The next day, Jean opened his mini-tablet to find another message from an unknown source. It was not nearly as ominous this time, being sent by simply an [Anonymous User]. Jean wondered for a bit why the affini couldn’t have just done this to begin with, but he figured he really didn’t mind it this way. His inbox was already full of messages he had been putting off reading for days, if not weeks, so chances were, he would not have even noticed the affini was trying to reach him otherwise.

This time, though, he had already been waiting impatiently for the message, so it managed to catch his attention enough for him to open it up right away. He took a big breath, as if bracing himself, and tapped on it.

- “[Anonymous User]: Hello. This is “Tree”.”

- “As I mentioned, there is something I need the help of a human with. I wish for you to meet me at the local xenoclinic today at 14.”

Not even asking, he thought, was typical of this affini. But another thing caught his attention more: xenoclinic? He already knew this had seemed sketchy from the start – why would this serious-looking affini need the help of a human she barely knew? – but this was another step in a questionable direction. It sounded like the perfect opportunity for any affini to enslave and domesticate him. He giggled to himself. Right, like that was going to happen.

- “hey. alright that sounds great!”

Jean still had a few hours until it was time to leave and see the affini. He wondered for a bit what exactly the errand was going to be. He thought that perhaps it was just an excuse to meet him, after all, the affini had seemed pretty upset the last time they talked, so it was possible that she wanted to apologise. Still, based on the impression of Tree he had got, he assumed that whatever her intention was, she wasn’t going to admit it to him directly. Jean figured that his best course of action was to go along with it and see what happens.

When Jean arrived at the unfamiliar xenoclinic building, he noticed that the affini seemed to have already been waiting for him for some time. She stood perfectly still, observing her environment, so much so that Jean initially mistook her for one of the real trees that stood along many roads as decoration. Her body towered over him as he approached her. Still, any slight amount of anxiety Jean may have been feeling disappeared immediately as he got close to her, despite her apparent lack of reaction.

“Hey?” he asked ostensibly. He stared up at the affini’s face, trying to judge whether she even noticed his presence, but she remained stone-faced and didn’t even bother to look at him. Jean realised that he had forgot just how frustrating Tree’s attitude was and found himself annoyed again.

“Hello, human,” she said after a while. “I am glad that you came.”

The human’s annoyance faded a bit right as she said that, and instead he felt weirdly comforted and happy to see her at last. He briefly noted this change in his own emotions, but consciously decided not to worry about it.

“So, weird spot for a first date, isn’t it?” he joked and squinted at her through his smile. “You know I’m not going in there with you. I don’t get fooled that easily.” He understood it was probably not her intention, but he still said it just to mess with her a bit.

The affini looked about as confused and embarrassed as she could without moving her face. “You must have the wrong idea,” she stated. “There is something I need the help of a human with here. Your independence is not at any risk.” Jean giggled to himself at Tree’s reaction, which only served to confuse the affini more. She stared down at him with wide-open eyes. “I do not understand. What is funny to you?”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re pretty cute?” he asked, giggling some more. At this point, not even he knew if he was teasing her or flirting. It seemingly took all of Tree’s self-control not to respond to that in any way, and Jean briefly figured that, for someone who tries so hard not to show a trace of emotion, she was surprisingly easy to break.

The affini stood there for long enough for Jean to conclude the question had officially been dodged, then spoke again, with a hint of impatience in her voice. “Are you not going to ask what I need of you?”

Jean exhaled and tried to act a little more serious. “Right. So, what is it?”

After a bit of silence, which he interpreted as her measuring her words, the affini finally threw a response at him. “I am expected to provide consultation to some sophonts considering domestication today. It is a favour I had agreed to for a friend.”

“You have friends?” Jean said, smiling ironically. The affini did not react.

“However, I fear that my strong biorhythm may cause the sophonts to be influenced into making a rash decision,” she continued. Her voice revealed a hint of genuine worry, albeit it was once again clear she was attempting to hide it.

Jean scoffed. “So, you want me to do it instead? Replace you in replacing your ‘friend’ in telling people to get floret-ified?”

Tree paused for a moment, then spoke again. “The point is to give them an opportunity to choose against domestication, too. Still, you are free to say no.”

He sighed and smiled disapprovingly. Though this was not something he wanted to do, he also didn’t want to leave affini alone so soon. He pondered for a second what to say. “And you couldn’t find anyone better to do it than this random human you met literally yesterday?”

Though Tree still appeared to be doing her best to hide her emotions, Jean thought for a minute he read a hint of embarrassment in her body language. Something about the way she shifted awkwardly in place, seemingly unnoticeably, diverting her vision to some other point in the distance, revealed to him that she was perhaps not the most confident in that moment. He almost felt bad for her, but he didn’t know what to say, not knowing if he even interpreted her correctly. Still, the silence that followed was not even as long as the last one, before the affini finally gave him another cold, calculated, yet somehow vulnerable response.

“I do not know any humans,” she finally said, “and I fear other affini may not understand where my worries come from.”

“May not understand, huh,” Jean repeated. He knew enough about the affini to tell that they didn’t have quite the same idea of informed consent as most humans did before the invasion. For many of them, a sophont giving an enthusiastic “yes” was enough of a sign to move ahead, no matter if a fair bit of drug- or biorhythm-induced manipulation stood behind it. This struck Jean with the quick realisation that the affini standing in front of him was at least somewhat different; even though she had the ability to domesticate anyone who stood in her way, she didn’t want to. She was concerned with their “real” consent, as unaffected by any typical affini mind-tricks. This, on the other hand, made him wonder…

“Wait, why don’t you know any humans? I thought with your, uh, ability, you’d probably have dozens of florets already.”

“I only have one, as of right now,” Tree swiftly responded. The ominousness of that short addition didn’t escape Jean, though he decided not to dwell on it. “But she is not fit for this task,” she added.

“So…” Jean placed his hands on his hips, staring smugly right into the affini’s face. “So in short, I’m the only human you know that could do this for you. And you met me yesterday.”

Tree nodded in a motion so slow it almost looked like it was causing her physical pain. Jean giggled to himself quietly. He closed his eyes and smiled as wide as his face let him, showing off a sense of pride in the conclusion he reached.

“You’re really not that great with people, huh?”

For the first time, Tree’s eyes focused themselves on the human. He glanced back at them – quickly but carefully so as not to fall under their fabled hypnotising effect – and noticed that they were staring not with the anger or offence he had expected, but rather with pure shock. He thought for a second that he should not have said what he did, at least not so openly, but it was in his nature to always say the first thing that came to his mind.

At that point, Jean had a few guesses as to his upcoming fate. Either he was in for a harsh lecture, or the affini was going to scoff and turn away from him, or – seemingly most likely to him – that was about to be the last thing he’d ever have said as an independent sophont. To his incredible surprise, however, none of that happened. Instead, Tree continued to stand there quietly, her eyes now pinned to the ground.

“Listen, Jean,” she finally said, and even more so than the gentle tone of her voice, the human’s attention was caught by the fact she had just used his name in person for the first time. “I do not understand why you speak to me with such enthusiasm, though, as you said, we only just met. It is unusual, even accounting for my biorhythmic efficiency. However, it is my impression that you seem to—” she paused, and Jean could have sworn he heard her gulp, though he knew affini weren’t physically able to do so, “—somewhat like me. I believed I could use it to my advantage in doing actions that I am not normally comfortable with.”

The last part of the affini’s speech was enough to allow Jean to confirm that what he had deduced before was true, and though a sense of pride filled him again, he held himself off from letting it show on his face. “I don’t know if it’s the biorhythm thing, or what, but you just struck me as someone I wanted to get to know. Maybe it’s that grim, stone-faced attitude of yours, coupled with the fact that you’re obviously a big softie on the inside.” He chuckled to himself. “Maybe it’s like, a personal challenge. I dunno. You just seemed cool.”

Tree looked down at him in curiosity. “You seem unfazed by the idea of my biorhythm affecting your thoughts,” she stated, though with a questioning tone.

“Oh yeah,” Jean said, then scratched his head nervously as he explained. “I figure it’s bound to happen, I mean— you guys are pretty good at messing with our brains, so if someone wanted to own me, I doubt I’d have an actual say in that, so…” Jean noticed that Tree’s face once again hinted at a feeling akin to shame. He quickly thought up a way to lighten up her mood. “I just do whatever feels good, you know? Isn’t feeling good what the Compact is all about?”

The affini didn’t respond right away, but though she was clearly trying to look like she was coldly calculating a response, Jean noticed that what he had said had evoked an emotional reaction of some sort. He quickly scrambled for some other argument to use to uplift the affini.

“Maybe that’s what you gotta do, you know? Ignore those worries and just trust that these guys – these humans here, I mean – will do whatever feels good to them?”

“Then you will not help me?” Tree finally said, in an attempt to ignore the emotional weight of the human’s short monologue.

Jean scoffed, though his smile revealed a hint of irony. “Hey, I’m here to support you, but not do your job for you. Even in the old Accord, I’m pretty sure that would’ve violated some kind of labour law.”

The affini let out a small sigh. She moved back, looking down at the entrance to the clinic, absent-mindedly taking a look at the various people going in and out of it. Jean looked too, though he noticed the place was not particularly busy, currently occupied by just one human chatting with what seemed to be their owner just in front of the door, before following them inside. He had realised this long ago, but humans in general seemed to hold a lot of trust in the affini, letting them rule over them like that. And despite this, it didn’t seem like the one in front of him trusted herself, though.

Still, as he was thinking that, and as another human-affini pair walked right past them to possibly lead to domestication, Tree looked in his eyes with an expression that even kind of resembled a smile. “In that case, I hold you responsible to support me,” she said, in as serious a tone as she could muster. Jean nearly giggled at the nonsensicality of that phrase, but he held it back in an attempt not to dishearten the affini further. She looked back up and headed inside, not looking back at the human. “Let us go.”

As Jean set off to run after her, the way he had already got used to, he thought back to something he had said a moment earlier. This affini’s approval clearly felt a bit too good to him, and he it made him realise that he had once again just ran his mouth and said something he didn’t mean. “I just do whatever feels good…”, “it’s bound to happen...”? Yeah, right, he thought. He figured he still had enough of that good old Terran willpower left in him to not let anything like that happen. Besides, it wasn’t even like either of them really wanted that.