With the pace set high, and neither having any desire for talk, Troy and Dr Hale reached the testing room quickly. The wall that was the entrance was as blank as ever, not hinting at the things that lied behind. Could it be called a sign of mental erosion, if he found the metaphorical comparisons humorous? That was something best left up to a case-by-case basis.

No moment was wasted at they reached the entrance, Dr Hale putting in the digits on the wall. It was long ago that a try had been made for memorizing the code, but there was nothing stopping anybody from taking a look again. It was good for the brain to work a little after all.

It wasn't like Troy had any success in that endeavour, only getting the first three cyphers, those being one, one, and two, before it began being too quick for his eyes. A small thing to notice was the lack of eyes on the Numpad, as fingers tapped on it with increasing ferocity. Looking up at the one in charge of that finger, one would have been able to see that Dr Hale wasn't looking at it at all.

This did cause some wondering to come forth, especially as the door opened up not too long after. Whatever had been tapped in had turned out to be right on point. That… was not believable at all, honestly. Troy might have trusted muscle memory to some degree, but even he could see that the code changed every time they came along. And with the slight hesitation shown at the start, it was as if the woman was just mashing the buttons repeatedly to save time. There was no way that a self-respecting code creator would start it off with an easy to remember repeating number.

Algorithms were in place specifically to cause as many problems remembering the codes as possible. Troy had got to learn that first hand when he tried to guess the code for a phone back in his younger days. Security was adapting to the human brain, and the brain was not that unique in how it cracked puzzles. Going from the lowest possible number to the highest had been Troy’s plan back then. It had failed spectacularly, as none of the seven digits was below five.

In essence, there was no way in hell that Dr Hale had been putting in any actual code. Troy wouldn't believe that could have been the case, from the perspective of actual security and practicality. Long codes were possible to memorize, but not on a daily basis without fail. So… what else was there to think of? What possible way was the door opening, if Dr Hale wasn't the one making it do so?

If the code wasn't the decider, it had to be the only other one who had shown any real control of the room. And, that person was none other than Dr Fidelis.

It made sense, really. When Dr Hale had first been unable to help him to the testing room, he had gotten the instruction to just knock on the wall. While his mind may not have been created for the purpose of pure logic, Troy had trouble believing the wall to be thin enough for his soft knocks to be heard. More likely than not was that there was a causal pressure detector somewhere in it, which would alert the good doctor to anybody outside. Then it would just be a matter of the human mind recognizing a face, before either allowing them in or ignoring their existence.

Though… that posed the question of how Dr Fidelis got inside. Or, was that even a problem? He had never been seen leaving it after all. Even more troubling about the idea was, that if the doctor had always opened the door manually, why had there been a space of time where the two getting inside hadn't been given the slightest of attention. At times, Dr Fidelis had even seemed surprised by them. Was there something which he wasn't getting?

“I was getting worried about you two,” Dr Fidelis exclaimed from his normal position at the desk. “Dr Hale, I have always thought of you as so punctual. Thirty seconds late might not be too bad for me, but I am surprised that you were able to do such a thing. Is your watch perhaps delayed?”

Much to the disappointment of the youngest person in the room, it had looked like they had been late at the end. Troy had thought himself quick enough, with all the near-jogging they had done to get there. If not for his minor increase in stamina, which had been an unexpected bonus from the day before, he would most certainly have begun to need another rinse. There was just something physically wrong with going upstairs. Rarely used muscle-groups perhaps? He didn't really know.

“The delay lies at me, sir,” Dr Hale answered politely. Or, as politely as one could sound when there was not a single sign of respect in her voice. It did make a lot more sense, now that Troy had a bit more background information. He still wondered when he could do so again. “The doctor overseeing my recovery advised additional servings to bolster my calorie-intake, so as to reduce the chances of feeling faint. I did not have the forethought to address this in the schedule and was forced to delay the departure from the cafeteria by several seconds. It will not happen again.”

“An easy mistake to make. Don't worry about it,” Dr Fidelis said, removing the tension in the air. There had been some expectation of the doctor being passive-aggressive about it, but it looked like even he could not bring himself to shout at another person for not adjusting to internal organ damage. “As long as you are aware of the delay, and attempt to rectify it in future scheduling, there is nothing needed to be commented on. Shall we get on with the testing? Adam has already been notified of your entrance, and is eagerly awaiting for the test to begin.”

The mention of the AI was not one that fell that positive thoughts. Troy was still feeling a little guilty of so abruptly removing Adam from the real world. Sure, it had not been his fault in the last, and it had been for a good cause, but there was still some level of self-control laden within it all. The young man could have at least attempted to take back the earpiece, yet he had forgotten about it the moment personal issues were brought up. Did he weigh their partnership to be so little? There was nothing suggesting it, except for the previous occurrence. However, the man had still not been able to explain it to the AI, and there was little chance he could do so now.

Dr Fidelis was listening to his every word after all. Even if the earpiece being used for testing wasn't tapped, the suit worn was a literal microphone. It worked to record every single thing about the man, including what he said, what he did, and… Wait. One thing needed to be known.

“Dr Fidelis, there is something I have been wondering about for a while now,” Troy said, as he got a hold of the skin-suit. It looked as disgusting as ever, hurtful thoughts still being sent to the creator of the colour pallet. If not for the very high possibility of it being worth more than a few hundred thousand dollars, Troy would have asked for it to be recoloured. That ship had sailed so long ago, unfortunately.“

“Oh, sure, buddy. What do you want to know about?” Dr Fidelis said, speaking a bit louder so the younger of the two could hear him. Just because they were talking didn't mean they had stopped preparing for the test. Troy was still going towards the changing room, just like Dr Fidelis was standing beside the screen, tapping at it with a speed unmatched by even the veterans of speed-writing.

How that man wasn't getting carpal tunnel was one of the biggest questions that could be asked. Troy could remember trying something similar back in the studying days, writing an essay thirty minutes before it was due. Two thousand words written, not a single bit looked over, and an average grade had been the result, paired with his inability to use his hands for anything stressful for the two hours after the fact.

“This suit right here,” Troy said, raising it in the air for no point at all. The doctor wasn't even looking in his direction after all. A quick sideways glance was the best that had been gotten, and he wasn't even sure that had really happened. “How precise is it?”

With the kinda improper showing off the item in question, the curtain was drawn to allow Troy to change into it. No reason to let a flimsy piece of fabric stop conversation, when it could clearly be heard through. Soft plastic was one of the worst insulators after all. Paper was much better.

“I'm gonna need some clarification on that question,” Dr Fidelis requested, an understandable thing to say. The context was always better, else those irritating misunderstands happened all around. Adam always said that… Back to the point. It was important for background information. Without it, the chance of reacting the wrong way was increased. Shouting for help while having a stutter was one most unfortunate way to get shut by the police. It happens too often in the earlier days.

Troy took away the curtain, having gotten the thing on quickly. It was fortunate, with how much coordination was needed to get the thing on right. When shrinking down to get tight, it could end up sitting badly, if the man was in the wrong position. A military stance, with the legs far apart, had turned to best the way to get it shrunk, even if it looked a little silly.

“The suit tracks my movements while monitoring my vitals as well. I get that. But, like, how precise is this tracking. With how thin this is, I can't really think of any measurement being down to the nanometers. Can it even see where my fingers are positioned?” Troy asked, fiddling with the hand part of the thing. It was a little peculiar, how the suit was outfitted with everything. Troy certainly thought it would have been smarter to have the gloves be removable, like those he had gotten his hands on not long before. Where were those anyway?

Dr Fidelis did a solid impression of a not-too-sober Darlow, the man clearly trying to hold in a guffaw. Work was important after all, even if very serious underestimations were in close proximity. That was how Troy thought it was in the doctor’s head, at least.

“It can do a lot more than you would think. Do trust me with that fact, when I say that it can measure things you do not even want to know about at all,” Dr Fidelis answered, with a long glance over at Troy to accompany it. To show just how much focus was being diverted from the work, there was a noticeable decrease in the tapping on the screen. “But… we don't really use most of it for a lot. Basic vital signs and the more rough movements are shown on a spreadsheet. Your fingers aren't included in that, but the direction of your palms are. There was an issue back in the day, where one of the testers would make their hand make cracking noises regularly. That made the people behind this thing remove so many security features from it. I do hope that was good enough as an answer because this thing is hereby ready to be started. Just take the earpiece, and get on inside now. You are going to love it.”

Troy had the thought of that detail always coming along. He was always going to love it, according to the doctor. It was a little disturbing how few times that promise had been proven correct.

Not that it stopped the young man from snatching the earpiece from the table, and walking up the few stairs into the puzzle room. He did have a job to do, as always. And… with the details given, there were even a few things to say when he got inside.