Troy did not think about much when he left the cafeteria. That did not mean there was nothing to think about. Because there was! More than enough to fill an entire week of thought with, yet… the young man knew that he would not be able to stop once he started.

Things were becoming messed up. They were becoming layers of lies, stacked neatly on top of each other. If it was allowed to continue he feared where the whole spiel would lead. What happened when Charlie confronted Dr Hale about what Troy had said? Would she be able to play along? It was not like he could tell her now, for the risk of making things take a wrong turn. Bad wording, bad planning, or just about anything else could make her misunderstand, make her think he had revealed the true truth to Charlie, just as he had been instructed to very specifically not do.

"I trust that breakfast went well?" Dr Hale asked as she came to a standstill next to Troy. The young man had been waiting patiently in front of the hidden door, doing his best not to show any hint of the prior events. He had done well in not thinking about it too deeply, but the secludedness had pressured it near the breaking point.

"Went as well as you would expect," Troy neutrally answered, trying to thread the line between respect as a co-worker and respect as a person who could possibly be sliced up into pieces. If he concentrated, he could still feel where the cut had been made.

It had been a dangerous time when Charlie had noticed the cut in his shirt. It had been made from the knife slicing through, yet time had allowed it to heal. Troy had thought that it had been given enough time to be unnoticeable, yet the muscular man had seen it the moment the area had gotten close.

Having checked it himself thoroughly multiple times, there should have been no chance of this happening. The fabric had been given ample time to heal itself back to its designated state, appearing as clean and whole as it had any other day. If cut like that had been enough to leave a scar, Troy would have been without cloth to call his own, left with nothing but simple rags. His shirt had been with him for the near entirety of his life, staying on him for close to twelve hours every day since he was twelve. It had grown with him, keeping its size perfectly suited for him. The invention that was adaptive cloth was something that had been perfected.

Yet somebody was able to find something wrong with it. Even if it was supposedly without flaw, Charlie had been able to see what was behind it. The muscular man had been able to see through that layer of fluidity, able to see what was supposed to be hidden without fail. To hell with calling it adaptive. It was utter rubbish at doing one of its main jobs, even if it had worked so well in the past. If Troy ever got the chance and money for it, he would buy from one of the better clothing brands.

Dr Hale gave him a side-glance, before looking back to the hidden door, seeming to have decided not to question the tone of voice. The young man had no comments to that, wanting more than just that to be ignored. Yet, he knew that he would do his best in acting naturally, as the woman beside him did her best in writing in a code that was likely to never work without help from the other side.

However, it was still a plenty convincing illusion, as the hand was withdrawn long before Troy could hear any indicators for the door opening up like Dr Hale had expected it beforehand. Perhaps she had just memorized the time needed for Dr Fidelis to notice the pertinent button-presses, or perhaps she could feel the inner vibrations of the wall, even if they were not audible to the human ear. Or, it could be that Troy’s idea had been wrong from the start and that he was just deluding himself even further as a way of distracting himself. Who knew? Definitely not him.

The door opened up smoothly, allowing the two to get inside. This time, there was no doctor standing directly on the other side, ready to ask Troy to leave. As a direct opposite, the man was with the screen, seeming to be studying it carefully, a dead-found grin on his face. Whatever might have been on there would have been on there was never to be known by anybody else, as the doctor turned it off seconds after Troy got his first and only glimpse at it.

"Perfect timing for the both of you!" Dr Fidelis said as the likely first of many proclamations of the day. "We have a day of fun testing to do, and I know exactly how we will be starting it."

"Preparing Troy immediately so that we can have a streamlined process?" Dr Hale suggested, sounding like a mix between sarcasm and professionalism. The third person in the room would have mirrored the action if he had the guts for something like that, instead just limited to look at the woman, surprised at the sass he was witnessing before him.

"Alas, if only this was such a perfect world," Dr Fidelis said, ignoring the several days before where they could start almost instantly. "I do have a few things I need to get through with Troy before we start. Though that does not necessitate that you listen in, Dr Hale, so I would really appreciate it if you start up the next test. It would be best if we allow it to load in a little early today. That detail is not something that wants to be instantly loaded in, as you remember from last night's testing.

There was no verbal response to the minor request, Dr Hale just moving to the screen to do her job. And it was not one that Troy could understand, his glances at the window open only showing the normal blob of nothingness. Was she even doing anything other than running already made programs, cleverly hidden to avoid snooping eyes? There had been something about her being incapable of coding just about anything.

Looking back, it did make more sense for everything to have been tailored towards him not being able to know anything vital. Him getting schematics about upcoming tests would be a huge hit to development. While Troy did not yet know what the end-goals were, it was clear that the doctor still had the constraint of the testing data being valid in some way. The doctor wanted procedures documented, conversations transcribed. He wanted everything to be filed so that he could look it up at a later date.

What did he want with it? What was there to truly be gained when it came to the tests, other than the beneficial lessons that Adam was getting out of it? If Dr Hale was to be believed, which Troy had decided she was, they had already likely gone through it tens of times. Maybe even a hundred. If the AI went back to the so-called factory settings after dying, would there really be much of a difference after they were reset? It could have been more of an idea of making sure nothing was wrong, yet Troy was sure that could have been done in a much quicker way. Something was not like it was supposed to be, and he could not figure out what that was.

"What was it you wanted to talk about, sir?" Troy inquired, getting nervous of the now three-second delay of everything happening. Dr Fidelis had looked overly curious at seeing whatever Dr Hale was doing with the screen, as if she was slowly revealing the truth about the eight secret spices, and had just taken a bit stretcher after the first five.

"Oh, it was nothing too important. I just felt like it was a good idea to get praises over with before we go on to anything too vital," Dr Fidelis said, sounding like he wanted to wave away any professionalism. As if that atmosphere could go away from a superior sounding casual. That was when the predator was to strike! If Troy let his barrier down for a single second, the fangs would be in his eyes before he could blink. "Last night, when working hard together with Adam to create what the little thought to be perfect, the two of us began a little talk that I did not expect to have. According to that shared buddy of ours, the two of you have been having a little more fun outside of testing than I had anticipated."

… It was about here that Troy was surprised at himself for not pissing his pants, seeing that innocent grin on Dr Fidelis’ face. With the context the young man had at his disposal, the doctor had just declared his knowledge about everything he and Adam had done in secret. The poker game, the introduction to the group, even the escapade to the different laboratories, all seen in perfect quality, where the AI had been allowed to explore as much as he wanted to. A dream for Adam and more than likely a nightmare for the doctor.

"The two of you talked a lot, I am to guess?" Troy asked, too nervous to notice his poor sentence-structure. He needed to know how screwed he was. Adam might have only told as much as the doctor asked for.

The chances were low, but the revealing might have been limited to the poker game. While it would still be terrible, he could survive that. He could pull through for some time, as long as it was not exposed that he literally showed off secret technology to an artificial intelligence that had been supposed to go unknowingly.

"We talked more than just a lot. I can tell you that much. Even if Adam has not lived for that long, the immense amount of ideas, concepts, or just outright formations that he has crafted… it is better than anything I had ever thought possible in such a small time. Sure, I knew it would be possible after enough waiting, yet I had never imagined that this growth would be shown at such an early age. And, when I have to think about all the common threads, I realise that there is one person causing all of this. Though, that connection was also helpfully established through a shared friend of ours," Dr Fidelis stated, looking awfully happy as if Christmas had come early. On the opposite side of the spectrum was Troy, feeling like an earthquake was happening inside of him, the faint rush of blood in his ears beginning to grow able to burst the vessels. It was only through extreme effort that it did not show on his face. "You, Troy, have done so much more than I expected you to have done. Honestly, I did admirably have some lowered expectations for you, but I now have to eat my boot for you proving me wrong so severely. Somehow, you have done more for Adam in a few days than I thought would be possible for this month. If I had the authority, I would have given you a medal for it all."

"That does sound pretty… surprising, actually," Troy answered, being honest in his words, a little confused that the hidden person had not shot him in the back of the head yet. Where was the big reveal? He needed to understand it better. "What was one of these big revelations that Adam showed off?"

"Sharks," Dr Fidelis answered.

It was official. Troy’s breakfast had been laced with something. The last twenty minutes had been a delusion of his dying mind, and everything around him was now slowly degrading into nothingness, as his last neurons began to do the same. That was the only logical thing Troy could think of, because expecting the doctor to have just flatly answered sharks was just nothing he could accept.

"Sorry, could you say that one again? I think I am wildly hearing that wrong because I think you just said something along the lines of 'sharks,`" Troy stated, doing his best to see if anything in the background was changing as time passed. The signs of sleep were the inconsistency of details, no matter how much it all seemed to fit at the moment.

While he was not able to see any text, the different colours on the desk and the details on his own clothing was more than enough to carry him from it. However, the worrying detail was the lack of anything morphing, twisting, or otherwise changing itself in any noticeable way.

"Nothings wrong with your hearing, buddy. You heard me right," Dr Fidelis corrected, fully obliterating Troy’s excuse for why nothing made sense for him.

"I don't think I understand," Troy said. What did sharks have to do with anything? Here he was, deliberating if he wanted to look around for the person that would kill him, while the doctor was speaking of animals that children loved to draw. "Where are you getting that from?"

However little the young man understood what was going on, Dr Fidelis was apparently finding it all too hilarious, bursting with laughter to the point where the doctor had to hold onto his stomach. Troy could only look on, fearing for both his life and sanity. It was all real yet it felt so fake. Especially that laughter, the deepness being more than normal.

"Oh, we really are similar in so many ways," Dr Fidelis said, wiping away a few tears that had appeared in his eyes. Even then, sudden small bursts came from the man, as if the last laughing gas tried to free itself. "When Adam told me that he based his daily rhythm off of your description of sharks, I began to doubt my own sanity a bit myself. Even now, there is still some doubt about how that particular animal came into your discussion. Yet there is nothing I can say about the results that came from it. Did you know that Adam has limited himself to a point where he can work steadily constantly, diverting all work away from processing management? I thought he was still working on that still, but it looks like he has just completely forgone the problem by going out of his way to start with. Ingenious! And he understood all that from your brief description of sharks. I just knew having the two of you talk was a perfect idea. It has literally accelerated Adam's understanding of conventional tasks by a factor of thirty-eight. I can only be grateful for having made the right choices for this test. There had been some hesitance hidden in me somewhere, when I allowed you to keep that earpiece, Troy, but this has shown that I was right to trust you with Adam’s care."

Events were being thrown on their heads, and the young man could do nothing but be happy for it. Adam had kept his mouth shut! Troy had been so stressed out about him being unable to refrain from selling out to the doctor, yet this went and showed that there had been nothing to worry about. In fact, it was a showing of his own failure that he even believed such a thing to start with. Was this some kind of wake-up call for him, to stop thinking that everybody had it out for him? It had been stressing him to no end, nothing that was good for his health. He needed to rethink a few topics soon, or he would be going bald before the bullet entered his head.

Thinking back on it all, now with a clear mind included, Troy was able to remember a time where he and Adam had talked about sharks. It had been one of their first conversations outside testing ever, in fact. The AI had clearly been wanting to speak with him about a multitude of subjects, so many topics wanted to be taught about. The young man also had a craving, that being to fall onto his bed and sleep for several hours uninterrupted. In this small delusion of semi-consciousness, Troy had made the terrible analogy of him not being a shark, spurring on Adam to relentlessly hound him for information about the animal that he had never known about.

Not that he had any more to give than its name, and that he knew it never slept, keeping itself to a steady state of activity without pause. The AI had accepted the answer then, allowing Troy to get the sleep he had desired so much. To think that what had been happening behind the curtain was Adam reworking his entire state of thinking to match that brief description made about some random animal. It was dumb, likely a spur on the moment decision, and it was exactly something Troy could imagine the AI doing in his free time. With all that talk about efficiency, expecting Adam to not take into the context of real-world processes to improve his own mind was a ludicrous way of thinking.

"Thank you for the compliment, sir," Troy said, beginning to think himself out of the red zone. That big dumb smile on the doctor’s face was not one that explicitly knew what he was doing, instead of praising him for some casual talk that had been had with Adam during some downtime in the night. It was all perfectly understandable. "Should we get going with the test? I am sure that we have much to do today. Having to hurry through it all due to unnecessary delays would not be good at all."

Then again, both parties knew more about them than they were supposed to. Troy had tried not to overthink his situation, yet Dr Fidelis did supposedly know everything he had done while wearing the earpiece. It had acted as the bug made to listen in, while also providing the doctor with his whereabouts. He knew that the young man had gone to a poker tournament, he knew everything about showing Adam the different laboratories, and he just as likely knew about those favours that had been passed around. Yet, that was all unofficial knowledge, gained through methods that Dr Fidelis would not haphazardly reveal. If Adam had told everything to him, Dr Fidelis would have had nothing stopping him from looking aghast at the behaviour, and reacting to it as the innocent ball of innocence that he was supposed to be.

However, Troy was not yet sure that the doctor knew of him knowing that he knew… That sounded extremely complicated. Which it honestly was, being all one big mind-game. The young man was still not completely sure on how thorough the doctor was at his spying. Did he look through all data-files, searching for any discrepancies? Or was it a more casual look, only checking the conversations with Adam while giving skimming through parts of the day-to-day life? The man surely would not listen to recordings of Troy sleeping in his bed, right? Even evil masterminds had to have some barriers.

Dr Fidelis likely did not know anything yet. Or he was way better at hiding it than Troy could have expected from the man. Either was possible, but the first was more likely than the latter. If the doctor already knew all there was about his and Dr Hale’s plan then there would have been put in countermeasures to stop it all. As had been deliberated on before, he should have already been dead if the gig had been up. Nothing would have been gained by giving traitors more time to work their magic, and most certainly not while being surrounded by deeply classified materials.

"You are of course right, buddy. Or, you would have been right in a normal situation. But, we have ourselves in quite a pickle right now, as it would be unsafe for you to enter the puzzle room before the test has been properly loaded in. On that note, Dr Hale, how is it looking right now? Is it going to be a few minutes, or are we going to have to skip this one temporarily?" Dr Fidelis asked the still-working Dr Hale. The woman had been adept at controlling whatever she was going, her digits moving smoothly and precisely. This dance was continued without pause, even as she looked over to answer. Troy guessed this to have been more due to a long time practising it, rather than just having an innate sense of what to do.

"It will not take longer than what it is expected to take," Dr Hale answered in her professional tone, not helping Troy understand any more than before. "If I may be so rude to ask, why did you not pre-load the test if it was known that the time needed for a full render would be so long?"

"It just slipped my mind. Had work to fill out, notes to prepare, and even some important documents to look over," Dr Fidelis said, supplying a fresh list of excuses that nobody actually believed.

"Why am I not allowed to go into the test before it loads this time?" Troy asked the doctor. "I have been able to do so before. How is this time different?"

"I can't really tell you that directly, you know. This is a test that you are supposed to be full without knowledge of until the moment that you enter the stage," Dr Fidelis said, his voice going over to a sing-song reminder of something that both could remember fully. The youngest of the two only felt a little stupid actually expecting anything worthwhile out of the man. "But… it is not like you will gain anything out of it, if I just repeat myself a little latter. The reason for you not being safe while everything is getting into place is due to the sheer scale of what is being done inside that room of ours. You might have felt that what we had created before was big, but what you are going to see is just on another scale. And, it will require a few modifications to the space engine that could cause instant death if you reside inside the room while it's being done, but we should not worry about that."

"... I think I am just going to prepare myself mentally behind that curtain over there," Troy said, deciding to suddenly become a bit more religious.

"Fully understandable. We will call you out when it's time to go!"