Just for the record: I do in fact want to make this feel kind of alarming.
“So he’ll try to kill himself?” Alex said. “That’s what you were worried about.”
Miles shook his head. “I’d worry about it more if he was just awoken and confused. But here? He’s got his self-destructive impulses fighting his hunger — and the poor sod’s holding a lovely bunch of grapes.” He beamed. “And there we go! Our lad here is gobbling the food. Probably thinking that somebody might come soon, so he might as well eat whatever he can. Not that we’ll intervene until it looks like he might eat himself sick.”
“And then what?” Alex looked unhappy. “Beat him? No, wait, this isn’t that kind of torture, isn’t it? You’re not actually inflicting physical pain on him.”
“Oh, absolutely not. That would be cruel of us, not to mention pointless. The Invaders were all stick, no carrot; this poor bastard would be ready for that. What we’re doing here is, we use the carrot as a stick. It’s unexpected, and it confuses them, and we need that confusion to get into their heads and break what’s really wrong with them.” Miles shrugged. “But it’s going to take some time. I can’t give you lot results today. But I can show you that we’ll get some, at some point.”