“But, really, you using that earpiece in your possession is not the wisest thing to do”, Dr Fidelis said.

 

“Will you be taking it away, then?” Troy asked worryingly. He hoped not.

 

“Goodness, no!”, Dr Fidelis reassured him quickly, waving his hands about to deflate the growing concern inside Troy. “Doing so would completely ruin my future plans!”

 

The words didn't make sense to him. Not too surprising, of course, but still.

 

“But, I thought your plan was for Adam to fail?” Troy asked into, with an inquiring tone. “Doesn't me talking to him ruin them?”

 

Dr Fidelis just chuffed at the two.

 

“Not really,” Dr Fidelis stated, with not much concern about what he was talking about. “The original plan was for Adam to see how much more he needed to learn, and me positively bombarding him with the rest of the models from the previous test, including detailed descriptions about every poses they made. But, that action of mine isn't needed now, with you having done all the necessary heavy lifting.

 

Now, I can move onto the more fun parts of this whole testing part, instead of dallying around with the bushes. I might even need to write a few messages about hastening some more permissions. Something to look into later.

 

In the meanwhile, you really need to let me have a look at the earpiece in your possession. While I won't take it away or anything, it is a fragile piece of hardware. I don't think anyone would be pleased if it broke. And, the battery in the thing likely needs a bit of a small charge. They last for a long while, let me tell you that, but, if they go out while still in the earpiece, it´ll take the whole circuitry with it.”

 

His words brought hesitation to the forefront of Troy's mind. Should he really be letting Dr Fidelis mess with the earpiece? There was always the chance of him deciding to just not give it back. Troy wasn't too sure, that he wanted to risk it.

 

Although… if the words about the battery were true, it would be best, if he took it in for repair rather quickly. As Dr Fidelis said, this thing breaking would not be seen as a good thing, seeing as it was likely worth more than Troy had made throughout his short life.

 

“I'll bring it over when the next test starts”, Troy promised, having made up his mind.

 

Dr Fidelis backtracked on the seriousness of the whole debacle rather quickly though.

 

“Oh, you don't need to worry about it,” Dr Fidelis assured him, with a calmer voice than what was typical for him. “While the delivery of the earpiece is paramount, getting it to me in the next hour is not needed. The next twenty-four hours sounds better. Can't have you missing out on yet another meal, now, can we?”

 

How did- no, wait, stupid question. Dr Fidelis had probably just asked Dr Hale about it. Dr Hale who had no reason not to answer truthfully.

 

And, Troy was happy to hear that he wouldn't be going another few hours without food. He had been getting more hungry than usual. Was it the extra thinking required, maybe?

 

“That sounds fine too”, Troy confirmed, nodding just to approve of the suggestion even further.

 

“Great to hear, buddy!”, Dr Fidelis cheered him on. “Now, go along, you two, and I'll even forget about the horrible mess you made.”

 

And, out the door Troy went, walking faster than any man before him had. Dr Hale was not too far behind, walking in a leisurely pace. At least, it felt like that, as he heard Dr Fidelis laughing maniacally from behind. What a disturbing fellow he could be sometimes.

 

“You shouldn't trust his words so much”, Dr Hale said, as the two of them walked down the hallway, already having made much ground away from the testing room. Troy had even thought, that it might have a walk of pure silence, but he wasn't that lucky today, it seemed like.

 

“Fine words coming from a blackmailer”, Troy retorted. He had not forgotten the last conversation they had had in this hallway. Dr Hale still had him around the neck, now that he thought about it.

 

Wouldnt this mean, that he should be on his best behaviour around her? It sure did, but Troy was still riding on the high, called only nearly getting caught.

 

“I'm not a blackmailer”, Dr Hale said defensively. “That would imply, I'm trying to get something out of you. I don't do that kind of stuff. I already have all I need from you, with your permission or not.”

 

Well, wasn't that just fabulous to hear?

 

“If you're trying to sound nice, it's not working”, Troy said. “And, what do you mean about not trusting Dr Fidelis´ words?”

 

Dr Hale looked at him, not in surprise, but just a striking amount of disbelief.

 

“Are you really so stupid?” Dr Hale questioned her normal tone of voice nowhere to be found and replaced by one of condescension. Troy noted how that kind of voice had been used on him a lot recently. That wasn't too good of a thing. “Can't you see, where he blatantly lied to you?”

 

“Was I supposed to?” Troy responded, knowing how dumb his choice of words made him look. But, seeing the annoyance it caused on her face made it all worth it.

 

“The battery life!”, Dr Hale stated, with an air of disbelief. “How can you believe anything about that?”

 

Okay, now he was confused. Troy was pretty sure that battery failure was a valid cause for electronics being damaged.

 

“What was he lying about with that?” Troy questioned, with an incredulous tone. “It's a sound reason for why-”

 

“The earpiece doesn't have any battery!”, Dr Hale said, cutting into his attempts to reason. “The device is powered wirelessly by your brain implant. As if, a battery could ever fit in that earpiece.”

 

Oh… that made a bit more sense, than what Troy felt it should be. Not that it shifted his current views too much, though.

 

“Even if he lied about his reasons, I'm not too off on the idea of lending it to him for a while”, Troy said, still onset to uphold his promise. “You never know. The earpiece could be damaged from all the use. I can't uphold the quality of it if something in it is damaged. That's a job for Dr Fidelis.”

 

“If it is an emergency, I can get some other people to fix it for you,” Dr Hale answered back calmly. “I admit, making sure, that your device is fully stable is of the highest importance. But, still, giving it over to Dr Fidelis has the possibility of it biting too much back.”

 

How could it make anything worse? Troy was just making sure, that his earpiece wasn't broken.

 

“How? I'm not sure Dr Fidelis will try to destroy the earpiece or anything”, Troy said. “He's not that kind of a person.”

 

“I'm not talking about the safety of the earpiece. I'm talking about the safety of you,” Dr Hale stated. “You and Adam have been having conversations. Conversations, which has boosted Adam´s level of understanding to massive heights. Don't you think Dr Fidelis want to know how? Maybe even, what you two have been talking about? The best solution, to figure that out, would be to just record everything the two of you say, by modifying the earpiece a small bit.”

 

Her point made him nauseous. Dr Hale was right in her presumptions. Troy just knew, that splicing a recorder into the earpiece was exactly something Dr Fidelis would do.

 

It would all be innocent, of course. Just something to gain more data from. But, maybe even with the first listen trough, Dr Fidelis would realize it all.

 

Dr Hale was right. Troy couldn't risk something like that happening. He needed to find some way out of his promise.

 

“Do you have any-”, Troy began to say but stopped himself. Looking around, he saw Dr Hale had already moved on, resuming her walk like their conversation had not transpired.

 

“Wait up!”

 

She didn't.

---

“-And, that is exactly why I should have received an Ig Nobel prize, instead of just a clap on the back. How frightful, that they dared to make such a mistake,” Charlie went on, talking in detail about the wrongdoings of the upper management. At this point, Troy wasn't sure, why he bothered.

 

It was always the same people he complained about. Nearly the same things too. If Troy had a say in it, Charlie should have just recorded a few of the sentences, put in swear words at random, and just mix the names up every now and then. He himself wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

 

Maybe, it already was like that, and Troy hadn't realized it. Ever thought about that? Troy sure hadn't.

 

“How terribly interesting”, Troy muttered, just to put in his minimum amount of socialization. In actuality, his focus was on something much more important.

 

What the heck was he supposed to do with the earpiece now?

 

Dr Hale's argumentation, on why Troy shouldn't give the earpiece up to Dr Fidelis made sense! If she were to be believed, which he wasn't too sure about yet, Dr Fidelis´ original statement about the battery was fake. It was supposedly only there to entice him into giving the earpiece up.

 

The reasoning sounded good on paper. When Troy thought about it, putting in any batteries in that tiny thing of an earpiece, it sounded nearly impossible. And, he didn't remember anything vaguely looking like a power source, when Dr Fidelis had disassembled the earpiece a while back.

 

Yet… Troy had not recognized anything else from that earpiece. It had all looked completely foreign to him.

 

Also, trusting Dr Hale at all, at this point, seemed like a bad idea. She already had blackmail material on him, even if she wasn't using it. Giving her yet another way to ruin his future potential did not seem like the best idea in this small world of theirs.

 

But, she was still right in one thing. The possible consequence of giving the earpiece over to Dr Fidelis. Sure, he might just take it away from Troy permanently, but that wasn't that large a concern, at this point. No, the biggest concern was that Dr Fidelis would give the earpiece back, with a fancy little recorder inside, without making him aware of it.

 

It was very much within the possibility spectrum, that Adam would begin asking when the new, irregular test would occur. If any recording devices had been put in, Troy wouldn't even be able to inform Adam of his needed silence, not even that he could be under the implied recording state.

 

And, Troy was still under the impression, that getting the earpiece checked up, was a good idea. If he just went with Dr Fidelis, that potential problem could be fixed, and Troy could even ask to look at the earpiece, while it was being inspected. He could see for himself if there were any batteries to be had.

 

Yet, those words of his weren't too good argumentation, for why he should go that route. Dr Hale had stated that she could have some other people take a look at it. Troy could just ask to inspect it, while it was being analysed, there too. That seemed like a good alternative.

 

Troy had to sigh, at this point in time, for he already knew how these thoughts would progress. He had been thinking those identical things over and over, since the moment he put his bottom down on the chair.

 

But… Here was the deal-breaker to all of it. The promise. That deity-damned promise. And, a promise to a direct superior at that! Don't call him a coward, but Troy did not feel comfortable breaking a pledge to such a person. His survival instincts were already kicking, by just thinking about doing such things.

 

So, to summarize, there was a whole pile of good reasons, for why Troy shouldn't give the earpiece over to Dr Fidelis. By nearly all accounts, doing such a thing would be suicidal. But… he would do so anyway, due to not having the courage of disobeying a self-made promise to his superiors.

 

Troy didn't like it at all.

 

There had to be some way out of it. Some way, to make sure, that he couldn't mess it all up for himself, even if Dr Fidelis ended up planning a bug on the earpiece.

 

Then, for the first time in thirty redo´s of these thoughts, something original actually came up in Troy's fragile mind. A solution, albeit a very stupid one.

 

Going back in time, to the period, where Troy only had a substandard brain-implant. There was something in the brain-implant, that caused it to malfunction, go to overload mode, whatever, you get the point.

 

To fix this glaring issue, Dr Fidelis had fed him some pill, which upgraded the brain-implant and enhancing its capabilities. The details about that don't matter too much, seeing as Troy had no memory of it ever getting it explained to him.

 

What mattered, was the way Adam had seen it, from his perspective. He had detailed it, as a constantly fluctuating line of input-sources, which all seemed slightly different from each other. Confusing to Troy, but he got the general point across to him.

 

The point was, that Adam could tell the difference between input-sources. Troy was betting on, him being able to also distinguish the earpiece if It changed in any meaningful way. And, in some circumstance, sense any alterations made to an already existing earpiece.

 

You heard it, right folks. Troy was betting his future job chances on a wide, unproven leap of logic, which would likely come back to bite him in the bottom. The chances of Adam being capable of distinguishing to such a fine detail was smaller than Troy would have preferred it to be. But it was the only good plan he could think of, where he was double insured on not being tricked. That is if he also got to see Dr Fidelis during the repair.

 

“Have you heard about the news lately?” Charlie said, a little higher than before, catching Troy's attention in the progress. “Another country joined up with us. We're finally at a breaking point, now. The cold war has got nothing on us anymore.”