…continued from part 1.

Wondering what that was, I began to search the Apartment. I needed to know more about this guy. Who was he – what was he doing here – why is his stuff all here and where did he go? Not having time to continue, I made a phone call to the management group that I was going to be a few minutes late to the board meeting. After the call, I started looking around the apartment. I sat the voice recorder back on the table. The room was a hollow shell of a person with remnants everywhere. A very methodical lifestyle was apparent despite the last stand coordination. Binoculars, survival books, rolled-up tent, camera, old cell phone, and laptop, just to name a few things. The lined bookshelves were more fascinating. Stacks of composition journals lined them. Each with some coded system that incrementally increases from the top to the bottom of the shelves. I slid one out and glossed over it. It was coded on the spine and cover with writing throughout.

The walls had news articles printed and adhered to the walls. The dates varied but seemed to tell a story coinciding with the context of the audio. Not having the time then, I locked up the apartment and left the room as it was. I knew that I would be back when I had more time. This initial visit was to survey the vacant rooms. This was one of six and the first one on the stop that day. Still having five more to get through, I had to press on. “What happened to you 116?” I wondered. Having recently acquired the property, I did not have all of the documentation yet. File transfers take time and approvals. And considering the age of the property and all that has taken place over the years – record-keeping of this nature was not the highest priority. So I had to do my own investigating. This routine check was only to ensure the room was in generally good order before the teams prepare it for inhabitance again. We do this for each acquisition. I always enjoyed this part of the process; finding out about lives left behind… All of the other apartments were already empty. The doors open where you can see in. Since these six were locked, I needed to verify it.

Room two was mostly empty. The basic things that you would expect in an apartment that was abandoned. A couple of photos were on the floor, along with a couple of books. As I picked up the photos and began to study them, I noticed one was taken in the apartment that I was just in. The age of the photo was uncertain but it was definitely taken some time ago. A young man with brown eyes and very distinct features smiled standing in front of a bookshelf. Journals lined the shelves, just like they did while I was there – but significantly less of them. The middle-aged man in the picture had an intense look to him despite the smile in the picture. His hair was cut really close and he had a thick goatee. The second picture was of a young woman. She had long black hair and a significantly stern look on her face. There was depth behind her eyes and she wore a distinguishing set of eyeglasses. The picture was curved and worn in the shape of a wallet or pocket.

As I looked past the picture I noticed a composition book under the coffee table. I picked it up and instantly noticed the same coding system on the spine from tenant 116. Did they know each other – if so – what was their relationship? While it is not uncommon to have empty or abandoned apartments, the fact that there was some connection between these two tenants and both were abandoned around the same time frame did spark curiosity. The photo was suddenly less interesting and I placed it in my front shirt pocket where it fit perfectly. The composition book was full of writing. A quick flip from back to front showed black and white on every page. The book had above average wear and the pages were tinted lightly from the aging process. The cover of this book was sun-bleached on the corner that stuck out from the table where it faded to magenta from fire-engine red.

I put the journal under my arm, intending to return to the prior apartment and locked up 212 heading to the next. A part of me wondered if I was going to continue finding clues in each room. I brushed the thought off as too much CSI television. I was set at ease opening the next doors. The next apartments had no obvious connection to the other two. I searched through each of them only finding lives that were ages ago. Photographs of a family were on the walls in one and a couple of amateur paintings in another. The last one only had a mattress, lamp, and a deck of cards on the floor. Spades… by that point I was over analyzing and paying attention to everything. Carrying the composition notebook around, I began to wonder what was written in all of the books. The books that were numbered and in some form of order. Hundreds of composition books lining a bookshelf in 116. Were they all filled like the one under my arm? I had the same curiosity that a person has in an estate sale. I wanted the story to unfold. Who were these people?

Walking back to 116, I pulled the keys out of my back pocket. Modern buildings are all keycard or biometric, but many older buildings still exist. With the dozen-plus keys jingling and fumbling through my fingers, I lost grip of the composition notebook. The book fell flat, spine down, and opened to a worn page set. This section was an apparent journal entry with a date in the upper right corner. Pristine cursive lined the pages, indicative of the educational time frame. You see, since the digitizing of all records became the norm in the States, Optical Character Recognition, did not work well with cursive due to all of the variations. Hand-printed text, while vastly different person to person, was recognizable by the average AI. Cursive was removed from schools, nationally, in the late ’20s. When the pandemic happened, so many people were lost that the world suffered great losses of tribal knowledge. The World Digitization Act of 2025, created the ability and met the need for all documents to be digitized. Anything not printed relied on translation, which was also not the highest priority during that period. The digital rebellion took hold shortly after and hackers wiped large amounts of data from the archives. We are still searching the Black Webs recovering data lost.

Having a family that believed in a diverse education, I was easily able to read the cursive writing. The entry was marked as Feb 20, 2022. My eyes were pulled to the first line which jumped out at me “Day 675. The world has gone mad. Today, leaders of the United States made decisions to convert to a police state…” My phone rang about that time and I realized that I was already several minutes late to my appointment. Diverting the call, I picked up the fallen book, closed it, and finished opening the door. I walked into the room and realized something that I had not before. The organization was methodical. Not in a neat person sort of way, but in a library sort… The way the books were organized and other materials were placed in precise spots reminded me of a forensics laboratory. This room was a record of some sort. I placed the book on the table by the voice recorder. Turning to leave, I stopped, second-guessing myself, and grabbed the voice recorder. I walked out of the room and shut the door behind me, locking it.

The building deemed vacant had been sanitized long before my arrival. As I approached the main entrance I slid my PPE into the engaged position beeping active. I adjusted my access lanyard hanging from the front of my belt into the correct position. Scanning drones are really a nuisance and not worth the hassle of an incomplete read. I zipped up my jacket and pulled my stocking out of my back pocket adjusting it over my mask harness. The winters were cold and a trip to the infirmary was not something that I wanted to mess with. As I exited the building I saw my car start as I approached. I got into the car and sat the recorder on the dash. Replaying images of 116 in my mind, I heard the tenant’s voice over and over, “Better… never came. Well at least not in the way we expected it.” I checked the time and selected manual vehicle operation. I wanted to drive. I pushed the BT connection on the recorder and it paired with my car audio system. “Connection successful,” the AI confirmed. “What else did you have to tell me 116?” I pondered to myself.

(click)

“…we were chasing it after that and have never caught up. And we locked down again. Even tighter…”

[to be continued…]