London

London is the capital of the United Kingdom, which, now reduced to only England and Wales is more frequently simply referred to as England. Based in the south east of the country on the River Thames, it is a city of 34 million people, comprising 41% of the country’s population. The Greater London Area, which is bounded by the M25 Orbital and its wall, covers 1,500 square kilometres. Around half of this is filled with Towers, the rest being covered in toxic former suburban sprawl, wasteland, fusion plants and a manufacturing district. The actual populated area of London has halved while its population has increased five-fold since 2019. The roughly 700 kilometres of Towers are called the City of London and have a population density of 45,000 people per square kilometre – ten times its level in 2019. Comparisons between present day London and the London of only 60 years later are almost meaningless, thanks to the development of so-called Tower Drones by Japan and Australia in the late 2040s. This fully automated suite of cheap, reliable drones enabled the rapid reconstruction of London from the foundations up, allowing it to survive rising waters, a huge influx of people from the regional UK and to become a self-sufficient city state – it has enough Vertical Farms, Fusion Plants, Recyclers and Manufacturing Centres to continue effectively cut off from the rest of the country.

Despite the economic decline in the UK following its disastrous decision to leave the EU and the

subsequent departure of Scotland and Northern Ireland from its fold in the following decades, London has regained its status as an economic powerhouse. While Port City on the south coast is still the country’s primary logistical hub, it is still a major trading port. In central London, as today, north of the river is more prosperous than south of the river. To the north sit the financial centre and corporate towers and the hi-tech district; to the south are the shopping and entertainment districts. Navigation by any of the erstwhile tourist attractions for London – long since built around though never demolished, and choked in the toxic smog of the Warrens – has been rendered redundant.

The city only survived unflooded due to the design of the Towers to resist even permanent soil inundation and due to the Thames Flood Barrier, floating shields tethered to the bedrock of the estuary that interlink and can deploy to distribute flood surges along the coast.

The London Underground no longer runs – commuter travel now takes place above the Warrens, along the bridges between the towers – but the tunnels that once comprised it are still there and are, along with the ground streets, a primary way for the destitute Ineligibles to move from one part of the city to another. The tunnels frequently flood, are filled with toxic runoff, pests and parasites and are a hotbed of violent crime.