The walk back was one spent without a spoken word. Truly, that was for the best. Troy still felt his throat clenching in a weird way whenever he swallowed. It felt like he had something sat in his throat, but swallowing did nothing to alleviate the problem. He felt like he needed to clear his throat constantly, yet no matter how many small coughs were made, his state of being uncomfortable did not change. By the end of the walk, several plans were made to have Charlie help him along with that. Even if it wasn't anything serious, there was no way he was living with a sore throat for days on a row if he could help it.

Dr Hale typed in some nonsense code into the obscure Numpad until a second before the hidden door opened up. Inside, the doctor was mysteriously absent from his screen. Instead of typing at a speed that regular people would get a stroke by even thinking off, Dr Fidelis was fiddling around with a certain suit that Troy had the enjoyment of using on a daily basis.

Seeing the man messing around with it was a reminder of better times. While the suit itself might have been comfortable to be in, after a few adjustments, its appearance was something for sore eyes. Normally, Troy would not have been caught dead in something like it. The only reason he had even agreed to wear had been due to the pay-raise that accompanied it. Though, if he had not accepted it back then, could Dr Hale have decided to blackmail him into it? That was an idea for another day.

“Is something wrong with the suit?” Troy asked, trying his best not to sound hopeful. He would not be against going back to his previous outfit, being strapped up with a video-camera and a microphone. Even those gloves that he used for a short period would be fine.

“Oh, nothing that I can find, buddy,” Dr Fidelis answered, counting to check through the arms of the suit. With meticulous actions, the doctor looked through every piece of the surface, as if the man was expecting a glaring hole to have gone unnoticed the thousand times he had looked at it before. “I was just looking through it, to find out why it has been sending some peculiar feedback. The pulse and blood pressure is coming out perfectly, and the legs muscles have sent their data along perfectly, so there is nothing to be worried about when it comes to the information vital to the actual test. However, there seems to be a few errors popping up when it comes to the upper body. I just cannot figure out where the malfunction comes from.”

An error on the upper body. Data sent not being what was expected. Troy was liking it less and less, each word beginning to make the heart growing to a thundering beat. All worries about aesthetics were forgotten, in the hopes that he could figure out a little more about what was going on now.

“How is it messing up? Is the data not being sent in sync or something?” Troy asked, showing off his interest in the problem. In reality, he just wanted to know how screwed he was. Currently, he was guessing a five out of ten. Enough that he had to be scared for his life, but not enough that he had started actively praying. For one, there was nobody with a gun at his temple, so that was always a plus.

Dr Hale did not seem to find interest in the two’s conversation, moving to the side and bringing out her notepad. Troy did wonder how much had been filled yet. There was not a moment inside the testing room where she could not be found with it in hand. With how long had been spent writing down notes, it had to be on the brink of filling up. Constant efforts had to create some form of a problem after several hours?

Then again, that notebook of hers was a standard issue. Paper was not the most common material, being something of a luxury item. Anyone could get a hold of the stuff, but almost nobody wanted to due to the exorbitant prices attached. This did cause one company in total to have near-full reign over that market, pushing away anybody who dared to take the hill from them. Troy could not for the life of him remember the actual name of the company, but he could remember the simplistic design choices from anywhere. They had one product for each possible use of paper. There were materials sold for paper-aeroplane creation, paper made for the purposes of free-hand painting, and then there was paper made for note-keeping. That last one was one notepad, sold sparsely to anybody. Though, it did seem like the government was a lover of the product.

With the product being identical in every way possible, there was no easy way to distinguish one notepad from another. One could look at the contents of the paper, but it would all just be differently drawn gibberish. Not the greatest assistance in memory-keeping, honestly.

The point was that Dr Hale could have had several changes of notepads, without Troy or Dr Fidelis ever noticing it. Who could say that she did not change them on a daily basis, making sure to copy over any of the more important things over to separate notes? It would be the smart thing to do, after all. When the doctor had gotten angry, he had been witnessed to be unregulated in his strength, having broken over a notebook due to stress. Though when thinking back on it, that might just have been part of an act.

There were a few questions on just what to do with all those notes. As Dr Fidelis very clearly monitored everything said at any point, it would not be too out of safety to say that there was some program writing down anything they said. There was no reason for Dr Hale to be doing the same, for any other reason than personal work. In reality, it could have been excused as more than a pastime, the woman just needing something to do while Troy was in her peripheral. She had the job of making the scenario play out, after all. That could not be done while the main pawn was in the same room.

So it was a hobby. A task that she had set for herself to spend time on, one that Dr Fidelis would understand as being better than just standing around staring. The man most likely didn't even care what happened to the notebooks in the end.

Troy had a few ideas in his head on what Dr Hale had planned. The notepads could not be used for their worth when they were inside the facility. However, there was usefulness to them outside of the place, in locations where one did not expect to have information worth millions. Years of data on an artificial mind. Who would not want it? The data inside would be worth so much to any government.

There it was. Honestly, not a care in the world could be taken to who knew about Adam, but the government that tried to hide it in a hole more than just cared for it. It was supposed to be their secret weapon. What would they do to keep it that way?

In other words, they had blackmail material on their hands. When, not if Troy and Dr Hale got out of the facility with Adam in hand, they would need some form of an upper hand. Years worth of documentation was the perfect material in that factor.

That was a nice thought. That the three of them could blackmail the government into not striking them with a missile the second they stepped outside. Really, the young man was not sure what was planned. Dr Hale had not spoken about it, and he was not too sure if she had any plans for it. Maybe it was a part of the plan that he just was allowed to hear about. He had hoped for that to be the case, for the alternative was not a good one.

Where would they go? In what place could they survive? It was clear by now that he was expected to do things that were not on the light side of the law. Troy could not figure anything out himself. While it might have been counter-productive, thinking about the future was not good for him right now. Putting a focus on the current time rather than what happened next was the go-to solution for stress. It was… just unfathomably hard to do.

Dr Fidelis looked at Troy momentarily. The young man would have categorized it as the doctor briefly sizing him up, but it was closer to his soul being dug through at light speed. No matter how gentle the smile was, no matter how soft those eyes were, they did not produce the same result when put together. At other points, it had been attributed to the fact that the doctor was his superior, yet time had shown that it was due to it all being unreal.

Not fake per se, but more along the lines of not completely real. He did not doubt that the calm face was natural, but that the smile on it was on there normally. When the people disappeared, so would the smile. It was meant to create a sense of calm, just so that the fangs would not be noticed before they hit the throat. The poison needed time to work after all and that calm gaze would be looking on him as the venom flowed through his veins.

“The data is being sent just fine. You do not have to worry about that,” Dr Fidelis assured Troy as if that was actually what the man was worried about. “How can I explain it… it is closer to the data being perfect in every way other than what it is actually showing? The formatting is right, the descriptors are on point, and the time-scaling is without any issue. The only problem is what it shows. It is broken in some weird way that makes it think you need immediate medical attention. The warnings started popping off after you two left, so I just assumed that one of the sensors had been shifted to the side in some weird fashion, but there is a chance that it is a software problem instead.”

“Are we assuming it will impede testing?” Dr Hale questioned from the side, as the doctor got up from the ground he had been sitting on while studying the cloth. “Faulty equipment is not usable as a meaningful resource, and will require additional sources for any information gained to be confirmed.”

“Too true,” Dr Fidelis agreed. “Which is why I am deciding to blame it on a software error, because we can reasonably fix that. If not, we would have to commission a whole other suit, and… do we even have the money for that anymore?”

“I don't believe we do, sir. Changing decimal-places will only work so many times, and I do believe that we agreed that doing it for the fourth time would not be productive for our values,” Dr Hale informed the doctor plainly.

“Which is why we will be blaming the software. Changing that only takes a click, and I can always ignore any other errors,” Dr Fidelis said, his hands at his sides and the face speaking volumes about how much the man did not care for any protocols being broken to any serious degree. Troy could only ponder if that was a real attitude or if the man was once again just putting up an act for the sake of undervaluing the situation. “Troy!”

“Oh, ah, yes, sir?” Troy fumbled out beautifully, not expecting to be that active in the conversation. The young man had thought the subject was switching over to economics again, a topic that he had little to no reason to partake in. Honestly, the largest amount of money he had had at any point was a small enough sum to have him labelled as under the line, and being qualified for government benefit-programs.

“We have already wasted enough time with this pointless talking,” Dr Fidelis said, the words sounding much harsher than the man looked. “I need you to-”

As a surprise to all in the room, a loud knocking came from the entrance. It was one that rang deep, the pounding audible from the vibrations in the foot.

“Is there anybody else who should be here at this hour?” Troy asked, not sure how to take the knocking. Why were they not writing in the code on the Numpad?

“Nobody that I know of,” Dr Fidelis answered, sounding more earnest than he had at any other point that day. “More importantly, who the hell is knocking so hard? Dr Hale, are we normally able to hear people in the hallway?”

“No, sir. This is a first for both of us,” Dr Hale answered, having paused in writing in her notepad so that she could witness the event clearer.

“Good. I was worried about my hearing being worse than I thought,” Dr Fidelis stated. “But that means that we can hear somebody knocking on the entrance door. If my memory is not failing as well, that piece of infrastructure is able to take a direct hit from a lesser nuke. Who exactly is behind that knocking?”

Troy did not like this. However, this sentiment was not shared by the two curious humans around him, as they in tandem went over to the screen to check out… something. Looking over their shoulders, the young man was able to see what looked to be the feed from a camera. It sat in the hallway, not on the door itself but on the opposite side.

This did stop the three individuals from seeing the face of the person pounding on the entrance. Yet, that did not stop two of them from recognizing the person in an instant anyway.

One could never forget those golden curls. And those muscles were not easily hidden as well.