I am very confused, says every fragment in an aching synchrony. To some extent, this much is familiar: him, taking orders from someone who seems to understand what's happening. Ready to give him orders (unless he's the one giving orders) or ready to issue some new query he'll have to throw himself against until they gut him for something else, anything else.

"I just needed more time. I just needed more time to think." It still fuzzes his eyes, blurring them, the pressure of the headache that is so unlike the way a program is deconstructed, that is distinctively human in ways it shouldn't be.

(Which one is he? Which one is he, today?)

There's a hand on his arm, skin against the gray-and-yellow striped plating of his power armor. Realizes that AIs aren't suspect to that kind of sensory feedback unless they're tapped into someone else's nervous system. Realizes this is a tangible body.

Tries not to retch over the realization. "You could probably throw up in your helmet and it would take care of it for you," says someone in the banks of his memory, a blur of turquoise. "Agent Washington would likely drown," says a spark of green glowing at someone else's shoulder.

Tries not to retch.

Remembers there's someone else here, talking to him, keeping him steady, which means he should probably address that.

"Which...who are you, again?"