"Hey. I was trying to say something earlier and I'm not sure I said it well, should I try again?"

"Go right ahead."

"I don't know if I know anything useful to you. And I don't know if instead maybe I've been lied to - I mean - I'm very sure I've been lied to. I don't know if I've been lied to in a way that was meant as a trap for someone else, like giving me inaccurate information about the demons' weaknesses or something. I don't know if it'd be a waste of your time to sort that out. But if you're worried about powerful people getting mad at you, I don't think I'd tell them, and if you're trying to care about me and what I want for some reason, I don't feel especially happy about the idea of you taking how I feel about it into account because how I feel might have been - engineered - and even if not, I don't think it matters much, next to all of Hell."

"I don't follow what you mean about powerful people getting mad at me. Mad at me for what?"

"You're the one who said your mindreading policy was related to a... specific stripe of politically and magically powerful individuals? Is that how you put it?"

"- yes. They don't need to be reported to, to find out, necessarily. I don't formally belong to their organization but broadly agree that consensual mindreading is superior to coercive."

Shrug. "Seems like a nice policy if Hell isn't involved."

"The comparison facility, Angband, features quite a lot of mind control."

"...That's fucked, man."

"So I am led to understand."

"Why are we talking about them?"

"About Angbands? I can understand why a Hell that didn't involve it would leave you fairly inured to mindreading et cetera, but it is not itself a necessarily nontortuous activity if deployed against the unwilling."

"It kind of sounds like it'd suck. That's not - if you could materially affect your chances of ending Hell by, uh, waterboarding me, I wouldn't be mad at you unless you'd run into a million people you mistakenly thought you could end Hell by waterboarding." What even is waterboarding, he picked this example for being something they talk about in America and has no idea whether the name refers to something he's experienced. Which really makes the conversation easier.

"Your after-the-fact emotional disposition is not actually what this principle tracks," she says, though she's looking more steadily at him and away from her screens now. "It's whether, in advance, given the expectations you and not I have, you'd want to be mindread, if for example that's a capability your tormentors did not evince."

"...I would really strongly prefer that that capability not exist, and that implies not wanting it to happen to me? - I don't know who runs Angband, if it's even a thing you didn't just make up to fuck with me, but I wouldn't be more surprised by demons being able to use permission, that's what all the fairy tales say they do when they visit Earth and I don't know if any fairy tales are trustworthy sources on anything either but the thing where you seem like you're trying to get me to say something really specific is not making that seem less likely. And it seems - stupid for you to base your decisions on my expectations, addressing the person you're presenting yourself as, because the version that's actually a demon isn't going to do that so you'd only even consider it in cases where my expectations are completely out of step with reality - never mind, what I mean is I don't really get your decisionmaking process and I'm probably too stupid to get it. I don't know enough to have a preference."

"The mindreading ability that I and mine in particular have, as opposed to some other people you could have gone to, is that my species are parasitic invertebrates that can enter and operate hosts with comprehensive knowledge of the still-conscious host's history and dispositions. It is surprisingly easy to find hosts who are interested in this arrangement," she gestures at herself, or, uh, her host's self, "but it is not something that I can within my charter and international obligations impose on someone. I am not a fairytale creature trying to get exact words, I am noting that you said things like 'that implies not wanting it to happen to me' and concluding that probably, like most people, you don't want it to happen to you."

He takes a moment to try to breathe evenly. He opens his mouth to say something and then concludes it's actually time for more breathing, and then manages to answer.

"...I don't think it's worse for it to be a thing that happens to me than for it to be a thing that only happens to other people if it's - if you - never mind, I was going to say 'if you're really the sort of people who have rules about it for other people's sake' but I think that also doesn't actually... matter... if it would at all affect the likelihood that you would end Hell. But if you insist on hearing about my feelings, if you can do that I - think probably knowing for sure would - have some upside."

"If you go on in approximately that vein for a bit longer I will at some point call it good but I would really like an airtight case to present at my next meeting with the Imperatrix should it come up."

"I would probably hand you a vacuum jar if I had one," he deadpans.

"Do you have any comments on the question of whether it should be me or some other Yeerk?"

"I don't - I'm really not qualified to figure out what would be the best way to end Hell and - " and if he didn't deserve Hell he would end it there because the fewer words he says the faster things change " - that's really the only important consideration but I've done horrible things and it wouldn't really matter if whoever it was were - never mind. You're the second least obnoxious person I've met since being kidnapped today."

"I don't actually think this process will meaningfully accelerate the handling of Hell. They haven't found it yet and would be turning your information into a plan of action only with more corroborating sources."

"Why did you string me along, you asshole."

"You're difficult to understand when you're being obfuscatory, and sometimes Angband victims want similar interventions by way of proof that they are no longer there, even if this won't help destroy their Angband at all."

"I’m not saying I wouldn’t be happy about that but - the inside of my head isn’t something I'd really expect anyone to like getting to see and I sure wouldn’t want to end up delaying you for it. And I don’t know if how I feel was deliberately arranged somehow to cause problems for other people so I’m really not happy about anyone taking it into account but I guess that could apply just as well to taking it into account that I feel that way about it."