Michael hesitated when the girl was brought in, then smiled as the door closed, a quick fluttering little expression. He lifted the needle on the record player, cutting off the music abruptly, leaving them standing in a sudden pool of silence.<br/><br/>"Sommer, isn't it?" She cleaned the upper floors. He knew every single person in his Vault, their names, their faces, where they worked. They were his life's work, how could he not know them? He had seen her before, walked past her crouched on the steps, scrubbing with her head down. Industrious in her work. The Overseer liked to see that, a touch of industry, someone really trying to keep the place clean. They shared that, a common sense of purpose, for what did he do here if not try to keep them all clean?<br/><br/>"You can put that down for the moment, I think." He motioned to the pail. He closed the distance between them, one step, two. She was delicate, young. He swallowed and flicked his tongue across suddenly dry lips and clasped his hands behind his back so he didn't touch her. "Don't worry, Sommer. You're not in trouble. Quite the opposite, really." He smiled more, grinned like they were two friends sharing an important secret. "I want to talk to you."<br/><br/>This close to her, there was that buzzing under his skin, making him nervous, excitable. Right and wrong. He paced absently, long legs taking him a slow circle around the girl as he talked, looking at her, watching her. "I know people gossip, talk, chatter. And someone like you, they hear all kinds of things, all of that...chatter, just filling the air. And I don't police chatter. I don't want to stop gossip, Sommer. I don't want to stop the talking. But I make people nervous." He stopped, grinned and shrugged. A 'who would've guessed' shrug, like he couldn't imagine why he made anyone nervous. Then he resumed his circuit around her.<br/><br/>"So they don't talk so much around me. They don't share their...thoughts on the way things are going around here and that. That's bad. I'm the Overseer. How can I fix things if I don't know they're going badly? I can't, that's how. So I need someone to come to me and tell me all that talk." He stopped his pacing to stand in front of her, too close, suddenly having closed almost all the distance between them.<br/><br/>"Tell me, Sommer, are you happy here?"