Great questions. And lucky for me I have answers for them. 

I'm also a nuts-and-bolts person, not so much because with that visible structure I can have the pleasure of getting myself lost exploring a strange world, while knowing at the same time that the maze has an ending, a way out (partly because real life doesn't have this) -- but because with this structure and context behind me I find myself free to build more intricate stories, more complex characters, get them lost in rapids for a while, knowing there's a way out for them, and set them off in relief against old stories & characters, society, etc. 

1) Getting to Alan, I didn't feel the need to spell out everything for the reader, but sort of hoped the general impression I left would lead to him/her to a few important inferences. We know his mother was a Society leader. We also know that he didn't seek her protection or special aid when he went out to find work on his own. Meaning, for some reason, he doesn't want to, perhaps actively avoiding, implicating himself in the Society. For some reason, he doesn't want to become a member, a henchman, say. But he's not the sort of rebel, like Abigail in my other story, who has ethical, social, political reasons for rebelling (the Daisy Millerite rebels, whom Society in general actively seeks out and opposes, crushes, when they become dangerous). He has private reasons: his hatred for the Society began with his hatred for his mother (he doesn't call her before Sadie shrinks him, because if she saves him, gives him 'immunity' and a job, he'd owe her something). So the questions to ask about Alan are, I think: 1) Why doesn't he call on his mother to give him a job? and, because he's not a rebel in his blood, but because of private circumstances, 2) How will he eventually be assimilated into the structure of Society? 

2) The question about benefits doesn't concern most of the characters in this story, and it doesn't directly affect the background (though it might deepen it) so I won't bring it up here. The answer to that will come out in Chloe, when I show some of the higher-echelon personnel. If I spent more time with Pearl, in Adela, you would have already known it. I need the right time and the right people to answer that in the story.

Thanks for reading. As far the stories go: a story like Chloe is where you'll find most of your "bare-bones" questions answered.  In Sadie, I wanted to start afresh, and maybe draw in new readers, who didn't want to spend time reading the other three stories. In Holly, I wanted to dim the lights somewhat (but I stopped that story a month ago because I was unhappy where it was going -- I felt I was going over the same territory in Adela -- with slave-selling revelations and so on -- but in a watered-down way. I might rewrite the last three chapters).

Thanks. Dig your style too.

With a name like Sadie, you never know if she'll be gentle or sadistic. Look above for the 'rationale' comment.