“You guys are all amazing,” Max told the group. “It was an honor to even meet you. And Klaus?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I hope you build that sausage-making robot one day.”

  “Thanks. Sorry about the bit with the mop wig.”

  “No worries. I thought it was fantastic. I think all you guys are fantastic.”

  “Do you think your pal Dr. Einstein would agree?” asked Keeto, whose nerves had dampened his usual swagger.

  “Definitely. He knew kids had all the answers.”

  “You’re going to quote him again, aren’t you?” laughed Klaus.

  “Totally. ‘Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.’”

  “Well,” said Siobhan, gesturing toward the stage, “it looks like this morning’s Great Mystery is about to be resolved.”

  The five judges marched onto the stage and took their seats on the stools.

  “Do you think all the clothes in their closets are black?” whispered Annika.

  “Probably,” Max whispered back.

  “They’re judges,” said Tisa. “It’s a law.”

  Charl, Isabl, and Ms. Kaplan entered the auditorium and found seats in the second row, right behind the nine kids.

  “Good luck, you guys,” said Isabl.

  “Thanks,” was the unanimous whispered reply.

  The lead judge, sitting in the center of the panel again, cleared his throat.

  Max knew: It was time for the verdict to be delivered.

  Annika reached over and took Max’s right hand. Tisa took her left. Max squeezed back tightly. In a chain reaction that would’ve made Dr. Einstein proud, all nine contestants were soon clutching one another’s hands. In a few short days, the nine strangers had, somehow, become a family.

  “We have made our recommendation to the benefactor,” said the lead judge.

  “Although our verdict was not unanimous,” grumbled the sour-faced judge who looked even angrier than he had the night before.

  The lead judge took over again. “The benefactor advised us that they would be taking several, shall we say, variables and extenuating circumstances into account before arriving at their final selection.”

  “None of you should feel that you are somehow ‘less than’ the first finisher,” added the most motherly judge. “On the contrary. Just being here means you are special… you’re all winners…”

  And on and on they went.

  Max knew they were trying to be kind. To soften the blow. But their well-intentioned preamble was excruciating. Sooner or later, they’d just have to come out and name the winner. Or the “first finisher” if “winner” wasn’t a gentle enough word for the panel to use.

  “Cut to the chase, dude,” muttered Keeto.

  “Totally,” echoed Vihaan.

  Finally, the judge in the center stood up. He pulled a sealed envelope out of his suitcoat’s interior pocket.

  “The Change Makers Institute, in accordance with our benefactor’s wishes, is pleased to announce our first finisher.”

  He sliced open the envelope with his index finger.

  It seemed to take an hour for him to complete the task. Another prime example of the theory of relativity at work in everyday life.

  The judge read what was on the paper.

  Grinned.

  Looked straight at Max.

  “Congratulations, Max,” he said. “You are the chosen one.”

  39

  Max couldn’t believe her ears.

  She’d won?

  Some of the other kids started sobbing. Even Klaus was screwing up his nose, trying not to cry.

  “Congratulations, Max,” said Annika, struggling against the tears that were filling her blue eyes. “I’m happy for you.”

  “Me, too,” said Tisa.

  Happy? They both looked miserable.

  Max probably should’ve felt elated. Maybe she should’ve jumped up and down and pumped her fists and done some kind of victory dance.

  Instead, she felt horrible.

  She hated seeing her new friends so down and discouraged, their spirits crushed by what they all probably felt was the biggest defeat in their young lives.

  “You guys?” is all she could say. “I’m sorry…I didn’t…”

  “Max?” said the head judge.

  She turned to face the stage. She had to sniffle back her own tears.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Please report to the briefing room in two hours to receive your first CMI assignment and meet your team. We’ve assembled some of the best scientists and engineers in the world to assist you in your task. The rest of you? Please enjoy one last breakfast buffet and then, at your earliest convenience, pack your bags. It is time for you to return home, where, we are certain, you will all continue to do great and amazing things.”

  Max’s eight friends, her former rivals, stood up. Nobody was holding hands. Max missed that. She liked the hand-holding.

  “Congratulations, Max,” said Charl from the row behind her.

  “Once you are properly briefed,” added Isabl, “we will be pulling you out of Israel.”

  “It’s too hot here,” added Charl. “And I’m not referring to the temperature.”

  “We need to stay one step ahead of the Corp,” said Isabl.

  “Indeed, you do,” said Ms. Kaplan, giving Max a look of disdain. The CMI matron undoubtedly figured the sudden appearance of the Corp in Jerusalem was all Max’s fault, which, come to think of it, it probably was.

  Max watched the eight other contestants, their heads hanging down, shuffle out of the auditorium.

  They all seemed so sad. Broken. All their spirit and fiery passion had, in the instant of the announcement, been extinguished.

  That was a huge problem.

  One for Max to solve.

  Because that’s who she was.

  A problem solver.

  Just like Albert Einstein.

  40

  Two hours later, as requested, Max reported to the briefing room.

  It was the same room where she’d first met her competition. Once again, the holographic map of the globe was rotating over the circular desk. Red spots glowed and throbbed all over the world. In Africa. The Amazon rain forest. Washington, DC. London.

  She figured those were the trouble spots where the CMI was hoping to accomplish some kind of significant change. Charl and Isabl were in the room. So were the head judge and eight strangers Max had never met before.

  More strangers, Max thought. Now that she actually had some friends, kids her own age, she was a little wary of starting over with a new group she knew nothing about.

  “Max?” said Isabl. “Welcome. It’s time for you to meet your team.”

  “My team?”

  “Our benefactor handpicked these eight ladies and gentlemen to assist you on your first mission, which you, of course, will help select.”

  “So, I get to help pick the mission but not the mission team?”

  “These scientists and engineers are all tops in their fields, Max,” said Charl. “For instance, Dr. Sherpa here is an expert in quantum mechanics.”

  “So’s Vihaan.”

  “Professor Huang specializes in agricultural issues.”

  “Is she smarter than Hana?” muttered Max.

  “Mr. Okusi is a computer scientist—”

  “That’s Keeto’s department.”

  “Max?” said Isabl. “You’re being difficult.”

  “Sorry. But sometimes, I just can’t help it.” She turned to the group of esteemed scientists and engineers. “Um. Hi. Glad you could make it. Hope it wasn’t a wasted trip, but, well, it might’ve been.”

  She gestured to another one of those smoky ceiling domes shielding what had to be a security camera. “Is our friend watching us?”

  “Which friend?” asked Isabl.

  “You know—Mr. or Ms. Benefactor.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I’d like to talk to him or her about my team.”

  “But these are his rules,” added Charl. “This is his team.”

  “Good. We settled that one,” said Max. “He’s a he.”

  She shook her head. Rules. Restrictions. Dictates. She liked those about as much as Einstein did, which was not at all.

  She walked up to the camera. “Hello, sir. I’m, uh, Max. Max Einstein. And I can’t wait to start changing things for the better. So, uh, thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m eager to get started. Today. Right now. Let’s do it! Woo-hoo!”

  She gave the camera a mighty arm pump.

  All the super-serious scientists in the room were gawking at her, some with their mouths hanging open.

  “I’m happy to be your first finisher,” she said to the camera. “But. Well. But…”

  “There can be no ‘buts,’” said the head judge. “If you are unwilling to perform your duties as outlined by the benefactor—”

  “Oh, I’m willing, sir. In fact, I’m more than willing. I’m eager. However, I do have one little request. Actually, to be honest, it’s not really a request. It’s more of a demand.”

  Max wondered if her headstrong enthusiasm for a wild idea might do her in.

  The judge raised his bushy eyebrows. “A demand?”

  “Yes, sir. And it’s nonnegotiable. We’re talking zero wiggle room.”

  “And what is this ‘demand’?”

  “Well, no offense to the brilliant scientists here in the room, or to you, wise and munificent benefactor.”

  This time, she comically bowed at the camera.

  The main judge touched a clear earpiece that Max had noticed he was wearing.

  “What is your demand?” he said, repeating what someone, probably the benefactor, had just said to him.

  “Well, it’s pretty simple,” said Max, focusing on the camera. “I want the other eight contestants to be my team. Siobhan, Keeto, Toma, Hana, Vihaan, Tisa, Annika, and, yes, even Klaus. They have to be my field crew. I don’t mind if some of these adults help us with logistics and office stuff, but the kids you assembled here are absolutely brilliant. That’s who I want with me. The best and the brightest.”

  “But they’re children!” blurted Professor Huang.

  “Exactly right,” said Max. “They have no preconceived notions. No fixed ideas about how things have to be done. Their minds are open. They’ll see the world with fresh eyes and attack problems with fresh ideas. And, if you ask me, that’s exactly what this tired old world needs. As someone much smarter than me once said, ‘A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.’” Max looked up at the camera again. “So, do we have a deal, sir? I hope we have a deal. I love good deals.”

  The room was silent.

  Now everybody was staring up at the concealed security camera.

  Finally, the head judge touched his ear and, a moment later, cleared his throat.

  “Yes,” he said, repeating what he heard through his earpiece. “You have a deal. The eight other contestants can be your field team.”

  “Woo-hoo!” said Max, giving the camera another arm pump. “We won’t let you down! I promise. Or my name isn’t Max Einstein!”

  41

  The eight genius children were asked to join the girl named Max in the main conference room.

  “You can finish packing later,” said Ms. Kaplan. “You will all be leaving Jerusalem, but there’s been a change of plans. You won’t be flying home. You’ll be traveling with Max. She’s requested your help on her first mission.”

  Yahav heard all this from his post in the lobby of the CMI building.

  Charl and Isabl had taken him off the active security detail after the incident at the Einstein Archives. They’d demoted him to a desk job. His only official task was to sign in visitors (like the prominent professors and engineers who’d arrived that morning) and issue ID badges.

  It was the perfect post for him to continue his undercover surveillance work for the Corp.

  From his post in the lobby, Yahav knew who was coming into the building and what was going on at all times. And judging from the flurry of activity and the flow of very important guests that day, he could tell that something big was definitely up.

  The Institute might soon be making their move with Max Einstein.

  Yahav stood up. Looked up and down the corridor. The other little geniuses had just been summoned to the main conference room.

  That meant the dormitories were empty.

  Perfect, he thought.

  He pulled a plastic toy out of the hip pocket of his cargo pants. It was a small, solar-powered, plastic figurine of a rumpled Albert Einstein. When sitting in the sun, the plastic Einstein would continuously tap the side of his crazy-haired head, as if he were having an idea.

  On an earlier reconnaissance mission through the CMI dormitory, Yahav had noticed that the girl, Max, kept an assortment of Einstein memorabilia displayed in a battered suitcase that she opened up like a curio cabinet.

  Yahav would add one more item to her collection.

  He hung a gift tag around the toy professor’s neck: “Good Luck! From your friends at CMI!”

  He also inserted a tiny tracking device, about the size of a fingernail, into the toy’s base.

  Now all he had to do was place the Einstein action figure inside the girl’s suitcase and the Corp would know where she (well, at least her suitcase) was at all times.

  He hurried up the hall, stopping to pick up a case of bottled water from a nearby supply closet. If he was discovered in the dorm area, he could say he was there restocking the rooms with beverages.

  But everybody—staff and children—was in the conference center.

  No one saw him enter Max’s room.

  No one saw him place the new Einstein souvenir in the suitcase with all the others.

  Now that he had activated the tracking device in the base of the toy, Dr. Zimm and the Corp could definitely see where Max Einstein was, no matter where in the world the CMI sent her.

  42

  “You’re the first finisher, Max,” said Annika. “It’s only logical that you pick your own project.”

  “Just make sure it involves robots,” said Klaus.

  “Why?” said Hana. “Max is supposed to do good for humans, not machines.”

  “We have several suggestions we’d like to make,” said Professor Huang. “After all, that’s why I was summoned here from the University of California at Berkeley.”

  “I flew in from Colorado,” added one of the adult engineers. “I have some ideas about water shortages…”

  Max did her best to block out all the voices and advice swirling around her in the conference room like a swarm of angry bees. She walked up to the center table and studied the glowing trouble spots on the holographic globe as it slowly rotated on its axis.

  “What’s going on right here?” she asked, pointing to a throbbing red blotch in Africa.

  “That’s the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” said Tisa, the girl from Kenya.

  “We would love to bring electricity to some of the remote villages in that area,” said Charl.

  “It would do a lot of good,” added Isabl.

  “The DRC has been ‘rebuilding’ its power grid as part of the war-torn country’s reconstruction since 2003,” said another one of the professors in the room. “Only nine percent of Congo’s seventy million people have access to electricity.”

  “Most of that is in the urban areas,” said Charl. “Only about one percent of the rural areas have electricity. They’re totally off the grid.”

  “My father is very interested in investing in the Congo,” said Tisa. “But if the villages lack electricity, it is very hard for him to convince his board of directors to pour money into them.”

  “Well,” said Max, as she slowly worked through a new idea in her head. “What if… what if we could electrify them without a power grid? What if a village could be energy self-sufficient and the national government didn’t have to build power plants or run transmission lines or worry about creating utility companies to manage it all?”

  “And what if unicorns could fart rainbows?” said Klaus.

  Max ignored him. She was deep in thought. Lack of access to electricity was surely hurting Congolese people. Their health, their education, their money-making potential.

  That’s why they send their children into those mines, she thought.

  She stared at the slowly turning globe, remembering that news story she’d read about kids as young as seven “working in perilous conditions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” where they mined cobalt that ended up in first-world smartphones, cars, and computers.

  The children were being paid one dollar a day to do backbreaking work, she remembered.

  And then she remembered something that hadn’t mattered much to her when she’d read it the first time:

  “They were also helping make a shadowy international business consortium called the Corp very, very, very rich.”

  The Corp.

  The bad guys. The ones who’d come after her, first in New York and then Jerusalem.

  Maybe it was time to take the battle to them. Or, at the very least, cut off one of their revenue streams.

  “These villages without electricity,” she said, “are they anywhere near the cobalt mines?”

  Charl and Isabl both nodded.

  “Some, yes,” said Isabl.

  “The ones run by, you know, those other guys?”

  “An international mining consortium runs the operation,” said Charl. “And, yes, they have very powerful, very well-connected friends.”

  The way he said it, Max knew Charl meant “the Corp.”

  “If we can bring low-cost electricity to the rural villages,” said Max, “then, maybe, the people would be less dependent on the mining industry. Maybe they could generate income some other way.”