“Was just fucking thinking that,” I said with a laugh.
“What are they trying to get him to do?” Relay asked.
“Sit,” I replied.
“Well, that’s not how you do it,” Flir commented. “They’re using operant conditioning all wrong.”
“How would you know?” Bolo asked him.
“Used it to train my sister’s kid,” Flir replied with a shrug.
Ruck and I leaned forward so we could see around the others and stared at him. Everyone was focused on him now.
“Say what?” Drifter asked.
“Her boy was having a hard time with potty training,” Flir told us. “I bet my brother-in-law that I could have him potty trained in less than a week.”
“Did your sister know about the bet?” Strike asked.
“Not until afterward. She would’ve castrated both of us.”
“No kidding,” Kilo said with a laugh. “You’re probably still lucky you got away with your balls.”
“It worked, so she couldn’t really complain,” Flir said, “...much.”
Kilo considered that. “I mean…I’m about to have a kid. What’s operant conditioning?”
“It’s using consequences to shape behavior, and it has four quadrants based on whether you’re adding or removing something, and whether it increases or decreases behavior.”
Ruck sighed and rubbed his forehead. “You’re not allowed to use it on Kilo’s kid. Or any of the kids,” he said when Flir opened his mouth to argue. “Or on Kilo either.”
“It really works!”
“I don’t even know what the fuck he said,” I admitted.
“Trainers use it in dog training all the time,” Flir said. “And really humans use it often without even knowing it. Every time my nephew took a shit on the toilet, I rewarded him.”
“Oh shit,” Merc said with a grin. “I know that one. It’s positive reinforcement.”
Flir pointed at him. “Exactly. Dog sits, dog gets treat.”
“Kid shits, kid gets treat,” Bolo echoed.
“Basically.”
“That seems easy enough,” Kilo said, eyes narrowed.
“Well, there are three other quadrants,” Flir told him.
“What are you boys doing?” Mercy asked as she and Rue walked up.
I’d never seen Flir shut his trap so damn fast in my life. Laughing, I stood and grabbed my girl by the hand. “We’ll let Flir explain that to you,” I told her. I gave Flir a wink and ignored the bird he flipped my way.
“What is Flir explaining?” Mercy asked as she sat down.
I didn’t stay for the show. I’d been waiting for Rue to get home from her shift. She’d gone back to work once everything settled down.
It’d been a month since we took out Carrick and got Ryan back. This wasn’t the end of things. The Collective wasn’t going to sit back and let us get away with taking out one of its factions. And we weren’t about to let them continue stirring shit and breathing. But we needed more information. More planning. Just more…before we dove in.
