The real question -- how did he get them to serve him?

Transparent liquid, normal glass, ice cubes and crushed leaves. Appears to be something-tonic.

UNQUESTIONING, UNWAVERING ACCEPTANCE. EXACTLY WHAT THE PARTY DEMANDS.

Something about the look in his eyes tells you he'll be with you till they come to mop the blood up.

Utter impenetrability in the event of capture. No torturer is breaking through to this one.

He's a good luck charm. A rabbit's paw you wear around your neck.

The autopilot is immaculate, all things considered.

No complications whatsoever. If he'll work with the woman who lobotomised him, he'll work with anyone.

Like a well-scrubbed bathroom tile.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

You are milking your lucky cow dry, take it easy on him. Once a day is more than enough.

The vacant smile hits you like a bag of bricks.

A mixture of guilt and the desire to lobotomise him even more comes over you.

He has been subjected to the 'Hershel Wilk Special'. The history of all your former assets, condensed into just a few days.

Still no pants on him, though.

The nagging idea that you should just finish the job accosts you.

Just take him on the assignment with you. He'll catch a stray one, and the problem will solve itself.

An obnoxious little mirror, well-worth the seven years of bad luck incurred by breaking him.

You are. He did.

Your desire to stay out of the freezer and prove yourself in the eyes of the Opera has clearly been foregrounded in his mind. You can use this against him.

Based on the reports from Constanz and Melita, he certainly wasn't like this before.

YOUR AUTHORITY, DEAD IN THE WATER.

Translation: you're paying for it.

All at once he internalises the defeat in his posture, the shoulders sinking in time.

He's not just saying it. He has actually understood.

Congratulations. You have made your point, and in doing so, you have toppled one of his few psychic pillars.

Unfamiliarity without novelty. A hell of alienation.

No hint of accusation. He's convinced he is misremembering somehow.

You remember the feeling of inert PSEUDODPOD -- at once mundane and disturbing, like some piece of surrealist human furniture.

He swallows hard. You can practically see him pushing the emotions and thoughts down his throat.

Lucid, self-aware -- this really isn't the worst version of yourself, all things considered.

He strips you naked with his gaze, on his expression a desire that is not lust.

As though at a mirror that refused to respond to his movements.

The information to process is simply too much. He has no choice but to roll with it.

Like an epic romance from mythology, your hatred of Eszti echoes through your incarnations, undying.

He's like a laboratory where you can see what you actually think, stripped of all niceties.

He half hopes he won't. It would solve all his problems, a simple bullet to the head...

All frames of reference have gone to shit. He's second-guessing his every conception of basic social norms.

A tiny reflected Hershel stares back at you, framed in hair.

Like a well-scrubbed bathroom tile.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

It's never going to work like that. You have to believe.

EXERCISE YOUR AUTHORITY, AND HE WILL FOLD.

That vibration that you can feel through his skull -- the prelude to sobbing.

You're milking your lucky cow dry, take it easy on him. Once a day is more than enough.

ECONOMIC HUMILIATION. A BASE METHOD, BUT EFFECTIVE.

He even makes the same sound you make when you're thinking.

A tone so venomously sarcastic it's worse than no admission.

Sarcastic or not, you have bent him to your will. You can use him in theatre.

It's like asking a child with no experience of the world who they'll work with. He has no frame of reference.

Checks