Thomas reclined in his leather chair and slid his fingers along the carved wooden armrest as he read through the report. If Tattletale's conclusions were to be believed the little monster had indeed laid another golden egg. As it had claimed, the trio of tinkers had been working on software to try and predict the Endbringer's attacks. Six-Two-Six had apparently been the most active of the three working on the project and had also been busy modifying the code to its own ends.

Unfortunately, Tattletale wasn't able to acquire it herself, the monster tinker was apparently keeping the code on a disconnected computer. Only reports on its progress, snippets of code and almost daily tinker-talk about algorithms and high-end mathematics were discussed and exchanged between the other two tinkers, showing significant progress and improvements.

For obvious reasons, the little blue cape hadn't shared its modifications or its intentions with the other two Tinkers. That also meant that they were blind as to how effective the software was in predicting other things. Thomas did not like having to guess as to its potential uses or it's effectiveness.

He stabbed the intercom with an outstretched finger, "Send the first quote to Six-Two-Six."

"I'm not so sure that I want to sell a copy of Project Oracle for such a low price, I've been planning on using it to help my own business. These quotes for the base are rather high though." I kicked back in the child-sized chair and waited a few seconds to give the impression that I was thinking of other options.

Options which I had already considered with the aim of getting him to bite into what I wanted.

"Well, I think the Oracle is worth significantly more than that, we're talking about something that can predict the odds of any given possible event. How about this, I'll set the price of a copy of the Oracle to be the same as the entire cost of the secret underground Datacenter."

He practically hissed over the phone at me. "That is not a price that I am willing to pay for untested, unseen software. Perhaps if you could set up a demonstration and have the results analyzed I might be willing to adjust the price based on the results. As it stands your "Oracle" is unproven at this point in time."

"I could, but without a data centers worth of processing power the questions would have to be very simple ones and it would take hours or days for it to process the odds. How about something else, we set the price to be the same as the secret underground base. But… we gamble for them."

His chair creaked so softly that I doubted that he heard it himself. "I'm listening"

"Here's the idea, we play ten games, you pick five and I pick five. Each game won by either one of us means that we get ten percent of the price knocked off of what we want. You win all ten and you get a copy of the Oracle free and clear and I have to pay full price for the secret underground base. I win all ten and I get the secret base for free and if you want the Oracle you have to pay the cost of the base for it. If we each get five wins, then we can just exchange the Oracle for the base. Win one, ten percent off the thing you want while the other person gets ninety percent off what they want. It's a double-or-nothing gambling event."

"Your so-called Oracle project is still not as valuable as an underground shelter. However, for the sake of your intriguing proposition I might be inclined to go as high as half the cost of the shelter for it. Make no mistake, I would not pay that price for it untested and unseen. Your proposition would likewise need to be adjusted, I would be willing to make a simple exchange if you hit eight wins, not five."

Sighing loudly into the phone, "Alright, sounds fair enough."

"My interest in your gambling idea is heavily dependent on the games we play. I'm no fool Six-Two-Six, something like arm wrestling with your brute strength would be completely unreasonable."

While grinning viciously, I tapped my claws along Leet's desk. "I'm fine with anything that could be considered a game involving skill or chance. Let's just discuss some game options then, we can hammer out some things that we could play and veto ones that would be problematic. For things like card games, we could have a dealer if you want to go that route. Let's just throw out some game ideas and we can make up a list of ones we'd be interested in."

"Roulette"

"Haven't played much roulette but using some starting chips and having the game end with the first one to a given amount with a neutral dealer, I'm fine with it. How about Battleship?"

"A child's game?" I could swear I heard his brow raise over the telephone.

"It's two people guessing the location of the others ships, the game ends when you "sink" the"

Thomas interrupted "I am aware of how it is played, I was just not expecting something like that. I would be fine playing that game. Now, if you don't mind some childish games how about something like a simple coin flip?"

"Sure it's a simple chance based game. How about the Game of Life?"

"Amusing but acceptable, Rock paper scissors."

"Yes, Clue"

"Fine, Craps"

"Same thing with Roulette I guess, with both of us being normal players and not the house or the dealer. Monopoly."

"With a time limit of an hour, Gin Rummy."

"Haven't played that much but sounds fun; Chess."

He thought about it for a few seconds before replying. "No, a serious game takes too long and draws are common"

Which is why I wanted it, to take up as much time as possible if I needed too. Of course, he didn't want to play with it since it was purely skill driven. "Risk, the two-player variant."

He took a few minutes to respond, I assumed he was looking it up. "That would be acceptable but only with a time limit of an hour."

That should be plenty of time. "I'm fine with that, just to make sure we've agreed on playing Roulette, Coin Flip, Rock Paper Scissors, Craps, Gin Rummy, Battleship, The Game of Life, Clue, Monopoly and Risk. Now where should we play at and when?"

"Correct, don't worry about the location, I can have everything arranged so that we can play at my headquarters. How does this upcoming Saturday sound?"

"Sounds like fun, I'll take the day off."

I hate to rely on Faultline so much but in this case, it's also to make sure that she isn't available for Thomas to use if he decides to hire her. At least, something simple, non-violent and non-criminal like what I had in mind was cheap and affordable. It was also fairly amusing to hear her response to my job offer, "You want us to do what?"

I paid extra to reserve their time for most of the day and for them to pick up binoculars and disposable phones to use.

Arrogant little blue shit, likely as warped in the head as in the body to gamble with such a thing. For it to want to play board games over it...Thomas chuckled to himself, the level of stupidity was almost breathtaking. No doubt the azure monster cape believed that his thinker abilities gave him an edge in such games, believing this to be a minor gamble and an easy win.

He shall have to be introduced to reality, where things do not always go as planned and that fate and luck are often fickle. IBut, f he wished to gamble such a potentially valuable device and serve it to me on a silver platter who was I to tell him no?

Reaching over Thomas lifted the wine glass and sipped the dark red wine within.

The creature having its own copy might be a problem. It would be an absolutely awful shame If I was left with the only copy of 'Project Oracle'. The creatures reclusiveness, durability, and strength were a bit of an issue. One that would probably require a parahuman assassin to deal with. Lure him out with an 'inspection' of the property far outside city limits and have him run into a dangerous villainous cape. Such a shame, such a bright young ward who's life was tragically cut down in the prime of life.

Hmm, perhaps just destroying the other copies of the Oracle would be a better option and have the blame placed on someone else like the E88. Leaving the golden goose himself alive for the future.

Something to look forward to playing around with at least.

As for the 'party' itself, it might be prudent to hire some powered help just in case the creature doesn't take its loss well. Shouldn't need much, just enough to keep it at bay until the PRT itself can arrive and the situation explained. Come to think of it, it would be prudent to have some simple legal documents drawn up for Six-Two-Six to sign beforehand as well. As for the 'party', I think Italian might go over well, I could even have some... Pizza available for it to consume. Might as well make it pleasant, after all, he'll be giving me such a lovely present.

During the week, I checked the exterior of Fortress Construction at night with my Xray vision just to make sure I had all the exits mapped out. A quick trip into the sewers and storm drains let me plant little happy surprises just in case.

So adorable.

I parked the cruiser next to the entrance to Fortress Constructions entrance on the sidewalk, It's not like anyone had spacecraft-parking anyways. Being a Saturday the parking lot was empty in front of the fairly typical office with some above-average security measures. I double checked my "cape" outfit in the cruiser, my weapons, and gear in the back. I sat in the cruisers seat for a minute, just simply breathing in and out with two hands on the controls.

This is it your last chance to back out Six-Two-Six because once you start you gotta play it out to the end and people are going to die. My clawed finger hovered over a single recessed button in the console. One I had spent some time setting up, double checking and testing nervously for just this moment.

I pressed it and watched as a small green light turned on after a few nerve-racking seconds of waiting. My 'official' Wards cell phone also chirped out a series of beeps at a frequency that the human ear couldn't hear.

Grabbed my 'official' Wards cell phone and one of the two breadbox-sized devices in one hand and one of the suitcase-shaped devices with convenient carry handles with the other before heading inside.

I was, of course, dressed up in my nice little suit again, so stylish. A fairly large and imposing man in a suit held the door open for me while another one escorted me into the elevator and up a few floors. A particularly large conference room with a nice view was set aside for our gaming session. I could smell some snacks and lunch off to one side in a small buffet.

A particularly androgynous-looking dealer in a suit was preparing the roulette wheel and was setting up the deck shuffler with still-wrapped decks sitting nearby. Most of the board games were spread out on a table, still wrapped in factory cellophane.

Thomas was dressed in a simple light blue button-down long sleeve shirt with black slacks. He greeted me with a smile and eyed the boxes I was carrying.

"Ahh Six-Two-Six, a bit early but no matter. You can put those down over there if you wish" as he indicated a table in the corner.

I grinned back at him while placing the three devices on the table, "Sure, hmm.. since we have time while we wait I can explain how the Oracle works if you want. It won't work without the password anyways."

Thomas looked over at the dealer and then back at me, "Sure, but we also need to go over some legal stipulations as to what it does, what happens if it breaks.. things like that. Basically, I have some paperwork for you to go through."

I pouted and folded my ears back and downwards, "After my explanation we can do the boring things."

He smiled condescendingly down at me, no doubt steeling himself for the barrage of 'Tinker-talk'. "Sure."

Indicating one device, "Code Core, it contains the majority of the AI software which is specialized towards information retrieval, collection, collation and uh. breaking into other servers. The backside of it as you can see here has a large quantity of Fiber Optic NICs. Ideally, you'd plug them into network switches which are in turn connected to servers set to boot from the Code Core. The red NIC gets connected directly to your internet connection, no firewall or traffic shaping, please. The green NIC gets connected to the Prediction Engine and the blue NIC connects to your local LAN." pointing out the various well-labeled ports as I went.

Continuing, "Now, the Prediction Engine contains an encrypted copy of the complex prediction software. The AI in the Code Core knows how to interface with it to decrypt it spread it amongst the host servers and then feed information into it."

I popped open the thick aluminum-suitcase like device and revealed an LCD screen and a keyboard. "The Morality Core controls the whole ensemble, it also prevents the AI from going rampant."

At Thomas's otherwise blank face, "It stops the AI from going out of control and disobeying orders basically. The Morality Core is the interface for the actual questions which need to be typed in, it needs to be plugged into the LAN and if it is removed the AI will be forced into hibernation. Basically, you'll want to keep it with you or keep it someplace safe unless you're waiting on an answer."

"While enlightening, I'm sure all of that will be included in the documentation. Speaking of which, I believe we have some support and paperwork issues to discuss?"

Oh, joy.