Rogue Nation: Meet the IMF

Chapter 4: Weekly Date

"Hey, Kit-Kat." Benji greeted, and he was rewarded with a smile from the pretty brunette woman before her eyes shifted back to the director and her expression returned to an annoyed frown.

"You know, this is starting to get just a little old." Kat said dryly as she walked in, completely ignoring Brandt as her CIA escort led the way to the polygraph. Although by this point she knew how everything was done, so it was a moot gesture.

"Well, maybe if you cooperated, you could be done." Hunley returned with a mirthless smile.

"How's your day been, Benji?" Kat asked her friend as he was about to leave, and Benji gave her a wide smile, though he glanced once at Brandt.

"Dull, as usual." He replied loudly, not looking at Hunley although the comment was definitely pointed at the man.

Hunley frowned, but Benji ignored him as he asked Kat: "How's the 'boyfriend'?"

He nodded at her escort, who remained impassive as Kat replied lightly: "I don't know. We don't speak. But he's sweet enough to come and pick me up every Friday."

"Ah, 'date night'. That sounds nice. You guys do anything fun?" Benji asked casually, and Kat answered just as nonchalantly: "Oh sure. He takes me to the CIA."

"Lovely date spot." Benji tossed, and she tossed back as she was strapped into the polygraph: "Gets a bit dull after six months."

"Enough!" Hunley commanded, rubbing his forehead in exasperation. The pair had similar conversations every week when they met as they switched off for their polygraph test, and he knew it was to irritate him.

Brandt was just watching silently with a neutral expression, as usual, as Hunley ordered: "Dunn, you've got work to do."

"Enjoy 'work', Benji." Kat called after him, her tone clearly placing air quotations around the word. Hunley ground his teeth while Benji waved back at Kat as he left, leaving her to her misery.

"Now." The Asian woman at the computer began. "I'm going-"

"-To ask me a series of control questions." Kat sighed. "And you want me to answer truthfully and then lie intentionally. Why do we repeat this every week?"

"Miss Taylor." Hunley snapped, at the end of his patience after his failure with Benji and another week's round of mockery between Benji and Kat. Kat glanced at the man, before her eyes flickered very briefly over to Brandt and then she sighed.

"Fine." She waved at the other woman to begin, resigning herself to being at least somewhat co-operative.

"State your name." The woman began, and Kat sighed: "Katelyn Taylor."

"Occupation."

"Unemployed." Kat said tonelessly, and the polygraph showed the red lines that meant she was lying.

"I've been unemployed for sixty years," it continued to be red, "even though I look twenty-nine. It's because I'm actually a vampire-"

"Yes, enough!" Hunley snapped and Kat sighed. So maybe she hadn't been too co-operative but quite frankly, she was beginning to tire of the same tedious routine.

She'd finish work every Friday, to be met at her office door by the CIA agent (who was introduced as her boyfriend to her co-workers to avoid questions on why he showed up every week), and dragged for a polygraph test that never yielded any results because she really didn't know where Ethan was, and then she was dragged out and dropped off in front of her studio apartment.

Even the fact that she got to see Brandt every week didn't make it worth it because she was never able to speak with him. Not only because Hunley was there, but Brandt himself was also rather cold, barely even looking her way, and after her first two greetings were ignored, Kat got the hint. She started ignoring him as well, which was made easier by the fact that he was always silently standing in the far corner of the room while she was tested.