We wandered the chessboard of streets like tourists, our faces glued to the Portacle in Yusuf’s hands, while grids of flying cars whizzed around the city’s towers in a dizzying geometry. The glass was actually an organic self-healing crystal that both purified the air and slowly grew—the buildings and the whole city expanding inch by inch, day by day, into pre-programmed configurations to house more citizens and refugees. The crystal spires tinged with light blue and violet glowed softly against the gray drizzle.

The University of Oxford was still a tower of learning, but the rest of the city—the world, really—was a playground for art and entertainment. Except for the Taceovirus, the Farsight had solved all the world’s problems like poverty, climate change, and hunger. With the United Commonwealth’s closed borders, the citizens could pretend the virus ravaging the rest of the world was just a bad dream until scientists cracked the cure. Especially when everyone could distract their brains with massive art installations and immersive holo-films or join one of the roving theatrical troupes that made every street corner their stage. Everything was automated, no one had to work, and most people just had to entertain themselves until they gently died.

A lot of this we pieced together with Portacle research, and Hassan filled in the details later. Parts of the country were sectioned off into themed districts that you could hop between within minutes, thanks to the grav-trains, like a theme park. The retro-future sci-fi dreamscape of Little Eridanus in the southeast, surrounding Canterbury. London was smack-dab in the Victorian cosplay wet dream called Great Britannica. Up around Edinburgh, actors skulking in the shadows as assassins and private eyes lived a film-noir fantasy called Empire City. Cornwall was a living paradise based on Milton’s writings of heaven called Neon Eden. In a world where the Farsight mapped out everything—every future, every decision—the people were obsessed with fantasy and the unknown. They’d perfected the world but still wanted to be anywhere but in it. Which the escapist in me dug very much. Especially since Oxford was the capital of the New Albion district—a witchy King Arthur kaleidoscope steeped in the occult.

We roamed away from the university and down curving streets where silver, fist-sized drones whizzed by, using beams of light to paint the crystal buildings into moss-spotted medieval castles and black-and-white taverns with shingled roofs. I led the way into a tavern called the Prince of Cups which, according to the sign, featured the serving performances of Gwenhwyfar’s Magickal Minstrels.