He rummages angrily for the missing remote control, tossing magazines and envelopes about before discovering it between two couch cushions. It had fallen off his lap last night when he’d fallen asleep in front of the screen — the image of her sleeping. He finds the right room, the second floor bathroom and clicks on the prompter, magnifying it so that it fills the screen. She’s already undressed and began her shower. He can see the abstracted silhouette of her bare body, the dark triangle of her crotch, the round protrusions that drip out from her chest, the arching curves that leave her belly and begin her legs. She looks as though she is the window of a church, a saint eulogized in glass. She moves quickly, he can see her shaving her legs, her armpits, her bikini line. He can see her scrubbing her face with special soap. Then, she turns off the shower and reaches for the door. He waits. She puts her hand on the door and pushes it open. His mouth opens slightly, a bead of spit drops from his fang to his lower molar. She steps out of the shower and he sees her, entirely. He has a few, uninterrupted moments of her as she dries herself with a towel. He watches her bend to dry her heals and shins, he smiles when she stretches to dry her hair, her legs apart, her arms over her head, her entire body flexed toward his camera. He pushes a button and it freezes her, standing there, in her bathroom, naked. Then, he saves the image and returns to her. She wraps the towel around her head and begins her morning routine, brushing her teeth, lathering lotion onto her body, wiping deodorant on her armpits, brushing her hair.
He clicks the controller and watches as she re-enters her bedroom. What shall we wear today, dear Beatrice? His name is Captain Vincent Belacque (Belacque Fresh Seafood Importing), he is an information officer with the Section 6, stationed outside of Fort Cannes. Captain Vincent is a legend in the Bureau of Information Containment, a subsection of the Department of Internal Affairs and Social Tranquility, which is one of the twelve branches of the Cabinet of Ministers Office, which is directly under the Supreme Chancellors’ Office, who sits on the advisory boards for both the president and CEO. When he was a young cadet, first enrolled in the officer’s training program at Lindinsfarne, Captain Vincent had scored the highest devotional score in the history of the test. He was given a citation simply for his ability (which is to say that he had natural equipment that allowed him to accomplish some small part of the more callous ambitions [the desire to be vilified by enemies and made ridiculous by acquaintances {those people known well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to}]) and began his career under illustrious circumstances.
But, his Binetian test scores were not what made him famous, under study for his surveillance capabilities; the researchers found that Vincent could remember details exactly as they appeared. It had long been known that human observation was not a perfectly reliable source; often facts were missed, while conjecture and fancy were entreated with the utmost care. This was not so with Captain Vincent. The researchers had him in a dark room, with a window in which actors portrayed personalities in a particular setting, an apartment, on a city street, in an office building. The experiment gauged how well the participant could observe the scene and recall later specific objects, persons, and voices. A thick, felt curtain blocked them from his sight and then, the researchers lifted the screen for a set interval. The intent was for him to remember as much about what he’d seen and heard as possible. The average person would remember three things correctly and twelve incorrectly. One full sentence of dialogue exactly as it was spoken and the rest of the conversation incorrectly. Captain Vincent not only remembered all he’d seen and heard, he knew exactly how the actors had moved, what facial expressions they had worn on their faces, who had coughed, what soap they used, what they’d eaten for breakfast that morning, and, even more amazing, what they were thinking while they acted their part. The researchers were flabbergasted, they sped up the experiment, lifting the curtain for shorter and shorter intervals. But every time, without fail, Captain Vincent could tell them anything they wanted to know. Finally, the researchers stopped lifting up the curtain (acquiescing to the Rhinian affairs they were observing). Captain Vincent could still tell them what scene had been setup, who was standing on stage, what they had intended to say should the curtain be brought up, what they were thinking at a particular time, what objects surrounded the actors, how long it had been since they had each had sex, what medication each was on, from what region they were from, where objects in the mock scene were purchased, who was not very interested in their duties, which researcher had directed the particular setup, what kind of coffee he had that morning, where he lived, whether he was married or not, had children, loved his wife, loved a mistress, loved his job. Captain Vincent was thence known as Captain Memorizmo, a modern day superhero, a by-product of engineered evolution, the latest model of the human production industry. He was immediately assigned to the observation department.
Captain Vincent’s department was one of twelve branches of the government in charge of social harmony, known as the Sections. Their main function was to provide surveillance on questionable persons in the general population who had perked the government’s interest due to irregular behavior: a missed doctor’s appointment, refusal to take prescribed medicines, flamboyant attire (an obvious Loosian sin), emotional outbursts, thoughtlessness towards other citizens, women over twenty-five who were still single, person’s who had different grooming styles, men who dressed in women’s attire, women who dressed overtly in men’s attire (such as not wearing dresses or gowns at least twice a month), students who remained at college after they’d received a degree, people who yelled in public, accident victims, people who practiced devious sexual acts, consumers who had not met purchasing quotas, people who turned down coupon books, low interest rates, cash-back incentives, credit card offers, and major sales information, people who wrote letters expressing questionable opinions, people who did not vote more than seventy-five percent of the time, wives who had not given birth to at least one child by their second anniversary, salespeople who failed to make suitable commissions, people who did not follow preset purchasing goals and allowances, and any other persons that the director of the department determined through intelligence were not positively adding to society at large.
Captain Vincent was the second in command of the unmarried women chapter of the department. His team of eighty-two men kept on-going surveillance on thousands of women worldwide who were still not married and were above the approved age (a period when vices become reviled due to our inability to continue to commit them). Captain Vincent had taken over control of his current assignment when the subject had refused a third marriage proposal from a completely legitimate suitor. Her case was sensitive enough to warrant the department’s best man, she was a prominent figure in society and her thoughtless and anti-social activities were negatively affecting the community. Captain Vincent’s duty was to observe her and gather evidence so that Women’s Protective Services could acquire a court order for her to be married or face possible financial and legal sanctions, or even, possibly be a candidate for rebranding.