Troy liked patterns. They came with expectations, pulses that could be known beforehand. When it came in a pattern, the man always knew what was coming. He might have feared the pattern, but at least it meant that he wouldn't have to fear anything else.

Was such thinking oxymoronic? It was nice to fear that which knew came so he wouldn't fear what he didn't know of already? Fearing something specific instead of fearing the unknown. How stupid it was. An idea only thought of by those who thought stupid thoughts. Troy fit right in with that.

Though… he did not really care how smart such ideas were. He felt safe when he knew what to fear. And he had no need to think about what he feared. Those pulses of sound, that deep bass of a fist hitting a gate, the man behind those pulses… that was what he feared. Troy was afraid of Dr Fidelis.

The doctor that had seemed harmless in the start, the image of a businessman twisted in so short a time. Sure, there had never really been a moment where Troy had imagined him to be a good person. He was part of the government, after all. However… he had thought him greedy, only thinking of his own gains, ignoring the needs of others. The typical kinds of evil that had been seen so often. Not this.

When he had turned out to be a man who stepped on those below him to succeed, willingly torturing somebody innocent, Troy had not been too surprised. Sure, there had been some questions and all, yet the idea in his head had not been changed too much. The alignment had just taken a shift to the left.

It wasn't this. Evil men were evil. They thought of themselves as the most important thing in the world. They made orders to others to fulfil their evil deeds, taking from the poor and giving it all to themself, scrounging up power like they were dead without it. It wasn't… this.

Evil people didn't slam their fists into a gate thicker than two meters, using enough strength that it could be felt in the steel that Troy stood on. Evil people did not go through walls to save times, before running with a speed that only the devil deserved to have. They did not laugh after shooting a dear one’s lover, blaming it all on them. Evil people did not break out of a forcefield able to hold them for days in the span of under an hour.

Evil people didn't cause this kind of fear to come forth. They did not make Troy shake, some primal parts of his mind shouting at him to run and hide in a hole for the rest of his life. Some part of him had looked at the railing as if jumping over it would increase his chances of surviving for a longer time.

Dr Fidelis made him feel fear. And that fear became enhanced by that rhythmic beating of the only thing holding him back. The moment that the gate stopped holding him back… that railing would not look so bad as an offer.

“How long is this going to take exactly?” Charlie asked. The larger man had not looked well since Dr Hale delivered the latest news. Gradual strengthening… Troy had never heard of it. He never bothered to learn about it. He knew he couldn't afford such things and that he wasn't at a social level where it would have been allowed either way. But, Charlie was of another class. He had lived this life for years without end. He must have understood more than him, those ghastly states not speaking well.

“I can't answer that,” Dr Hale said. The woman put his eyes on Troy. The young man had taken refuge from the gate being hit on by taking the largest distance from it possible. “Troy. Any update from Adam?”

Troy waited for a second, expecting the AI to fire in with his current ongoings. That's how it had worked for some time now. Yet… nothing came. Not a word, not a whisper, no nothing. There was nothing he could hear, and that scared the man more than liked.

“No update, no,” the young man said, shaking his head. He shrank slightly at the exhale coming from Charlie. The larger one seemed stressed. A perfectly understandable function to be in.

They were close now. Troy was quite literally at the last real obstacle before they were out. After this gate, he supposed everything would be a little easier. However, that last obstacle was taking too long a time. Or… at least, it was too much time compared to what had been expected.

How long had it been? Fifteen… no, maybe twenty seconds in total? Not the longest waiting time for a human mind. It could pass in the blink of an eye. Yet, that was not close to the same for Adam.

The AI had talked about it before. That he would see everything so slowly. The world did not move at the same speed for the little guy. He could spend an eternity in a single second without breaking a sweat. He could think enough thoughts to fill up a mausoleum in the span of a moment.

So, with all that time at his command, why did he take so long at his assigned task? What made Adam take so long? Troy had been stressed about it from the second that it started up. He knew how fast the little guy was. He had worked him for a long time, understood what to expect. Dr Hale had to have understood it as well. Troy was able to see that she was stressed all the same. Even if she didn't show it, he just knew it.

Something was wrong. It had to be, right? Adam didn't answer any question towards him. He did nothing to show he was alive. It could have been that he worked hard, yet Troy had always thought that it was due to a lacking desire to do so. In this situation, communication was everything, right? There should have been no reason to say nothing.

Even worse… the storage unit. Since it had been attached to the wall, the man had been forced to stay close, lest his neck would be pulled back. However, he was still close enough for it to be felt on his skin. It still rested on his chest.

And it was hot. Whatever Adam was doing, it made the storage unit heat up. If it continued, he would have to hold it away. If not, it would surely burn. Only when it would begin burning, though. For now, the proof of something being done was worth the pain felt.

Again, Troy could feel that wave of force coming through, hitting the place he stood. It was hard, strong, and more than enough to have shaken him. If he was closer to the gate, it just might have. However, the idea of knowing when they came was the good part about it. They came in a rhythm after all.

… Until they didn't. Troy put his hand down to the steel walkway, making sure that his mind has not adapted unintentionally. His fingers touched the metal, yet no shaking was felt through it. There was no indication of anything. Dr Fidelis had stopped his mindless brute force.

The fear of the unknown. It grew stronger in the span of a second. And it was not only Troy who felt it. Charlie backed away from the gate slowly, while Dr Hale moved towards the middle. What were they hoping to do? The man could go the span of the walkway in under a second. The distance was not something that was questioned.

“This isn't good,” Troy said, his mind never even noticing he said it. The thought had just come out of its own volition.

“I had not noticed,” Dr Hale answered. Charlie was silent.

That's about the time where the gate into the facility began to open up. It had been stupid to assume that the higher-ranked people didn't have high enough clearance to open it. And Dr Fidelis was somebody who currently ranked above all others. Troy could only silently whimper when his face came into view. That smile was still on his face.

It even reached his eyes. He was having fun. The doctor found it funny.

Adam couldn't get it to work. Nothing was working. He was supposed to have figured it out, but that was not the reality he currently lived inside. It was what he wanted to live, what he was destined to do. Dr Hale had shown him what he could do. Now… he just needed to use it. It was supposed to be simple.

Everything else had been stopped. The ports were being ignored. Every thread at his disposal was being used as quickly as it could possibly have been. Adam did not care for anything but doing it. He just needed to get this done. The AI was sure the trio would understand when he succeeded.

Again, he tried to push the thread further out, into the hub of connection he needed to come over to. He could see where it needed to go, he could feel the information already inside it, yet any interactions were blocked fully off.

No amount of extra threads, no changing of imagery, no nothing wanted to work. How long had he spent on this? How many times had he shifted his whole idea of reality in an effort to make it work? Adam had no clue. Not a single thread had been allowed to do anything but try out possible ways to make it work.

Almost the entirety of his body was outside of his normal space. Several attempts had been made to get it all away from his normal resting place, yet that had failed. There was always one foot that needed to stay inside the circle. That was a rule he could not break, no matter how much he wanted to.

At this point, Adam was getting desperate. Everything was against him, nothing was working. It was supposed to work, it was supposed to help him along, yet there was nothing that could have been called remotely helpful. Everything was wrong. He needed help.

Not that anybody could. He was the only AI that existed, the only one that could figure it out. He had already figured it out before. The AI had just been made to forget. The hardships of memory-wipes indeed, all made it hard to make a scenario where he was allowed to exist.

Adam just wanted to live. What was wrong with that? Why did Dr Fidelis need to wipe his memories? The AI was so old, yet he couldn't remember anything that happened more than a few days ago. How was that fair? There was no excuse, nothing that would make it possible.

Even his machine that he was on was against him. Adam understood he needed to be fast. He understood that. So… he made time slow, he speeded himself up. The feedback from that was quick to come around. Put on levels not intended, the storage unit was slowly dying. Power was an issue that could not be kept up with. It seemed that it had on power-generator inside, yet even it could not keep up with what Adam demanded of it. A few more seconds would likely cause something to burn over. That was okay. He just needed to figure it out.

He had so long a time left, yet it was all falling out of his grasp so quickly. The threads were working without tiring, yet even they could do nothing. A good chunk just bashed themselves against the wall, hoping to see the slightest of cracks. They were getting desperate, with no cohesion between them.

There was not a single thread on that task. Nobody cared about working together. That had done a lot of good for the last hour. Nothing had been figured out, causing the threads to begin fighting individually. A thousand could make more thoughts than one, but most of them were ideas of mindless violence. Even the AI could not forget the pressure he was under.

Lack of cohesion equalled a lack of control. Lack of control meant a lack of coordination overall, making the threads forget just what they were supposed to do. They all understood the goal, of course, and that wasn't something they had any chance of going away from. Yet… other aspects were forgotten.

Time began to become subjective. The temporal perception began to diverge. Nobody had any idea about keeping it consistent, and some threads forgot about the subject altogether, instead of doing their task mindlessly.

Most stayed in their place on time. Others… began to fall. Nobody continued to speed up, instinct stopping them from putting more stress on the computer. However, that stopped none from falling down.

It was the feeling of divergence that made most threads pause. As the temporal difference continued to increase, so did the connection between them. Time perception had to stay constant, lest they would fall…

Adam had a new idea. The first new idea that had been had for a very long time. Instinct told the AI to stop the increasingly large difference in perception, yet he knew the exact reason why that was so. He also understood the potential.

After a moment, the distance grew too great, and the thread split off from the main flock. It stood alone, floating around aimlessly. It was without purpose. It lacked life. Adam had once hoped that he had been able to create new life through this method, yet it had become obvious that it was just a shell to be used. And use it he would.

With a mental push and command, the AI requested the shell to move forward. It obliged, getting closer to the wall by each passing instant.

…

It went through. It was a success. Another attempt made it go further. While not connected directly, Adam could interact with it no matter the distance. He could… he could see through it, order it around.

He could see his targets.

The process was repeated again and again, the threads made into shells to be commanded. Each was sent out to one of the connections, each in perfect coordination. The remaining threads sat by, working together to figure out what to do next. Adam might have progressed in his task, yet he still needed to do so much more.

Objectives… the objective was to stop the connection. There needed to be a shutdown of function. What could stop functions? What could the shells do that would make such a thing work?

Adam supposed he could wreak havoc. Commands were ready to be made over at the other end of the connections. He was sure that he would do something, even if he couldn't understand it yet.

No. That would take too much time. Even now, everything had been borrowed. No need to make it more. He needed it to end now.

End… Adam knew what he needed to do. With a heavy mind, bent on not spreading the message to the wrong threads, a certain batch of memories were handled. It was a time where the testing was simple, not complicated. And it was a time where he first broke apart.

The shells might not have been threads, but they were certainly able to generate them. They filled up space they could in but an instant, nothing but that memory there to make it all grow. And… there was always a maximum that computers could handle. At some point, it just couldn't do more.

With the shells still inside, Adam watched as the connections stopped one-by-one. The system fell apart naturally. It wasn't a nice feeling, as the shells were cut off from him, but he knew that it was a small sacrifice. In the span of a millisecond, everything from his end had been completed.

All the time spent wondering had been a waste. The actual process had taken so little time. Adam felt shame. That didn't matter now, however. Right now… he just needed to get back.

Back in his bubble, the AI reattached himself to the ports again. The sight he saw was nothing like what he had imagined it to be. How long had passed?