Tisa pushed away her half-nibbled lobster roll.
“I’m not so hungry anymore,” she mumbled.
“Neither is anyone back home,” said Siobhan.
“You guys?” said Max, hoping to inject some optimism into the conversation. “You want to hear something that’s kind of amazing?”
“Sure,” said Tisa. “As long as it’s not about diarrhea.”
“No. I promise. But get this: The same water has been on Earth for millions and millions of years. It just keeps getting evaporated up into the clouds until they’re so heavy they dump rain, which fills the lakes and rivers, which evaporates again, and heads back up into the clouds. No matter how dirty we make it, water can always become clean again, eventually. Nature takes care of itself over a very, very long time. The trick is to speed up the process.”
“Stow your gear on board, guys,” said Charl, glancing at his high-tech watch. “We want to be wheels-up in ten minutes!”
Siobhan raised her bottle of crystal-clear water. “I can’t thank you lot enough for lending a hand,” she said. “Sláinte mhaith!”
“Huh?” said Tisa. “‘Sloncha’ what now?”
“It’s an old Irish toast in Gaelic. Sláinte mhaith! It means, ‘good health.’”
Max raised her water glass. “Sláinte mhaith! Which, hopefully, is exactly what we’re going to bring to your hometown, Siobhan.”
21
Dr. Zimm took a deep breath before stepping through the tall doorway leading into the Corp’s boardroom.
Lenard did not. The robot simply whirred into the shadowy room behind Dr. Zimm, trailing him like an eager teenager on “Take Your Humanoid to Work Day.”
Twelve severe-looking men and women ringed the boardroom’s massive mahogany table. Their stern faces belonged to representatives of Big Banking, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Defense, Big Media. If an industry was Big, with global reach and limitless greed, it fought for a seat at this particular table. The world’s wealthiest companies joined forces to form the Corp for one reason and one reason only: to grow even wealthier. The billionaires on the board did not like being disappointed by the people they hired to help them make their fortunes grow.
People like Dr. Zacchaeus Zimm.
“The girl continues to elude you?” said the pink-faced chairman. He was furious. So were all the others.
“For the moment, yes,” said Dr. Zimm as calmly as he could. He’d been steeling himself for this face-to-face inquisition ever since he received the call to “report immediately” to the Corp’s top-secret headquarters located in the mountains of West Virginia. The boardroom was, actually, an underground bunker that could double as a bomb shelter, should that ever prove necessary.
“But you keep telling us that she is the key to expediting our dominance of quantum computing,” said a frustrated woman who had already made her fortune in Silicon Valley but was eager to make another one.
“She will be,” said Dr. Zimm. “Especially when she starts working with Lenard.” He pointed to the robot, who stood silently beside him, blinking and grinning. The pinpoint spotlight directly over his plastic head made his sculpted hair look like the wavy wax pile left behind by a sputtering black candle.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dr. Zimm, “believe me when I tell you that, without a doubt, Max Einstein possesses the most brilliant mind in the field of quantum mechanics. Hers is the twenty-first-century brain that will take the leaps Albert Einstein, himself, could not!”
“How do you know that?” demanded the chairman.
Dr. Zimm grinned. “I just do.”
Lenard giggled.
“How?” demanded the Russian oligarch on the board. “Have you worked with her before? Did you know her parents? Was she a student of yours?”
“That is my secret to keep.”
“Dr. Zimm and Max Einstein have a special connection,” said Lenard. “Or, at least, that’s what he keeps telling me.” Another giggle.
“We want our quantum computer!” shouted the representative of Big Banking. “A closed system that no one else can access without paying us a fee!”
“Of course you do,” said Dr. Zimm. “We all do.”
Dr. Zimm knew that standard computers, with their bits and bytes, their zeros and ones, could only work on problems one step at a time. Quantum computers, on the other hand, would use the concepts of quantum entanglement and superposition where each zero could be tangled up with a one. The zeros and ones could exist on top of each other. They could be there and not there at the same time.
In other words, quantum computers could work on problems in all sorts of simultaneous steps.
They could solve complex problems much faster than the most sophisticated “classic” computer.
They would be worth a lot more money.
“In time,” Dr. Zimm told the board, “Max Einstein will see that she is better off with us. With me.”
“That’s what you keep telling us,” said the woman from Big Media, her anger rising. “But we’re in a race, doctor. We’re not the only ones working on quantum computing. Microsoft, Google, IBM, Caltech, MIT—they’re all chasing after the same prize!”
“But none of them have Max Einstein!” shouted Dr. Zimm.
“Neither do we!” the chairman shouted back.
“But we will,” said Lenard, a smile creeping across his rubbery face. “I am, at this very moment, cross-referencing several intelligence sources and social media feeds that will, I can say with ninety-six percent certainty, tell us where we might apprehend Maxine. However, at this instant, my computations are only operating at thirty-three percent of their potential capacity. I am having trouble linking to the external cellular network. Perhaps you should reconsider your decision to locate your headquarters in an underground bunker? Either that, or install better Wi-Fi.”
He giggled.
The board was stunned into silence. Dr. Zimm, too.
“What about Dr. Zimm?” said the chairman, directing his question to Lenard. “If we have you to grab the girl, why do we need him?”
“Good question,” said Lenard. “However, in my estimation, Dr. Zimm remains a useful, if non-vital, element in our equation for success because of his claim of a special relationship with our target. However, going forward, I assure you that I will be leading the hunt for Maxine Einstein. I also assure you that she will be in Corp custody soon. Very soon.”
And then he giggled and chuckled. For a full minute and a half.
22
When Max and her team landed in Galway they were greeted at the airport by someone they hadn’t expected to bump into in Ireland.
Klaus, the blustery, sausage-loving, CMI robotics expert from Poland.
“Are you here to carry our bags?” asked Siobhan.
“Nope,” said Klaus, puffing up his chest. “Got a call from the benefactor. You know, the guy in charge of this whole CMI thing.”
“Ben called you?” said Max.
“Yeah. Said you guys might need my help. So I dropped everything and caught the first plane I could—and believe me, I was quite busy back home, building some amazing robots that do incredible things. I brought a few with me.”
He jabbed a pudgy thumb over his shoulder to indicate several large wooden crates.
“Gonna need some help transporting my gear, Charl. Maybe you and Isabl could organize a truck for us?”
Charl glared at Klaus. “Ben told you to fly here?”
“Of course he did,” said Klaus. “Why else do you think I’m here?”
Max was confused. Ben hadn’t mentioned summoning Klaus to Ireland during their dinner together back on Long Island. And why did Ben think they needed Klaus? Didn’t he trust Max, Siobhan, and Tisa? Did he think they needed a boy to get this job done? Max sure didn’t. She was tempted to give Ben a call. Right away. But she resisted the urge. She could take care of her own problems. She didn’t need Ben—the same way she didn’t need Klaus.
“I’ll check into this,
” said Isabl, slipping away from the group, thumbing a speed dial number on her secure satellite phone.
“You should probably look into renting that truck,” Klaus said to Charl. “Chop, chop.”
Charl squinted at him. Hard. “Wait here, you guys. I’ll be right back.”
He headed off to the rental counters.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Klaus. “Are we putting up some more solar panels?”
“No,” said Max.
“We’re here to help Siobhan,” said Tisa.
“Oh, right,” said Klaus. “That thing with the thing. I got your text. Sorry I didn’t answer it. Like I said, been busy. Hey, Max—did you get that postcard I sent you in New York?”
“Yes.”
“The offer still stands. You want to take a break? Stand down from the pressure of being team leader? If so, I’m definitely ready to step up.”
“This isn’t an official CMI project,” Max explained. “Although Ben will be financing our efforts, we’re only here to help Siobhan figure out why so many of her friends, neighbors, and family are getting sick.”
Isabl rejoined the group. “Klaus’s story checks out. Ben wants him here. Thinks we might need some robotic assistance.”
“Hey,” said Siobhan, “me and my family will take all the assistance we can get. Human and not-so-human.”
“Are you talking about Klaus or his robots?” cracked Tisa.
“Cute, Tisa,” said Klaus. “Cute.”
Fifteen minutes later, the team was loading their suitcases and Klaus’s robot crates into the back of a rented Mercedes van with room for six passengers and cargo.
“My folks are in Terelicken,” said Siobhan, “just outside Ballymahon.”
“The GPS says it’s a little more than an hour away if we take the M6,” said Isabl, who, of course, was behind the wheel of the van.
“Can we stop for lunch along the way?” asked Klaus. “I’m starving. Can you hear my stomach gurgling? I can.”
“I know a good fish n’ chips shop on a road right outside Galway,” said Siobhan.
When they entered the roadside restaurant, Max learned something new: “chips” are what people in Ireland call French fries (while they call potato chips “crisps”). As they waited for their food, Klaus started suggesting all sorts of solutions to problems in Terelicken and Ballymahon.
“It’s a water problem, right? What if we worked out a deal with a bottled water distributor? If the benefactor is going to pay for everything, he could pay to have clean water delivered.”
“That’s not a sustainable solution,” said Tisa, splashing malted vinegar on her fried fish because that’s what Siobhan was doing with hers.
“Well,” said Klaus, “some eggheads down at Bristol University in the UK have invented something they call the row-bot. Put it in a river or lake and it can clean up pollution and generate electricity from it at the same time! The secret is a microbial fuel cell that digests the bacteria in the water and produces electrons that can be used to row its oars so it can paddle around looking for more food—also known as pollution—to gobble down. It doesn’t need any kind of external energy. It’s completely self-sufficient. Sort of like me.”
“We’re not dealing with a polluted river or lake,” said Siobhan.
“Okay. How about we build a robot to—”
“How about we assess the problem first?” suggested Tisa.
“I agree,” said Max.
“And so would Einstein!” exclaimed Siobhan. “Didn’t he say, ‘If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend fifty-five minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions’?”
“Well,” said Max. “There’s no evidence that Albert Einstein ever said that, although a lot of people attribute that quote to him online. But! I do think he’d agree with the sentiment.”
And, she thought, even Albert Einstein might need to spend even more time thinking about the problem if that problem’s name was Klaus.
23
When Max and her team arrived at Siobhan’s home in the Irish midlands, her younger brother, Séamus, was still sick in bed.
“So are a lot of other people who live outside of town like we do,” said Siobhan’s mother, Mrs. McKenna. “The Dowdalls, who are both quite old. The little Morton girls. The Rourkes, the Bannons, and the Muldoons. They all have someone down with stomach cramps or worse.”
“And they all live outside the town of Ballymahon?” asked Max.
“Aye, that they do.”
“And we all get our water from wells,” said Siobhan.
“Boom!” said Klaus. “That’s your problem, folks. You need to build a new water supply system. Maybe a dam. Aqueducts. Water purification facilities. We’ll need pipes. Lots and lots of water pipes.”
Mrs. McKenna raised her eyebrows. “Is this the sausage-loving boy you told me about?” she asked Siobhan.
“Aye.”
“Well, why don’t you come with me, lad? You ever try Winston’s Irish Style Bangers?”
“No, ma’am.”
Mrs. McKenna led Klaus toward the kitchen.
“Oh, they’re quite lovely, indeed. We’ll serve it up with onion stout gravy, mashed potatoes, and peas.…”
“Thank you, Mam,” whispered Siobhan when Klaus was out of the room.
“We should definitely sample your well water, Siobhan,” said Tisa, the biochemist. “We’ll be looking for coliform bacteria, which, of course, are present in the feces of animals and humans.”
“Nice,” said Siobhan, sarcastically.
“Those bacteria don’t cause illness, but their presence in drinking water is an indication that the water is contaminated with sewage.” Tisa opened one of her rolling suitcases. “I brought along several bacteria testing kits. I never leave home without my chemistry set.”
“Where’s the well head?” asked Max.
“Around back,” said Siobhan. “Come on.”
Max followed Siobhan and Tisa out the back door and into the barnyard. The McKennas were potato farmers. Siobhan had four brothers and three sisters. Most of them were bustling around the homestead, doing chores, pitching in, making each other laugh.
“So these are the two lassies with brains even bigger than yours?” joked Siobhan’s father when he met them at the well head.
“Aye,” said Siobhan. “Da, meet Max and Tisa.”
“Thank you both for coming all this way to lend a hand,” said Mr. McKenna. “Now then, let’s open up this well and do some serious scientific research, eh? Of course, this part of the job needs a wee bit more brawn than brains. Aidan? Get over here and give your poor old Da a hand.”
While Mr. McKenna and Siobhan’s older brother Aidan wrenched open the well cap (with some help from another brother named Quinn), Max couldn’t help but feel happy.
And sad.
This was the kind of big family she’d always dreamed about belonging to. But she had no parents. No brothers or sisters. No one like Siobhan who was willing to drop everything and fly halfway around the world to get her help.
That’s why, even though she’d never admit it to her CMI friends, Max was secretly intrigued by the mysterious Dr. Zimm. When they met in the Congo, he’d told her: “I know who you are. I know where you came from! I know everything you’ve ever yearned to know!”
Was he telling the truth?
Hard to say. At the time, the creepy mad scientist had been trying to lure Max to climb up a swaying rope ladder into a hovering helicopter.
“Got it,” said Tisa, snapping Max out of her thoughts.
Tisa held a small capped vial filled with water the McKennas had siphoned up from the well pipe. “That’s all we need to run the test.”
“We should collect samples from the wells at any of the homes where there are people with similar gastrointestinal illnesses,” suggested Max.
“Too right,” said Mr. McKenna. “Come on. I’ll drive you about. Introduce you to the neighbors.”
“And bring your pipe wrench, Da,” said Siobhan. “We might need it.”
“You might need me, too,” said Aidan, with a wink. “Da’s not as strong as he used to be.”
“It’s true,” added Quinn, patting his belly. “He’s gone a bit soft.…”
“I can still handle you lot!” said Mr. McKenna, with a hearty laugh.
And so, after a brief wrestling match, the three McKenna men joined Max, Tisa, and Siobhan as they set out to test water at six other wells.
By sundown, they’d gathered their samples.
By midnight, they knew what was causing all the trouble.
24
“It’s E. coli,” announced Tisa. “Short for Escherichia coli. This is a particularly ugly strain. E. coli O157:H7.”
Both Max and Siobhan nodded.
They were dealing with a nasty type of fecal coliform bacteria. Although most strains were harmless and lived inside the intestines of healthy humans and animals, this particular strain produced a powerful toxin that could cause severe illness.
“This is a very strong indication of sewage or animal waste contamination,” said Tisa.
“The sheep,” mumbled Siobhan.
“What do you mean?” asked Max.
“There are all sorts of sheep herds on farms up in the neighboring hills. I reckon sheep poop has been washing downhill every time it rains and this unpleasant bacteria has been seeping down into our water table.”
“We should go on a field trip,” suggested Max. “First thing in the morning. See if there’s a way to easily redirect the runoff.”
“Or,” said Siobhan, “maybe we can ask the sheep to kindly stop pooping!”
The friends laughed.
Klaus came into the room. “What’s so funny?” he asked with a burp. “Did I miss something?”
“Yes,” said Siobhan. “Everything!”
In the morning, Charl and Isabl drove the four-member CMI crew up into the hills surrounding the McKenna farm.
“Mr. McGregor has a rather large flock,” said Siobhan. “About two hundred ewes.”
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