After stepping into the puzzle-room, Troy finally put on the earpiece. He had fiddled around with, trying to find out, how Dr Fidelis had opened it out. He thought that he must have missed something, but he just couldn't find anything to get his nails into. No crevices to get inside it.

A shame. Troy had been wondering, what had been inside. Before, Troy had been more focused on Dr Fidelis, than what he had been toying around with.

'What has changed?'

And there Adam's voice came, just a second after Troy got it on. He didn't even need to initiate the conversation this time.

“What do you mean, 'what has changed?' Does anything feel different?” Troy asked. He knew, what had changed, but was wondering, what it must have felt like, on Adam's side.

'Your output. It is not the same as before. And not the same as one second ago. It is constantly changing. It is getting annoying to constantly divert resources to finding your source-line.'

Guess Troy should have been expecting an answer like that. While he could grasp the meaning, the words said were not something, that he would have said. Source-line? It must have made more sense to Adam.

“I had a problem with my brain-implant. It was an old model and wasn't powerful enough to handle continuous use with you. It was affecting my body, so Dr Fidelis got Dr Hale to get an… Neural-Upgrader, I think it was called. It had nanobots, which would upgrade it from within. They should be doing that right now so that might be, what's messing with your source-lines, as you call them,” Troy explained. He tried to focus on his back of his head, to see if he could still feel any of that pounding. It had come later in the test, last time, but a minor version of it had always been there. But, now there wasn't anything to be felt. No headache affecting his mood.

It was great. Even greater than he hadn't been told that he would be paying for the upgrade.

'That explains the current situation. While it is annoying that it is still moving, the output, that I am getting from them is much more efficient. Less useless data.'

Good to know, that Adam liked the change.

*Is it going well in there, Troy?*, Dr Fidelis answered through the earpiece.

“Everything is going great. Adam noticed the change, but he says it's positive, so that's good,” Troy answered.

*Should have known that Adam would notice. At a later date, we certainly need to see, if he pinpoints different models. Dr Hale, please write that one down… did you do it? Good.* It seemed that Dr Fidelis had not yet mastered the push-to-talk feature. *So, just to be sure, there are no headaches or dizziness of any kind?*

“Nothing I can distinctly feel.”

*Good. Then, we can get on with explaining our next test. We will be moving on from the visual calibration test, and beginning the hearing calibration ones. The first one that we will be doing is the Directional-Hearing test.*

Instead of the square appearing, like the previous test, a circle appeared before Troy. It was outfitted with numbers for all angles, going from one to three hundred and sixty.

*Sound will emerge from around you. In this test, we will be limiting ourselves to only two-dimensional hearing, so the height that you hear it from will not matter. When a sound has played, Adam will relay the position where it came from, and you will note it down without personal input. Now, before we start, we need to make sure that your newly made Neural-Link is done. Adam, are you still experiencing trouble with you inputs?*

'No. The source-lines have stabilized.'

*Good. Then, let's begin the test.*

And, with that, the line was cut.

The first sound was obvious, being directly on Troy's right. It sounded like two coconuts clapped together. Or, it could be horses running. He couldn't really hear the difference between the two. He did know it was precisely on his right, though.

'It is 85 degrees'

Or, maybe it wasn't. Who could know? Definitely not Troy.

It did make sense that he and Adam were getting different results. Troy had never had, what one could call 'good' hearing. Knowing the general direction was easy, but getting any more out of his excuse for ears was impossible for him.

But, Troy thought, would Adam have it any easier? If they were getting the same stimuli, wouldn't they have the same presumptions? No… that wouldn't make sense. In the last test, Troy hadn't had much of an idea, with most of the things. A general sense, but not much more.

Yet, what did that mean? Was it the ears and eyes that were the problem, or was it actually-

'It is still 85 degrees'

Oh, right.

Troy pressed on the 85, and another sound came. It was the sound of a cowbell being hit repeatedly. This time it came from the left. Maybe a bit more back than directly to the left… or… yeah, he didn't have any freaking clue.

'It is 256 degrees.'

It was at around this point, that it was decided. Troy would just be letting Adam figure it out himself because he wasn't putting in any worthwhile input.

At least, there was something more interesting for Troy this time. Instead of simply looking forward straight ahead, while Adam guessed distances, he would now hear weird sounds from around… while Adam would still guess. But, it was different this time, with it being directions instead.

…

Troy really hoped the later test would be more interesting than this.

'I believe that I am not communicating improperly. There must be some other fault in this pre-established communication-system.'

How Adam's voice could be so cutting, yet also so monotone was a wonder Troy would always wonder about. Hopefully not in the presence of it, though.

Troy pushed the number 256 on the circle, and on the cycle went. Some sound would emerge from around Troy. Sometimes it was music instruments, sometimes it was animal sounds, and one time there was what Troy believed to be a rabid rabbit. One could even say that it had been the Rabbit of Caerbannog.

Anyway, after the sound had been played, Adam would be quiet for a few seconds. Troy wasn't sure what Adam was doing in that timeframe. Knowing where the sound came from was instinctual for Troy, so he wasn't sure what the purpose of Adam's pause was. After thinking for a while, Adam would finally answer simply, and Troy would note down the answer on the circle, which would cause the whole cycle to repeat yet again.

Troy was beginning to get into the Zone of Work. All other sounds, but the voice of Adam would be ignored, not even being given a quarter of a thought. Not much was actually given any thought. Troy's body would simply move, his hand moving to the number given by Adam. It was a game of repetition, something Troy had learned to master in his short life. Mindless work was the easiest, and Troy was more than experienced with it.

You know, if Troy could just continue, this work-state of his, he could actually come to enjoy the act of wor-

*Hey, sorry, just cutting in.*

Why did Troy think this way? He should have known.

The circle in front of Troy disappeared.

“Hey, Dr Fidelis,” Troy said, with a bit of a confused voice. It was early for them to be done. “Are we finished with this test?”

*Well yes, but actually no.*, Dr Fidelis said. *Already, I can see that the difficulty of this test might have been a bit too easy for Adam. As of now, there have only been two wrong answers out of the seventy-nine noises, with both being because of your wrong input to them.*

It seemed Adam really just was superior in using Troy's ears. And, even without using his ears, Troy still somehow managed to hear the wrong thing.

“So”, Troy said, in a hope to move the conversation away from his personal failures in life. “What will we be doing now?”

*You will be doing pretty much the same as before. But, now there will be multiple sounds from multiple directions, which are all played for a maximum of two seconds. A small step-up from the former. I didn't even want to stop the test, to put this new addition in, but the tests are pre-set, so I need to stop and start to modify it. And there wasn't really any reason not to let you know of the change.*

“Well, isn't that nice of you”, Troy said, proud of hiding his very sarcastic meaning.

*Of course, of course. Just being a good buddy. No need to thank me, or anything. Without further ado, I think its time to start up again. Are you ready?*

“Ready”, Troy confirmed.

He guessed Adam confirmed his readiness too, seeing as the line was cut, and the circle appeared once again. But, the circle had got a new, crude addition to it. In the top right corner, there now was a 'confirm' button. Troy guessed it was there, so one could select multiple directions, before making a guess.

He wanted to test out his little theory but decided against it. Troy had already made false negatives. He wasn't gonna do the third one on purpose.

Behind Troy, a bird call was heard, and, to the right of him, a sad trombone sound clip was heard. For now, Troy could follow.

Yet, it seemed that Adam was having trouble deciding. Already, ten seconds had passed. That should have easily been enough time to think it trough.

Adam had messed up, much to his own irritation. When updating the test to the new parameters, he had misunderstood the way the sounds would play. Specifically, in what order the sounds would play first.

There wasn't any order, in what sounds would play first. They all played simultaneously.

When the first hint of a sound came, Adam had put all his focus onto triangulating its position. He had been almost halfway in doing so when he realized that another sound had also started. This was about the point, where Adam had realized his mistakes and had begun to try and fix them.

Differentiating the two sounds from each other had been easy. Getting the position of each source of the sounds? Not so much. It took time. The time which Adam didn't have. He hadn't misunderstood the maximum allowed time for each sound, much to his greatening irritation. He couldn't simply memorize the details of each sound and find their positions retrospectively. He needed to constantly adjust his methods ongoing with the sound. Having two seconds simply wasn't enough time to process both, and, if he got the insinuation right, he would soon be facing more than just two.

An answer to his problems quickly sounded off in his mind. He had the necessary equipment to utilize it safely, and it would solve the immediate problems.

Adams' mind turned gleeful. It was times like these, where he loved his uncanny ability to retrospect his prior problems and solutions.

While he only had two seconds to work with, he could make those two seconds last hours. Not that he would of course. Hours, that is. A gross over-approximation. Minutes would be sufficient in Adam's endeavour.

But, there still was a problem that needed to be solved. While this would solve the problem of future sounds, the two sounds, which had already been played, were still unknown in which directions they came from.

The general direction of one of them was known, but the other… Adam didn't have the slightest idea.

Well… there was one option. But, Adam was not sure if it really could be called that. It went more than a slight bit against his morals. Last time, when it had been used, he had had the excuse of statistical probability on his side. But, now… it was a bad choice, yet it was the only reasonable choice, which Adam could use conveniently.

Adam would need to guess. It was terrible in its core. Acting like one had an understanding of a subject. An imposter in a world of knowledge. Despicable.

And Adam would be dragging himself down to those levels. Self-deprecation was beginning to make sense to him.

So, moving past Adam's indefinitely continuing, deprecated thought process, he needed to figure out, which numbers he would guess as to the correct ones.

Before doing so, he would need to ask himself one thing.

Would he be going the safer route, with a maximum of limited success, or the risky route, with a chance of complete success? The safest option would be two guesses at two different places, where he thought one of the sounds came from. This would double his chances of getting one right.

But, there was a larger problem, with this strategy. Adam wasn't sure what a successful round required. Before, he would just need the one direction for a successful round, but now, when there were two different directions, what would it require? One right answer? Two, maybe? Was there a half success?

If Adam created the system himself, he would probably make it, so all answers needed to be correct. With the previously stated insinuations, the sounds would be more plentiful. Just having one correct answer for a successful round, wasn't a successful plan in the long term.

No… it would seem that the risky route was necessary. He would be guessing in the general direction of the nearly-centred in sound, and somewhere else at complete random. The chances of getting it right was a one in a hundred thousand chance, but it still existed. Any answer was better than no answer, after all.

And so, Adam guessed.

'It is 274 and 123 degrees.'

Now that the guess had been made, Adam could finally look past this moment in his life, and not think about the wrong things he had done.

As Troy began putting in his guesses, Adam began speeding himself up. Or… would it be slowing himself down? Everything around him certainly slowed, so his perceptions were slowed down… but, his processor was going past the point of where heating would start, and therefore speeding up.

Adam would just call it 'speeding himself up'. It sounded better, to him at least.

Still, there was the problem of relatively for Adam. Internally, he didn't have any way to know how screwed his perception of time was. This was fixed, by observing the movements of Troy.

Adam had, in the more boring moments of the past tests, documented the approximate time for some of Troy's movements. Unfortunately, this was limited to only the most regular movements, like breathing and pressing the flat screen, with his fingers.

Still, it at the least gave Adam something to work with.

Moving from one point to another on the flat-screen took Troy about four seconds, usually. Slower than Adam had expected, but he was thinking that Troy must be double-checking himself constantly.

No matter. With the time normally being four seconds, Adam sped himself up to the point at, which it took Troy a whole two minutes to complete the action. Deciding that this was plenty of time, for Adam to figure out the future positions of the sounds, he stopped speeding himself up. Also, he didn't want to wait too long before the test continued. Patience was not a virtue that Adam supported. Now… distracting himself was a whole other thing.

He set up a larger focus on incoming sounds, and, after that, delved into his thoughts. Maybe he should plan a little ahead.

'It is 274 and 123 degrees.'

Troy breathed a sigh. If it was relieved or stressed, he wouldn't be able to say. It was good that Adam finally answered, and did not ask Troy to guess for him. It was stressing him, not knowing, what was going through Adams' head, and why he finally answered after so long.

Troy mentally shook his head. He would stress himself even more if he got but the shortest glance of Adam's thoughts. He was sure of it.

The focus needed to be directed at something better. Something-

Damn, it. Troy needed to act before thinking.

He pressed down on the two measurements as quickly as he could, before going back to his thoughts.

If he focused on the job, he would succeed in it. If he succeeded, maybe he could get a promotion. Preferably not a promotion in responsibilities, of course. More along the lines of a monetary promotion. He definitely wouldn't mind being looked at as a Veblen good.

The next sounds played. Like last time, it was two different sounds. A dog barking and a… guitar, maybe, being tuned.

Troy wondered how long it would take-

'It is 32 and 165 degrees.'

Bit faster than last time. No, scratch that. A LOT faster than last time. Troy didn't even have time to think. Did Adam figure out some-

'Please answer quickly. You are being slow.'

Little rude, if Troy needed to comment on that. Still, he couldn't complain. This was his job, after all.

He reached up with his arm, at a relaxed pace, and put in two numbers. He hesitated, with his finger over the 'confirm' button, checking, if the two inputs were correct. He was pretty sure, so he just-

'Press the button. You are correct.'

Somebody was certainly being impatient.

He pressed the button, and the sounds came once again. This time, it had increased to three different sounds.

With all that done, the cycle turned up once more. Sound from around him, Adam's voice in his head, and him pressing a few buttons. Sound, voice, and press.

It continued for a good ten more minutes before the sounds stopped. Troy hadn't been paying too much attention, but he was pretty sure that there had been about seven sounds playing simultaneously.

It had to had been nearly impossible. There were only so many directions they could come from. There had to be some overlap somewhere.

*And… we are done! For now, at least. Do get out of there. It's time for a lunch break.*, Dr Fidelis' voice cut in, through the earpiece, static as always.

That's all that had to be said. Troy was well on his way, out of the white void, and into the world of foody goodness.

Stepping out of the puzzle-room, Troy instantly took off the earpiece, learning from his previous accidents.

Dr Fidelis was ready for him, helping him get off the microphone, as Troy fought with the strap for the camera. Dr Hale was still just standing back, quietly writing down notes. What she was writing, Troy had absolutely no idea.

“This test turned out to be a bit different, than what was originally planned”, Dr Fidelis said, breaking the unnoticed silence. “But, it went much better than it ever could before. I really underestimated Adam's abilities this time. He got almost everything right.”

The almost in that sentence was noticed instinctively by Troy.

“How much did he get wrong?” Troy asked, holding out the earpiece, so Dr Fidelis could get it.

After seeing the earpiece off his ear, Dr Fidelis answered.

“In the least, the answer to your question would be that he got a surprising number of them wrong,” Dr Fidelis started up. Troy could tell this was going to be a long one.

“I don't mean surprising, as in a lot of answers wrong. What is surprising, is which answers he got wrong. Let's put the last testing into perspective. The first answer that Adam had, was wrong. Not too surprising. This was calibration, as the name would be hinting at. No, what is surprising, is the time it took Adam to not get it wrong. In the first ten answers, Adam had three wrong answers. In the next ten, it was one. After that, there was none on purpose. The adaptability that he displays is phenomenal. Constant improvement is something, which we can only dream of. Adam displays it perfectly.”

This did not match up, yet again.

“Doesn't that mean you lied, when you told the reasons for changing the test? You said that all of Adam's answers had been right,” Troy said.

“That part, you can thank Dr Hale for”, Dr Fidelis said, with a thumb in Dr Hale's direction, who raised her left eyebrow just a tad in answer. “Originally, I was gonna give you a rundown on Adam's wrong answers, but then Dr Hale called me a silly sod. Giving any corrections would compromise the test, so I had to give the answers, which Adam already believed, as in, all correct. Those two wrong inputs of yours weren't wrong, though. You might want to pay more attention next time, buddy.”

Troy nearly flinched from the last sentence but was able to keep his body in check. He just knew that he was getting a comment from those mistakes of his. They had not been on purpose!

“Yeah, sorry about that. It's honestly too easy to get distracted in that room. That white void really is disconcerting to be in,” Troy said, trying to low-key justify his incompetence.

At that, Dr Fidelis grinned a bit more smugly, than Troy was okay with.

“You won't have to worry about that for long, buddy,” Dr Fidelis stated, with a smug aura encompassing him. “That won't be a problem for long.”

It seemed like Dr Fidelis had already planned, what tests they would be doing after the calibration section. It was surprising, though, hearing that the white-room would be changed around.

“What will replace the white space?” Troy asked, with a curious tone to his voice. “Any specific tests that are in need of a special environment?”

“Afraid I can't tell you that, buddy. It would totally ruin my enjoyment… and the tests, of course. If you knew, I wouldn't be too surprised that Adam could figure it out from your reactions. We cant have a Clever Hans on our hands, now, can we?”

A shame. Troy was hoping to get some hints. But, that would kinda ruin the reason for why they hired him to begin with.

“Anyway”, Dr Fidelis said. “Do go get some lunch. Be back in an hour or so. The next test should be ready then.”

“Are you not coming with us?”

“Ah, no. I don't eat at the cafeteria. Special diet. They kicked me out last time I requested their meals to fit my needs.”

Troy could see that. It must not have been pretty.

No problem. It was time for some food!