Max Einstein Saves the Future Read online

  “I hope so,” said Tisa. “We’re all kind of used to having you in charge, Max.”

  “Hana’s got this one,” she assured her friend. “Don’t worry. It’ll be another CMI triumph!”

  “People still talk about us back home,” said Tisa. “How we turned on the juice and brought electricity and light to places where they’d only known darkness. You were a great leader, Max.”

  “Thanks, Tisa. I couldn’t have done much without your help.”

  Acetic acid in hand, Max set up the second part of her three-step plan. She used the CMI credit card Ben had given her (back when she was the team leader) to order a major pizza delivery from Jules Thin Crust on Witherspoon Street in Princeton. They had vegan and vegetarian options. Thirty minutes later, twenty-five steaming pies were delivered to a common room of Mathey College, courtesy of Ben. The aroma was strong enough to draw everybody out of their rooms, including several dozen college kids who weren’t on the CMI team. The crowd mobbing the open pizza boxes was so huge, nobody noticed that Max wasn’t there.

  While everyone was distracted by the pizza drop, Max snuck out a fire exit and made her way to the nearest drugstore where she needed to buy two empty spray bottles and some household ammonia. While you’re there, urged a small voice in her head, pick up a water bottle and matches. Be prepared.

  So Max did.

  Outside on the sidewalk, most of the ammonia went into one spray bottle. Once that bottle was tightly sealed and all the scent of ammonia had evaporated from the air, Max carefully poured the very pungent acetic acid into the other sprayer.

  Next, she broke off the heads of about twenty matches, dumped them in the bottom of her brand-new twenty-ounce water bottle, poured in about two ounces of ammonia, screwed the bottle’s lid back on tight, and swirled the contents around.

  In a few days, that mixture of sulfur and ammonia would become a stink bomb. Did Max need a stink bomb? Maybe not that night. But she knew she might soon.

  She stuffed all the bottles into the baggy pockets of her floppy trench coat. The two spray triggers hung out as if she had just strapped on a pair of six-shooters from a cowboy movie.

  Ready for action, she headed back to the Tardis House.

  Crouching low, she crept along a hedge until, doing some elementary trigonometry in her head, she computed the angle of sight for a 360-degree surveillance camera inside a dome attached to a light pole at a height of twenty-five feet.

  She knew precisely where she could step before the camera’s motion detector would start detecting her motions.

  Max wrapped a bandana around her nose and mouth because she was about to create some toxic fumes.

  Aiming both of her spray bottles up at the motion-detecting camera, she pulled the triggers. The twin streams of liquids intersected. The acetic acid and ammonia mixed together to form a warming smokescreen in what Tisa (and every other chemist) would call an exothermic reaction. In other words, combining the two chemicals generated heat.

  The motion sensor that triggered the security camera would be looking for changes in temperature. The heat created by Max’s stinky ammonia-and-acetic-acid fog would increase the temperature of the air around the camera to 98.6 degrees and beyond.

  Once it did, Max would be able to pass underneath undetected. There would be no noticeable shift in temperature.

  She gave her chemical reaction a minute or two, watching the cloud of smoke billow up around the camera.

  Then she strolled past the lamppost and onto the lawn of 244 Battle Road. The police wouldn’t know anybody was anywhere near the place.

  Because their high-tech, motion-activated security camera hadn’t detected any motion.

  34

  Max scurried around the house to the back door and placed her two spray bottles on the stoop.

  Like Darryl had told her, whoever was in charge of the boarded-up Tardis House had secured the back door with a high-tech keypad lock. That meant they cared about what was inside and its history.

  At least they would care until it was bulldozed down.

  But maybe the people who knew what actually happened inside 244 Battle Road were eager to see it torn down. To bury whatever had happened in the basement all those years ago.

  Max knew she couldn’t crawl through a window because they were wired to a burglar alarm system. She’d have to go through the door. And, if she could figure out the combination for the keypad, no one could accuse her of breaking and entering. She’d just be “entering.”

  She looked around to see what she could use to help her crack the lock’s code.

  Antique paint curled off the house’s weather-beaten clapboard siding. She peeled away a pile of dried paint swirls and ground those flakes in her palm until they became a fine, gritty powder. Next, she placed her hand at the same level as the numbered keypad. Finally, she blew across the finely crushed powder while simultaneously lowering her hand, making certain to cover the entire keypad with a thin layer of paint dust.

  When it all settled, Max noted which number on the keypad had the highest concentration of gray powder. Then she looked for the second most, the third most, and the fourth.

  Max knew that when a finger touches a surface, it leaves behind an oily residue. That oily residue would act like glue. Each touch after the first will leave slightly less oily “glue” behind. So, to find the first number in the combination, all she had to do was look for the key with the most oil on it and, therefore, the most paint powder. She then followed the dust trail, in descending order of thickness, until she tapped in the correct four-digit code.

  The lock popped open.

  Max pushed open the door.

  Her heart was racing as she fiddled with the flashlight app on the phone every member of the CMI team had been given as part of their field gear.

  Yes, she was entering a house that Albert Einstein had visited. That was thrilling. Just like being backstage at the Royal Albert Hall.

  But this might also be the house where I lived when I was a baby, she thought.

  Or maybe she was just deluding herself. Maybe Max just wanted a more permanent connection to her idol, and the Tardis House legend gave her one. Maybe she was just a regular orphan that somebody had abandoned in a wicker basket on the front porch of the spy house next door, and Dr. Zimm made up the story about finding her in the basement.

  Max swung her flashlight around the room. Its beam landed on that cobweb-covered suitcase—the one that looked like a slightly larger version of her old Einstein memorabilia case. Both pieces of luggage seemed to come from the same matching set. They were the same color. Had the same vintage look. The same padded leather handle.

  Max swiped the thick coat of dust off the suitcase and pried open its brass clasps. Did this suitcase have a faded photograph of Albert Einstein tucked inside it like hers did? The smell of stale air that’d been sealed up for decades walloped her nostrils as she raised the lid.

  There was no picture of Dr. Einstein. There was nothing.

  She blindly ran her hand through a cloth pocket with a puckered elastic hem.

  There was something inside the pouch. It felt like a photograph.

  Max pulled it out.

  It was a black-and-white portrait of an infant. A girl with a mop of curly hair tied back in a bow. Someone had scribbled the name “Dorothy” in the lower right-hand corner. Was that the photographer’s name? The baby’s?

  Was that Max’s real name?

  Because the girl in the picture looked like a miniature version of the twelve-year-old Max, especially the wild mop of tangled curls. Was Dorothy’s hair red, too? The black-and-white photograph didn’t reveal the answer.

  Max slipped the photograph back into the cloth pouch and closed up the suitcase.

  “Guess I have a new place to store my Einstein stuff,” she told herself. She’d definitely be taking the suitcase back to the dorm.

  But first, she had to explore the basement.

  35

  Max made
her way down creaking wooden stairs that sagged with every step.

  Her flashlight app could barely pierce the darkness as she descended. The house had no functional electric lighting. The narrow basement windows up near its ceiling were boarded over so tightly, no moonlight seeped in.

  Max reached the concrete floor and shone her flashlight around the room.

  The center of the floor was charred black—as if a rocket ship had used it as a launch pad. Looking up, she could see a tangle of ancient singed cables dangling from the ceiling, their cloth insulation frayed.

  Something had been ripped out of this room. Something big and complicated.

  A wormhole generator? But how could such a device even be possible, especially back in 1921?

  Because the two young scientists who lived in this house were geniuses, just like Max and her friends. They, according to Einstein, understood his theories better than he understood them himself.

  Max moved to the far wall. There was a blackboard that had been scrubbed clean. There was also a row of clunky, gunmetal gray filing cabinets. Max squeaked open a drawer.

  Empty.

  Someone had, probably a long time ago, come down here and scrubbed away every trace of what had happened in this basement. Hopefully, they took notes and photographs. Maybe they even saved the young geniuses’ writings in a secret storage facility somewhere. Maybe the government had everything and would be happy to see the old house torn down—because they’d built their own time machine based on what was built here.

  But all that was just wild speculation.

  Max could see that there was nothing for her in the Tardis House except Darryl’s stories and an old suitcase with a baby portrait tucked inside.

  She climbed back up the staircase, thankful that none of the rotting treads collapsed as she climbed them. She grabbed hold of the dusty old suitcase on the first floor and carried it to the back door.

  When she stepped outside, she froze.

  Twelve hovering silver balls with fluttering hummingbird wings—resembling high-tech versions of the Golden Snitch from Harry Potter’s Quidditch games—were arrayed in a pyramid formation directly in front of her.

  The one in the lead actually started talking to her.

  “This is Professor Viktor Von Hinkle,” the drone droned through a miniature speaker. “Resistance is futile, Max. Stand where you are.”

  Max disobeyed the floating bot’s commands. She immediately leaped back into the house and slammed the door shut.

  She thought about using her phone. Calling the police. Calling Charl and Isabl.

  But she’d already broken the rules and sneaked out of the dorm once. Charl and Isabl weren’t big on repeat offenders, especially if you did the thing they already told you not to do.

  The metal drone banged against the door. Hard.

  “Work with us,” the talking drone continued, its voice muffled by the wooden barrier. “We understand you have been demoted. That you are no longer the CMI’s so-called Chosen One.”

  What? Max thought. How could the Corp know that? It just happened a few hours earlier.

  “Work with us. With our unlimited resources, you and Lenard could revolutionize quantum computing as the world knows it.”

  Max ignored Von Hinkle’s argument. She wondered how the Corp knew where she was.

  The answer hit her in a flash: her phone had a GPS chip in it. That meant she could be tracked, if somebody knew her phone number. But only the CMI team had that information. Was there a CMI spy working undercover for the Corp again?

  It seemed the only logical answer. How else could the hovering drones have found her?

  She’d disabled the streetlamp security camera. She’d left the dorm without anybody knowing she’d snuck out.

  Hana, she thought! She wanted to be the Chosen One so badly, she’d do anything to eliminate Max as a threat. Klaus had done something similar on an earlier project when he wanted to be the one in charge.

  It has to be Hana.

  Max knew she should worry about who turned her in later. After she survived whatever attack the squadron of Corp drones had in store for her. Could she outrun them?

  Doubtful.

  Unless…

  She pulled the photograph of Dorothy out of the antique suitcase and stuffed it down into the inner pocket of her trench coat.

  It was all she’d be able to take with her from the Tardis House. She’d be leaving the suitcase behind. There was no way for her to carry it.

  Because she’d need two hands to handle the drones.

  36

  “It is time for you to forget this CMI foolishness and work for the Corp, Max!” said the lead drone outside the door. “Stay where you are. We are on our way to pick you up. If you tell us how to find Lenard, you will be handsomely rewarded.”

  Yeah, right, thought Max. They’ll make me watch while they dismantle the poor bot.

  This was her cue to leave.

  She hunched down low, like a sprinter in the starting blocks. She dangled her arms down to the floor and flexed her fingers.

  She had one shot at this.

  One shot.

  She took a deep breath. Raised her right arm. She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and slowly twisted it to the right.

  “Let us in while you wait for your pickup,” purred Von Hinkle’s voice from the drone. “We’ll help you pass the time more comfortably.”

  Max waited a beat.

  Then she yanked the door open, just as the lead drone shot forward to bang against it again.

  Since the door was open, instead of slamming into wood, the dumb drone zipped into the darkened room. At the same instant, Max zipped out to the stoop in her hunched-over stance, her hands perfectly positioned to grab the two spray bottles she’d left there earlier.

  She started running.

  The cluster of drones remained locked in their hover positions. They didn’t move.

  They must be taking orders from the lead guy, Max thought. Good. That would make her job easier.

  She raced across the lawn and dashed down to the street.

  “Pursue her!” she heard a tinny voice say. “We need to administer the tranquilizer.”

  Oh, no, you do not! thought Max as, arms pumping, trench coat flapping, she ran up the street toward the Princeton campus.

  The drones were speedy. She could hear their metallic wings buzzing and clacking behind her. She dodged right and they stayed on her. She juked left, and so did they.

  They were tracking her.

  Suddenly, a lone drone flew in front of her, spun around, and nose-dived straight at her.

  A needle was sticking out of the orb like a shiny little dagger.

  Max whipped up both spray bottles and shot another intersecting-stream blast at her attacker. The exothermic reaction’s toxic cloud threw off the drone’s heat-seeking guidance system. Max sidestepped to the right again. The blinded drone’s needle jabbed itself into the asphalt, missing her sneaker by an inch.

  Max started running again.

  Now she was on campus, not far from Mathey College.

  The remaining unrelenting drones hovered in a cluster behind her.

  “Surrender, Max,” cried the lead drone. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  Oh, yes, you do, thought Max. That’s all you Corp goons know how to do. Hurt people.

  She whipped around. Studied the eleven silver balls lined up in a flying wedge, making it super easy to spot the lead drone.

  She pulled up both spray bottles and aimed them at her primary tormentor.

  “So long, Professor Von Hinkle,” she shouted right before she gave the shimmering orb a double shot of ammonia and acetic acid.

  The heat-generating smoke screen messed with the weapon’s internal guidance system. That meant it also messed with the signals the queen bee was sending out to the ten worker drones still flying in its fleet.

  Before long, the drones started wildly whirling and twirling through the air. A few
slammed into each other, exploding. One snagged a power line and sent up a shower of electrical sparks. Drones dropped like tin bricks out of the sky. One dinged the hood of a car and set off its very annoying alarm. Another smashed through a stained glass window. Alarm bells started ringing. Max started running again.

  She didn’t want to be out on the street when the campus police showed up to examine the accident scene. Hopefully, they’d chalk up the drone wreckage to a brainy fraternity prank gone bad.

  Max slipped into the lobby of Mathey College.

  “Awesome pizza party, huh?” said Klaus, coming out of the common room with a paper plate. “This is my seventh slice!”

  “Yeah,” said Max. “I had three.”

  “No way. You had at least four or five. I saw you loading up your plate.”

  Max shrugged. “Busted.”

  “I just wish Ben had sent more with sausage,” said Klaus. “Who wants vegetables on their pizza? Have a good night, Max.”

  “Good night, Klaus.”

  Max smiled.

  Apparently her diversionary tactic had worked just the way she hoped it would.

  Everybody was having so much fun gobbling down pizza, they’d assumed Max was there, too.

  37

  That night, Max had trouble falling asleep.

  And not because Siobhan was snoring in the lower bunk (she was).

  She just had too much on her mind.

  Should she tell Charl and Isabl about her encounter with the Corp’s drones? If she did, she’d have to admit that she did exactly what they told her not to do. Besides, the group was leaving Princeton first thing in the morning, heading to West Virginia. Max would stick close to Charl and Isabl in the morning. The Corp wouldn’t dare strike again while she was protected. Would they?

  But how did the Corp know where to find me? she wondered again.

  At first she’d thought Hana might’ve alerted them to her whereabouts in an attempt to eliminate any lingering threat she might pose to Hana’s new role as the Chosen One. It’s hard to be the new queen if the old one is still hanging around in the palace.