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Mirana watches the woman in front of her walking back and forth, a fake bomb strapped to her chest as she talks to the group of police officers.
"We're all gonna die. Right here. Right now. This bomb is packed with C4, ball bearings, screws, broken glass. When this thing goes off, this whole room is gonna turn into a blender. And guess what? If you don't die instantly, you're gonna suffer fatal, secondary infections because I soaked the shrapnel in my own filth."
"This is ridiculous," Tim murmurs into Mirana's ear.
"I'll tell people you said that at your funeral when you get blown up for not being able to talk down a bomber," Mirana murmurs back, keeping her eyes on the woman. "Closed casket of course"
"Now, you've all been taught to shoot on sight when you see a bomber, right? But you can't shoot me, because I'm holding a dead man's switch. I let it go, it detonates. So your only shot at survival is to talk me into giving up. But you only have ten words to do it. Go,"
"U-Um, ma'am, you you don't want to do this," Jackson says.
"Boom," Russo says, releasing the trigger on the detonator mockup. "It's a slaughterhouse in here. Go"
"Uh, my name is Lucy Chen, and -"
"Boom. They're IDing you through dental records,"
As the woman talks to Lucy, Tim lunges for her but she moves out of the way, releasing the trigger again.
"Boom. You just got buried in a shoe box,"
"At least your burial will be cheap," Mirana snorts and Tim nudges her as Nolan speaks up.
"I can only imagine the pain you're feeling right now,"
"You just got ten more words," Russo says to Nolan. "Alright, back to the briefing room and we'll discuss where most of you went wrong"
Mirana listens to the woman talk as she begins to explain the mistakes everyone made.
"Okay, so what did you all do wrong? Officer West started mansplaining. Officer Chen wasted time by introducing herself. And Officer Bradford decided to skip words altogether,"
"They're overrated. If I'd been a hair quicker, you'd be singing my praises," Tim shrugs.
"But you weren't," Russo says. "So that means you fall into the fail category with everybody else except Officer Nolan. What did he do right?"
"He expressed empathy," Bishop says.
"You mean he faked it," Tim says.
"It doesn't matter if it was real. The only thing that matters is how it comes across," Russo says.
"Active listening plus empathy leads to a rapport, which leads to influence and ultimately behavioural change," Nolan says causing everyone to give him quizzical looks.
