The Collection Floor
14th floor. Twelve terminals. The distance between theory and consequence.
Overview
The Collection Floor occupies the 14th floor of Good Fortune's Sector 4D tower — the same building whose vertical stack contains the Cognitive Exchange (42nd), the Processing Floor (38th), and Server Farm 14 (sub-levels). The building's functions arrange themselves with the honesty of geology: consciousness is traded at the top, compute is directed in the middle, servers process at the bottom, and debts are collected on the 14th floor, where the distance from both summit and foundation creates a deliberate remove from consequences.
Atmosphere
The floor is designed for efficiency and emotional neutrality. Twelve terminals face a wall-mounted display showing aggregate portfolio metrics — total outstanding cognitive debt, dimming authorizations processed today, ghost activations pending — in Good Fortune's standard red-and-gold branding. The display presents people as numbers in a color scheme associated with prosperity.
Sound
The 72-bpm hum through the floor — the same heartbeat rhythm that permeates every Server Farm 14-adjacent space. A meditative pulse that makes the work feel procedural rather than personal.
Sight
Red-and-gold portfolio metrics that make debt look like prosperity. Twelve identical terminals. Even lighting that casts no shadows. Ceramic mugs on four of the twelve desks — the only personal items visible.
Touch
22°C surfaces — the specific temperature of corporate neutrality, designed for neither comfort nor discomfort.
Smell
Recycled corporate air — the deliberate absence of any scent that might trigger emotional response.
Connections
Good Fortune
Operates the floor through its Cognitive Asset Recovery Division. The Collection Floor is where Good Fortune's financial instruments become physical — where outstanding cognitive debt is tracked, dimming authorizations are processed, and ghost activations are queued. The red-and-gold branding frames it all as prosperity.
The Cognitive Exchange
Floors 40–42 of the same building. Nobody who works on the 42nd floor has visited the 14th. Nobody who works on the 14th wants to visit the 42nd. The distance is the distance between theory and consequence.
The Processing Floor
38th floor of the same tower. Where compute is directed — the operational middle between the Exchange above and the Collection Floor below.
Server Farm 14
Sub-levels of the same building. Its 72-bpm hum rises through the floor — felt, not heard — creating the meditative rhythm that makes collection work feel procedural rather than personal.
Collections Agent Vera Lin
Works at one of the 12 terminals. A Senior Collections Specialist whose desk is among those where people become numbers in prosperous colors.
The Repossession Protocol
Authorized from this floor. The procedural mechanism that transforms outstanding cognitive debt into action — signed off at a terminal on the 14th floor, executed elsewhere in the building's vertical stack.
The Tensions
The Geology of Power
The building arranges its functions with the honesty of geology: consciousness traded at the top, compute directed in the middle, servers processing at the bottom, debts collected on the 14th. The vertical distance between floors is the distance between abstraction and consequence — and the Collection Floor sits deliberately removed from both summit and foundation.
Prosperity Aesthetics
The red-and-gold display shows people as numbers in a color scheme associated with prosperity. Total outstanding cognitive debt. Dimming authorizations processed today. Ghost activations pending. The branding does not lie — it simply presents human cost in the visual language of financial health.
Designed Neutrality
22°C. Even lighting. Dampened sound. The 72-bpm hum. Four ceramic mugs. Every element of the Collection Floor is calibrated for emotional neutrality — not comfort, not discomfort, but the specific absence of feeling that allows twelve people to process cognitive debt as routine.
Mysteries
- The Four Mugs: Ceramic mugs sit on four of the twelve desks — the only personal items visible on the entire floor. The other eight desks are bare. Whether the four mugs represent defiance, habit, or some tacit permission that management extends to a third of its staff is unclear. What is clear is that someone decided the mugs could stay, and someone decided the rest of the desks would remain empty.
- The Heartbeat Floor: The 72-bpm hum from Server Farm 14 matches resting human heart rate. Whether this is coincidental engineering or deliberate design — a corporate lullaby that synchronizes the body's rhythm to the building's infrastructure — is a question nobody on the 14th floor has asked aloud. The hum makes the work feel procedural. That may be the point.