Of all the aspects of Heliopoli, the nexus, the catalyst, the encapsulation of the entire city resides in the Slideway People Mover.

Nowhere else in the city can one find the sense of progress, of modernity, of forward progression (yes, literally), of comfortableness, of sussurant silver contemporary grounding in a promised future more than in the Slideway People Mover.

And there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Photos by ACF

If we are to continue to look for Heliopoli outside of the city itself, we can’t ignore the Apple company’s plans for its new campus in Cupertino, California.

On June 7, Apple CEO Steve Jobs presented to the Cupertino City Council his proposal for a new Apple campus. The building will cover 2.8 million square feet over four stories. Amenities will include a cafe, a corporate fitness center and an auditorium seating 1,000 people. Parking will be provided under the main building and one multi-story parking structure. The office will accommodate 13,000 employees. The site will have its own power plant that will generate a portion of the campus’ energy needs to minimize reliance on electricity provided by the grid.

The project objectives include creating “a distinctive and inspiring 21st-century workplace” and providing “an expanse of open and green space for Apple employees’ enjoyment.” It seeks to promote “shared creativity and collaboration” in “a single distinctive office.”

The circularity, the glass, the greenspace, the “shared creativity,” the underground parking even (can we remember Le Corbusier’s City of Tomorrow?), cannot be unacknowledged or unadmired. Besides, the chief archivist is a hopeless sucker for architectural concept designs. Can dreams really come true?

The proposal documents, available on the City of Cupertino’s website at Cupertino.org, include an introduction, site plan and landscaping, floor plans, and renderings, from which the images here are taken.

It is rumored that the excavation of the city of Heliopoli will cease operations on Oct. 4, 2009, exactly two years after its start. Though I can’t confirm this, it is true that nearly all the major structures have been unearthed and described, excepting the Lightworks, the Slideway Shopping Mall and the Museum of Futoria. There are plenty of details to explore, however, so it is hard to say whether this record will merely change slightly at that time, or become its own archeological artifact (and we have wandered from our course occasionally anyway). Certainly there is a great amount of cataloging to be done given the amount of mood rings, Uncandles, Fidgets, fiber-optic lamps, and bean-bag chairs that have been found, not to mention the necessity to pay tribute to the color lime green.

At any rate, more major structures might be uncovered as the excavators redouble their efforts, or merely stumble upon them. Take the Balloon Ferry, for instance.

As mentioned before, Heliopoli is a circular city that never lacked in transportation. It is ringed and trisected by the monorail and honeycombed underground by the Metro. It sports slideways and pedways, and its citizens make use of the ubiquitous uniped single-wheel transport. So why would the city need a Balloon Ferry?

At opposite ends of the city lie platforms that are now known to be stations for hot-air balloons. These were at first thought to be unfinished monorail stations until excavator Theronomous Moon wandered past the city into the desert and found sprays of color just under the sandy surface. These proved to be buried portions of hot-air balloon fabric. The rest fell into place.

As a transportation system, hot-air balloons would be quite efficient; as an aesthetic experience, unparalleled. One floats above the city; there is no wind, since one is traveling with it. This aerial view can make one appreciate the city’s design like never before. The city’s own citizens can then apprehend its circularity, its aesthetic aplomb, its radial symmetry, its shining wonder; and there is evidence that the pedways surrounding the Central Plaza create a certain pattern, a symbol, that can only be ascertained from above. Besides, to travel from one end of the city to the other could not be achieved faster than by hot-air balloon.

But no. The theory doesn’t work.

The gondolas that have been found attached to the balloons can hold at most two people. This is hardly an efficient transportation system, or cost-effective for any other purpose — if the purpose was to carry people.

So now we know, and know that there can be other reasons for the city’s need for a Balloon Ferry than just what lies at the surface:

The balloons of Heliopoli were not for looking down from but for looking up at.

There would be at least two or three balloons aloft at any given time. Carrying only one or two attendants, they decorated the air with a looking up, a striving to.

At any hour of the day, a good portion of the citizens of Heliopoli were shading their eyes and gazing into a rainbow sky.

The first day of spring is hardly ever the First Day of Spring. It rarely falls on March 20, or 21, or whatever the official date is. The real first day of spring is the first day of the year when you feel or hear that buzzing in the air. The temperature is different outside, but there’s something that goes along with that, more than just a change in Fahrenheit. The sun is a tad brighter. Perhaps you’ve spotted a single bee, or a fly. There’s “something in the air,” as the saying goes, and it seems to go best with the first day of spring. It’s a feeling, but also a sound, and more than just seeing a flower somewhere.

Which of course brings us to the Rainbow Tower in the city of Heliopoli. There’s something inside that structure that has to do with spring; the excavators have described it. The Rainbow Tower has that feeling, that buzzing, when you walk inside it. There’s “something in the air.” And it’s preserved throughout the year and still there through all these years.  Remarkable, really.

Now, the official season of Heliopoli is autumn — it’s always autumn in Heliopoli — and the chief archivist, for his part, is stupendously unpartial toward spring, to put it mildly; but that one real first day of spring is kinda nice.

And in the Rainbow Tower, the first day of spring occurs 365 days of the year.

Whenever you don’t know what time it is in Heliopoli, just look down.