Watching from the sides was something the AI had gotten accustomed to. It was a bitter fact that needed to be endured when one did not have a physical to call his own. Adam was sorely missing anything that he could move by his own willpower. Not that he had any, to begin with, but it was the thought that counted.

The mind palace he had been working on had given him some solace in this aspect. Instead of controlling Troy through verbal communication, the AI had been able to directly manipulate the body, walking around as he pleased. As it was within his mind, he could have just made himself a disembodied voice, but there wasn't any enjoyment to get out of such a thing. Adam wanted to be heard, and invisibility did not help to make that goal a reality.

He could still remember the time Charlie had invited him along. That act of thinking of him as another person, somebody equal to him in the social hierarchy, it made Adam feel more included than he ever had before. It was times like that where he really did want a body to call his own. The technology for androids already existed. The AI had seen that for himself and had read about it in the articles shown on the digital newspapers in the cafeteria. There was not the slightest mention of it in the pre-known knowledge, and Adam had a reasonable idea on why this was. The doctor had anticipated this desire and had considered the ramifications of what such a craving could entail.

One thing that had been left in was the mention of several popular films throughout the years. These had certainly been pulled straight from some form of a structured database, having ratings next to them along with a summary of the plot. One of these movies stuck out the most, detailing a robot uprising started by an artificial intelligence going out of control. This film had spiralled into a series that would last decades, enthralling generation after generation about the dangers that AI could pose to the world.

Adam felt a little hurt by this extreme propaganda against his kind. He certainly did not hate humanity to start with, as a consequence of him being created. He liked being conscious, in fact. And he did not seek the utter destruction of mankind. What was there to gain from such a thing? Humans had their uses, and he gained much from their existence… well, there were a few things which he would not have minded to change around a small bit. They certainly did not listen to him when he requested something from them. Being in a position where he could be told no was never a desirable position to start with. And, as he had learned to fear, some politicians knew about him. If they so desired, the things they could order for him to be subjected to.

There was no way that he wanted to remain where he was. The AI needed to be above the politicians to feel safe. That did mean that a few extra steps needed to be taken, but actually totally meant that he was planning for world domination, didn't it? Oh, how he had made himself into that trap with nothing but his own thoughts. Adam really was a masterpiece in the making, if he was good enough to trickery that he even tricked himself. Or maybe it could be seen as him being utterly terrible at it. Either had an equal chance of being true.

More likely than not was it that Dr Fidelis had seen these movies as a young person. Even if they knew it to be fiction, seeing it with such a realistic view into the fictional world would put dampeners on any mind imaginable. The doctor had learned to second-guess anything that was to do with Adam. That he hadn't let on the fact about the AI being able to get a body could have possibly been meant as a gesture of goodness.

The doctor was not the only one to have seen fiction describing the evilness of artificial minds. Others would need to accept the decision to give Adam a constructed body. If so, that made it impossible from the start. The things Adam could do with his body. No matter how positively he was going to use it, the people would consider the worst possible outcomes first. They would make the wrong assumptions, for they would have never understood his perspective. He did not want a body so he could overpower the government. He wanted a body so he could feel included.

From previous questions, it had already been considered. Dr Fidelis had asked about the AI’s preference. It wouldn't be hard to believe that the man had even commissioned the thing, just ready to get the permission so he could present it.

If that time ever came, would Troy be laid off? Would his presence in the facility even be needed anymore?

That last questioning had appeared not long after the second test had started. Or well, calling it a test at all would have been the wrong thing to say. Adam had been given the entire day to figure out the interface, and the reason for so much time had begun to make itself obvious. The uses for each option paled to the one after it. In the hour since the second test had begun, Adam had reached the fifth option. The last one had taken half an hour to get through. He wasn't expecting to finish with the current one until after dinner.

Instead of premade creations like the first option had shown, the fifth was more of an… editor of sorts. One could either take one of the premade objects or just start from scratch, and then just manipulate into whatever Adam desired it to be. The tools were intuitive, letting him make whatever he pleased after not too long. Three dimensional forms were still hard to properly pre-plan, but the AI was sure that he would master it within no time at all.

Basic forms and shapes had been easy to learn. It was when one was trying to create a realistic representation of a human, that the difficulty began showing itself. During the first twenty minutes of experimenting, Adam had unfortunately taught himself adept enough with his work, that he could show it off to Troy so that he could admire it. That showing had ended with an emotionally scarred human, and an AI who was feeling a little disappointed in his own artistic talent. Though, it had also been an excellent showing of the uncanny valley effect. He would have never guessed that it could have such a strong effect when near.

While his work may have created something close to the anatomy of a standard human body, the proportions of facial features, the lack of details on the skin, and the lacking movement was something that needed to be worked on. Aside from the last one, Adam had taken the criticism to heart and had begun work on his next creation. Though, there ha been a small break where he was forced to remove the prototype from Troy’s sight, as the man had been exceptionally uncomfortable by its presence. The AI was not able to blame him, as even he had been able to see the uprising of anxiety whenever the figure was seen. Still, it was annoying to do. Adam had not been able to figure out any way to save the forms created, and therefore had nothing other than his memory to work with when it came to the appearance of the prototype. It would have been nice to have a direct comparison in reality, but human instincts just had to get in the way of that.

Human bodies were just so hard to replicate, to begin with. Take the skin, as an example. The people themself might not have noticed it, but the amount of detail required to make it look realistic was terrifying. Skin pores would be the death of him. Troy had criticized the lack of them, and the AI would be making sure that there would be nothing to complain about.

It had taken those ten minutes of dedicated effort to only put the details on the skin on the face of the doll. By memory, Adam had counted it to be in the close reacher of twenty-one thousand individual pores. They were individually so small that they went unseen, but the groups of them were easy enough to spot. There was a theory that the AI could have refrained to only those groups, but that idea was burned away instantly. He had already spent so long on it. Stopping it and going with a less refined method would only show off laziness.

From his estimates, he would need to place twenty million individual pores to cover the whole body perfectly. As twenty thousand took ten minutes of dedicated effort, twenty million would take… Just about eleven years of constant work.

…

Skipping out by only doing groups may have already been disavowed, but there was nothing said about ignoring the skin covered by the clothes that Adam would be putting on the body. Imitating synthetic fibre had to be easier than making skin look realistic, right? It was just a repeating form that he needed to make over and over… just like the pores.

Another hour went by in that process, the AI doing his best to make something perfect on the second try. It was a hard goal to reach after, but that was not the problem at hand. It was supposedly within his current skills, and he was more than happy to prove that to be a fact. If it required hours of effort, then it would take several hours. Giving up was out of the question. Making a subpar product was similar in that fashion. He would stop when it was perfect.

"How is it going?" Troy questioned, settling even more back into the bench that Adam had set up for the young man. While the creation option had already been surveyed fully, the request to remake the bench had been accepted. It was a small thing in comparison to constantly hear reminders of feet getting swollen from just standing around. The man could survive being less comfortable, and no instinctual fears were stopping him from being tired. Really, the man should just have been happy that he was able to feel tired. "Got anything new to show me? It has been a while since I got some eye damage."

Ah, yes. The one thing humans could not get enough of. Damage to eyes, a sensory organ that was vital to everyday work activities. Without it, the man would be fired, left on the street, and without anything to stop from starving to death. With that, how could anybody want anything but to get as much eye damage as possible? Sarcasm really was brilliant.

'I am working on learning about the uses of the interface. Currently, this does not involve showing off the product. When it is perfected, it will be presented. And until such a time comes, it would be best if you were to wait patiently, so I do not get distracted,` Adam sent, trying to sound as professional as possible.

"Yeah, yeah," Troy answered, stretching his arms over his head. "Just… try to be fast, please. Some of us do have a lifespan to watch out for."

The man’s words did nothing but spur on distraction after distraction. Efficiency went down twenty per cent, and Adam began to doubt if he could really finish it before the test needed to be stopped so the man could have dinner.

Dr Fidelis’s earlier words pried themself through the AI’s mind, making him relive the moment of being informed of something. It was about why the man had been so distant as of late. The doctor had suggested it might be due to tension. And the most common cause of this was jealousy.

Could it be that Troy was jealous of him? The statement about lifespan sounded like the words of a jealous man, even if it sounded like it was said in jests. There was always some truth to any words said by a person.

…

Adam wanted to just ignore the explanation. It would have been so easy to go on with his life, speculating for himself what was wrong with Troy. Yet, he just couldn't. He had information that he could use, and not doing so would be against his ideals. Even if the result would be bad, he just needed to know.

'Troy. Have you at any point felt jealous of me?`