Green? What kind of non sequitur - oh. That was her clue, was it?

Qubit draws up to his full height, though he's only barely taller than Patch, and grasps his lapels with both hands, the lines in his face deepening with his frown. He doesn't answer for a few seconds.

Because it is his. And he knows it inside-out - as he should, since he made it. But he didn't want her to know that. Why did she have to jump straight to smashing his fingers? He could have handled this quietly, with some grace. Taken the thing off her hands without arousing too much suspicion. But he let her get a rise out of him, and now she's asking him two questions to which he cannot say no without making himself a liar.

Qubit has become many things he'd rather not be, in the last couple of years. Manipulator. Extortionist. Betrayer. Hypocrite. Murderer.

But he won't be made a liar.

"I told you, it isn't dead," he repeats, more forcefully. "Do you want me to wake it up? Because I can."