A light slap on the shoulder took Troy out of his food-induced trance. Looking over to the source of the intrusion, he saw Dr Hale, looking as annoyed as usual.

 

“Not to ruin your private time”, Dr Hale stated her wording unquestionably sarcastic. “But, we do have a schedule to keep up with. And, with our previous excuses, I can't seem to think of any reasons, why we would be late yet again.”

 

Taking a peek around him, Troy saw the previously massive swarm of people had shrunken down to a few per table. Taking another look, this time down at his precious food, he saw he was barely halfway through it.

 

“How long do I have before we need to run?” Troy asked, trying to find some excuse to delay their departure.

 

“If we got up a minute ago, we could have reached it with no second to spare, just by walking,” Dr Hale said. “If we go now… we would need to jog.”

 

“That didn't answer my question that much”, Troy pointed out, already using his fork to get some of the food inside. The time to move had passed. He was playing with borrowed time.

 

“Just get yourself another shovelling of food, and move it”, Dr Hale said, getting up. “Soon, getting a write up will be the least of our concerns.”

 

With that semi-dramatic contextualization, she moved. Troy took in, what he could, before quickly getting up to follow her.

 

As they got out of the cafeteria, he began debating the truthfulness of her words. They weren't jogging, and Dr Hale wasn't stressing him out about it.

 

The chance of it all being a gross misrepresentation, all so Troy would move his encumbered behind was a little too high, than what he would have preferred it to be.

 

But… this pattern of theirs brought a little thought up to that brain of his. Last night, Dr Hale had seen something, which she wasn't supposed to see. Something incriminating. Something that could bring Troy to both his literal and figurative knees.

 

And, nearly twelve hours after this incident of theirs, she had not uttered a single peep about it. Not to Troy, and definitely not to Dr Fidelis. He would have recognized the look in his eyes if Dr Fidelis had known about Troy's little, wild adventure.

 

So, with it all brought together, this begged the question of, why she hadn't done so? Since the moment Troy even began thinking about it, he just knew that he needed to know the reasons. If he could understand them, he could use them in the future, to explain why she couldn't point out all the incriminating things about him.

 

Not that he planned to do any incriminating things, of course. It was just a safety precaution.

 

“Dr Hale, could I ask you a question?” Troy asked.

 

She gave him the look in response.

 

“You´ve already asked one too many, but, since we're already on such a negative streak, why don't you just ask one more?” Dr Hale said rhetorically, showcasing how much she was enjoying her current occupation.

 

Well, if she hated it so much, why hasn't she just quit? Troy didn't even need to wonder too much about that, as another conversation from yesterday night popped into his bell curve of a mind.

 

Oh yeah… she didn't have a choice.

 

Getting back on the matter of hand, Troy had some question about a certain slightly classified subject.

 

“I'm thinking you can remember the less than adequate quality of last night's meeting,” Troy began.

 

“The one, where you gave me a reason to have you immediately fired and otherwise terminated, yes, I do,” Dr Hale confirmed, with a morbidly calm tone of voice. It didn't seem to put too much pressure on herself as it certainly did to Troy.

 

How brutal could she be, just throwing those words around? What if somebody other than Troy himself heard it? This was a public hallway!

 

The hypocrisy of that thought was dutifully left ignored.

 

“Yes. That”, Troy slowly uttered, trying to maintain his already fragile composure. “I was wondering… are you going to tell Dr Fidelis about… you know?”

 

For the first time, in a long while, Troy was the sole spectator of seeing Dr Hale briefly laugh.

 

It could be described perfectly, as the devil looking at your personal spreadsheet. Macabre in essence, yet you just couldn't look away, in fear of missing out the moment they struck.

 

“No, I won't tell on you, like some rule-stickling teacher,” Dr Hale finally said, after dipping down to her usual level of enthusiasm. “It just wouldn't be as fun for me, if I did that.”

 

The first part, Troy liked. The second part… not so much.

 

“What do you mean fun?” Troy inquired, already knowing the answer wouldn't be what he would like to hear.

 

“Enjoyment of the situation”, Dr Hale clarified. “Take this, as a little, ideal sample. If I tattle on you to Dr Fidelis now, he will be angry for sure, but he probably wouldn't fire you outright. Maybe take away more than a few privileges of your human rights, though. We´ve spent far too much time and resources in getting you here. Can't be losing you just yet.

 

Now, what would happen, if I wait in delivering this fantastic news, till another one your spectacles get revealed? You wouldn't just get a slap on the wrist. You'd get a right kick in the middle of your tailbone, which will be sounding like it was right below the line of poverty. An ideal dream of mine.”

 

…

 

“Right”, was all Troy could muster to answer with, too deep in his conflicting headspace. His mind was screaming, his heart was beating faster than what could possibly be healthy, his ears were pounding in rhythm, and his vision was getting a little bit darker with every passing moment. Might have been from his lack of breathing, but who could tell.

 

He was screwed, and he knew it. It would happen some time, just as Dr Hale had said, and, when that moment came, he would be getting everything away.

 

Troy needed to plan something if he ever wished to live in an apartment for more than a year after this job had ended.

 

“Do compose yourself now”, Dr Hale said, completely back in her usual stone face, and impassive reactions. It was, as if, they hadn't just talked about something, which Troy knew would scar his mind for years to come. “If you keep acting like that, Dr Fidelis will just delay all the testing. That´ll give us both unpaid overtime. Not something to work towards.”

 

And, she began putting in the code to the door. Troy hadn't even noticed that they had stopped.

 

She was right, though. He needed to get himself together. Now was not the time to curl into a ball and cry. That was reserved for his room only. He didn't want a repeat of last year. Even thinking about it brought shivers to his skin.

 

Oh, those medical expenses. Helped with nothing, yet they treated it like a gift from god´s asshole.

 

That couldn't happen again. Focus on the current situation was needed. No need to focus on far off consequences, if he couldn't conquer the few, which stood before him already.

 

What a negative mindset to live by.

 

But, it worked. Troy focused on his breathing only, as Dr Hale put in the code, which seemed to get longer and longer, from each time it needed to be put in. The breath filtered in, he waited a few seconds, emptying his mind in the process, and then breathing out, giving the body reason to repeat the whole cycle yet again.

 

His pulse slowly but steadily lessened down to the usual levels. The pounding of his ears still measured in the levels of death techno, but it would be better in a while. Blood pressure did not fall that slowly.

 

The sweat was another problem though. The high pulse had left its mark, in the form of a slightly moist shirt, which couldn't be anywhere near pleasant to be close to. There wasn't too much that he could do against that front. Playing it off, seemed like the best strategy.

 

There wasn't more time for debating to himself, as the door opened.

 

As expected, from all prior experiences like it, Dr Fidelis was inside, doing some variety of his already mentioned before tasks. This time, he was rapidly tapping away at the screen. From the very sided glance, Troy could get off it, it seemed to be a very large array of three-dimensional models. And, not just the typical square or sphere. We were talking about things a regular consumer of the world would see in their day to day life. Things like medium-sized trees, plastic replicas of dogs, a very old smartphone, and what looked to be the general form of a modern person, with grey clothes on and everything.

 

Troy would have liked to get a closer look at that whole person. They looked awfully familiar, but he couldn't place it very well, with the details skewed to mainly one side.

 

But, as fate would have it, Dr Fidelis noticed their coming at some earlier point, in Troy distracting observation, and had been at just the brink of closing the application down, as they took their first few steps inside the room.

 

“Looks like you two are just on time. Excellent, with that near-perfect precision of yours! It gives me just enough time to ready up the next test,” Dr Fidelis stated, with an oddly passionate tone.

 

And, if you cross-referenced it, with that normally enthusiastic voice, this only spelt disaster. How could one man be so happy about his position? To be more specific, what in the down under was he planning to do to Troy this time?

 

“Aren't we getting a bit too happy, with ourselves now?” Troy said, trying to reduce the aura positively radiating off of Dr Fidelis´ skin. Actually, If he squinted his eyes, and tilted his head a bit to the left, the chest area seemed to be doing something with the visual light spectrum alright.

 

If Troy was seeing that, or if he was just trying to distract himself from his earlier thought, only one man would ever know; And, that was Troy himself.

 

“Trust me, buddy. We haven't even gotten close to the fun stuff”, Dr Fidelis mischievously said, twirling his finger like he was some old-timey villain from the last century. “The permission slips to do those, haven't been accepted yet, so we'll just have to wait for those, I'm afraid.”

 

Like his old Uncle Ron used to say back in the day; ´If the highest-ranked superior has to ask for permission, run.´ Uncle Ron was a bright man, back in those days. Troy could nearly feel his spirit hanging over him if such things actually existed.

 

“That is mildly disconcerting”, Troy pointed out, mostly to himself.

 

“Can't see any reasons for you to say such a mysterious thing,” Dr Fidelis cheerfully returned. “No, let's get on with everything. You have some tor- I mean, experimenting to do.”

 

Okay, forget calling it disconcerting. Troy had fully forgotten about his recent troubles, rapidly beginning to focus on the desperate situation beginning to set itself up in front of him. He was positively sure of Dr Fidelis nearly saying a word, which was not supposed to be said.

 

Was it supposed to be a jest? That must be it! Dr Fidelis couldn't screw up some evil plan of his, with such a mild slip up… right? He wasn't that dumb. He could watch over, what he said before it even began crossing his tongue.

 

Dr Fidelis went over to the desk, opening the same desk cabinet as last time, which had all the needed recording gear inside.

 

At first, he pulled out all of the usual things. The head strap on, with a camera attached to it. The microphone, which could be clicked onto Troy's clothes on his chest area. The earpiece wasn't part of the things pulled out, of course, seeing as it had gotten itself the unique placement of being in Dr Fidelis´ pocket at all moments, but the testing times.

 

That was everything Troy usually got put on. Everything they needed to record, what was needed to be recorded.

 

But… Dr Fidelis didn't stop, in pulling out gear. Instead of closing off the desk cabinet, after getting out the microphone, he just pulled out one more piece of gear. Or, should Troy say, two pieces of gear.

 

A pair of gloves were now in the pile as well.

 

“What are the fancy gloves for?” Troy asked, more than slightly curious about them. They looked cool, with their black and white design.

 

“These haptic gloves aren't something you need to worry too much about,” Dr Fidelis simply said, walking over to Troy, and handing the gloves to him, so he could put them on himself. “And, I am restricted in what I can say about the tests. You know that.”

 

Troy knew he was supposed to be putting on the gloves, but he couldn't stop himself from just standing still while admiring them. The attention to detail on these things was in the extreme levels of complexity. The fabric of them was completely synthetic, looking systematically sewed together, with a thread type Troy couldn't place down. It was smooth, but not to the standards of silk. No hardness was felt, but the fabric refused to be stretched in any meaningful capacity.

 

What was this thing made of? Troy wanted his clothes to be of this kind of stuff.

 

“You can tell him about the gloves, sir”, Dr Hale pointed out, much to the joy of Troy's mind. “They are on the same clearance level as standardized equipment if you believe the manual. This permits him to know as much about them, to the same degree as the other equipment being used, which has similar functions. To reiterate, this qualifies him to know as much about the haptic gloves, as he knows about the camera.”

 

Dr Fidelis looked over to Dr Hale in surprise, briefly stopping in putting equipment on Troy.

 

“Well, that is certainly good to know”, Dr Fidelis said, with an informed tone, before his facial features began sporting a devilish grin. “But, I'm still not telling.”

 

“That can't be fair!”, Troy exclaimed. He had been putting his bets on knowing what type of clothes he should be ordering the next time he got the chance.

 

“Nothing's fair, when I get a say in it, buddy”, Dr Fidelis said, before finally finishing up on getting the microphone and camera on Troy. Seeing that he still hasn't gotten the gloves on, Dr Fidelis simply put the earpiece into Troy's shirt pocket. “Get them on your hands now. You have testing to do.”

 

And towards the puzzle room, Troy went, actively fighting against the non-stretchiness, as he tried to get the gloves on.

 

Whoever made those things deserved more than a small kick in the stomach.