"Give that to me," Mr. Forester said, and Teri suddenly found herself handing the phone over.
(Why did I do that?) she wondered.
"It's very bad form to bring a phone to an interview," Mr. Forester said sternly. "You should have left it in your car."
"Yes, of course," Teri said politely. "I'm sorry." She wondered why she was still trying so hard to get this job. Surely she didn't have to go through all this to get a job, when she could just use the app.
(Wait a second,) Teri suddenly thought to herself, realization dawning. (I made myself their "perfect" candidate. Based on how he seems to view women...am I more obedient to authority?)
"What is this?" Mr. Forester demanded, holding up Teri's phone. Her heart sank as she realized the app was still up. "Do you think this is funny?"
"No, it's not," Teri said quickly. "I just-"
"So you're disgusted with me, is that it?"
"I'm not!" Teri lied.
"Then tell me what this is," Mr Forester growled, jabbing his finger at the offending line on the phone.
(I'll just tell him it was a mistake, that's all,) Teri thought to herself. (Better than him finding out.) But when she opened her mouth, she found herself almost compelled to answer truthfully. "It's an app that changes anything." Her eyes widened slightly, and she tried to clamp her mouth shut. Unfortunately, her earlier guess about the obedience seemed to be right, and she kept on explaining. "You generate a sentence about a subject, and then you change one word. Then the new sentence becomes true."
"I don't know what kind of prank you're trying to pull..."
"It's true," Teri assured him, against her better judgement. No wonder she had kept jumping through these hoops to get this job - that's what he had told her to do, so she was compelled to obey. "I already used it a couple of times."
"Really," he said sarcastically. "So I just change this and..."