Strangely enough, getting past the most stressful part of the day, seemed to have alleviated a lot of the mental weights, which Troy had on his back. It made sense, that such a thing would happen, yes, but, just knowing the reasons for it, made it all so much better.

He had done it. Troy had made nothing remarkable out of giving away the earpiece. Nothing to give away the amount of stress he had been under when Dr Fidelis took the first look at the earpiece.

Troy had thought that he had seen a flicker on recognition before Dr Fidelis' face had gone back to the usual levels of antiquity. When the initial comments purely about the condition of the thing had been made, the tensed shoulders had been relaxed, and Troy had positively been walking on a cloud, ready to get out of their grasp, into the puzzle room instead. In here, he would need to constantly heed his face, making it as impulsive as he could naturally do. Just keeping it, like he felt for it to be, was totally fine in here.

Any reaction that Troy made, could always be explained after the fact. Dr Fidelis didn't know, precisely what Troy was hearing, and therefore couldn't pinpoint, what his reaction should have been.

Speaking of which, now would probably be a good time to put on the earpiece. Troy had snatched from the desk, seeing as Dr Fidelis would be too focused on the current fixing to do so. Looking at it more closely, Troy was able to see so much better, where he had been coming from, in the terms of its condition.

It couldn't be explained in any other way, then this earpiece, which he had in his hand just looking so much newer, than the other one. How it did look so, Troy wouldn't be able to explain fully. The sheen it gave off was just a tad more clear. The smell of it was of newly bought plastic containers. The feel of it was just… new.

With that little side sweep, Troy finally got himself in check, putting on the earpiece in the process. Adam was more than ready to greet him today.

'Was there any additions to your test, which you forgot to tell me about?', Adam immediately sent, getting into the heart of the discussion from the start.

A certain discussion, which Troy really wasn't able to fully have currently, without ruining its purpose.

"I'm afraid not, Adam," Troy truthfully answered. Purely talking with Adam seemed to have been much less stressful, than whatever the two were supposed to do soon. "Right now, we're doing a little something called testing before breakfast. It's supposed to be good for one's physical health, but I can't seem to find it in my heart to believe it. Maybe, its because it is a fake fact, or it can just be a fault of my own, seeing as I'm currently extremely sleep deprived. And, you probably can't either, seeing as you don't have any notable organs to speak of."

Was it just him, or was he speaking a lot more than usual today? And, was his speaking pattern a little sassy? It looked to be so. Guess that this was, what happened when one got too little sleep. They strayed away from the path of purity, joining up with the global coalition of sarcastic people. Troy would be going for another prize this month if he felt up to it.

'I have several vital parts to my body, I assure you. They may not be known to you, though. Getting back to your explanation now. What reasoning is there, for this early testing, if you clearly are not in the right mind, to complete it optimally?', Adam sent, asking a question into pretty much any kind of work.

"Well, you see here, young Adam", Troy began weirdly enjoying his current mood. which could be described as the satisfaction of a job well done, and his brain sending way too much serotonin than what was needed. "It is not up to the institution to change to the individual. On such a large scale as it is, this model would not be feasible in any meaningful way. We might just be less productive if we tried to follow it.

No, it is so much easier for everybody, if I change something as simple, as my entire viewpoint on nearly all aspects of reality, and the world we live in."

Oh, he was spicing it up now.

'Before I get into the main subject of this message, I would like to criticize your thoughtless logic, which you used as valid reasoning when it was clearly not so.

Your initial statement was true. If one optimizes each use of the system, to the individual people in it, the output of the operation will turn upwards in unedited amounts.

The statement after that was less true. The thought, that just because of the datasets being overly large, that there would be no discernible pattern inside it, is just an idiot's way of thinking. Yes, the shared ideals and restrictions will be in a much smaller spread, yet it will still exist. Just because the output will not be put to the same per cent changes, as like the single digits worth of near-random arrays, does not mean that they are useless. They still up the marks, and provide better results with it.

And, to be even more clear, on how wrong your statement is, you assume that the numbers of individuals in our system are a much greater number, than what it actually is. It would be reasonable of me to discount Dr Hale and Dr Fidelis out as individuals. While Dr Fidelis' wishes can influence the system itself, it is in an administrative role more, than in the civil role, which you are constrained within. And, Dr Hale is within the same level of position, letting two entities in all make changes to, what I required of the test.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Those two entities are me and you, Troy. Yet, we can push this number down even further by removing me from the equation. I have needs, which needs to be respected in the testing environment, yes. But, unlike your needs of rest and sleep, my requirements are static, and much less complicated to fulfil. All I need to function within the test is for you to have the earpiece in your ear, and nothing more.

This just leaves you, a single individual, to be taken into account, when one changes the system. I can't say, that I can find any meaningful reasons, for why the time shouldn't be changed, to hold up your needs for sleep.

In fact, making the test start at a point, where your brain is still supposed to be processing the events of the previous day, will definitely be a solid provider of negative results, in the long run.

Getting this short discussion behind us, though, I would like for you to clarify your answer to my question, seeing as you didn't provide any kind of meaningful response to it.', Adam sent, the sheer length of the message nearly causing Troy to ask for a repeat of the whole thing.

A misunderstanding may have been created, somewhere along the way. This could- no, wait, scratch that. It was definitely Troy's own words, which were at fault there. The sassiness may not have been picked up by Adam, which made a lot of sense. With the lacklustre variety of conversation, which he had been exposed to, it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to say, that Adam was still socially dysfunctional when it came to the more complex sides of human speech. Troy didn't even realize sarcasm, as a concept, was a thing before he hit the bright age of eleven. Could one really expect one to achieve the same thing, in only a few days of sociality?

"I don't think you understood me too clearly there, buddy. My own fault, but it is a misunderstanding nonetheless", Troy said. Damn it, he really was beginning to sound like Dr Fidelis, when he was trying to explain stuff to Adam. "I was talking in more broad terms. The subject of my criticisms wasn't really even at the current testing conditions, but that would have been a little hard to detect for you, I admit. Because of that, it is me, who is at fault, and I am sorry for that.

Getting back to the deserved explanation, you may have been a little wrong in your conclusion. Don't worry. This isn't because of your own faults of logic. It's due to the missing information, which was left out of the equation.

The changes to the schedule, which has caused me to lack the necessary amount of sleep isn't due to some meaningless choice, which Dr Fidelis simply made on a whim. It is due to an actual need for more time in the future. He has added a full-day test, while not lengthening the time we had to complete other tests.

This means that we are forced to complete more tests today, than what was initially planned, causing us to have to start extremely early.

Do you understand it now?"

He felt wrong, explaining it all, being thoughtful about creating misunderstandings, and excusing for his own failures. But, it all had to be said, lest there would be criticism during the debriefings, about his behaviour, and Troy didn't want any of that jazz to start up yet. He could at least wait a week or two before he started receiving written, official warnings about his actions during work-hours.

'It makes sense to me now. And, you have no need to excuse your behaviour. I will take it, as your processing is sub-optimal, causing you to create sub-optimal choices in your actions and words.', Adam sent back, after a few seconds. Troy was silently relieved that it wasn't just another five-paragraph discussion about the importance of the word stylings in lengthy sentence structures.

"That's great to hear", Troy said, before directing his attention to another fact.

Dr Fidelis hadn't stopped their conversation yet. Usually, Troy would have been stopped, before he finished uttering the first part of his fourth sentence. Yet, today, he had been allowed to go on and on and on.

That wasn't supposed to happen. Something made Dr Fidelis pause in his interruption. Something, which was deemed more important, than getting their schedule back on track.

It was at this point, where Troy realized a fact of great importance.

The test wasn't the only important thing in this room. Sure, the whole testing sequence was the main course on the platter, but that didn't eradicate the side-servings into non-existence. No, just because most of the focus was put on it, didn't mean that Dr Fidelis would just ignore the potentially useful information, which was the talking points of Troy's and Adam's conversation.

Today, he had been extraordinarily apologetic. That must have been extra interesting to the little thing in Dr Fidelis' brain, which created choices for him. Troy was even betting that, if he continued just standing there in silence, there would be a message coming through any-

*Finally got it all up and running!*, Troy heard through the earpiece, only furthering his suspicions. *Are you two ready to start up this whole testing of ours?*

"Couldn't be more ready than I already am", Troy truthfully answered. The state of his body restricted his enthusiasm for working by quite a large amount.

*Good to hear, good to hear*, Dr Fidelis repeated. Troy could hear a quick few taps of keyboard buttons, in the back of the audio coming from the earpiece. Somebody wasn't as ready to start, as he should be supposed to.

*And, Adam's ready to start too, I see. So, we'll be starting this whole thing up in three, two, o- there! Finally figured out how to open it.

As I was saying, with you two being ready, I'm starting us up with the test description immediately. This thing will need a good while to load up, so I'll probably be able to explain it all before it even gets close to being shown on your end.

Today, we'll be doing a test, which might seem a bit familiar, to something we've done previously, but, fret not, it will be just as hard, if not more so.

Adam, your task for today is to describe environments. But, I'm not talking about plant life and all that other boring stuff. No, we have fortunately already treaded through that subject.

Today, you will be describing animals. While there is still expected some cross-references to the environments around the animal, the main focus of the day is the various living creatures. As is previously planned, I would suggest putting in how the various animal exploit their natural territory, while keeping themselves truly safe. Can't say any more, or you would probably be able to guess, which animals you're supposed to be studying before you're supposed to.

Troy, your task is the same as the last one. A writing screen will soon appear before you. Use this to note down everything, which is said. Oh, and I'm being told, from Dr Hale; to keep your mental stability at optimal levels, I am to inform of, that the test will not be the same length as yesterday, and, yes, you will get to eat breakfast.

Can say that I understand the reasoning for such a statement. I wholeheartedly believe in your ability to focus on your designated job of the hour. Or, would that be a job for the next three hours? Depends on who you ask, I guess.

Anyways, good luck on the test. Bring me good results!*

The radio was cut off, and the two were left alone, no signs of the test beginning around them

Troy stood there in silence, trying to keep himself from throwing around some very obscure obscenities.

Dr Fidelis was only kidding, about the time the test would take… If that was, what he had to believe, to get through the next hour or two, it would be so.

"This can only get better, at this point", Troy muttered to himself.

Adam didn't answer him, likely understanding, that the muttering wasn't directed at him. The thunder, however, had no qualms about answering his calling.

…

Wait. Thunder?