From the introduction: This place doesn’t strictly have a name; right now we’re headed to the zones , trembling flowers of order standing alone in the vast abyss. There are four zones, and everything in them is made of four elements; smoke, metal, plastic, and meat . And each zone has a guardian , a being of immense power that keeps order of the zones on behalf of the Queen , and prevents them from falling into the abyss. Every place is color coded, every building is geometric, and the ground that one stands on is a vast, flat island of metal floating gingerly on an ocean of liquid plastic.