Rebels With a Cause Read online

  Max chanced a glance over her shoulder. A black SUV that had been parked behind Jamal and Danny’s rolling command center pulled away from the curb. Fast.

  As it passed, a piercing beam of sunlight sliced through the tinted windows. Max could make out two familiar silhouettes in the backseat.

  Jamal and Danny. It looked like their hands were cuffed behind their backs.

  “There’s more of them,” said Max. “And they have Jamal and Danny.”

  “Where to?” asked Siobhan.

  Max couldn’t decide.

  “Hey!” shouted a man with an Irish accent. “It’s her. The girl with all the curly hair.”

  Yeah, that was the bad thing about Max’s wildly tangled moptop. It made her extremely easy to spot in a crowd—even at a distance of fifty yards, which is all she and Siobhan had on the two Corp enforcers.

  “Don’t let her get away!” shouted the other man.

  “Siobhan?” said Max. “They only want me. You should run for it.”

  “Right. Like that’s going to happen. Where to, fearless leader?”

  Max scanned the buildings.

  “We’ll cut through the library and hit the quad.”

  “Reckon we won’t have time to pick up a good book.…”

  “Maybe next time.”

  The two friends took off.

  The two men came running after them.

  Max and Siobhan raced into the library, ran through the stacks and the study carrels, and exited on the far side of the building, which put them on the grassy quad in the center of the Columbia campus.

  “They’re gaining on us,” said Siobhan. “Speed equals distance over time. Over time, they will decrease their distance from us because they are speedier.”

  “Physics!” said Max. “Good idea!”

  “What?”

  “Come on. We need a little instantaneous velocity! There’s a lab I know. Did some wave work inside it.”

  Max and Siobhan kicked their bodies into hyperdrive and, charging through a maze of building entrances and exits, finally made it into the physics building. The two goons were still behind them, but a little farther back.

  “Here we go,” said Max, opening a door to a lab. “They have a signal-generating transmitter we can borrow.”

  “For what?”

  “To make a sonic weapon!”

  “As in sonic boom?”

  “Nope. They won’t hear a thing. But they’ll definitely feel it!”

  14

  Max quickly wired the transmitter to a subwoofer.

  “Help me drag that wooden crate over here,” she said to Siobhan. “We’ll put the speaker inside for a bigger blast. Turn it into a sonic cannon.”

  Siobhan and Max shoved the empty box across the floor, propped open its lid, and hefted the heavy subwoofer into it. Max connected a string of wires from the transmitter to an amplifier and then to the speaker.

  “Max?” whispered Siobhan. She was kneeling at the door, peering out into the hall.

  “Yeah?”

  “Those two rumbly blokes are trying every doorknob in the building. They’ll be on us in a flash.”

  “Here,” said Max. “Found these over near the goggles. Put ’em on.”

  “Headphones?”

  “Noise-canceling headphones.”

  “To protect us from what?”

  “The non-lethal weapon we just created.”

  Siobhan looked confused. “When, exactly, did we do that?”

  “Just now. This transmitter will generate waves between 5 and 9 hertz—”

  “Below the low end of the typical human audible range, 20 hertz,” said Siobhan.

  “Correct. We’ll pump those waves out at a high level, even though the sound will be inaudible. Frequencies below the limit of human hearing are felt by the human body, not heard. The infrasonic attack will cause a liquid-filled compartment in any uncovered ears to suddenly swell. That’ll cause vertigo, tinnitus, and other nasty stuff. We’ll immobilize our two targets without causing any permanent or severe damage.”

  “Well, aren’t we nice?”

  “Not if we hit the brown note.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A hypothetical infrasonic frequency that would cause humans to lose control of their bowels due to resonance.”

  “They’ll poop their pants?”

  “Theoretically,” said Max.

  “Give me that headgear!” said Siobhan. “I only packed one extra pair of knickers in my kit.…”

  Max and Siobhan slipped on their headsets just as the lab door burst open.

  “There you are!” snarled the man with the Irish accent.

  Max flipped a switch. She and Siobhan fled the room.

  There was no sound but plenty of subsonic waves.

  The two men’s hands flew up to their heads. Their eyeballs went shaky. Their legs, rubbery.

  The one with the Irish accent grabbed the seat of his pants and had a very embarrassed expression on his face.

  Both men wilted and crumbled to the floor.

  “They probably won’t know who or where they are until we’re long gone,” said Max as she and Siobhan tossed their headgear into a recycling bin in the lobby of the physics building.

  “So where do we go now?” said Siobhan.

  “First, back to my room. I need to grab a few things.”

  “What? Max, are you mad? Those two know where you live. That means the Corp knows where you live. Plus, they hijacked your bodyguards.…”

  “True. But I think we have thirty minutes to an hour before those quivering lumps feel like chasing us again.”

  “One of them had an Irish accent,” said Siobhan as they made their way back across the campus quad.

  “Yeah,” said Max. “I noticed that. Made me wonder if the Corp is after you instead of me.”

  “Nah. I’m not the Chosen One,” joked Siobhan.

  “Right.”

  “Okay. We go back to your room. You grab your things. Then where do we go?”

  “How about Ireland? I hear there’s a village that could use some girl power.”

  “Works for me.”

  “I’d need to tell Ben about Jamal and Danny being abducted.”

  “Your guards looked like ex–military commandos,” said Siobhan. “I reckon they can handle themselves. Wouldn’t be surprised if they already escaped.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  Retracing their steps, they reached John Jay Hall.

  “Come on,” said Max. “We’ll take the stairs.”

  “Up seven flights?”

  “We’ll avoid the lobby… and any Corp goons who might be lurking in it.”

  “Good point.”

  Max led the way up.

  “Wish I had another Coke,” said Siobhan, panting heavily as they rounded the sixth-floor landing.

  “One more flight,” said Max.

  “Lead on, boss.”

  They made it to the seventh floor.

  “I need my suitcase,” said Max, heading up the hall.

  “The one with all the Einstein memorabilia and books?” said Siobhan, who remembered Max’s portable bookcase from the CMI team’s first mission.

  “Yeah. That one photo of Einstein is the first thing I remember from back when I was—”

  Max raised her right hand to signal “halt.” She pressed her finger to her lips.

  The metal washer Max had placed on the floor earlier was now dangling off the magnet she’d affixed to the bottom of her door.

  It was a simple “burglar alarm.” If someone swung open the door while she was out, the magnet would pass over and pick up the metal washer.

  Max turned to Siobhan and silently mouthed, Someone is in my room!

  15

  “We should just leave!” Siobhan whispered.

  Max shook her head. “Not without my suitcase.”

  But who was inside her dorm room? Her security detail? More Corp heavies in black suits? The annoying resident
adviser, stripping Max’s bed and tossing her belongings into a trash heap, making the room nice and tidy for its new resident?

  But the suitcase was her most prized possession. In fact, it was just about her only possession, except for her clothes and floppy trench coat (she’d be sure to grab that, too). The suitcase was her only link to her past. It was her whole history.

  Max sometimes did things on impulse that she regretted later.

  This might be another one of those times.

  She grabbed the doorknob and twisted it open.

  “Hi, guys,” said a friendly voice.

  “Tisa?” said Max.

  “What are you doing here, girl?” asked Siobhan as the three friends flew together for a group hug.

  Tisa was another member of Max’s CMI team. A biochemist from Kenya (she already had a PhD at age thirteen), her father was one of the wealthiest industrialists in all of Africa. Tisa had stood by Max and Siobhan when the three of them faced down armed pirates on their African adventure. That sort of terrifying, high-adrenaline situation can make people friends for life. It definitely did with Max, Siobhan, and Tisa.

  “How did you get into my room?” asked Max.

  “That credit card trick with the lock you taught me. Remember?”

  “Oh,” said Max. “Right. Your dad’s rich. You have credit cards.…”

  Tisa laughed.

  “But how’d you know what room Max was in?” asked Siobhan.

  “CMI gave me her mailing address,” said Tisa.

  “Snail mail?” said Siobhan. “That’s so twentieth century.”

  “I know,” said Tisa with a bright smile. “But I wanted to send Max a small gift from our friends in Lubumbashi. They really love their solar-powered electricity.”

  “They sent me a hand-sewn Einstein doll,” said Max. “It’s in my suitcase.”

  “Which,” said Siobhan, “you need to grab immediately.”

  “And my coat.”

  “Good idea. It was raining when I left Ireland.” Siobhan turned to Tisa. “We can’t be here. There are several goons from the Corp gunning for Max. We believe one is currently changing into clean underpants.”

  “Excuse me?” said Tisa.

  “Long story,” said Max, closing her antique Einstein suitcase and snapping the clasps shut. “Grab your backpack, Siobhan.”

  “Right-o.”

  “All I have are these,” said Tisa, indicating a matching pair of rolling bags.

  “Planning on an extended stay in the States?” said Siobhan.

  “No, Siobhan. I want to go with you and Max to Ireland.”

  “You were serious?” said Siobhan, softening.

  “Yeah.”

  Siobhan turned to Max. “We’ve been texting.”

  “I’m the one who encouraged Siobhan to come here to convince you to join us, even if Ben doesn’t give us an official stamp of approval,” added Tisa. “This is exactly the sort of thing the CMI is meant to do! The world’s not going to save itself, Max.”

  “Ben!” said Max.

  “Huh?” said Tisa and Siobhan.

  Max pulled out her special phone. “This is an emergency. He might know a safe spot for us to spend the night.”

  “That seven o’clock flight to Dublin,” said Siobhan.

  “I’ll suggest it,” said Max with a grin as she dialed the benefactor’s private number.

  Ben didn’t like the idea of “flying commercial” to Ireland. He, as usual, had other ideas.

  “Go see Mr. Weinstock. Your usual rendezvous point.”

  “Okay. But, Ben?”

  “Yes, Max?”

  “We really should help Siobhan’s village in Ireland.”

  “I will take your suggestion under advisement and give it serious consideration, Max.”

  Yeah. Sometimes Ben sounded more like he was forty instead of fourteen.

  “I’m worried about Jamal and Danny,” Max told him.

  “They’re fine. They’re currently at the New York Police Department’s 26th Precinct helping file charges against their two would-be kidnappers.”

  “They escaped?”

  “Yes,” said Ben. “It took all of fifteen minutes. I only hire the best, Max. Go to the rendezvous. The Corp knows about your dorm room. You’re not safe anywhere on the Columbia campus.”

  “Where will we be safe?”

  “Mr. Weinstock has your answer. Good luck.”

  “You want to say anything to Siobhan and Tisa?” Max asked. “They’re both here, too.”

  “No, thank you,” said Ben, who wasn’t too big on social interaction. “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  Yeah. Exactly the wrong thing to say. Ben did that a lot.

  Max, Siobhan, and Tisa toted their luggage down the stairwell and headed east to the 116th Street subway station.

  “We’ll take the C train to West 4th,” Max told her friends. “It’s right near Washington Square Park.”

  As the three friends fled Columbia with their few possessions, Max, once again, felt a connection to Albert Einstein. Sure, he was a genius, a theoretical physicist, and a Nobel laureate. But he was also a refugee. A Jew who had to flee Germany when the Nazis declared his discoveries to be “un-German.” He came to the United States where he sometimes had mixed feelings about his comfortable and privileged life in Princeton, New Jersey. “I am almost ashamed to be living in such a place while all the rest struggle and suffer,” he wrote.

  Max sort of felt the same way about her time hiding out at Columbia.

  Except, in the end, she really didn’t have a place to live.

  Just a place to flee.

  16

  “She escaped?” Dr. Zimm shouted at his secure speakerphone. “Again?”

  “She did something weird to us,” said Mr. Mulligan.

  “Made one of us go boom-boom in our underpants,” added Mr. Hoffman.

  “You were moaning and groaning on the floor, too!” shouted Mr. Mulligan.

  “Maybe. But I didn’t mess myself.…”

  “Enough,” seethed Dr. Zimm. “What about the rest of your team?”

  “They’ve, uh, been detained by the local police,” admitted Mr. Mulligan. “That Max Einstein has some very talented private bodyguards.”

  Yes, thought Dr. Zimm. Maybe we should recruit them for the Corp.

  “You want us to go back to her dorm?” asked Mr. Mulligan. “Grab her there?”

  “She isn’t there,” the young guest in Dr. Zimm’s office said with a giggle. “She’s smart. It would be dumb for her to return to a location known to her pursuers. Max Einstein is a genius. Therefore, she is not at Columbia.”

  There was silence on the other side of the phone.

  “Who’s that, Dr. Z?” Mr. Mulligan finally asked.

  “Lenard,” said Dr. Zimm. “He is my new… assistant.”

  Lenard giggled again.

  “Stand by for further instructions, gentlemen,” said Dr. Zimm.

  He switched off the speakerphone and swiveled in his chair to face the humanoid named Lenard. He was a robot, yes, but eerily realistic. He resembled a thirteen-year-old boy with waxy black hair that seemed to have melted over the top of his mannequin head. Lenard had been built with extremely flexible skin, expressive eyes, and highly realistic facial features.

  The better for him to work with Max Einstein, once she was in the Corp’s clutches.

  That was the master plan. To team Max Einstein up with the most sophisticated, artificial intelligence–powered robot on the planet. The Corp was keenly interested in quantum computing. With Max and Lenard working together, they had a chance to completely control the revolutionary new technology (not to mention all the money it would generate)!

  Dr. Zimm had convinced the bot engineers to make Lenard “physically and aesthetically pleasing” to a twelve-year-old girl. That’s why they’d modeled his face after that of the latest teen idol singing sensation. His body—an articulated metal frame coursing with wires—was covered
in trendy sweat clothes. As for his annoying and inappropriate giggles? That, according to the Corp bot engineers, was “a minor glitch.”

  “Where is she, Lenard?” Dr. Zimm asked his humanoid companion. “Where is Max Einstein?”

  “You are familiar with my operating system?” asked Lenard.

  “Yes,” said Dr. Zimm. “You work by machine learning coupled with text and data mining. We feed you data. You examine that content and find patterns.”

  “Correct. I am only as intelligent as my data diet. I only know what I am fed. Garbage in, garbage out.”

  “But we didn’t feed you garbage, Lenard.”

  “Correct. In fact, I have been given access to every security camera in New York City. With my facial recognition software, I can easily identify and isolate Max Einstein and her movements. Are you interested in where she was last Tuesday?”

  “Not really…”

  “Buying six cans of Coca-Cola and some Pringles at the Appletree Market at 1226 Amsterdam Avenue,” said Lenard. Then he giggled, as if he found the street address to be, somehow, funny. “Pringles. An American brand of stackable snack chips made from dehydrated potato particles.”

  “I am not interested in where Max was last Tuesday or, for that matter, Pringles,” said Dr. Zimm, trying his best to sound like the patient father of a brainy son. “Where is she now?”

  “Cross-referencing all internal data, I can project her probable current location with a confidence level of ninety-eight point nine percent.” Another giggle.

  “Where?”

  “Washington Square Park. She often goes there after high-stress encounters to play chess with an old man in a floppy cap. I am reviewing surveillance videos. Buffering. Buffering. She calls the old man Mr. Weinstock, if I am reading her lips correctly, which, of course, I am. My lip-reading software is quite advanced. Would you like to play chess, Dr. Zimm?”

  “No, thank you, Lenard. I need to make another phone call.”

  “Of course. You will be contacting Mr. Mulligan and Mr. Hoffman and advising them to immediately apprehend Max Einstein in Washington Square Park.”

  “Yes. You are correct.”

  “I usually am. Especially when analyzing the patterns of extremely predictable human beings such as you, Dr. Zimm.”