[i]Damn it, Ona. That's not what we're here for![/i]

It was difficult to listen to her in one ear and the applicant in the other. But Jules heard the last sentence well enough—the instruction to end all interactions with this young lady—and knew that he had to disobey. Plain and simple. It kept them out of trouble with the handlers; their department was meant to minimize its presence, and disguise its few jutting bits and pieces as more mundane parts. Their psychoanalytic process was an "interview"; their paperwork sat on their desks as blatantly as any other neglected pile. Locked cabinets and big "Classified" stamps made people curious. Polygraph machines and wire nodes attached to their wrists and temples made them defensive. So what would it look like if the chubby office drone in the dull white room, who clearly possessed no more authority than over a water cooler, could decide her fate?

No, that's not how the patchers operated. If they thought so suspiciously of this young woman, they would call her in for a second interview. Then the police would have an easier time detaining her.

Later Jules would have to comfort Ona in the fact that the girl would be rejected in one of the later departments; maybe even the one directly following theirs. Just as Jules couldn't give her the advice which would help her impress his superiors, neither could he detain someone who, by his reckoning, was completely innocent.

The interview went for nearly twenty minutes more. When it ended the two in the room had talked about the company for quite a long time; she had asked what he liked about working there, and he gave her a series of perfect little lies to boost her optimism. Then when they had shaken hands again, he passed through the vestibule and into the control room with a sigh, feeling like a virus invading a cell membrane.