Without this gene, humans cannot access the Netsphere, the digital control layer of the world. Because humanity lost access, the automated builder robots known as Constructors have gone rogue. They have spent millennia building blindly in every direction.

It is a vertical labyrinth of pipes, wires, and brutalist concrete where the sky has been replaced by ceilings thousands of miles high. The atmosphere is thick with a sense of "cosmic claustrophobia." The Plot: A Quest for the Genetic Key

For the first time in centuries, his optical sensor showed a new overlay:

Silence in the Mega-City: The Architectural Ruin of Tsutomu Nihei’s Blame!