Jules heard the woman's reply only vaguely. Her strongest and most distinctive words, "son" and "babysitter" and the likes, leapt at him; not as an army of words organized into rows and columns like soldier-ants, but singular little bodies acting with no queen's mandate. All her context slid off the waxy varnish glazed over his brain.

Someone else had spoken into the feed; the voice belonged to a male. Jules' heart thrashed in his throat, struggling against its bindings.

"[color=8d97bf]Sorry, sir. Could you repeat yourself?[/color]" he asked.

"[color=#FF6363]Mr. Elliott, we see that Ms. Ví clocked in at 7:58 this morning. Is she there?[/color]" He sounded thin-worn.

"[color=8d97bf]Yes, sir, she is.[/color]"

The voice was so hard and cold, like a snow-crusted lamppost. It belonged to a man of copper wiring, surely, who did not hesitate in swinging down his brass fist upon his underlings. "[color=#FF6363]At the nearest convenience, tell her to come to my office,[/color]" he said. "[color=FF6363]'Please.'[/color]"

"[color=8d97bf]Yes, sir,[/color]" Jules said, but the feed had cleared again just prior.

With alarm stabbing at his entrails, Jules checked that the mic was off; that the button had not stuck, and that nothing weighed it down. He wanted to be sure that Ona had not heard that, and although she hadn't, that only meant it was in his power to tell him. No; it was his duty. (What "choice" did he have? To do what was expected of him, or to freeze and wither like the other alley-slimes, while a hundred applicants lined up to replace him and two other patchers had to filter those hundred down to twenty. Rotten bastards; that's why good people do rotten things!) He peered like a gumball-thieving child over his guilty shoulder, toward the camera looming above. Intimately he felt the walls of the room pressing up against his tender flesh, suffocating and crushing it, and the glass of the camera lens slicing at his delicate peace of mind.

He pressed his hand to the mic at last, though hesitating to press down on the button, it rested listlessly upon the flat base awhile.

"[color=8d97bf]Ona, if you want me to continue the interviews without you, tap the table three times with your index finger,[/color]" he said. "[color=8d97bf]Uh, Mr. Skovgard wants you in his office. Immediately.[/color]"

[i]Immediately.[/i] That's what "at the nearest convenience" means to a man in a suit, a man who signs paychecks.