While Marae did little to even acknowledge the Agent’s behavior, just as most Rothians would have, Nirann, surprisingly, actually engaged with the comment. He chuckled as his hologram appeared in front of 595, towering over her. “Is it a contest I sense? Are we doing bets? If so, I’ll put a thousand down on my program. There’s not a programmer alive that can best me. You do have the advantage of hundreds of years of study on the Cradle environment and much more familiarity with its software architecture, but…I’m confident.”

Marae let out a sigh and rolled her eyes. “Nir, what did I say about your gambling problem?”

Nirann turned his head back and pointed a finger towards Marae. “Hey, it’s not gambling if there’s a guaranteed profit. I’m telling you, those returns were staying steady at 52.38%, and the margin of error was only 0.43%. That is hardly a gamble.”

Marae rubbed her hand over her head, sighing once more. “Please do me a favor and don’t encourage him. I make that mistake...far too often, as you can see.” She said as she enlarged the hologram of the new object and centered it between them all. “Let’s just focus on the task at hand. Once we are permitted to interact with the object, we can see if the hardware you use to access the Cradle can also access this device. If that works, we can try to send in our scouting programs. If that does not work, then we cannot make any decision that will potentially risk lives unilaterally. I do not know what authority you have been granted by your people, Dr. Lang, but any dangerous experiments will need to be run by Rareth’Jharn first for approval.”