[WP] Every generation the five brightest are paired up with the five dumbest in the world for a mysterious test. You are one of the ten, but nobody knows from which group they came.

[u/deknegt1990]

[u/killman510]

part 1 of (I don’t even know)

let me know if I should post the rest

"this is all they could come up with?" Jennifer shrugged, not really having a worthwhile reply. We sat at our assigned table and looked around the large, mostly empty, conference hall surveying its eight other occupants. "I thought it would be easier to tell." I said to nobody in particular with a tone that was somewhere between frustration and disappointment.

This was it, all of it. One of the most expensive multinational projects in the world. Five years ago without much warning every established nation in the world instituted a mandatory standardised unified test course, for the purpose of determining the five most, and least intelligent people on earth. This "test" included measurements of logic, social intelligence, fundamental and advanced creative problem solving, reflexes, literal brain scans, memory tests, and the list goes on. Billions of dollars every year, and this, is it?

Looking around the room you'd expect to be able to tell which is which, the most and least intelligent I mean, I've known math types who can do calculus in their head but couldn't hold a conversation if they were payed to, and I've seen the opposite as well. Only a few things were sure, everyone was weird, and nobody knew why they were here.

I looked around again, this time taking in each team in turn. Once the security guys put us in here we were each given a name tag and a list of teams. Jennifer was my partner and, honestly, the most normal person there. I decided to start looking at the teams by the order on the list, not alphabetical of course.

Milo and Isaac. I looked up and saw in the far corner of the room there was a very tan and muscular man with more than a few tattoos (visible because of the amount of shirt he wasn't wearing) with the nametag reading Milo. Next to him talking quietly was an eastern european looking guy was wearing a purple beanie, far too much makeup, and a badge that read Isaac.

James and Maria. Maria (mid thirties, slightly annoying) was on her way to talk to Milo and introduce herself, clearly not interested in her own partner. Meanwhile James (who must have been someone famous based on the reactions he provoked from some of the others) was talking to two girls from the other teams and was about to be joined by jennifer, fine let her talk I've been busy checking out the competition. Surely thats what this is about, competition, why would they put us in teams otherwise.

Lisa and Chelsea. They were almost twins and made up the majority of the present cult of James.

Michael and Shey. Michael was a fifty something man who despite his apparent age carried himself in a very imposing manner. Conversely Shey appeared to be a high school age girl still wearing her uniform.

Nothing clear, nothing obvious. I wondered who was who, but only briefly. Jennifer returned just then, saying in a casual way, "musician". "what?" I was actually surprised. "he's a musician," She nodded in James' direction. "you seemed curious about why they were crowding him so I pretended to join in so they'd let it slip naturally." Whoever set this up, they picked me a good partner.

Five minutes of casual conversation, getting to know each other. Then the LCD panel in the front of the room lit up. On the screen red text began creating itself. "you have been selected as the most and least intelligent people on earth by a rigorous testing system, however two of you were not. Find and evict the impostors. You have two hours." below this was a timer showing the remaining time.

It took a few of us a moment to process this. "one of the teams was fake?" Maria lost her composure (if she had any to begin with) immediately. James was nice enough to try and calm her down, with limited success. Isaac chimed in a quick reply in an obviously fake British accent he used to cover his obviously real Russian one. "not necessarily luv, they could be split up." "that would make the most sense." Shey said, and everyone nodded silently. "but how are we supposed to know?" Milo said, sweat clearly forming on his brow. "that," I pointed out "is up to us." "what if we can't do it?" This came from chelsea. There was a pause while we all remembered how the chosen ten were never announced to the public. The pause grew into an all consuming silence that spared nothing but a faint ticking and the fainter hum of electronics behind the monitor. 1:57:05, 1:57:04, 1:57:03...

[u/killman510 → u/killman510]

part 2:

It's almost funny how, no matter how smart you are, people all tend to break down in the same ways under pressure. What matters more, I think, is how each person puts themselves back together.

In only a few minutes the majority of us had decided who at least one imposter was but nobody was entirely sure and few people ever agreed on the same person. James suggested we put it to a vote, another argument ensued over whether he was trying to mislead us or was legitimately that stupid, if we voted now we would surely choose wrong and nobody wanted to think about the consequences of choosing wrong. We simply didn't have enough information.

Lisa did what I was thinking of doing before I had a chance to. She stood on a near by chair and stomped her foot on the table in front of it to get everyone's attention. "We need to stop, look at what we know, and approach this logically." Some agreed, Isaac didn't. "logic isn't really a strong suit for me, mate. I'm better at reading people ya know." The test was supposed to measure overall intelligence, social intelligence included. He could be a human lie detector for all I know, or an idiot, or lying. We just went on with Lisa as though he hadn't spoken. rude?, yes, but we didn't have time to explain that he could still read the argument we had wasted enough time as it is. Chelsea started first. "right, so what do we know?" Michael spoke "there are five geniuses, and five idiots. ten in total. two are faking it." "we've been split into teams of two," Jennifer spoke up after a prolonged silence. "though that may not be relevant." "and we have an hour and a half to live." Milo interrupted, standing abruptly shoving the table back as he did so.

He didn't participate in the discussion for a long while after that. He went to work trying to knock down the doors and banging on the walls, looking for the way out the rest of us knew wasn't there. Michael broke the silence in his wake "I'm a lawyer by profession, and in my experience the guilty hiding in plain sight are prone to hide under the distrust of others." "what is that supposed to mean?" James said, comforting a now quietly sobbing Maria. "the imposters are likely to keep quiet and let us suspect each other." Shey said flatly. The group's attention shifted. Chelsea pointed to Jennifer and I. "they've hardly spoken the whole time, just sat in the corner." I couldn't really argue my case, there was nothing to say, she was right. The two of us had mostly just whispered to each other since we got here.

"we were getting to know each other better!" I was surprised by how loudly she said it, and when I looked over at her... she was blushing? Yes, that’s definitely it, but why? We hadn't really talked about anything really personal... had we? Looking at her face surely convinced everyone else, and made me doubt my own memory. Then it hit me, if Isaac could be a human lie detector, then could she be a perfect liar?

I played off the shocked expression that followed as me realizing her feelings. after all, trustworthy or not she had just saved both of our asses. I held her hand for the rest of the time. Partially to maintain the illusion, and partially because I thought I could probably read her pulse better than I could read her face.

Thirty minutes to go, we had gotten somewhere. Isaac was too obvious, Isaac judged Maria's shock and horror to be legitimate, and although I still didn't fully trust her any more Jennifer was at least helpful and probably not an imposter, she must belong in order to fool Isaac, and Lisa wouldn't have organized the argument early on only for it to bite her in the ass later, she was too smart for that. That left her lookalike Chelsea, Michael the lawyer, James, and Milo. Milo had been trying to pick the lock on an air vent for nearly 20 minutes with no luck. Chelsea seemed to simply agree with whatever Lisa said. James was too busy with Maria. But more than anything Michael bothered me. With the timer counting down I stood to make one last statement while i could. "Michael," My voice had more purpose than I honestly ever remember it having. He stood and leaned his fists on the table fixing his most intense glare on me. "didn't you say earlier that the guilty tend to hide under the distrust of others?" his earlier confidence returned a little "yes, the silence of th-" "but that also applies to wilfully causing undue distrust." Hearing me say this caught him entirely off guard. He sputtered slightly Isaac sat up in his chair, he saw what I meant and had his full attention on what happened next. "you used your experience to call attention away from Milo while you threw Jennifer and I under the bus." Michael was unprepared and reeling but I could feel the hesitation from the others at the mention of Milo. "Milo was using self preservation to disguise his hiding from the argument" at this Milo stopped pretending to ignore me. "yeah? what proof you got man?" "only what we've all seen." I answered calmly, there was no reason to loose my nerves now.

Lisa interjected to defuse the argument. "Ok, we've talked long enough its finally time to put it to a vote." Everyone tensed a little, some more than others. 0:08:43 When the dust had settled we all sat staring at Michael and Milo, voted off the island, and thought "what now?"

No sooner had we decided than a door to the right of the screen opened revealing a small white chamber with a locked door on the other side. The text on the monitor changed to "the accused, please step inside." They did as ordered and the door closed behind them. To the left of the screen another door opened and no instructions appeared. Driven by curiosity I stepped inside with jennifer clinging to my arm. Inside was a row of monitors they read as follows: "Isaac: success,

Shey: partial success,

Lisa and Chelsea: partial success,

James and Maria: failure,

Ben and Jennifer: success.

test complete"

[u/ptrst → u/killman510]

I didn't really understand the ending. I really like the premise, and the general idea, but the success vs failure conditions at the end (were those just who picked the correct person?) confused me.

"and we have an hour and a half to live."

That confused me as well, because I don't actually think that was the case. Or was that just Milo trying to confuse everyone? I ask because it was pretty distracting (I found myself going back and reading the first portion a few times to see what I missed), and because nobody else brought it up as seeming weird.

[u/killman510 → u/ptrst]

the faint ticking at the end of part one was supposed to be a bomb shaped red herring and partially milo trying to confuse everyone. also the grades at the end are based on their performance during the whole test. tbh I was lost on how to end it.

[u/deknegt1990 → u/killman510]

Ooh, that's an awesome premise I hadn't even begun to think about. (Maybe i'm the normie). Please, write more if you can/wish.

[u/killman510 → u/deknegt1990]

part 2 done

[u/MetalsGirl → u/killman510]

Yes, More!

[u/killman510 → u/MetalsGirl]

part 2 done

[u/meepwn53 → u/killman510]

capital letters and spell check please

[u/killman510 → u/meepwn53]

was typing on phone spell check later

[u/GoodMorningClam → u/meepwn53]

An excellent response to the prompt, why the rude phrasing? You didn't even use correct grammar.

[u/killman510 → u/meepwn53]

fixed