CORTEX'S BIG SECRET (2)
Fake Plastic Trees
One of the eleven MIs in the Hidden Room (next to Ellen Ripley for scale 😀). You can see the hexagonal 'plug' that connects to its underside driving the trillions of rods, cogs and gears inside. The MI appears as a series of ribbed drums stacked on top of each other submerged in a tank of pink oil.
Last page I talked about Cortex's hidden machine room, and how its eleven MIs were cooled using Cortex Park's central reservoir (formally Central Park and the Jackie Onassis Reservoir)
Takamatsu chose Central Park for another reason as well: isolation. While the rest of the island has been built over, the park remains an under-developed zone.
Upon purchase his first act was to add plasticizer to everything there, or reprint any sick or ailing vegetation. In this way her turned what was once a vibrant urban park into an artificial representation of health, a fitting garden for a man who perfected synthetic humans.
Plastic Parks are already here: there are numerous places you can buy plasticized plants from, even full scale trees such as this : Replica Olive Tree, 12' x 10'H, UV resistant, Outdoor, $5,942.85 here (you really didn't think all those palm trees in the middle-east were real did you?)
Nothing Here Is Real
Last week I talked about Cortex's hidden machine room, and how its eleven MIs were cooled using Cortex Park's central reservoir (formally Central Park and the Jackie Onassis Reservoir)
Takamatsu chose Central Park for another reason as well: isolation. While the rest of the island has been built over, the park remained an under developed zone.
Upon purchase his first act was to add plasticizer to the landscape, turning it into a plastic representation of health, a fitting garden for a man who perfected artificial humans.
Any animals that still remained (ducks, squirrels, rats etc) were replaced with reprinted and redesigned versions that he found more aesthetically pleasing. These were powered by internal batteries, required no food and left no mess.
When I started writing this I had no idea you could already buy fake plastic animals for home security! Look at this bad-boy (takin' a poop?), all we need to do now is add an internal AI, batteries, and make its teeth from steel blades and we have a winner "ideal for home defense"
(it's 4.30 am on Sunday, March 15th 2020, amidst the COVID19 outbreak and i'm a little bit tired and hysterical so bear with me here 😀)
The reservoir has a helpful secondary consequence of providing a physical moat around the building, adding to its already extreme levels of security. The only way into the tower is via a series of hangers halfway up its north face, or private airfields at its tip.
You can see none of that in this room though. The base of each Mechanical Intelligence fits into a slot in the floor that rotates to drive the analytical engines, while the cooling liquid is drawn out of the top and run through heat exchangers before reentering.
It is a room of godlike power, yet the air is sterile and cold, and completely silent. Takamatsu is the only person allowed in here—except for very occasional guests. The floor is polished concrete, the walls a chromium-aluminum alloy (the chromium provides a metallic sheen). Backlit white composite panels for the ceiling help illuminate the space.
Takamatsu spends most of his days here, his gargantuan ego inflated by his servile machines.
I can’t say any more without giving plot details away, so I will stop now 😜
The eleven MIs arranged in a circle . . . but what happened to the twelfth . . . ?
Takamatsu talking with the MI 'Four' (actual name" Is It Hot In Here Or Is It Me?) In this detail you can clearly see the MIs plugged into circular metal 'tracks' in the floor and ceiling; these are connected to the building's power and cooling systems.
Where's Jonesy?
What other rooms or pieces of architecture you would like me to illustrate?
How about the NYPD headquarters building?
Or the garage where Alice makes her sculptures?
Or one of the new, taller, Blade Towers?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so send me an email and let me know! 😀