“But, no”, Troy began, with Adam thinking that he was putting on a rather different voice than the usual. “This time, I have some inkling that the time you take is important. While I can't force you, or anything, I think it is for the best, if you try to be quick. I've already readied myself to answer, and I'm supposed to be the slow one between the two of us.”

He ended it off with a small laugh as if to make the atmosphere seem more positive, in this nature.

Adam thought that was a peculiar thing to do. Trying to serve the testing as a positive environment. This place was meant to bring results, and not to be pleasant doing.

Sure, there would be overlap, where it was possible, but, if it hit at the efficiency of the whole thing, Adam would refuse to accept. Not that he ever did so, of course. That wasn't his decision to do so.

And, if you looked at the meanings behind the words, Troy was right in his opinions. Adam's purpose, during this testing phase, was not to day-dream about his future- and current projects. It was about actually doing the task specified to him, during the introduction to the test.

A task, which he had completely thrown out of his processing core! How hypocritical of him to do so, while also preaching about the efficiency of the system. Adam was trying to work at the micro-scale, while actually failing at the macro scale. If he just put more effort into balancing his personal goals, using multiple thoughts patterns, he could finally get the results he sought after.

You know, that thought actually brought another quirky thought to his head. What if, instead of trying out the changes to his core slowly, over time, why didn't he just-

“You're thinking about thinking again, aren't you?” Troy asked, beginning to cross his arms. The reason was the most likely disappointment. Adam didn't need to read body language to see that. The sound of his voice was clear enough in their intentions.

'Yes.', Adam quietly answered. The volume change was nearly instinctual, as if the lowering of his voice, would also lower the reprimanding, which he already knew would becoming.

Troy pressed his hands to the bridge of his nose, loudly exhaling through it while doing so.

“Listen”, Troy began the sentence. “I know… I know, that you like all this testing. And, that's great! I wholeheartedly support it. But, there is a time and a place for everything in life. You can't know, where it's supposed to be, but you can get a reasonable estimate.

Here, you should be able to guess that this isn't the time to work on any of your personal ideas. You already have a task at hand. A time-sensitive task, to be even more brutal in it. It will not wait for you to finish… whatever it is you're trying to do right now. You are in need of putting your personal prospects aside if it will help the current test, which it does.

Do you get, where I'm going with this? Because I am not repeating myself.”

Troy was being like the guide he was hired to be. A side, which Adam had never seen before in him. Not even, when he was alone in his room.

And, he wasn't sure if he liked it or not.

Mostly, because it worked.

'Yes. I understand.', Adam confirmed, this time meaning it more than he ever had before. Being afraid of any further consequences was completely illogical, yet he was still in fear of them. Curious.

To get back on the matter at hand, Adam had some body language to analyze.

The algorithm, which he had created, was sitting the same place he left it, ready to be used. A series of logic-loops, yes or no questions, and a good amount of thread theory all surfaced together to make some kind of observation.

This thing was sporadic in the quality of its uses, but here, wasn't too bad. In a real-life situation, where the body language is always changing, always changing the interpretation of self, the algorithm can't predict into the future. It can also present, what is currently being thought, and not too detailed at that.

Adam could go, and just repeat the algorithm constantly, and lining the results up, in the desperate hope of getting a linear shift in mood. He could do that, he supposed, but the amount of time it would take would be impossible to bear in the long term. A moment took two seconds. Imagine, what a full hour of constant footage would take.

But, this hindrance couldn't show itself here. This was because of the mechanic behind the test.

The movements did not change! They moved, sure, but they reset themselves, making it all into a loop, and a short loop at that. This didn't leave much to analyse, much to Adam's contentment. Less work, with the same, high level of results.

And, with the nature of the test, being what it was, it would leave him ample time in fine-tuning his algorithm.

He wouldn't be putting all of his trust into it yet, of course. He would be double-checking every single thing the algorithm spat out by hand. Sure, it would take extra time, but that was the whole point of this environment; To improve already existing manifestations of logic.

Without any further excuses to delay the analyzation, Adam delved into the needed image recreation. The algorithm for great, when it came to one single aspect. If one broke it down to its core principle, It was simply a massive bundle of yes and no questions. A haphazardly put together flowchart. It looked terrible, but it worked in the way of Adam not needing to think too much about his choices with it. The heavy lifting had already been prepared, and simply filling out the minor detail was all that was needed.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The first series of questions were preliminaries, to figure out which main branches the algorithm would flow with. This was mostly physical-based questions, comprising any… handicaps, which could have a larger impact on the way the body behaved. Say, as an example, if the random human was a uniped, instead of the standard biped, the algorithm would ask, if the person was heavily supporting themselves on one foot. The questions needed to be tailored to the individual, or they would fall short in many of the needed aspects.

And, for now, too many of these main branches were incomplete. Instead of having added more kinds of questions to them, Adam had just removed the questions, which would have been pointless. He hadn't gotten the chance of analysing first hand, the actions of otherwise disabled people, making his questions about them worthless.

But, he didn't need to worry too much about that for now, with the model having the same physical features of Troy. A body, which Adam had much experience with.

And… there it was. The last meaningful tirade, which Adam could muster, before needing to go into full-on inspection mode. This time, he surely meant it.

The physical details about the body were quickly filled out. Adam didn't even need to look at the body, to know these things. Next, came the true analysis. Here, it would start from the top to bottom, with the facial features, being the first things noted.

First, off where the placement of the eyebrows. In a progressive state, throughout the looping animation, they would get more and more furrowed. Here, with the upwards turn of them at the sides, they did not indicate a state of confusion. It was a hint towards annoyance. Adam, who had been manually following along at this point, agreed with this first assumption of many.

Next was the muscle use on the general face. Not to say that the algorithm would be taking into account the state of contraction of every individual muscle. No, that was an exponential function, which Adam did not want to mess with yet. Still, the algorithm would be taking into account the different muscle groups, which were dictated by the placement of the muscles. Adam wasn't sure if this was medically accurate, but it was currently the easiest way to divide them semi-evenly.

Getting back on the flow, the lower group of muscles did not indicate a direct downwards formed mouth. But, it was in a state, which implied it to happen at any second. The jaw was tense, showing off a minor amount of stressed expressionism. Another step in the line of annoyance. But, how annoyed could the face be described as? Minor? Major? Or, along the lines, of the model already planning, where to hide the body?

… Adam would personally describe it as a decent medium, closer to minor than major.

Now, it came on the more general look of the neck and shoulders. The first obvious lead was the external jugular vein, something which could be found on every human body. But, in Troy's case, it did not always show. It only brought itself forth, under higher times of need, such as more than average amounts of body movements, or… stressful moments in life.

Going down to the shoulders, their current placement could not be described as comfortable. The muscles, only being regularly used when lifting, were on display, tenser than Adam had ever seen before. This part must have been guesswork on their side. He was sure, that Troy did not have this level of fitness, however minor it might be.

Nonetheless, it showed the instinctual reaction of making the body seem larger as if it was threatened. This feature was not used in day to day life, being a remnant of a long-forgotten time, in humanity's history.

And, its uses had more than a small bit of overlap. With its use not being vital to survival, some… changes have emerged in the requirements for its appearances. The entity in question did not necessarily need to be in a life or death situation for it to appear. A stress factor from common features of life was more than enough to activate it, for better or for worse. It could even be described as more of a hindrance to the body, than a positive feature.

Adam personally thought it was stupid. What made being larger make one more threatening? The predator would have already seen the smaller variant and should know, that the body-mass would not have changed. He couldn't blame the animals too much, though. Their level of understanding was simply too low for his standard.

Going to the two sides of the body, Adam came upon the arms of the model. Much to his surprise, he didn't see them as stiff and unwieldy. Actually, they could easily be described as being slack and loose, just hanging there in the air, with no stronger implications to them.

This… this was something the algorithm did not like. As stated before, it was simply a prototype. Prototypes came with some… glitches if one could even call it that.

The most prevalent problem in Adam's current algorithm build would be how large the first impressions set the scene for any future questions. It was not a fault with the system. He had made it that way. Not intentionally, though. It was a fault of Adam's own mindset. It was the way he thought himself.

It did not seem like the worst idea, to directly port his own ways of thinking into the algorithm. It worked for him. Why shouldn't it work for something else?

That's where the flaws began running in. While Adam was almost always right with the first impressions, for now, at least. But, sometimes, he was wrong. That wasn't too often, of course, and when he was, he could always just change his presumptions on the fly.

The algorithm… couldn't do that. The initial guess of the model showcasing annoyance was beginning to look false, yet the algorithm still took it as a fact, yet to be fully proven. If Adam just continued with it, it would undoubtedly show off some impressive leaps of logic, which would showcase exactly how annoyed the model was. Except… it wouldn't be true. The answer would have been meaningless from the start.

Altogether, it meant, that the algorithm would be put on the backburner. For this specific model, at the least. Adam would probably bring it back out again, during the next looping animation.

So, pure, manual labour was back on the table. At least, Adam had already gotten the results from the less obvious parts of the body. The facial features indicated annoyance, or some other negative emotion, which positively halved the possible outcomes.

The shoulders and neck brought it down to something stressful, something most wouldn't be able to keep up, due to the required chemicals in the brain. It had to be some emotion which could be reasonably attributed to some variation of violence.

Yet, violence could not be the main focus. Otherwise, the arms would be at least slightly flexed, ready to move at a moment's notice. They weren't, remaining in a relaxed, unready position.

Adam needed more information, and, to get that, he would need to analyse further.

With most of the highest parts of the upper body completed, it was time for the lower parts of the upper body. What a confusing sentence, that was. It was time for the abs, and lower back.

This was where it could be described as getting interesting. With the movements not being static, they had the potential to change. The previously analyzed part of the model did use this factor, to some extent, but never diverted too much from the main thread. They didn't switch over to other states completely, instead of making smaller motions, which did not contradict the larger point of it.

The abs and the lower back didn't play by these rules. Throughout the loop, they contradicted each other. First, the abs would tense suddenly, implying a readiness to move forward, something that couldn't be called simply an annoyance. Yet, just after getting ready, the lower back would tense, voiding all potential energy built up to move forward, likely being the reason for why the brows were furrowed on the face.

The model was showing indecisiveness in its movements as if it was unsure of what it wanted to do with itself.

And, the legs showed the same amount of resolve. They were coordinated with the upper body, getting ready to move, yet stopping before getting into the action. The footwork didn't showcase any past planning to commit this action. It was a reaction taken back before fruition.

Adam would have loved to know what the model was reacting to. Some background context. But, that wasn't possible. This was a test, after all. A simulation of reality, at the best.

So, Adam did the next best thing, making an answer with all the currently available information he had acquired. All he needed to do know, was to send it over to Troy, who would helpfully write it all down.

'My observations lead me to believe that this person is feeling indecisive anger. He knows he is angry, yet he doesn't know what to do about it, first driving himself into action, before immediately stopping himself. The anger itself is not yet fully formed, or fully processed, with his arms not yet going through the same start-up, as the lower body, or the shoulders and neck. The facial features themself showcase some type of negative feeling, with the context being a larger amount of emotion. This is my answer.', Adam fully sent over to him.

Troy nodded along the way, making some head turns to showcase comprehension.

“Okay”, Troy slowly began. “A great answer. A very good answer indeed. It is, in fact, so good, that you're gonna have to repeat it to me again, because there is no way I am remembering this word for word.”

Adam took it as a win.