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Politics – none. It’s an anarchy, remember? But it’s an anarchy by default. There’s no state because nobody can be bothered to set one up. Too much hassle, man. Keep your nose clean, don’t stick your neck out, it’s always been this way and nothing will ever change, and anyway (and especially) what will the neighbours think? (They’ll never stand for it, is what. It’s against human nature.)

The outside of the city’s nervous system consists of its senses: cameras and microphones for news and surveillance, detectors of chemicals and stresses which monitor its health. Start at the top: on the highest and most central tower is a globe the size of a human head. It’s just an all-round viewing-camera, an amenity stuck there in a flourish of public spirit or private speculation. From there we can peer down the dizzying sweep of tower-tops that eventually planes out to low, flat roofs, and ends in domes, shacks and sheds at the city limits.

Like each of the city’s five radial arms, this one is an elongated kite-shape, first widening, then tapering. The buildings themselves are of two types: those that were grown, and those that were built. The shapes of the former can be analysed into intersecting polygons, regular or irregular: those of the latter, into rectangles. The layout and location of the latticed, cellular structures has the same quality of accidental inevitability as the boulders in a rock-fall or the pebbles in scree, and for the same reason: minimal occupation of available space. The constructed buildings obey a different principle of economy, and stick up or dig down as its unpredictable laws dictate.

Both types of buildings – both laws of location – follow the streets, and the streets follow the canals. The canals are a circulatory system: the Ring Canal encircles the central area, the Radial Canals bisect the arms, and each has innumerable tributaries and capillaries. Near the leftward edge of the arm we’re looking down is an anomalous, long canal that first comes into view just below us and extends beyond the horizon: the Stone Canal.

The man leans into the recess of the window, supporting some of his weight on his spread fingertips. The cement is rough under his fingertips. He stares out of the window, which is high on the city’s slope, looking along the Stone Canal. As he balances his weight on the balls of his feet and the tips of his fingers, the tensed muscles in his arms and shoulders show through the soft cloth of his jacket. The muscles flex and he straightens, turning around. His black hair flicks past his chin with the speed of his movement.

The other two men in the room are taller and bulkier than he is, but they both recoil slightly as he strides towards them. He stops a couple of metres away and glares at them.

‘You lost her,’ he says. ‘To the abolitionists.’ His speech has an accent not much heard in this city, something from the past, roughened and refined over a long time. It provides a rasping undertone to the modulation of his voice, which is likewise – consciously or not – a practised and accomplished instrument of his will. Accent and tone together are precisely gauged to convey his emotion: in this case, contempt.

‘She had an IBM franchise,’ one of the men says. He licks his lips, withdraws his tongue abruptly into his mouth as if he’s aware it’s gone out too far. He wipes his chin.

‘That,’ says the man, ‘is not an excuse. It’s a description of failure.’ He sighs, dusts his fingertips together. ‘All right. From the top.’

He stalks away to a big wooden desk, and half-sits on the edge of it.

‘OK, Reid,’ says the other man, and launches into an account. He’s spoken for a minute when Reid raises a hand.

‘A young man?’ he says. ‘And a robot? Describe them.’

He listens, narrow-eyed, for another minute before interrupting with a downward gesture of the hand.

‘You thought he recognised her, Stigler?’

Stigler’s lips are dry again.

‘He…thought he did.’

‘Oh, Christ!’ The word comes out like a rod cracked down on the desk. Reid drums his fingers