Chapter 1 - Intelligence

Education never ends. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last. -Sherlock Holmes

An IQ test? I was happy to see that humanity had progressed to the point of being able to quantify a human's brain capacity, but in reality it was nothing of the sort! An IQ test was worthless to me. All you had to do was to be ill or not fluent in the language of the test to get a completely wrong result! Can you imagine a genius waking up with a stomachache and ending up with a below average IQ? How did people take these tests seriously? And even if we didn't take into account these unprecedented scenarios, these measures were only relative. From what point of view were we looking at someone's intelligence? From their mathematical abilities? From their artistic eye? From their musical ear? From their ability to visualise in space? You could find some of these elements in the test, but you couldn't determine someone's ability from these few abstract things.

It was a simple deduction really: IQ tests only measured the speed at which a person made logical connections and processed information. That person still had to have the ability, the reasoning, to put together the right puzzle. In this sense, this test only gave a quantifier of the person's potential to think and remember.

Implicitly, this meant that a person with a standard IQ who conditioned himself to such a state of mind could perform just as well if not better than a supposedly gifted person who had just grown up with a better brain. His brain would be of no use to him unless he conditioned it properly or used it wisely. That was why most investigative agencies did not have geniuses among them. The human being was far too tough to submit to his weaknesses, they preferred to insist until they reached a result they found acceptable. That was the beauty of our species, that we did not shrink from any limits.

These many thoughts kept running through my head as I solved a test of this kind that I had been given, it wasn't the most exciting activity that the orphanage had offered me but it did get my brain a little bit fired up. Vocabulary questions, logic questions, mathematical sequences, pattern recognition, visualization in space, there were many elements. Some problems were harder than others, knowing that we had 30 questions for 20 minutes, it surely meant that we had to solve the simple questions in less than 20 seconds and concentrate more time on the difficult ones.

The man in front of me looked at me with a serious expression, looking at his watch from time to time, his eyebrows slightly raised as his glasses fell on his nose. It was the director who had personally subjected me to this test and who wanted to observe me by himself as I completed it. He was accompanied by a psychologist specialised in these tests who took notes from time to time on my behaviour over the period.

The questions were all more or less difficult but I had managed to complete them all. When the little clock on the old chief's desk began to chime, I put my pencil down immediately and took my hands off the table so that they could calmly retrieve the sheets. I was only looking forward to one thing, and that was to go and eat. It was getting close to lunch time. The psychologist approached me, slightly excited to judge my results, she bent down to pick up the sheet, a small smile forming on her face as she looked in my direction. I didn't know what reaction I had at that moment because I was distracted by the smell of her perfume, a familiar smell, one I had smelled somewhere before but didn't remember at the time.

"You can go, Arumi."

The headmaster answered me in a tone that was both dry and tender, which was the impression I got from most people his age when they spoke to me. I didn't need him to tell me twice before I sped out of that unfit and badly ventilated room. I could smell the scent of the canteen wafting through the corridors and landing on my nose. It was like an invisible GPS guiding me to the much-needed consolation meal.

Once I got there, I observed the students in the vicinity to better understand the meal of the day. The menu was on the other side of this large room and I didn't have the energy to go all the way there. Chicken rice with mushroom sauce and some baked vegetables. Interesting. It wasn't a bad meal, quite the opposite, but as always these deceptive smells made me think of meals that were much more delicious in my imagination than in reality.

"...umi!"

I had thought I heard a part of my name, but with all the children and teenagers talking, I could hardly locate the source of the voice. In the distance I could see a hand waltzing back and forth towards me, it was Alice's. I walked towards her, slightly embarrassed. I wasn't very familiar with the feeling of love but if anything was going to come close to matching that definition it would be my feelings for her. She had beautiful black hair that flowed down her back, coupled with her blue eyes as bright as the ocean, she was to me one of the most beautiful people I knew, in fact the most beautiful.

She usually had a calm demeanour but every now and then her personality would turn to something more energetic when she met her friends. I was one of them. I waved slightly, sitting down on the chair facing hers.

"Hi Alice! Hi Lab!"

Alice and Lab were kind of the only friends I had here, if you didn't count little Tom. Alice and Lab were 14 and 16 respectively. They were the only people I felt like I had some sort of connection with, simply because we could talk about mutual interests in depth. Alice was a computer specialist ranging from hacking, programming to maintaining and building computers, she could do everything! Lab was a sports pro, it didn't matter what he trained in, as long as it involved the use of his physical body, he was a quick learner!

Personally, I had neither of these talents, or rather I had no interest in these subjects, but to see them talk to me with such enthusiasm was always pleasant. I never got bored with them and in return I would bring them mysteries that I had fun solving. I would explain the basic problem and how I had arrived at the answer. I had to thank the headmaster for this, he had quickly understood my interest in these kinds of stories, and now he had been giving me one file a week for a year. He explained to me that it was a certain William from England who bought the materials there and sent them to us in our French orphanage.

According to him William bought pre-built cases that were made to be solved. There were many samples and they often produced new ones, the files were usually sorted by difficulty. All this was made possible by the international connections that our orphanage 'The Apple' had established. We were often visited by great personalities who came to give us lectures or conferences on important subjects. During the week we also had classes in music, cooking, civics and school subjects such as mathematics, French and even philosophy.

They said that philosophy was not for our age, but I found the subject fascinating, to question everything, to try to define it, to give it a structure, it was a very good mental exercise for me.

"Arumi! Hey oh! This is Earth!"

While my thoughts had once again disconnected me from reality, I could half-hear what Alice was saying.

"Yes, sorry!"

She startled me every time she tended to get too close to my face. I was generally unresponsive, one could even call me a zombie on some occasions, but she knew how to spark my deepest emotions.

" Let me repeat my question for the third time: how did the test go?"

"The test? Do you know about it?"

"Of course, we took it too, for your information!

"Ah..."

Gosh, I didn't expect that, did other students take it too? I would have noticed if a lot of kids were walking down the corridors and sitting in small rooms. Does that mean we were the first? But the only staff for these tests were the director and the psychologist, and I didn't see any other cars pull up in front of the orphanage either. If they were testing over 200 people for 20 minutes one by one, they were never going to finish! What's more, I hadn't seen anyone waiting in the corridor and they hadn't asked me to call anyone else to come into the room.

"Do you know who else passed it?"

"We asked them, it's just the three of us!"

"Only the three of us?"

"What, you thought you were the only one who deserved to take an IQ test, eh?

"Oh no, that' s not it. I simply asked the director to take one a few days ago, so I thought I would be the only one to get it.

"You wanted to pass one? What for?"

"I wanted to know if you could really measure a person's intelligence with a simple test, in the end I was disappointed."

"Yes, we agree that these tests were not worth the trouble.I hate a lot of things but I love computers, a test like that would never have helped me in finding my hobby."

That was exactly it. What was the point of knowing if you were good at something if you didn't know what to invest your efforts in. The passion and the will to become good at something that made you interested and curious, was what mattered most.

We ate our meal little by little, moving from one subject to another, Alice introduced us to press articles about new technologies. In addition to her laptop, she had been gifted a tablet which she hardly let go of. Her passion for the world of technology motivated me to find my own path, but it wasn't that easy.

If I loved solving puzzles, then a policeman or a private investigator were the most plausible paths, yet they didn't seem to fit me. A policeman did a lot of paperwork and had various assignments outside of investigations, he wasn't someone who spent most of his time trying to put puzzles together. Private investigators, on the other hand, spent most of their days spying on married men or women to determine whether or not the person was unfaithful, and that was boring. That job could only be attractive for its pay.

I needed something more unique. I thought of the Sherlock Holmes books, what a character he was. He was phenomenal. So good at what he did that he had established himself as an investigator-consultant until he became indispensable to Scotland Yard.

We parted with Lab and Alice once the meal was over, I had nothing to do so I decided to go and lie down in my room. Once my belly was full, the urge to sleep became so strong that I felt as if I were nailed to my bed. Slowly drifting away.

A few hours later, or rather 10 hours of sleep later, morning came. I hadn't noticed how tired I was yesterday, the all-nighter I had done prior to that in order to solve a difficult investigation had taken a heavier toll than I thought.

By my reckoning, even 10 hours of sleep were not enough, simply Alice's voice ringing in my ears prevented me from sleeping any further.

"Arumi! Get up, we're wanted!"

"...What?"

When I was fully aware that the voice in question was that of the most beautiful girl in the world, I hastily woke up, blushing a little, noticing Alice shaking my shoulder and Lab with his arms crossed behind her.

" Hey, you sleep like a donkey! You even kept your poor princess waiting. Get dressed, the headmaster is calling us."

I didn't try to understand any further, they had already waited for me long enough. I changed into clean clothes and walked to the headmaster's office with my only two friends. Lab was talking about a new sporting event on the way but I wasn't awake enough to follow the story. Yawns emanated from my mouth every five minutes. Lab being the tallest knocked on the door and one by one we walked in after hearing a muffled voice inviting us inside.

The director was sitting in his nice leather chair, accompanied by the psychologist from last night but also by a rather tall old man wearing a bowler hat and very stylish clothes, he reminded me of the gentlemen from England I had seen in books during my research. If he was an Englishman, could he be...?"

"Welcome to you children, I hope the awakening was not too abrupt, as you can see I am not alone. This is William."

William took his hat and placed it on his chest, bowing slightly in greeting, his eyes closed, a tender smile on his face. So he was the one sending me all these investigations from England, a small grin formed on my face. I had so much to show him, this was the perfect opportunity to repay his kindness.

"William is a lifelong friend of mine and the purpose of his coming here today is important. Children, your lives are going to change very soon."

Change? What would cause our lives to suddenly change? What had we done differently? The answer was simple. With the presence of the psychologist, it was clear that it had something to do with the IQ test. Were those pieces of paper enough to change our lives?

I hoped the change would be positive, did William want to adopt us? He seemed like a rich man, maybe he will offer us a more luxurious place to live in? Personally I liked our current orphanage, I felt free and the place was not lacking anything.

Lab and Alice tried to understand more by asking questions, they had come to similar conclusions with mine, but the director interrupted them and demanded silence. No one spoke any more, in a small fragile voice he asked the psychologist Jolyne to explain the situation.

"These are not common results, in fact they are a miracle. A simple presentation will be worth more than a long speech. Arumi, Alice, Lab, your test results are in. Your official IQs are as follows. Arumi: 230. Alice: 190. Lab: 140. All three of you are officially geniuses. I would even go so far as to say that this term is no longer sufficient to qualify Arumi and Alice's profiles..."

The psychologist struggled to finish her sentences, she was both excited and surprised, as if she had never seen anything like this. An IQ of 230, I didn't know what that meant at the time. I hadn't realized that this mysterious number was the beginning of my greatest adventure.

A/N : This first chapter is finally done. Starting is often one of the most difficult steps when writing a story, we really want to attract the reader's attention. I don't know if I did exactly that but I feel like I've layered this chapter enough for the upcoming story. I'll invite you to take notice of every element I present as nothing is written randomly, each line has its purpose. Thank you for reading this first chapter, reviews are always welcomed and I'll answer to each of them. I'll try to publish the next one during the week !

Here's a short question : what's your opinion on IQ tests ?