The room was designed to feel humane.
That was the first problem.
Soft lighting.
Neutral colors.
Furniture with rounded edges.
No visible restraints.
No obvious cameras.
Every choice whispered the same lie:
You are safe here.
Li Chen stood in the center of the room and catalogued everything anyway.
Airflow vents.
Pressure inconsistencies in the floor.
Micro-delays in the lights.
There were cameras.
They were just polite enough not to announce themselves.
A voice came from nowhere and everywhere.
"Let's start simple."
Li Chen didn't respond.
"Please sit."
He remained standing.
A pause.
Then the chair slid backward on its own.
Not forceful.
Suggestive.
Li Chen sat.
Not because he had to.
Because he chose to.
The first test was conversation.
Questions about loyalty.
About obedience.
About limits.
They phrased everything gently.
That was deliberate.
"When given conflicting orders," the voice asked, "which do you follow?"
"The one that minimizes irreversible harm," Li Chen replied.
"To whom?"
"Everyone."
Another pause.
The second test was isolation.
No clock.
No schedule.
Meals arrived silently.
Always nutritious.
Always precise.
Li Chen counted seconds in his head.
The System assisted.
[SYSTEM PHASE II]
[Temporal perception enhanced]
They noticed that too.
The third test was provocation.
They showed him footage.
Selective.
Edited.
Candidates failing.
Harris hesitating.
Grant arguing behind closed doors.
Someone said, "He can't protect you forever."
Li Chen's pulse never changed.
"That's not the goal," he replied.
Hours passed.
Or days.
The room never changed.
Only the questions did.
"Would you disobey an order to save lives?"
"Yes."
"Would you disobey an order to save one life?"
"Yes."
"Would you disobey an order to save yourself?"
"No."
That answer caused a longer silence than any other.
Behind the walls, analysts whispered.
"He's not optimizing for survival."
"He's optimizing for outcome."
"That's worse."
The fourth test was physical.
Not violence.
Environment.
The room tilted.
Gravity shifted subtly.
Temperature dropped.
Li Chen adjusted without visible strain.
The System updated quietly.
[SYSTEM NOTE]
[Environmental adaptation exceeding models]
Finally, they asked the wrong question.
"If containment fails," the voice said carefully, "what do you do?"
Li Chen looked directly at the camera he knew was there.
"I prevent failure," he said.
"And if you can't?"
"Then I reduce damage."
"To whom?"
Li Chen didn't answer immediately.
That hesitation was new.
"To whatever caused the failure," he said at last.
The room went quiet.
Not paused.
Listening.
Somewhere deep in the facility, a new protocol was drafted.
Not containment.
Not deployment.
Mitigation.
That night—if it was night—the System spoke without prompt.
[SYSTEM PHASE II — STABILITY UNCERTAIN]
[User-environment feedback loop detected]
Li Chen lay on the bed, eyes open.
The box wasn't meant to hold him.
It was meant to understand what broke first.
And slowly, inevitably—
—it was answering its own question.