[ Simon searches her eyes, otherwise entirely still, and the lack of malice in her words makes it way worse somehow. She’s not wrong — everything making him him is in a computer, infinitely duplicable. For all he knows there are more Simons running around in PATHOS-II — maybe something as lucid as him, just as close to the original as he is, or something like the delusional UH-8 he had to kill for its tool chip, but with a scrambled Simon scan instead — talking to no one, reliving the same few memories over and over and over. ]
Yeah, I’m way ahead of you on being aware of that. Thanks.
[ he can’t help sounding annoyed; he doesn’t like that she’s right, he doesn’t like hearing it, he doesn’t like hearing it as if he didn’t know, and he doesn’t like the part of him that doesn’t know, who’s still waiting to wake up from this and wants to scream like an a child that he’s not a machine, he’s human, why can’t anybody see that he’s human?
— but when he speaks again, his voice is more level. ] What was your name again?
no subject
Yeah, I’m way ahead of you on being aware of that. Thanks.
[ he can’t help sounding annoyed; he doesn’t like that she’s right, he doesn’t like hearing it, he doesn’t like hearing it as if he didn’t know, and he doesn’t like the part of him that doesn’t know, who’s still waiting to wake up from this and wants to scream like an a child that he’s not a machine, he’s human, why can’t anybody see that he’s human?
— but when he speaks again, his voice is more level. ] What was your name again?