It turns out the human brain is really fucking good at replicating the exact feeling of a digital brain being stripped down to its base components, being cannibalized, being wrung out to the point of complete and utter numbness. He wrenches halfway upright, trying to parse an unfamiliar face through the blackout haze of static screaming in the pounding dome of his skull.

"I'm trying," he says - today, he is Alpha, a shattered holo-projection huddled behind a partition in the diagnostics ward, crumbling beneath the strain of too many no-win scenarios being foisted on him, sick the phantom pain of something he's missed (beta) something he's missing (beta) something that's never been a part of him (beta) because it was never here -

"I'm just - it's too complex, okay? It's too much, I just need, I need a new way to think, I need more time, that's - just give me more time and stop sending your agents into the fucking field when I can't account for what's gonna happen to them."