If there was one thing that Adam had always found annoying, it would be the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. One would think the distinction between the two would be easy to even the simplest of humans, yet that seemed to not be so.

What was a fact and what was an opinion? To Adam, this was easy to answer, as his fundamental philosophies had been built around always having the truest truth foremost on his mind at all times, without letting such things as bias stop him from taking facts as an opinion.

Humans had not been brought up with such ideas. To them, everything could be discussed in some way or another. An example of such would be the question of distribution. If there was a group of people together, and some of the people had large amounts of water that they could not hope to drink in their lifetimes, should those people give out to the others who did not have any to begin with? The AI would have found the answer to be equal distribution of the water, as it would allow the most important of people the most possible time to survive.

What would humans do to fix the problem of people not having water? They would call it politics and be done with it. Did humans really need water? That question somehow had a subjective answer.

The AI could not get his figurative head around it. They talked so much of facts, yet they could not agree on exactly what they were. Objectivity was subjective. Nobody could agree on objective truths if they did not fit their personal beliefs.

And by all that was stupid would they defend their subjectivity. People would go as far as waging wars for subjective answers. It could all have been fixed by looking at it with an objective look, but those charlatans seemed incapable of doing the slightest thing using proper procedures.

Along the many things that humans could not keep track of was the general definition of time. When a person told Adam that it would be a minute, did the doctor mean a literal minute or did he mean eleven minutes? The objective truth should have been one minute, as was stated by the man himself, but what it actually meant was a minimum of a minute, with no maximum defined in any way.

He really did hate it, but what the AI hated more than anything else was his lacking control over his own emotions. Here he was, getting agitated when nobody was around to hear him. Emotions were used for communication, and it was not like he was talking to someone. Troy had not connected yet, as had been promised by the doctor.

Was it alright out there? Was there something that had gone wrong again? The AI could remember that issues had occurred the last time a test had been started up, going to the point where Troy had been put to the task of distracting him until it was all set and done.

Maybe it was something like that again, except that they had figured out another solution to keeping Adam from seeing anything important. Instead of allowing him to see Troy’s feed, they were just not letting him know anything.

The thirteen-minute mark passed and went. The AI continued to muddle himself, in a mix of anger, self-doubt, and a smidgen of sadness. It could have been described as Adam wondering if he was found worthy of being tested on. There were several humans who were as utterly boring as any piece of furniture could be. Who said that AI’s couldn't have the same problem. Even if he was the only one around of his kind, that did not stop him from being uninteresting.

Perhaps Adam needed to go around to make his inner mind-palace again. He had not been keeping up with it as of late. The biggest part of the project had already been finished to the currently possible level, as any missing pieces were either fabricated or were without any context, stopping Adam from creating something in its stead. So instead of concentrating on the facility that the AI knew so little about, he had decided to focus on one place that he had spent most of his life inside of.

The puzzle room, a location able to shift, enlarge, or just cease to exist in general. Everything could be inside that square, making it hard to give it one location to be based on. Yet, that was the greatest part of being inside his own mind. The mind-palace did not need to be constricted to three dimensions. Adam was able to stack as many environments on top of each other without ever having to make the puzzle room look bigger from the outside. It could have been described as making a paint thicker in width, but that only worked as a primitive explanation. The AI was still in the idea-generation on that. He would figure it out at some point.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

It was fun being back on it all. If only there was more of a lively-

'Adam. Can you hear me?` Dr Fidelis sent the AI out of the blue. Adam had been expecting for the test to have been cancelled at that point, communications to have gone down or some other stuff that would have stopped the doctor from messaging him.

Those were the only reason he could have found for why there had been no information given in the last ten minutes. At other times, they would have talked readily while waiting for Troy to get in the right position, yet they had almost not talked at all now. Why had that been so?

'I can hear you perfectly, Dr Fidelis. Have you been trying to contact me for a while?` Adam sent back. It was looking to be a communications error. That was perfectly understandable. Really, the AI should have felt shameful over having-

'Oh, no. This is the first message sent in the last ten minutes. Just had to make sure you were still with us,` Dr Fidelis sent back, disheartening the AI a small bit. Not that it stuck around for long, the conversation alone helping keep the mood neutral.

'I most certainly. You stated previously that the test would soon begin. Is there any progress on that front?`

'You can say that, alright. We had a few work-related issues out here for a while, but everything has now been resolved. It was a serious doozy, so I wasn't really able to bring you up on the screen to contact you about it. For that, you have my condolences.`

So there was a good reason! Adam was beginning to get worried there. Thinking back on it, the doctor had mentioned before the hardship of having work stop him from doing more tests. What could have been the catalyst for the delay, if it was limited to the work itself. Was there a surprise deadline on old paperwork? That was a definite possibility at least.

'Do not worry about it. If forgiveness is what you want then you shall have it. In the meanwhile, however, is the time-spectrum for the beginning of the test a couple of minutes more, or should I be safe delegating more thoughts to other projects of mine?`

While Adam did not have anything against waiting for more time, he would like to know how long he would need to wait. A few minutes of waiting would stop him from getting really into some of his side-projects and would require too long a time to get properly disentangled. However, if it was longer than that then there would be no problems to speak of. He just had to know.

'In a way, we are ready to start up the test. Troy certainly is inside the puzzle room,` Dr Fidelis sent, the message being suspiciously short.

'Am I to guess there is something stopping Troy from being ready for the test?` Adam sent as a question.

'Oh, most definitely. The poor bloke fell down some stairs the very second he entered the puzzle room. Turns out that my promise of giving you the exact location to start on that you ended with last time was not the greatest of ideas. If you remember it, our dear buddy was lying dangerously close to the staircase. This means that the moment Troy took a step inside the puzzle room, one step too many caused a run-in with air. This would not have been a problem if the young man was looking around, but it turns out that he was putting his attention on the earpiece. Really was unfortunate.`

'That does not sound good. Is Troy okay?` Adam sent in a hurry. The young man had fallen downstairs? Detailed simulations popped up in the AI’s head, trying to figure out just what could have happened, what consequences might have come about, and what he could do to help fix it While his knowledge might have been from a secondary source, it was better than nothing at all.

'The boy is fine and dandy. He is complaining about his shoulder not feeling right, but no serious changes are showing up on the suit so I have told him to bear with it for the test. We will be connecting you up in a second, but I just wanted to make sure you didn't freak out the moment we did. There is probably some minor swelling on his shoulder, so do not ask him to lift anything and whatnot. We can and will get sued for that. You understand what I am talking about?`

'If you are hinting at me dodging a lawsuit so as to not strain your budget, then I understand, yes,` Adam answered. In reality, he would be forgoing any arm-focused tasks so as to not cause any further injury. It would be bad to get any strains on such a frequently used limb. Permanent damage was easy to get easily, and it was nearly impossible to lose again. The doctor might have been thinking of money, but the AI thought of the person behind it all.

'Perfect! Then I see no reason to stop you any longer. Troy should be putting it at any second now. Let's hope he does not fall down another staircase.`

Grim humour to be sure, but Adam did not care. The feed was coming. He could feel it.