Nikki Tesla and the Fellowship of the Bling

  Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

  —Mary Oliver

  (This book is for every brave and curious soul who does just that!)

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Seven Years Ago

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  Epilogue

  Teaser

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jess Keating

  Copyright

  Seven Years Ago

  Okay, Tesla. You’ve got two minutes before your best friend dies. Get it together.

  Unfortunately, my ferret wasn’t cooperating.

  “Pickles, I swear, if you sneak into my lab and pee on my equipment one more time, I’m going to personally build a rocket ship so I can send your little monkey butt to the moon.” I dropped a folded paper towel onto the ground and swiped it through the wet puddle with the toe of my shoe. “Ugh!”

  Honestly, how was I supposed to save my best friend and remain on the forefront of invention if my ferret wouldn’t answer nature’s call in her litter box like a normal pet?

  Pickles answered me by sniffing my foot, rolling onto her back, and nibbling at a newspaper clipping that had fallen from my desk.

  “Hold it!” I demanded, reaching down to grab the tattered piece of paper before it got covered in her slobber. “That’s not for you.”

  I blew the dust from the bold headline in my hands and set the article in the open drawer to my left with the others I’d pulled from the academy’s archives. “You shouldn’t eat newspaper,” I scolded Pickles. “You’re going to get a stomachache. Especially from something like this …” I cringed at the chaotic image in the story: Dad’s laboratory, blown to pieces.

  In response, Pickles lolled onto her belly and began chewing on the nub of my shoelace.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Keep on ignoring me. I see how it is.” I leaned over and scooped her up, setting her on my desk. I used tweezers to grab one of the clear raised dots from my microscope slide and placed it on the tip of my finger just as my watch began to buzz.

  “Shoot,” I muttered. I was late. Mary wouldn’t be happy.

  “You see this?” I asked. Pickles snuffled the dot eagerly, licking her chops and preparing to eat it.

  “Hey!” I scolded her. “It’s not food.” I yanked my hand away. “It’s the future! Hold still. Remember what we talked about, okay? If this doesn’t work, we’re putting everyone here at risk. We’re all relying on you. You’ve got to find her.”

  Pickles continued to watch me, blinking her chocolate brown eyes.

  A word of warning to you: If you’re ever in a life-or-death situation, don’t trust your ferret to save the day.

  At least, not until she’s better trained.

  I pulled her blue collar away from her fur and affixed the dot to it, sticky-side down. “Now go find Mary,” I instructed. “Her life depends on it! Do you hear me?!” I smacked the table to show my urgency. “Go!”

  Pickles seemed to understand, because she tore out the room like, well … like a ferret in search of food. You haven’t seen speed until you’ve seen that.

  I pressed a button on my watch and followed the ticking seconds, growing more nervous by the second. Only two minutes to go before the whole thing was a bust. I tried to distract myself by pacing, but every squeak of my sneakers on the marble floor reminded me of Mary. She was probably sitting on the very same floor right now, waiting for me and my undisciplined ferret to rescue her.

  Sorry. Am I getting all life-and-death dramatic too early in the story here? I should probably introduce myself, especially if you haven’t read any of these official government records before.

  I’m Nikki Tesla, and there are a few things you should probably know about me before we continue. The first is that I’m a genius. I’m not saying that to impress you. I actually am a genius. In fact, I attend Genius Academy, a special school for kids like me with skills that tend to put us, or those around us, in danger. (They say danger, but I say fun, you know?)

  My best friends are Mary Shelley (that’s who my ferret, Pickles, is trying to save right now), Grace O’Malley, Charlotte Darwin, Adam Mozart, Leo da Vinci, and Bert Einstein. You probably haven’t heard of them because Genius Academy is top secret. That’s why the government will censor anything I say about where the school is located, what we get up to around here, or anything else they deem inappropriate.

  Wanna see?

  Genius Academy is located in

  Genius Academy is run by a super smart (but also oddly terrifying) woman named Martha

  The government spends over million dollars a year on our laboratory spaces, private jets, security, and ice cream truck.

  See? I’m not allowed to tell you anything top secret. (For the record, that on-site ice cream truck is spectacular. You have to try the mint chip if you’re ever in the area.)

  But ever since the super-cool-but-admittedly-fairly-dangerous death ray I invented was stolen last month by a madman who almost used it to destroy the world for profit, I’ve decided to keep these records indefinitely. You know, just in case the government decides to blame me for any more destruction of property or global meltdowns. I think of them as insurance.

  Sometimes I’ll even get Leo to include some pictures for the sake of clarity. He’s a pretty great artist, but don’t tell him that or he’ll be impossible to live with.

  Thankfully, the days of risking my life and nearly destroying the world are far behind me. At least for now. That should bring you up to speed.

  Oh, time’s up.

  My watch buzzed and I cursed out loud.

  Exactly three seconds later, Mary’s resigned voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “And she’s late,” she muttered. “They’re going to kill me.”

  Mary wasn’t in the room with me—she was in my ear. Pickles had found her two seconds too late.

  But it was working! I scrambled for my notes. “Mary! Mary, can you hear me?”

  A brief commotion of rustles and squeaks erupted in my ear. I could envision Mary picking up my ferret and inspecting her. “Nik? Is that you? I can hear you, but where are you?!”

  “Yes!” I exclaimed. “It’s me! I’m in my lab. You see that little dot on Pickles’s collar? It looks like big water drop.”

  “I see it!” she said. Pickles squeaked again. “I can hear you so clearly, it’s almost like you’re right here. How on earth did you do this?”

  I squirmed, eager to test my technology. “Try pressing it like a button. Just once.”

  “Okayyy. But this thing better not blow up while it’s on your poor ferret. Hold still, Pickles …”

  Swiping the strands of messy hair from my forehead, I pulled an identical dot from my earlobe and stuck it to my desk. A faint crackle sounded, and instantly, Mary’s face projected in front of me, suspended above my desk. If I’d done my job right, she would be seeing my face in front of her as well, projected over the dot on Pickles’s collar.

  “Whoa!” she said. �
��This is real time?! I can see you!”

  I waved and moved around, bobbing left and right so Mary could get a good feel for the device. “Isn’t it awesome? Auditory transmitters are easy to find, but ones this small are usually finicky and hard to conceal. Plus, mine has added visuals!”

  “But you’re late!” Mary said, sticking her bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout. “I’m going to die! What a world!” She threw her arm over her eyes and swooned.

  I gripped the swatch of fabric from her shirt in my hands and shook my head. “I’m so sorry, Mary—I did everything I could!”

  I slammed the drawer beside me shut before continuing, feeling a little guilty for my delay. I shouldn’t have let those newspaper articles steal my focus. I decided to blame it on Pickles, who couldn’t really offer her side of things. “Pickles wasn’t paying attention at first, and she peed all over the lab floor, so I had to clean it up, and—”

  “You cleaned it up?!” Mary widened her eyes. “My life was hanging in the balance, and you took time to clean up your ferret’s pee? Nikki, how could you?!”

  “You’re right,” I said. “And if this were a real life-or-death situation and not some dumb training simulation four doors down the hallway, I’d probably have cleaned up the mess after you’d died. Or at least moved a little faster.” I shrugged.

  And I would definitely not get distracted by researching seven-year-old news items.

  She grinned. “Yeah, okay.” A soda can cracked open with a fizzy gasp in the background. “I’ll let you off the hook this time. But next time I’m about to die—even if it’s in a training simulation—don’t leave me hanging like that! This is a pretty cool invention though.” She swiped her hand through the displayed image in front of her, muddling my view for a moment.

  I beamed at my reflection in the mirrored tile of my lab. Pickles may have been late reaching her, but my little audio visual dots were working incredibly well. Was there anything better than an invention that could change everything?

  “Thanks! I’m calling them GeckoDots. I modeled the nanoparticles on the base after gecko feet, so it can stick to any surface without adhesive. You can see whatever I see. Check this out.” I stuck the GeckoDot to my forehead, turning my head to scan in all directions. Mary would be able to see my entire laboratory as I moved.

  Mary propped her legs up onto a chair and took another sip of soda. “Amazing! Did you show the others yet? I bet Leo is going to love them!” She oriented the dot back to face her, and waggled her eyebrows at me.

  “Shh!” I said, turning around to check that nobody was walking by my open laboratory door. Mary knew all too well what she was doing when she mentioned Leo like that. She was convinced I liked him. As in, like-liked.

  “Speaking of visuals,” Mary pivoted, “have you thought about what Martha said? I know you don’t want us to bug you about it, but … if she thinks your dad could be alive, maybe it’s worth finding out”—she hesitated—“more?” I could tell by her breezy tone of voice that she was trying to be super casual. But I was onto her tricks by now.

  I bit back the angry rant about to come out of my mouth. “What does that have to do with visuals, huh? You said ‘speaking of visuals’ and then ask that?”

  Mary grinned sheepishly. “I was hoping you’d overlook that. You’ve got to be a little curious about him.”

  “Nuh-uh,” I said. “You know how I feel about it, Mary. I’m not curious at all.”

  I kept my eyes forward, refusing to even glance at my secret drawer of newspaper clippings. Mary was Genius Academy’s resident writer, which meant she had an uncanny knack for reading minds. If she knew I’d been researching Dad’s so-called death lately, I’d never hear the end of it.

  “I know.” She reached out and gave Pickles a gentle pet. Her face flickered once more before she continued. “Sorry for bringing it up. I’m only trying to help. It’s not good for these things to fester. If he’s alive, maybe it’s a chance to find out what actually happened?”

  Here’s the thing about having a perceptive friend: It’s a total feelings fest. They never let you carry on with your life when there are feelings to explore. Let’s dig into those feeeelings, Nikki! Let’s swim in them till our fingers get all wrinkly with emotion and regret!

  Oy.

  I don’t do well with feelings, you know? Especially hey-remember-that-time-your-long-lost-criminal-father-apparently-came-back-from-the-dead-why-don’t-you-want-to-meet-him-after-seven-years-apart feelings.

  I mean, who in their right mind would want to open up that Pandora’s box of emotion? Isn’t it better to leave history where it belongs, far, far, far behind you? Why dig up things you can’t change? Sure, I wanted to know the truth. But that didn’t mean I wanted to talk about it.

  Thankfully, another loud crackle sounded overhead, interrupting us. This time it was the intercom system in my lab. Every floor of Genius Academy was outfitted with an amazing sound system. Sometimes we used it to pump music through the halls as we worked. But it was also the easiest way for Martha to wrangle us together when trouble was afoot.

  And I was learning that trouble was afoot rather often around here. It was basically always afoot. That was why we had to do life-or-death simulations so regularly, even if we sort of phoned them in from time to time.

  Martha’s voice bounced off the marble tiling of the hallway outside and drifted into my lab.

  “Hello, everyone. Be advised that there is an unscheduled meeting in the Situation Room in exactly ten minutes. Please secure your projects, save your work, and make your way there as quickly as possible.”

  “Do you know what this is about?” I leaned over to the small fridge under my lab bench and pulled out a drink.

  Mary shrugged and set Pickles back on the floor, sending the image dancing in front of me. “Not sure,” she said. “See you there?”

  I considered the possibilities behind an unscheduled meeting with Martha. As a lover of itineraries, protocols, and training modules, she wasn’t exactly an unscheduled kind of person. She was more of a color-coded-day-planner-with-extra-stickers type. Had the earth tipped on its axis? Was someone out to steal the Declaration of Independence? Were man-eating tigers currently swarming Manhattan?

  The thrill of the unknown made the skin on my arms and neck tingle with anticipation.

  “Why stop the party now?” I smirked. “See you soon.”

  Good thing I was officially done getting into trouble.

  Right?

  I yanked the thick drapes of the Situation Room half-closed, sending a block of shadow across the otherwise bright room.

  “What are you doing?” Bert asked. “It’s gorgeous outside! Let the sun in!” He rushed over to pull the drapes open again, only to have me wrench them out of his grasp.

  “Charlie got a sunburn yesterday,” I explained, rolling my eyes. I tucked the drape back into place so Charlie could have her shade. “Too much time outside.” I tsked her, grinning at Bert.

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “Just because she’s a cooked lobster, we all have to suffer? It’s autumn and she’s still crisping up like we’re in the middle of July.”

  Having a bunch of geniuses under the same roof is kind of like wrangling kittens. Sometimes they will appease you and play together nicely. Sometimes they won’t listen, and dart off the first chance they get, chasing whatever yarn ball of an idea they’ve got. And sometimes they like to complain, very loudly, about the injustices in the world.

  Especially if those injustices relate to the other kittens … er, geniuses.

  “Hey, it’s not my fault,” Charlie said. She tossed her blonde ponytail and stretched her bright red legs in front of her, wincing. “I’m practically see-through. I’m English, you know. Global warming is to blame! The sun is my mortal enemy! It haunts me day and night!” She scrunched her nose. “Well, mainly just day, I suppose.”

  Bert sighed. “Haven’t you heard of sunscreen?”

  “I used it! But I’d need
SPF one million for these arms!” She flashed her beet red forearms and flipped them over to reveal silvery white skin on the undersides. Her voice took on a vampire-esque quality. “It burnnns!”

  Martha watched in amusement as we all settled into our seats. As usual, everyone was doing their best to look attentive and awake. But also as usual: We were antsy. It was a gorgeous autumn day, and we wanted to goof around outside for once.

  “Thank you all for being so prompt,” she said. “I’ve got a lot to discuss with you today. But first … Ms. Tesla.” She turned to me.

  I instantly sat up a little straighter in my chair. Martha didn’t usually address us individually until our mission was laid out, when she presented us with each of our assignments.

  “Yes, Martha?” I forced myself to keep my attention on her and not the strip of sunlight on the floor, reminding me of the outside world. Bert was right. We did spend too much time inside, nerding around in our labs.

  “I wanted to see if you’d given any thought to our previous discussion.” She lifted her eyebrows and leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest. Classic Martha position. Her polished black leather shoes reflected disjointed squares of sunlight onto the ceiling.

  My stomach tightened. Getting it once from Mary was bad enough. But now Martha, too? Did they have a “pester Nikki” quota they had to hit today? I decided to play dumb.

  “Whatever do you mean? What previous discussion?” I batted my eyelashes at her, acting confused.

  “The one about your father,” she continued. She noticed me squirming and gave me a gentle smile. “We’re worried about you, Nikki. That’s the only reason I’m mentioning this today. Your friends support you, and I think it’s important you’re open about the complicated feelings the news that he may very well be alive must have sparked. I want you to know that we’re all here for you if you’re finding this uncertain situation difficult.” A pause. “Especially if you’re finding it difficult.”

  I darted a look at Leo, who smiled at me in that easygoing but careful way he had. I could tell he wanted me to learn more about my dad. In fact, they all did. It was plain to see on their faces whenever the subject of my father came up. But it was easy for them to want that—their dads weren’t criminals.