The digital revolution had dematerialised so many practices, customs and even ways of working and trading that cities had lost their very "raison d'être". They were no longer the places to be; there was no need to live there. You could work elsewhere, do things from other horizons. Already at the time of the pandemics, then during the war and the floods, anyone who had shelter outside their walls had hurried to flee them. People increasingly made their homes in this new virtual world, a kind of Meta-City of all possibilities, where everything seemed simpler, more seductive and immediately accessible. Here, lulled into an illusion of immortality, one met avatars with no flaws or faults, fulfilling every expectation. No longer attractive, cities could no longer seduce. They had been depopulated by low birth rates and life had become so difficult, with frequent shortages and a suffocating climate. Curiously, these forsaken cities, kept in an astonishing state of preservation, had not fallen into ruin. It was as though their last remaining inhabitants had safeguarded them from the ravages of time. The reality, however, was darker: they had not imagined that one day, behind these elegant glass façades, they would be replaced by docile artificial intelligences, working around the clock for the mere cost of the energy consumed... With no further recourse to humankind, these intelligences themselves organised the upkeep of the forsaken cities, perpetuating an illusion of urban civilisation, now virtual in a lifeless setting...