New Canterbury Tales

The tide is coming in. Which means this building will drift a bit closer to the shore within a few hours. Being tightly anchored to the bottom of the North Sea there is no real danger of collision with the mainland, but due to the upcoming November storms, it can get close. I like the feeling of living in one of those drifting buildings. Somehow it gives me a sense of freedom, being able to look at the fast empty space of the sea looking eastward and the new land additions to the city westward. Looking up north I can see the harbour with its ships coming in and out at every hour of the day. Still that much, even after the global agreements made about minimizing the trading of resources long distance. There are of course still a lot of resources that are hard to come by, as we are living high up north. But I wonder what we export, apart from wood, as our city is mostly famous for our highly developed science and expertise in health care. One thing I am sure of, those big hoovering containers will not leave this city empty.

Very well, that is not really my concern. My first question for today is, will I go into town to work or just stay here in this apartment? No one booked this apartment for the next few days, with the storm coming up. So I could stay here, but I am afraid I will be distracted and spend most of my time staring out of the windows with their panoramic view from east to west. I can use my private headset, but it might be more productive to go into central simulation or one of the big VR rooms in The Roundabout. Decisions, decisions. Sometimes I envy my grandparents who had just one house and one workplace and commuted between those five days a week. There are of course still people in the city that prefer this way of life and living that way, but it seems so outdated. And to be honest, buying your own house is a luxury not many people can still afford. Flexibility is the buzz word and being flexible has a lot of advantages of course. So I live in a flexible community with about a hundred different living spaces in our care. These weeks, I like to live alone and this apartment has been one of my favourites for the last couple of years, especially during the autumn storms. Due to some flooding of the mainland, housing can be a bit crowded at this time of year. But this apartment is high up the tower and tends to be rocking a bit back and forward during the storms. That seems to bother a lot of people, but I love the feeling. And since last month I have another reason why I want to be here in the upcoming days.

I told myself not to do it, but I can’t help myself. I take up my spyglasses and look at the building on the mainland, that one building. I know people who live there are not part of the sharing communities. I used to think they were quite narrow-minded, but last month I had to adjust that prejudice. Because I saw her standing behind her window. I saw her when our buildings almost touched just before the buildings slowly drifted apart again. She winked at me, and I was mesmerized and did nothing, nothing at all! I used my spyglasses a few times after that, hoping to see her again, but this feels not right. I tried to track her down through the New Net. But of course, all relevant information is shielded. I even was tempted to use my work database to find out more about her. I could rather easily come up with an excuse to get access to the data of that particular building. But I decided against it, partly out of respect for her privacy, partly because I can’t figure out which floor her apartment is on, as I can’t see the bottom of the building from here.

I feel my mind wandering and tell myself I have work to do. With the chance of upcoming floods, it is time to look at the maps again, let them make calculations, give advice. More decisions to make. Yes, let’s go to The Roundabout, the big track of slowly moving buildings. Many government buildings are situated on this track, as advised by the council. The ever slightly changing perspective on the outside is believed to be good for the mind and make people more flexible in their thoughts. For the same reason, this makes it also a very attractive place for community buildings for people working in the creative field. My community is a caretaker of a few buildings on the track and sometimes I live over there. The Mapping Center is close to one of them. But today I have to commute to The Roundabout. I ask my personal assistant for the exact location of the Mapping Center today. More decisions to make. How to get there. Use my flybike? No, I would be too tempted to fly too close to that other building and that would get me into trouble for trespassing. Maybe take a brisk walk over the floating bridge? But I see there is rain coming up and I don’t feel like dressing up for rain. So I guess I will take the underground walking path to the fast tubes and use one of their private pods.

I quickly check my PA again to see who else might be coming in today and order it to announce my presence for today. In my private pod, I allow myself to daydream a little bit more about that woman. I don’t know exactly why, but I feel she is essential for me, somehow. Or maybe I am just imagining it.

The doors of the Mapping Center slide open and I am greeted by Mc Cass, our ever friendly Mapping Center Computer Assistant. I follow it to the central mapping room, which holds a huge scale representation of the city of New Canterbury (former Golspie), a combination of 3D printed buildings, parks, landscape, layered with Augmented Reality representations of all sorts of data. I ask Mc Cass to show me how the city is feeling today, are we happy? He always tells me to be more specific, but I can’t help it. Somehow I still hope someone will program him to give a different answer. Today I am more interested in data about sea levels, tide, wind and other meteorological aspects combined with data of our harbours flexible water breakers. Maybe some of the floating buildings will have to be moved to function as wind-breakers so the water won’t flood too much of the mainland. What are the other options? Closing the harbour would also be one of them, but that would have a huge impact on trade. Temporarily evacuation of the lower floors of the buildings that will flood if nothing is done could also be an option, but Mc Cass shows me on the map that the feelings of well-being in the city would drop significantly.

‘So you can tell me how we are doing today, Mc Cass.’

‘Now you are being more specific Morvyn.’

‘Mc Cass, I need more data, a better representation. I don’t feel it yet.’

‘VR Experience Room 7 is available Morvyn.’ Mc Cass guides me to the room and brings me the VR Multisensory Experience Suit.

While stepping into the suit I instruct Mc Cass to set the Experience to visual, sound and pressure and step into the 3D Version of New Canterbury. Inside the suit, with the helmet on my head, I can control everything myself. I access the same data I used in the other room. I can hear the sounds of the wind and the sea, but also the symphonic sounds of well-being translated to music. I can feel the pressure as I move around in the virtual map of the city. I slowly move the time forward and feel the pressure increasing. There sure is a huge flood coming up and if we do nothing, a large part of the mainland will be overflown. So what can we do? I play with different options, closing the harbour, moving buildings, moving people. Every time I make an adjustment, the sounds of the symphony change, the colours of the virtual environment change, the pressure in my suit change, at certain points to almost unbearable. It is not always fun to have data translated like this, but it really helps. After a while, I scroll the timeline slowly back to the present time and set my controls to neutral. Now I see New Canterbury on a sunny spring day. It helps me quiet down. I feel a bit low, not always but today I do.

While I am getting out of my suit Mc Cass asks me if I need anything else from him. I hand over my suit and say, ‘No thank you, it is all clear to me. I know what we will have to do.’

And with a heavy heart, I sent my advice to the city council. With the upcoming storm surge and tides coming in, there is a probability that the top of my floating apartment building will be blown against the building on the mainland. Due to a minor construction flaw and only possible under extreme weather conditions. So the floating buildings will have to be dragged closer to sea, closer to each other as wind-breakers, that will be my advice. The woman will have to wait at least another month.