As Dr Fidelis saw the two of them walk through the door, the screen was hurriedly turned off. A few words were scribbled on, just before it darkened completely, though. He just had to do that last bit of planning, didn't he? What a workaholic, that man was.

Well, you were only such a thing, if you constantly started working, right? Dr Fidelis wouldn't count then. The only time, where he started work, was the time, he came into this very room.

According to Troy's quite sophisticated intelligence network, something neat to call his very own eyes, Dr Fidelis had never actually left this room, making it so, he only started working on time, in his whole career here.

Does the man ever sleep? Not when there's work to be done. Which there always is.

“Entering as precisely as you can, I see,” Dr Fidelis observed. “How are you two so well-timed, in coming in, right on the clock? Do you time your movements?”

“It's just blind luck, I'm afraid”, Troy said, not even bothering to make up a slightly sarcastic retort. “Nothing more than that.”

Dr Hale definitely wanted to correct him on that. It could be seen in her slight pause when putting it all down on her notepad.

Wait. No, she wasn't.

Being stood a step, or so, behind Dr Hale, Troy was able to see, what was really going on, with that notepad of hers. He had always presumed, that she was dutifully writing down notes about the rooms occurrences. But, he had been far from right in these predictions.

Skulls! Dr Hale, a woman likely twice Troy's age, was drawing skulls on her notepad. During a work-hour, at that! There wasn't too much wrong with doing so, of course. Yet… He hadn't expected, for her to be the one doing such things.

The personal stuff was for free hours. During work-hours, one needed to be a good employee and whatnot. Wasn't that, what she herself had told him, only a few minutes prior?

“Well, if that's what you can do with raw luck, how about you actually try next time?” Dr Fidelis retorted, sounding quite cheerful. Troy didn't like the sound of that. “We might just be able to get even more out of this whole thing!”

“Of course, sir”, Dr Hale said, putting her notepad back down in her pocket, when she saw Troy's continuing looks at her… inscriptions? Yeah, that sounded profession enough. “Shall we get on with this test of ours?”

“Great idea, Dr Hale”, Dr Fidelis commended. He was over at Troy's side in but a moment, giving him a good clap on the shoulder. “Go on now, buddy. Get those things of you, and get ready for a whole hour or two of testing. You won't regret it!”

That could have been debated. Not that Troy wanted to do such a thing, though. Currently, Dr Fidelis was like a young, golden retriever; impossible to get down. Oh, how he didn't want to know what was keeping those spirits up. If the last few times were taken into consideration, high spirits meant high pain in the legs. Troy was young, dammit! He should be feeling such things yet.

Not letting his unstable thoughts about his old body distract him, Troy went to get changed. While complaining sounded much more fun to do, he did have a job to settle.

While doing so, rather than having much thought with Troy, Dr Fidelis decided to have another style of conversation.

“Say, Dr Hale”, Dr Fidelis said. “How have those notes of yours been going?”

What a good time to talk about such things, now that Troy knew the truth.

“They've been going fine, sir”, Dr Hale monotonically replied. “No backlog has been created, in the last five days of testing.”

Troy heard, what sounded like a clap on the shoulder. A lot of those had been going around now. Maybe it was just that type of mood?

“Good to hear”, Dr Fidelis commended, yet again. “But, remember, Dr Hale, being up to policy standard is always something to strive for. Isn't that right?”

“... Of course, sir”

Throughout their short conversation, Troy had successfully changed out to skin suit. While he had had complaints about it, in the past, now that he had used it for some time, it had really grown on him. The movements in it were different from the standard, but, once his body learned to adjust, it was no problem at all. It might even be better from what he had before.

Removing the curtain, and stepping out in the room again, Troy saw Dr Hale and Dr Fidelis standing more than a few meters apart. One was busy working on her notepad, while Dr Fidelis seemed to scribble a bit more into the screen. He had thought him done with preparations, but it seemed like he never had enough of it.

It was halted again, though, when it was noticed, that Troy had finished his changing. If they had already planned to do so, would they really have gotten anything worthwhile done? He couldn't have been that slow.

“Readied yourself?” Dr Fidelis asked, to which Troy curtly nodded. “Good. Get inside, and we'll start this whole test up. You're gonna love it!”

Like usual, Troy was having a very hard time, in believing his words. Nevertheless, his opinion about the subject was void by standard, so he entered regardless.

Adam was having a hard time, in being grateful of Dr Fidelis' warnings. He had been told, that the test was about to start. When one said such things, most would otherwise assume, that the test was actually starting at any second. Adam certainly assumed it as so.

Yet, in the mind of Dr Fidelis, things were not as obvious. In total, he had counted a full four minutes, before any kind of connection was started, between him and his… assistant.

Troy wasn't even inside the puzzle room, the place where testing was done when he put the earpiece on. While this did provide Adam with the benefit of having an updated glance at the outside world, it did not excuse Dr Fidelis' poor choice of words.

The consequences of these wordings had constricted Adam in furthering his side-project. Yes, the time wasted on simply waiting likely wouldn't change the overarching end of the project, but, at the very least, he would have reached the final thought a lot faster.

Going away from his criticism about proper timing in testing situations, Adam had a small comment about the state, of the space outside the puzzle room.

In the last few days, it had received… changes to it. Nothing major of course. Certainly, nothing, which granted grounding for questioning. No, the only change, which Adam could quickly perceive, was the surprising addition of a creatively designed curtain.

What was this coloured cloak hiding?

Taking a look down his memories, he could find nothing notable about the location, other than it being severely dirty, in comparison to other places in the room. Adam was sure, that such a state did not require it being hidden. Simply cleaning it sounded like a much more efficient alternative, but, as always, the inconsequential reasoning abilities of the human race had always been able to surprise Adam.

“Quit stalling, and get inside!”, Adam heard Dr Fidelis shout in Troy's direction. He could have said the same thing.

Instead of simply entering the puzzle room, as was the standard, Troy seemed to have gotten himself the idea of standing still before the entrance. Having a look at the body analysis, Adam was able to see the stress levels being above the average. It was saying even more, if it was compared to the average data, from his pre-known knowledge.

Through the process of elimination, he had theorized himself, as the culprit behind these higher level of stress. Yet, seeing such ranges here, outside of the testing area, proved that another factor was at play. A certain factor, which Adam had not yet realized the existence off.

This required more information than he currently had at his repertoire. Adam shortly debated simply asking for analysis papers from Dr Fidelis but decided that asking the recipient would be better.

'Why are you stressed?', Adam asked Troy. While the one suffering didn't always know exactly, what the cause was, a general area of symptoms, other than just pure stress level, could always him tighten the causes.

Just after asking, Troy's level spiked, for but a brief moment, before coming down to the earlier, stable levels.

Could Adam really call them stable? While it was accurate, it sounded much more positive, than what it actually was.

“I'm just mentally preparing myself for what's before me,” Troy answered. Adam was not sure if it was directed at him or Dr Fidelis.

Whoever it was directed at didn't matter. Troy's personal reaction to either was enough to place the hidden factor outside of Troy himself. This let Adam root out several guesses, about what was causing this stop in regular function. Sudden part-body paralysis certainly didn't seem to fit anymore.

It seemed like this behaviour had been seen before, and as he hadn't been able to pick up anything negative, but the heightened stress levels. From this, Adam decided it was time to resume the already late schedule.

'I believe it would be best if you followed Dr Fidelis' advice. At your rate of movement, any dreams you might have of sleeping will soon by voided, due to improbability of them ever being shown in reality.', Adam sent. This time he used another form of encouragement. One, which he hadn't tried before, in full.

It wasn't a positive reinforcement. There wasn't anything, that fit into being encouraging, in Adam's words. Neither were they negative.

It could be best described, as being a mix between vainly hinted threats, and a good part statistics. If there was anything, which caused the human brain to start listening, it was hearing those long factual words. It didn't have to be true, of course. It just had to sound true.

From Adam's scarce outside news, certain public figures were not averse to using such techniques. Personally, he couldn't be too annoyed, at doing such things. Sure, they brought misinformation, but, if one wasn't going for the truthfulness and instead listeners, this was the right choice, in Adam's own opinion.

And, this method of advice certainly worked on Troy. His feet seemingly twitched so hard, that he was forced to take steps forwards, to avoid falling flat on his face.

Such a way of movement had not been, what Adam had been imagining, in his mind. Yet, it did bring the same kind of results, so there wasn't any reason to complain here either. Then again, Troy falling would have brought him forward, while also giving Adam more information about the human body's ways of impeding forces from acting on it. He had not been able to record such an event, in full detail yet, and had been looking for a way to observe it.

Even if the project was on hold, Adam was still recording data about the body, and its movements, to be analysed at a later time. To get the best information, it would have to be varied. A single detail about every muscle was better than a thousand about a single muscle. Or, so it went, at least. Adam would not have minded a thousand recordings of a single muscle by one bit.

Instead of continuing his gait into the puzzle room, and walking into the middle, as was tradition, Troy stopped at just the corner. It was normally, at this point, where the entrance would have disappeared, but it stayed, planted with the same intensity as Troy's feet.

Oh, that wouldn't do at all. Adam had gotten him so far, and stopping now would ruin all the earlier work.

'Just a few steps more, and you won't have to work your feet much more.', Adam sent, hoping that another form of encouragement would work in his favour. Natural directions hadn't worked, so maybe the positive type would have a different result. If not, he would be forced to go the negative route, even if Dr Fidelis had advised him not to do so. It brought results, and, that was all the mattered in the end.

Luckily for him, though, the mention of a lesser amount of work seemed to energize Troy, making him readily take the last few steps.

“You better be right, in your words, Adam”, Troy said, with purpose clear in his tone. “If this test turns out to be like the last two, lengthwise at least, I will not be as great a work partner, as I usually am.”

Seeing as Troy was regularly a terrible guide to have, Adam took this threat very seriously. If the quality of work decreased any more, it would bring the quality of his answers down with it. This could not be let happen.

In the earlier test, Troy had been complaining about the length, which Adam took. Back then, the words had simply been ignored. The job had been designated, so there was no reason to complain about it. Yet, humans were just irrational, and, now Troy was nearly blackmailing him into changing up his techniques.

Did he want quick answers? Adam would give him quick answers.

Actually, doing such a thing wouldn't be too bad a plan. He had been giving himself a bit too much time. It wasn't good if Adam was hoping to increase his efficiency in his thought processes. He had been adding a decent amount of clutter to his thoughts, recently.

This test could be used to decrease the unneeded parts, though trial and error. See what's stopping the time from being less, and what actually helping it. Yeah, it seemed like a good idea, in Adam's own opinion.

'I'll try to be faster, this time.', Adam answered.

“You said something like that last time”, Troy retorted. “I can't say, you worked yourself up to keep that promise.”

He would just have to show how much he could work this time, then.