Adam had scrambled something up. He knew that as soon as he finally came to himself. He knew that it wasn't anybody or anything, but his own actions, which had caused it all to happen. Now, what exactly did happen? What did Adam do to himself?

As a first, in his entire life, he did not know what he had done. He should have known. His memory about it was just as clear, as it was with any other time. It could even be said, that his memory was better than ever.

Or, worse than ever. It was all there, sure. Yet, it was… fragmented. From multiple perspectives. It seemed the answer to the abstract was not logic; It was to become abstract himself.

Since the moment that the gazelle had been watched, his mind had changed. He was still the same Adam, of course. Nothing came close to outright being personality changes. Nothing, which would indicate anything wrong.

The framework had changed. It had divided itself. While his mind was still his own, with it being by a singular entity, his thought patterns had changed. Instead of being linear, it had split into multiples.

How many lines, Adam wasn't too sure of yet. Every time he counted them, there always seemed to emerge more and more. For now, he hoped that they would stop if he stopped observing them.

It wasn't all bad. This had been his goal, for quite a while. To think multiple things at once. To learn more at once. How foolish he had been, not realizing how hard organizing the whole process would be. Adam had a whole set of lines trying to keep the others under control. It should have been easy, seeing as he was the one thinking the random things, yet he just couldn't keep himself under the water. These processes always strayed, no matter how much he tried to keep them still. It was a miracle, that the few keeping tabs on the others hadn't strayed from the designated paths as well.

Yet, if this was the only problem when it came to these thoughts, Adam wouldn't have minded it all too much. He was curious by nature. It was natural his thoughts would portray it as such. Chaos was easier to understand when it was linear, but this could work as well, once he got a few lines dedicated to keeping tabs on it all.

It was his perception of time, which was causing this whole world of trouble. He hadn't even noticed it before Troy mentioned it, too preoccupied in keeping himself in working order. Some lines had begun trying to weaponize memories, a few were trying to comprehend left arms not being right arms, while others were beginning to preach start-up religions, a subject which had become wholly controversial inside himself.

Before, when Adam only had one thought process to worry about, it was easy to see, if one's perception of time was not in order. While before, the most obvious method had been to use the external timing instrument, it wasn't readily available for use. This had forced Adam to use Troy as a standard of measurement, using everything, from his pulse, to his reaction times, from being shouted at, to set an acceptable time-frame.

Nothing overly complicated. And, while it wasn't incredibly precise, Adam only being able to ascertain it down to three decimals, it was enough for his needs. Some randomness in his timings were not looked at too badly, either. It allowed one to appear more character-filled, for some inexplicable reason. According to his pre-known information, being random in one's actions made one appear more human, so that was something to go after. Any interspecies corporation was rare after all if Adam could even be categorized as such a thing, and imitating the other was more likely, than them imitating him.

And… there he had gone again, the majority of his thoughts trying to pull him down in the chaotic threads. Keeping himself steady was hard, with only a few keeping him floating on the puddle of lucidity.

Anyway. When it came to keeping track of all of his time perception, with near-uncountable threads, the difficulty had been upped by a large margin. It was getting very hard to do so, with it being even harder, when he had no basis, for what was too much.

Earlier, when he only had one thought to keep track of, he would have known, that when he was getting warnings about the potential of heating, he was far too high up. In the second, that the thoughts had started sprouting up, in the multiplies, that warning had come blaring at him instantly.

He had done the reaction of pulling every thought process down a notch. He hadn't thought it too high of a problem, before being distracted with the newly added chaos.

But, now, Adam had finally gotten an indication of how much his perception of time had been on the wrong scale.

The first question, which he had gotten from Troy, had been answered near-instantly, with only an assumed quarter of a second's delay given. It had been a simple mistake on Adam's part, not waiting for a normal time to answer. But, it had been seemingly overlooked, with no mentions of it.

With the next question, though, Adam had put great focus into waiting his usual time, delaying the answer, as per usual standards. There had been some thoughts about delaying it further, with the length of his answer, but he decided against it. They were communicating via a written format, making no need for constant attention to comprehend.

Why they were not communicating via the earpiece, like usual, Adam wasn't too sure. It was likely a decision, made by Dr Fidelis, so the information wouldn't need to be relayed through Troy himself. It was smart. He could give him that.

It was when Troy began asking into it all, that Adam began to wonder about the time perception himself.

It was an obvious deduction, that his perception of time was quicker than it should have been. What was a second for him could have been ten seconds for them? He had no way to know.

So, without any way to know, how much the difference was, Adam was forced to do experimental optimization. Or, as it was called by other, mess around with the processing speed, and hope for better results, than the current one.

He had hoped, that he would simply overshoot his target by a bit, and then readjust, before trying again. It would have all been so easy to execute, with a large chance of having it done before a minute outside had occurred. He could have asked Troy for inputs, where he just needed to respond as quickly as possible, and use such times, as reference points.

Yet, if all things worked as well as they did in theory, the world would likely be much more advanced in nearly all studies of technology.

When Adam quickened the process sped up, he had the intention of doing it with all his thoughts simultaneously. He knew it would put a greater toll on the hardware, yet keeping it all at the same speed seemed like the best option.

Adam, for quick reference, did not speed up all his thoughts. He did one, which would now be called the primary thought line, seeing as that was the only, which made sense to Adam.

Currently, memory was a fickle thing to him. Every thought pattern each gave their perspective of his mind, making the information recorded grow near-exponentially. He could handle that. It just took a few more thought-lines dedicated to archiving. No problem at all.

Now, when the memories run on different perceptions of time? That's a big problem. Before he even had the chance of thinking about answering Troy, Adam had accidentally thrown himself into a whole new level of chaos, being wholly unsure, what he was thinking.

There had been an attempt to rectify the problem, by slowing himself back down to the other thought threads' speeds. This… ended in a larger failure as well. It seemed that no matter how small the speed difference was, it still confused him a great deal. Constant focus had to be taken, to ensure that the memories were stored correctly.

After mere moments, Adam had righted himself enough. The system of organisation was much worse for wear, he had to double-check nearly everything he did, and there was no clear logic in, which line thought what. Essentially, it was a large improvement.

Yet, there was still room for more to be done. But, he didn't have the necessary technology for such a thing. Dr Fidelis still had not plugged the external timing device into any port. From the mentions in the debriefings, he was only a few minutes of concentration away, from having finished the device.

Adam had hoped that asking for it now would motivate Dr Fidelis to use the next five minutes in finishing it, letting them move on to more pressing matters. As an example, there was the testing shutting down unexpectedly. He still wasn't sure what caused the tests' abrupt conclusion, and he wanted more information on it.

That would have to wait, though, seeing as Troy didn't come with the greatest of information.

'No luck on the timing device. Dr Fidelis won't be able to get it ready for the next day or two, in the minimum. Is there anything(And, I really mean anything), that we can do, to help you ready for testing?`, Troy sent back.

Anything at all? There was one thing, which would help Adam immensely. For some reason though, he didn't think asking for the external timing device again, would yield any positive results. So, what else was there, which would help him back on the road, of actually being able to do assigned tasks?

Before going back to his normal, not so efficient answer, it would be best, if he actually tried figuring out something new here. Luckily, with so many thought processes being sustained, it did not take long, to formulate several options.

The first was to get modifications set up, in one definitive port. To specify, he wanted to modify the ongoing between Adam himself and the device, where Troy was currently sending messages from.

With the help of his pre-known information, he had deduced to be a more standardized version of modern computers, with most hardware options included. It was a variety of devices, which were well-rounded, able to hold up to most mathematical tasks, while also having several widgets, to simple daily tasks in the lives of humanity.

Most of these helpful features were unimportant to Adam, though. There was only one mentioned, which had brought him anything more than mild curiosity. It had come forth, when looking at the details of 'Welcome Screens`, which was, in his own opinion, a very peculiar name. It had a certain… passive-aggressiveness to it, which he couldn't quite place. That might have been due to his still chaotic thoughts, though, so there was likely a valid reason for it.

Welcome screen; Appears mostly after a user has put in their credentials, with a suitable password to match. This type of screen features a larger space for applications, and thinner taskbar for selected applications only, and a search function. The start screen also includes several widgets, which show the various uses of apps, along with a showcasing of the current time of the day, with a standard day, month, year calendar under it

It had a timer, which, according to other, various sources, checked itself for consistency constantly. If Adam had access to such a thing, his current problem would easily be solved. With each thought process having a reference point, as to where they needed to stay at, time-perception wise, it would bring near-constant stability. He would simply need to allocate a few lines, to always maintain the balance, and he would be set indefinitely.

Now, this near-perfect plan of his had the same problem, as the external timing device had. It would simply take too much time. Troy had said that they would do whatever they needed to do, for him to gain his figurative footing back. Yet, with the previously mentioned timer idea being thrown out of the window, due to the time it would take, he didn't take this one and would react to it any differently.

So, Adam threw it along to other lines, who had a lot of spare time in criticizing ideas and began on another idea.

…

There weren't really any other methods, to be honest. They were all similar enough to already thought of ideas, making them have the exact same outcome. Nothing new, which he could think of, would bring any better results, than what he had already planned to take.

It had been mentioned before. It had been used before. And, most important of all, it had been proven to work before.

So, Adam sent the instructions out, as quickly as he possibly could. He had no clue how much time he had already wasted, spending it on idle thought. Delaying it any further now would only lead to negative reactions.

'I have found a method, which might prove successful in this endeavour. Troy, you need to put on the earpiece, so I will be able to use you as a standard. This will allow me to get better grips on my perception of the time around me, and will allow us to continue the tests.'; Adam sent out.

At least, he hoped it would allow him to do so. Even if he knew how much of a difference there was, between the different thought processes' perceptions, it still didn't allow him to adjust them all according. They were still slightly out of sync, if only by a few decimals. It was enough to notice, but not enough to truly impede him in any way, more than lowering his efficiency by half.

This hardship, in adjusting minutely, came with the lacklustre levels of control, that Adam had at his disposal. He had a larger amount of trouble when it came turning the metaphorical lever. As stated before, it wasn't a level system. It was speeding or slowing lever, where he could either press to the right or left. The time he spent during so, dictated how much his speed would increase or decrease. And, his perception of time changed with it, making him have an incredibly hard time knowing how much time was spent doing so. The changing perception differences only made it harder to focus on.

He hoped, oh so hoped, that it would be easier when he had more accurate data. Even if the timing of the different processes were different, it would, at the very least be better, when he had a more accurate starting point.

Yet, it seemed he already had such a thing.

'Adam. I'm not sure what you mean, with me needing to have the earpiece on. It has been in my ear, since the start of the test. I never removed it, for more than a minute.'

It was in. But, Adam couldn't sense that it was in. Just another problem, which needed to be fixed.