The Melancholy of the Naturally Gifted

In a private study at the far end of the Cambridge University library, Kiryū Haruka gazed at the afternoon light pouring through the window. In the silence, surrounded by old leather-bound volumes, her thoughts roamed to the edge of the universe. She had meant to be contemplating the nonlocality of quantum entanglement, yet before she knew it her consciousness had wandered into another labyrinth—the far more complex, unmeasurable phenomenon of human intelligence.

“Talent may be a curse,” she murmured.

The voice echoed quietly through the empty room.

Even now, at twenty-five, Haruka could not understand why her mind worked the way it did. From earliest childhood, the world had been to her a collection of transparent, beautiful patterns. Equations rang like poetry; the laws of physics flowed like music. Why what others found difficult seemed self-evident to her—that was the greatest mystery of all.

On the desk lay an invitation from the World Intelligence Council. The weighty texture of the envelope and the intricate crest pressed into its gold wax seal spoke to the document’s importance. But what drew Haruka’s interest was not its outward dignity—it was the subtle tension woven into the wording.

“Closed consultation regarding the Cognitive Gap Rectification Protocol.”

She took up the invitation and traced the words again. Behind the beautifully printed lines she sensed the foreboding of the most important turning point in human history. This was no mere invitation to a policy meeting. It was a summons to a place of judgment that would decide the future of beings like her—the spontaneously arising geniuses called the Naturally Gifted.

Haruka’s memory returned to her fifth birthday. That day she had asked her mother: “Why does the rainbow have seven colors? Why not eight?” Smiling, her mother answered, “That’s the way nature decided it.” But Haruka knew intuitively that the answer was incomplete. The number of colors in a rainbow depends on the observer’s perceptual system; it is in fact no more than an arbitrary division of a continuous spectrum. At seven she understood the wavelength properties of light; at nine she had read through Newton’s theory of color.

But as her knowledge grew, the world around her began to look strangely warped. The mathematics problems her classmates struggled with felt to her as natural as breathing. At first her teachers marveled at her ability; then they grew bewildered, and at last afraid. By twelve, understanding university-level physics, Haruka felt herself losing any common language with children her own age.

“Is loneliness the destiny of genius?”

She rose and walked to the bookshelf. There stood the works of the great scientists of the past. Einstein, Hawking, Madame Curie—every one of them had known the experience of being cut off from the world by their towering intellect. But between their age and the present, the situation differed fundamentally.

In this year of 2035, genius was no longer a matter of chance or nature’s gift; it had become a designable product. Through designer-baby technology, parents could order their child’s intelligence. Through cognitive-enhancement drugs, even an average person could temporarily attain genius-level thought. Through AI-symbiosis systems, the human brain could connect directly to an external artificial intelligence and think as a collective mind.

In such an age of technological revolution, spontaneous geniuses like Haruka—the Naturally Gifted—were no longer rare. Or rather, to put it precisely, they had become rare in a different sense: as “pure” intellects, not artificially produced, not designed, not enhanced.

Haruka gazed out the window. The old stone architecture of Cambridge was lit by the setting sun. For centuries, the finest minds of humankind had devoted themselves to learning in this place. But now the very nature of that traditional intellectual pursuit was being called into question.

Within her brain, several streams of thought ran in parallel. Like a quantum superposition, different possibilities existed at once. In one stream she was constructing a mathematical model of the Cognitive Gap Rectification Protocol. In another she was deepening a philosophical inquiry into the meaning of her own existence. And in a third she was predicting the psychological profiles of the other geniuses she would meet at the coming assembly.

“If every human being possessed the same level of intelligence, would the world become a better place?”

This question was the most important one for Haruka. On the surface, eliminating the cognitive gap sounded appealing. If the class disparities born of intelligence vanished, perhaps a more equal and just society would be realized. But Haruka’s intuition warned of another possibility.

The principle of diversity. In every complex system, from biology to sociology, diversity is the wellspring of adaptability and creativity. If humanity’s cognitive diversity were lost, would that not mean evolutionary stagnation for the species? To Haruka, the Cognitive Gap Rectification Protocol looked like a well-intentioned process of zombifying humankind.

She returned to her desk and took up her pen. On the paper she began to write a complex equation—not a formula of physics, but an attempt to quantify the creative potential that the diversity of human intelligence brings. The variables were countless, the interactions nonlinear, prediction all but impossible. And yet she sought the beautiful pattern hidden within this chaos.

Suddenly there was a knock at the study door. Haruka looked up.

“Haruka, good work today.”

It was Tanaka, her research assistant. Twenty-eight, he had temporarily attained intelligence equivalent to an IQ of 180 through the use of cognitive-enhancement drugs, but when the effect wore off he returned to an average level. A typical example of the modern “enhanced ordinary person.”

“Tanaka, how was today’s experimental data?”

“Excellent results. Just as you predicted, the coherence time of the quantum-entangled state was extended threefold,” Tanaka reported, somewhat excited. “Only…”

“Is something wrong?”

“New information has come in. The World Intelligence Council has announced the details of the Cognitive Gap Rectification Protocol.”

Haruka’s expression changed. The meaning of the invitation took on a more concrete reality.

“And the contents?”

“To unify all of humanity’s intelligence quotient within a range of IQ 100 to 120. Those with intelligence above that are to be subjected to a cognitive-suppression procedure. And…” Tanaka hesitated. “At the very top of the list of targets is your name.”

Silence ruled the study. Haruka grew conscious of her own heartbeat. Her intelligence, above IQ 200, had been judged “harmful” under the new world order.

“When is it scheduled to take effect?”

“In six months. However, those targeted are to be granted a prior opportunity for a hearing before the World Intelligence Council. The invitation you received is most likely for that purpose.”

Haruka gazed out the window. The sun was sinking, and the shadows of the old buildings stretched long. It looked like a symbol of the twilight of human intelligence.

“Tanaka,” she said, turning back. “You use cognitive-enhancement drugs—do you ever feel that they make you into a different person?”

Tanaka thought it over. “That’s a complex question. While the drug is working, the way I see the world certainly changes. I can understand more, think more deeply. But at the same time, I feel a rupture with the self I am when it wears off. Sometimes I don’t know which is the real me.”

“Then, if you could maintain an IQ of 180 at all times, even without the drug—how would you feel?”

“I’d probably… be glad. But at the same time, I feel there’d be something lost. The simpler, pre-enhancement me—that self had its own value too, I think.”

Haruka nodded. Tanaka’s answer bore out her intuition. Human identity and intelligence are not a simple matter of higher being better. Diversity itself is humanity’s true treasure.

“Tanaka, tomorrow I leave for Geneva.”

“The World Intelligence Council assembly.”

“Yes. But this is no mere policy meeting. It is a place where what humanity is will be redefined.” Haruka took up the invitation. “And we, the Naturally Gifted, have a message that must be delivered.”

“What sort of message?”

Haruka smiled. In her expression, deep resolve and a faint sorrow mingled.

“That diversity is not a defect but a feature. And that genius is not a problem, but a possibility.”

Night began to envelop the study. One last time, Haruka gazed at her research notebook. On it, equations seeking to unravel the mysteries of the universe mingled with diagrams seeking to understand the mystery of human intelligence.

Where the journey beginning tomorrow would lead her, she did not know. But one thing was certain—she would face the battle for the future of human intelligence with all her heart and soul.

Outside the window, the last of the light faded. But within Haruka’s heart, a new light of hope had quietly begun to burn.