"When you graduate you're not probationary anymore," she says.

"Yeah, I know, that's my point, I could not-be-probationary right now!"

"Powers that be say otherwise."

"Ugh," he groans. "Anyway... I'm trying to figure out a way to exploit that kind of thing. And I noticed he doesn't have... quite... as much control over the Siberian as over the others. In the vids. I mean she's a recent addition, I suppose, but..."

"How are you evaluating his control over her?"

"It's... intuition? If I had to describe it in words it feels like she disobeys him more than the others, and sometimes does things that don't really jibe with the rest of the things the others are doing, and this is all on a very small sample of videos and other records so I could be completely off-base here."

"Huh."

"So, I'm trying to figure out how I could use that, except, like I said, he makes her kill less and that might not be... so desirable."

"...Rephrase?"

"If Jack's the thing holding her back from the killing sprees she used to go on before she joined the Nine, trying to use their relationship and that control against them might be a bad idea."

"I mean, unless you could hijack it to the point of further containing her."

"Hijack Jack," he snorts. "But yeah, hmm, that sounds difficult."

"Pun unintended. And yes, since you don't know how it even hypothetically works."

"I mean it could very well just be psychology, I hadn't thought it could be a power until you suggested it."

"If it's a power it could also be keeping him alive with that kind of price on his head."

"Yeah. A thinker power? For knowing how to make people do what he wants them to do? It'd have to be really subtle for no one to have ever noticed it. And you'd probably be immune."

"I would, so maybe I'd have a mysteriously easy time assassinating him, but that leaves the rest of the Nine to contend with."

"Which, if I can Siberian around, might be quickly reduced to just the real Siberian."

"Buuut then we have a real Siberian."

"Yes. Yes we do. I wonder if my Siberian could damage that one?" Pause. "It totally could."

"However, if, say, the real Siberian wrecks all the cameras in sight thereby escaping with no implications about the strength of your version, we continue to have a real Siberian."

"Ergo the cameras shouldn't be in sight. I don't think she's ever shown any thinker abilities that would give her a leg up on other people when it comes to detecting hidden surveillance. And when my Siberian is fighting her, she'll presumably be pretty busy with it."

"It's still dicey."

"Yeah. Cameras can multiply, though, I could conjure bots along the way, as long as I have one eye on the scene and one unsupervised place, I can keep a constant number of cameras around, plus more than one Siberian keeping the real one occupied."

"You might have to be hypnotized to pull it off."