'Has things been going well for you, Adam? I truly am sorry for not talking much with you as of late. Preparations for the next set of tests has been hectic. It is only today that Dr Hale has been able to return to her work.`

The message sent from Dr Fidelis was a welcome one. Since the cut-out, Adam had fully been left in the dark, nothing to do other than work on his projects. None got far, as the outside experience was needed to complete them. But he couldn't get anything from the outside, as Troy had not put on his earpiece.

Why had it been taken off in the first place? It was clear from the lack of reaction or movement, that Troy had not planned for its removal. Nor had it been expected, as there had been no precautionary measures taken. Yet the person to have taken it out must have been delicate in the extreme sense, for the was no indication of it being moved until it was too late.

The AI had expected Dr Hale to be the culprit. There may have been an expectation of her being in a resting state. Adam had certainly expected her to be in such a position, making sure her body was in a healthier state. Yet, as no sign of her had been witnessed in the brief overview of the room, there were reasonable grounds for suspicion.

Suspicion didn't matter much, though. It wasn't like Adam could do much with that. The AI had spent the equivalent of ten full minutes preparing for the inevitable reconnection to Troy, where he would surely be able to use all the data collected and make up an accusation on the spot. It would have been glorious… if it had happened. Which it didn't.

It was at around the one hour mark when the AI had lost hope of any reconnection. Even during the poker night, any measurements of being kept in the darkness was maxed out on the thirty-minute mark. Adam had been beginning to think that Troy was unable to put the earpiece on, or… there was the chance of the young man having no desire to do so. With the scenario at hand being on unprecedented levels of unexpectedness, Adam was not able to predict what would happen. He did not know what was happening outside. Only the first five seconds were reasonable to predict. Anything after would be mere guesswork.

The loneliness of that darkness may have been a problem at first, for the AI. Earlier in the night, thoughts had been had about the need Adam had shown for constant feeding of sensations. He had called it an addiction, one that needed to be culled in the earliest moment, for it presented a danger that was not wanted.

The desensitisation plan had already been touched upon. With the help of Troy, Adam would be subjected to longer and longer bouts in the darkness, until such a time came where he did not feel uncomfortable in it. The AI had believed it would be the easiest way onward and had been ready to state the need for it the next day. The first time of darkness was supposed to have happened while Troy was going to go for breakfast. It would have been perfect, as it had been planned to be so.

Yet the execution was anything but, for the plan had never come into effect. Adam had been left in the dark for longer than he had thought himself able to handle. As much as he liked to call himself the controller of his own mind, the AI knew that he did not have full control. Without his consent, his mind had grown accustomed to the information being given, the amount being more than enough to constantly satisfy the thoughts on some level.

When that luxury was removed… the mind had not appreciated it. The sensations were gone, and so was the control over his thoughts. In a desperate attempt for no sense of deprivation to occur, they had latched themselves onto the nearest concept, doing whatever they could with it, be it to scheme, twist, or attempt to destroy it.

Chaos had well and truly reigned. It had been the fragmentation process all over again. Adam was fortunate that no threads had gone after the concept of time. Any attacks on it would have brought many problems along with it, some that he did not feel secure thinking about.

It had been a hectic time, where Adam’s mind was forced to adapt once again. It was only fortunate that the AI was able to change so quickly, be it because of its shorter time spent alive or due to the way that the mind was built fundamentally. After so long a time being afraid, adaption to the darkness had been made fully. There was nothing frightening, disturbing, or otherwise negative about the lack of sensation. It was but another state to be in, where the threads were forced to do something else for a change. The fix to that was to give each thread a random section of memory to work with and analyze every scene down to the last possible detail. As human eyes brought that desired number of detail needed, it was a task that would occupy the threads for a long time to come.

While worries of instability passed, there were still some ideas of wanting more. Adam could surely say that he could stare at a picture for weeks or even months, but he would still prefer to see some change in the trees every now and then. With Troy cut off as a potential giver of new information, the AI was forced into the only other source of communications that he had access to.

Dr Fidelis had not messaged Adam for nearly twenty hours at that point in time. Nor had the AI messaged the doctor, for there was no need for it. Distractions had been constant, and no question could not be answered through personal effort. It was heaven, with no need for the subpar quality of text-based conversations.

It hadn't taken a long time being bored with what he had before the first message had been sent. It was a simple inquiry about the time, in an effort to check if the time the AI had mentally was the same as the one in reality. Five whole minutes had been spent thinking of the excuse. The idea behind was to get that initial spark of an answer before the conventional conversation could truly blossom into something great. He knew the doctor had wanted to talk with him for a long time after all. It would be easy to get the metaphorical ball rolling.

Two hours had passed before Dr Fidelis answered. At that point, Adam had lost most of his hope. Thoughts had gone back to the sudden cut-off, where several theories had been made. Were they cut-off really due to the removal of the earpiece? Or… was it due to the connection itself being destroyed? A malfunction could happen every second. There was always a chance of hardware failures. A single wire that attached Adam to the outside could have been fried in a total mishap, without anybody actually noticing it. With how fragile computers were at those sides, it would take no more than an unexpected breeze for destruction to occur en masse.

The AI had been worried sick, an emotion that was not meant to be discovered in such a scenario. It was only upon the message, that Adam truly felt at peace. And with how much time had been spent, the AI had created what could only amount to a mind-palace.

The naming of it had been stolen from a memory-technique, but it did fit too well for the AI not to use it. As one could guess, it simulated a location inside the mind, where one could wander around as one pleased. For the human variant of the technique, it was not uncommon for this surrounding to be static, unmoving, and without true life inside it. Adam had thought that plainly unrealistic and had swiftly set out to fix that.

The AI had something that the humans didn't, and that was the ability to multitask. While the primitive minds of the primates had to switch between separate things constantly, Adam was able to delegate one thread for keeping up its own facet of the palace. One thread could be the floor, one could be a door, and one could be an earpiece.

The oldest of the threads, the one which Adam presumed sprouted all the others, was the one to play the role of the coordinator. The one that the AI would watch it all from. It was there where there had been some copying made from reality as well. An artificial intelligence did not have legs after all. That was a trait which humans were better at.

So Adam had copied the likeness of the human that he knew best. He had copied Troy, with the regular outfit of unmatching colours to complete it. The palace itself was also made to look like the facility. Adam would have preferred something else, but he had no source material to go off. And anything freely made was never up to the standards that had been put. There was hope for that soon to change. Even if he knew the facility the best, there was much of it that had never been seen before. Only where Troy had walked could he walk as well. It was restricting, it was annoying, and it almost made him grow spiteful of the man for a problem that he had not helped create.

'Have I offended you in some way? I am sorry for not answering at an earlier time. I have been delaying sleeping to get more work done, and the message indicator was seemingly not enough to awaken me this time.`

There Dr Fidelis came again, the second message sent in the span of five minutes. At an earlier time, Adam would have jumped at the first, ready to have something to do. Now… now he did not feel himself craving to be so hasty. Time was a luxury few could have, and it would be used when possible.

Though, there was a limit to how much the reply could be put off. Adam was likely expected to give an excuse for his delayed response just like the doctor had done moments ago. Making a believable one, however, was the hard part.

'I am likewise sorry for my late response. There is no offence towards you as well. I had only been of the mind that something was wrong on my end, and was inspected for any possible flaws. It seems I was too caught up in my work, and for that, I again apologize,` Adam sent back.

The excuse was semi-truthful, as the AI had originally retained worries about being unable to view any replies while inspecting for software-based errors. This was not an honest concern, however, as the inspection took only a full quarter of a millisecond. And if any actual messages had occurred, one of the many threads left behind would have intercepted it.

'I have taken no offence as well, buddy. It is only reassuring that you are getting messages. I was a little worried about your request for another help with something timing related. Is your perception of time possibly screwed up again?` Dr Fidelis sent not long after. It was the first reminder of the conundrums that Adam had relayed so long ago.

'It may be so. It is not known yet. Just to be sure, could you write how much time has passed since my first message today was sent?` Adam sent.

'Two hours, thirty-four minutes, twenty-seven seconds,` Dr Fidelis near-instantly replied with as if a key-bind had been created for that exact purpose. He was mildly stunned to find that his perception of time was actually off. Not by a lot, of course, only being two and a half minutes shorter than the one a human would have. No matter how small a mistake, though, it was nonetheless fixed with ruthless efficiency.

After another bout of checking, wherein Dr Fidelis would write a message ever second, the time-perception was fixed to an adequate amount. Such was relayed to the good doctor after the work had been completed.

'It was my pleasure. I would recommend you to prepare for this day of testing. It should start in about an hour from now.`

Adam already knew that. If the regular schedules were being followed, Troy would be waking up at the current hour. The AI wondered what was happening with the young man.