a full set of blouses, skirts, dresses, sweaters, and more -- each item is custom cut to your exact dimensions. You simply submit a 3D picture of yourself according to our instructions and we do the rest.

Online you can 'window shop' by selecting one item or an entire outfit and then virtually trying out a number of patterns along with your own custom settings.

The Back Story or How Mariana's Fashions Began

At Greenland Cliffs, a self-sustaining and mostly self-sufficient city, there were a limited number of clothes to chose from. Citizens were encouraged to buy fewer clothes to avoid waste and recycling problems. At the same time, Greenland Cliffs had developed its own unique method for growing carbon nanotubes. Mariana realized that if she could program a cloth made from CNTs to create a changeable appearance, women would only need a few skirts, dresses and blouses in their wardrobe.

After several years of research, she devised a method that combined the soft feel of fabricwith embedded semi-conductors and nano LEDs. This allowed her to program and change the pattern on a dress, for example, while still wearing the same outfit. The LEDs are so small, smaller than the width of fine thread on traditional clothing, that these fashions look likecloth.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Won't The Dress Look Garish With All Those Lights?

Some people have suggested that the look of LEDs will be too brash. While a bright look is available, most women wear the dresses in the 'subdued' mode, so unless you look closely it is indistinguishable from old fashioned cloth.

Knowing that she wants her clothing to have an individual look for each person, Mariana includes a full set of custom settings for each pattern. Some people, for example, wear an outfit in subdued mode at work and then make it brighter if they go in the evening.

How Do I Get The Patterns And Keep The Dressed Charged Up?

Once you purchase a dress, the 1000+ designs can be downloaded off the Internet and then tweaked with software. The CNT design also stores electricity when the first pattern is


installed on the clothing; this initial charge should last 24 hours and can, of course, be recharged as needed. Mariana's fashions can also be continuously charged via the "smart" wireless city-wide power transfer system that is available in many urban areas around the world.

What Custom Settings Are Available?

Most people have used a photographic editor to change the appearance of a photo. Similar settings also work with Mariana's Fashions: light/dark, contrast, saturation, red/green/blue color balance are some of the basic settings that can be customized..

GLOBAL ORDERING:

Since each item of clothing is made to your unique dimensions, you must pay a non-refundable deposit for us to cut a dress for you. If you do not like the item when you receive your shipment, we will require no further payment. However, after a trial period of three days ifwe have not received the full payment, your outfit will not be able to access our patterns.

Our clothing is shipped out weekly via the blimp roadless trucking network. Delivery can take up to two weeks depending on where you live.


Accident On The Maglev V-Highway

"There's been a terrible accident on the Maglev V-highway," Pat heard as his wrist-phone lit up and the captain of the IOC blurted with a panic Pat never expected to hear.

"I'm listening."

"The power got scrambled to the virtual rail system and the capsule literally fell out of the sky. The parachute did deploy and the travelers were strapped in, but now we've got a crippled passenger car on the bottom of the Atlantic and we've lost communication. And you're the most knowledgeable person when it comes to troubleshooting this sort of stuff."

"Okay," Pat replied, "So you want me to see if I can reestablish communication?"

"Yes, right now. Can you be outside your apartment immediately."

Pat could not help thinking. "Do I want to get on a blimp and go down 4 km to the Atlantic seafloor? Are you kidding? Of course I do, I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Yes, I will be right there," he replied with a false reluctance in his voice -- thinking maybe this would win him brownie points if needed in the future.

Pat grabbed a coat from his Arctic City days and rushed out to stand at the back of the apartment complex. Just then the emergency self-guided buggy, with lights strobing, almost screeched to a halt. He got in and the SGB took off, its the ear splitting siren clearing the way."So much for the 15 km speed limit," he thought as the vehicle flew out the back of the dome, churning up red dust behind him until he reached the blimp cargo area and climbed in the cabin.

Like a balloon drifting up into the sky, the blimp rose quickly about 1/2 km above the domecomplex. Pat could see all of Greenland Cliffs, Greenland, Iceland and the ocean floor with one sweep of his eyes. It reminded him of the first time he had seen the city, himself arriving on the Maglev V-highway, not knowing what to expect.

Once over the ocean floor, the airship lowered itself down, floating about 1 km above the odd geography. For almost an hour the blimp scanned the seafloor until the unusual bright orange parachute of the capsule was spotted along with a faint blinking light. The blimp flew down and then hovered above the crippled craft. The parachute at the rear was hopelessly tangled on rocky spires that jutted up.

In the few seconds he had to look, Pat's eyes filled with the fantastic landscape of the rift-valley: the volcanoes, water in pools left from the ocean and high spires like alien skyscrapersthat rose a kilometer. Far away he could see red glowing in the distance as lava poured out along the mid-ocean ridge.

Turning to the task at hand, Pat went through the standard check list of trying to connect: first to the black box, then the manifest chip, then the engine chip -- but nothing worked. Fromhis student days he remembered that this older version capsule had a backup voice-communication console. Tweaking his receiver that was not designed for this, he was able to


hear some static. He hoped it was coming from the capsule. "Can you hear me! Are you okay!Is anyone there?!" he yelled through his microphone.

Barely audible, a voice came back. "Yes, very faint, but we can hear you. And we are okay,just shaken."

Pat straightened up and took command. "On the right of your dash is a yellow button that says Parachute and next to that is a lever. Push the button, hold it down, and then pull the lever. That will free the parachute."

"I'm not sure I can reach it, but I will try."

After several minutes the blimp crew saw the ropes from the parachute release and revealtwo solid square fastenings at the back of the capsule.

Pat, turned to the crew. "Lower your grappling hooks until you have completely interlockedwith that fastener at the back. Then very slowly pull. This should free the capsule. Next attach a second hook to the other fastener just for safety. Then we can take the capsule back to the city."

Remarkably everything went smoothly. Pat shouted again over the 'radio', "We have got you free. Now we are going to lift the capsule and take you back to Greenland Cliffs. You will be pointed down the whole time, but if you are securely strapped in, you should be okay."

The passengers confirmed that they were still fully locked in their seatbelts -- and so the final part of the rescue began.

At the landing zone, the blimp lowered the capsule onto the back of a large truck in slow motion as a dozen workers steadied the descent. Then like coming back from a space trip, anarm from inside the capsule lifted the wing door up and a passenger stepped out onto the truck bed. Several workers climbed up and helped the other two passengers out.

No bones were broken, everyone was fine. Applause rose from those in the blimp cabin and those on the ground. Pat glowed.

"At last," he thought. He, the outsider, had been accepted -- at least almost -- as one of 'them', a native of Greenland Cliffs.


Day Out Of Time

Pat had only heard about the 'Day Out Of Time'. Like many of the small cities, Greenland Cliffs had adopted the 13 month Solar-Lunar Calendar of regular 28-day, 4-week months which added up to 364 days. This left one odd day at the end of the year known as the Day Out Of Time -- as it was not part of any month or week.

When that day came, Mariana did her best to tell him. "It's not a day for sharing. It is a dayfor introspection, for thinking about where you are on your life's path. Many remember the past, feel the present, wonder about the future. In some cities people think of this day as a conjunction of art, science and spirituality. At the end of the day it can feel like a cleansing -- for some even a day of forgiveness, both forgiving others and forgiving ourselves." With that she gave Pat a warm lingering kiss and then stepped out, leaving him alone.

In the silence of her leaving, the muffled noise of the city became clear. He sat on the porch where he could see others also alone on their porches or down by themselves in the courtyard. No one talked. The town was both quiet and full of activity, Pat decided. People went up to the Sky Road and just sat there. Others went to the rooftop gardens and sat alone looking down at the ocean's floor.

"This day is both a day in our lives, but not part of a month or a day of the week," Pat thought. He could not deny that this simple change in the calendar had a startling effect; he could feel a chill go down his spine.

He left the apartment and began to walk, with no particular destination in mind. He found himself at Half-Moon Park by the swimming hole and then on the Sky Road, passing the hundreds of people sitting on the side. Without thinking he ended up at Sky High Park where he could see his apartment, the building where he worked, the geography of the ocean's bottom and perhaps Mariana sitting at a cafe -- as he was too far away to tell. From this view point he imagined that he could almost see Arctic City in the far distance.

And in the quiet, a flood of childhood memories filled him, like an empty vessel waiting for wine. He could see his mother in the morning, light hitting her hair, his father in the evening playing a computer game with him. He even remembered an affectionate kiss between the two of them, perhaps the last such kiss they shared, thinking that he was not looking. For some reason the yelling, the slammed doors, the broken dishes, the black eyes were not replayed and he was glad of that.

He thought of his work with The Chip and his afternoons with Mariana and wondered if they would be together in a year or ten. He decided that on life's path he was somewhere on an imaginary direct non-stop V-highway between his two cities, now closer to Greenland Cliffsthan the town where he was born. His thoughts seemed to penetrate the dome, allowing him to move freely above the seafloor.

Gently, not suddenly, he was brought back to his surroundings when people began to rise from their perches on the Sky Road. Silently they mostly went in the direction of the Arts Quadrant where whispered conversations began. Not really knowing what was expected, he followed. At the Arts Quadrant he sat at a cafe where he had never been before and drank


neo-coffee and ate a croissant. Surrounded by hundreds of people, the hushed tone was like a cloak that covered everyone.

For the first time, he felt complete, by himself. Not that he did not need Mariana, but that when he saw her he would have more to give. His thoughts flew off again taking him outside the dome, until he felt a soft touch on his arm. Mariana was sitting next to him.

"How long have you been there," he asked like waking from a dream.

"Ten minutes," she said and pressed her fingers between his on the table.


20 Years Later

Twenty years later Pat was not sure how he had done it. He had parlayed a month stay into three months, then six, then a year, and then a temporary position with a two year contract and finally a permanent position at Greenland Cliffs running the Chip Development Section of the Institute For Urban Order.

And these years had been all that he had ever wanted. He felt like a barefoot boy in summer as he had seen in old movies. With the dome always warm, he had explored every rock and hill and climbed a few trees in Half-Moon Park.

Other times he jogged along the Perimeter Road, drank neo-coffee at the Sky High Cafe just outside his office on the 10th story near City Hall. When the mood hit them or a favorite old movie was scheduled or Jason had a premier, he and Mariana went to the theaters or hung out at the night clubs, getting to know the musicians, the actors, the painters, the sculptors, the poets, the directors, the writers.

Yet most remarkable was that without any spoken agreement he and Mariana had been faithful to each other -- especially surprising given their history and also that fidelity one way or the other did not matter to the city or most citizens.

And, of course, there was the hang gliding.

After a year of lessons and signing away any responsibility to the city for an accident, he was air borne. Trying it first off a small ledge, he soon graduated to the sheer drop in front of the city that went down four kilometers to the bottom of what had been the Atlantic Ocean.

Mariana was worried but he was not concerned about accidents. There were emergency pull ropes in case of an unintended dive. Every glider had an ultra-light engine that could be started in case of an emergency and on auto-pilot the GPS could guide the craft back to the landing area. Oddly hang gliding here was known to be quite safe as there had only been oneserious accident in the last fifty years.

The first time he let go and fell down the canyon walls, it was like actually tasting freedom.His body, his tongue, his eyes and ears felt the wind, the rush of letting go, the smell of the outside air that had the pungent odor of a distant volcano plume along with a slight sulfur taste in his mouth and the bottom of the Atlantic rising up. And just as he had learned, he pulled the glider out of the dive, caught a thermal rising from the ocean floor and soon was soaring well above the height of the city dome off in the distance.

High up he could see Iceland hundreds of kilometers away and in the other direction the full line of cliffs on the edge of Greenland where mammoth glaciers had once covered the land before global warming had melted them. Sometimes he went even higher and could make out other domed towns with capsules speeding to and from them along the Maglev V-highways. He often lingered in the twilight as he saw the lights coming on, lights that stretched as far north as he could see -- other small cities of the North Atlantic that held humans resurrected from the fate of the ocean's fall.


On some afternoons he felt like a bird in one of Jason's plays; he had gone from mortal to demi-godlike during those hours in the air. He know about the hero: a human with special powers who was an intermediary between people and the Gods -- often at odds with the Gods -- yet just as often justifying the Gods to humans.

Yet he also knew enough about Greek mythology to know that he wanted to be careful, like Daedalus. His famous son Icarus had not known where to draw the line. He flew too closeto the sun so his wax wings melted when the two of them escaped from Crete, from the tower where they had been imprisoned. And so Icarus had crashed and died. He, Pat, would be wiser, more in control. He would be like James Joyce who also had imagined himself as Daedalus; he would be "a winged form flying above the waves ... a hawk-like man flying sunward above the sea, a prophecy of the end he had been born to serve.”


LIVE! HOLOGRAPHIC SCULPTURE

LIVE! HOLOGRAPHIC SCULPTUREPart Of Our Summer With The ArtsWho: Julius Westhaven What: Live creation of touchable, interactive holographic sculptureWhere: The west end of the sculpture gardenWhen: The Third Week of the Month of Sol, from Sunday (15th) - Saturday (21st), from 12 hour to 16 hour except Saturday when the time will be 18 hour to midnight

Our own Julius Westhaven will be creating a new spontaneous state-of-the-art interactive holographic sculpture in the sculpture garden.

Come watch him as he carves his new masterpiece out of thin air. He will be using virtual brushes, sanders, polishers, paint -- you name it -- since some of his devices don't have names yet.

He will sometimes even use the movement of his entire body or parts of his body to createforms. He will be wearing a special carbon nanotube outfit with a myriad of GPS signaling devices which can be read by our own mini-GPS system. Plus he can program his suit to work with his particular sculpture.

As you may know, Julius is renowned worldwide for his inventive creations. This sculpture,for example, will also be projected live in the sculpture gardens of a number of other cities, including West Iceland, our sister city, and Arctic City where our Federation is based.

Julius will be using our own cutting edge Computer Graphics Holography (CGH) which has been developed here at Greenland Cliffs. His actions will be photographed from a number of angles and then converted to holographic projections.

In this work, the sculpture in progress will displayed in real time next to the artist. After a work session children and others can run up to the work, touch it, and even put their hands in its light.

When the light portion of the sculpture is finished, the holography will be made interactive so everyone can feel the surfaces, crawl through holes, and some portions of the work will even emit sounds depending on where and how they are touched.

The touchable, sound & music and interactive aspects of the sculpture will only be available on the last day, Saturday, when the sculpture is complete.

NOTE TO TECHIES: Julius will be using Greenland Cliffs' unique Sculpture Positioning System (SPS) and associated graphics software that creates different effects with his movements depending on the settings. His carbon nanotube clothing and tools will be programed to send thousands of positioning signals which will then be read by a series of synchronized receivers and cameras above, below and around him. The SPS is accurate to 1millimeter. Once these signals have been processed, they will be sent to our supercomputers


that will convert them into a holographic projection using computer graphics holography (CGH) -- so that the sculpture Julius creates will appear under his hands in real time.


BLIMP FIELD TRIPS

Get Out Of The Dome For An Evening

This summer we will have regular field trips to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and to our sister city, West Iceland.

In the summer blimps leave in darkness at 14 hour and return in the light at 23 hour.

Space is limited.

You must be in front of city hall one hour before departure where you will be transported tothe blimp cargo area by bot-train.

Sister City: West Iceland -- Saturdays

The most popular trip is to our sister domed city in Iceland which is organized in the same manner as Greenland Cliffs and with whom we have a reciprocal agreement for easy arrival and departure. Your wrist-phone, GPS bracelet and Citizen Card can all be read properly when you are on a visit. They also follow the same recycling regimen, so our rules apply.

Men and women looking for a partner may want to try their luck in West Iceland -- as the two-city arrangement also allows relationships between citizens of both towns.

The Atlantic Seafloor -- Sundays

See spectacular scenery never seen until the oceans left. Canyons, high towers, volcanoes, sweeping plains are all part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge 4 km down from Greenland Cliffs. You may even catch a glimpse of roaming nomadic peoples who have been able to make a living there. We will be passing over some of the primitive towns that have become established around the thermal vents and pools of water. For health reasons we will not be landing, but instead viewing the scenery in comfort from the blimp's cabin.

Go to keyword: BlimpTrip for more info.


Roger Thornhill Is Banished

The unending days of perfect weather, the gentle lapping sounds of Half-Moon Park, the camaraderie with Mariana's artsy friends, steady progress on the health aspects of The Chip and Mariana's love had lulled Pat into a tranquil outlook. So he was not ready for what appeared to happen so suddenly, even though it had been building for months.

One of his closest colleagues, Roger Thornhill, had a drinking problem. The city had cited him several times for public drunkenness and he had been on probation twice which included mandatory counseling. While on probation bars and cafes were not allowed to serve him liquor or marijuana. At the same time all his friends, especially Pat, let him cry on their shoulders.

Nevertheless, when he had finished his last treatment and could legally drink again, he went on a bender. Taking a SGB home he avoided being picked up for public drunkenness but in his apartment on the top story of his complex, he managed to start a fire, the first major blaze in the city in ten years. The police estimated that if the central apartment crane had not put the fire out in a matter of minutes, it could have destroyed other apartments and the flames might have reached high enough to damage one of the supporting struts of the Sky Road.

In any case, everyone had been evacuated from the apartment complex until the situation was under control.

Within minutes of the fire being put out, VS-police arrived and Roger was tested for his alcohol blood level which was .25. He was then escorted by flesh&blood police to a City Hall holding cell. Flesh&blood police also scoured his apartment to find the cause of the fire, whichRoger insisted was due to a malfunctioning kitchen-bot, although nothing had lit up to indicatethis at the monitoring panels at the IOC. The police, however, did find a thick lens from a magnifying glass in a charred area of the porch where the fire had started. They concluded that he had tried to focus the overhead sun's rays through this magnifying glass onto a plasticdish -- which had burst into flame and started the fire. Video from the crane, confirmed that Roger had been out on the porch when the fire started and was holding something in his hands. Flames then appeared close to where he was sitting.

Using computer simulations, investigators worked all night and determined that when the fire started, the sun was near the top of the dome and shining directly onto Thornhill's porch. At that angle the photochromic light sensitive tinting in the dome was less effective and would have allowed relatively bright light from the sun to be focused by a lens. Investigators also knew that Thornhill liked to tinker with scientific notions -- he had done this as a boy and as a teen.

By 6 hour, the city concluded that Roger had deliberating been playing with fire -- and thuswas guilty of arson.

The next morning when City Hall opened, the hammer came down. This being Thornhill's third offense, he was to be considered for banishment. In three days, there would be a vote.


The first time banishment was on the table, all citizens were required to vote. Citizens had 24 hours to make a decision and not voting meant 2 points was added to their Citizen Card. Until they voted, the yes/no ballot came up every time they used their wrist-phone or turned on their apartment Internet assembly. Once an hour their wrist-phone buzzed with an announcement until they had made their choice.

The problem was that everyone knew Roger; he was a descendent of one of the founding families. Smart, with a PhD., he seemed a bit distant yet friendly and easy going. He was a fixture in the town, often seen at the cafes, clubs and theaters as he was divorced and never found a new partner. He had even been in charge of the Spring Equal Night celebration for the last ten years.

His mother, paternal grandmother and grandfather, his ex-wife and only son, made a personal video appeal which was linked to the banishment ballot. They pleaded that he be given one more chance, that Roger and his father had always had a troubled relationship but that the family would do everything it could to make sure that he stopped drinking, that he got himself under control and that he and his father went into therapy together.

However, his father, in a written statement also linked to the ballot, said that, "Roger never was any good. I told him early on he would never amount to anything. I don't think he has learned much in the last 30 years. Getting drunk and setting that fire was the kind of behavior I learned to expect from him. The city would be better off without him."

When the votes were tallied, things did not go well. People were now afraid of him. The vote was lopsided.

The cities in the North Atlantic Federation of Small Cities had a way of dealing with such offenses: Roger would be taken to an unknown location where he would spend the rest of his life. No one would be able or allowed to communicate with him.

Immediately after the votes were counted, Roger was given a hour to say goodbye to his family and then loaded into a Maglev capsule with a flesh&blood officer and whisked away. Allpublic records of his life at Greenland Cliffs were erased -- even the records of his birth and how he was related to others. His belongings and holdings were taken over by the city.

After 48 hours, his name was never to be mentioned again. He was no longer and, as far as the city was concerned, had never been. It was like a bad dream.

Pat did not vote, as he had not been granted citizenship. But because he was not accustomed to the rules, he broke a few. Three days after Roger's departure, he tried to discuss the proceedings with a colleague. The acquaintance had looked at him strangely when Roger's name came up and put his finger to his lips. Pat then realized he had crossed aline and apologized.

Back in his apartment he was still shaken by the banishment. Yet even Mariana would not say Roger's name or discuss what had happened in the privacy of their room.


Pat Reflects

After Roger Thornhill was banished, the city seemed to breath a collective sigh of relief.

Ten days after he was gone, the rooftop gardens buzzed with music, laughter and dancingon the weekend. Pat, himself, had to admit that he was a bit glad that he no longer had to deal with Roger. And a month later, Thornhill was all but forgotten, like a nightmare that was no longer real -- just as the city had intended.

And soon Pat fell back into his normal routine of work and desire, love and play, feeling more at home in Greenland Cliffs than the place where he was born.

Yet Pat knew that this last, almost perfect 20 years, might have a price. But how much of aprice or whether there even was a price, he did not know.

He had shelved his misgivings about the Comprehensive Monitoring Chip (CMC) and plowed ahead with its development. There were so many aspects, so many pitfalls, the number of transistors was approaching a size so large, a zettabyte, even supercomputers often got lost in its architecture. What he hoped was that a truly comprehensive chip could notbe designed. He, in fact, had opted for one that was used for health reasons primarily. And the research team and the home office had seemed to agree -- as the health aspect of the chip would be the big selling point to the citizens who first allowed it to be implanted in their bodies.

His prototype design took vital signs that could be read easily by nurse-bots and even police. Pulse, temperature, heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, basic blood and urine testing all could be incorporated into a chip that worked quite well -- so well he received citation after citation from his company and congratulations from his team of workers. Yet even as he worked toward perfecting a chip that could flag the first signs of a stroke or a clogged artery, he knew that those above him wanted more.

In addition Mariana had also become interested. She went back to school to get a Ph.D. inmicrobiology and then another doctoral degree in computer science. Even so Pat could not and was not allowed to tell her the full nature of The Chip -- that it might be expanded to monitor people's emotions and beyond that even their thoughts.

The development of the chip had been implemented on a need to know basis. So only Patand those over him in Arctic City and his immediate supervisors at Greenland Cliffs had a complete sense of the projected design. Different members of his team worked on different aspects, which in turn were headed by several people who put those areas together -- such as heart activity and blood circulation.

When Mariana finished her second degree, she applied to the Institute For Urban Order towork with The Chip development team. Normally spouses were not allowed to work together, but since she and Pat were not legally married and primarily because she now knew more than anyone except Pat, she was allowed to work on a section -- although their collaboration was closely monitored -- a fact that did not escape either of them.


After they began working together, Mariana noticed a slight change in Pat's demeanor. Nothing she could really put her finger on. He had become obsessed with the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, but his focus was not so much about flying but rather about the Labyrinth that Daedalus had designed for King Minos.

"This may be the quintessential Greek myth. It has everything. In the end Daedalus almostgets trapped inside his own Labyrinth and cannot find his way out -- yet he is also trapped by his knowledge because King Minos imprisons him in a tower so that his knowledge of the Labyrinth can't be shared. Each time, it looks like he is going to escape his fate, and each time, his fate closes further in on him. When he cleverly designs a set of wings to fly out from Crete, his young son is killed."

"And the lesson is?" Mariana asked not sure where Pat was going.

"That the things you make have consequences, ones that you may not like. Yet at the same time Daedalus was the master craftsman, some say the inventor of carpentry, and another said 'All the works of this artist...have a touch of the divine in them.' "

"And the lesson is?" Mariana repeated.

"You may not know the worth of what you have done, good or bad, or the consequences inthe long term. It is part of the human condition and it has not changed since the Greeks."

Mariana decided Pat was speaking in riddles.


College Lecture

Introductory Lecture Political Science 210: Freedom and Order in Modern CitiesProfessor William Shagain Room 431, College Tower, Greenland Cliffs

Welcome students. My name is Professor William Shagain.

The title of this course is: Freedom and Order in Modern Cities

And that is a good summation of what we will be studying. We will ask important questionssuch as what is freedom? Should freedom be curtailed to ensure order? Should order be reined in to promote freedom? How do we balance individual freedoms with freedom for the society as a whole?

For this semester we will study how our modern cities have evolved with an emphasis, of course, on Greenland Cliffs. We will look back at other times, other cultures, such as Athens, Rome, Constantinople plus major cities of the late ocean era including the cities of the United States of the 20th and 21st Century as well as Mexico City, Cairo, Beijing and London.

Order and freedom are inextricably linked. Too much of one and it affects the other. In Greenland Cliffs we like to think of ourselves as the new Athens, the rebirth of civilization. But,even though Athens can be rightly thought of as the birthplace of democracy, remember that Athens put Socrates to death. And out of a total population of perhaps 300,000 only about 30,000 male citizens had the right to vote or about 10% of the city residents.

Now lets fast forward to the United States of the 20th and 21st centuries. While boasting that it had the freest society in the world, in fact, that freedom was only available to white heterosexual males for a good deal of its history. In the first half of the 20th century, for example, women had few educational opportunities and there were few jobs -- mostly in teaching, nursing and office work. It was assumed that the vast majority of women would fall into line: that is become wives and mothers and be totally dependent on their husbands who they were supposed to obey. In a word, women, who had only gotten the vote 30 years earlier, were not really free.

People of color, such as African-Americans, lived in segregated neighborhoods and were not allowed in white establishments. It was so bad that African-American soldiers in the US armed forces were not treated as well as German prisoners of war in World War 2. And homosexuality was a crime.

So much for the great bastion of democracy.

Now lets go forward a bit in time to the beginning of the 21st century in the United States. While many of the injustices of the mid-century had been corrected, there were other major problems that affected the society as a whole. In a number of neighborhoods such as in Los Angeles and Chicago, children could not play in front of their homes or walk down the street.


Guns and gangs had taken over. Children and other innocent people were being killed by drive-by shootings. The freedom to own guns had infringed on the freedoms of everyone else.Over 12,000 people were murdered every year with guns along with another 50,000 gun related injuries in the United States.

The United States was also a society where sexual diseases were rampant. Rather than requiring each sexually active citizen be tested regularly as we do here at Greenland Cliffs, it was left up to each individual. This meant that 20 million new cases of STDs were reported each year -- affecting each person's long term health and also their ability to have children. Sothis is another example of how individual freedom can curtail the quality of life for many others.

During this same period over 850,000 marijuana arrests per year were taking place in the United States, most for minor possession. This lead to an overload on the prison system which incarcerated 60,000 inmates per year for marijuana related crimes. A harmless activity that could have brought in revenue in the form of taxes on legal marijuana had become a criminal one that clogged the justice system and took resources away from more serious problems.

And in an area, seemingly unrelated to freedom and order -- the United States allowed automobiles to dominate its growth. Because citizens loved the freedom that autos gave them, urban planners began to design for cars instead of for people. As a result pedestrians were often alien creatures on main highways and getting around by foot was difficult. Yet the consequences were even more serious: exhaust pollution and greenhouse emissions threatened the general health; citizens and government had to pay for expensive roads, cars, gas, repairs, insurance and accidents. And at the same time the population was becoming obese since they were spending 2 hours a day in traffic jams and not getting any exercise.

During this period, the developed consumer societies permitted virtually uncontrolled free speech and free enterprise, which meant that a citizen was subjected to at least 10 million advertisements during a lifetime. The cumulative effect of all these messages was intense pressure to consume and to buy. This consumption drumbeat caused serious damage to the environment and created societies where many felt discontented even alienated -- as the effect of so many ads was to create a sense of dissatisfaction with one's life.

Now lets fast forward to today and look at the lessons learned and how they were applied to the founding of Greenland Cliffs.

When Greenland Cliffs was envisioned, the idea was to allow as much freedom as possible without those freedoms causing rifts in the order of society.

The city was founded with a number of advantages: we had the experience of past societies to draw on, we had the most advanced technologies that could be designed, and westarted fresh.

After the fall of the oceans, we were able to start from scratch. For example, all of the people who founded the city wanted to be here and were grateful to find a place where they could be safe and live in peace. And to be fair, we are a small city so that we don't have the problems that a big city would have. Plus because we started from the ground up, we did not have to make do with the city as it had evolved such as New York.


Some of our rules might seem a bit trivial such as getting a point on your Citizen Card for littering -- but we have found that if citizens don't respect the place where they live, it leads to other things. Plus littering has a negative effect on others. We have also found that if we can catch small things early, it keeps them from becoming bigger later.

One of the technological keys to keeping order and freedom in balance, is the GPS bracelet that all of you wear -- and that I and every citizen wears. Because the city knows where all its citizens are at all times, it can respond quickly in case of a problem. This also means that it can be low key and stay in the background. You rarely see police on the street in our city.

As a result we have the lowest crime rate ever recorded in a town of this size. You can be relaxed at any time day or night and assume you will be safe. In case of an emergency, publicsafety officials can locate you in minutes via your GPS. Sexually active people can be sure that they will not contract a disease. And we rarely have traffic jams or accidents while at the same time our people get plenty of exercise walking to work.

To keep order, the basic premise of the city is simple: Have reasonable rules, clear punishments and swift justice. These three legs of a tripod provide a solid basis for freedom and order.

In short we have devised a system so that people have the freedom of feeling safe, the freedom to express themselves, the freedom of knowing they will be taken care of and the freedom of not contracting a disease.

And the cost: Making sure that you don't accumulate too many points on your Citizen Card. This is a small price to pay for the benefits received.


Word From On High

On Monday morning the president of IUO called Pat into her office. While not unusual, it was unexpected. The Chip team had a busy week ahead of them.

Pat walked down the long hallway into the president's office. The president always sat withthe light behind her that put her in silhouette and made her hard to see and to read her expressions. Pat was never sure why the president did this, perhaps it was to keep people from seeing her wrinkles. She was after all around 100 years old -- yet that was not unusual inGreenland Cliffs.

"Pat," the president began, "You have done very good work here and you know we all respect both your leadership as team director and your computer and design expertise."

"Oh, no," thought Pat. "This is going to be bad."

"But we're hearing rumblings from the corporate office in Arctic City who think you are dragging your feet on certain aspects of The Chip. They are sending a VP who will be here tomorrow to consult with you."

Pat felt himself sinking in his chair, wishing he could make himself smaller or fly out the window and above the dome.

"Now, I am not sure if this is a big problem or a small one but you need to fix this, immediately. We cannot have VPs sniffing around here. And more importantly this is how we make our money. We export virtual holographic and skeleton police, as you know, but in addition a large part of our business is built around monitoring and keeping track. And we sell these systems all over the world. Without them the city would have no income coming in."

Pat sat up, "I understand. When the VP shows up, I will make it clear that we are not dragging our feet, but rather trying to resolve the many problems involved in both monitoring the brain correctly so that we get accurate information and then interpreting that information through The Chip so that it is useful for police and other officials."

The president sat back in her chair and exhaled, "Thank you for that. I was starting to worry. But you have reassured me that we are on the right track. But please, I don't want to have to call you in my office again over this matter. Get it resolved quickly."

"Will do," said Pat. The president stood up and shook Pat's hand.

When Pat left the president's office, he wanted to run, to flee, to fly. It was as if the president had scrambled his brain. He made it back to work, finished the day, then went for a long walk on the Perimeter Road circling the city twice. Sometimes walking would untangle his thoughts, make things clearer, bring things into perspective, highlight the important parts and shade the rest.

But this night, it did not work. Instead all he could think about was Daedalus and Icarus -- like they are calling to him.

In good conscience he could not build a chip that would spy on people's moods and thoughts. He was like Daedalus lost in his own Labyrinth, trapped because of what he knew.


And even more, what would the effect be on a society or a civilization. Creative thinking, which often showed in the brain as radical thought, was not just a nicety or a luxury or frivolous -- it was fundamental, it was how the human race had survived.

"I need to throw a monkey-wrench into the machinery," he thought thinking of an old movieand then wondering what would happen to him hundred years in the future if a policeman could read his thoughts and hear what he just said.

Back at the apartment he grabbed his hang gliding gear, gave Mariana a long kiss and then arrived at the cliff -- where he had first seen the hang gliders like flocks of birds and when he knew that somehow he would have to find a way to live at Greenland Cliffs. Perhaps flying, soaring would clear his thoughts.

Strapping himself in, he methodically ran through the check list as required by the city -- with the hang gliding supervisor next to him ticking off each item as Pat called it out.

Then like walking into another world Pat was air borne again, down toward the seafloor and up above the city. For the moment it was all his -- like Zeus, he felt he owned it; it was histown, his air, his Earth, his life.

After flying for an hour, it was as though he heard a gong.

High above the oceans floor, he went into a dive. It was four kilometers down. He thought about Mariana, about their times at Half-Moon Park, about old movies, about the oceans, about being a boy and walking in bare feet, about living so that your life had meaning rather than watching the clock tick, about Mariana, about Daedalus and Icarus and his beautiful city of Greenland Cliffs.

As the seafloor speed toward him, he felt a calm that reached into every cell of his body. The Atlantic rose up like a tidal wave breaking over him and carrying him out to sea. He felt like a child rushing into his mother's arms; he longed for it, he was ready for its embrace.


Funeral

When Pat's hang glider crashed, it broke the wrist-phone and tore the GPS bracelet. Because the grey wings blended with the ocean bottom, it took two days to find him. Eventually his location was pinpointed and a blimp descended with grappling hooks to hoist his body.

A day later the city held a three star funeral, the kind reserved for people of high rank.

His plastic coffin was carried slowly along the Sky Road as a bell rang from City Hall tower. The ceremony was carried live on citizens' wrist-phones and computer screens.

Somber music played until the coffin reached City Hall tower. Then in a deep slow voice, the announcer spoke, "Pat, as we all called him -- that is Pat Joyner -- was a visitor who grew to become an important part of the Greenland Cliffs family. The team he headed at the Institute will miss him, his friends in the arts community will miss him, his girl friend of many years will miss him, we will all miss him."

At the end of his journey along the Sky Road, his coffin was lowered to ground level and placed on a funeral-bot that transported his remains to the cemetery behind the dome. Because of the high temperatures people never came to the burial site.

Bots placed his biodegradable coffin into a grave chamber where it was designed to rapidly compost.


Mariana Takes Over

Being a former prostitute had its advantages. She knew how to fake it. She could read people. She could tell them what they wanted to hear.

She would have to strike a balance between being a bit distant while also being in mourning. She would claim to not know much about the reason for The Chip. She would say that she had not talked with Pat other than about her particular limited area. She liked Pat, of course, but as a prostitute she had few options -- and when he wanted to be with her, she was flattered and frankly ready for a change in her life. And no they had never married.

Over the next days, at the Institute For Urban Order, she often felt like she was in an old fashioned police squad room, spending hours answering questions from one official and then another. A high ranking corporate type even came from Arctic City. Yet after a week, she was sure she had pulled it off; she thought they were satisfied.

That was until the president of the Institute called her into her office. Dressed in her best, Mariana showed up half an hour early. She was ushered down a long hallway and then to a desk, where she could barely see the president because she was positioned against the outside light which put her in silhouette.

Not letting on, the president asked, "How have you liked your work here with The Chip?"

"It is the most exciting work I have ever done. It uses all of my skills and my education."

There was a long pause.

"After much review, we would like to offer you the job of team leader, the job that your partner, Pat, had. You are by far the most qualified, knowing both microbiology and computers-- in fact we are quite pleased to have a person of such knowledge who is a city citizen."

Mariana gasped.

"Are you interested?" she pressed.

"Yes, of course, but there is so much to learn. It is a huge project. I only understand my own small aspect."

"Don't worry we will give you time. Up to a year. Longer if you need it."

Knowing that Mariana really could not turn this offer down, she looked up and smiled, "Well, then of course, yes, it is the opportunity of a life time."

The president stood up and came from behind the desk. In the light now Mariana could see her rugged wrinkled face. She must be a hundred or more, Mariana thought.

She shook Mariana's hand and guided her out. And that was that.

The next day, after Mariana had received all the necessary clearances, she was given the full picture.

Pat had only hinted at The Chip's true nature. Now she was let into the inner-sanctum. Medical signs were to be monitored and accessible to the health department and also the


police -- that much she had surmised. But also brain activity and moods were to be monitoredand finally thoughts themselves. Thoughts could be parsed by artificial intelligence which combined with brain activity could signal a variety of psychological 'states' such as anger, aggression, violent thoughts, lack of empathy, hatred and rebellion.

Back at their apartment, it hit her. What Pat had tried to tell her. The Labyrinth, The Chip, almost getting lost, fate, escape, consequences.

Stunned, she could not move and lay on her bed without turning on the lights, without eating, in silence.


Note From Pat

When outside the light began to fade and the sun went down, the weekend at Greenland Cliffs began. At last she stood up yet moved almost mechanically, robotically. She noticed thatPat's clothes were still on a chair, clothes that she had not wanted to touch. Maybe now, she thought, she could deal with them. But when she picked them up, she felt an unusual crinkle in one of his pockets.

What she pulled out was something she had never seen except in old movies. It was a piece of writing paper with penciled words. She knew, without him saying, that he had written to her this way so that this message could not be monitored by the city -- since it was not electronic.

Struggling with the lettering -- she had never seen handwriting or penciled marks before -- it took her quite a while to read as the letters were odd and uneven. But it was close enough to a quirky computer font that eventually she was able to make it out.

My sadness is not for myself but for you. I am sorry to leave you alone. But I would have been forced to leave Greenland Cliffs because I had questions about The Chip, and our life together in Arctic City would not have been pretty. I won't say I don't want you to be sad or to not miss me, but my death is a good death. It's not how long you live, but what you do with your time -- my years with you in this beautiful town were all I asked.

I am proud I stood my ground about The Chip. If it works as the corporation wants, with the ability to read a person's moods and thoughts, people will be afraid. They will reject odd ideas that come out of nowhere. Creativity, which is how humans have survived, how we created the dome and the grid and the urban order in the first place, will not survive. And without creativity we will not last as a species, because we will be unable to adapt to new situations.

She knew she could not save this message as much as she wanted to. For an hour she read it over and over until she had memorized it. She would have liked to carry it with her for the rest of her life. But that was not possible, eventually it would be found. She could not get rid of it along with biodegradable items -- since all trash was automatically scanned and a piece of odd writing paper would almost certainly draw attention.

So she did what anyone raised in Greenland Cliffs would do. She chopped it up into small,then smaller pieces, added some neo-cream and sugar and ate it.

Angry at first that Pat had both left her and without knowing it, dumped his problem into her lap -- she sat on the porch where she and Pat had had their first sexual encounter. Looking through the dome and into the sky, she realized that from the moment she had met Pat this was her fate. After many hours, she decided she could accept it -- because in a senseshe had no choice.


While Pat's problems with The Chip were almost philosophical, hers were more concrete. It was the duty of her generation to protect the generations that followed -- and The Chip would give these children no place to hide, especially if The Chip were planted early in a child's body.

She believed she could make a labyrinth that even a supercomputer could not untangle. She would mask the tells that happened when creative thought was occurring. She would filter the information that went to the people monitoring The Chip. Those who wanted to censor human thought would receive only censored information. The Chip was so big, a zettabyte, it would be easy to hide an algorithm here and an algorithm there.

She knew she could even filter negative thoughts, so the city would never hear them. Yet ifcertain destructive emotions reached a breaking intensity, such as a desire to murder, she would allow those to pass through. At best such a chip as the Institute wanted would take another 20 years -- and in that time she believed she could create one that was so clever no one would suspect that its information was truncated.

At last feeling began to return. The numbness that had enclosed her was fading. She put on her dungarees and walked to the Arts Quadrant. There Jason was holding court at his usual table in front of a night club, surrounded by young people eager to learn the Greenland Cliffs style of Earth-wide holographic musical drama.

She sat down next to him and ordered a drink. Without pausing, Jason put his reassuring hand on hers and continued.

He was going into detail about his work, his inspiration, his ideas, mythology. After speaking non-stop for twenty minutes, he looked to Mariana and said, "To sum it up, in my work, it often comes down to that Greek thing. Wouldn't you agree Mariana?"

She smiled, not expecting that question. Yet it was the perfect end to this wrenching day.

"Yes," she said as she touched Jason's hand, "it often comes down to that Greek thing."


PART 5: FROM THE CITY DIRECTORY

Description of City Services,Operations, Rules & Regulations


CITIZENSHIP REQUIREMENTS

Being a citizen of Greenland Cliffs is a privilege. We believe we live in the best community of the post-ocean era. As long as all of us abide by the following simple rules, the town will run smoothly with few disruptions to the city's operations and to your own quality of life.

#1. Citizen Card: Each citizen is given a Citizen Card at birth. The master copy of the virtual card is stored at the City Center and lists: Your name, date of birth, parents, personal history, etc. The Citizen Card is provided to insure your wellbeing. For example, it contains your medical history and in the event of an emergency allows the medical team to provide the mosteffective treatment based on your personal needs.

Money is deposited to this card when citizens earn income plus the card stores school records, courses, proficiency scores along with penalties, points and fines that have been or are in effect. Fines are automatically taken from the balance on your Citizen Card when instructed by a City Official.

#2. Wrist-Phone: Each citizen must wear a city-issued fully integrated carbon nanotube wrist-phone at all times. This state-of-the-art phone is supplied free by the city.

Weighing only 2 grams, the wrist-phone is like the old-fashioned wrist watch you may have seen in movies. When tapped or given a voice command. it will unfold in less than a second to a small rigid touchscreen with full interactive video-conferencing and Internet capabilities; give it another tap or voice command and it will further unfold to a larger rigid screen. Our phone has this folding and unfolding capability because it uses our state-of-the-art carbon nanotube (CNT) display. In the smallest 'wrist watch' configuration, the phone is fully functional for all calls and simple transactions such as paying the tab at a restaurant.

The wrist-phone is fully integrated with voice recognition and over time learns to hear and translate your individual voice to text commands with 99.9% accuracy.

The wrist-phone can also send commands to your apartment kitchen-bot to schedule hot foodand to change your apartment furniture settings before you come home. It can also summon a self-guided buggy and even give the buggy the location of where you want to go. It can summon a food-bot at a restaurant and give it an order. It is like the ultimate remote control device.

In case of an emergency, you can call police, fire or medical services using the 'speed dial' button on the wrist-phone.

The wrist-phone carries the full record of a person's Citizen Card.

It is used for display of all material formerly printed on paper such as city ordinances, restaurant menus, receipts, brochures etc. All financial transactions are done through the wrist-phone. All statements/accounts are available on the wrist-phone. There is no 'cash' or paper at Greenland Cliffs.


In the event of a problem, a City Official may speak to you directly on your wrist-phone as wellas receive video&audio of you and your surroundings as seen from your wrist-phone.

All data in the wrist-phone is also saved and synced to your own Internet Assembly at your apartment and further backed up by the City Cloud Service(CCS).

#3. GPS Bracelet: All citizens must wear a GPS ankle bracelet at all times. This bracelet allows City Officials to insure your health and safety. Keeping track of our citizenry allows for the smooth flow of traffic, quick response in case of an emergency and rapid recovery of children who wander off. The GPS bracelet also allows you quick entry into your apartment without a key and many other conveniences such as renting a SGB which takes virtually no time since it can read your bracelet and automatically charge your account.

#4. City Authority: When contacted by a City Official (CO), a citizen must comply. It does notmatter if the CO is a flesh&blood official or a Virtual Holographic Officer or a Virtual-Skeleton-Officer or if the CO is contacting you via wrist-phone. Resistance will not be tolerated. If a citizen feels they have been mistreated, they can file a form at the City Center.

NOTE: Both the wrist-phone and the GPS bracelet contain a carbon nanotube paper battery which is continually charged by the "smart" wireless city-wide power transfer system that is safe for citizen use. As a result these devices require no maintenance, never need to be takenoff and should be worn at all times.


APARTMENT INSTRUCTIONS

BASIC INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION FOR GREENLAND CLIFFS APARTMENTS

Welcome to your Greenland Cliffs apartment where we are sure you will feel right at home.

YOUR LOCATION

Apartment buildings are constructed along the edge of one side of a block. Four apartment buildings with a shared courtyard in the middle makes an Apartment Complex. Four complexes in a square configuration makes an Apartment Group. In the middle of the group isan atrium with a restaurant, cafe, a park, an arcade and shops. Four complexes in a square configuration makes a Super-Group. In the middle of the Super-Group is a large atrium with multi-level restaurants, a swimming pool, cafes, nightclubs, parks, arcades, movie theaters, auditoriums, mazes, art galleries and shops.

You should know: your apartment number, your building number, your Complex name and your Apartment Group and Super-Group name -- if you forget any of these, they will be listed on your Citizen Card.

YOUR APARTMENT

To get into your apartment take the courtyard exterior elevator, the vator-lift, that will take you to the door on your porch. No need to tell it where to go, it will know from your GPS bracelet. The entry door on the porch will also open automatically once it identifies you as the occupantfrom your bracelet.

Each 2-apartment (for 2 people or 2 people and 1 child) is 10 meters by 10 meters which includes the space on the porch. Space is limited here at Greenland Cliffs, but as a result we have designed your apartment so that it is can be turned into different rooms -- rooms that can be changed at the push of a button either in the apartment or on your wrist-phone before you get home.

There are a few one person apartments which are about half the size of a 2-apartment and which cost more on a per person basis.

DESIGNING YOUR MODULAR ROOMS

While most of our residents are familiar with the modular design of these apartments which can change in a minute from a living room to a bed room with flex-rigid inflatable furniture thatis stored in the walls and the ceilings, there are some things you may not know.

We encourage you to go to our model apartment and try out the various modules and customizing options -- so you can see for yourself before you make major changes in your own home. We think that you may discover a number of exciting new ways to create living areas. New furniture designs are coming into our showrooms on a regular basis so keep an eye out!


SAFETY

For your safety the hard wired Internet Assembly in your apartment wall and camera on a swivel base on your ceiling must be accessible at all times by the authorities. This will allow a fast response in case of an emergency. Please do not try to disconnect the Internet screen, camera or microphone in your apartment. Disconnection will be immediately noticed and you will be penalized.

Rest assured the assembly is never turned on by a City Official unless there is an urgent need.

MEDICAL SERVICES

Your home based Internet Assembly is also you home doctor. You can use the devices that are part of that assembly to regularly measure vital signs such as blood pressure, temperature, pulse, and basic blood testing after which you can consult with a Medical Official. See the Healthcare section for more detail.

THE CENTRAL CRANE

At the center of each Apartment Complex is a folded crane that when extended can reach intothe far wall of any apartment and also the roof and the grounds. This has multiple purposes: first, it is used to hoist furniture and large objects in and out of apartments through the open porch; second, it can act as a local fire department and quickly reach and put out most fires inan apartment -- if needed in addition to built-in sprinklers; third, it can be used to lift people out in case of an emergency such as a heart attack. It also provides flexible surveillance cameras which can be turned on in case of an emergency.

FIRE

All apartments are equipped with sprinklers and a complex of smoke detectors that are monitored by public safety officials at the City Center. In the event of a fire, collapsible ladderson the side of your balcony can be used for an exit and the central crane in the middle of eachApartment Complex will be instructed to spray a flame retardant agent into the affected apartment. Greenland Cliffs has not had a serious fire in the last 40 years and we want to keep it that way.

There will be regular fire drills and all citizens, no matter what time of day or night, are required to participate.

FOOD DELIVERY

Food is delivered by the food-bot-train twice a week. Fresh food from Greenland Cliffs' own aeroponic greenhouses will automatically be sent up to your apartment via dumb-waiter in theearly morning hours. Your kitchen-bot is programmed to accept the delivery and store the food.

Check your wrist-phone with your Apartment Complex number for the days of delivery. Most residents are satisfied with the standard food package which the kitchen-bot can use to make a variety of dishes. However, you can special order more or different items on the Food


Delivery wrist-phone menu. When the food is delivered, the trash will also be taken at the same time.

All plates, cups, eating utensils, are edible. Please eat these as a dessert. They have been designed to taste like a sweet cookie. Rare biodegradable trash goes in the shoot marked for that; the very rare non-biodegradable trash should be put in the trash shoot that is marked for non-biodegradable waste. Your kitchen-bot in coordination with the food-bot-train will recycle all containers that the food has been delivered in such as boxes and wine bottles.

Both the food-bot-train and your kitchen-bot are equipped with a cleaning algorithm to clean their equipment and food storage areas followed by a treatment of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) to kill all microorganisms and keep all food disease free.

If you prefer to eat out, you can reduce the amount of food coming to your apartment. In most cases, the cost of eating out will be only a little more than eating at home. The cost of food in either case will be subtracted from your Citizen Card. If you find that you are ordering too much food at your home and eating out more, you can reduce the food delivered to your home.

All food preparation can be handled by your kitchen-bot. However, if you wish to do your own cooking, use the directional microwave cooker and kitchen setup that is in the food cooking areas at the Group and Super-Group atriums -- see below.

CLEANING

Laundry is handled by the automatic laundry system. Simply drop your clothes into the shoot and they will be cleaned, dried and pressed within 4 hours. The clean clothes will be deliveredto the table next to the laundry shoot.

Each apartment is equipped with a floor cleaning bot, a vacuuming bot and a bathroom/sink-bot. When moving to a new apartment, we recommend that you watch each bot at the beginning to make sure it does not make a mistake or get confused -- such as vacuuming up one of your precious glass figurines. You can teach these bots what to avoid and what to not ignore and where to go around. These bots are designed to learn when instructed.

RULES AND REGULATIONSNo matches, lighters, or anything capable or producing an open flame is allowed in apartments or in the city of Greenland Cliffs except in certain government registered cafes. Possession of such items will result in a severe penalty which will be marked on your Citizen Card. Actually striking a match or flicking a lighter may result in probation, 100 hours of community service and a fine.

Nudity that is visible inside your apartment can result in penalties, so please use your privacy force-shield that blocks the view into your porch and into your apartment if you want to be undressed.

Loud noise can also result in penalties, so please use your sound muffling force-shield when playing music over 80 decibels which will be displayed on your music system. You can set thisautomatically so that when sound exceeds 80 dB the sound muffling shield will automatically come on.


Any trash thrown outside your apartment will be considered a violation and points will be deducted from your Citizen Card. Each subsequent infraction will result in increased points.

FORCE-SHIELDS

The two force-shields, one for privacy and one to muffle sound, can be activated on the console of your apartment or from your wrist-phone. When the privacy shield is on, the yellow light on the ceiling stays on. When the sound muffling shield is on, a blue light next to the privacy shield light will show.

RELAXATION

All apartment buildings have cafes on their roof tops; these cafes are entirely automated and served by cafe-bots.

Each Apartment Group shares a central atrium with a cafe, several restaurants, a night club, small park, pool, arcade, maze and general store.

Each Super-Group shares a much larger mall type multi-level atrium with cafes, restaurants, night clubs, parks, shops, a gym, large swimming pool, general store, arcade and mazes.

CHILD SERVICES

Parents who want to let their children play in the Apartment Complex courtyard can do so without having to worry. Simply read their GPS bracelets with the apartment reader, let your children go down the vator-lift and then turn on your tracking screen. This will provide a constant video of your child at play and in addition the system is designed to alert you with a buzzer if something out of the ordinary occurs.

There are also daycare facilities in every Apartment Complex if a parent needs this service.

QUESTIONS

If you have any further questions, visit the FAQ section of our website or video-conference theconcierge. See the contact information for your apartment building at the City Central website.


WORKING WITH YOUR APARTMENT KITCHEN-BOT

CUSTOMIZING YOUR PERSONAL KITCHEN-BOT

While all cooking in apartments is done by a kitchen-bot, did you know that you can adjust any menu item to suit your taste? The sophisticated software that is an integral part of your kitchen-bot allows you to add ingredients, reduce or increase ingredients already in the recipe, adjust the time or temperature for cooking, even change the point at which an ingredient is added or the way that it is added. Your unique settings can be saved with a name that you give it. You can even save a number of unique recipes based on the same dishor create as many recipes as you want from scratch.

And, of course, you can click on any of your saved recipes via your wrist-phone so that the food will be hot and ready when you get home to your abode.

HOW DOES THE FOOD-BOT-TRAIN SYSTEM WORK?

The food-bot-train delivers food twice a week. It unloads the food in the early morning hours via the dumb-waiter on the back side of the apartment building. Food is then sent up to your refrigerator and to your dry storage areas. Our intelligent system reads what is in your kitchensuch as the expiration dates and the food consumed after the last delivery. The system is thenprogrammed to remove things that are out of date, to adjust amounts delivered based on pastconsumption, and to respond to individual requests by an apartment dweller.

HANDLING MESSAGES FROM YOUR KITCHEN-BOT

If you find that some foods are going out of date before being eaten, you may get a message from your kitchen-bot suggesting that you alter your food order. Being a self-sustaining and self-sufficient city, it is important to avoid food waste. If you continue to waste food after a two week period, you will pay a surcharge on food that is going to waste.

TIP: Your kitchen-bot knows which items are about to expire and can suggest recipes that will make use of those foods.

COOKING YOUR OWN FOOD?

If you want to cook your own food by hand, you can go to the food cooking areas in the Groupand Super-Group atriums. There you will find directional open microwave stoves. You will need to sign up for a food locker and order food to be delivered to that locker by the food-bot-train.


DRUGS & ALCOHOL

Three drugs are legal in Greenland Cliffs: caffeine, alcohol and marijuana. All other drugs (except by prescription) are prohibited, including tobacco.

People who indulge in drugs may become intoxicated at a cafe or in their home, but any otherplace is considered public. You may, however, summon a self-guided buggy (SGB) to take you to your apartment without being considered 'public'. Intoxication in pubic is prohibited (see below).

CAFFEINEA variety of caffeine drinks are made here at Greenland Cliffs from the mate plant that we grow in our greenhouses. Hot drinks and cold drinks are at all cafes. Some are made with ourown unique recipe of spices. Our specialty is neo-coffee which taste like bean coffee from the old days.

ALCOHOLGreenland Cliffs brews a variety of beers and wines. Some distilled hard liquors are also available. These can be ordered from food-bots at all cafes and restaurants or they can be delivered to your home.

The legal alcohol blood level is .15. Citizens must submit to an on-street blood test by a City Official if asked.

MARIJUANAMarijuana comes in a number of strengths and is available in a variety of effects from calmingto exciting. Growth and sale is controlled and regulated by the city; no one may grow or sell marijuana other than an authorized dealer.

Marijuana cafes are in a number of locations throughout the city. Traditional smoking of marijuana is only allowed in these licensed cafes, as Greenland Cliffs does not permit an open flame anywhere else. However, marijuana can be consumed as a pill, in food or as a teaoutside the cafes.

Marijuana intoxication is prohibited in public. Maximum level of intoxication allowed is equivalent to the legal alcohol level of .15. Citizens must submit to an on-street blood test by a City Official if asked.

AGE LIMITSAt Greenland Cliffs we teach young people to use drugs responsibly.

Therefore, from the age of thirteen, they can buy 2 alcoholic drinks a week, drinks that are served 1/4 strength of adult drinks or smoke two small tokes of the mildest marijuana. They must have their parents' permission to use either drug. We have found that teaching youngsters to handle these drugs at an early age prevents problems of overindulgence when they become adults.

No child under the age of 13 is allowed to consume these drugs and an adult who gives an underage child a drug will be penalized.


INTOXICATION & PENALTIESPeople who are intoxicated by any legal drug in public will be tested for drug levels and confined to a cell in the City Hall until the effect of the drug has worn off. In addition their name(s) and details of their intoxication will be printed in the Daily Log of the City (The Log) and they will not be allowed to purchase alcohol or marijuana until their period of counseling is over (see next).

== 1st offense: 4 points on Citizen Card, 10 hours of community service, 1 month of weekly counseling, no consumption of intoxicating substances for 1 month== 2nd offense: 8 points on Citizen Card, 40 hours of community service, 3 months of weekly counseling, no consumption of intoxicating substances for 3 months== 3rd offense: 12 points on Citizen Card, 100 hours community service, 1 year of weekly counseling, no consumption of intoxicating substances for 1 year


RULES & REGULATIONS FOR SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND REPRODUCTION

The rules for sexual conduct are quite simple and common senseALLOWEDThere are a few restrictions on sexual activity between consenting adults (16 and older).

Heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual relationships as well as premarital sex, live-in partners, extra marital sex and open marriages are allowed.

However, there are the following prohibitions:

Any sexual practice that results in injury is strictly prohibited.

Coercion of any kind is prohibited. Paying money for sex is prohibited unless it is to a registered prostitute. Sex between a supervisor and a subordinate is prohibited as is sex between a teacher and a student.

Flaunting sexual activity is prohibited. Discretion is expected at all times. All sexual activities are to be done in the privacy of an apartment or a hotel room. When naked in an apartment, the privacy force-shield must be turned on (see the apartment instructions for more detail).

All sexually active people must use birth control. Condoms, birth control pills, morning after pills etc. are available free from the city. Citizens can call a central number to have a bot deliver them to their apartment at any time, day or night, or they can get these birth control items from the Health Department.

Sexual activity in an exclusive group (meaning no sexual activity outside the group) is permitted if each member registers with the city as a member of an exclusive group.

Public nudity is prohibited but the Bare Pool does allow people to swim and relax naked if so desired. This pool area is behind a privacy wall.

All sexually active people not in a committed exclusive partner relationship must be tested monthly for STDs (sexually transmitted diseases).

Sex education is a required for all children.

PROSTITUTIONProstitution is legal in Greenland Cliffs. Each prostitute must register with the city. There are no restrictions as to where a prostitute may live. You can find a listing of them by location, by services, by price etc. on your wrist-phone or by looking in the appropriate section in the city directory.

Each prostitute works for herself or himself. Brothels, pimps and madams who have been traditionally associated with prostitution are prohibited.

All prostitutes are checked twice a week for STDs. They are prohibited from offering their services if they have contracted one. Normally this is not a problem as they are removed fromall prostitute listings until they receive a clean bill of health from the Health Department.


NOT ALLOWEDThe public display of pornography is prohibited. Child pornography is strictly forbidden.

Sexual activity when a person is aware that they have an STD is strictly prohibited. After a person has been diagnosed with a STD, they may not indulge in sexual activity until judged tobe no longer capable of passing on an infection by a health official. This restriction or permission to continue sexual activity will appear on their Citizen Card.

For health reasons, sexual activity in a non-exclusive group is strictly prohibited. Persons whoengage in such activity will be prohibited from having sex with anyone for six months or face aterm of incarceration until the six months has elapsed.

Unplanned pregnancies are not allowed in Greenland Cliffs and will result in an abortion. See the rules for reproduction below.

CHILDREN AND UNDERAGED TEENSSex with children up to the age of 13 is strictly prohibited. Teens from the age of 13 through 15 are considered underaged teens and operate under the following rules. Sexual activity between an adult and an underaged teen is strictly prohibited. While not condoned, sexual activity between underaged teens is tolerated. Also while not condoned, sexual activity between an underaged teen and a teen just entering adulthood, when there is less than 1 year difference, is tolerated.

RULES FOR REPRODUCTIONNo woman is allowed to become pregnant without a permit. Permits can take two years or more before they are approved. In most cases, only one child will be allowed to 2 partners.

Parents who find that they are unable or unwilling to care for their children may transfer guardianship to the City of Greenland Cliffs Child Center. In this case the child will live at the Child Development Center (CDC). Parents must pay child support which will be automatically deducted from their Citizen Card. They may visit their children as long as there is a mutual agreement between the parents and the child.


TRAFFIC REGULATIONS

Greenland Cliffs is a small city by world standards. The dome has a diameter of 3 kilometers, a radius of 1 1/2 kilometers. A citizen can walk from one end to the other in a brief period of time. For this reason, the normal rules for a large city do not apply "under the dome" as we call it.

SPEED LIMIT: 15 km/hCity-wide the speed limit -- with few exceptions -- is 15 km/h.

All self-guided buggies (SGBs) have governors preventing them from going any faster.People may not go faster than this on the regular roads (see exceptions below).Bicycles are fitted with governors which prevent them from going faster (see exceptions below).Note: Tinkering with a governor will result in points taken off a person's Citizen Card.

By only permitting a slow maximum speed, the city has virtually eliminated traffic accidents. While this seems like a snail's pace to an outsider, a self-guided buggy at 15 km/h can go from one end of the city to the other in 12 minutes. It can circle the entire perimeter in about 30 minutes.

The slow speed and the fact that most people walk has a number of benefits. There is no traffic congestion in the city, there is no need for large parking areas, people get beneficial exercise walking to and from work and there is little noise from traffic. Plus it makes the city 'people friendly', rather than 'vehicle friendly'. It is one of the reasons that Greenland Cliffs hassuch a pleasing atmosphere.

In addition the city generates electricity from the 'smart pavement' on the main roads which produces a current when people walk on it

RIGHT OF WAYPedestrians have the right-of-way except when a virtual stop light is turned on. Otherwise SGBs, bicycles and skateboards must always yield to pedestrians.

VIRTUAL STOP LIGHTS AND ONE STOP SIGNWhen a citizen wants to turn across a lane of traffic, they must signal that they are turning by pressing the dedicated left-right turn signal button on their wrist-phone. This will trigger a virtual stop light to emerge in front of on-coming traffic. Because of GPS tracking and coordination this rarely results in more than a 15 second delay.

There is one permanent stop sign in the city which is for traffic that goes to and from the work area behind the dome and connects with Central North-South Road.

CITY MONITORING OF TRAFFICThe City Officials have a comprehensive traffic monitoring system. They can and will respond quickly if they see problems or potential problems.

RECREATIONAL ROADSSpeed limits do not apply to the following roads/times for joggers, bicycles and skateboards:


The Sky Road on weekends and everyday after 18 hour to midnightThe Perimeter Road on weekendsThe Skateboard Park in the sky (off the Sky Road) -- available any time

When citizens use these roads for recreation, it is understood that those who cause accidentswill not be allowed to return to these roads for recreational purposes. As always pedestrians have the right of way -- in case of an accident, it will be assumed that the fast moving person was at fault.SKATEBOARDSWhile skateboards are allowed, their use is restricted. Skateboarders must wear protective gear. Any accidents or injuries will result in the skateboard being confiscated. As always pedestrians have the right of way -- in case of an accident, it will be assumed the skateboard is at fault.

GPS FOR BICYCLES AND SKATEBOARDSAll bicycles and skateboards must be licensed. This license requires that each has a GPS devise attached to it. Persons who own bicycles and skateboards without these will be penalized.

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCESThe food-bot-train delivers food to apartments between 1 hour to 6 hour in the morning. Street-cleaner bots and the toilet-bot-train also operate from 1 hour to 6 hour in the morning. People who are on the streets during that time must give right-of-way to these bots.

SELF-GUIDED BUGGIES (SGBs)There are over 300 SGBs in Greenland Cliffs. You can summon one via your wrist-phone. Thenearest available SGB should be at your location in a matter of minutes and it will know whereto find you because of your GPS coordinates. When you get into a SGB, you simply need to speak the directions or press the map in the console or communicate your destination on yourwrist-phone and you will be driven there. Your Citizen Card will be automatically charged. When you get out of the SGB, it will automatically go to the nearest recharging station where it will park until called again for a ride.

ABOUT THE SKY ROAD (THE HIGHWAY IN THE SKY)The semi-transparent Sky Road is one of the unusual features of Greenland Cliffs. About 10 stories above the city, it stretches north-south and east-west from one end of the dome to the other. It is supported by arches that span the roofs of buildings along its route. The city has found that this road gives citizens a wide perspective of both the city and the landscape that the city is a part of.

How to Get On/Off the Sky Road

A series of central elevator stations (known as vator-stations) are located throughout the city. Please check your wrist-phone for locations. Some tall office buildings open directly onto the Sky Road such as City Hall and the Institute For Urban Order. There are also a number of individual vators, known as Sky-vators, located at the corner of each block under the Sky Road.


Also

The Sky High Park and the Sky High Cafe are located off and above the main central intersection of the Sky Road. Skateboard Park in the sky is located off the Sky Road also.


PARKS & RECREATION

PARKSAll parks are open 24 hours a day.NEIGHBORHOOD PARKSGreenland Cliffs, despite being small, has parks throughout the city.

Every Apartment Group has a park in its central atrium. Every Super-Group has several parksin its central atrium.

MAJOR PARKSCity Center ParkSurrounding City Hall, is the City Center Park which is actually four parks that circle the City Hall building. Here you will find the City Greenhouse with large 4-story trees and birds. These parks are formal.

Cliff ParkAt the front of the city, looking out over the ocean floor, is a major park that is next to the theater, movies and art gallery area. It is based on a Japanese design.

Half-Moon ParkAt the back of the city, on the west side, is our biggest park that covers the entire 'half-moon' area. This park is a bit 'wild & natural'; in it are streams, water falls, large rocks, hills, trees and bushes -- all those things that the Earth used to have before the oceans fell. The pond area is available for swimming just like an 'old swimming hole" as long as two or more people are there together.

Sky High ParkNear the top of the dome, is the Sky High Park which can only be reached from the Sky Road. This park gives a full view of the city and the surrounding landscape including the ocean floor, the cliffs of Greenland and even Iceland on a clear day. The entire city complex can be seen from this vantage point. The floor of this park area is semi-transparent, so the entire city can be seen below as well.

RECREATIONSports GreenThe half-moon area on the north side is reserved for sports.

There is a large arena for competitive games with surrounding playing fields. Football, soccer,lacrosse, field hockey, baseball, softball, basket ball, tennis and other sports can be played. The city's golf course is located at the north-west side of the sports green.

The central locker-house provides for changing clothes, bathrooms and showers. Joggers may run anytime around the perimeter of the Sports Green.

A large sports arena, The Cliff Colosseum, is located here for frequent games with competing cities.


ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

The east half-moon quadrant is the art area where theaters, art galleries, shops, night clubs and specialty restaurants are located. It is known as the Arts Quadrant.

RESTAURANTSThere are over 60 restaurants in the Arts Quadrant. Each restaurant specializes in a particularethnic food such as Chinese, Italian, Indian, French, Mexican, etc. Food is served by bots. However, at a higher price, food cooked by a flesh&blood chef is also available. All dishes aremade from food that comes from Greenland Cliffs greenhouses and processed foods. In mostcases a good approximation of these ethnic dishes can be achieved using our local foods.

NIGHT CLUBSThe Arts Quadrant has over 40 night clubs which have all caffeine-alcohol-marijuana (CAM) permits. Each club tends to specialize in one style of music. All have inside and outside tables.

VIRTUAL THEATER Greenland Cliffs has a state-of-the-art Virtual Theater with weekly performances of drama, popular and classical music, dance and acrobatics plus modern and old fashioned circuses. Our sophisticated system can show live holographic performers from anywhere on Earth; expect to see actors, musicians and animated characters in combination with live performers. Because our system is known throughout the Earth, we attract the best world-wide talent.

MUSIC PAVILIONThe Music Pavilion is an enclosed dome that is a place for local musicians to perform. There are featured performances on weekends, but during the week the Pavilion is open to any qualified musician on a first-come, first-serve basis. There is no closing time for these events. But because the muffling force-shield often cannot keep out a very loud concert, the audiencemay have to wear the provided earphones after midnight.

CLIFF PARKAt the front of the town, overlooking the ocean floor is Cliff Park. Expect to see spectacular sunsets and sunrises from this location. The view is especially striking when the light reaches down and illuminates the various geological structures at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

SCULPTURE GARDENSNext to Cliff Park is an area for the latest sculptures. Greenland Cliffs is known throughout theEarth as the home of some of the best contemporary work. Here is what you will find: moving and morphing sculptures, touchable interactive holographic sculptures, walk-through and climb-through sculptures, domicile sculptures, light sculptures and even new configurations for children's play areas designed by sculptors.

MOVIE THEATERSThere are 5 movies theaters which play a variety of films: from the latest 3D holographic immersive sound production, to movies made over 1000 years ago in black and white. Our Vintage Cinema Theater plays four different classic films every night which never repeat in a year's time. Film buffs will find quite a few unusual movies to their liking. Check your wrist-


phone for the schedule. You can even put in a request for a favorite golden-oldie.

SHOPS & OPEN SHOPPING MALLA variety of shops are located in the Open Shopping Mall. Primarily clothing and high-tech, there is also a hardware store, a drug store and a number of repair shops. At Greenland Cliffswe encourage people to repair as many items as possible rather than discarding and buying new.

GALLERY AREALocated next to the Open Shopping Mall are 10 different art galleries. Both hardcopy, soft digital and holographic art work is for sale. Many items can be displayed at your apartment directly from the gallery. Check your apartment's virtual wall instructions on your wrist-phone ifyou are not familiar with setting this up.


A&E FOR TEENS & YOUNG PEOPLE

TEENLANDTeens 13 and older will like the mall arcade section which contains the very latest computer games and contemp-tech devices.

Teenland also houses a cafe, restaurant and night club.

With their parent's permission, teens may order alcoholic drinks which are served 1/4 the strength of adult drinks with a strict 2 drink limit per week or they may have 2 small tokes of the mildest marijuana per week. Any abuse of this privelege will prevent a teen from being served further drugs and will be recorded on the juvenile area of the teen's Citizen Card.

CHILDREN'S SPOTOn the south-east corner of the Arts Quadrant is a special area for children between the ages of 6 and 12.

Parents may leave their children here and go to other sections in the Arts Quadrant. City Officials will look after their children plus parents will always have a full GPS readout and constant video of their children's activity.

WHAT YOU WILL FIND AT THE CHILDREN'S SPOTVIRTUAL GRAFFITI WALLOn the 2 meter X 20 meter virtual wall, children may paint anything they wish. Using special virtual and holographic brushes and paint pots, they are allowed to express themselves. At the end of a painting session, the art work can be saved and displayed at their apartment if they want -- with their parent's consent.

LATEST SCULPTUREGreenland Cliff's world famous sculptors regularly create works for children. After being testedby the city, they are available for children to crawl on, hang from, sit inside and so on. The sculptures are for children to have fun.

VIRTUAL HOLOGRAPHIC GREENLAND CLIFFS MINIATURE In one of our most popular attractions at the Children's Spot, a touchable holographic miniature of the city is projected onto a 20 meter diameter area. Children can walk through the virtual city like giants in an old fashioned monster movie and also light up various sectionsby pressing a button on the interactive map of the city. This helps children gain an overview ofwhere they live and also a familiarity with the town's main features such as City Hall and Half-Moon Park.

YOUNG PEOPLE'S ARCADEThe very latest in computer games and devices will be found at the arcade.

MAZESMazes are a specialty at Greenland Cliffs. There is one at each atrium and also several in the Arts Quadrant. Using our own unique touchable holography, we change designs often. While citizens of all ages will enjoy getting lost in a maze, children in particular enjoy these the most.


YOUNG PERSON'S CAFE & RESTAURANTJust for kids, children can order a variety of drinks, food, desserts up to the money amount per visit a parent allows.


GOVERNMENT

Greenland Cliffs was founded as a corporation. Each citizen can vote for the board of directors based on the corporate model: one share one vote. The board of directors is electedby the shareholders, who in turn elect the mayor and other officials.

No published, posted, blogged, etc. criticism of the government or questioning of its rules is allowed. It is important that each citizen respect the authority of the city and not question it inappropriately.

The appropriate place for concerns about the government is the quarterly Open Forum. If you have a concern you wish to air, please attend a quarterly Open Forum at City Hall on the first Wednesday of each quarter. Only people with less than 13 points on their Citizen Card will be allowed to speak.


HEALTHCARE

Healthcare is provided for all citizens from the time of birth. Premiums for this coverage are deducted from their Citizen Card.

MEDICAL SERVICESYour apartment based Internet Assembly is also you home doctor. You can use the devices that are part of that assembly to regularly measure blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, pulse, breathing plus basic blood and urine testing. The medical program will keep a record ofthese vital signs.

In case of a minor illness or injury -- a medical bot on the Internet will diagnose you, but if you need further assistance a full nurse or even doctor can help in video-conferencing mode. If you still need further help, a Virtual Nurse will be dispatched to your apartment.

Serious health problems will be treated by flesh&blood medical personnel at the Greenland Cliffs Hospital.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICESHealthcare coverage provides a wide range of counseling services that deal with: learning disabilities, drug addiction, personality disorders, domestic violence, committed partner counseling, post traumatic stress disorder, family issues and parent/child counseling.

All patients who have been diagnosed must follow the therapist's instructions. These patients must meet all appointments and take all prescribed medicines. Failure to do so will result in the person being quarantined and confined to the Better Mental Health Pavilion.

ASSISTED SUICIDEThe city healthcare system feels that assisted suicide should be considered as an option when a person is of advanced age (over 70) and has had two severe medical treatments or emergencies. Naturally this is up to the person and family involved, but our statistics show that when the above has occurred, the chances of living more than two more years are minimal while the cost of healthcare during those two years is often catastrophic. In addition the cost of treatment when it exceeds the insurance limit, will be deducted from the overall family medical account thus affecting the children of the affected person.

When a person decides to exercise this option, the city will provide and pay for a Type A funeral service and dedicate one day to that person's memory.

COLD, FLU OR OTHER CONTAGIOUS DISEASEPeople with a cold, flu or other contagious disease are quarantined and required to stay in their apartment. They will be paid for sick time. Violations start at 3 points per infraction on their Citizen Card. They may leave their apartment only after being cleared by a Virtual Nurse.


RELIGION / BELIEF SYSTEMS

People of all religions are free to practice their faith in Greenland Cliffs. The only restriction is when a rite or ritual or practice could do bodily harm or permanent injury -- in which case suchactivity is prohibited. Atheists, Agnostics, Wicca and other similar belief systems are equally free to believe as they wish.

People over the age of sixteen must be allowed to chose their religion freely and cannot be coerced by their parents.


CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Citizens enjoy wide ranging freedoms as long as they follow the rules of Greenland Cliffs. Citizen's who abuse these freedoms will be monitored by the city.

The following system has served the city well for the last 200 years when it was first put into place in its present form. As a result we have almost no crime and a safe city where people live in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

In the last year there were no murders, 7 violent crimes, 5 cases of child sexual abuse and 20property crime incidents making our total crime rate about 1/100 of a percent. Greenland Cliffs has not had a murder in 40 years.

The Citizen Card point system provides a simple way for citizens to know where they stand and also for City Officials to gauge present behavior in terms of a citizen's past behavior. Up to 3 points on the Citizen Card there is no fine, from 4 points on a fine is levied at .5% of their annual salary per point. This is deducted automatically from the balance on their Citizen Card.When a person accumulates 13 points or more on their Citizen Card, other sanctions take effect. Points expire after 1 year.

Greenland Cliffs is founded on the notion of the punishment fitting the crime. Repeat crimes and repeat offenders are dealt with much more severely than first time law breakers.

For example, a first time littering offense is 1 point off a Citizen Card; the second offense is 2 points, the third 4 points and so on. The same holds for nudity in an apartment without turningon the privacy force-shield.

While a complete listing of offenses and penalties is stated in the city's full directory, the following is an overview of the most common offenses.

== Skateboarding over 15 km/h in non-designated areas = 1 point / 1st offense== Playing music/sound too loud in an apartment without a muffler force-shield in effect = 1 point / 1st offense== Missing a monthly STD check for uncommitted sexually active citizens = 2 points / 1st offense plus the citizen must reschedule and meet a new appointment within a week== Public intoxication = 4 points / 1st offense plus public service work, counseling, and no consumption of intoxicating substances for 1 month== Stealing (minor) = 10 points / 1st offense plus public service work, counseling, and no consumption of intoxicating substances for 6 months== Vandalism (minor) = 10 points / 1st offense plus public service work, counseling, and no consumption of intoxicating substances for 6 months

Persons who accumulate more than 13 points on their Citizen Card, lose their right to privacy. Their apartment may be monitored at any time via the Internet Assembly and their wrist-phone communications may be monitored as well. Their associations with other people will betracked.


INCARCERATIONWhen a person accumulates more than 26 points, they are removed from the city dome and required to work in the human waste composting area for a term to be determined by a judge.During this time they may not go to the city or communicate with their families except for a few hours on weekends via their wrist-phone.

BANISHMENTRepeat offenders who have already been incarcerated twice or put on probation twice may beremoved and permanently banished from the city after a third major offense or after accumulating more than 26 points on their Citizen Card. A person with no criminal record but who is involved in a murder can be banished -- depending on the circumstances.

These offenders will be removed from the city and taken to an undisclosed location for the rest of their lives. After 48 hours their name is not to be mentioned even by family members. All record of their existence at Greenland Cliffs will be removed from public records and their belongings will be taken over by the government.

The first time banishment is considered, all citizens must vote yes or no. To not vote is a 2 point penalty on a Citizen Card. The second time banishment is considered, it will be up to a panel of judges to make that decision. In almost all cases, a person will be banished the second time it is up for consideration.


FOOD, WATER, AIR PROCESSING AND WASTE SERVICES

Greenland Cliffs grows all of its food in its state-of-the-art digitally controlled ultrasonic aeroponic greenhouses and aquaculture basins. In addition we cultivate a variety of marijuana plants and grow mate bushes which have a high concentration of caffeine.

The precise fine mist required by ultrasonic aeroponics along with a mix of nutrients is controlled by our own computer system developed here at Greenland Cliffs. It assures a disease free environment plus fresh abundant food and a minimal use of water.

Greenland Cliffs also employs ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) to kill micro-organisms in our water and air in the greenhouses and throughout the city.

Because our food is grown locally, we have cut the cost of producing food dramatically while improving the quality, as most food that is delivered to the city is only days old.

DELIVERYFresh food is delivered twice a week by the food-bot-train to each apartment. Food is delivered daily to restaurants and cafe food-bots.

LIST OF VEGETABLES AND FRUITS GROWNVegetables: a variety of tomatoes, cucumber, mild, sweet and hot peppers, bean mix, squash,zucchini, lettuce, eggplant, celery, cabbage, radish, green onions, and asparagus. Fruits: grapes, strawberry, banana, pineapple, papaya, orange, mandarin, cherry, watermelon and fig, as well as culinary and medicinal herbs. We also have perfected an aeroponic method for growing okra which provides us with cooking oil, while the rest of the plant is edible as greens.

SALT WATER PLANTSA variety of seaweed and algae are grown in our special salt water basins. Seaweed is used to make cakes, as a wrap for some dishes, and to make salads and soups. Algae is used for gelatins, thickeners, soups, seasoning and fish food in the aquaculture basins.

AQUACULTUREShrimp, salmon, eels and abalone are grown in our salt water basins.

PROCESSED FOODSWe make a variety of foods from what we grow in our facilities. For example, pasta is made from green banana flour. We also make bread, biscuits and pizza dough from green banana flour. We make a variety of Laverbread cakes with the laver seaweed.

We brew our own wine in the traditional manner from grapes along with fruit wines such as banana, strawberry, pineapple and watermelon wines. We make our own special variety of beers plus a number of hard liquors.

We make a variety of teas as well as hot and cold drinks from mate. In addition we make our own neo-coffee that almost tastes like real bean coffee.

DESALINATION PLANTS & WASTE WATER PROCESSINGBecause the temperature is around 50 degrees Celsius (120 F) much of the summer season,


we harness the heat to extract fresh water from our primary salt water basin to produce fresh water which we then store for the following year. This process also supplies us with salt.

The very small amount of waste water (grey water) used in the city is recycled and returned tothe fresh water basin.

Greenland Cliffs carefully monitors water use and as a result uses water efficiently. We lose less that .1% a year. We believe our principle holding basin with water left over from the oceans contains enough water to last more than 1,000 years.

PLANT BASED EDIBLE PLASTICIn the summer months we grow sugar cane in a soil greenhouse. In the winter months we grow sugar beets in that greenhouse. These provide the basis for the edible plastic used in alldishes, cups, utensils and food wrappers as well as sugar for food. We create our own molds here at Greenland Cliffs for the plastic items. We ask that citizens eat their dishes, cups and utensils which greatly reduces the trash burden. All utensils have a pleasant taste, often mixed with sugar and spices designed to go with the meal served on them. In Greenland Cliffs we consider them dessert!

PAPER AND RUBBERWe use very little paper-type products. There are no printed books, pamphlets, posters, newspapers, etc. Any printed matter is available on a citizen's wrist-phone or computer display.

The papers that we do use are unique to Greenland Cliffs. Tissues, toilet paper and paper towels are the main items. We make these products with biodegradable vegetable non-edible byproducts such as husks.

Greenland Cliffs makes it own biodegradable condoms as part of its plastics division. They are 100% safe if used before the expiration date. After that they begin to break down.

City approved papers and condoms should be discarded in the human waste area of offices and apartments or the recycle bins on the street. These products are recycled with the humanwaste.

AIR PROCESSINGAir from the dome and the industrial dome is pumped into the greenhouses and back out into the domes on a continuing basis. As the air is pumped in, it is filtered and sanitized by ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) to kill microorganisms; this sanitizing system is also applied to the air that is pumped out from the greenhouses back into the domes. The additional CO2 from the air in the domes increases the yield in the greenhouses by about 30% and the air from the greenhouses contains less CO2 and more O2 for the population of the city which is essential for citizens.

WASTE SERVICESHuman waste is removed weekly from apartments by the toilet-bot-train and composted. In your apartment human waste is heat sealed in biodegradable thick bags made from plant based plastics which are then automatically taken by a bot to be composted in an area beyond the greenhouses.


ELECTRICAL POWER

Using a variety of techniques to generate power, Greenland Cliffs has become energy independent after many years of development.

SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC PANELSThin-film transparent highly efficient solar photovoltaic cells are integrated within the dome covering material and the industrial dome. In addition there is a large bank of solar photovoltaic cells behind the dome that is designed to pivot with the sun for maximum efficiency.

UNDER THE DOME'Smart pavement' is used on all the main roads to generate electricity from the movement of people and SGBs over the highway.

WINDWind turbines are positioned along the edge of the cliff as the constant breeze that comes up from the bottom of the ocean floor is a reliable source of generation.

STORAGEUsing massive state-of-the-art storage that is housed under the town, the city is able to use electricity generated in the summer during the winter when the sun only shines four hours a day. The Carbon Nanotube Storage Units (CNTSUs) are divided into four self-contained units,anyone of which can be used to power the city and can also be used as backup in case of a power failure.

These latest CNTSUs, designed here at Greenland Cliffs, can hold electricity indefinitely without any loss while being accessed and recharged constantly.


SCHOOLS

When a child is born, the hospital conducts a complete reading of its genome/DNA sequencing which becomes part of the child's permanent record.

Starting at the age of three and/or after they are toilet trained, all children must attend kindergarten and continue their education to high school level.

Beginning at six months and continuing through graduation, all children will be evaluated for learning disabilities and psychological problems. Particular attention is paid in Greenland Cliffs to children who have low empathy with others -- as we have found in the past, that such children often have problems adjusting as they mature.

The kindergartens, elementary schools, junior high and high schools are located near the Child Development Center -- where the 'city children' are taken care of, that is the children who are cared for by the city.

Greenland Cliffs lets a student set his/her own pace with extensive use of smart interactive computer curriculums -- that is software programs that learn an individual's strengths and weaknesses and make suggestions and corrections based on that individual. While students learn at their own speed, they are closely supervised by teachers who assign them appropriate courses for their skills and grade level and give them individual instruction.

There is no testing in the schools at Greenland Cliffs as the completion of a computer based course provides the information teachers need to guage the proficiency of a student.

There are also no set grades levels. Each student is allowed to advance to the next level in an area in which he/she excels and also to fall back to a lower level when having trouble with a subject. So a 12 year old student, for example, could be taking 3 courses normally associated with his/her age (say the old fashioned 7th grade for purposes of clarification) along with a course formally associated with 6th grade and another course associated with 8th grade. The school also lets students know that there is no stigma if they are in a lower course than others in their age group.

And while much study is done individually -- which also has the added benefit of teaching students how to work alone -- about half of the instruction is done in a group setting with children who are taking the same course.

From the beginning, each student is encouraged to find areas of study that interest him or herand to follow those interests. For example, with the advice of a teacher, a student may chose one course per year that is not in the standard set of classes. And while teachers realize that these interests may and often will change over time, our schools have found that students who do follow their interests early will later excel in higher education when they eventually settle on a particular course of study to follow.

Our schools provide extensive counseling for students. These services include: understanding learning disabilities, dealing with family problems, bullying, personality disorders and motivational problems plus academic and career advice.

While there are no grades as such, there are proficiency scores which are part of a student's


school record and are available to employers and colleges.

Next to the kindergarten, elementary school, and the high school are playing and exercise fields in the south quadrant. This area is reserved exclusively for students.


COLLEGE

Special Note To Prospective Students

Many of your courses can be taken from your apartment using the apartment based Internet Assembly. You must use that assembly for online courses; your wrist-phone or tablet is not acceptable. Some course are required to be taken online -- as they deal with online issues such as holographic-video-conferencing.

You may alternate between coming to the classroom and being at your apartment using the Internet Assembly as long as you login on time for course that require that. Most students, however, have found that they prefer the classroom setting rather than the virtual or holographic-video-conferencing setting as they already spend most of their daily time on screen rather than face-to-face. The college does, however, require that you attend one class session, fact-to-face for each month of class time.

The college, naturally is geared toward the specialties of Greenland Cliffs which have to do with the robotic control of virtual skeletons, virtual holographic officials and urban data gathering plus the development of software and hardware for the Institute For Urban Order.

Also a number of online courses are offered from other universities around the world. While we encourage a well rounded background, some areas of study may not be as fruitful as others when it comes to finding a job at Greenland Cliffs. We suggest that you speak with your advisor about the prospects for job openings in Greenland Cliffs.

Other than the jobs mentioned above, there is also a need for positions in: city administration,city robotics, apartment and greenhouse management, food and plastic processing, teaching and medicine/psychology. Those without college degrees should explore manufacturing jobs assembling virtual skeletons.

NOTE: When Greenland Cliffs was first founded, thirty percent of our citizens had a bachelor or associate college degree, with six percent holding a Masters Degree, and one percent a Ph.D. Twenty percent had not finished high school. In the last two hundred years the city has worked to improve these numbers from generation to generation. Now everyone has a high school degree, about eighty percent have a bachelors degree, and forty percent have a post-graduate degree. This means that Greenland Cliffs has perhaps the most highly educated citizenry in the post-ocean era.

We can accomplish this level of education because we let each student take his/her time to get a degree. Some may graduate from college at age sixteen, for example and some at age twenty-four. We are not concerned with how fast a student learns, but rather how well they learn.


THE SOLAR-LUNAR CALENDAR

Like much of the rest of the world in the last three hundred years, we have switched to the Solar-Lunar calendar of thirteen months, each month with 4 weeks of 28 days, plus 1 "Day Out Of Time" at the very end of the year. This "off-calendar" day is a particularly special day for forgiving others and ourselves and also for looking forward to the future. During leap yearsthere are 2 days "out of time" at the end of the year with an extended celebration.

The added month is the seventh month known as Sol, which comes after June and before July.

The Solar-Lunar perpetual calendar has brought the moon's average 28 day cycle back into harmony with the change in months -- the word 'month' being based on the word 'moon'. This calendar has created a new sense of order because the phases of the moon are now more in line with the months. Since many of the 'days' at Greenland Cliffs are at night and the moon can be seen clearly through the dome, an understanding and synchronization with the moon has important psychological benefits.

There have also been considerable financial benefits as well since the same perpetual calendar can be used every year and people get paid with absolute regularity. Businesses and governments save money by simplifying their accounting plus planning for daily, weekly and monthly events is easier.


INDUSTRY

Behind the main city dome is the smaller industrial dome. It is used for the assembly of Virtual-Skeleton-Officials or VSOs which is part of Greenland Cliffs' main industry, the development of Smart City Intelligent Operations Systems and associated matters.

Each skeleton is tailor made for a particular city or country. This includes the software and thecloak of sensors made from our own carbon nanotubes that each flesh&blood official must wear when on duty to activate a VSO.

Another related industrial division designs Holographic-Virtual-Officials or HVOs

In addition Greenland Cliffs 'grows' its own carbon nanotubes which are used for a variety of purposes such as: VSOs, power storage, LED displays and clothing.

Behind the industrial dome is a landing area for blimps. They fly in components for the VSOs and also pick up the finished VSOs once assembled. The blimp cargo transports are part of the roadless trucking network which developed during the post-ocean era for small and far flung cities.

INSTITUTE FOR URBAN ORDER (IUO)In addition to the assembly of VSOs, a large part of the city, comprising over 100 blocks, is devoted to the Institute For Urban Order which has a number of divisions:

== Data Collection and Interpretation== Custom Design of Smart City Intelligent Operations Centers== Outer Space City Development (for the design of cities/communities on other planets or in space)== Research and Development of Urban Order TechnologyAlso at Greenland Cliffs: THE TOUCHABLE INTERACTIVE HOLOGRAPHIC RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT CENTER (HR&D)It designs a number of business, consumer and arts applications such as:

== holographic-video-conferencing== touchable mazes== touchable interactive sculptures -- both planned and spontaneous== holographic live performances and concerts


APPENDIX


Glossary Of Terms

AS THE OCEANS FELL== Atlantropa Project: 1920s plan by German architect Herman Sorgel to dam and drain theMediterranean; his detailed research became the engineering basis for the dam at the Straits of Gibraltar to contain the Mediterranean when the oceans fell

== Black Blizzard: massive dark dust storm with dust like black snow

== Black Dot: the first name for an unmoving tiny dot in the sky, first reported in 2322; later called 'The Hole In The Sky'

== EMS-Glasses: specially designed glasses that can 'see' in virtually the entire electromagnetic spectrum, be tuned to a specific wavelength, and show a full display

== Hole In The Sky: the name later given the Black Dot

== Meso-Ship: a special airplane/spaceship designed to fly/hover in the mesosphere, a part of the atmosphere too high for planes and too low for spacecraft

== Movable Cities: essential city services that were extended onto the continental shelf where shallow underwater land had been exposed and which moved as the oceans receded; for hundreds of years this method supported large cities that were now distant from the shoreline

== Quantum Thermal Radiation: radiation that could signal the presence of a wormhole

== Requiem For The Earth: a multimedia symphonic work partly based on ambient sounds and a sampling of Debussy's La Mer, that expressed people's sorrow at the loss of the oceans; later called Requiem For The Oceans

== Wormhole: a cosmic short cut or passageway that connects two distant places in the universe, requiring large amounts of energy to create

GREENLAND CLIFFS== Apartments: each apartment is 10 meters X 10 meters or 100 square meters; although the space is small, a complete change in furniture and setting can be made in a matter of minutes as different room configurations are stored in the ceilings and walls -- see Flex-Rigid Inflatable Furniture in this glossary; all apartments come with a complete set of bots for food buying, storing, cooking and cleaning plus additional apartment cleaning bots; all apartments have porches that open onto a courtyard in the Apartment Complex; there are no windows butforce-fields and holographic walls can be used for complete privacy

== Apartment Buildings: Complex = 4 apartment buildings with a courtyard in the middle; Apartment Group = 4 complexes arranged in a square; Super-Group = 4 groups arranged in asquare

== Apartment Central Crane: in the center of the courtyard of every Apartment Complex is acrane that is used to lift furniture in and out of apartments, to lift out a person with a medical emergency, and to put out fires because it can reach into any apartment with a fire retardant; it also has camera and sound monitoring capabilities


== Apartment Cleaning Bots: floor cleaning, vacuuming, laundry, bathroom and kitchen cleaning are all done by in-room bots at the apartment; food handling and processing, however, is performed by a kitchen-bot

== Aquaculture: Greenland Cliffs grows seaweed, algae, shrimp, salmon, eels and abalone in its saltwater basin

== Arts Quadrant: quadrant at the east end of the city for the arts which includes restaurants,galleries, night clubs, rooftop gardens, theaters, concert halls, sculpture gardens plus areas for children and teens

== Atriums: atriums are at the middle of Apartment Groups and Super-Groups; they include restaurants, general stores, cafes, parks, mazes, pools, night clubs, and arcades

== Biodegradable Plastic: all non-edible plastic is biodegradable and made from sugar caneand sugar beets; this is recycled when it reaches the end of its usefulness

== Blimp Roadless Trucking Network: blimps became the workhorse for the post-ocean era, as no roads were needed to be built and they could carry large loads of cargo; behind themain dome at Greenland Cliffs is the blimp cargo landing zone and cargo area

== Bot-Train: one of several: food-bot-train, toilet-bot-train, bot-train (for transporting a group of people to the blimp landing zone)

== Carbon Nanotube products (CNT): grown at the Greenland Cliffs factory, CNTs are a basic material that can be used for cloth, energy storage, semiconductors, computer displays,LEDs and the construction of super strong materials; Greenland Cliffs uses them in the uniforms worn by flesh&blood police and virtual skeleton police; Mariana uses them for her Illuminated Nano Fashions; a sculptor uses a CNT suit when creating his live holographic sculptures and the city uses them for massive electrical storage

== Carbon Nanotube Storage Unit (CNTSU): massive CNT storage units under the city thatstore electricity during the summer for use during the winter but that are also used at night all year round when the photovoltaic cells are not generating electricity

== Cell Girl: a prostitute, also called a C-Girl

== Children's Spot: an area on the south side of the Art's Quadrant for children that allows them to make virtual graffitti, play with virtual sculpture and create a variety of arts

== Citizen Card: each person has a virtual Citizen Card where their bank balance is recorded, on which penalties are listed, and which contains a complete history of a person's education, health, employment, etc.

== Citizen's Quick Record (CQR): brief overview of a citizen's history that is instantly viewable by police and City Officials

== City Brat: a person brought up by the city when parents decide not to care for their child

== City Hall: the central building in the city whose spire rises to the top at the exact center of the dome; the government, police, city services, and the Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) are located here

== Comprehensive Monitoring Chip (CMC): also known as The Chip, it is the zettabyte


sized chip that the Institute For Urban Order is developing for Arctic City for implanting in humans

== Computer Graphics Holography (CGH): a method by which computer graphics, including photography, are converted to a holographic projection

== Day Out Of Time: End of the year day that is not part of any month or week; a principle day in the Solar-Lunar calendar and a day for reflection and celebration

== Dome: Greenland Cliffs is covered by a state-of-the-art dome with light strong clear material with embedded transparent solar photovoltaic cells and photochromic light sensitive tinting that prevents the city from heating up during the summer

== Edible Plastic: thin strong rigid plastics made from sugar cane or sugar beets that meals are served on and that citizens eat at the end of a meal

== Equal Night: the term for the Equinox at Greenland Cliffs; 3 day festivities in the fall and the spring

== Festival of Autumn's Equal Night: the fall equinox celebration that goes for 3 days and marks the beginning of the winter 6 month period; the Greenland Cliffs 'day' then switches to the daytime hours

== Festival of Springs' Equal Night: the spring equinox celebration that goes for 3 days andmarks the beginning of the summer 6 month period; the Greenland Cliffs 'day' then switches to the nighttime hours

== Flesh&blood: a real live person instead of a bot or virtual person or skeleton person or holographic person

== Flex-Rigid Inflatable Furniture: used by most apartment dwellers, this furniture deflates and folds into walls or ceilings or inflates and comes out of walls or ceilings where it is stored

== Food-Bot: free wheeling robot that serves food at cafes and restaurants; a term also oftenused in apartments for the fixed automatic food processor although the correct term is kitchen-bot

== Force-Shields: used for visual privacy and for sound muffling in apartments; also used to keep water in the large holding basin from evaporating

== GPS Bracelet: a bracelet that sends out GPS-like signals and must be worn by everyone in the city on their right ankle; this type of GPS is an in-city system that can read positions within 6 centimeters ten times a second

== Greenhouse, Ultrasonic Aeroponic: the greenhouse where most of the food is grown forthe city; the ultrasonic aeroponic system allows for fast growth, maximum use of space and minimum water use as well enhanced control of plant diseases

== Half-Moon Park: large wild natural area park (similar to the world before the fall of the oceans) at the west end of the city that takes up an entire quadrant of about 160 old fashioned acres

== Holographic Hookers: interactive, touchable holographic prostitutes


== Holographic Theater/Performances: live holographic actors from around the world perform with real actors on stage; performances may also include animated holographic characters and movable props such as lightning bolts

== Holographic-Video-Conferencing: the transmission of holographic images and voices of people in real time so that the interaction between the holographic figures and flesh&blood people, including eye contact, happen as if all of them are actually in the same room together -- and is virtually indistinguishable from a conference with all flesh&blood participants

== Illuminated Nano Fashions: programmable and customizable fashions made by Mariana; the designs on the dresses, blouses, skirts etc. are changeable via the built in tiny LEDs in the carbon nanotube cloth her clothes are made of

== Institute For Urban Order (IUO): the main employer at Greenland Cliffs; it designs and manufactures virtual officers and creates custom smart city software for cities around the world

== Intelligent Operations Center (IOC): central monitoring station at Greenland Cliffs City Hall that operates 24/7 and reads all town activity -- including every citizen's GPS bracelet, wrist-phone, bots, air quality, fire and medical alarms, traffic etc. -- using smart city software

== Internet Assembly: large Internet, computer set-up in an apartment that includes medical vital sign readers

== Kangerlussuaq Valley: the large natural basin where a reservoir of sea water was trapped after the ocean's fall and the reason for the location of Greenland Cliffs

== Kitchen-Bot: in an apartment, the fixed kitchen-bot handles all food concerns; including ordering food, storing, cooking, and cleaning; an interactive menu and control panel allows the apartment dweller to customize most settings

== LED/Flicker Lights: small portable LED lights that flicker like a candle and that are often held by citizens during a celebration such as the Equal Night celebrations

== Maglev: magnetic levitation capsules are ridden on the Maglev virtual highway (V-highway) at speeds up to 500 km/h; this highway system connects many of the various small cities of the world and saves the cost of building and maintaining roads

== Mazes: primarily for children, holographic and virtual mazes are throughout the city and changed often; children spend hours playing in them

== Music Pavilion: a dedicated area for open mike performances in the Arts Quadrant; it is enclosed in a dome to both allow for the playing of loud music and to prevent that loudness from disturbing others outside; provided earphones are worn after midnight, to keep the noise down

== Neo: a term used for food made from plants and fish, grown in Greenland Cliffs greenhouses and aquaculture, that resembles old fashioned ocean-era foods, such as neo-coffee that tastes a bit like traditional bean coffee

== Norfolk Island Pines: trees suited for Greenland Cliffs environment which are automatically watered and misted and which helps keep the city humidity at the right level


== Nurse-Bots: virtual nurses who can perform most basic medical services; a nurse can project his/her image onto a Virtual-Skeleton-Officer and then deal one-on-one with a patient

== The Perf-Shell: the main theater which is in the classic shell shape for outdoor music and performances; it is located at the center of the Arts Quadrant almost back to the edge of the dome; it is used for large music events, theater, dance and performance art; it has complete sound, multimedia, computer and holographic capabilities

== Perimeter Road: a road that runs along the inside outer edge of the dome

== Quadrants: the 4 large (each about 160 old fashioned acres) half-circle parks/recreation areas outside the 2 km square section of buildings at the center of Greenland Cliffs, i.e. the Arts Quadrant for the arts area, the Sports Quadrant for playing fields and sport competitions, the wild and natural Half-Moon Park and the School Grounds for school activities and sports

== Rooftop Gardens: above the restaurants, nightclubs and cafes on the ground at the northend of the Arts Quadrant is a network of rooftop gardens

== Sculpture Garden: a permanent garden in the Arts Quadrant; it also includes live performances of holographic sculpture creation and new works

== Sculpture Positioning System (SPS): invented at Greenland Cliffs, it is used to create virtual holographic sculpture in real time

== Self-Guided Buggy (SGB): a taxi in Greenland Cliffs; a compact self-driving electric vehicle that holds 2 people and a couple of suitcases; it can be summoned from any wrist-phone and once used will return to a charging station

== Sky High Park: a park that is 20 meters above the Sky Road or a total of 60 meters in the air

== Sky Road: 40 meter high road that cuts through the middle above the city, east-west and north-south; it is accessible by individual Sky-vators from the ground anywhere along its route; in addition there are several large vator-stations with multiple vators at main intersections

== Sky-Vators: individual elevators to the Sky Road, one at each block under the Sky Road

== Smart Pavement: pavement that generates electricity from people walking over it, also known as a Crowd Farm

== Smart Wireless City-Wide Power Transfer System (or City-Wide Power): a wireless system that constantly charges wrist-phones, GPS bracelets, and other low power devices

== Solar-Lunar Calendar: a 13 month calender in which all months are the same: 4 weeks and 28 days for a total of 364 days. The one odd day, the 365th day, is a 'Day Out Of Time' at the end of the year, not part of any month and a time for festivities and celebration.

== Towers of Arctic City: dozens of 5 kilometer high luxury skyscrapers connected by hundreds of skywalks and sky-bots, that form a self-contained city above the largest city of the post-ocean era, Arctic City

== Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI): used to kill microorganisms in the air


== V-highway: the virtual highway for Maglev capsules

== Vator-Lifts: elevators to apartment porches

== Vator-Stations: central stations with a number of elevators to the Sky Road

== Virtual Stop Light: a holographic stop light that comes on in heavy traffic when a person is making a turn or crossing a line of traffic; each person can turn on this stop light with a control on their wrist-phone

== VH-Officer: Virtual Holographic Officer that a flesh&blood officer projects his/her image onto

== VS-Officer: Virtual-Skeleton-Officer, a rolling skeleton frame covered with LED carbon nanotube cloth that a flesh&blood officer projects his/her image onto

== Wrist-Phone: light weight cell phone that must be worn on the wrist at all times; on command the small watch screen unfolds to a rigid screen 8 times its size, with a second command to 64 times the original size -- using folding/unfolding carbon nanotube technology; it is used as a cell phone, computer, Internet browser, wallet and for interactive video-audio 2-way alerts from the city; it is used to make all payments which are withdrawn from a person's Citizen's Card; with no paper in the city it is used for menus, receipts and for reading all documents and printed matter

== Zettabyte Chip: a very large chip, a trillion times larger than a terabyte


AFTERWORD

Normally I would have written this as an introduction. But it would have contained too many spoilers -- so I saved it for the end.

The more I wrote this story, the more I could see it visually, like a treatment for a movie script -- with the sweeping vistas of the ocean floor, a complete in-depth description of the city, conditions in the post-ocean world and the advanced technology. Also I wanted my readers to see the city and the world I had created in full detail, not with fake facades that hadnothing behind them. I believe a future city could be built on this model and that it could function quite well.

Further I wanted to create a future culture with its own set of rules and unspoken assumptions. A city is not just buildings, technology and people, it is the way they interact anddo things -- so I created the world of Greenland Cliffs with this aspect in mind. I made art and the creation of cutting-edge art a central element of the culture. I even changed the calendar to the Solar-Lunar calendar and made nighttime the work day for half of the year as well as designing the environment of the city to allow a view of the stars and moon at night and the landscape of the Atlantic Ocean floor at night.

I come from a varied background: a grandfather who was an inventor and who founded a company based on his inventions and a father who wrote for national magazines but who alsopainted. As a child I read, saw and listened to quite a few science fiction tales including radio's X Minus One. I even wrote about the future at a young age.

Since then I have thought a good deal about the technology and the nature of the future. In addition I did extensive research when writing this book, especially when it came to the design of my city, Greenland Cliffs. Just about every technology in the book is based on current technology which I then extended to its logical development.

Domed cities have been a staple of science fiction for almost a century and yet no large city dome has been built. Buckminster Fuller proposed one for mid-town Manhattan and, as I write this, there is a proposal to put Huston, Texas under a dome. So while the idea is not newat all, the actual technology to create such a city is quite new and just coming about.

Here is what I found in my research. Strong light material to cover a massive dome is now available as an ultra-light fluoropolymer ETFE. In addition engineers have finally put together a design that can support massive domes such as the Spantheon structural system patented in 2010. Transparent materials with solar photovoltaic cells is now available; photochromic glasses that darken in bright light and are transparent in darkness can be bought today. My virtual skeleton police with a LED cloak onto which a police office could project his/her image is simply a further extension of the technology in the Mercedes LED car, a car which is covered in cloak of LEDs to make it invisible.

IBM right now -- in 2013 -- as I write this, has a Smart Cities program and software for an Intelligent Operations Center. Next I saw an online implementation of such an idea at the


Seattle.gov site that displayed detailed maps of locations and the kinds of police and criminal activity in various neighborhoods.

GPS bracelets are almost common place today -- they are available for parents who want to track kids and for caretakers who want to keep tabs on aging seniors. And of course there are required GPS bracelets for criminals who are on probation or confined to their homes.

So from these current technologies, it was simply logic that led me to the idea of requiring all people to wear a GPS bracelet because a government could then know where everyone was at any given moment, and record that; in this way it could exert considerable control over its citizens. From that idea came the thought that a sophisticated algorithm along with sensitive GPS detection could deduce quite a bit from the motion of GPS coordinates. In addition requiring everyone to carry a cell phone -- that was then used for all financial transactions, menus, printed information and used in combination with the GPS bracelet -- was an idea I arrived at as a logical extension of how cell phones are being used today. Further if each person had to carry a cell phone, and all written information was displayed on the cell phone, this would eliminate most of the paper and paper trash. So my city is paperless for the most part.

The cornerstone of this government control is that it knows where everyone is at all times, and can respond swiftly -- this means that it does not have to be very visible. It can appear to be doing little, but everyone knows that it is there watching. It can also respond to small infractions such as littering, before they become large infractions such as burglary. This swiftness and the ability to place people at the scene of a crime, is a major deterrent to all criminal behavior -- as well as a deterrent to acts against the authority of the government.

And once a government knows where its citizens are at all times, it would be easy and secure to have electronic barriers that are effortless to pass through as long as they clear a GPS bracelet; so, for example, walking into your apartment does not require a key, the door simply opens. The city-wide all citizen GPS tracking means that an ambulance can respond inminutes. Calling a self-guided buggy to come to your location, pay for it and then leave it at your destination is almost effortless,

And although I had designed my surveillance system simply by thinking about the technology, it turns out that the FBI in 2012 devised a Stingray system that could track cell phone calls plus a person's position and, in addition, monitor text messaging.

I studied a number of vehicle designs for small distances and came up with a cross between the Google self-guided car and a compact small buggy sized vehicle based on an experimental MIT city car. After I conceived of these vehicles, I saw a video about driverless personal transport pods at London's Heathrow airport which are very similar to my idea in size, self-guidance, accessibility and energy use.

Thinking and imagining my city in as much detail as possible -- I can now walk around the city in my mind -- I realized that 15 km/h was more than fast enough to get around a city that was only 3 km in diameter, as a passenger could go from the far end to the opposite end in 12minutes. This would virtually eliminate traffic problems and accidents. Yet I also realized that people would need to be a bit wild at times, express themselves, so I allowed places for skateboarders who could go an any speed and hang gliders who could risk their lives.


As for the density of my city, I looked up the density of cities around the world and found that 100 square meters per person was about the minimum -- therefore I designed this city around that: a diameter of 3 km, 60k people, about 100 sq m per person. I decided that while theoretically it could be denser, confining the population to a tighter space would result in people irritating each other.

When I walked into an apartment in my city in my imagination, I realized quite suddenly that there was no need to have the traditional wall next to the balcony. Weather and changing temperature were no longer a problem. And in the cramped space of the domed city, I wantedeverything to be as open as possible. Then I realized that if there were no wall, I could put a crane in the center of the courtyard of each Apartment Complex which could hoist heavy bulky items like furniture in and out of apartments and also be used to immediately put out a fire because it could reach any apartment within minutes and then spray a fire extinguishing agent.

The idea for the furniture that comes out of the wall or ceiling in apartments, came from when my mother had a small 1 1/2 room apartment in NY with a Murphy bed that folded into the wall. The apartment was quite comfortable and when the bed was out of the way, worked well as a living room. Inflatable furniture, such as the Sleep Number Bed, is now available not to mention that I have owned a number of inflatable boats. And logically the best way to use asmall space is to make it multi-purpose and multi-functional. And as we speak, flexible/rigid materials are being developed by LAVA in Australia, the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture.

And while my city is tightly controlled by the government, I wanted to create an urban areathat appeared to be sensible; that is, if citizens wanted or felt strongly that they should be ableto do something and there was no harm in it, why not let them? Therefore I decided to removevictimless crimes from the laws. So prostitution is legal. It made logical sense to allow natural urges to be expressed, urges that did not hurt anyone and yet to clamp down on actions that could damage the society. Sex with under aged children or non-consensual sex is one of the most serious crimes.

Further while drug use can have a devastating effect on a society, I wanted the most popular drugs with the least side effects to be fully available, since we know that prohibition simply does not work. And as I learned in Anthropology courses in college, every culture has some permitted drugs. Therefore coffee, alcohol and marijuana -- in a wide range of strengthsand types -- are allowed. However, the import or use of any other drugs is dealt with severely. Quite simply marijuana is one thing, meth or heroine is another.

As for robots, I feel that the idea of robots that look and act like humans is probably not theway the future is going to play out. Sure, there will be lots of robots but they will be dedicated to a particular task and be designed to work efficiently at that task. So in my city, for example, the food-bot at a restaurant looks more like a tray on wheels, rather than a human with arms and legs. Yet it can talk, send a menu to your cell phone and serve up hot food to your table. All robots in my future world, such as self-guided buggies and floor cleaning bots, also emit a GPS signal which is monitored in real time. Intelligent fixed devices such as the automatic laundry in each apartment are also monitored. In the event of a problem any and all can be immediately shut down and/or reprogrammed. In the Intelligent Operations Center there is a separate supervisor and set of screens for these.


In addition to my city, I spent a good deal of time studying the ocean floor. Surprisingly there were few detailed maps -- but I did find one from NOAA that was more detailed than most. Studying these maps, it became clear that if the oceans were drained, there would be large pockets of water that pooled in basins and valleys and that these could be the place for the rebirth of human civilization. I looked for a location that would be a good site for a city but also would be a good landscape for my story or a movie made from this story. The cliffs of Greenland was the perfect place as it was next to a large valley that could hold more than enough water and it looked out over the bottom of what had been the Atlantic Ocean.

It also became clear that the alien civilization that was 'drilling the Earth' for water would place that drill over the deepest part of the oceans so that the most water would flow to that point. As a result I placed the alien drill over the Marianas Trench.

As for the wormhole, clearly this is speculative even though many stories and theories have been written about the concept. In this case I did consult with a friend who evaluates patents for inventions at the molecular level and who also writes science fiction. He agreed that the most plausible use for a wormhole would be at the molecular level. In another article, I found that if a wormhole did exist (which theoretically it can according to Einstein's theories),there would be significant radiation at the throat of the wormhole.

As for the alien culture, I decided I did not want malevolent creatures taking over -- as this idea has been already examined in great detail for the last 100 years -- but rather some unknown civilization that was simply looking for water somewhere in the universe and just happened to find ours.

The spectacles that the astronauts wore, in which a display of the electromagnetic spectrum is shown on their glasses, is an extension of the experimental Google Glasses in 2013. The glasses I envisioned give a person the ability to 'see' signals from the entire electromagnetic spectrum and to tune in the active parts of the spectrum. In 500 years or so itseems quite likely such a sensor could be reduced to a small size -- just as cameras were once the size of a large box and now can hide as a tiny lens on a pair of glasses. I know because I did an interview with ABC-TV's 20/20 during which we went into stores wearing wireless video glasses.

I carefully researched other areas such as ultrasonic aeroponic greenhouse gardening, aquaculture including seaweed and algae, plant based plastics, edible eating utensils, ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI), mate as a source for caffeine, the composting of human waste and holographic performances.

And what about the chip in the brain? As this is written there are dozens of articles involving studies about how brain activity can now be read and how a chip could be implantedto read this activity.

What about artificial intelligence to monitor a person's thoughts? I watched IBM's artificial intelligence program, Watson -- that understood natural language -- defeat some of the smartest people who had ever played the game of Jeopardy on TV. Imagine if that capability were turned loose to monitor the thoughts of citizens?

I also lived in three towns that were either the size of my fictional city, Greenland Cliffs, or had a population about that size: these cities/towns are Chapel Hill, Durham and Beaufort --


all in North Carolina. So I was able to fully imagine the number of people and the scale involved.

And I did live in a small society not unlike Greenland Cliffs. I attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH as a teenager for four years; it thought of itself as benevolent yet it was quite dictatorial. As students we were constantly told how priveleged we were -- but for me it was a repressive environment. At the center of the campus stood the administration building with a tall tower that was visible from anywhere on campus. In the tower a bell rang every hour, reminding us, as students, of its authority. Our whereabouts were monitored on a hourly basis. And while the administration kept a low profile, when a student violated a rule, the powers above clamped down with a heavy hand -- as a teacher could immediately penalize a student and the student had no recourse. At one point a good friend was ushered out of school, never to return. No teacher after that mentioned his absence, his name or that he had ever attended. It was not unlike the Greenfield Cliffs banishment, of removing a person who had accumulated too many points, who is taken to an undisclosed location, neverto be heard of again and whose name is never to be mentioned.

I also know what it is like to have the police keep a close eye on me. In 1963-64 I was in the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill, NC. After a while, I could not drive from one end of town to the other without being stopped and questioned by police.

In addition when I was getting my Masters Degree in Media at UNC-Chapel Hill, I worked as an Intern for North Carolina State Government in 1974. As a photographer along with a lawyer, a sociologist, an anthropologist, a city planner and others, we visited and studied a number of small towns. I have, for example, sat down with the mayor of a small city and listened to him explain his vision for his city -- and I have been given the Cook's Tour by a city manager that highlighted the best parts of his town. So my knowledge of how a town works, and also how city officials want to present themselves is extensive.

Is my city of Greenland Cliffs utopian or draconian, realistic or too optimistic or too controlling? I leave that question up to you. Every system is a compromise, a trade off. However, I will say this: the world I have painted is definitely possible.

My basic question when I started writing this novella was this: If you could build a city of the future from scratch using the technology of today in the most powerful and sophisticated ways, along with a desire to give citizens a good quality of life yet also with a government committed to keeping order, to keeping crime and conflict to a minimum and to maximizing both bodily and psychological health -- what kind of city would you have, what kind of government would you have, what kind of life would the citizens have?


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