With heavy pushes, the floor above gave in and allowed itself to be moved away. Troy felt a small amount of sweat run down his back, as he was finally allowed to stand on something that wasn't a damned, iron ladder. His feet were sending negative feedback through his legs, and they were not happy about it.
Lying on the ground for a few seconds was a luxury that could not be used, yet the body was not of thought to stop it from happening. He could at least wait until Dr Hale got up herself. From the start, she had told him that she would be unable to do it herself, that the entrance itself was too hard to push away for her. She might have been able to do it herself if she was in peak conditions, but the wound on her arm was too restrictive. It would not have allowed her to use it at all.
Yet another reason that Troy was needed, it seemed. She was the mind, and he was the brute. Damn, he was a bad brute, however. Couldn't even move a small stone without needing a break afterwards. His shoulder was already hating him, the previous wound not liking the pressure put on it. He would need to get himself together.
"We need to move," Dr Hale said, as she came up in the testing room as well. "We don't have much time left."
"Of course. I’ll be right there," Troy said. It took immense will-power to get himself off that sweet floor, but it was just another sacrifice in the grand scheme. One had to break a few moral laws to get what they wanted. With him, it was to get off the floor, even if it looked so inviting to sleep on… damn. How desperate he must have been if the cold, hard floor looked like a good option for a bed. It wasn't even that late yet.
Looking around the room, a weird feeling spread through his mind. Dr Fidelis was not here. The doctor who was always seen here somewhere was not present. How weird was that? He had been a staple of the location. He had been what filled it up with its pressure, making Troy feel uncomfortable with it all. Now that the man was not here, there was a definite feeling of… nothing. Nothing was felt. Troy just had it as a regular room, no strange feelings attached to it. How peculiar that was.
Dr Hale moved to the screen, turning it on with but a few presses. Troy joined her, standing beside to watch. There wasn't anything stopping from watching, and he had been interested in what was happening.
"Under the desk, would you please press the red button," Dr Hale requested, not looking away from her work. It was clear that she was trying to be quick about it, so the young man just did his best to oblige her wishes.
Getting down on his knees, Troy was surprised to find the underside of the desk filled with buttons. Every colour of the rainbow was present, and the grey-scale was not far behind. There were no tags on any of them, making the man briefly wonder how Dr Fidelis kept track of it all. Troy could not dream of the doctor having to go down on his knees every time he wanted to press them. Was it all muscle-memory perhaps. That would certainly have caused a few mishaps before.
Not wanting to tempt fate, he just hurried up in finding the bright red button. With a quick tap, the button was pressed, and the man was able to stand up again. The screen itself had invented its colours. A few of the options to the side had disappeared, and a few new ones had appeared. Another side to keep certain features secret perhaps? Troy certainly would not have understood what was before him.
However… with the lowered speed of Dr Hale’s movements, it seemed that she was the one meant to have information hidden from. She had clearly not had enough time to get used to the needed commands, having to slowly go through the needed movements. It was almost half the speed as before, making it understandable why she had tried to make as much so quickly before. She needed some wriggle room so as to not miss anything important up.
"What are you doing exactly?" Troy asked, feeling that the speed was slow enough that he could ask questions. He had already just stood by, silently watching whatever she did. There was nothing stopping him now. No traps that would cause death, no invisible death mazes that needed to be dealt with, and certainly no lies needing to be told to everybody. He could survive doing more than copying a statue, only moving between oddly-timed blinks.
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"Preparing the extraction," Dr Hale flatly answered. The woman did not seem incredibly bothered by his question, answering it with no problem shown. "Modifications are required to be made if this is to work as it should. Press the yellow button now."
Her work had momentarily halted, as she had seemingly finished what she needed to do on the current page. Troy was quick to move so as to satisfy her request. The quicker they were, the quicker they would be out of the place. The clock was ticking, and he wasn't exactly sure how long they had left before there would be problems.
Clicking the button, he moved right back to watching the screen again. This time, the colouration seemed to take one to the side, everything gaining a blue overtone. It was peculiar to watch.
"Is this the last point, then?" Troy asked, looking over the entrance to the testing room. That door needed to stay closed, not being opened from the outside. Or could it be opened from the outside? There had to be a way for the doctor to get inside by himself, but Troy was not sure how that worked. Perhaps a door from the side? Just because he couldn't see it did not mean that it wasn't there. "You just need to do this, and then we can leave?"
"This is not the last step into extracting Adam, and it's not close to the last task before we can leave the facility," Dr Hale answered, putting pressure on just how much they still needed to get done. The man should have seen that coming. If it was this easy, the woman would have done it years ago. "The current task will only allow us to do anything close to extracting the AI. The actual process will require… press the green button."
Troy did as asked, and jumped more than a little as the floor behind them began to move. It was only a small section of it, yet the sound was still significant enough to be felt in the bones. This was not a section used a lot, and it certainly wasn't something that was open for repairs. Just what-
"Go over and grab the storage container. We will need it in a minute," Dr Hale said, counting her work. She looked to be speeding up again, hinting that she would soon be done with whatever she had been doing on the screen.
Walking over to the pedestal that had lifted itself from the ground, there was indeed a storage device on it. It was about the size of a small trinket, a thin rectangle that could have been more than seven centimetres at the longest side. Was this… this was meant to be Adam’s new residence, wasn't it? They were moving him from whatever large contraption to over here. Would that not be dangerous? How big was Adam?
"Okay, I have it," Troy said. He walked back to the doctor, who looked to just be finishing up the final details. Her feet were already pointed away from the desk, ready to move towards the puzzle- Wait. "Where are we going to extract Adam exactly?"
"The puzzle room," Dr Hale answered, already moving towards the large contraption. Troy fell in behind her, his body moving before he could question it. "A large part of it is disabled, but there are still a few features active. It would be best to stay without two meters of me, or you will likely lose a limb or two."
"Why did Dr Fidelis hide Adam inside here?" Troy asked. He did not understand.
"It was made as a precautionary. It is impossible to get it without disabling the main-parts of the room. One would be physically unable to reach the place, while also unable to get out of the puzzle-room. A perfect trap. Any attempts to get in through destroying the machine would only cause a larger than average explosion to commence, killing whoever thought themselves to be a traitor. Again, it is a thoughtful idea for any person who thinks that they could steal decades of work," Dr Hale answered, stepping inside the puzzle room, with Troy following just a second after her.
The place was still a white void. However, looking back revealed that the entrance didn't disappear, staying in place. As the two walked further away, so did it increase the distance. She had certainly not been lying about the removal of features, this not being possible in any normal situation.
"But you knew exactly what to do, letting you steal the unstealable," Troy said, summarizing it all into one sentence. It was weird. At any second, he was expecting Adam to say hi, asking if his breakfast, lunch, or dinner had been good. It was so surreal, everything just being so still. Nothing really moved inside them.
"One could say that, yes," Dr Hale said, briefly stopping to touch something in front of her. What looked to be static stopped her from moving further ahead. "We have reached the wall. Watch your step. It should be somewhere on the wall here."
What exactly it was was still up for debate, as both began to look around together. Something was hidden on the ground, and it would be the needed key to reach the AI. The size was questionable, the colour was not yet known fully, and how it looked was completely up for debate.
And somehow, Troy managed to trip over it, his foot being catched by it. There was of course nothing broken from the fall, other than his pride, and it did allow them to find the secret place.
It was a ring handle, easily grabbed to allow for a large trap-door to open up. Not that either of the two could go inside what was revealed, as there was a massive set-up of computer parts under. It was all set together in mitch-match, somehow still standing.
Most importantly, however, was the appearance of a screen inside it, identical to the one that was outside the puzzle room. With a few presses, the screen turned on, revealing a text-bar that Troy could recognize from everywhere.
"We can send messages to him from here, right?" Troy asked, just to be sure.
Dr Hale took the storage container from the man’s hand, plugging it into the set-up below by using one of the cords available.
"Yes. I will begin to prepare the extraction. Now, talk to Adam and make him go along with it. We need him to say yes to it."
Okay. Troy just needed this to work. He only hoped that it would be fast.