You can't take the suit out of the recruiter - Greg (15)

I didn't have to go. No one gets forced to be recruited, and you're always allowed to turn down the mission. Of course, I've never seen it happen since I started. Y'know why? Cause we pick 'em with care. We don't just take any Tom, Dick, or Harry who seems unhappy. We pick the ones who need us, and the ones we need. And they always say yes.
Well, I was gonna show em. I was about to call Marcus and say, "I'm not going." But as it went through my head, I knew that wasn't an option. I was too proud of the system to be the first breakdown of it. My victory this once would be a failure of my last seven years. So I figured I'd do it. How hard could it be?
Well, for one, I didn't figure on Gillian recognizing me. I hadn't even worked out what to say. I figured, as we'd always been taught, that my whole identity disappeared when I put on the suit. Sweater-greg would be a totally different guy. But I guess I had done this so long that I was suit-Greg even in a sweater. And then when she asked me if I was one of those guys, I should have said no. Should have said "Of course not!" But something made me tell her the truth. After all, they'd all find out sooner or later. The only way to turn this insult into a victory was to wear it with pride. I decided then and there that I wasn't gonna let Ellen laugh at me again. I'm here because I want to be, I thought, and I'm no worse for not being in a suit. A heck of a lot more comfortable. So that's why, when we heard the slam, I said
"I'll take care of it, Ellen, keep briefing them."
I figured she'd nod me on, I'd get the kid out, and we'd be fine. But everyone was being difficult. First off, the tagalong (You know who I mean) starts yelling "What's going on? Where's Ian? What happened to him? Is he ok?" And Ellen says to me at the same time, "Greg, you're just a recruit now let me -" Well, I wasn't gonna take that.
"Just a recruit?" I says, "JUST A RECRUIT? I get one lousy note and you can forget seven years? I'm not Greg anymore, I'm just a recruit? Well it doesn't work that way! You can take the recruiter out of the suit, but you can't take the suit out of the recruiter!" And then I just left. Well, Scarlett's still yelling, Gillian's just standing there confused, Ellen's chasing after me, Marcus and Steve show up and start trying to explain things, and all hell's basically broken loose already. Well, I wasn't gonna let it stop me. I went to the maze room like we always do when- well let me back up.
The door Ian went in is a funny kind of door. It only shows up when the time for the meeting has expired, and it's mainly for unwanted visitors. Well, the ninjas are for unwanted visitors, the real door is for wanted visitors, and this one is for everyone else. They open it, see whatever it is that will make them leave,and then leave. For most it's an empty room. For some it's rats. Now normally, someone just a little late like Ian, would end up at the regular door, but getting him there was the ninja's responsibility, and they were somehow incapacitated. So he'd strayed into the wrong door, only since he knew he should be here, he didn't dream up something to make him go away, he dreamed up something to bring him in. And where he was now, no one else could get into or out of. But I could talk him through it from the maze room, and I'd done it a couple of times before.
I got there, and said into the microphone, "Ian?"
"Who said that?" said the voice, terrified. Poor kid.
"It's okay, it's me, Greg, you met me at the mall remember?"
A beat. "Yeah, hi."
"Hi. Listen kid, what do you see? Tell me exactly."
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Like an empty room?" I asked.
"No, Nothing like nothing."
"Like black?"
"Like black," he said, "Only without the black. It's nothing. I've never really seen nothing before, and it's scary."
Well it sounded scary. This kid had a heck of an imagination.
"Listen up, Ian. Whatever you're seeing, it's in your head. For some reason, the minute you walked through that door, the room became this. What were you thinking about?"
"About this meeting," he stopped, he was thinking, "About what was gonna happen to me if I was late. And then there was a voice on the other side of the door, but there was nobody there, just a long hallway. I started to worry if there was anything out here at all, or if it had all somehow disappeared cause I was late, and then I was here, in all this nothing."
"Is the hallway still there?"
"No, it disappeared."
Well, I was stumped. Most of the things folks dreamed up were hard to get out of, but it just took creative thinking. This kid was giving me, well, nothing. It was just then that I noticed Ellen standing in the doorway.