Max Einstein Saves the Future Read online

  She didn’t seem fazed by Max’s wild statements. “Ah, yes. The suitcase.”

  “Was I hallucinating? Maybe I was having a dream while I was wide awake?”

  Dr. McKenna grinned. “Those are the best kind of dreams, aren’t they? The wide-awake ones. That’s what imagination is, Max. Allowing yourself to dream with your eyes open. To create things that aren’t really there. But, remember this, nothing in this world—not that window, or door, or even these floorboards—came into existence until somebody imagined that it could.”

  “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” mumbled Max, reciting her favorite Einstein quote.

  “Indeed.”

  “So, why did you call me Dorothy?” Max asked. “When you came into the room, you said, ‘Hello, Dorothy.’ Why?”

  “Because, Max,” said Dr. McKenna, “I believe that’s who you really are. I believe you are the daughter of the young professors Susan and Timothy. The little girl they, very accidentally, transported into the future during their 1921 experiments, which, of course, were done while Albert Einstein was visiting the Princeton campus.”

  She walked over to the suitcase.

  “I have been researching what went on in this house for decades, Max. In your visits to this place, have you discovered any other furniture? Any other objects from the past?”

  Max shook her head. “No. Just the suitcase. And the photo that was tucked inside. I took the photo.”

  Dr. McKenna nodded. “As I imagined you might if you ever returned to what, in 1921, was your home. Why do you think we left one single piece of luggage locked up in an abandoned building? It was a sentinel. A guard keeping watch. Sitting there, waiting for the appearance of a Dorothy at some point in the future. Because the only one who would seek out this antique piece of luggage would be the one who left this house in 1921 with a matching piece.”

  “So you knew when I came here that first time?”

  “Yes.” She gestured toward a miniature security camera in a smoky dome hidden in a corner of the plaster molding where the walls met the ceiling. “I’m just glad you showed up before the bulldozers. The town and university have grown tired of my insistence that this house could help us prove that time travel is possible.”

  “Can you tell me more about my parents?” Max could hardly contain herself. Finally, she would get answers to the questions she had her whole life.

  “They were true geniuses. Engineers who could take the theoretical and make it practical. I was going to write my doctoral dissertation about them and what they had been rumored to have achieved. But my committee steered me away from the subject. Until you showed up, I lacked proof that they had done anything except generate a good deal of gossip.” She reached into her coat. “I do have a photograph of them. And you, Dorothy.”

  She showed Max a fading portrait of an intense couple from the 1920s proudly posing with their infant daughter.

  “I’ll make you a copy,” said Dr. McKenna.

  “Thanks.”

  BANG BANG BANG!

  Suddenly, something was knocking three times against the plywood covering a side window. Hard! The sound startled Max and the professor.

  “What in the blazes?” said Dr. McKenna.

  “It could be the Corp,” said Max.

  “What?”

  The rapping repeated. Three solid knocks, a pause, then three more.

  “Other people are looking for me, too,” Max told the professor. “Bad people. Stay here.”

  “No way. I’m going with you.”

  Max shook her head. “I don’t want the Corp hurting anyone else because of me. And they will. Stay.”

  Dr. McKenna nodded. “Be careful.”

  Max found her flashlight and crept out of the living room, through the kitchen and into what, long ago, might’ve been a dining room.

  “Max?” came a tense voice from outside the window. “Can you kindly open the window?”

  It was Leo.

  “I thought I told you to drive back to West Virginia!” Max whispered harshly.

  “I can’t do that, Max.”

  “I’m sorry, Leo. I need to stay here. In Princeton.”

  “You can’t,” whispered the bot on the other side of the plywood. “Princeton is not safe.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, Max, it is not. Not for you and not for me.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because Dr. Zacchaeus Zimm is next door.”

  54

  Dr. Zimm stood on the front lawn of 246 Battle Road.

  Two muscular gentlemen in black suits that strained against their bulletproof vests stood behind him. All three wore sunglasses to fight off the beams of morning sunshine piercing through the leafy canopy of trees.

  “I lived here once,” Dr. Zimm announced. “Princeton is an excellent place to do advanced research. It’s really quite easy. All you have to do is steal it from the professors doing all the grunt work.”

  The two beefy men behind him—Edward and Wilhelm—chuckled.

  “This house was our headquarters. We made the Corp a fortune, something they have never forgotten. It’s also where I first met little Max Einstein. She was a baby crawling around the floor, circling an antique suitcase.” He shook his head remembering that remarkable morning twelve years in the past.

  “And you suspect Miss Einstein has returned to the scene of your first meeting?”

  “I don’t suspect it, Edward. I know it. You see, Professor Von Hinkle assumed the Corp had shipped me off to a re-education facility in northern Greenland when, in fact, they sent me home to Boston so I might keep tabs on Von Hinkle. His taking over the pursuit of Max Einstein was his orientation and evaluation period with the Corp. His trial run.”

  “How’d that work out for him?” joked Edward, who already knew the answer to his question.

  “Not very well, Edward. Professor Von Hinkle is currently awaiting trial in a rather dismal West Virginia jail cell. The Corp’s lawyers will most likely arrange for his release and then his disappearance. Professor Von Hinkle cost us dearly. His blunders exposed the deepest asset we had at the CMI. Ms. Tari Kaplan’s cover, which took many years to build, was blown in one foolish afternoon.”

  “So, they gonna ship Von Hinkle up to Greenland?” asked the other guard with a satisfied grunt.

  “Most likely, Wilhelm. But first, I hope to conduct his exit interview. Truth serum will be involved. The kind that makes one drool uncontrollably.” Dr. Zimm grimaced.

  “So, how’d you know Max Einstein came poking around this house?” asked Edward.

  “We secretly installed tracking beacons in Professor Von Hinkle’s squadron of attack drones. The drones flew to this location before Miss Einstein cleverly eliminated them from the equation.”

  “She’s a smart kid,” said Wilhelm.

  “She’s a genius,” said Dr. Zimm, stroking his gloved hands over his bald dome. “Fortunately, I’m even smarter. Her unrelenting quest for knowledge about her past—who she is, where she came from—will, undoubtedly, bring her back to this house once again. You see, I ran an extensive psychological profile on—”

  “Excuse me?” A man in a bathrobe came out to the front porch. He eyed the three men in black suits and dark sunglasses standing on his neatly trimmed lawn. “Can I help you gentlemen?”

  “I certainly hope so,” said Dr. Zimm, with what he thought was a pleasant smile. He sometimes forgot how pointy his teeth were. “We’re looking for my daughter. She’s about twelve. Curly red hair? Floppy trench coat?”

  The man didn’t answer.

  “Her name is Max.”

  Still nothing from the man in the bathrobe.

  “Tell me, sir,” said Dr. Zimm, quite cordially, “do you have children?”

  The man nodded. “Two. Boy and a girl.”

  “Are they, by any chance, tweens or teenagers?”

  “Maybe.” The man had a very skeptical look on his face. He inched his right hand into the r
obe’s deep hip pocket. Zimm assumed he was a professor. An egghead. Therefore, he would not be reaching for a weapon. Most likely his phone so he could call 911.

  “Well, then,” said Dr. Zimm, doing his best to sound amiable, “you know how dramatic they can act at that age. My daughter is twelve. She ran away from home a few days back. We think she may have come to Princeton to visit this house.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we used to live here. When she was a baby. Twelve years ago.”

  “Twelve years ago?” said the man.

  “That’s right.” Dr. Zimm attempted another smile.

  “That’s when the corporate espionage ring was operating out of this house,” said the man, angrily. “You people stole one of my ideas.”

  “I assure you, sir, neither I nor my daughter—”

  The man wasn’t listening. He was calling the police.

  “Gentlemen?” Dr. Zimm said to his two associates. “We should depart.”

  “You want we should eliminate the snitch in the bathrobe first?” asked Wilhelm.

  Dr. Zimm sighed. “Yes. I suppose we should.”

  “Help!” The man frantically shouted into his phone.

  But it was too late.

  55

  Max hurried back to the living room.

  “Dr. McKenna? I have to leave. Now.”

  “Who was that at the window? Someone from this Corp you mentioned?”

  Max shook her head. “No. I mean he used to work for the Corp. Now he’s with us. The CMI.”

  Dr. McKenna looked confused but Max really didn’t have time to explain how Leo was a humanoid who used to be called Lenard. She didn’t have time for anything.

  “There is a very evil man next door. His name is Dr. Zimm.”

  Dr. McKenna nodded. “The name is familiar from my research. He was part of the spy cell that operated out of 246 Battle Road a dozen years ago. Very despicable individual.”

  “Well,” said Max, “he hasn’t gotten any better with age. He’s here looking for me.”

  “Then why is he next door?”

  “Space-time dilation.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “When my parents zapped me into the future with their time machine, which I imagine was set up down in the basement?”

  “That’s right,” said Dr. McKenna. “How’d you know?”

  “I saw the scorched floor. Anyhow, when they flipped the switch to put me on fast forward, I ended up in the basement of the house next door because of some wrinkle in the fabric of space-time.”

  “So, this Dr. Zimm could further confirm my time travel hypothesis. He was a witness to your time jump!”

  “True,” said Max. “He might help you out. Or, he might haul you off to a remote re-education facility first. Some place super chilly. Word of advice from my research? Stay away from him, Dr. McKenna. I gotta run.”

  “But he’s looking for you.”

  “Next door. Not here.”

  “But how will you and your friend outside escape?”

  “Good question. I was hoping you could maybe help us with some kind of diversion.”

  “I could call the police.”

  Now someone was knocking on the boarded-up front windows.

  “Max?” Leo whispered through a crack where the plywood met the siding. “Dr. Zimm is otherwise engaged at the home next door. An ugly altercation with the owner of the property. We have a narrow window of opportunity! I predict a sixty-five percent probability of a safe and incident-free extraction if we initiate said extraction immediately.”

  “Your friend sounds a little… odd,” said Dr. McKenna.

  “Yeah,” said Max. “He’s a robot.”

  “A what?”

  “Thanks for the pictures. I gotta go.”

  “Will you be coming back? I’d like to meet this robot. I’d like to interview you some more.”

  Max shook her head. “No, thanks. I think I’ve spent enough time dwelling on my past. It’s time to start working on the future. Nice meeting you.”

  Max threw open the creaky window and put her shoulder to the plywood. Nails squealed.

  “Sorry about this,” she said to Dr. McKenna, right before she gave the sheet of warped wood a good swift kick. Now there was an opening wide enough for Max to crawl through.

  Leo was standing in the field of weeds that used to be the home’s flower beds. He had his arms extended.

  “Jump!” he said. “I will catch you.”

  “Um, thanks. But no thanks.”

  Max toppled out of the window and crashed to the ground. She also made a lot of noise doing it.

  “Hurry!” said Leo, probably too loudly.

  Because, next door, up on the front porch, Dr. Zimm and two giants in black business suits stopped trying to kick open the front door of 246 Battle Road.

  They were more interested in all the commotion in front of 244.

  “Hello, Lenard,” called Dr. Zimm. He smiled creepily. “Hello, Max. I’m so glad we could all have this lovely reunion.”

  He turned to his two goons.

  “Seize them!”

  56

  Leo popped open a panel in his torso.

  A half dozen sizzling bottle rockets came streaking out of his chest.

  Dr. Zimm and his two henchmen dropped to the ground as the fireworks exploded overhead.

  “I now extrapolate that we have a twenty-two second jump on our pursuers,” said Leo, running for the van parked at the curb.

  Max ran after him.

  “Who gave you a weapons system?” she shouted.

  “Klaus,” said Leo, yanking open the driver’s-side door of the van. “But it is not a weapons system. It was intended as a surprise for the Fourth of July.”

  “Drive!” yelled Max after she jumped into her seat and slammed the door shut. In the distance, she could hear sirens approaching. Somebody had called the police. Maybe Dr. McKenna. Maybe whoever lived in the house next door. Maybe they didn’t like the Corp hit men trying to kick down their door at dawn.

  “Destination?” asked Leo as they raced up the street.

  Max checked the rearview mirror. Dr. Zimm and his two associates were scrambling to their feet and climbing into their vehicle—a sleek black sedan with black tinted windows.

  “West Virginia,” said Max. “Eventually. For now, initiate Isabl Driving Protocol.”

  “Are you certain about that, Max?”

  “Yes. Punch it!”

  The hard drive inside Leo’s plastic head made grinding noises. He was accessing the defensive driving database that Klaus had loaded into his backup system just in case Leo ever needed to drive like Isabl (which was, basically, like a maniac speed demon).

  “The Corp vehicle is three hundred yards behind us,” Leo reported as they whipped through a series of switchbacks and screeched into a tire-burning turn. “Local police have been summoned to 246 Battle Road and are now in pursuit of the Corp vehicle. Should I initiate more evasive actions?”

  “No. We need to help the cops. Slow Dr. Zimm down so they can pull a PIT maneuver.”

  “Sorry,” said Leo. “I have not been provided with information about PIT maneuvers. I could tell you about Pitt University. Or peach pits…”

  “PIT stands for pursuit intervention technique,” said Max, climbing over her seat and into the back of the van. “They’ll use basic physics to stop Dr. Zimm’s car. They’ll tap his rear wheels at an acute angle with their front wheels. That’ll cause the Corp vehicle to skid sideways. We’re going to use basic chemistry to help them out.”

  “Fascinating,” said Leo.

  “Did you and Isabl grab that diesel fuel when we stopped at the rest area?”

  “Yes. Charl suggested we might need it for field generators. The five-gallon canister is stored in the area behind the rear bench.”

  “Perfect,” said Max. “That means it’s close to the tailpipe, too!”

  Max climbed over the rows of seats and made it to the bac
k of the van. She could see the Corp sedan gaining on them. She could also see swirling roofbars in the distance. The police were in pursuit.

  Max screwed the nozzle onto the diesel fuel can. She popped open the rear vented window and shoved the nozzle through the gap in the corner closest to the van’s exhaust pipe. Leo’s rapid acceleration and maniac moves had caused every part of the car’s internal combustion system to heat up quickly—including the tailpipe.

  “Reduce your speed, Leo!”

  “Reducing speed, Max.”

  The van slowed.

  Max tilted the gas can and started pouring diesel fuel. It sloshed and splashed all over the place, including on the hot tailpipe. In a flash, a cloud of white smoke billowed up behind the van, creating a thick smokescreen that forced Dr. Zimm’s car to slow down.

  The police knocked the Corp sedan into a spinout. It twirled like a top until it came to a stop.

  Max and Leo flew out of Princeton and headed for the highway, driving one mile per hour underneath the maximum posted speed limit for every stretch of road they traveled.

  Because they didn’t want any other police vehicles using a PIT on them.

  57

  “Thank goodness you did that, officers!” said Dr. Zimm as he and Wilhelm climbed out of the back seat of the car.

  Edward was stuck behind the steering wheel, an inflated airbag pinning him in place.

  “He was driving like a maniac!” Dr. Zimm continued. “Worst Uber ever.”

  “Thank you for rescuing us, officers,” added Wilhelm, even though he was so huge, he didn’t look like he’d ever need rescuing from anything.

  “You two don’t know the man behind the wheel?” asked one of the police officers.

  “No, sir,” said Dr. Zimm. “But I do know that his four-star rating on this ride-sharing app is a complete exaggeration.”

  “If you don’t know him,” the officer said to Wilhelm, “how come you two are dressed exactly alike, with the black suit, white shirt, and skinny black tie?”

  “Coincidence?” said Dr. Zimm, answering for Wilhelm. “Now, if you will excuse us.”

  A black SUV crunched slowly up the road.