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This page says a lot about Malthus, to me. He might know of Al's mannerisms and can parrot him to an extent, but beyond that he's got no idea how Al would navigate a situation where Ethan's clearly preoccupied with other concerns. If Ethan was having a gut feeling something was off before, he's gotta be hearing blaring sirens that this is the bad place now!

I decided to make Ethan a little more serious about rejecting Faux Al's advances and I'm tossing out the idea that Malthus' face would be clearly morphing through at the end there like I had written in the roughs. I originally intended it to be a "when Malthus gets mad the illusion falters", and that's true, like here:

But it's not the right place and time for that, in this scene! (•́⌄•́๑)