It was not an unusual thing for somebody to be pulled quite suddenly off the factory floor at the company’s steel mill by people in security uniforms. It was not unusual for the coworkers of people pulled quite suddenly off the factory floor to not even look up from their work when it happened. It was just that kinda place. It was significantly more unusual for the person being picked up out of the production line to not look particularly concerned about it, even as they were thrown over a massive shoulder and walked away to one of the little rooms in the back.

Lee was a short, wiry little thing with short cropped dark hair, not much different in appearance from any of the other recent hires for the factory. They, somehow, contrived to look bored as the security specialist bundled them into one of the little chairs in the little soundproofed room.

The security specialist was a harsh cut woman with hair beginning to silver at the temples and a shirt that fit over her shoulder very poorly, the little collar and engraved name plate joined flush to the leather all the company higher ups wore were very carefully polished, though. She sat on the edge of a desk in the little room and sighed. “Do you understand why I’ve pulled you aside, today?”

“I can’t say I do, Ma’am.” Lee said politely. It is generally unadvisable to give these sorts of people more information than they might need. “Care to tell me?”

The specialist’s eye twitched. “Would you like to have a list?”

“I’m sure I’m all ears, madam.”

The specialist did, in fact, have a list. She pulled it out of her breast pocket and began reading through it. “Overuse of the water services; malicious lingering; possible union activity; disrespect of your team leader; suspicious lingering; stealing of important internal documents containing trade secrets; disrespect towards the security team; lingering that is neither malicious nor suspicious but is, I quote, ‘Creepy;’ embezzlement of important company resources… I assume you get the picture, Lee?”

“And are any of these things, specifically, crimes?” Lee asked.

That earned them a slap across the face, which might be telling in itself. Lee put a hand up to their smarting cheek, genuinely a bit surprised that the specialist had started in on that kind of thing so early.

The specialist settled back on her haunches. “You aren’t stupid, Lee. Don’t try and bring the law in here. Now,” She pulled a slim green stone out of her pocket by the long thin chain, and grinned. “I suspect you know what this is, don’t you? Journalist?”

Lee leaned down, looking the device over as if they’d never seen one before. The specialist saw their fingers twitch, though. She grinned. “Well, on the off chance you didn’t, this, my friend, is a focus.” She raised it so it dangled between them. “How does it work?”

Light refracted through the stone and scattered across Lee’s face. Their eyes fluttered, and then, dully, they said. “We don’t know. There’s a betting pool at the office. We know it does, getting information out of anybody in this company has got to be as nightmarish as it is for a reason, but none of us has been able to figure out how.”

“Well,” the specialist said, “I suppose this is your lucky day then! Wouldn’t you like to find out?”

“Yes…” Lee said, just as emptily. “Let’s find out together, shall we?”

The specialist was fast. It was a necessary part of the job. If, when Lee darted forward adder-quick, they had been aiming for the focus, she might have been able to get it out of their reach in time.

Lee’s hand closed around her collar, and she got a very good look at their blank eyes before they squeezed. Then everything went fuzzy, and the thought of getting up from where she sat flew out of her mind.

Lee- no, her lord- looked up at her blankly. They reached down and flipped something on their belt. A tinny voice filled the room.

“Hi, uh. Me here I suppose. You, I expect, do not know my name. If so, good! You shouldn’t! I’ve done a fair bit of work to make sure you don’t! But I’m a very good friend of the person holding this tape, and it might interest you to know that while we don’t know much about how your focuses work, we have picked up a thing or two. And, more importantly, we’ve learned some very fun things about how those collars of yours work. My friend has also told me in some detail just how good the soundproofing of the room you’re probably in right now is. So, it is very unlikely that we are going to be interrupted any time soon. Isn’t that nice?”

The specialist nodded. It was good to agree with the things your superiors said.

“Alright, enough out of me. GIve my friend here that focus and then one, two, three, up up up!”

Lee blinked, rolled their shoulders, and then looked at what they were holding. “Well, would you look at that.”

They raised the focus. “Now, if you would please take a seat…?”