Hypersonic festive break part two

The Harrods Megalopolis

The following morning, Julie is walking into Harrods Knightsbridge, except “walking into” doesn’t capture it anymore. You enter Harrods the way you’d enter a city.

The complex occupies eighteen city blocks of Knightsbridge, rising forty stories above ground and extending twelve levels underground, stitched into the Subnet’s London velocity network. The original 1849 building has been preserved as a museum piece at the center of what has become a Cathedral of Consumption.

The scale is hard to hold in your head. 4.2 million square feet of retail space, 8,000 boutiques and departments, and 340 restaurants, cafés, and dining “experiences.” There are twelve hotels integrated into the structure, three theaters running holiday programming, virtual-reality shopping suites on Floors 25–30, and avatar districts on Floors 31–38.