New York City of a few years from now. Manhattan has built up tremendously-- so much so that there is nothing on the entire island that is less than about 30 stories tall. There are no longer distinct separate skyscrapers-- it's like a thick 30-story-tall cloud of buildings covers the entire island, and then clusters of even taller buildings rise from them all smushed together, like a forest or jungle where it's hard to really identify individual trees.
I was at the south end of the island, in the 20's somewhere, taking a cross-town bus (probably on 25th). No idea where I was coming from or going to. But I got a call on my cell phone from a geek girl who had apparently moved to NYC a few months earlier and had just heard that I was visiting the city. "Hey, you should come see my new place! I'm in the 20's!" And in fact, her place was right near the next stop of this very bus. So I hopped off.
It was just after dawn. Oh, which reminds me of another thing-- everything was 24-hours. I mean, you think Manhattan is 24 Hour Everything now but you're wrong. In this Manhattan, I think it was literally illegal to own a business that was not open 24/7. Tiffanys was open 24/7. The dry cleaner was 24/7. They showed Broadway plays around the clock, not once a night. And everything was everywhere, so you never had to go far at all for literally anything. You didn't even have to go up to Broadway to see a Broadway play, there was one somewhere within a bus or subway stop or two, no matter where you were.
So the sun is just coming up, and as the bus drives off I bump into this geek girl's on-again off-again geek boyfriend. Huh, looks like somebody has a pretty full datebook, I'd say. So said geek sees me there, is pissed that he just missed the bus, wants to know if I want to go get some breakfast or see a movie or get shitfaced at a bar-- all of these are an option at sunrise in Manhattan, you see-- and I politely decline and stroll off. The subject of why I'm there never comes up. I'm not really sure why I'm there, really, except that getting the phone call while I'm in the area just seemed like too perfect a coincidence to ignore.
Her apartment, as it turns out, is buried way deep inside one of the massive built-up blocks. It is many hundreds of feet from any outside wall and real window... but through the clever use of lighting and holographic "windows", she has a terrific real-time view off the south end of the island, and the whole place feels very open and breezy. And she has a phenomenal backyard, an octagonal domed backyard chamber the size of a small school playground, also beautifully sunny and warm, with a spring breeze, and real grass, all through the marvels of civil engineering. I just walked out into her backyard and looked up into a synthetic sun that was too bright to actually stare into, wondering if she could program it to rain.