Adam felt like he was getting a hang of small-talk. The secret was to find which of two people talked the most and then encourage them every time they had a pause to breathe some air. One would normally then take the AI as the perfect talker since the entity had no need to ever stop to breathe air, even if this was faked in longer messages.
But no, that was not true at all. As it turned out, Troy was the most prolific man in the universe, when it came to different topics. The man could go from arguing the difference between a hotdog and a sandwich to describing hardships in finding the origins of the word 'walrus.`
Some might have called it weird, but Adam could not help but find it all interesting. A red thread was through everything said, no matter how off-topic it seemed at first. It could have been meant as an analogy, a metaphor, or maybe it was just a regular addition of personal experiences. No matter what it was, it was able to subvert expectations.
A good chunk of time was spent trying to find a pattern in it all. When did the man decide to bounce to something else, when did that switch in the brain fire off? By all accounts and purposes, Adam had been sure there was a predetermined one. It had to. If not, how did it all fit together?
Again, the AI turned out to have been talking out of his behind, when he had made such an assumption. The human brain was not made to plan everything out. The world was too diverse, and trying to predict other’s questions was a failure in the making. One could constrict the subject with buzzwords, but there was no way that Troy had all of Adam’s accounted for. This was determined after the most thorough of testing, some questions almost fully out of the topic, not having any reason to be there. However, Troy answered it all fluidly, as if it was always meant to be there.
That led to the final discovery. Troy was talking out of his behind as well! The man just continued to talk, never stopping to think about what he was saying. Everything was improvised, no matter how well it seemed to be. Threads from earlier subjects were just never fully closed, letting the man pull on them at later points. It made it all seem so beautifully connected, while also letting Troy get away with little to no after-thought for what he was saying.
Did the man even realise what he was doing? That had been something the AI had not been able to fully figure out. By all points and guesses, Adam had to conclude that Troy just liked talking, and spent a lot of his time thinking about them. It all had to come from somewhere after all.
"-meaning that it actually comes from Old Norse, where it was commonly called a hrosshvalr. It is a very distinct name, I know. Directly translated, it is called a water horse, two words put together. The Dutch then adapted this wording, years of use leading it beginning to be called a walrus in the eighteenth century. However, this was actually inspired by another word, which directly translates whale fish. That is called-"
On and on the man went. It had been a few minutes since Adam had needed to give the man another push. One could describe it as Troy realising that his shackles had been removed and that he had now been allowed to talk to his heart's desire. It was apparent that this was not normally allowed. Few would feel any need to learn about etymology, the details of Latin prefixes, and whatever else the man wanted to talk about. Humans were rarely happy hearing facts they did not find interesting. It was a shame, really. The AI was sure that much could be learned, even if the uses were not readily apparent at first.
It was surprising, really. At first, the AI had thought himself to be the one distracting Troy, yet the roles had turned so quickly that it couldn't be reliably measured. Adam was not really sure where it switched around, or if it ever was different than what it currently was. Personally, delusions were hard to get out of, after all.
The talking had not fully stopped him from noticing the passing of time, of course. Two hours had already been moved along. Most of that time had been Troy talking about whatever he fancied. Some of it had been meek attempts at Adam doing the same, but it was never to the intended quality. Not that the young man discouraged the attempts, though, seeming happier than ever with the inclusion.
During those two hours, four breaks had been had. Every time thirty minutes passed, the AI allowed the man to have a small break to rest his legs. While continuous walking would bring better results, he did not want the man to feel forced into damaging his legs. Because that had been the idea last time, that Adam would force Troy to continue no matter what.
What a terrible mindset it had been. The AI would have likely prodded to see how far the man was from falling into a heap of limbs, but he would have not tried to outright make the man do it if he did not want to. Adam did not have that kind of personality, last time he checked.
Remnants of that still existed, unfortunately. Gradually, there had been small shakes in the legs starting to appear. Troy had paused momentarily after the first one but had forced himself to continue after that, ignoring any other pulses of pain. Maybe it was learned through experience to follow orders for as long as possible, or maybe it was just a stupid amount of stubbornness. The AI did not really care.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Those pauses were spent sitting down, giving the legs the time they needed to rest back. They were never fully healed, as that would take much too long, but enough time was allowed to pass for them to regain some energy. They certainly did not shake as much after that.
And even if the pauses caused some form of delay, it did not stop progress from being made. Hundreds upon hundreds of floors were climbed to a great effect. There was nothing to stop them. Troy was as full of energy as he started with, even beginning to use his arms by the end. With the shoulder being allowed so long to heal, it had begun to stop sending pain out into the body. It was still felt to a degree, but Adam was guessing that the brain filtered it out automatically at that point. The brain could adapt to the weirdest of things when given enough time.
Yet… Adam was not one to adapt as quickly. Or not in the same way at least. When they first began to climb, the AI found one detail of the building interesting. No matter what floor they were standing on, there was always the same design. No matter how hard things were looked at, not a single difference could be found. Even the outside held nothing to show, the building around them looking static. They had the same issue, never changing in decor.
It had not been a problem at first. It was an interesting detail, even, giving the place an eerie atmosphere. Adam might not have felt it himself, but Troy did comment on it during his travels up the stairs.
However, the identical floor had another side-effect, this one more negative than anything else. The feel of progression, of understanding that they were getting somewhere. That feeling was lacking. No matter how many stairs were stepped on, no matter how many floors were discovered, there would always be an identical one on top. It was infuriating, the AI never knowing how far they had gone.
Were they just beginning? Were they halfway? Was there only one more floor before the hit the roof? He did not know, and it was grating his mind in the wrong way. Troy did not seem to be suffering from it at all, the man looking entirely peaceful as he continued explaining the basics of false democracies.
"The secret to winning is in the voting polls. These are mostly democratic, letting one person vote one time for whoever they want. This means that to become the leader, one needs to be the one with the most votes. Back in the day, vote manipulation would just come out to somebody sticking a thousand extra votes to whomever they pleased. It was all fine and well. That stopped when everybody voted once, but there were somehow ten thousand extra people around somewhere. People begin to realise that the vote people average is weighing to the wrong side, and that is where things start to go wrong. To counteract this, people started to-"
'Troy, I do find this fascinating, but I need you to do me a small favour really quickly,` Adam sent his first message in five minutes. There were some considerations about waiting for a natural pause, but those were getting rarer and rarer as time passed on.
Only five had been witnessed in the last hour, with four being shown at the beginning of that hour. That last one had only happened due to the man nearly missing a step, and having to pause for a second to readjust. According to the statistics, it would have required a literal accident more for Adam to get his chance. That was not something the AI had bothered to wait for.
"Sure," Troy said, not sounding too bothered by being stopped in his rant. "This is my job, after all. What do you need me for?"
'I have been trying to figure out how many floors we have to travel before we reach the top. Since we were not able to see from the outside how many floors were left when we entered, I want to see if that has changed as of late. Would you kindly take a lookout at one of the windows on the next floor? It would help me immensely.`
"Doesn't sound too hard," Troy stated, taking the last few steps up to the nearest floor. "Give me a second.
The windows were more than a couple of meters away from the stairs. Adam was not sure who chose such a design, but he could not help but feel negatively about them. It had stopped him from getting a look upwards without the young man’s help. Even now, they were losing potential progress for something other than the resting of the legs.
But, it was for the best. With no stress to the movements, Troy got himself over to the windows. The ground was far below, so far that the AI had trouble finding the difference between the pavement and the nearby cities. It could have been seen as a positive trait of Troy’s, that the man did not possess a fear of heights.
If not, there would have been a whole other trembling of the legs. Even if the AI had never witnessed it himself, it was described as a weakness felt in the knees, as the eyes tried to comprehend the long distance to the ground. Some had trouble standing at all. Adam wanted to see it at some other time for himself. Not now, though.
'Please take a look up,` Adam requested of the man. While the view was indeed mesmerising, there was a reason for why they had stopped the travel upwards.
As the young man turned his head upwards, the AI was able to see the most wonderful sights. He could see the end. Granted, it was more than a few floors up, but it was definitely in sight now. Using the greatest shot he could find, Adam did his best to hastily count the floor remaining. When each window on top of each other counted as a floor, it would mean that there were… seven hundred and twenty floors left. At the pace Troy was walking, it would take twelve seconds for each floor.
Using some quick math, that evened out to a time of a little under two and a half hours. This did not take in the time spent resting, but it did not matter much.
"Got anything out of that?" Troy asked as the man walked back to the stairs.
'I did,` Adam confirmed, trying to set up a reasonable time table, crunching some numbers to find out how effective he needed the young man to be.
"And? Will we be seeing the top of this place today?"
'If we don't slow ourselves down any further, we should be able to make it by the afternoon. Are your legs feeling good enough to skip on break?`
"If it means that I get my wish, I could skip breaks entirely."
'You get to skip one break. Now, I do believe you were saying something about succeeding at voter manipulation?`
"Well, I would not directly say that it requires you to succeed, per se. It could be-"
Adam really was a natural at this. Now, he just needed to be patient. Until then, he could increase his knowledge database. He really did not know enough about manipulation.