Not a joking matter. Uh-huh. "Somehow, I knew you'd say that," he grumbled. "So there are more of you, then." Riley's voice, face, and attitude had gone beyond mere disbelief, or even pandering to obvious delusions. Now, he was just doing his best to convince himself everything was a dream - or as close to one as possible - and that anything could happen in dreams. "Artificial intelligences. Stuck in human bodies. By... insane doctors who get their kicks by mutating birds and monsters and kidnapping people to put in some kind of demented experiment."

He tried not to listen to himself talk. Riley was at the point where he could feel his sanity breaking down at the edges, and any way of slowing down that process would have been completely welcome at that point. He could even feel his sense of humor shriveling up, and that... that was about as far from good as you could get without descending into downright terrible. And then some.