Emporium Supreme

Of all the great works of engineering artifice on Madrisa Prime, the Emporium Supreme is the most unabashed and single-minded. No where else is the density of personal consumer commerce as great. The transaction data produced every second alone would utterly debilitate any mundane information system, only by the arcane gift of the noosphere is the flow of capital and credits successfully moderated. It is a canyon of riotous, swirling lights and sparkling steel over 2000 kilometers long and almost 10 kilometers deep at is greatest extents. The chasm between each side is just shy of 2 kilometers across and is choked with air traffice at all hours of the day. Hundreds of bridges and transit tubes criss-cross the shimmering gulf but so great is the Emporium that it is seldom more efficient to traverse them than to simply hail one of the thousands of air vehicles.   Embedded in the walls of this man-made canyon are businesses and showrooms of all kinds, carrying everything from clothing to cyberware to works of art and boutique service parlours. Nearly anything that can be bought or sold can be found somewhere in the packed levels of ferrocrete and plasteel. For most citizens not local to Sectors 3 and 7, a visit to the Emporium Supreme is a once-in-a-lifetime journey as spectacular as any resort vacation. While the average amenities are not to the standard of luxury found in Sector 4, the sheer opportunity for expense and commercial delight totally eclipses any other inadequacy. The low rumble of noise from the Emporium can be heard for kilometers and storefronts on the faces of the chasm install baffling of some kind to cut out the tremendous cacophany. These are the most prestigious businesses, with most casting their holographic signage out into the sea of lights hoping to catch the eyes of flying customers. Some, of course, have no need to advertise, their services and products so exclusive that to invite the attention of any not discretely invited would be an insult to their prestige. As one burrows into the superstructure behind these palatial fascia, the businesses grow more modest and functional, offering discounts and cut-rates for out of season or antiquated delights.   Descending to the bowels of the Emporium Supreme is another matter. Far down, near the colossal pylons that anchor the millions of tonnes of architecture above, there is a vast industrial wasteland of discarded and forgotten merchandise. Things here sift the detritus, some in the shape of men or familiar machines; others monstrous and twisted beyond sanity or redemption. The terminal layer of the Emporium is guarded by a private battalion of mercenaries, aided by legions of drones and fearsome cyberbeasts to keep the wretched, foul things from rising to the populated zones above. But their surveillance is not perfect and teams of treasure hunters and corporate operatives risk everything to venture into the pits seeking forgotten relics or deliberatly hidden secrets.