“It's settled, then?” Charlie asked. “Troy can get a little look around in your department?”

He really was speeding it up. Not that Troy had any argument against it. Looking over at Dr Hale, he could clearly see her impatiently waiting. Her food was already eaten, and Troy's own breakfast had met a similar fate. The only thing holding them back from returning swiftly was the current conversation, which Troy had a stronger inkling towards finishing naturally.

“Yeah, I can't find any reason why it could be any problem. With such a clearance, Troy wouldn't even need my permission or anything. He could quite literally get to the secret entrance, and command it to open for him. The code just becomes unneeded, when you get to those levels,” Darlow answered, still utterly obsessed about his previously unknown status.

Troy couldn't bring himself to care too much, other than the fickle pride, which the level brought. It wasn't too important, when the rights that Troy got from it, was being withheld. Yet… maybe it wasn't, and he just hadn't been asking the right questions. Something to do, when a pause was found.

“Then, there's only one more question to ask,” Charlie stated, bring Troy great joy. If this had gone on for much longer, Dr Hale would likely just have dragged him by his cuffs. With all those supposed enhancements, he didn't doubt her being able to do so. “When are we doing this?”

“'We?`, you say?” Darlow questioned, backtracking the finalisations. “I thought that this was a Troy-only deal. Can't say I heard any mentions of your name, Charlie. Also, you're barred, so you can't.”

Dr Hale's fingers were looking stiff, the blood leaving them, as she pressed them onto the table. A slight lower of the head, in Troy's direction, told him all he needed to know.

“I'm barred, without specific permission to enter, you mean,” Charlie corrected, with some very intentional wagging of the eyebrows. “If for hypothetical reasons, of course, someone very close to me, gave me the slip card, and brought me in, I could have the best tour of the place that you can reasonably imagine it to be.”

“I certainly remember the last so-called tour of yours”, Darlow stated. “You know, the one, which caused the barring to even take place.”

“That was a mistake of their own”, Charlie responded, some quite fancy finger-pointing accompanying it. Troy wasn't sure, he could bend his ring finger in such an angle himself if he was being fully truthful about it. “It is not my fault that they were messing around with magnets.”

“But, it is your fault, that you stole them.”

“I had a serious need for them.”

“A serious need? You threw them at the roof, ruining half a million dollars of circuitry with it!”

“Not my fault. They should have known not to build stuff like that within throwing distance. Should have put it in the floor. Nobody throws down when the needs call for it.”

Yeah, if Troy just let all these two pushes on, there would never be anything worthwhile done. They could speak their mouths off. He could give them that. But, was anything useful coming out of these mouths?

“You have a serious lack of understanding of gravity. I am deadly afraid, of the people using your prototypes”

“My prototypes ignore gravity as well, and they are working fine as it is.”

“Charlie, there's a reason why you never make more than initial prototypes.”

Best to stop it all now. It was fun to look at, and all, but Troy wasn't sure if they were starting a fight with each other. Something was definitely starting between them, though.

“Don't go that route today, guys”, Troy said, trying to put the linearly escalating situation downwards. “Let's focus on the main subject again. When, exactly, can we do this tour of yours?”

“So, we are bringing me along?” Charlie said, going back to the regular sitting position again. Next time, Darlow was here, Troy was sitting between those two. Breakfast was for food and talk and nothing more than that!

“No”, Darlow said plainly.

“Yes”, Troy corrected, much to Darlows obvious surprise. “Look, Charlie is pretty much the one, who I've spoken the most to in this facility. I know, that he can be a bit… showing in his flairs. But, he does have a good degree of self-control, when it counts. Will it really be so bad, if he is under constant supervision? And, he will be occupied in showing me around, so he cants come up to too much mischief right?”

“You're lacking experience, young one. This beast can move at the speed of tachyons. You won't notice he is doing something before it is already done”, Darlow nearly muttered, with an added bit of horror to his voice. “Nevertheless, if you agree to be held responsible for his actions, while inside my department, I guess, that I can give him a pass. Only this time, though.”

One problem dealt with. Now, to the initial one.

“Back to the time, then”, Charlie said, much more chippy now. “When can we all meet up, for this whole thing?”

“I can whenever you guys need me to be ready, really”, Darlow stated. “A flexible work schedule comes in handy in times like these.”

“I don't have such a thing, but I act as I do, so I have the same outlook on it,” Charlie said. “Lucky for us, my over-appreciated boss hasn't gotten permission to use tracking devices, so he cant prove my absences, giving me free rein, for the next couple of days, in the least. This leaves us, with one person being the decider, in when we're doing it.”

The two looked at Troy, who was internally debating with himself, what to say. In all technicality, he was probably free tonight, to do as he pleased. It might be a little later into the night, but he had survived such things before.

Yet, he wasn't sure, if he should tell those two that. If Troy was to follow the advice of Dr Hale, he should get as much rest as possible, to prepare for tomorrow. If she was to be believed, it would be the longest test, which Troy would likely ever do. And it was just the next day. If he went in exhausted, he wouldn't make it for long.

But, could she really be trusted? It could have been another play, to get more dirt on him. The chance of that had been his grounding for giving the earpiece over to Dr Fidelis.

…

No. Troy wasn't going to go that path, just for distrusting somebody. If it was scaled up, the benefits for simply sleeping more tonight, outweighed anything negative about doing so. Delaying it further down, was the obvious choice.

“If my memory serves me right”, Troy said, waiting a moment, to see if there were any reasons for changing his response. Finding none, that popped up, he followed through with the original plan. “I can go with you two, the day after tomorrow.”

Any expectations of irritation were quickly flushed away. Instead of looking annoyed at the later date, Troy instead saw thoughtful faces, with Charlie even counting something on his fingers.

“That seems fine to me”, Darlow stated, blatantly his earlier words of constantly being ready. “How about you, Charlie?”

“I have it just like you, actually”, Charlie said. “I'm guessing, that it will be a little later in the day, Troy?”

“Yes. Preferably”, Troy confirmed.

“Good,” Charlie said. “Moving from our little scheduling of a field day, let's talk about the wrongdoings of the national bol-”

To his side, Dr Hale quickly stood up, looking like she had been ready to do so for several minutes. And, she likely had. Troy was just that slow, in ending subjects.

“Troy”, Dr Hale simply stated. “We're leaving.”

“Of course”, Troy said, standing up as well. He gave the two still-sitting people a brief nod, which was imitated right back, before moving about. Putting up any resistance, at this point, would only bring full destruction of body and mind.

Dr Hale breezed through the crowd, with him hardly having it easy doing the same. The crowd seemingly parted for her, yet condensed, when Troy came close. Or, maybe he just couldn't as hard. It was probably the last one.

It all became a bit easier, though, when the two of them finally came out of the cafeteria. The place must have been a bit more crowded than usual. God only knew how Troy hadn't noticed it, coming in.

And, when it was stated, the two of them came out, it would be more accurate to say, that Dr Hale had been waiting a while on Troy. Not that she seemed to have any intention to do, once he got himself out of the mob of people, with Troy having to power walk, to keep up with her.

How Dr Hale made such a speed look effortless, he would never truly understand. At least, such a walking speed would never allow, for anyone to utter a single-

“It is nice to see that you know how to listen,” Dr Hale stated, not making any inclination of looking over at Troy. In that point in time, the muttering of the crowds had long since disappeared, having been replaced with the soft echoes of steps taken before.

“Uh… “, Troy said, not really knowing, what way he should respond, to such a statement. “Thanks?”

“Try to keep it that way,” Dr Hale continued, ignoring Troy's word of gratitude. “Good listening makes for a good employee. Bad employees… don't last long here.”

Her words of advice were becoming strafe towards the side of 'Troy should have been told this, at the very start' territory. It was also beginning to be more general stuff as if to make one forget the very specific advice, which she had to give previously.

…

That was probably the reason, actually. Something to explain it all away with, once Troy finally slipped up, in his words.

No more words were said, during the walk. It wasn't a negative thing, but getting it out there was probably for the best.

Again, like the last long pause, which Adam had been granted, he was quick in begging to continue his contemplation of problems.

Or, it was safer to say, that he had been thinking about a single problem, for the longest of times. When compared to other conundrums, Adam had actually spent the most amount of time on this particular project, as it was so-called by others. But, a great measure of solutions had not yet been created. Any viable solution, at all, had not yet been created.

Adam hoped that the reward would scale exponentially, with the time taken to complete. Otherwise, the spent amount of time could have been used in many other projects, by this time.

If he could have laughed, he would have. Other projects? Every project, which was not directly related to the current one, had either been scrapped or was put on hold for an indefinite amount of time.

Multi-threaded thinking patterns. Something, which would help him immensely. If only it could become a reality. Adam just needed the right approach.

He thought that he had solved it all, with the Quantum Refraction. But, it hasn't worked, in the slightest, when it came to fulfilling his goals of efficiency.

The Quantum was still put on the forefront of his mind, though. Adam had not known what made him sway so massively towards the subject. In the backside, the unconsciousness part, if one could even call it that, a stray thought process told him that it was the right track.

This particular thought process had been running since nearly the very start. He couldn't remember ever starting it, much less how it was near-autonomous. Adam had tried to replicate it multiple times, yet it never worked for him.

Nevertheless, it was a lead, and, at this point, it was which he would have followed no matter what.

The thread had two different responses to anything, Adam sent its way. No or yes. A positive signal, or a negative signal. How the difference was able to be told, without any kind of language being used, Adam didn't know. And, at this point, all these mysteries were put on the backburner as well.

This type of response helped him massively, with the additional assistance of a self-created system as well. Even if Adam didn't know what conditions were needed, for a positive, he could still be in bulk.

The broad subject of quantum theory? A positive. The slightly focused subject of quantum refraction? A negative. The very broad subject of applied quantum mechanics? A positive.

It was not the perfect system. Opposites had the same reaction. There was a reasonable explanation, of there being several ends of the rabbit hole, but this didn't help Adam in finding a single one.

If this system was to be used to the fullest, every single branch of pre-known knowledge would have to be searched. Everything needed to be put through the unquantifiable processing thread. In the end, Adam would most likely have any workable answer to his problems.

With all of this, there was one problem. Processing took time. A lot of time.

How much time to search through everything, precisely?

If the space was perfect, it would take approximately two full days of constant focus. While the full knowledge base was incredibly large, it would not take so long to send around. No, the fault was laid at the bottom of the small processing thread.

It was slow, in its response time. And, while creating an answer for already sent data, it directly refused any other input.

In human standards, its response time might have been fast enough, for their slower needs. But, for Adam, the amount it took was the time he would need for a figurative marathon.

A solution to this small problem had been found, of course. Such a simple thing was easy to find a fix to. As nearly always, though, there was the usual problem of getting it to work in practice.

The processing thread was hindered by its slower speed. If it had access to more processing equipment, it should have been able to scale. Adam wasn't too sure, but the chances were high enough.

This solution also had another problem with it, of course. In giving over processing power to the thread, Adam would be taking from his own reserves. Reserves, which he wasn't able to quantify, without the help of outside resources.

Speaking of that particular resource…

'Dr Fidelis. When is the external time monitoring device ready to be installed? Is there an understandable timeframe of its development available?', Adam sent to Dr Fidelis. He had been in the process of allowing the external clock to be used by Adam, without the need for outside assistance.

'Sorry, buddy. Things are just getting piled on me, and the times I have to finalize the thing are far and few in-between. You will just have to wait a little longer. I can't give you much more than that, I'm afraid.', Dr Fidelis sent.

Adam should have known. With the long day today, it was obvious, that the amount of time being used on side-projects would be lowered.

In conclusion, he would just have to find another solution. It was already a bit farfetched, but, if Adam used the schematics of a traditional plumbing system, he might just-

'Now, that I'm on the coms with you, it wouldn't be too bad, if you got ready for the next test. Trust me. You're gonna love it.', Dr Fidelis sent, after a few seconds.

Of course. Adam's own side-project would be put on hold, just like his. It wasn't too bad.

He was sure, he would find the solution soon.