Project Mc2

by Jade Hemsworth

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  Copyright Page

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  SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE WHO ARE

  I.A.A.A.T.S.T.*

  Michael Anderson, Juli Boylan, Ruby Chang, Paula Garcia, Anne Gates, Leah George, Kris Marvin Hughes, Vicki Jaeger, Sam Khare, Katiedid Langrock, Claudia Leiva, Ilse Lopez, Corinne Mescher, Bruce Morrison, Sadaf Cohen Muncy, Dante Sandoval, Ellie Trope, Jeff Vinokur, and Isaac Larian.

  * INTERESTING AND AMAZING AT THE SAME TIME

  Prologue

  She was still lost in a dream. McKeyla McAlister could hear the steady beeping of the alarm clock, persistent as it announced the day. She rolled over in bed and rubbed her eyes. The ceiling came into view above her, then the room, piled high with cardboard boxes containing everything she owned.

  She sat up, reaching for the box labeled STUFF SO FRAGILE I WILL HURT SOMEONE IF IT BREAKS. Her composition notebook was perched right on top. She turned it over in her hands, thinking of the first day she’d opened this notebook—and how much it had guided her.

  Lately, she felt like her life was filled with first days. The first day at a new school, the first day on her own, or the first day trying to fit in. She couldn’t settle down anywhere long enough to have a favorite thrift store to shop at, or a sweet pug puppy, or a great bookstore to hang out in every weekend. She was kind of dreading spending another day in a classroom filled with strangers.

  “Come on,” she said, tucking the notebook under her arm. “Time to start the day.”

  She went to her closet, looking at the rack of clothes—denim jackets, sweaters, and flannel shirts all hung in a neat row. Right below them were several pairs of leather boots and sneakers. She ignored the clothes and pressed her hand against the small, flat screen on the wall next to the closet, letting the device scan her palm print. IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

  The closet slid back into the wall, revealing a secret room. McKeyla slipped inside and the door closed behind her, hiding the room completely.

  Time for her new mission to start.

  Chapter One

  I.A.W.A.T.S.T.*

  Camryn Coyle leaned into a right turn, and Maywood Glen Academy appeared in front of her. Kids were crowded outside the massive stone school, sitting on the grass, sharing earbuds, or slurping down the last of their grande frappes and capps. She narrowed her beautiful brown eyes and leaned forward to pick up more speed as the road straightened out. Her skateboard could go twice as fast as others because she’d installed a sweet engine on the back. She’d even designed special goggles (complete with crack-proof lenses) and a matching indestructible helmet that fit over her long burgundy curls.

  As she pulled up to the school, she stepped off the custom board and popped it into her arms. Despite the crowd, she instantly spotted her best friend, Bryden Bandweth, as usual completely absorbed in her phone. Bryden was a social media maven—if there was a social media platform worth anything, she was tapped into it. She had oodles of followers—and she followed ten times as many.

  This morning, Bry, who had long, curly black hair and cocoa skin, couldn’t be missed in an emoji T-shirt, a bright red skirt, and suspenders. When Cam caught up to her, they exchanged their signature greeting, a series of low fives and fist bumps in perfect sync.

  While Cam was the most introverted of all her friends, Bryden was usually super peppy, talking twice as fast as everyone else and often going on long, rambling tangents sharing her every thought and feeling as soon as she had it. But today she seemed a little subdued, a little off. Slightly less … Bry.

  “Sorry, Cam.” She yawned. “I’m still in sleep mode. I was up sooooo late last night.”

  “Same,” Cam commiserated. She could barely get out of bed this morning. She’d just thrown on her yellow print shorts and a floral baseball hat so she didn’t have to worry about her hair. “I was practically comatose finishing this beast.” Cam held up a thick stack of paper.

  Bry’s eyes went wide. “The Macbeth report! I totally spaced.” She looked down at her cell, checking the minutes until the bell. “Oh good … still have time…”

  She began furiously typing the paper on her cell phone. Bry was the absolute best at typing and talking at the same time. No one else could post a photo while carrying on two completely different, simultaneous conversations. Bry was also one of the friendliest girls at Maywood Glen Academy. She was friends with everybody.

  “I was about to jam on it last night when this idea popped into my brain to take the camera chip out of one of my old cells and put it in my pen,” Bry went on while also typing and walking.

  “Like a selfie spy pen,” Cam said.

  “Exactly! I tried it out and spied on myself but pretended I didn’t know I was spying on myself, so it was like I was spying on someone who wasn’t me—but it really was me. I mean, the camera pen is cool and all, but I needed to write that report. There, Macbeth done! And I really gotta stop getting so distract—”

  Before Bry could take a breath or finish her sentence, a tall, muscular boy with shaggy brown hair walked past them. She stopped in place, pointing her phone in his direction. “T.C.F.H.O.G.”

  “So true, Too Cute For His Own Good,” Cam said, spelling out the acronym. Cam could speak Bryden, which meant she could easily decipher a series of complicated acronyms. They’d been communicating this way since they could spell. Sometimes Bry or Cam would ramble off a superlong one that no one else on earth would be able to get, but they knew each other so well that they always understood it.

  As they walked up the steps and into the school, no one looked at them. The hall was strangely silent—almost every single person was watching something intensely on their phones. “What’s with all the cell zombies?” Cam asked, relatively curious.

  “It’s me! Stand back.… I’m trending.” Bry was convinced it was her “yawnstagram,” a picture she had snapped that morning of herself yawning, but as they peered over one girl’s shoulder, Bry realized it was something else. Everyone was watching a video of a cute boy stepping out of a black sedan. He was wearing sunglasses and kept waving to the camera like he was a celebrity.

  A reporter was speaking over the video. “Prince Xander, best known as the Thrillionaire Prince, is headed to the small U.S. town of Maywood Glen for his highly publicized trip to outer space, the latest of the popular British royal’s international adventures.”

  Bry turned to Cam, her brown eyes bright and awestruck. “I can’t believe he’s coming here tomorrow!”

  Cam smiled. “I can’t believe tomorrow is tomorrow.”

  A few feet away, a group of girls were huddled in a circle, discussing the news. One wondered out loud if Prince Xander had a girlfriend— she’d happily be his space princess—while the others were just dying to meet the handsome prince. They suddenly noticed Cam and Bry standing nearby, listening.

  “Hey, Cam, doesn’t your dad work at Space Inc.?” a wide-eyed girl asked.

  “She could introduce us to the prince!” a girl wearing a polka-dotted dress added.

&nbs
p; Within seconds, Cam was surrounded by the eager mob. Girls from all grades were asking her to get them passes for the launch or to sneak them into the prince’s training facility.

  “Sorry,” Bry said, “but Cam would need top secret clearance from her dad, so … Forward slash, let’s dash!” Bry pulled Cam away before the students smothered her.

  Bry held on tight to Cam’s hand as they raced down the hall, away from the growing crowd. They turned the corner, crashing into a girl in striped leggings and a leather jacket. Her books fell to the ground, just inches from her red plaid lace-up studded boots. Papers scattered all over the floor in a mess.

  “I am soooo sorry!” Bry uttered, covering her hand with her mouth.

  “Didn’t mean to crash into you…” Cam apologized sincerely.

  The girls knelt down, trying to gather the papers, composition notebook, and a folder with a photo of a boy with a huge grin sticking out the top. It took Bry a second to realize it was a pic of Prince Xander. Bry was a little confused and a lot intrigued, so she reached out to pick it up for the girl. “Let me help you with that.…”

  “Thanks, I got her!” the girl said nervously, grabbing the notebook and papers before Bry could touch them. “I mean it. I got it.”

  “You’re new, right?” Cam assumed. She hadn’t seen her around Maywood Glen, and the town was small enough that she had met everyone at least once.

  “Um, yes! I’m new, brand-new. That’s what I am,” the girl rambled nervously. “Just the new kid. No big deal.” She had green eyes and long, wavy brown hair, which she tucked behind one ear. The girls waited for her to introduce herself, but she didn’t.

  “Great, so we just made a really bad impresh on the transfer student,” Bry said.

  She and Cam gave a mock cheer in unison. “Go us!” They hoped a little humor might make the stranger more comfortable.

  The mysterious girl just gave them a tight smile. “It’s okay, really. No broken bones. No chipped teeth. No split ends. I’m fine, perfectly fine.” She started to back away.

  “I’m fine, too, McKeyla,” blurted out a high-pitched girl’s voice. Cam and Bry looked around for the speaker. Most of the hall was empty.

  “Who said that?” Cam asked, confused.

  “Said what?” The girl tried to brush off the question like it was no big deal. “I heard someone cough down the hall.” She looked over Cam’s and Bry’s shoulders and called out, “You okay back there? I should go check.”

  “It wasn’t a cough.… I heard words.” Cam glanced sideways at Bry. With a glance back, Bry agreed that something was really strange about this girl. And where had that voice come from?

  “It sounded like it came from your notebook.…” Bry pointed out.

  “Oh, that? That was my cell.” The girl pulled out her phone so quickly it was like a sleight-of-hand magic trick. She held it up to her ear and pretended to have a call. “What’s up, girlfriend? Sure, let’s meet at the mall … at some store … near some other store.”

  The girl pushed past them and hurried down the hallway, now chatting about the weather. Bry and Cam watched her go, squinting with suspicion.

  “McKeyla, huh?” Bry said. “That girl is definitely I.A.W.A.T.S.T.”

  “Hmmm, Interesting And Weird At The Same Time,” Cam agreed.

  Cam and Bry went down the hall, chatting about the mystery girl. Why had she just transferred in now? Where did she buy those cute kicks?

  But, more important, what was she hiding?

  * INTERESTING AND WEIRD AT THE SAME TIME

  Chapter Two

  N.G.O.T.S.*

  Cam sat cross-legged on her bed, which was piled high with striped pillows and blankets for comfort. Her orange workbench ran the length of her room, with drills and saws and pliers hanging above it. When she was younger, while other little girls collected dolls and stuffed animals, Cam collected screwdrivers and drill bits. She spent practically every day after school working on new inventions, but today she and Bry were sprawled across the bed, just hanging out.

  Cam was glued to her smartphone, checking out the latest post by Prince Xander, a video of himself talking about the space launch. He looked into the camera with his dreamy baby-blue eyes.

  “I can’t believe it! I’m finally taking the ultimate trip,” he said, filming himself on his phone, selfie-style. His wavy brown hair spilled over his forehead. “As a kid I always wanted to go into space to fight aliens with laser swords, like in that documentary I saw about the war of the stars.” He winked into the camera, and then the video cut out.

  Cam couldn’t help but smile. Yes, Prince Xander was the party-boy cousin of Britain’s royal family. He’d been on the cover of every trashy tabloid in the world, but he was also kind of charming. And cute—definitely cute.

  Meanwhile, Bry was lying on her stomach typing on her laptop. She had on her favorite pair of glasses—neon pixel-inspired frames–and they were practically fogging up from her getting more steamed with every keystroke. She made a frustrated noise and started banging her head on the keyboard. “Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!”

  Cam grabbed Bry’s shoulder, rescuing her friend. “Stop that! You’re going to get keyboard forehead. Again. What’s up?”

  “So that girl at school, McKeyla? I found out that her last name is McAlister. I did a search on every social media site and can’t find a single deet about who she is or where she’s from.” Bry sighed in exasperation.

  “No way,” Cam said, leaning over to look at the screen. “Nobody can hide from the Internet. Especially from you.”

  “Except for her.… It’s like she’s some kind of ghost.”

  “Yeah, a very fashionable ghost,” Cam agreed.

  Suddenly, Cam heard footsteps on the stairs. She glanced out her bedroom door and saw her father, rubbing his temples as if he had a killer migraine.

  “Dad?” Cam asked, surprised. “You’re home early…?” She left the are you okay part unspoken in the air.

  Mr. Coyle hovered in Cam’s doorway, offering the girls a tight smile. “Oh, there was just some commotion at the office today.”

  “Something’s up at Space Inc.?” Cam asked. She rarely got worried, but something about her dad’s face unsettled her. “What kind of commotion? What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  “Oh, how I love that excessively curious nature of yours,” Mr. Coyle teased. It was true—Cam had always wanted to know how things worked and had been asking him questions ever since she could talk. She wanted to know everything about the work he did at Space Inc., about the planets and stars and Milky Way, about why a computer worked the way it did … and could she take it apart to see its hard drive?

  “I got it from you,” Cam shot back. Then she raised her brows as if to say Okay … now, spill it.

  He didn’t want his daughter to worry, but he knew that Cam was the inquisitive type who required an answer. “It’s probably nothing,” Mr. Coyle said, smoothing his hands on his brown cardigan while trying to convince himself that it was the truth. “We just received a strange phone call. Some type of threat against the prince’s launch.”

  Cam shook her head. “Who would want to hurt the prince? He’s harmless.”

  “And adorbs,” Bry chimed in.

  “And entertaining,” Cam added.

  “Which makes him totes adorbs!” Bry smiled.

  “Um, I know, right? Totes adorbs.” Mr. Coyle smiled awkwardly. Then he turned serious again and pulled out his phone. “Apparently someone doesn’t agree with you.”

  He pressed PLAY on his screen, and an eerie, computerized voice filled the room.

  “Attention, Space Inc: Dismantle your plans for the prince’s launch immediately. I’m warning you—there will be devastating consequences if Prince Xander’s flight is not canceled. That is all I can say.”

  Bry cringed. “Well, I’m totally creeped out.”

  Mr. Coyle just shrugged. “The office gets crazy messages like this all the time. Everyone thinks it’s
just another hoax.”

  “And you?” Cam said, looking at her father. He had that same tight look he always got when he was extra stressed.

  “I’m…” He hesitated, glancing from Bry to Cam. “I’m not so sure. You see, last night I accidentally left my laptop at the office—closed—and this morning I found it open.” He set his laptop bag on the bed next to them, as if presenting evidence.

  “That’s kinda freaky,” Cam weighed in.

  “I thought so, too!” Mr. Coyle said. “And with that weird phone call, I wonder if someone’s after information about the flight.”

  Bry yanked out his laptop, cracked it open, and started clicking away. “If you want, Mr. Coyle, I can tap into Space Inc.’s security cams to see if someone has been lurking around there after hours.…”

  Mr. Coyle let out a small laugh. “That’s a nice offer, Bry, but it’s impossible to break into our cameras. The firewall was specifically designed so that no one—”

  “I’m in!” Bry said cheerfully, grinning at the screen.

  Mr. Coyle, disturbed yet impressed, stepped forward, looking at the security footage from over her shoulder to see for himself. “Man … you are really good at this.”

  Bry hit the key that played the recorded black-and-white footage. There was an aerial shot of Mr. Coyle’s desk with no one around. At the bottom of the frame was the time code. Bry fast-forwarded through the footage—until she saw a dark, shadowy figure enter the room. She instantly stopped it and let the footage play out. The person’s face was obscured, covered by a hooded sweatshirt.

  “Look! There!” Bry cried out. “Do you know who that is?”

  Mr. Coyle squinted at the screen. The image was a little blurry. “I don’t know.… It could be a janitor or a security guard.”

  Bry zoomed in on the image. “Looks like someone slender.…”

  “Maybe the guard has been taking Pilates?” Mr. Coyle desperately joked.