salute [h.s]

piper proved people wrong with her intelligence

the five times that Piper proved people wrong with her intelligence (and the one time she was bested by a tv remote)

1.

"What sort of research are you most excited about conducting here at the Secret Intelligence Service?"

Piper probably shouldn't have been eavesdropping on the S branch orientation session but she'd been walking to the lounge and just happened upon all the young recruits sitting around. They all seemed so excited about having an avenue for their scientific research, bright-eyed about the potential improvement they could see in their careers. Piper remembered being like that once. Until MI6 had sucked out her soul.

She'd always been a little bitter that she'd been stuck in T branch to start when there were other agents who were fast-tracked straight into S branch and Q branch. Why wasn't she good enough to begin working in the research labs right away? Why had she been relegated to phone duty? She was just as good as these recruits.

"I think that I'd like to explore the human mind. I've been theorizing about chemical compounds that might improve that limitation on human brain capacity, you know? How we only use 10% of our brains? I think we can move past that and with the right chemical compounds we can unlock the unused parts of our mind that could have so much potential."

Right, so she was officially better than these recruits and now she was bitter.

She intended to walk right past the group but a voice calling out stopped her. "Hey, you work here, right?"

She looked over at the group of young eager faces (actually, now that she really looked quite a few of them were older eager faces) and forced on a smile. "Yes, I do. I'm a junior agent in T branch."

Someone rolled their eyes at the mention of T branch but Piper did her best to ignore the ignorant sod and focused on the young gentleman that was talking to her. "Admit it, it would be really cool if we could unlock the brain like that right? Like, my idea is sort of brilliant."

One thing Piper had always hated about scientists is that they thought they were the be all and end all, and that everything that came out of their mouths was fucking gold. Maybe she would have been nicer if he hadn't added, "It's these ideas that get you a spot in S branch where the real action happens."

"Your entire theory circulates around the ten percent of brain myth that is widely acknowledged but fundamentally incorrect." The young man's face fell, his brow crunching together confused as Piper continued. "There is no untapped portion of our brains - we use almost all of our grey and white matter for some purpose. There is no area that isn't being utilized that you can discover. The idea that has led to this misconception is that we can't use all of our brain all at once. Activating all the neural centres at once would ultimately lead to a seizure."

The young gentleman sat there with his mouth hanging open and his colleagues didn't fair much better. They all looked between each other, absolutely shocked. One of them, a timid looking girl cleared her throat and said, "I have a Masters in neuroscience and she's right. Just so you know."

Piper smiled at the woman, giving her an appreciative nod before narrowing her eyes at the arrogant gentleman. "If you ever want to talk about real science, I have a Ph.D in computational science and engineering and I would love to chat about it with you, maybe teach you a little something or two. Just venture down to T branch, that hole in the ground where all of us waste our time typing while the "real action" is happening up here. Lovely talking to you. Cheers."

Piper gave him a sarcastic wave and then sauntered off toward the lounge to get the tea she'd come for in the first place. Behind her, she could hear the other recruits snickering as the arrogant arsehole stuttered for words.