The Genii Games - Chapter 1: Outwit

Micah Evergreen is a kid that has aged 12 and he is currently living in a middle-income family. Not much is known about him other than he is under constant surveillance by several criminal agencies such as Federal Bureau Intelligence and Criminal Investigation Agency. He has intelligence beyond average minors. – KIJ

Graham mused, " He is only 12 and already under constant surveillance…"

Oliver Green replied using rhetoric, "If he is nobody, would they invite dear Micah Evergreen to Genii Games?"

"Genii Games is an event inviting geniuses from all over the world to participate in a competition, that is trying to source for the crème de la crop within the group of geniuses invited," Graham replied thoughtfully.

"No – that is just what they want you to think, Graham. The real motive is probably to prove that genius or not, all human are the same." Oliver counteracted Graham's reply.

"Oh," This was all Graham could muster in a reply after the refutation by his charge, Oliver Green.

Twenty minutes ago, Micah Evergreen opened his mailbox and found a letter addressed to him. He opened it and found the contents within the letter. a little too friendly to be true. Nevertheless, the contents go on like this:
Dear Micah Evergreen, I am agent Zeus sending this letter of invitation to the Genii Games to you. The Genii Games is a game in which Geniuses from all over the world would be gathered to participate in our once in a lifetime competition to outwit the wits of every Genius! May you be the winner! For more details on how to join, kindly flip to the next page, thanks.

This is definitely a peculiar trap that is trying to ensnare me, Micah thought curiously, as he turned over to the next page to read up more information about the Genii Games.

"The words are definitely are –" before Micah could complete his sentence, someone behind assaulted him with an electroshock weapon, which zapped him unconscious in no time.

Currently, Micah regained consciousness to find himself in an infrastructure that he would not be able to afford using legal means. A majestic building surrounded with beguiling lights held in place by domes of various shape and sizes coupled with furnishing that is unparalleled and superior compared to those at his home. Nevertheless, he stood up and strode pompously towards the gargantuan dining hall, as though he was impervious to the spectacular renaissance architecture.

Suddenly a loud sound boomed throughout the entire area, projecting a certain speech by Agent Zeus: "Welcome Geniuses to the Genii Games, the one and only game that will only have participants that have intelligence over 200, I am Zeus, the agent, that will be hosting the first segment of Genii
Games, Outwit."

A genius from Pakistan, Freed Abdul, made the following comment, which made a lasting impression in the minds of all the other geniuses (or Genii) afterwards: "This is Bullshit! If my father was here, I would have sent whoever you are, to the pits of the torture chamber!"

"Wow that is certainly appalling, especially when that comment is from a fellow, civilised genius in this game." Oliver made a snide comment.

"I think he is suffering from a sudden lapse of Child Genius Syndrome, Oliver." Graham responded to his principal's comment.

"Ha-ha! Spare me your witticisms, Graham," Oliver crushed Graham's confidence with words of flawless simplicity.

"Outwit? What is agenda of this game segment?" Micah asked another fellow Genius while Graham was busy finding words to match the wits of his principal.

"You make my life insufferable sometimes, Oliver, especially to participate in this Genii Game. Your father was highly disagreeable to such an act of defiance," Graham matched wits with Oliver.

"Ah. Thanks a lot, Graham, for the compliment. I realized how this game, Outwit is played," Oliver defeated Graham with ease, as expected of a genius.

At this time, many geniuses were starting to regain their consciousness. Some geniuses woke up, muttering some unknown tongue while some just scanned the entire area, probably looking for an escape route. The others just confined themselves to a corner – to take some breather and observe all other competitors and analyse them thoroughly.

Agent Zeus projected his voice again: "My guess would be most of the geniuses that were sleeping are probably awake and would want to know the game and rules they would be playing indeed?"

A genius from England, Fabio Squire answered Agent Zeus's question with a tinge of boredom: "Please get on with whatever you are trying to tell us, seriously, whoever you are."

Agent Zeus apparently managed to hear his comment because he continued with his longwinded reply: "Fabio Squire, one of the many geniuses that hail from England, a pesky technology hijacker using the pseudonym: Han Cure. To relieve your boredom, I would get straight to the point. There is a palmtop in every single one of your pockets and also all the technology that you had with you previously are not touched. Please kindly type G-A-M-E onto your palmtop for more information on the game you would be participating."

Minutes ago, prior to Agent Zeus and Fabio Squire's little showdown, Micah discovered the palmtop in his trouser pocket minutes and decoded and assimilated the palmtop's information into his thick and bulky multi-purpose phone.

Micah's phone have functions that probably would prove to be a godsend in any situation, especially when you are in a competition that requires you to outwit others with only a phone, and a useless palmtop that only have superfluous information.

In mere seconds, the security encryption that protects the surveillances and building's readings had been compromised, as Micah use his phone to decrypt the AES encryption of the building.

Currently, Micah repeated the readings of this building via his specialty – espionage work, "I see… Therefore, we are in a building known as United Technologies Corporation… We are located in United States, the capital city of Connecticut, Hartford. Coordinates of this place are 41.767°N and 72.677°W."

Freed Abdul overheard Micah's comment and agitatedly replied: "We are definitely not in United States –I am assured of this fact!"

This fact was evidently acknowledged by Micah, who tapped into an ACME Satellite to confirm that credibility of the building's readings. The satellite- application on Micah's phone popped up this information: Untraceable.

Micah kept his palmtop into the large and seemingly bottomless pockets of his Jeans and re-read the information on the game again on his powerful phone. The information was: Trick your entire opponent into revealing the information that they have received such as where would you find food in the building etc. The information that you are holding is 'irrelevance or nothing'.

That is why, Micah decided to formulate a little plan such as revealing, that he knows the coordinates of the building to entice people to come over.

Human beings tend to have a personality akin to those of the sheep and as there are a crowd of genii gathered here, manipulating their movements would be much easier due to large-scale herd's effect. The herd's effect is the tendency to copy others to ensure that you are not left out. This affects almost all humans on Earth, even if you are a genius.

This is Micah's plan A. With plan A, there would always be a drastic plan B, a backup plan, that Micah hoped that he would not need to execute it. 'Hope' often means having miracles on your side and sadly, miracles happen to be anti-social in nature.

Geniuses began to swarm over to Micah as they realised that he may be the guiding light to success for them in the first segment of the Genii Games.

The next part of plan A was to forge alliances with some (if not all) of the genii heading towards his direction. Micah popped the question: "Do you guys want to trade information to win this foolish game? Shall we form an alliance only for the sake of winning?"

There was a chorus of murmurings among the crowd of prodigies. A child prodigy among them approached Micah directly, ignoring the huge hocus-pocus occurring among the geniuses.

"My name is Alex Stockholm, a middle school student. Your name would be?" Alex introduced himself to Micah politely.

Micah answered amicably, "Mister Alex is it? My name is Micah Evergreen and I am also a middle school student."

Alex eyed Micah sceptically and asked, "You do have some information on this building, I would presume?"

Micah went straight to the point, as it would be pointless to beat around the bush, "Yes, Mister Alex. So you want to trade information or form an alliance?"

"I would prefer to strictly trading of information only, Mr. Evergreen." Alex answered promptly without a moment of hesitation.

"So would you please take out your palmtop, so as I would take out mine to trade information." Micah directed Alex.

"Of course, Mr. Evergreen, here's mine palmtop." Alex took out his palmtop waiting for Micah to trade his.

Micah took out his palmtop and traded for Alex's palmtop after prompting by Alex Stockholm. Micah took less than 5 seconds to analyse and comprehend the crux of Alex's information. He questioned Alex Stockholm to confirm: "So yours is about where is the food kept… in the kitchen uh?"

Alex was shocked by Micah's question. He was startled by Micah's inhumanly fast perceptive aptitude to obtain information from a lengthy and wordy passage. Micah only received his palmtop at approximately 4.35 seconds ago!

Even in a state of shock, Alex managed to revert to his original composure within seconds and fired a question back at Micah, "How did you know?"

What Micah answered was slightly ambiguous and what normal people would deem as conceited, "Can't help it, I am a genius."

Alex controlled his impulsive propensity to reply and he went on immediately to check Micah's palmtop for information to be on par with Micah, 1-1. To his dismay, the palmtop displayed Micah's given information as, 'irrelevance or nothing'. Alex almost lost it altogether but being a genius, he thought of most (if not all) of the angles, on the various ways to synthesise this information.

Alex decided to give it a shot, by assuming that this was all the information, Micah had. Alex formulated an impressively fail proof plan – it would either devastate Micah or tarnish the credibility of Micah. This would ruin all Micah's hope in trading of information or forming alliances.

This would have been a good thing for Alex, if only Micah had not already thought of a counter plan to foil Alex's seemingly perfect plan. Micah loved playing, both Reversi and Chess, and he had never lost even once.

At this particular moment, Alex began to execute his plans by 'socialising' with every single genius in this game segment, Outwit.

Meanwhile, Micah was also executing his plan A, which was fortified using his current knowledge. He blended in with the crowd of geniuses, strutted as quietly as possible to the kitchen, and ransacked for food.

Micah's plan A was to grab any dry store in the kitchen and reallocate it to another place and burn everything else in it, including the kitchen itself. After Micah had reallocated the dry store, he set fire to the kitchen, which was contained within the kitchen due to the fireproof door separating the kitchen from the main hall. This sent the entire kitchen ablaze with scorching flames.

All the geniuses was musing at the blazing kitchen, probably contemplating when was the fire going to be doused by the sprinklers, which unfortunately, had been disabled by Micah beforehand.

Micah made his move by speaking brusquely to all the other participants: "I have burnt all the food storage in the kitchen and set aside some dry store for myself. To whoever that require food for survival; if you need food, feel free to give me all your information or all awaits you is starvation."

That little speech had an astounding effect on all the other geniuses, slowly but surely the brunt of the speech is pervading their brains and they realised their only means of survival is to surrender their information to Micah.

Micah slowly walked towards Alex Stockholm and whispered into his ears "How the tables have changed, Mister Alex."

"He is a pretty good schemer, that Micah Evergreen," Oliver commented to Graham.

"I fully agree. This is what we call: you control the stomach, you control the person," Graham agreed with Oliver's comment.

"Humans are just so weak, just like me. Looks like I would be surrendering my information too," Oliver lamented on his debility.

"I would be accompanying you – in any case you would need to settle some people using brute force." Graham loyally replied.

Oliver questioned Graham rhetorically, "Are you suggesting that we use untowardly measures to such an intelligent kid, Graham?"

Graham, who has worked with Oliver for a very long period, had long established a basic understanding on the rationale behind such questions that Oliver asks. Graham replied, "I believe you already have, Oliver."

As Graham expected, Oliver indeed have plans to turn the tables. Oliver strutted briskly over to the moving genii crowd and simply beguiled them with these words, "If I were you guys, I would think twice about that person's promise. I am not sure he would even keep to its promise."

The crowd stopped, as if Oliver had enchanted them, they turned towards Oliver. Oliver simply added on, "That guy over there apparently cheated information from Alex Stockholm. I do not really think he is very trustworthy and would not renege on his promises. Besides, extorting the location of the dry store using force seems much more apt then trading precious information to him."

Alex knew a lifeline when there was one dangling in front of him waiting for him to grab hold of it. Alex made an impacting speech, "That guy, tricked me into trading my information of the kitchen to him for a useless piece of information. I think he is just trying to trick all of you into believing his ruse and giving your information to him willingly."

However, that speech only managed to retain a handful of prodigies. The others were making their way towards Micah. Apparently, before Oliver had made his decisive speech, Micah had already released false information to inhibit Alex's schemes.

Moments ago, Micah spread rumours that his original information was actually the information of the location of the food's whereabouts. This rumours effectively destroyed the flowery speech that Alex had prepared in a bid to convince the crowd of geniuses.

Suddenly, the lights of the building flicked out and darkness claimed the building. Seconds later, the lighting in the building resumed their functions and the integrity of the light was recovered. The crowd advancing towards Micah stopped as they realised that Micah had mysteriously disappeared. Oliver made his move.

Oliver proclaimed loudly to the crowd of genii, which unnerved them, "All of you standing here are DOOMED!"

The crowd lay stupefied by that comment, as though doomsday had been fast-forwarded, which in this scenario, it certainly have this effect. Only a handful resiliently walked towards Oliver.

Alex Stockholm certainly did not like this. A new forceful and efficient adversary would be the last thing he wanted after facing Micah, whom triumph him successfully in an intellectual battle. He was one of the few handfuls of geniuses that headed towards Oliver.

At the same time,
while Oliver was executing his plans, Micah realised that he was tied and trapped in a dark and desolate room. He fired his anxieties at his masked kidnapper, "Who are you and why are you binding my hands and legs?"

The masked kidnapper took out his mask and revealed a familiar face, which Micah recognised instantly. Micah queried for his identity, "You are, Graham one of the participant, isn't it? You are using foul means to win huh?"

"It's still a means to win, since you did the same by burning the kitchen," Graham answered stoically.

Micah glared scornfully at Graham and commented, "I see… You probably want me to reveal the hiding place of the dry store right?"

"Yes that would be appropriate, Micah Evergreen," Graham replied Micah emotionlessly.

"There's no dry store. I simply fabricated this tale to hoodwink the other prodigies into doing my bidding," Micah answered with so much conviction that any unknowing bystanders would have believed it.

However, Graham remained unfazed and quizzed Micah, "Hmm… Do you really think I would believe that half-hearted lie?"

"Probably not, but hopefully the participants in the hall are enjoying the sauna I have prepared dutifully," Micah answered with dripping sarcasm.

Graham suddenly looked unduly worried and asked Micah haphazardly: "What did you do?"

"Oh nothing, just playing with a little fire that's all," Micah playfully replied.

Without any deliberations, Graham dashed out of the room with a fire extinguisher in hand. While Graham was running out of the room, Micah was busy using his phone's miniature laser to burn the cords binding him.

Currently, Oliver was just trying to fire his fiery speeches when Graham suddenly rushed out of nowhere, holding a fire extinguisher. Graham was shocked to see that there was no fire. He was even more started to see Oliver unscathed with a face spelling a-n-g-e-r, that he would not thought he would live to see it.

"Oliver, there is no fire?" Graham questioned his principal before preparing himself to endure one hell of a suffering from his principal.

"Firstly, there is no fire whatsoever. Lastly, you have utterly ruined my plans," Oliver spoke composedly.

"Oh, that's bad," Graham replied imperviously as the crowd of geniuses surged forward prepared to fight the man bulk and the scheming fox, Graham and Oliver respectively.

Alex used the power of suggestion to instigate all the geniuses into using force to coerce Oliver and Graham to reveal the location of Micah, whom apparently knows the location of the food. Only four people escaped its tenacity. They are Freed Abdul, Linda Quaint from Hong Kong, and Michael Jones from Israel and Cain Timothy from Malaysia.

"This is hilariously stupid; especially when all these geniuses are being manipulated like dummies, heeding the advices and suggestions of these perhaps more perceptive geniuses," Freed made a snide comment, which nullified the commotion.

All the prodigies suddenly stopped advancing towards Oliver and Graham; instead, they started to laugh profusely. One of the geniuses suddenly stood out among the crowd to clear matters up.

He fired a thought-provoking question to Freed, "Oh, so we, the geniuses are the fools now, are we? Are we that dumb?"

"No, that's not what Freed meant, my dear." Linda gave a menacing glare to that genius.

"I see, you guys formed an alliance beforehand isn't it? Ha-ha!" Oliver simply added a rhetorical question.

"Yes, we did. Only you guys, the pathetic fools tried to mislead us. We just made use of the opportunity opened to us," That genius answered Oliver.

"May I have the pleasure to know your name?" Oliver asked a simple question.

"Sure, my name is De Vane Kruption." He introduced himself amicably.

Before Oliver managed to reply, Micah made his debut once again. The sound amplifier installed in the entire building boomed aloud.

"You guys have undeniably lost. Give me the information that you people have on this game by forming an information chart containing everything that you have. I believe a flow chart or a mind-map can summarize all the information indeed? Based on the intelligence that you all must have, I trust that you guys would want to live?" Micah projected his voice clearly.

"I see. How did you use the amplifier in this building?" Oliver simply quizzed his palmtop.

Micah did not reply, instead a large projector started to unfold itself from the ceiling. Micah's facial features surfaced on the projector and the sound amplifier started to play again.

"Hmm, you guys better hurry before your stomach takes control over your senses," Micah hurried them with a jovial tone.

The stomach of the competitors finally gave way, and adrenaline started to pump fast from their brains to other parts of their body. Even De Vane is starting to feel the wrath of his stomach. This is probably what people would call the revenge of the stomach.

The geniuses started to work together to form a flow chart since now they cannot form a plan to deal with Micah, since his physically not even here.

Behind the scenes, Micah was having his dinner using the dry store that he had reallocated in the kitchen. This is probably the only place, which nobody would suspect and enter to find him, since technically he had burnt the kitchen down.

At a different place, the different agents were having a discussion on the first game, Outwit. Agent Zeus was the first to voice out his idea since he was technically the agent-in-charge of it.

Agent Zeus remarked on Micah's performance, "This is incredible. I have never expected a boy of 12 years old to formulate such an incredible plan just by having known where the food is located. Furthermore, he just accessed a few information on the structure on the building which was half-true and half planted by us, he formed a plan to win undetected. He is definitely worthy to be called a Genius!"

"Incredulous, a kid forming such scheming plans. Then again, if he was not someone of a certain calibre he wouldn't have his chance in Genii Games," another agent made a perfunctory comment on Micah's performance.

"The winner is almost decided in this game, why for call this meeting?" the third agent lamented.

"Obviously it is to decide the next venue of the second segment of the Genii Games, Miss Agent Velle," Agent Zeus counteracted her lamentation.

"Here are the blueprints for the next venue. It is also another dilapidated zone which cannot be traced by satellites," an agent wearing a SWAT uniform with Liam embedded as its initials reported.

"Oh, thank you for preparing such exquisite and illustrious information, Agent Liam," a fancifully dressed agent openly thanked Agent Liam for his helpfulness.

"You're welcome, Agent Sabrina." Agent Liam appreciated her thankfulness.

While the agents are conversing, Oliver and Graham were also having a little chat with Freed Abdul and Linda Quaint.

Oliver questioned them, "So, Freed and Linda is it? Do you guys want a little alliance?"

"You guys better make the right choice or else the end of life awaits you," Graham continued Oliver's speech gruffly.

Threatened by a human bulk is not something fun, especially when that human bulk is threatening to end your life if you make a wrong choice. In this case, the wrong choice would be rejecting Oliver's proposal to form an alliance.

Freed and Linda made their decision almost immediately, they agreed to Oliver's decision to preserve their lives.

Micah pre-empted dissenters among the group of genii he have in control and already created a counter plan way before the alliance was in place among Oliver, Graham, Freed and Linda. Not counting those geniuses that had already made an alliance beforehand, and two lone wolfs, Michael Jones and Cain Timothy.

Micah decided to exploit the building's goodness until the end. He projected his voice again, this time with an absolute threat, "I am getting impatient for waiting so long. In another 10 minutes, the dining hall would release sulphur dioxide that would end the lives of every one of you. Do not bother escaping from the dining hall, I have already remote locked every single door and entrance to the different rooms. There is NO escape unless you guys can expedite the formation of the flow chart?"

This was the last straw and everybody decided to try all the doors first, to ensure that the threat was not some false threat to manipulate them. To their dismay, the doors refuse to budge regardless of the method they use – physically, mentally and technologically.

Resigned to their fates, the Genii including Oliver were losing their composure. The stalemate is over and now the odds are with Micah. With no other choice, they sped up the process of making the flow chart. Within minutes, it was ready and the genii discovered a shocking revelation.

The entire message when formed into a sentence after breaking the words into basic-alphabets are as such: I am Agent Zeus, technically in-charge of this game, Outwit. I trust that once you guys read this, this game would have been at least be in control by a certain genius or geniuses. Once this first segment of the Genii Games is over, the winner or winners will receive the first-hand advantage on the rules and regulation of the next segment of the game, Banished. The segments of these games are already pre-determined, so do not worry it will not be never-ending. Enjoy!

Before any genius can claim that, they are the winner, Micah had already remote-activated the building's airflow system into releasing a potent sleeping gas, Sevoflourane. Within seconds, all the geniuses in the dining hall had been incapacitated.

Furthermore, due to Micah's paranoid and cautious nature, he activated the airflow system in other rooms to release Sevoflourane too, which incapacitated a human that was lurking in one of the rooms. Graham Vicario, the bodyguard of Oliver Green.

Micah's theory that Graham was bodyguard to Oliver Green was affirmed when Graham rushed out of the room, past caring about whether his captive was escaping or not. Hence, he trusted his gut feelings that at least Graham would access one of the rooms in attempt to locate him and to hide from the sulphur dioxide if it happens to be true.

"This is too easy," Micah said conceitedly as he used his phone to download the information.

The winner indeed was Micah in the first segment of the Genii Games but also not without proof either. Oliver had planted six surveillance miniature cameras in the dining hall on his own to record everything that had transpired. The cameras covered all angles.

The geniuses and Graham finally woke up in the dining hall after being unconscious for a few hours. Agent Zeus must have detected their movement as he made an announcement using the sound amplifier, "In this segment of the Genii Games, Micah is hereby declared as the winner. Furthermore, for those who have been starved for several hours, we have prepared a sumptuous meal for all of your to sample and of course to eat. In perhaps another hour or so, we would be transporting you guys to our next venue to continue the next segment of the Genii Games, so sit back and enjoy the meal!"

Upon hearing that there was meal prepared, all the geniuses and Graham were past caring about their social etiquettes and made a beeline for the food. The food prepared for their meal was laced with potent sleeping pills. Hence after the geniuses and Graham consumed all their food, they fell asleep almost immediately.

Credits to my good friend, who helped me edit the convulsive and abhorrent grammatical and structural errors.