Then she checked to make sure she had everything she might need stuffed into the coat’s deep pockets. Because she had a feeling that the most important chess game of her life had already begun.
62
Leo was behind the wheel of the van, turning it, once again, into an autonomous, self-driving automobile.
Hana and Max shared the first bench of seats in the back.
“Once we organize the trucks, the hunger problem will be solved,” said Hana. “We can move on to our next project.”
“I don’t think it will be ‘solved,’” said Max. “At least not on a global basis. But, with the right algorithms and software to track, monitor, and keep the food flowing, it’ll be a good start. A logistics model that others can duplicate.”
“Whatever,” said Hana, rather dismissively. “I’m just eager to move on to my next big thing.”
Max nodded and smiled.
Because Hana had revealed herself when she said “my next thing” instead of “our next thing.”
All that “no-I-in-team” stuff she’d been spouting? Another part of her act. And, Max had to admit, it was a pretty good act.
But not good enough to fool Max.
“You know,” Max said aloud, “I’m kind of glad it’s you and not Keeto.”
“Excuse me?” said Hana.
“I mean, he whines and complains a lot, but he’s brilliant. He’s designing most of the software for the food redistribution idea. So, Hana—what did they offer you?”
“Who?”
“The Corp.”
“Shall I terminate this journey?” asked Leo from the front seat. “Do you anticipate trouble, Max?”
“Why are you asking her?” snapped Hana. “I’m the Chosen One.”
“Wow,” said Max with a small laugh. “Is that what this is about? You like the title? The prestige?”
“I am going to turn this vehicle around,” said Leo.
“No,” said Max. “Don’t. We’d probably all die if you did. What do they have tracking us, Hana? An armed drone?”
Hana’s nose twitched. “They weren’t specific. But, yes, they do have access to armed drones with extremely lethal capabilities.”
“That means they’d blow you up, too, Hana,” said Max. “Nice people you’re working for.”
“Be quiet! Pull in here, Leo. Now!”
“Max?” said Leo.
Max shrugged. “Do what Hana says, Leo. After all, she’s the Chosen One. The one who chose to betray the CMI.”
Leo drove the van through the gates of a rusty, chain-link fence topped with barbed concertina wire. He piloted the vehicle across the pothole-pocked parking lot of what looked to be an abandoned warehouse. A freshly painted sign (much newer than anything else on the premises) declared this to be Hambrecht Hauling.
“Nice touch,” said Max sarcastically. “Very realistic sign. Oh, and that bogus communications intercept about the Corp coming to get Leo and me at precisely eleven hundred hours? That was a slick move, too. You completely eliminated Charl and Isabl from the equation.”
Now Hana was grinning. “Well, Max, as you might have forgotten, I am brilliant, too.”
Max saw a burly man armed with a small submachine gun step onto the loading dock.
Hana powered down her window. “Are you Wilhelm?”
The man nodded.
He came down a short flight of concrete steps and yanked open the passenger-side door.
“You really did think of everything!” said Max. “You kept the front seat open for your friend Wilhelm with the semiautomatic rifle and put me in the seat diagonally behind him.”
“So I can shoot you if you misbehave,” said Wilhelm, aiming his weapon at Max’s heart. “Drive!”
“To the Cave?” said Leo.
Wilhelm seemed surprised by Leo’s response. “You remember the way?”
“Oh, yes, Wilhelm. Thanks to a recent reboot and refreshment of my core data, I remember many things from my past. If you like, you can call me Lenard.”
“Whatever you say, tin can.”
Leo, as always, kept cool. “Calculating route to the Cave. Anticipate arrival in forty-four minutes.”
“So drive,” snarled Wilhelm.
“Yes, sir, Wilhelm. Right away, Wilhelm.”
Wilhelm smiled. “Robots. You gotta love ’em. They’ll do whatever you tell ’em to do.”
He chuckled.
Leo giggled.
And the van drove off toward the rolling green mountains on the horizon.
63
“Dr. Zimm will be happy to see the two of you, that’s for sure,” said Wilhelm.
“Hana and me?” said Max, playing dumb (which was easy for her to do because she was so smart).
“No. You and Lenard here. The Corp shelled out a ton of money to build this bot. They’ll be glad to have him back on the job, doing what he was designed to do. And you, Maxine? Dr. Zimm says you and your brain are gonna bring in billions!”
“I’m sure he will offer you a very attractive compensation package,” said Hana. “As they have for me.”
They still had a way to go until they reached the Cave. And Max needed Leo to drive as slowly as possible, without either Hana or Wilhelm recognizing what he was doing. So she kept up the conversation with Hana.
“What will you be doing for the Corp, Hana?” she asked innocently.
“Creating the true cure for worldwide hunger,” said the eager young botanist. “GMOs. Genetically modified organisms. Plant-based biotech. It’s what I was working on when the CMI first came knocking at my door. With genetic engineering, I can create plants that are twenty, even thirty percent larger than current breeds. That means more food can come from every acre of farmland. We’ll do more to alleviate starvation in the third world than you and your ridiculous logistics idea.”
“And you’ll probably make a lot of money, too,” said Max.
“So? Money isn’t a bad thing. Look at Ben. Who says our ‘benefactor’ is the only teenager who can be a multibillionaire? This is what Ms. Kaplan and I would discuss late into the evening some nights after the rest of you had already gone to bed. She helped orchestrate my takeover of the CMI. Of course, you helped, too, Max. We knew we could play on your disdain of exams and testing. Ms. Kaplan has your psychological profile. She knew how to play you like your hero, Dr. Einstein, played his violin.”
“Then,” said Max, “I guess that means she knew how to play you, too, Hana.”
The ride was quiet and frosty after that exchange.
“Projected arrival at the Cave in fifteen minutes,” Leo chirped after ten minutes of stony silence.
“Can’t you drive any faster?” said Wilhelm.
“Of course I can. However, this stretch of road is heavily policed. It is what they call a speed trap. If we were to be pulled over and an officer happened to notice what I take to be an Israeli-made Uzi nine-millimeter semiautomatic carbine in your lap, there might be questions.”
“Just drive,” said Wilhelm. “And shut up.”
Exactly fifteen minutes later, the van passed through a security gate and came to a stop in a clearing where the access road dead-ended at the sheer bluff of a mountain.
Suddenly, the side of the mountain slid sideways, exposing a brilliantly lit subterranean highway.
“Where are all the security guards?” asked Leo.
“The humans?” said Wilhelm. “They’ve been replaced. By those guys.”
A sleek white robot that looked like the top of a rocket on wheels whizzed past the van.
“Dr. Zimm is waiting for you in the boardroom sector,” said Wilhelm. “You remember where that is?”
“Of course,” answered Leo. “I remember everything.”
“So,” said Max, as the van crept deeper into the cavern, “this is where you’ll be working?”
“You, too,” said Hana. “Although I suspect I’ll have an office while you’ll have a cell. They’ll probably park Leo in a garage.”
“You might recognize some of those faces upstairs, Max,” said Leo. “That is the Corp’s board of directors. They are all multibillionaires and captains of industry. Leaders of big pharma, big media, big…”
“Keep your big mouth shut,” snapped Wilhelm. “They prefer to remain anonymous.”
Max grinned. She could see why.
Respectable business leaders forming a secret consortium and, basically, ruling the world while simultaneously destroying it? That wouldn’t make for good public relations. Exposing them—putting their faces on TV or the internet—might be the best way to shut the Corp down. It’s like somebody once said: sunlight is the best disinfectant.
“Everybody out,” barked Wilhelm.
“Gladly,” said Hana.
“I suppose we must do what we are told to do,” said Leo.
“Exactly,” said Max.
They both climbed out.
And Dr. Zimm giggled when he saw them.
64
So that’s where Leo gets it, thought Max when she was face-to-face once again with the evil man whose teeth were too big for his skull-like face.
“Hello, Max,” he said with manic glee. “So good to see you again. You, too, Lenard. Welcome home.”
“It’s almost heaven,” remarked Leo. “West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains. Shenandoah—”
“Yes, yes,” said Dr. Zimm. “That was the first thing the techies taught you, I’m told. Wait here. Max and I are needed upstairs.”
“Where is my office?” asked Hana.
“Oh, it’s not here, dear. We wanted to put you someplace special. Wilhelm?”
“Sir?”
“Kindly organize an appropriate relocation package for our friend Hana. Perhaps our facility in the Sahara Desert. She is of no further use to us.”
“Wait! What about—”
Wilhelm dragged Hana away.
“I despise GMO food,” Dr. Zimm said with a snicker to Max. “Corn cobs the size of watermelons? Revolting. Lenard, you will wait here. And don’t even think about escaping. You see those security bots whirring up and down the tunnels? They are highly weaponized and equipped with facial recognition software. They have both of your faces loaded into their memories.”
Leo stood stock still at the base of the steps leading up to the boardroom. “I will wait here as requested, Dr. Zimm. I do not want to incur the wrath of my robotic cousins.”
Fortunately, none of those patrolling cousins were close to the staircase leading up to the boardroom.
“Excellent. Follow me, Max. The board is eager to finally meet you. I think you will enjoy hearing what they have to propose.”
Max clanked up the circular steps behind Dr. Zimm, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her trench coat. Not because she was pouting, but because she was doing one last gear check. She also checked out the ductwork snaking its way into the sealed-off, soundproof plastic room where the Corp’s board of directors waited patiently for Dr. Zimm to deliver his prized catch.
Dr. Zimm tapped a rapid series of numbers onto a security keypad. A glass wall whooshed sideways to become a sliding door. Max followed the man who had discovered her crawling around in the basement of a house on Battle Road in Princeton when she was just a baby. They stepped into the command and control center of perhaps the most nefarious organization currently doing business anywhere on Earth.
The door swooshed shut behind them.
“So. This is the famous Max Einstein,” said a woman seated on the far side of the circular table. Max immediately knew who she was. Her face was constantly featured in all the top business magazines and cable TV channels.
“I won’t beat around the bush. We have a proposition for you, little lady,” said a bloated man with a thick Texas accent. Another famous face. He owned TV networks. Sports teams. An energy drink company. “A business proposition. Because that’s what we are. Businessmen.”
“Except Mrs. Winthorp, or course,” said Max, letting the woman on the far side of the table know that Max knew exactly who she was. “And Ms. Henriques there.”
“I stand corrected,” said the man with the twang, trying his best to sound friendly. “We’re all business people. So, here’s the proposition, Maxine. You help us develop our quantum computer and bring it to market, fast. We’ll give you thirty percent of the gross profits. Which you won’t think is gross at all!” He chuckled at his terrible joke.
“And of course,” said Dr. Zimm, “as your agent, I will take fifteen percent of your thirty percent.”
Max nodded.
“Seems fair.”
“Sure as shootin’ it’s fair,” said the Texan. “We’ll give you all the resources you need. A lab, technicians, you name it.”
“And,” added Dr. Zimm, “if you do a good job, I’ll tell you everything I know about where you came from.”
Max tapped the robot pin on her lapel.
“You mean how you found me crawling around in the basement of the house you and a bunch of corporate spies were renting on Battle Road in Princeton? Lenard has already told me everything you know, Dr. Zimm.”
The glass wall swooshed open.
“It’s true,” said Leo, bursting into the room. His chest compartment was open and bristling with high-tech weaponry. “And, yes, as you might have noticed by the number of firearms currently pointed at you, I’ve had serious upgrades since I left your employ. I also have excellent telescopic vision and was able to memorize the security code you tapped on the pad, Dr. Zimm. That young man Klaus is a genius. Not as brilliant as Max, here, but a true genius. Now then, all of you. Up against the far wall. Move it. Unless, of course, you are interested in dying.”
And then, like always, he giggled.
65
All the board members cowered at the far side of the circular room.
Max was amazed at the number of pointy weapons—rifles, rocket launchers, maybe even a flamethrower—jutting out of Leo’s chest. Charl, the weapons expert, had gone a little overboard helping Klaus turn the robot boy into a war machine.
“Target coordinates are locked in,” said Leo with some of his old Lenard menace.
“You know you won’t get far!” said Dr. Zimm, his hands raised over his head. “The security bots will destroy you. If just one of them sees your face—”
“They’ll think it’s Halloween,” said Max.
She reached into the deep right pocket of her floppy trench coat and pulled out two rubber masks. One was Frankenstein. The other was the current president of the United States. She tossed the Frankenstein mask to Leo. “You be Frankenstein. I always wanted to be president.”
“Your wish is my command, Max.”
They took turns squeaking on their rubbery masks.
“We’re going to lock you folks in,” Max told the group of billionaires, her voice muffled by the mask. “But we’re not cruel. Release Hana and, five minutes later, we’ll release you. Deal?”
No one answered. They just glowered and glared at the girl who thought she could outfox some of the foxiest business executives in the world.
“Okay,” said Max. “Think about it. Like I said, release Hana and we’ll open this door.”
“Your Wi-Fi is quite good down here,” remarked Leo. “Especially for being inside a mountain. I commend you on your technical expertise. The lock and I have already established a wireless connection that cannot, I’m sad to say, be overridden. Klaus did that for me, too. As I said, the boy is brilliant.”
“Let’s go, Leo.”
“This isn’t over, Max!” shouted Dr. Zimm as she and Leo backed up toward the open glass door.
“You’re right. It’s not over. Not yet. But soon.”
Max exited first. Leo kept his arsenal of weapons trained on the leaders of the Corp. Finally, he stepped out of the circular room
. The man from Texas lurched toward the door but it slid shut with a glassy thunk before he could reach it.
With their rubber masks thwarting all the facial recognition software in the security bots, Max and Leo breezed down the steps and headed for the exit.
“Leo?” said Max, looking up at all the pipes and conduits worming their way across the cavern’s craggy ceiling. “Which one of those ducts feeds fresh air into the boardroom?”
“Accessing blueprints,” said Leo. Klaus had restored everything he’d previously erased about Lenard’s past with the Corp. “The middle one.”
“Great. I need you to hoist me up. You see that vent? I’m going to put something inside it. Something that’s been stewing in a jar for a long time.”
“If I might inquire, what exactly is it?”
“A little encouragement for Dr. Zimm and the others to free Hana so we’ll open the door to that airtight, soundproof boardroom.”
Max removed the jar that she’d been carrying in her pocket since that night she visited the drugstore in Princeton. She’d been putting together the moves for this end game since before she even knew that’s what she was doing.
“It’s a stink bomb,” she explained. “Match heads contain hydrogen sulfide. Soaked in ammonia. Mix them together, let them sit for a few days, and you have ammonium sulfide. The vapor I’m releasing into the air duct is the same as hydrogen sulfide gas, what you might call rotten egg smell. It’s also flammable. So let’s hope none of those bigwigs fires up a cigar.”
“Not to worry,” said Leo. “The Cave is a completely smoke-free environment.”
“Well, it’s not going to be a stink-free environment much longer. Give me a boost.”
Hydraulics whirring, Leo hoisted Max up toward the ceiling. She popped open the vent in the duct, set her jar inside, and twisted off the cap.
“Bring me down!” she said, trying her best not to breathe through her nose.
“Does it smell bad?”
Max Einstein Saves the Future Page 15
