The first interruption had been annoying, but Michael understood it. The second time Ilaria came he was less understanding, but kept silent to avoid seeming rude. He was thanking god when the work day ended before she could go past five interruptions.

If I have to look at that damn spreadsheet for Ilaria one more time I'm going to destroy the F.D.D.I myself. For the love of all that is holy why did I go along with this?

I knew the answer. It was the reason I wasn't putting in a 2 weeks notice or quitting on the spot. Despite my grievances I trusted Smith. Not to look out for me, mind you, but that she would do what was best for the company. As long as I worked for this company my interests and hers should align nicely. While the growing pains of a new employee as seemingly unprepared at Illaria was, it was bound to go away and give us an employee who couldn't afford to quit. Although that made me wonder why she seemed to struggle so much at a job she was supposed to pretend to be good at while finding information.

There are two options to explain the lack of foresight by the F.D.D.I in putting someone who can't do a job properly in charge of infiltrating a business. First: she could just be acting incompetant to get our guard down while she digs deeper into our organization and finds whatever she's looking for. This is the best option as it would mean the interruptions would quickly stop once she gets where she wants, and wouldn't pose a real problem to our company unless there was actually something shady happening- which we would probably want to know about. The second option is the worst, but thankfully the least likely: She actually has no clue what she's doing. This..... would really suck. While she is definitely competant there are just too many progress stopping hiccups to overlook, and if she would actually have to learn how to do this job that would make observing her attempts at any potential sabatoge or espionage harder to differentiate from actual mistakes. This all was pretty sudden so the F.D.D.I not having anyone with the expertise and obscurity necessary to fill this role without being caught is a possibility. Granted that brings up the question of how Smith did find out if the F.D.D.I prioritized not getting caught over someone who could do the job, but that's probably in my best interest to not to know.

The work day had ended, and I had been going over these thoughts in my head while getting ready to leave. I had barely made it to the door when I heard that dreaded sound.

"Mr. Rodgers!"

I held in a sigh, took a deep breath, and faced the music.

"Yes, Ilaria?"

"I just wanted to say thank you for helping me today, the formatting was unfamiliar but I think I'm getting the hang of it now."

That.... would explain alot actually. Smith does insist on using a different form of formatting from other businesses. Why exactly I don't know, but most of the issues she ran into are easily explained if that were the case. Hopefully that means it's a mix of option one and two rather than her being outright incapable. It still wouldn't be an optimal situation, but it would mean the growing pains of getting her to fit in would be over with quickly.

At this point I was just thinking to myself and nodding, which was probably awkward for her. I had to cover my suspicions and justify my thinking time.

"I see, I'll try and take note of that for the future. We do a few things differently here and I'm just thinking of what else we might have to prepare you for."

A simple enough lie, I am supposed to be training her after all.

"That's wonderful to hear, I'll leave it to you sir!"

With that out of the way she left, out of the back of the building.

Makes sense, the rush hasn't died down yet. It wouldn't make sense for someone pretending to be a civilian and casually walk in the middle of a free for all of empowered. speaking of weird, the rush usually ended way before I was finished with my job. I guess the new empowered team coming here messed with the status quo somewhat. Either that or the curfew to end the rush was increased.

"I'll probably have to check on that, just in case."

"Check on what?" I heard a monotone voice behind me from out of nowhere.

"Fucking Hell Amanda! You scared the shit out of me."

I instinctively flinched, realizing who i was talking to and how big of a screw up this probably was for me.

Shit, that was way too unproffesional. I should apologize- why is she laughing?

Smith was practically cackling to herself. Head leaning back enough to mess with her balance. Which evidently it did, as she was leaning on the closest wall as she tried to calm herself down.

"My bad but that was funny. I never took you for a skittish type."

"Well sorry for not sharing your enthusiam, I was in the middle of dealing with a near heart attack."

"Oh it wasn't that bad." she made a final sigh as she truly calmed down and collected herself.

"Anyway, I need to talk to you. It's about.... Ilaria"

Should have probably seen this coming. Well, time to see what the problem is now.

"Is something the matter? I know she's been having difficulty adapting, assuming it isn't an act or whatever, but other than that she's coming along quickly."

Smith hesitated

"I.... wasn't aware of her having difficulty. But I'll take you at your word that it's sorting itself out. No, I'm here because I found why she's here. I believe the F.D.D.A is assuming the reported embezzlement is a coverup for something larger, and they're searching for any inconsistencies."

"And that's a bad thing for us because...?"

"Because if she finds something she might decide to go to the F.D.D.I with it instead of reporting it to us. We can't exactly fix a problem we aren't told about, and any errors she would find will almost definitely lead their paranoid brains to all sorts of wild conclusions."

Shit. I hadn't even thought about any of that. Granted it's possible there is something Smith is covering it up, but if there is I doubt it would be found looking through monetary records. Otherwise I probably would have found something by now. So that leaves just one question.

"If we're worried about Ilaria not reporting errors, how can we make sure she'll tell us about what she finds."

"Well that's the easy part, actually. While we can't afford kicking her out at risk of someone more problematic replacing her, she doesn't know we're trying to avoid that outcome. A warning here or there about getting fired for enough failed reports, with a justification involving the embezzlement or something similar, and we have her in the palm of our hand."

I'd call this a garbage idea if I only had a better one. I guess I'm stuck having to threaten someone capable of killing me. Joy. This time I won't even get a job out of it.