His hand is pliant, lax in her hand. Warm, like a person's would be, made of stuff engineered to resemble it. Pupils shrink, expand, as if light were flashing in and out of them. The command to improvise, improvise, improvise flickers through his processes, and her nudge, just in time, breaks the loop before it can error out completely.

The next breath in is sharper, his hand twitching in hers.

"Monsters," he says again. When he resumes, it's ever so slightly halting, but as if attempting to resume the conversation like there was no break. "Problem being, they look a lot like regular men."