Simon took a long drink of coffee, carefully putting his drink back down where it couldn't get knocked over.

"That is a perfectly acceptable amount of sugar to help keep a healthy brain working," he told her.

Motherboard extracted from the signal cage, he slipped it into another device. "Circuit reader," he explained. "Not connected to any other database. No transmittal equipment at all, just data-reading. It should let us know what exactly this little fellow's marching orders were."