The Accommodation Floors

Layout of the Accommodation Floors

  The Construct is a special building.  After the global war that decimated the population, the remaining government coalesced their resources to help the survivors.  The Construct was the result of that.

  Daniel has lived behind the walls of the Construct his whole life.  He's never stepped outside of those walls.  In fact, none of the people who live there have.  Daniel belongs to the fourth generation that has been born and raised there.  He has no idea what is outside those walls.

  However, he does understand his environment and he's the one that tells us what the building is like.  In chapter 2, he says: 

  "Construct Eleven was a large, circular building.  The beings that occupied it resided in the upper thirty floors while they worked and played in the lower ten.  The living arrangements of the residence floors were in four concentric circles with a hollow center, so that when a being stood on the tenth floor, they could look up and see the sky. 
  The living quarters themselves were arranged to use the space most efficiently.  The two middle rings were backed against each other so the accommodation doors opened into one of two corridors, the inner and outer hallways.  Those were connected by four short corridors evenly spaced around the Construct, where banks of elevators could be accessed."

View from the Paul's window on the fortieth floor

  Since he's stuck in this building, he doesn't have the references you and I have to relate how we would understand it well.  Fortunately, I'm here to help.  It's quite simple, really.  The building is set up like a stadium (Daniel has no concept of this), but it's a circle, not an oval.  The center is open to the sky.  The accommodation floors, levels eleven through forty, would be where the stadium seating is and they encircle the center.  Rather than seating, however, you have small apartments large enough to comfortably have three people living there.  The floors are set up like a wheel.  The outer ring is connected to the inner ring by four corridors, similar to spokes.  Within these 'spokes' are elevators that go from level ten to forty.
  For a peek at the inside of the circle, just check out the cover art.  It's a view from Paul's accommodation, the only one to have a functioning window.  Paul lives on the fortieth floor, the best place in the whole Construct to view the yellow disk setting.  Daniel was nice enough to give us a copy of one of his drawings.  It's of a sunset that he completed about eight weeks before the story begins.
  There you have the accommodation floors.  Next week, we'll talk about the Great Room.

Construct 11 Copyright 2016 Anna Lynn Miller