Troy tried his best to work diligently. It was hard, slightly boring, and his fingers were beginning to twitch without his consent. If the time was anything other than what it currently was, he would have already excused himself, some vain excuse to reason the action. There would have been no problem if he did it. Troy was good at making excuses.

But no such creations were devised. Through the pain, the slowing of the world around him, and the inane advice given from Adam he endured to the best of his ability. Some would say that ability came in small amounts. But, Troy would add that it could also be saved up.

It was something people had to do. Expecting everybody to work to their full potential constantly was just another way to have everybody at their lowest constantly. It was only through rest and comfort that one could do their best when the time called for it. They would save up the mental, physical, and whatever else kind of energy there was, ready to expend it all at once. With how long it had been since Troy had done anything truly close to his limit, he had a lot of the stuff saved up. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was spongy and bruised. Mostly in the finger area. People should have been mandated to wear gloves through the process Troy was doing. Whatever the things he was holding were called, they were most definitely not good for the skin.

'Lighten the pressure. You are only supposed to glaze the bottom with the liquid. Putting too much force into your hand will only hamper the test as a whole by creating wrong data-gathering,` Adam sent. Troy did not answer in any way, other than taking most of the weight away. He had wrongfully thought himself able to rest his arm while continuing to prepare the Petri dishes.

Those round glasses had to be insanely expensive. There was no other explanation for how highly valued they had been. The young man was not too sure what there was inside of things. He had been told to not put too much pressure on it at least, so it was likely just as fragile as the outside if not more so. If the slightest touch from plastic instruments were enough to warrant extreme caution, maybe the creators of the things should have invested a bit more in the security? It was just a small thought that Troy had jumped through in his head a couple of times.

“Done with that one?” Charlie asked from the side, doing the same as Troy was. If only faster, more precise, and overall better. That man was a person of many talents. It was a shame that his name was not Jack. Troy could have had a good giggle about it. Instead, he was there, left to wonder about his own physical insecurities.

Looking over his work, having the petri dish nearly parallel to his eyes, Troy was having trouble finding anything wrong with it. The liquid looked to have been put everywhere equally. Anything more precise than that was not to be expected from the man.

“It is as good as it will ever be,” Troy truthfully answered. Taking from the pile, the young man put a perfectly formed top on the petri dish, letting it be contained within its own little world. He would have looked at it philosophically, if not for the time he had already spent doing so. It got a little tiring to think in such ways constantly. Not enough paths for anything creative. Not to say that there were any. Just that Troy did not have any hope of thinking of them in his current state.

“Hand it over then,” Charlie requested, with an expectant hand in the younger man’s direction. It was answered with the wanted petri dish, which together with the muscular man’s own was put in a second pile of neatly arranged full glasses. It was here that Esme sat, carefully labelling each new one that came in. Every time about fifty had been gathered, she would go over to one of the larger holders for the things. Boxes upon boxes of the things were already inside, leaving Troy to believe that the container was specifically for the things. And seeing as it was temperature-controlled to a crisp twenty-five degrees, that idea was even more believable to be based on fact.

Yet, as the younger man was able to see so many of the things, thoughts began to swirl in that little head of his. Checking mentally, he and Charlie had been sitting around doing the same thing nearly half an hour. Nothing but slowly rubbing something looking like water onto Petri dishes. Troy did not even know what the things were used for. By now, the two had collectively done hundreds of them. Looking back in his memory, there was no way Esme had been carrying so many of them in one box. They were only filled about halfway usually, which was with about fifty of them being carried at once. Even filled, Troy found it hard to believe that there could be more than a hundred of the things.

“Hey, Esme,” Troy stated. Once she looked up from her work, the younger man continued. “Could I ask you a question?”

Esme just looked at him for a few seconds, as if debating how to answer him. A task that should not have been hard for the average person, but looked incredibly mental-tasking the monotone woman.

“Seeing as you have already asked a question without asking for my permission, I see no point in why you should start doing that now,” Esme said, with a calm unwavering face. With the eyes matching that of a bloody dead fish, Troy was fully able to see just how much she currently cared about his question. Either that, or she was still stressed over having days of her work destroyed by nothing other than seeing people in her laboratory that she did not expect to see. The latter was not too unlikely, seeing as Darlow had made a similar reaction to it, ignoring the method Charlie had used to make their presence known.

Deciding not to think too much about, how much the two of them had ruined, Troy decided to continue his line of questions. It had already started. Simply stating a sudden disinterest into even getting to the point, when the subject had already been initiated, would normally be seen as extremely impolite. There was no reason that it would be any different this time.

“Why are we doing this exactly?” Troy asked, going further into his point after a short pause. He had learned than waiting a few seconds before explaining his reasons for it helped the listener digest the question before any answer would be required to be formulated. “I thought we were just going to help you reclaim your work. I mean, I fully take half-responsibility for the things you lost. But, haven't we done much more than you lost? There couldn't have been that many that you lost.”

An answer looked ready to be immediately fired from Esme’s side, but Charlie came in as the third party to halt the charge.

“Esme, don't just call him an idiot this time please,” Charlie requested. “He really does not have any clue. Playing irritating here will do nothing for any of us. And, this is supposed to be a learning experience.”

Another round of staring, this one, fortunately, a bit shorter than the one earlier.

“Those that were destroyed were the only ones that I could use,” Esme started it off with. As a divergence from the routine, the tone did not change, staying as uncaring as usual. While Dr Hale might have faked it, this tone of voice simply seemed natural to Esme. “That does not mean that these were the only ones that were made. Batches upon batches have been made during just this single project. Analysis of several hundred, nearly all of them discarded for the slightest of tainted content. I have been perfecting the proportional amounts for so long now. The final batch that you unwittingly helped destroy was what I thought to be the final step before I could continue. If you had come five minutes later, I would have been able to move on. Instead of that perfect reality, this project has been moved into one of its earlier stages, because I have to recreate data that never had a chance of being studied.”

Troy's guess had been correct. Nearly spot-on actually. Now, was that him being good at guessing, or was it him taking way too long to get the very obvious point? The answer to that likely differed from who was asked, but he certainly knew which of the options he would pick.

“Then… I guess now is a good time to say sorry,” Troy said, his voice a bit lower than before. Having had reason to think a bit different back thirty minutes ago, the young man realised that he had never apologized. Charlie could have gone by not doing it surely, but Troy had the first impression to uphold. “Sorry.”

For the first time in his whole stay at her laboratory, this was the first time an obvious reaction came from Esme’s face. He was able to see her thoughts on his apology! Not because of him reading into non-consequential things, but because of a very direct correlation. If that was not progress being seen in real-time, then no such thing existed at all.

“As long as you don't forget where you failed in life,” Esme said, her voice still monotone but a bit lighter to start with. Not higher in tone maybe, but more like…, it was said with less forethought. “Get on with the work.”

Troy did so with no complaint. With a slight pause, his arms had regained a bit of energy. It was not as well as they had in the start, but that didn't really matter. Nothing was stopping him from continuing, so he did exactly as he had done for such a long time.

'You did well with your words,` Adam sent once the conversation was sure to be over. Troy through his nose briefly before restraining himself. There had already been a self-made contract not to communicate obviously with the AI. It would be too obvious when it was done, making it better to just act like nothing was being said directly into his head. If he was caught by any in the group of having a voice come out of the earpiece, bad conclusions would quickly be drawn to it.

Charlie looked over silently at Troy for a moment, before going back to his assigned work just as quietly. Esme had not questioned the act, likely to have focused on her own work to notice. A negative thing in general, but in the current one it had aided more than just her. The man decided on bringing up the subject sooner rather than later, for later would entail consequences best left unsaid. Charlie could suppress most of the effects if the need called for it. Friends always owed each other favours in one way or another. But, if any of them decided to reveal it to others, the man was not sure he could stop the more serious consequences from befalling him… that conversation had to happen soon.

While Esme may have talked hard about the batches needed to be remade, Troy was happy to find that the dedicated work of three sped up the time by a large margin. In just forty minutes, they had done what took Esme alone nearly a full day of work. Outside of the apology ridden conversation, not much more had been said in that time. Charlie had not said anything, looking happier to sit with that dumb expression on his face. Troy could truly not understand the muscular man in that regard. One second, he was all jolly and full of energy, not being able to stay planted for long, yet in the next second being as calm as a stone, fully content with slow and careful menial work. Was a switch just pulled, reversing the personality matrix? If so, where was it on himself? That thing needed the good old off on method. Then he could try the same, maybe even having an equal speed.

A good deal of the work done in the forty minutes could actually have been attributed to the actions of Charlie. While never stopping, the muscular man had nearly done double what Troy and Esme had done collectively. It was a wonder in itself. While done with some regrets, Esme had even commented on it.

“Would you mind coming here tomorrow as well, Charlie?” Esme asked. “I do need to do all the things I don't want to. With that speed, you should be able to do both of our jobs without any problems.”

The funny thing about it was, that her words likely weren't too unrealistic. Troy had regularly debated rejecting Charlie’s ideas purely due to him not wanting the man to get into any trouble for skipping work so much. Yet with this speed witnessed, the chance of him just finishing quickly was on the table. Nobody would get shouted at for only working at a speed already above average.

Troy could not fault anybody for only working at the level they were required to. There was no reason to stress oneself out if one wasn't able to keep up that level of work for long. Burnout was something that needed to be observant about. Without proper precautions, one could hamper their own efficiency in the long run.

“I see no reason to take that away from you, darling,” Charlie answered. “But, do say if you need any of this done again. Simple work can always be relaxing. If I have the time, then I'll swing by.”

“You always have time. That is the bad thing about you,” Esme pointed out.

“Bad and good are subjective,” Charlie pointed back immediately.

“Maybe,” Esme said with softly reflecting tone. She likely did not want a nonsensical discussion about something unneeded. A waste of breath. “Then again, you did come here for a tour, correct? With how quick you two have been, I see nothing negative about wasting the time set aside for correcting your mistakes.

Come on. I have a few things you might like to see.”