"Reasonable," Alex repeats, all charm and cadence. What comes from his mouth isn't as charming. "That's a really rare quality to find in BOS. Most I know would kill you for your tech and then preach to your corpse that they're doing you a favor."

Or something. He's not in the mood. "Don't think this place belongs to you, not really. It's a government building, so public property, and I've never really been behind the whole 'cults taking over a location' thing. Besides--"

Here, he smiles, tight and emotionless. His shoulders shift under the launcher. "It's not like this project was yours anyway. You just latched on to someone else's work."