The city is mutating at an extraordinary pace.

A million homes. A million workplaces. A million hovels and ruins. They are not fit for purpose – their old brick bones are creaking, their delicate concrete abdomens brittle. Their inhabitants are sickly and slow. “It’s time to fix them up! There’s no room for them in the new world!”

Temporary plywood scales and gigantic steel exoskeletons prop up exhausted, bloodless building carcasses. Huge machines cut through cables and walls, pierce stones, smash the rafters and balconies, chew them down to rock and rubble and dust. Soon, new foundations will be poured. Demon machines will spin a new body for the building – a solid sturdy gown of glass and Teflon, plastic, kryptonite and diamonds, rising to the sky, shining like the sun, to attract wealthy exotic butterflies, young! Beautiful! Rich! Voracious!

The city is moulting. The city must renew itself, faster, faster! Not a moment to lose. Hurtling into the future, devouring the present. “Wheeeeeeeeeeee!”