The OFFICER stood outside the Myerman Block wearing the cold sweat of morning's mist. In his hand, he held Eliza's armband. The power had since faded, and the once blinking red light had gone dead like a fallen sentinel. TELEstream had informed Frank that Eliza's apartment door had been accessed earlier that morning. Frank wasn't worried. In fact, the news brought him confidence he was closer to catching the woman and addressing the issue of her commercial "truancy" to TELEstream's satisfaction. Her wage account indicated a month-long rental period for the apartment unit, which meant that unless she had forge a payment tracker or was homeless, she would eventually return to the Myerman Block. There were no punishments for leaving the bosom of TELEstream, such measures would be coercive and plant the seed of dissent in the hallowed soil of their Free Choice. Frank needed to simply remind wayward souls, like Eliza Abramson, of the benefits of the society and learn the cause of her deviance. Knowledge of motivations for truancy was vital in an OFFICER's judgement, and the OFFICER would make every attempt to persuade the citizen to return to TELEstream's fold. If the citizen remained defiant or intransigent, the OFFICER could render the citizen "insolvent" and face "alternate consequences" if they could not be persuaded to return.
Alternate Consequences was a euphemism for a quiet death, and was reserved for only the extreme cases. A death meant a loss in profit, however fractional. Life was valued as a resource, and contingent happiness and health were the benefits. It was a symbiotic relationship that fabricated the superstructure of society. One had to be mentally ill in wanting to leave.
The stairwell felt cool and bleak as Frank ascended to the twenty-fifth floor. The first floor of the block sat below the street level, which meant that Frank entered the block on the fourteenth floor. The interior of the apartment block hung with a dingy character, one infused with neglect and moderate depression. All the surfaces were made of concrete without crack or spall. The structure retained a solid quality, but one designed for those of lower performance. Such unskilled persons deserved access to stable, safe housing and medical treatment, but their relative potential for consumption was matched with the investment in their surroundings. It only made economic sense; invest in accordance with the likely return on that investment.
The dim natural light that filtered into the hallway failed to cast a shadow, only a diffused grayness in the OFFICER's wake. Frank walked with his tired gait, and produced a hand-sized rectangle from somewhere inside his coat. He found Unit 654 and waved the device in front of the door. It glowed a bright, lime-green and the apartment door unlocked and slid swiftly upward. Frank returned the device to its home inside his jacket and entered the living space. Frank's veteran eyes scanned the quarters of Eliza Abramson, which offer no surfeit of clues. The room was completely empty, save for a single bed with ruffled sheets and a reclining, metal chair.
Frank Harper stood frozen in mental paralysis at the absence of data afforded him. OFFICERs executed their duties by being trained manipulators - masters of perception - observing a subject's home environment for hints of their preferences and inner life. The aggression of their intellectual rigor mirrored the philosophers of old who, when asked to define love, retorted such a deliberation was impossible without the parameters of a question. A subject and their possessions constituted an assemblage, an aggregate portrait, of a psychology akin to the ultimate question: what makes a person tick? The collage of bird photographs supposedly inferred a sense of what made Mr. Holofeld tick, but the nature of that reality still eluded the OFFICER. The dwelling of Eliza Abramson offered even fewer clues. However, Frank had the advantage of surprise and containment. He sat upon the metal chair, pretending a comfort that did not come and never would. Frank's eyes roved with restless intent over the blank, concrete walls. With so little to analyze, his eyes were drawn to the window and the scene of industry within its frame.
So much activity, so much purpose. Yet, such industry and energy became enervated when juxtaposed against the barreness of Eliza's quarters. Her room nullified the purpose Frank could only assume was evidently plain. A quiet, unsettled pang lined Frank's stomach. It was a realization his mind fought to dis-create, and his hands gripped the armrests of his chair as a sheer panic flooded his being. The room, as a microcosm in its stark emptiness, echoed the terrifying and sublime void of Vertical Access Shaft 538-CFG — the bottomless abyss into which Mr. Holofeld cast himself. Frank scanned about, but found no help, no anchor points of being within that terrible place. He sat isolated, omnipresent, and singular.
Just like Mr. Holofeld in his field operation cabin. The emptiness did not induced diversion, but a radical clarity. Frank watched the churning industry through that window once more, now aware of the window frame in its power of disengagement.
He understood then; to be without purpose - the ultimate heresy.
Frank sat back, shocked at the bliss he felt. He'd spend those next hours contemplating that room, in all its wondrous nothingness.