Now the district was a flat featureless plain, a hole in iCity, dotted with the capsules of domestic units and the occasional person-sized vacuole, awaiting the signal to transform.
Lafferty Fisk proudly transmitted the impulse from his phone.
Cascades of information coursed through the senstrate.
iCity: a lattice of pure patterns.
Just like the time Mode O’Day had instantiated the old model of Bloorvoor on the tabletop in Desire Path, so now the new version of Las Ramblas (to be named Airegin Miles) commenced to be born. Structures composed of pure senstrate arose amidst a matrix of streets and other urban features, incorporating the autonomous domestic units into themselves where planned. (I swore I felt Mount Excess drop by a centimetre or three.) The sensate material assumed a variety of textures, and skins, right down to a very convincing indestructible grass and soil. Water flowed through new conduits into ponds and canals. Normal-coloured lights came on.
Within less than an hour, Airegin Miles stood complete, iCity’s newest district.
A huge round of applause broke out in the restaurant. Lafferty Fisk stood at the focus of the approbation and envy. Memories of being there myself flooded powerfully through me.
When the tumult died down, I looked around, feeling I could be generous even toward Holly Grale.
But she was nowhere to be seen.
All the tabletop models and phantom zone walk-throughs for the Bloorvoor reformation went live a couple of days later. So I saw what Grale had accomplished.
Her design was magnificent. There was no denying it. Just the way Alpha Ralpha Boulevard looped around and flowed into von Arx Plaza— This was genuine talent at work.
Was her design better than mine and all the others?
Only the populace could say.
And soon they said yes.
Grale’s was the winner.
I moped around for forty-eight hours in an absolute funk, a malaise that was hardly alleviated by the fact that my plan for Bloorvoor had garnered the second highest number of votes. Doubt and despair assailed me. Was I losing my touch? Had I plumbed the depths of my art and hit a stony infertile bottom? Should I abandon my passion?
I spent an inordinate amount of time inside the phantom zone walk-through of Grale’s winning plan. I kept comparing her accomplishment, her sensibilities, to mine, fixated on discovering what had made her entry so appealing to the populace. Was it this particular cornice, this special wall, this juxtaposition of tree and window? The way sunlight would strike that certain gable, or wind funnel down that mournful alley?
And by the end of my fevered inspection, I had decided something.
The taste of the populace was debased. The residents of Bloorvoor—soon to become (yuck!) “QualQuad”—had voted incorrectly. My design was indeed the superior one.
I realize now how crazy that sounds. The citizenry is always the ultimate arbiter. Without them, we urban planners would have no reason to exist. There can be no imposition of our tastes over their veto, no valourizing of a platonic perfection over perceived utility. We all offer the best we have, and they choose among us.
But in my anger and jealousy and despair, I lost sight of these verities. I was more than a little insane, and that remains my only excuse for what I did next.
I went to see Sandy Verstandig.
Sandy was one of the tech gnomes who kept the senstrate bubbling under and ready for use at top efficiency and reliability. A rough-edged petite woman who favoured a strong floral perfume and employed more profanity than any random half-dozen athletes. I say “gnome,” but of course that designation was just a nickname for her job. She didn’t live literally underground. There was no need for her to be in physical proximity to the intelligent material that formed the substance of iCity. Except for the occasional regular maintenance inspection of various pieces of subterranean hardware, she could handle all of her duties via her phone.
Duties such as establishing the order of the reformation queue.
I knew Sandy from frequent help she had given me in the past, when I had had questions about the senstrate that only a hands-on expert could answer. In our face-to-face conversations, I had always gotten the sense that she would not be averse to a romantic relationship.
I’m ashamed now to describe how easy it was to get Sandy Verstandig into bed. How easy it was to secure access her phone while she slept.
And finally, how easy it was to substitute my plan for Grale’s in the reformation queue, and conceal all traces of my crime.
Crowding against the windows at Myxomycota once again, as the final seconds ticked away until midnight, I almost shivered with anticipation. There was Bloorvoor down below, all lit in red. Soon it would be rechristened Bushyhead, when it assumed the lineaments of my visionary design. It was all I could do not to chuckle aloud at the shock Grale was about to receive.
Of course, the mixup would be immediately apparent, the unmistakeable substitution of my superior design for her inferior one. But it would not be totally improbable that the second-place entry might have been mistakenly inserted ahead of the winner in the queue. Yes, Sandy Verstandig would take some minor blame. But no lasting harm done. And then, in the morning, the populace would see just how wonderful their new neighbourhood was, and vote to keep it. I’d get the accreditation, and be back up to eleven. Grale would look like a whiner and sore loser if she contested the results.
As I said, I wasn’t thinking too clearly.
Various people addressed me in those last few minutes, but I don’t recall anything they or I said.
And then midnight arrived.
The deliquescent “demolition” of Bloorvoor occurred perfectly, rendering the district featureless. All the condo nodes and vacuoles awaited reincorporation into the new buildings. Our room held its collective breath for the manifestation of the winning design.
And that’s when all chaos erupted.
The senstrate began to seethe and churn, tossing out irregular whips and tendrils and geysers. Condo nodes bobbed about like sailboats in a typhoon. I could barely imagine the ride the inhabitants were getting, although I knew that automatic interior safety measures—inflatable furniture, airbag walls and such—would prevent them from being harmed.
The watchers were stunned. I saw Grale with her eyes wide and mouth agape. That image alone was sufficient reward. But also my only tangible satisfaction.
Because what happened next was utterly tragic.
My design emerged, but hybridized with Grale’s!
Somehow I had botched the queue, overlaying and blending the two plans. I never would have thought such a thing would be possible. But the reality stood before us.
The most outré buildings began to self-assemble, mutant structures obeying no esthetic code, arrayed higgledy-piggledy across the district. A nightmare, a surreal canvas—
I backed away from the window. “No, no, this wasn’t supposed to happen—”
I have to give Grale credit for sharpness of hearing and intelligence. She was on me then like a tigress, bearing me to the floor and pummelling me half-senseless, while outside our sight the mashup reformation surged on. We rolled around for what seemed a bruising eternity, until other planners managed to separate us.
Restrained by Partch and O’Day, almost growling, Grale confronted me. “Moses, you don’t know what a huge fucking mess you’ve gotten yourself into!”