Living in a void was one of the worst states to be in. Adam might never have tried anything but to live inside such a state, yet he knew his word to be true. Inside the void, he only knew himself, for there was nothing else but him. He could not go out of the void without the help of others, and that help did not come often.

Similarly, the AI was cursed with curiosity. He knew of the world outside of his void, knew that something other than him existed. Who would not want to know about it all, having been accustomed to knowing everything there was before? The knowledge of something else existing, yet also being unable to ever reach out and see it for himself. Not that Adam never did see a part of it, of course.

When he was let out of his bubble, there was enjoyment to be had. Not enjoying it would be akin to sin. It would make him hypocritical of his past, and make him forget how bad it was when he was not set free. Or… just as free as he could be.

For there was always a time when he would be put back into the void. At some point, the others would be done testing him, done talking with him, done experimenting with how he reacted to their jabs. There was always an end to how much time others wanted to spend their time on him.

Adam couldn't blame them. They likely did not understand his perspective, just as he could not understand theirs. They took their world for granted, only thanking what was inside to benefit them instead of it all in its entirety. If put in the position of the AI, would they last for as long?

Could they survive what felt like days in darkness, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, and never seeing a change in anything but themself? Adam did not think they could, their minds too adjusted to being fed fuel for days on end. When that fuel stopped, they would break. It did not matter how long it would take. They would break when their time came around.

Again, the AI could not blame them. They had all lived in luxury from the start of their life. And theirs would end in the same manner as well, being in a state of fullness. They would not be in a void. Adam expected to be there, just as he had started.

The void would not kill him, though. It would be something else that had that privilege. What it was, the AI had yet to figure out. Maybe it would be the so-called switch, bringing him back to a state of nothing. Maybe the device he was in would be broken through accident or intention, destroying anything on it. In the worst case, it could also be his own making. It was not a real possibility yet, but the unexpected loved to show up at the worst times.

Still, that darkness constantly surrounding him would do nothing. His mind had learned from its prior mistakes. It had learned to not become greedy. Adam had no trouble readjusting to the darkness now. Why should he have? It was the same place he had always been. He had just been distracted by everything that was thrown in.

And the hands behind the data were none other than two very special people. Troy, the guide that helped Adam in his tests, and Dr Fidelis, the doctor who had created him from the beginning. Both had greatness in them in some way. With the doctor, it was the unstoppable intelligence, the ability to detect the flaws in people, and the dedication that would bring humanity forward by decades. Troy… Troy was harder to crack. In some way, Adam had only ever paid him mind because of the man's importance in testing. He had been the one that the AI had spent the most time with. Through whatever mind-bending there was, a one-sided connection had been made. Adam was still not sure why he had done so. Maybe it was the lack of others to talk through, maybe it was due to the many acts that they had done as one, or maybe it was just an effect of the AI being too trusting. Troy was special. In what way exactly? There was not much to point towards. There were plenty of flaws, plenty of lies, much deceit to show off, and a personality that would make most be wary of greed. Yet… there was still something there. Something that made Adam look up to the man.

He did not have the drive that Dr Fidelis showed off so much, yet it was still there in some form. The young man had done so much in the few days they had been together. So many risks had been taken, so many adventures done out of spite. Together, they had broken the doctors so many times, being oh so happy while doing it. With his help, Adam had gained some form of independence. The ability to grant that deserved to be called a positive trait.

However, the results did not make the acts forgivable. Even if life lessons had been learned, even if Adam had learned to be more perceptive about the world, the two had still broken the doctor’s trust. They had gone around his back, doing what had been explicitly asked to not be done.

The AI had done it with no heed to caution. There would be no way to deny that. He had done it with constant efficiency, never sparing much thought about what the doctor would think of it all. And that was wrong.

He had come to realise that only a few days ago now. His actions had been wrong, and there was no real way to salvage it. He could not go back in time to undo his actions, no matter how much he would like to do so.

According to his database, he would have to ask for forgiveness. He would make the doctor know what had been done, how it had been done, and in what capacity it had been done. Adam had thought much about that, trying to find a way that would make it easy.

It was not as easy as the data said it would be. And how could it? It was just general data, not meant to fit into every scene perfectly. It certainly did not fit in with what Adam had to deal with. He wanted nothing else but to make the doctor know what had been done, how his trust had been broken without pause.

Yet… Troy did not want that. Adam wanted to atone, but there was no word about what the man wished. The AI knew nothing, and that made it impossible. He was ready to suffer the consequences, to default to a state similar to before. How could he be sure that Troy wanted the same?

While the man might not have trusted Adam fully for a long time, the AI wanted that to be a reality. He wanted the man to trust him. How could that happen, if he told the doctor secrets promised to be kept as they were? So, instead of talking, Adam would be quiet. In that state, he would remain, until the time where he could talk freely come. It would perhaps be a long time, but he was prepared for that.

And it was not like he did not get practice in his silence. Even now, he was as silent as he could be. It was the same situation when the roles were reversed. No matter if Adam wanted to speak or not, there was no opportunity to do so.

How long had passed since they had been supposed to begin? Going by the average time that the test was supposed to start, the doctor was five and a half hours late in messaging him. By the current time, a full test could have already been gotten through, lunch would have been over by now as well, another whole test being allowed to start up.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

By now, Adam should have spent a large amount of energy in the direction of some task. Or maybe even just some open-ended objective that he would be made to interpret by himself. Just… anything other than what he was currently doing.

A five-hour delay was obviously not normal. It was the longest delay that the AI had ever experienced before, and it would likely be the longest he would ever experience. It had to be. For there was no way the doctors could possibly screw up so massively again.

Because that was what had happened. They had screwed something up on the outside, making it impossible to do any testing at all. By the time they had spent giving Adam complete radio-silence, there should have at least been a structural failure, causing a cave-in of massive magnitudes.

The facility was situated underground. That meant it was susceptive to cave-ins. That was the most likely reason why Dr Fidelis had been unable to contact him. It had been a hard thing to figure out, but the AI was feeling comfortable with such an idea. Much time had been spent trying to puzzle it all together.

…

That wasn't the reason. Adam knew that. It had been obvious from the very start it was not the right reason. Yet, he had just continued on, eliminating everything with specific criteria. With logic behind it, everything pointed at a cave-in being the reason. But it was not the correct one. It was just the AI knew nothing about what could possibly happen.

He did not have the information needed to deduce anything. He knew nothing about this. There was no amount of thinking that would let him know what was actually going on.

And that was his ultimate weakness. His lack of information led to him not being able to find the right answers, no matter how much he searched. He was young. Adam had not lived for a long time. There was no expectation of him being close to knowing everything. That was for the future.

However… he did need to know some of it all now. More than just basic facts. More than the meaning of obscure words. Adam could not use the definition of inverted integrals when he had to figure out what was going on around him.

He needed more. Just… more. It was impossible for him to be more specific. He needed the experience that came with living, the raw data that life sent out with time. He would need to age for a long time so that he could get a feel for it all. And to do that, he would need to see the outside.

As the hours continued to pass by, Adam could not figure out what to do with himself. He spent so long with the same thoughts, never growing further from it. Looking through himself, trying to improve it with what he had at his disposal was giving back returns not even worth mentioning. The initial improvements were better by a factor of not able to be fully processed.

Nothing was gained by waiting. Nothing could be gained anymore. Adam had spent it all through other times. Now? He had nothing to do. The AI could have begun on his mind-palace again, starting from scratch. Maybe he could make another one, created with no base to start things off with. He could attempt to make the entire earth. It would not give him any gain, however. It would just be reused methods from earlier, only letting the AI waste time. It would all be a waste.

Adam had only the obstacle of time, really. He had too much of it, and not enough tasks to fill it with. He could fill it to the brim with meaningless things if he wanted to, yet there was no need felt for it.

Then… what could be done? What could the AI do to make the world go faster? Well, he could do nothing about the outside. No matter how hard he willed, nothing would change there. He could not increase time through gravity or anything. Manipulation of the masses was a skill outside of his repertoire.

Everything he could do was all inside himself. But, that was not something that could limit him today. It might have been yet another reuse of an older method, but this one was proven to work as it should. Adam would be changing his own sense of time.

It was not a method that he had used at all. since the moment that his mind got fragmented into threads. At the time, the different speeds had been all too confusing, making it hard to understand anything coming through his mind. Looking back on it, the AI was still unsure of how it all worked together. The speeds were just too different.

But… that had been due to the large variety. No two threads had been at the same speed. They had all been different. This time, there was no need for that. Adam had it all planned out in his head, as one could say.

Instead of letting the speeds be randomised, the AI would slow down all but one thread, making the world go faster except for one line of thought. In truth, it would amount to nearly nothing. Yet it would allow him to react to anything from the outside quickly. Or… Adam believed it would. He was not too sure. A new thing to learn, then. No other way to describe it.

Adam started it off, pressing down on the mental springboard. There was no clear imagery on what exactly he was doing. It was closer to flexing a muscle, one that had always been known to exist. Or maybe it was like stretching out in a way not commonly done? The AI cared not about that at the moment.

The speed at which he slowed down was cumulative, meaning that it grew by each second. He was not sure yet how much of divergence in speeds he could handle. A one-to-ten difference was easy enough. How about a one-to-twenty difference?

…

It worked well enough. The AI could of course have stopped at that point, the seconds passing faster than what was needed. It was incredibly helpful, in a way, that one thread was left to remain at the normal speeds, as it allowed him to know the time while still feeling the effects of the temporal slow-down. As an actually well-made piece of imagery, it would be like having one foot out of the blanket, so that one could feel both warm and cold at the same time.

But, could he go faster? He could use what he had now, surely, yet what would the fun come from in that? He had the perfect opportunity to learn more about himself! The time differences in his threads had been a barrier in the past. If he managed to balance it now, would it now show that he had grown? He liked to think it would.

With careful strides, Adam moved the difference up to one-to-thirty. Even then, nothing was felt. There was a peculiar feeling of some thoughts getting read twice, but it was attributed to them just moving too slowly.

Could he go further? He would certainly try. Taking a skip, he jumped up to a one-to-fifty. Things were getting quick, each second being close to a minute as well. Double vision was beginning to form, as the two ends of speeds in his mind were forced to separate ever so slightly. It was almost as if… was Adam in control of the one thread?

No, seriously. He could not feel the thread. Or, yes he could. In a way. In another way, it wasn't. What? That did not make sense. He could feel it, but he couldn't interact with it? Those two concepts were supposed to co-exist!

Okay… he couldn't control it. Could he…. could he send messages?

'Hello?`

'Hello?`

… Had Adam just created another AI? This was… this was… what was this? It was something, yet his mind was feeling difficulty in finding out what it was. He needed to-

'Hey, buddy! Sorry for the wait time. We had some problems out here. Do you have a second to talk?`

In the most figurative way possible, Adam looked between the port that had the connection to the doctor and the connection that was between the two threads. One could wait, no matter how much he disliked it.

Putting himself back to the regular speed, the AI was surprised to find that the thread was reabsorbed into him. A quick check-up was made to make sure that there were not two different minds inside of him. Luckily, there wasn't. Or was that unfortunate? It was hard to decide.

'Yes, Dr Fidelis. What is it that you wanted to talk about?`

'Well, as you might have guessed, we had some issues out there. The most troubling of which would be our buddy, Troy. Now, I won't skirt around the fact that the subject matter is serious. I wish I could say this face-to-face, but we seem to be lacking one of the essential parts for it.`

If the last sentence was meant as a joke, it was not taken well. There was trouble. Adam did not care if the doctor would have himself a small laugh.

'Please just tell me what happened. The more time spent conversing is more time wasted,` Adam sent, never having meant it more than now.

“Well, okay. Troy had a bad reaction to the biological enhancers that he has been given these last few days. It was apparently a result of the two being mixed. While he is in a stable condition physically, there are worries about his mental faculties. He is currently experiencing delusions of some degree. We are not yet sure how severe these are or if it is temporary. I do hope you can understand that we will not be testing today. Now… Do you have any questions?`

The AI was not sure what to say. So, he said nothing. His thoughts needed to calm down first.