"You don't work the way I work. I don't know you the way I know my twin. I can model you, but sometimes I think my model of you is pretty terrible. I don't like to trust it if there's a way I don't have to. If you ran off and planted explosives somewhere thoughtlessly, it would - I wouldn't assume that it would happen if I forgot to mention that it shouldn't, but it would fail to stun me the way it would stun me if Andi did it."

"Okay," says Trouble. "So... maybe say that? I mean, if something like that comes up again? There's a big difference between 'I don't really think you're gonna do this, but it's important enough to check' and 'I totally think you're gonna do this, so don't'. First one I can handle. What you said came off more like the second one."

Bella writes this down.

"Think we can dig up any more land mines this way?" he says wryly.

"Maybe. I don't know. Can you tell me what else sets you off?"

"...Well, there's the thing about being told what not to do," he says. "Rules. Threats. But not just threatening threats. Like - you remember when I made my first pie for you guys, I wouldn't eat any vegetables? It was 'cause someone was telling me I had to if I wanted any pie. Not much of a threat, but it counts. And on the flip side, not every time somebody tells me to do something is a show-stopper - I was all right with Elfangor telling me to run and hide."

"What makes the difference?"

He shrugs. "I'm not exactly sure. Something about - context, maybe. What it meant."

"Renée wanting you to eat your vegetables meant that she was trying to play the role of the responsible adult who cares about your vitamin intake. Does that fit into some category that might generalize better? I mean, is it - per-case or is there a pattern I could learn?"

"The thing that mattered about what your mom did is that she did it that way," says Trouble. "She wanted something from me, and even though she wanted it for my own good, she tried to get it by taking something away from me and holding it hostage. That's just never a good idea. Telling me I can only have this nice thing if I do this, or you'll do something nasty to me if I do that."

"...How far does that go? Like, I don't have a specific real example in mind, but there are fairly natural consequences for all kinds of things that could look like a threat in that way - there are friendship-ending offenses, the end of a friendship means the end of all associated perks, how does that fail to fall into this category?"

"...That's more like - telling me you can't open the peanut butter jar so if I want any I'd better do it myself. You're not really holding something over me, it's just that the way things fall out, you can't make it so I can have the one thing without doing the other."

"...What do you mean?"

"What if I can make it that way, what if I can write my own mental programs in my little notebook and install them any which way I want, what if the only thing between me and being able to let you have the one thing without doing the other - or whatever - is an hour and a pencil and finding it necessary?"

"—If we're talking about friendship, it matters what you want, too," he says. "Like - back to the pie. The pie was a lever. Your mom didn't, like, have a superstiton or something that it's bad luck to have pie if somebody hasn't eaten their vegetables, the pie wasn't her pie that she was trading to us for vegetable-eating, the point of not giving people pie until they eat their vegetables is that they want the pie and they'll put up with the vegetables if that's the only way they can get it. That's different from, like... if you don't wanna be friends with somebody who's nasty to you, and they have to not be nasty to keep being your friend. Even if you could make yourself put up with it. You could probably get the lid off the peanut butter jar, too, with a big enough wrench. Doesn't mean you have to go to the hardware store and buy one just 'cause I want some peanut butter."

"Friendship was just an example that came to mind. I do have to go buy the wrench if you going without peanut butter means some significant increase in the chance that brain-infesting alien slugs take over the Earth and you don't feel like getting off the couch to open the jar. I will buy the outcome of brain-infesting alien slugs not taking over the Earth with any currency I can get my hands on, whether the transaction is fair or not, whether I like it or have to make myself like it or have to live with not liking it, none of that remotely approaches the magnitude of importance of brain-infesting alien slugs not taking over the Earth."

"I... also don't want brain-infesting alien slugs taking over the Earth," Trouble points out. "And when I said 'doesn't mean you have to', I meant it in context. The point of the peanut butter jar isn't that God himself decreed there's no way you can open the jar so I can't blame you for making me choose. It's that you're not trying to make me choose, you're just pointing out that there is a choice. That's not a threat, that's information. If you, I dunno, designed the jar specifically so that only I can open it because you have some kind of weird fascination with watching me open jars, and then you vaporized all the other peanut butter in Arizona, that would be the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say 'threat'. It's the difference between something that's already there and just happens to be the way it is, and something that somebody's setting up specifically to get something out of me. If, I dunno, you could open the jar and you just don't want to because you don't want any peanut butter, 'open it yourself if you want some' is still fine. Get me?"

"I understand that you also don't want the Yeerks to take over the Earth. Whenever I say something that makes you feel compelled to remind me you can skip it. I was explaining the level of need-to-get-results I am working with inside my own head, not trying to contrast your preferences with mine in terms of their contents." She shakes her head. "Anyway. My knowledge of human resource management is seriously limited, but if both carrots and sticks make you explode I don't know what else to do - make a plan for if you feel like joining us on a particular Tuesday and another plan for if you don't and consult you to see if the stars are right?"

"Are carrots and sticks just the literal only ways you can think of to convince anybody to do or not do anything? How about, since I don't want the Yeerks to win, I am probably gonna want to stop them, and if you want me to do something to help with that you could start by saying so and then explain why you think it's a good idea if I don't buy it from the start?"

"I am aware of the fact that I can sometimes convince you to do things. I'm trying to deal with the fact that I might need you to do things and cannot arrange that you will do things. I think I'm good at coming up with things. I am worse at explaining myself to other people - we have had miscommunications before - I'm worse at working with free variables than with fixed ones, especially if I have to think many steps ahead."

"Well, I sure as hell can't open that jar," shrugs Trouble. "Wouldn't if I could. I'm not arrangeable. If you need me to do something, you can ask. And if you need me to, and I can, I probably will. But 'just shut up and do what I tell you until either we win or the slugs kill us all' is definitely a can't."

"...If I tell you I'm gonna do something, and I know it's important, I'm not gonna go do something else unless it's more important that I do that," he says. "And if it's really important to you that I be consistent on something, it'll have to be something really important that gets me to not. I don't think that's something really special about me, I just think I notice it more. Most people will break a promise if something comes up that's worth breaking that promise to them."