[ The absoluteness of her tone is comforting. It makes her smile, a little tremulous, a little watery, but she smiles.

Nonetheless, there's wry annoyance mixed into in her complicated layers of emotion as she says, ] Hard to be your safe place when I'm just a figment. [ Root is tolerant of Shaw's existential dread here, but constantly having her own agency put into doubt does bother her. She's always been a person strongly defined by her own decisions; she's never been someone else's tool unless she chose to be, and that rarely.

The Machine was special that way. The Machine was-- ]

We're all figments, [ comes her voice, cool and even, just the slightest lilt of intonation. ] Or none of us are. No matter how many simulations I run, I always try to save you.

[ Root stands frozen, eyes widening. It's like it won't process, keeps getting stuck on the same algorithm over and over. She breathes, ] Is that... [ Shaw told her, but that's not the same as hearing it. It was hard to think about too much, like staring into the sun and risking blindness.

A soft tone comes back to her: ] Yes, I can hear you, [ and she starts crying, perfectly silent. ]