Don't Tell Him He's In Love With A Genius

:Genius: Chapter Twenty Nine

For the next hour and a half, the letter from the IGE burned a hole in my pocket. Throughout the time Dr. Boyd was training the Gifted Champions I could hear the faint crinkle in my pocket with each movement. Mack had explained that when we leave for the ADEPT we had to leave at different times.

And Mack was of course taking the ADEPT Test. The age range was from 9 to 65, ending the retirement age for British citizens. Many of the regulations were held to a British standard because the ADEPT test was co-founded by Harriet McCeath, a descendent of the founder of McCeath (the other founder of adept, if you're curious was a Japanese pirate by the name of Madam Ching and while the Japanese culture is fully incorporated into ADEPT, it's a silent agreement by England and Japan's elite that we just use 'Japanese founder' as nobody wants to recognise one of the defining woman in education testing was actually a murderous pirate).

Of course, when McCeath had first introduced it the regulations were very different. Surprisingly, given the history of change in the scientific and academic community (see: any of the scientists in the past x amount of years who were stoned, burned, or shunned for their views), constant change to the regulations of the ADEPT test was welcomed. Though, supposing that a woman who never married and a Japanese pirate lord had invented it, a step from the norm is not really a surprise.

Mack would be accompanying the Gifted Champions as they went to England for the final. I would be leaving beforehand. Austin and Lucy had planned the six months check in with a social worker via a skype call, but Mack had managed to swing a trip to England so the two could watch the Gifted Champions the week after. Usually in the English adoption process, staying in the country is a huge issue until the social workers are sure of the family, but a quick use of Mack's Spy Basics let me into the files and I realised that the Orphanage I was at, despite it's apparent prestige, was incredibly corrupt.

It's always the rich ones.

(If some of the residents of the orphanage were mysteriously offered places at very nice boarding schools around the country, one being a certain child who had a book dedicated to her, well, that's nobody's business).

Anyway, as a teacher Austin, writer and well known in his field, he had gathered the funds to bribe the hell out of the orphanage. Hence the fact that I was shipped off to California within a couple of months of knowing them.

Seriously, they could have been like, killers or mercenaries. Oh, or bad parents.

Lucy is pretty much always texting me very mom things like 'wear a sweater' even the temperatures are higher than peak summer temperatures in England, and Austin has apparent high expectations for me. So eh, they couldn't be that bad, right?

Anyway, I deviate. Going back to England means seeing Lily again, and Catherine, and maybe even Harley would schedule me in in between trying to sell my books. I mean, her being my publisher and it being so close to the deadlines to get the final draft ready for printing, we had been skyping, calling, and thank god for One Drive, but seeing her in person would be fun.

Damn it, I was even missing Daniel, the stupid St Philips child.

God, McCeath's is probably dying on the sport fields without me.

I glanced up to see if Dr Boyd or Anton was looking, before reaching for my phone and throwing out a quick text to Lily, asking how my beloved football team was doing, before turning the volume on silent and placing it face up on the desk next to my notebook.

I saw Anton frown and raise his eyebrow from the corner of my eye, and skilfully avoided looking that way.

She replied just as the period bell rang, and I turned to put away the notebook I was doodling in before checking her response.