He nods. He knows it means a lot from Carolina. Certainly gives more weight to his own decision. "It's not exactly a leap to assume the Project was doing something shady, most were. Just the question of was it worth it. I said I believed the premise was ultimately flawed and not going to work and couldn't keep paying the price for it. All still technically true."

"He knows he got a scar on his neck, but not how bad. Mac let slip about AI implantation, since he thought it was more common from how Choco and I spoke about it. And honestly, probably better not to hide it from him," he said, hand moving to the back of his neck.

"I had a hoody on, but he's going to see my neck eventually and see the extra port." And the scars. Maine is going to clock Wash seemed to try and tear open the back of his own neck or some human tried at least. "He isn't far from when they announced the AI anyway."

"And....we really should keep to the truth as much as we can," he said, lowering his hand to look at Carolina. "I know the magic bullshit. There WILL be a time when there will be some rain or flower or monster, something, that forces people to tell the truth. Not if. WHEN. Then it's just a matter of you're in the blast radius. The more truth we can stick to, the easier it will be to talk around any compulsions," he said. "Mentally having Maine and Meta as separate entities helps a lot for the worst of it, at least."