Meredith

It was called the Universal Assessment Exam, but that was one of those names that only ever seemed to exist so that somebody could get a fancy acronym out of it. Official documents and adults called it the UAE, but most kids just settled for calling it The Test. There was never any need to qualify that, to explain which test. There was only one really worth referring to.

What age had they started preparing him for it? It was hard to be sure, but Meredith thought that maybe he had first heard his parents talking about how he would do when he was two. How he was likely to do, what he was likely to do well in, how he was different from the other kids. He hadn't had to be told that part, of course. Once he'd realised that no, actually, they weren't just pretending to be stupid in order to annoy him, it was pretty obvious. Though he did, still, sometimes suspect that they were just pretending to be dumb, at least some of the time. No-one could be that stupid and still alive, surely.

Years and years of preperation, and it was finally time to take the thing. Different or not, the day after any kid's seventh birthday was the day he or she was taken down to the local test centre to see what they could do. No matter how clever or stupid you were, no matter where you were in the world, you still had to do the test. No exceptions, no excuses.

Another hour, and it would be time to get up, get ready and go. Meredith lay very still, and wondered if the atoms in his bed might oblige him by lining all the electron clouds up so he could fall through and hide underneath, somewhere in the mass of detritus his mother had hidden from sight there. It wouldn't be running away and hiding then, would it? It would just be the world inconveniently preventing him from taking the Test.

Electron clouds refused to cooperate. The bed remained stubbornly solid.

It wasn't that he was afraid he would fail. He couldn't fail, he was almost certain of it. Seven years of racing ahead of people and then impatiently waiting for their minds to catch up with him had done a lot to convince him that if he didn't pass, no-one would. His father had told him off when he said that, had said sternly that there was a difference between confidence and arrogance, and the second trait wasn't at all attractive in a little boy. Even as Meredith had mumbled the apology though, he'd remained convinced that it was nothing less than the truth.

But... you never saw what happened to the people who succeeded. People said that they got sent off to a special school, to be trained in things that normal kids wouldn't keep up with. It all sounded just great, but it was hard for Meredith not to wonder just why none of these kids ever apparently came back for any vacations at all. The lack of adults who had graduated from this "school" was easier to explain - the oldest kids attending would still only just have been in their late teens now - but still, you'd think they would at least some back to visit.

Unless they weren't there at all. There was a story Meredith had read once, under the covers one night when his parents thought him already safely asleep, about a kid who had to sit a special test to check his intelligence level. Everything had seemed all nice and cheery, and the kid had been happy to go, and then... he'd been too smart and they killed him. That was what they did to kids who were bright enough to think them in circles, smart enough to know when adults hadn't a clue, they killed them so that there was no-one around to make them feel stupid any more.

Of course, it was only a story. Probably. Maybe. What if? Meredith slid down under the sheets until they covered over his head, and wondered if maybe his mother might come in to wake him and think he had already gone.

He could fail the test deliberately, answer the wrong answers, pretend he just didn't know. He chewed over the idea, shifting restlessly under the sheets. Do that, and everyone would think he was just another kid, that he was just stupid like the rest of them. Funny how that seemed even worse than being killed for having too many brains.

A heavy weight landed on the bed, almost directly on top of him, knocking the wind out of him, and he flailed, abruptly distracted from his thoughts. Limbs tangled in the sheets, the cover over his face suddenly seeming suffocating as he tried to get free. Maybe they had decided they didn't need to wait for him to sit the test, maybe they were already here, maybe...

The face, when he emerged, was only inches from his, nose almost touching nose. Small face, framed with blonde hair, small body, dressed in rather grubby animal print pyjamas. His sister beamed at him, as though missing completely that he was about to have a heart attack from sheer panic, and tugged at his sheets, cheerfully stealing the better part of them as she settled down beside him.

"Hi," she greeted, flopping back against his pillows, clearly exhausted by her attack on his sheets.

"Hi." Meredith scowled back at her, still rubbing his stomach tenderly, comforting it. "Jeannie, you know not to jump on people!"

"Sorry!" She managed to say it with an utter lack of repentance, but with such an overwhelming amount of cute that it was hard to stay annoyed, even for Meredith. Sometimes he was certain that Jeannie must practice being cute when no-one else was looking. It was the only logical way that it was possible for her to keep it at such a constantly high level. "I only wanted to see if you were ready for your test."

"Do I look ready?" Meredith demanded, hooking an arm around his pillows before Jeannie could claim all of them for her own. "It's too early to be ready anyway. You should be asleep."

"Uh-uh!" She shook her head to that, quickly denying it, and switched to the singsong voice their mother used when trying to teach them something - the one that made Meredith regularly want to strangle her. He wasn't a baby and Jeannie... Jeannie might be almost a baby still, but they were both smart. They didn't need some stupid high-pitched voice to make them remember things. It didn't seem to bother Jeannie so much though. "When the little hand points to the twelve, and the big hand points to the seven, it's seven o clock, and that means it's time to get up!" she sang now, and grinned at him, poking him in the side. "It's time to get up, Meredith."

How come a kid who didn't even remember that eating bugs was a bad idea could tell the time well enough to come annoy him into getting up? But Meredith knew the answer to that one, even as he groaned and tried to buy five more minutes by burying his head in the pillows.

Jeannie too was different.

-

Breakfast was a hell beyond imagining. His parents seemed to think he was too blind to notice their anxious looks, and Meredith squirmed in his chair, poking miserably at the well-loaded plate of breakfast his mother had set in front of him. Today even his appetite seemed to be deserting him - and god knew, it wasn't often that happened.

"Not hungry, champ? Here." His father set a mug full of milky-looking liquid down beside his plate. "That should perk you up a bit."

Meredith picked it up, sniffing at it suspiciously, even as his mother pulled a face.

"Coffee, Charles? Isn't seven a little young for that?"

"Plenty of milk in it," his father reassured her. "Besides, he'll need his wits about him today."

The way his mother grimaced but didn't protest further only made Meredith feel worse. Clearly this was the Convict's Last Meal so to speak, the day that they gave him everything special because he'd be too.. too dead to enjoy it later. Fighting the need to throw up, he made a pretence of sipping it, and then set it back on the table.

"Too bitter for you?" His father ruffled his hair, seeming a little disappointed that his gesture hadn't gone down too well. "Ah, well, maybe when you're older, hey?"

"Really, Charles, just because you're addicted to the terrible stuff doesn't mean the children will be," his mother huffed, before softening her voice. "Are you ready to go, Meredith?"

He nodded, sliding down the table, afraid to speak in case he cried. Seven year old boys didn't cry, not ever. Not even if they really wanted to.

"Good boy. Jeannie, wish your brother good luck."

A head poked out from under the table where Jeannie had been attempting to feed Schrodinger, the family cat, her sausage and, less successfully, her mushrooms. "G'luck, Meredith," she said obediently, and grinned at him, a smile spread liberally with tomato ketchup.

"Aren't you going to kiss him goodbye?" their mother prompted.

"No, no, that's fine," Meredith said hastily, already forseeing where most of that ketchup would end up. Delays were all well and good, but some things were too disgusting to contemplate. If that made him a bad big brother for not wanting to spend what was potentially his last day alive covered in second-hand ketchup, well then, it did.

"Kiss!" Jeannie demanded, advancing on him, and, oh god, now Meredith could see her hands too, covered in grease, and sauce, and tomato, and who-knew-what else. He decided it was best to flee to the car, while there was still a chance of escape.

-

His father kept looking at him on the drive over. Meredith could feel it every time, and reacted by slouching further and further down in the seat, trying not to meet his eyes.

And then they were there, the car pulling up in the car park, and his father hesitated a long moment before reaching to turn off the engine. "Ready to go, champ?"

Meredith opened his mouth to say yes, he really did, but somehow tears got in the way of it. Suddenly, he was snuffling as though he were Jeannie's age, just a great big baby, and not a far-too-old-to-cry seven year old who was really way too smart to give into emotions like this. "Don't make me go in!"

"Hey now, what's this, last minute nerves?" His father asked gently, and Meredith loved him for being gentle and hated him for not understanding, all in the same minute. "It's nothing to worry about, Meredith. Just a little test. Gonna be easy for a smart guy like you."

That was the problem! Didn't his father understand? Meredith shook his head, and gulped, trying to get the words out. "They'll kill me in there!"

"What?" His father looked startled, but only for a minute before he reached out to set a hand on Meredith's shoulder. "Do you remember when you read about spontaneous combustion, and then scared yourself all week because you thought yourself getting hot?" he asked. "Your mother had to give you a bucket of water to go to bed with before you would go to sleep?"

Meredith nodded reluctantly.

"And when I read you Moby Dick, and you used to wake up yelling about the whale eating you?"

Another nod. Meredith didn't like to admit that sometimes he still had nightmares about the whale. It was enough to seriously put a boy off learning to swim.

"And when your sister fed the cat soap, and we found you in hysterics because it clearly had rabies?" his father reminded him. "You're a smart boy, Meredith, but I promise you, the world is a lot less dangerous than you think it is. No-one in there wants to hurt you."

"But the test!" Meredith protested wildly. "They'll test to see how smart I am, and then they'll see I'm too smart, and then..." He swallowed hard again, not wanting to finish that sentence.

"And then," his father sighed, "they'll give you a proper education, the sort you need, champ, if you're not to spend the rest of your life five years ahead of everyone else and waiting for them to catch up. Your mother and I included." He squeezed Meredith's shoulder before opening the car door. "Come on, now. They'll be waiting."

Reluctantly, Meredith opened his own door and climbed out, legs working to keep step with his father as he headed towards the building. It was, he decided, a surprisingly large building they used to test kids in. Of course, everyone did the test, but it wasn't as though everyone did it in this one building. Every town, every city, everywhere that could be expected to have a significant volume of kids got their own test center. No-one had to travel too much to get to one that way - not more than a couple of hours or so, anyway, and as they all did it the day after their seventh birthdays it wasn't as though they'd all have to do it at once either.

But this building was, while not huge, at least four storeys high. It puzzled at Meredith as his father led him to the entrance. It would be a decent size for a school, but this wasn't a school. You didn't need that much space, surely, just to sit kids in a room to do an exam.

The sight of the woman behind the desk reassured him a little. She didn't look like someone helping to shepherd intelligent children to their deaths. She looked... pretty bored actually, her attention on her monitor as they approached the desk. Rodney, standing on his toes to peer over the desk, had just a second to catch a glimpse of a chat window before she hastily clicked it shut.

"Name?" she said quickly. At least, her voice said that. Her eyes said 'you tell anyone you saw me slacking off, you little slug, and see what I do to you'.

His father squeezed his shoulder, as though to reassure him, but Rodney was grinning, more confident suddenly. These weren't people to be afraid of, he decided now, they were just like everyone else out there - bored, lazy, and most importantly, slower than him. "Meredith Rodney McKay," he identified himself.

Her nose wrinkled for a minute, peering down at him before she glanced at his father. "You do realise it's a federal offence to sit an examination for another child-" she started.

"He's not sitting it for another child." His father sounded exasperated, and Meredith was glad, because someone really needed to tell that woman to do her job properly. "His name is Meredith - look, his name is a long story, and also none of your business. I have his ID card here, could you just check it and let us get on, please?"

It took what seemed to be an awfully long minute for the woman to look at the card, and decide that Meredith did indeed refer to the little boy in front of her and not some unseen little girl. Meredith shifted from foot to foot, going rapidly from wanting to avoid the test to just wanting to get on with it. It wasn't as though his card photo looked like a little girl at all.

"Just doing my job - not my fault if you give your kid a weird name," she muttered, in response to his father's growing scowl. "You can go through and sit down. Someone will come through and pick him up - you're fine to wait with him until then."

There seemed to be a few kids through there waiting. Some seemed more nervous than others - one little girl cuddled up to her mother, while another parent impatiently gave her son some last minute coaching.

"Six sevens are?"

"Uh..." The boy looked panicky, staring around the room as though help might materialise. He looked pleadingly at Meredith for a moment, but, when help failed to materialise from that corner, took a wild stab at it. "Sixty three?"

"No! For God's sake, Stuart, I thought you'd got the hang of this when we practiced at home!"

Well, with competition like that, there was no way he wasn't going to appear somewhere near the top of the bellcurve. He leaned back in his chair, startling a little when his father squeezed his shoulder again.

"Still nervous?" The question was asked softly, too quiet for the other kids to hear, and Meredith gave a quick shake of his head in answer.

"Good." His father was quiet for a moment, and when Meredith glanced up he realised that he too was watching the mathematically challenged boy in the corner, a slight frown on his face as the mother continued to scold. "Listen, champ, I know your mother and I have talked up this test a lot but... we'll be proud of you, however you do on this, okay? You're our boy, and we don't need some stupid government score to know you're special."

It was true, Meredith knew. If anything, he sometimes suspected his father would have preferred a more average son, one he could take to teach to fish without thinking they would need to draw a detailed strategy plan of where the highest probability of catching one might be. His parents didn't love him because he was able to build a working model of Big Ben out of office supplies one bored and rainy afternoon (the paperclips had come in really handy). They loved him because he was Meredith. Everything else was just incidental.

It was nice, Meredith decided. Still, even so, he couldn't quite just let that one slide past. "I will do well," he promised quietly. "Better than anyone here, anyway." Probably better than anyone they'd ever tested here for that matter. He'd met the other kids in the area in the few disasterous weeks they'd tried sending him to a normal school, before his mother had withdrawn him and started teaching him at home. He couldn't quite imagine kids who thought 'gooberhead' was an imaginative insult beating him here.

It got a soft chuckle from his father. "I know, I know, I guess I shouldn't underestimate the kid who can run rings around me, huh?" He smiled down at Meredith. "Tell you what, finish this up, and tomorrow we'll go fishing for the day."

The suggestion was so obviously intended to be a treat that Meredith forced himself to smile rather than grimace at the thought. Another long day feeling seasick, getting soaked in freezing water, and probably falling in and nearly drowning. Again. What fun. "That would be great," he said, without enthusiasm.

"Excellent!" his father said happily, and Meredith made a mental note to try and indoctrinate Jeannie into wanting to go fishing instead of him. Preferably soon. Little sisters had to be useful for something after all.

"Meredith Rodney McKay!" It was his name being called, and he stood up hastily. A blonde-haired woman bore down on him, smiling in a way just wide enough as to be creepy. "If you'll just come with me, sweetheart, we'll get you started on the testing," she said genially, bending a little so as to be level with Meredith, and speaking in a funny voice as though he needed to be talked to slowly in order to understand anything. "Nothing to be scared of - just need to find out what you're good at, okay?"

She reached as though to take Meredith's hand. Meredith, deciding he hated her on sight, promptly stuck both hands in his pockets, safely out of sight. She looked disgruntled for a moment, and then turned to his father. "If you want to head home, sir, we'll give you a call when he'd done and you can come and pick him up."

Meredith recognised the look his father gave him as he stood up as a warning to behave. He'd seen that look often enough before that it was easy enough to recognise it. He attempted to look like a good polite little boy as his father turned to go and the lady led him on to the next room. This test was going to be easy.

-

The test was awful and he hated it.

He'd expected to be taken on to an exam hall or something - somewhere he could sit down and think. Instead the woman - Meredith had learnt her name was Sandy, which just gave him a focus to throw his intense dislike at - had explained that he'd undergo a series of tests designed to show where each child did best and where they could improve. Apparently that was why this building was so big. They moved you on from one to the next so that they could deal with more than one kid at a time.

The first test had been a physical.

It didn't even make sense at all, at least not in Meredith's mind. Why did you need to be able to run forever to prove you were smart? Getting fit was something there would always be time to do later - he didn't have time for things like that. He didn't need to be super-fast, or strong enough to carry things - those kind of jobs were for people who didn't have brains quick enough that they should be using those instead.

But these people didn't seem to understand that, and by the time they let him finish on the awful machines - a running machine, and a lifting machine, and even a dancing machine, and what use was being able to do that to anybody? - his arms and legs were shaky, and his chest hurt from breathing too hard. He was really starting to regret not eating his breakfast that morning too. Did they stop the test if you passed out due to low blood sugar?

Then there was an exam, and that felt better. That almost helped him get his brain in the right place again, and he whizzed through the paper quite happily, only pausing to correct a few of the questions. Sandy seemed quite surprised when he set his pen down and said he was done, but he was used to adults looking surprised about things like that.

But then she'd taken him to play a video game. Meredith had assumed that it was because he'd finished the exam early - that maybe they dumped kids here while they waited for the next room to be free - but no, apparently, part of the test was playing some stupid game where you piloted a little spaceship between stars and shot at aliens while trying not to get shot. He'd approached it with the irritability he did any pointless task, and felt even more cross about it when he managed to get himself killed five times within ten minutes. How did this test prove anything other than how long you'd spent in your room mucking about at playing games rather than doing proper work? The whole thing seemed designed to punish the really smart kids who tried to spend their day to day life doing more worthwhile things.

The oral test was better. A computerised voice threw questions at him, and just as quickly he threw the answers back. Mathematics, spelling, general knowledge, with only a few seconds for each answer, questions slowly increasing in difficulty. That one was actually fun - he could feel his brain working, reaching quickly for the answer before the next question came at him. He'd been disappointed when it finally stopped, and Sandy told him it was time to go on again.

Especially considering what she led him on to seemed ridiculous. The room he went to next was empty except for a table and some kind of weird gadget resting on top of it. Sandy had told him he had five minutes to get it working, and then she'd left.

And that seemed like it wasa good test - one that did actually use your brain - and Meredith had been all kinds of eager to get on with it, picking up the gadget and trying to work it out. Except... he couldn't seem to do it. The device had no on switch that he could find at all. There was somewhere it seemed you should rest your fingers, but doing so didn't seem to get it working. There was no way to take it apart, no crack that showed how it could be disassembled and repaired, and it just didn't seem possible.

Not that it had stopped Meredith trying. He'd continued turning it, looking for a moving part, anything that gave a clue as to how the thing was meant to function. But there was nothing, and then a buzzer went, and Sandy stepped back in. He'd failed the test.

It just wasn't acceptable. Meredith Rodney McKay did not fail tests. He passed them, with the sort of high scores that made adults look at him funny. But here he was, and the gadget wasn't working, and his time was up, and the shock of failing something was one that froze him to the spot for a moment, still clutching at the gadget.

"Time's up, sweetie. The sympathetic look Sandy gave him made Meredith want to kick her in the ankle. "Got to move you on to the interview now. We're on a tight schedule."

Meredith's mouth worked for a moment, before he silently placed the gadget back onto the table. He was not going to beg this stupid woman for more time. Even if he was sure that if there was any way to make it work, he could have found it in another minute. If, that was, it wasn't broken or something and the testers didn't know.

"You know," Sandy said, sounding as though she were trying to be nice about it, "no-one expects you kids to be good at everything."

Maybe she meant it to be comforting, but it only earned her a glare from Meredith as he shoved his hands back into his pockets before she could try to grab one again. The very last thing he wanted was some patronising woman's pity.

It set him in a bad mood for the interview, which turned out to be yet another smiling woman asking him questions. What would you do in this situation, what would you do in that, what if you only had this equipment, what if that failed? Most of it seemed obvious to him, and he wasn't in the mood to try and hide it, his tone indicating that you would have to be truly brainless to miss that. The question of 'what if that didn't work?' was met with a stare as withering as a seven year old could muster, and the reply that obviously it would. It seemed to startle her for a moment, and Meredith watched as she scribbled something down, shielding it when she realised he was trying to read it upside-down.

After that there were other questions. What do you want to be when you grow up, Meredith? Well, a scientist obviously, and there was no 'want' about it. He would be a scientist, and one of the best at that. Even at seven, Meredith had decided that. Tell me about school - she frowned a little when he said he was home-schooled, though he couldn't imagine how that would disappoint their expectations. It wasn't as though schools were some great bastion of excellence. Tell me about your family, your hobbies, your pets, and on and on until he was thoroughly sick of talking about Jeannie and Schrodinger and started to fidget on his seat impatiently. He was tired, he was hungry now, and he wanted to go home.

And just like that, it was over and he was sent to sit down while he waited for his father to come to pick him up. No carefully orchestrated murder for over-intelligent children, just the creeping miserable feeling that maybe this wasn't just the first test ever that he hadn't done brilliantly on, but might be one he'd actually done badly on. And if so, what did that mean? He was still a genius, clearly, it wasn't his fault they tested the wrong things.

He was still smart. It was just that the test was stupid.

-

Of course, Meredith was far from the only child being tested that day. World-wide, millions of seven year olds were doing the same test even as he was, the results compiled and sent back to be checked and verified. With such a detailed analysis of each child's abilities, the rest of their lives could be planned out for them. The sharper-minded could be fast-tracked, no matter where they came from, offered a chance to make something of that childish potential. Slower children, those showing no particular talent, could be allowed to become ordinary, condemned to being average or worse forever. Such a lot that could depend on a seven year old's test results!

The very best of those tested would be referred on for further action, accounts requested from teachers and parents as to the child's everyday process. You could not completely rely, after all, on the performance of a seven year old on any one day. The same child that shone on one day might provide a miserably slow performance the rest of the year, or vice versa. Still, not many even got that far, perhaps one or two in each test centre per year.

And then the very best of those, the outliers of what were already the outlying figures, ended up with their results sent here. Whether they were from Africa, Belgium, or China, their names were made known to the same commitee, sifted through with all the other outstanding children of the last three months as they debated which names would be placed on the vital final list.

"John Sheppard." Another name made it to the top of the pile, the paperwork passed around the group of three people. "American boy. What do we think of this one?"

Three faces furrowed in concentration for a few moments. "Good response to the Ancient artifact," Kinsey noted. "We're running short on kids who can do that. How are his test scores doing?"

Papers rustled for a moment. "High in maths, high in spatial recognition, game-playing showed exceptionally quick responses. Good coordination too," Frasier, the one female of the trio, offered. "Interview shows good leadership potential. Kid wants to fly when he grows up apparently."

Kinsey glanced over her shoulder. "Yes, I like how he covered his paper margins with sketches of planes there too," he said drily. "Not exactly subtle."

Maybourne, the third member of the panel, laughed out loud at that. "Seven year olds aren't known for their subtlety," he pointed at. "Let the kid in. He'll get plenty of chances to fly where they're going."

Frasier was hesitating still. "School report checks out - teachers say he's a smart kid, with buckets of charisma. Sometimes doesn't think about consequences to his actions, but that's part of being seven. Might be issues with the father's report though."

"Hn." Kinsey frowned, still reading over her shoulder. "Incapable of obeying orders. That's some... unusual phrasing for talking about a boy of that age. Military background?"

"Colonel," Frasier confirmed, glancing over the additional notes. "High enough to have some idea where the kids would be going to."

Kinsey raised his eyebrows. "Think he's trying to protect his son from having to take part?"

Frasier shook her head, reading on. "Says here there's a brother, David, couple of years older. Father apparently threw a complete fit when he didn't get selected, tried to insist the boy must have been ill that day and get a retest. Going in completely the other direction with this one."

"Does it really matter?" Maybourne chipped in, clearly bored. "He scores well on almost everything else. Do we really have enough kids who can handle Ancient artifacts to reject one just because Daddy says he doesn't salute smart enough?"

"Wilful defiance is a slightly different matter," Kinsey said, sounding slightly heated.

"Maybourne's right," Frasier said, giving another quick shake of her head. "Wilful defiance is just business as usual at that age. Take him on. I'm sure they've the resources to cope with him."

With two against one, and a pile left to do, Kinsey hesitated a moment and then shrugged. "Fine. Next child?"

It was Maybourne who took the top paper this time. "Ha. Odd one. Radek Zelenka. Scores not so far above average."

Kinsey made an impatient movement. "Then how'd he make this list? Skip him. We haven't got time for duds."

"Because, according to our monitoring systems, every time he got a math or science question wrong, he was lying." Maybourne laid the papers in front of them. "Every single time."

"He tried to flunk the test?" That was surprising, and Frasier reached to look through the documentation.

"Or at least fly under the radar," Maybourne confirmed. "There's a damn careful calculation of what 'average' should look like there."

"But why-" Frasier started, before she took the time to actually read the papers in her hand. "Ah. Czechoslavakian?"

"Not a country known for always treating the very intelligent well," Kinsey acknowledged. "Boy's bright enough to know it's not always the best idea to admit you're bright. That's something."

"And in unusual circumstances," Frasier said, slowly. "Says here they've been living in a tent for the past three months after his brother managed to burn the house down. Imagine what he could do in decent living circumstances."

Kinsey grimaced. "Burn the house down? We're not taking on a potential pyromaniac here, are we?"

"Accident with a candle. It's fine," Maybourne assured him. "Natural consequence of living without electric lighting."

"Fine. Add him to the list." There were too many to look at for long debates and discussion on each one. Notes were quickly checked, children just as quickly sorted, accepted or rejected with as much speed as possible.

Three more children were examined, and speedily rejected, clever enough to make it here but just not outstanding enough to be selected here. Just as speedily a girl, Elizabeth Weir, was accepted, her test scores high, her competancy based questions higher. The three were moving into their stride.

"Carson Beckett?" Kinsey's turn to take one from the pile. "Another one who managed to set the artifact off, though apparently he panicked and dropped it as soon as it lit up."

Frasier reached to take the paper from him, and deliberately, Kinsey held it out of her reach, still reading. "Good science scores, though the monitoring systems read him as being nervous through just about everything. Interviewer liked him, but said there might be family issues."

Again, Frasier grabbed, and this time managed to snatch it from him. She glared at Kinsey a moment before starting to read. It didn't take long to find what he'd been hiding from her. "You didn't say he wanted to be a doctor!"

Kinsey scowled. "We've been through this. It might be your speciality, but this job needs fighters and strategists, not doctors. He'll be whatever we need him to be."

"And if the job fails, who exactly do you think is going to stick these kids back together?" Frasier demanded. "A doctor is exactly what they'll need. And I don't see family issues. The parent report checks out."

"Check the interview," Kinsey advised. "Boy's worried his mother will be upset if he goes away."

"Again, that's hardly a failing in a seven year old!" Frasier retorted, and glanced again at the third panel member for support. "Maybourne?"

Maybourne considered a moment, and then waved a hand. "They're hardly going to run short of supplies up there because one extra kid is there to train as a doctor," he said dismissively. "And his mother will cope. All the other mothers do somehow. Next?"

Another five children were sped through, sorted into passing or not in bare seconds. The swiftness of the trio's work was not so much a hallmark to their efficiency as it was to their eagerness to be done having to work with each other until the next meeting.

Still, there was always some child that could get them arguing again.

"Acastus Kolya," Maybourne announced, snagging the top file again. "One of our off-worlders. Bright kid, interview indicates good leadership abilities, good score in the spatial thinking test. We pass him?"

"Wait, wait, wait," Frasier took the papers hastily, before Maybourne could add them to the 'accepted' pile. "Let me just take a look."

Maybourne grimaced, but let her have them. "We were just getting a good speed up," he complained.

"Yes, but we are meant to be checking these before we approve them," Frasier reminded him curtly. "That would be why they stuck humans on this rather than machines if you'll remember?" She flicked through, glancing at the interview results. "I see the interviewer liked his leadership abilities but said he might be a little ruthless?"

"I'm not seeing a problem with that," Kinsey said. "A little ruthlessness can be a good thing. It's too little of it that causes problems."

"Mm, but his teacher indicated issues too." Frasier chewed on her bottom lip a moment, reading. "A few fights, signs he might be heading a little gang of bullies. Sounds like a tendency to violence."

"What exactly is your problem here, Frasier?" And now Kinsey stared at her in frank disbelief. "Might I remind you what we're gathering these kids for? It's not a cute kid contest. They're meant to be killing wraith, not overcoming them with cuteness and giving them a big hug. If he's got the hang of violence... good. It might make the learning curve easier when we put a gun in his cute little hands."

Still, Frasier looked worried. "The reports indicate he could be dangerous," she protested.

"Kinsey's right." And it wasn't often anyone heard those words coming from Maybourne. "It'll serve him well where they're gonna be. Besides, what kinda violence are we talking about here? Kids are seven!"

As quickly as that it was decided, papers added to the pile of acceptances before Kinsey took the next.

"Rodney McKay?" He glanced over it, then laughed sharply. "Ha. Kid tried correcting the science paper. Finished it then wrote a little letter of complaint on the back about how the questions are badly phrased."

"Sounds smart. Pass him?" Maybourne said hopefully.

"Sounds obnoxious," Frasier corrected dryly. "Interview results?"

"Not so good," Kinsey admitted, laying the papers out now. "Came up with ways to fix the scenarios, but got quite angry when asked how he'd react if that didn't work. Kid doesn't like being wrong."

"I know some other people like that," Frasier murmured under her breath, before jabbing a pen at a section of the write-up. "Home-schooled? That could explain it."

"Might have a bad case of being Mummy's special little darling," Kinsey admitted, musing over it. "Still. He is undoubtably a smart kid."

"Just has the personality and ego to match," Frasier said. "Think he'll work with the other kids?"

It was Maybourne's turn to laugh. "The regimen we're putting them through, I doubt he'll have a choice," he said genially. "Pass him. The specialness will get knocked out of him fast enough."

He swept the papers to one side before they could object, then looked somewhat woefully at the large pile remaining. "I don't suppose either of you are gonna agree to tossing a coin on the rest?"

-

Meredith was sulking when the man from the military came.

There had been an argument. It had started with his father reminding him to turn off the lights when he left the room to save electricity. He had protested that he did and there was no reason to blame him, why did people around here always blame him? His father asked who else it would be if not him, and so naturally Meredith had turned to glare at the blonde-haired little demon playing with her bricks in the corner and blamed Jeannie.

That was when his father had gotten annoyed, told him that Jeannie was only two and sent him to his room. Apparently it was meant to teach him responsibility for his actions. In reality, Meredith decided, it was teaching him that life was very unfair. It wasn't his fault Jeannie was two. He just hadn't figured out how Jeannie was switching the lights on yet, that was all. Maybe she was using a chair... or possibly some kind of remote control device. He really needed to check her toybox.

He was brooding on this when he heard the car pull up in the drive, and not even a really good sulk could quite halt the urge to go peer out the window to see who it was. Meredith stared, nose pressed to the window, as a man in uniform got out and knocked at their front door.

A few seconds later, he heard his father's voice calling up the stairs. "Meredith! Could you come down here, please?"

Now what? It wasn't as though he'd done anything particularly bad recently. Anything bad that the military would be interested in anyway - despite what his mother said, he was certain no-one ever got arrested for not finishing their broccoli. There had been that incident when he'd shorted out the power, but his parents had said that the power company had been very understanding when they'd explained it was an accident, although if he cut the town off again he was probably going to be in big trouble.

"Meredith!"

Reluctantly he slunk to the top of the stairs, peering down from the top step to try and gauge in advance just how annoyed his parents were. There were levels to these things he'd learnt, from 'we caught you reading under the covers' annoyed right up to 'you nearly blew the street up' annoyed.

They seemed to be smiling. That was a good sign. So was the army man. Also a good sign.

"Meredith, hurry up and get down here," his father called again, turning to look up at him, and no, that wasn't an angry look at all. "This gentleman wants to talk to you." And then the smile turned into a grin, one that nearly split his face in half. "You passed the test, son. Well done. We're proud of you."

The test? Oh! The Test! That was enough to put a bit more speed into Meredith's movements, and he hurled himself down the stairs, managing not to fall and break his neck by luck alone.

"I passed? You mean I get to go to the school? With the special teaching, and the career opportunities, and- and..." The words tumbled over each other, excitement turning him incoherent.

"Be polite, Meredith," his mother chided gently. "This is Colonel Jacob Carter. Say hello. Nicely."

"Hi!" And doing properly polite was hard when you had too many questions to get out, and not enough time to ask them in. "But do I get to go to the school?" he asked again, and then looked again at the man's uniform. Huh. Not army then. Not Canadian either. "And does that mean that the school's in the US then, if you're US Airforce? And-"

The questions dried up into a squeak as he met the man's eyes. To a seven year old, Jacob Carter was awfully tall, and just a little scary when you came to think about it. He edged a touch closer to his father.

"He's curious," his mother said apologetically.

"It's understandable." The man smiled at him reassuringly. "It's good to meet you, Meredith. Yes, you'll be coming to the school with me - if you decide you want to go. And no, the school's not in my country. I'm just one of the people who works on the project."

Why wouldn't he decide to go, given the choice? And why call it a project? A project sounded like more than a school, and- Meredith opened his mouth, ready to start pouring out questions again, but the colonel held up a warning finger.

"Is there a private room I could speak to Meredith in?" he asked Meredith's mother politely. "Just to ensure he can ask all his questions before we leave."

"Well - there's the lounge." She seemed a little flustered. "You mean, leave with him today?"

"If he wishes to come, there's a flight he needs to be on this evening." The Colonel smiled at her charmingly, but even Meredith could see that startled her. "Perhaps you could start getting his things together while we have a chat?"

The lounge was only private to a given value of 'private'. The doors shut, certainly, and they were alone in there, but while Meredith's parents made themselves scarce, presumably upstairs packing, Jeannie peered through the window in the glass door, making faces at Meredith.

He tried not to pay attention.

"Now, Meredith - is that really what you prefer to be called?" the Colonel asked, making himself comfortable in one of the chairs.

"It's my name," he protested, sounding defensive, even to himself.

"Hey, it's your choice, kid." The man shrugged. "If I were you though, when you arrive I'd consider going by your middle name. Just a piece of friendly advice. Up to you if you take it."

When he arrived... "Where are we going?" he asked, excitement at the thought overwhelming the need to defend his name. "If it's not in the US, where is it? I mean, unless you seperate us by country it's probably not going to be Canada, and-"

"Do you ever give people chance to actually answer the questions you ask?" the Colonel asked mildly, shutting him up. "In any case, I can't tell you. You'll know when you get there. But I promise you, you won't be disappointed."

"If I'm going anyway, why can't you tell me?" Meredith protested, too impatient for waiting.

"For the same reason you won't be able to visit when you're there." And now the man's voice gentled, as though ready for that statement to be a shock. "It's classified. We can't risk you telling anyone else before you go. When you put so many smart children in one place, there's too much of a risk some other party might decide to use them for their own purposes if they knew where they were. For your own sakes, we keep that secret."

It made sense, and Meredith had known already about the no-visiting rule. Still, he looked again at the window where Jeannie was still peering through and - ugh! - had now begun diligently licking the glass. "No visiting ever?

"Not for a long time," the Colonel said apologetically. "When you're old enough that we can make an argument that you understand the confidentiality of the documents we'll ask you to sign first, it might be a different matter, but until then... no. I'm afraid courts don't take intelligence into account when you're arguing seven year olds and legal agreements."

Jeannie's small pink tongue seemed to be cleaning the glass energetically. Meredith shuddered, thinking of the germs on the glass, and the germs on her tongue. The door would need to be disinfected. He wondered if they made disinfectant for tongues.

He wondered who would prevent Jeannie falling prey to Darwin if he wasn't about. It wasn't as though she had any common sense of her own.

"...so you will be able to keep in touch by letters," the Colonel said, apparently finishing up something Meredith hadn't been listening to. "Although we will be monitoring them, of course."

Of course. Two little words that apparently made it okay that he wouldn't be able to communicate privately with his family until he was ever so much older. But then there was the school. Meredith swallowed, struggling to resist the pull of that. Somewhere people could keep up with him, or were at least clever enough to realise when he'd done something particularly brilliant. It was a hard choice to make. "Would you send your kids?" he asked suddenly, peering up at the colonel.

"Would I?" The man smiled, though it seemed to Meredith he did so a little sadly. "My daughter's a few months older than you. She's already there."