“Alright, I'm pretty sure I understand how this works, so if you'll just trust me we can both gain a lot.”
“First, why should I trust you?” Charlie retorted, “and second, why should we both gain a lot? The way I see it, I'm the one making the decisions here.” He stepped towards Lee, menacingly.
“Whoah, Charlie, calm down. Look, this is a positive-sum game. We can both win. What do you have against that?”
“I want to be the biggest. I don't want any competition. You're smarter than me, so if we were the same size you'd be better off.” Lee wouldn't argue with that. “There's only room for one mega-hunk on this campus.” Lee sighed. Well, if that's what Charlie wanted, that's what he'd get. “Now, which color do you want to be?”
“Uhh, I guess I wanted to be red” Lee said, meekly. And please don't throw me in the brier patch! he added mentally.
“Alright, I'll be red. And we're setting the valve to, uh, zero.” Charlie asserted.
“Look, you can't set it to zero. You need me to push the green button, so you need to offer me something.” As Charlie considered that, Lee pressed onwards. “I don't want much. I tell you what, you've often pointed out that you're about twice my size.” Charlie had pointed it out. A lot. “How about we just keep that up?”
“I'm listening,” responded Charlie, warily.
“I suggest we set the dial to 25%. That makes you grow twice as much as me. Suppose we get one unit of water per round.” Charlie looked confused. “Suppose we get one gallon of water per round. You get three-quarters of that, and one quarter gallon - one quart - goes to the black tank. Then a quart is pumped from your red tank into the green fish tank to balance the scale. In the end, you've gotten a half gallon and I've gotten a quart, and you're still twice my size.
Charlie stared at Lee, who was desperately trying to do the best acting of his life. “Deal. But if you're lying to me, I'll beat the shit out of you.” Lee managed, by great act of will, not to gulp.
“Alright, set dials to one-quarter. And push the button on the count of one. . . two. . . three!”
A calm, genderless voice filled the room “Valve set. Filling tanks to reflect subjects' current dimensions.”
An amber fluid – water with food coloring, if Morris was to be believed – began welling up into the red and green tanks from holes in the floor. They were filling at the same rate, so Lee was disappointed but not surprised when the green tank – his tank – stopped filling first. He also wasn't surprised that Charlie sneered at him when it did. Lee watched Charlie's tank as it kept filling. It finally stopped at a level almost exactly twice that of Lee's tank. Lee bit his lip as Charlie began some inane quip, but was cut off by the voice.
“Tanks pre-set. Commencing growth.”