Author's Notes:

Author's notes: This started out as part of the "Your Song" series which I haven't updated in seventy billion years, and evolved into this on it's own. I felt kind of weird making up my own characters, but they're not Mary Sues (Marty Stus?) or anything like that, just necessary evils. Title is loosely derived from Ender's Game, because that's what inspired me.

Italics denote the alliance guys talking. (or, later, flashbacks)

'...' denotes thought, which is only necessary for our psychics.

Feed me! kaylee@kikiroxxorz.com

Pairings are: (Simon/Kaylee, Mal/Inara, Jayne/OC and River/OC) but they're not truly important to the plot.

~*~

“The subjects have arrived in one piece, I see.”

“Though I thought I might lose a digit or two in the struggle, they’re here. Simon and Ainslee Tam will now be known as ATAM89775316 and STAM31657798. They’re being taken to the showers as we speak, and then for a formal psychiatric evaluation once they lose consciousness. We are keeping them separate up to, and, depending on their respective eval results, including their inauguration into the program.”

“Sir, are you sure this is the right thing to do? The subjects aren’t even seven years old, sir, and look at this capture. They have family who love them and are probably looking for them right now. I’m not sure this is…”

“Let me see that capture.” The agent studied it. “Give us six weeks,” he said slowly, “and those children will have never existed.”

~*~

‘These aren’t like the showers at home,’ Simon thought sleepily, trying to hold onto awareness just a moment longer. Showers at home. He could fuzzily recall himself, Ainslee and Xavier plopped together as babies in a giant tub in the cargo bay, of Ainslee dancing around the little shower room, waiting for her turn, of the warm ridge of his mother’s stomach like an umbrella.

“Mommy, where are you?” he asked quietly before collapsing into a little heap on the cement floor, tears stuck in his tightly closed eyes.

~*~

Sim