These are visions of Hao Jingfang, a Chinese science-fiction writer and economics researcher. Hao’s novelette “Folding Beijing” won the prestigious Hugo Award in 2016 for its arresting depiction of a city in which economic classes are separated into different worlds.

A mighty river of drones flows below the window—civil servants rushing to get to their desks before their section chief is at his. “Once upon a time,” says Ai, “people used to build Tokyo. But that changed somewhere down the line, and now Tokyo builds people.”