"Certainly not," she says, though she knows there is no reason for the human to suspect otherwise. It pleases her how much Mako is already deferring to her, and she relaxes stance somewhat. Body language is interesting, she supposes, and Mako has it in spades.

"I am an artificial intelligence," she says, lifting her chin to denote pride. "I was the central operating core of the mainframe at Aperture Laboratories." No one she's yet encountered knows that title, so she preemptively obliges to explain: "A highly renowned-"

She sneezes, sharply, jolting a bit with the force of expulsion. Ugh, AGAIN. This keeps happening and she is not having it. Her eyes narrow again. "Highly renowned-"

This time the sneeze is louder, and no sooner is it done than she can feel another coming. She struggles to rise above it. She is not human. She is better than this! "Highly-" She sneezes again, and again. It is torturous. Why. Why this.

"ORGANIZATION," she snaps when she's finally able. "A highly re-" Oh, no, there she goes again.

This is becoming less frustrating (well, it's plateaued at a peak frustration) and more alarming. It's enough now that there is a pattern. But what is triggering it? That particular phrase?

"A prestigious-" she manages to get out before the onslaught starts again.

Oh, dear.

She fixes the woman with a harsh look and states, "I have never been-"

She can't even get the last word - dead, for the record - out before the sneezing really gets carried away, disrupting her so violently that she feels a bit weak afterward.

Theory tested. Hypothesis confirmed.

She cannot tell lies.

Well. That was an exorbitantly infuriating ordeal, not to mention humiliating. But at least she knows what's going on now. She has that.