The Genius Experiment Read online

  “Why are you arresting Mrs. Rabinowitz?” she asked, her voice strong and firm.

  “Because, little Miss Einstein, your friend here is a squatter. She can’t live in this building without paying rent. Neither can any of those other people upstairs.” The police officer gave Max a menacing look. “Neither can you, kid.”

  “Officer, if I may, are you familiar with the legal term ‘adverse possession’?”

  “Oh. So now you’re a little lawyer?”

  “No, officer. I have not completed the necessary course of study, nor have I passed the New York State bar exam. However, I do know that adverse possession is the legal term for occupying someone else’s property. When you do so, you obtain what are known as ‘squatter’s rights.’ In the state of New York, a person has to live on the property openly and without permission of the owner for a period of at least ten uninterrupted years to be able to claim adverse possession.”

  “You telling me these folks have been squatting over Mr. Monk’s stables for more than ten years and he just now called us about it?”

  “No. I believe the squatters have only been in possession of this particular premises for six or seven months. I will have to check with Mr. Kennedy for specifics.”

  “Well, little Miss Einstein, six or seven months isn’t ten years.”

  “True. However, in New York City the laws are different than they are in New York State. We have our own set of adverse possession laws, which you, of course, are sworn to uphold. In New York City, sir, a person is granted squatter’s rights after just thirty days.”

  The cop stared at Max with a blank expression on his face. She often had that effect on people.

  “After thirty days,” she continued, “a New York City squatter has the right to continue living in a building until the actual owner—in this case, Mr. Sammy Monk—goes through the lengthy and, I am told, very expensive process of legal eviction. From my understanding, that can take up to a year. Sometimes longer.”

  The other police officers were now staring at the one holding the radio microphone, wondering what to do next. Two of them still had their hands gripped on Mrs. Rabinowitz’s arms, waiting for orders.

  The officer in charge shook his head.

  “Let her go.”

  The other officers did.

  Mrs. Rabinowitz rubbed her arms where the police had been clutching them and hurried over to Max to give her a kiss.

  “Thank you, dear,” she whispered.

  “You’re welcome, Mrs. Rabinowitz. Glad I could be of assistance.”

  “I found a bagel with cream cheese yesterday. Want it?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Rabinowitz. I already ate breakfast.”

  “Good. It’s the most important meal of the day…”

  The frail widow scurried back into the stables.

  “Hey, Einstein?” said the lead cop.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “What school do you go to? I wanna send my son there.”

  5

  Max ran upstairs to grab her backpack.

  The discussion with the police officer had knocked her off her very rigid schedule.

  She had to force herself to stay organized—not always easy when you’re absentminded and prone to what Mr. Kennedy called “too much daydreaming.” He thought you should only dream while you were asleep. “You know—nightdreaming!”

  But Max didn’t have a mother or father to tell her when it was time to wake up, go to bed, do her homework, eat her vegetables, turn off the TV, or hurry because she’d miss the subway if she didn’t. Max was completely on her own.

  Well, not completely. She had Mr. Kennedy, Mrs. Rabinowitz, and the other squatters in the building. But, to be honest, none of them really possessed what Max would call “stellar time-management skills.”

  But they loved her and she loved them back. That was good enough for Max. The homeless people camping out above the stables were the closest thing she’d had to family in a long time. Max didn’t even know if “Einstein” was her real family name. Was she related to the famous genius?

  She didn’t know.

  Max Einstein had no idea who she was, where she came from, how she ended up in New York City, or where she got the name Max Einstein. She liked to think of it as the one great mystery in life that she couldn’t begin to solve, especially not today. She was running late (even for her).

  “Have a good day at school, Max!” Mrs. Rabinowitz cried out as Max bounded down the staircase to the third floor.

  “Thank you!”

  “You sure you don’t want half of this bagel? It’s got strawberry cream cheese.”

  “No, thanks. Gotta run.”

  She made it to the main floor of the stables. “Morning, Domino, Kit Kat, and Opie!” she cried.

  The horses whinnied in their stalls and flicked their tails.

  “Keep making manure, guys,” said Max. “One day, we’re going to build that green gas mill!”

  The day after I win the lottery, she thought.

  The horse stables were on the western edge of Manhattan, close to the Hudson River. Max had to dash four blocks east and a couple blocks south to take the downtown subway at West 50th Street and Eighth Avenue.

  She caught a lucky break. A train screeched into the station just as she hurdled down the steps. Max leaped through the doors, which were closing like a hungry steel mouth, and tumbled into the crowded car.

  “Sorry,” she said, as she bumped into a clump of commuters clutching a pole. She found a handhold just before the train lurched forward. When it did, she fell slightly backward because of, well, physics. Sir Isaac Newton, the granddaddy of modern physics, developed laws of motion, including the one that says a body at rest tends to stay at rest—even when a train accelerated forward.

  That’s exactly what Max’s body (and all the other bodies crammed into the rush hour train) did. When the train came to a stop, they would all lurch forward because, by then, their bodies would be in motion and tending to stay in motion.

  While the subway car rocked south at thirty miles per hour, Max observed a fly zipping through the car, headed north.

  So how fast is the fly flying? she wondered with a grin. It’s all relative, of course.

  That was one of Albert Einstein’s most famous ideas: the theory of relativity.

  How fast the fly was flying uptown on a subway car hurtling downtown depended on how you measured things. It was all relative to your perspective.

  The fly was, simultaneously, going five miles per hour in one direction and twenty-five in the other.

  Someone standing in the subway tunnel as the train rumbled past (a very dumb idea, especially for a scientist) would measure the fly’s speed as moving south at twenty-five miles per hour.

  But, inside the car, Max perceived it as moving five miles per hour north.

  Until a big guy, two poles up, plucked the poor little bug out of the air in mid-flight and smooshed it.

  Then it wasn’t moving at all.

  6

  Nine minutes later, Max emerged from the West 4th Street station and glanced at her watch.

  She was back on schedule. She saw some kids playing a frantic game of pickup basketball, their bookbags leaning up against the chain-link fence penning in the court. She wondered what that would be like. To play on the way to school. Max didn’t spend much time with other children. There weren’t very many in her world. In a weird way, Albert Einstein was probably her best friend.

  As she walked along, she noticed all sorts of things that reminded her of Einstein’s incredible contributions to the modern world—if only he were alive to see them.

  She saw a tourist couple consulting a map app on their smartphone. The app, of course, relied on GPS to pinpoint their precise location on the island of Manhattan. It bounced a signal off satellites orbiting the Earth. The app could help them find the nearest Starbucks with GPS, which worked because of Einstein’s theory of relativity and something he called time dilation. Smartph
ones were smart because Einstein was smarter.

  Max glanced at her watch. She had time to stop by Washington Square Park and see if Mr. Weinstock was interested in a quick game of speed chess.

  Mr. Leonard “Lenny” Weinstock claimed to be from London, England. Max was never certain if he was telling her the truth about that. Or the fact that he graduated from Oxford. Or that he met the queen. “On several different occasions, mind you.”

  Max just knew he was a nice old man with a very proper British accent who always wore checked shirts, a safari vest, and a flat cap—the kind cabbies used to wear. Mr. Weinstock also liked to play chess as much as Max did.

  “Ah, good morning, Maxine,” he said when Max plopped down on the bench opposite him at one of the park’s many outdoor chess tables.

  “Good morning, Mr. Weinstock.”

  “Care for a game?”

  “Yes, sir. If you’re up for it.”

  “Of course, dear. I believe you’re currently ahead in our ongoing tally of pairings.”

  “Yes, sir. Slightly.”

  In truth, Max had won far more games against Mr. Weinstock than she had lost. And the ones she did lose, she lost on purpose. There really was no need to crush Mr. Weinstock’s fighting spirit with a string of unrelenting defeats. As it was, he was just about the only regular in Washington Square Park who was willing to play against Max Einstein. Her reputation preceded her.

  “Blitz, bullet, or lightning?” asked Mr. Weinstock, referring to the various levels of speed chess.

  “Is lightning okay today?” asked Max. “I don’t want to be late for school.”

  “Right you are. Lightning it is, then.”

  Mr. Weinstock bopped a button on top of a digital timer. Each player would have ten seconds to ponder and make their moves.

  “Checkmate,” said Max after five moves. “Sorry about that, Mr. Weinstock. I’m sure you’ll beat me next time when we’ll both have time to think through our moves more carefully.”

  Mr. Weinstock chuckled. “Yes, Max. I’m certain we’ll both enjoy having more time for leisurely contemplation. Have a good day at school, dear.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Max hurried off, promising herself that, the next time they played, she’d definitely let Mr. Weinstock win.

  Fortunately, her school was very close to Washington Square Park.

  Because, even though she was only twelve, Max Einstein was already going to college—at New York University!

  7

  Phillip Stark watched the young girl running to school after her quick chess game with the old man in Washington Square Park.

  It was hard to miss her. Her mop of curly hair bounced with every stride. Her trench coat flapped in the breeze behind her like a dirty pigeon’s tail feathers.

  She had to be the one.

  The one who would earn Phillip Stark a tidy payday. The one whom, for whatever reason, the esteemed Dr. Zacchaeus Zimm was searching for, all over the globe.

  Dr. Zimm had recently posted about this girl on webpages and chat groups frequented by those who shared Phillip Stark’s unfortunate (although temporary) station in life as college teaching assistants. There was no photograph, just a very detailed description of the girl, including her love of chess. But Stark knew more about “Max Einstein” than Dr. Zimm.

  Because she was in his class at New York University.

  He also knew that if he orchestrated the delivery of this Einstein girl to Dr. Zimm, it would jump-start his career. He’d be set for life—doing the kind of theoretical research he knew he was always meant to do, especially given the size of his giant brain.

  Dr. Zimm could give Stark anything he wanted. The famous professor had given up his prestigious professorship at a top-flight Ivy League college to head up a think tank for the Corp (that’s what everybody called the shadowy group of multinational operators and oligarchs who, more or less, ruled the world). The Corp was extremely powerful and well-connected. They owned everything and everybody. If you scratched their back, they’d definitely scratch yours—probably with a thick wad of cash.

  Stark made the call. The calm female voice on the other end of the phone urged him to stay in touch. He promised he would.

  “When might I expect to hear from Dr. Zimm, himself?” he asked.

  “We’ll be in touch,” said the lady.

  “Perfect. By the way, you spell ‘Stark’ S-T—”

  The lady hung up on him.

  Probably because she was very busy. Soon, Stark would be busy, too. Working for Dr. Zimm.

  Grinning, he hoped little Miss Einstein enjoyed today’s lessons.

  They would be her last.

  8

  Max hurried into an NYU building not far from Washington Square Park.

  She found a seat in the back of the lecture hall. It was easier for a kid her age to slump down and remain semi-invisible in the rear of the room. Max had manipulated a few computer records (nobody really needed to know how) to create a realistic backstory for her attendance at the prestigious university. As far as the administrators at NYU were concerned, Maxine Einstein was a child prodigy, a genius like the character Sheldon Cooper on the The Big Bang Theory. It was the one TV show that Max actually enjoyed watching on YouTube.

  She had borrowed (and improved on) a few ideas from the TV show. That’s why her official college entrance records indicated that she graduated high school at the age of eleven after skipping most of elementary and middle school.

  While she was at it, she also used her computer hacking skills to set up a few scholarships. She wasn’t greedy. She just arranged for enough funding to cover tuition and books. Room and board, she took care of on her own—mostly by squatting in a foul-smelling room above a horse stable and eating lots of ramen noodles. Sometimes, when she was really craving egg rolls and cold noodles with sesame sauce, she also did deliveries for her favorite Chinese restaurant.

  The Monday morning course at NYU was one of her favorites: 20th Century Concepts of Space, Time, & Matter. She was particularly interested in that day’s lecture topic, “Schrödinger’s Cat.” It was a thought experiment developed in a bunch of back and forth letters between Einstein and Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Plus, it had a cat in it. Max liked cats.

  Professor Burton’s creepy graduate assistant, a twenty-something guy named Mr. Stark, came into the lecture hall and sort of leered at Max. Even though he was just a graduate student who helped the professor teaching the class, Stark dressed as if he were the professor, in a bow tie and a tweed sport jacket with patches on the elbows. He also sported a pair of thick, black-rimmed, smart-guy glasses.

  “Ah, good morning, Miss Einstein,” he said ghoulishly.

  “Good morning, Mr. Stark.”

  He smirked and snapped open his fancy briefcase.

  “I believe I have your mid-term exam,” he said. “Ah, yes. Here it is. Tsk-tsk-tsk. You’d think someone named ‘Einstein’ would do better on a test about general relativity.”

  He handed Max a marked-up exam booklet with a big red “C” circled on the cover.

  “Not much of a ‘child prodigy,’ are you?” he sneered.

  Max lowered her eyes and wished that Mr. Stark would disappear. He didn’t.

  “Oh, I know all about child prodigies, Miss Einstein. They called me a genius when I was your age but my parents wouldn’t let me skip grades. Thought it might prove socially awkward for me. So, they held me back. Kept me with kids my own age. Maybe your parents should’ve considered doing the same.”

  “Yes, sir,” Max mumbled.

  She tucked the exam booklet into her backpack. Of course, she could’ve aced the mid-term exam. In fact, it would’ve been easy for her to pull A’s in all her classes at NYU. But she chose to maintain a solid C in all her course work, even if it meant she needed to answer a few exam questions incorrectly.

  A “C” meant she was just an average student. Average students could fly undetected below the school administrat
ion’s radar.

  Or so she had always hoped.

  Two burly men—who looked like college football players dressed in snug, black suits, white shirts, and skinny black ties—entered the lecture hall.

  Max didn’t recognize either of them. They weren’t regular students in this class. Plus, not many NYU students wore black suits to class. They each had a miniature, curly-tailed communications device jammed into their ear.

  “You Dr. Stark?” one of them asked the graduate assistant.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Stark, happy that the newcomers had mistaken him for a full professor.

  “Where is she?”

  Mr. Stark rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious, gentlemen? She’s the only twelve-year-old girl currently sitting in this lecture hall.”

  He pointed at Max.

  “I hope you enjoyed your time in college, Miss Einstein. Guess you’ll be skipping this grade, too.”

  The two hulking men in black suits grabbed Max by the arms and hauled her out of her seat.

  “You’re coming with us.”

  9

  “Do you gentlemen have badges?” Max asked as the brawny men dragged her toward the exit.

  “We don’t need badges,” said the one holding Max’s left arm.

  Max didn’t like that answer. “I find badges to be quite helpful for identifying—”

  “Shut up, kid,” said the one on her right. “We’ll be the ones asking questions.”

  “We’re with the New York City Administration for Children’s Services,” said the other one. “I’m Officer Jimenez. He’s my partner, Officer Murphy.”

  “We know all about you,” said Officer Murphy as the two men more or less shoved Max out to the street. “You go by the name of ‘Max Einstein.’ You have absolutely no business attending classes at NYU or any other college. You’ve been in and out of foster homes and orphanages your entire life. You have no known family. No birth certificate.”

  “How do you even know your name?” asked Officer Jimenez, who seemed angry at the world.