I can dig it! If Metzger wants to come at it from a round-about way, 100% go for Snippy first, who's played by Dilly. I've told the Cage player this as well, but just to reiterate in case you're not a comment-trawler!

With regards to the extraction background: we're saying that the RA matrix was an experimental set-up on the part of the machines, some distance from the area where the current game-play is happening. Perhaps following machine activity and discovering a new pod tower, the first ship that went to investigate only came limping back with their Operator; the rest had died in virtu during the big old die-off.

The second crew to go out is briefly touched on by Dilly in Snippy's application; Captain of the name of Hammer went on behest of the Operator, who said that a powerful program urged them to come back to extract a human who was causing a lot of problems and would be better off in the real. Hammer extracted Snippy by accident. Third try was the charm and Captain was extracted more recently! In any case, Cage might have better luck talking with Snippy about the strangeness that happened to wreck nearly an entire tower; he may know less about the shenanigans going on in their Matrix but who is entirely more sane.

Hammer is currently an NPC, as is the unnamed Operator who witnessed through the code the shut down of ANNET and the wipe of most of that matrix. If you want to bring those up w/ regards to Snippy, Captain will probably be in the background to pick up on and analyze (and they'll be analyzing and leading astray as much as possible!)