"They just seem like people to me," he says softly, stepping inside. "And everyone gets so unnerved when I say so."

There is, indeed, a cognition sitting on the couch—a blonde woman, maybe thirty, maybe sixty, it's hard to tell. She does nothing but sit there. Hello, she says, and Akechi offers her a friendly hello, sorry to disturb you, I'm with my friend. The cognition acknowledges him with a laugh, then gets up and leaves.

He watches her go, disquieted. "So hard to tell," he murmurs. "Something fundamental in the way I see things..."