If she's a ... what ... a personification of the system? ... then she's not real.

Too many people - things - Elliot has interacted with aren't real.

But then, he's crazy.

He watches Root with wide-eyes; it feels like his heart is beating too fast and too hard. He doesn't like it here.

She looks like she knows what he's been doing, and worse yet, like she knows how he did it. He could do better off the grid, or in the dark corners of it, anyway.

"What do you normally look like?" he asks, zeroing in on what he can best understand, or at least deal with at the moment.