Part 4 — Chapter 2

Summary

• The first moon colony was built in the Sea of Tranquility, where the Apollo 11 astronauts had landed.
• Apollo 11's flag was still present in the distance.
• Due to overwhelming immigration interest driven by overpopulation and climate changes on Earth, development for residential space was quickly sold out.
• When Colony One ran out of space, Colony Two was hastily built.
• Within a century, the lighting system in the main dome of Colony Two failed, causing a switch to extreme light and dark conditions every two weeks. Rather than the designed "blue sky" look, colonists were now looking into space.
• The cost of repairing the lighting was too much, leading to adaptations such as window shutters and improved street lighting, but property values declined. Residents moved to Colony One or the newly completed Colony Three if they could afford it. Colony Two became known as "the Night City".
• The protagonist, named Gaspery-Jacques, grew up in the Night City, primarily ignoring the deteriorated childhood home of notable writer Olive Llewellyn until he learned he was named after a character in one of her books. He began to feel a connection to the home.
• The current inhabitants of Llewellyn's old home, the Anderson family, were known for their dysfunctional behavior. They had a daughter named Talia who was cheerful at school, but sucked into the family misery at home.
• The protagonist conversed with Talia once at school, and she revealed she also walked past his home regularly to get to the Periphery Road, a zone between the Night City dome and civilization.
• The protagonist spent time at the Periphery looking out at the moonscape after school.
• Talia moved away without warning and the protagonist didn't see her again until they both worked in Colony One's Grand Luna Hotel in their mid-thirties.
• The protagonist began his job at the hotel following his mother's death. A long illness had led to financial strain, prompting the job change.
• Before her death, his mother had talked about the simulation hypothesis, the theory that reality might be a computer simulation.
• The protagonist's new job was a hotel detective, mostly a security job requiring attentiveness—a trait he discovered he had.
• The HR officer hiring him was Talia, who now went by Natalia. They looked back on their shared past, but she revealed she'd never returned to the Night City since moving away.