Evil Genius: The Smartest Kid in the Universe, Book 3 - Hardcover

Grabenstein, Chris

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593480910 ISBN 13: 9780593480915

Verlag: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

Meet middle schooler Jake McQuade. Jake became the smartest kid in the universe when he accidentally ate a jarful of ingestible knowledge jelly beans. But what happens when those jelly beans fall into the wrong hands?!

Readers who enjoy the action of the Last Kids on Earth books will love this fast-paced, spy-packed series that's a "rollicking good time" (New York Times) by the bestselling author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library!

Jake McQuade's the smartest kid in the universe—or at least he was. But just as his training with the secret agency known as the Consortium is about to start, Jake's jelly beans go missing! And to make matters worse, they (and Jake's genius!) might be wearing off right when he needs his smarts most!

Jake needs to solve this mystery fast. Who stole the jelly beans and why? Can Jake figure out what's going on, recover the missing jelly beans, and stop a high-tech heist before it's too late?!

From top-secret hideouts to New York City penthouse apartments to the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the night, get ready to go on a whirlwind, wild-ride adventure filled with supervillains and spies, puzzles and pirates, codes and drones, and much, much more—and don't miss the first two books in the series—Smartest Kid in the Universe and Genius Camp!

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

CHRIS GRABENSTEIN is the bestselling author of the Mr. Lemoncello's Library, Smartest Kid in the Universe, and Dog Squad series, and many other books, as well as the coauthor of numerous page-turners with James Patterson and of Shine!, cowritten with Chris's wife, J.J. Grabenstein. Chris lives in New York City.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1


The clock was ticking.

Jake McQuade, the twelve-year-old who’d defeated the world’s most sophisticated artificially intelligent computer, solved impossible cases for the FBI, and--thanks to his newfound knowledge of geometry, physics, and human psychology--starred on his middle school basketball team, was on a mission for the top-secret agency known as the Consortium.

His pale, freckled skin baked in the scorching midday sun. He was on a high-speed rigid-hull inflatable boat speeding across choppy waters with a small team of commandos in scuba gear. His mother had been right: Jake should’ve packed sunscreen.

The commando team dropped Jake and his best friend, Kojo Shelton, on a craggy island.

“You two are on your own,” said the squad commander, clicking a stopwatch. “You have fifteen minutes to secure the package.”

Jake used a handheld mapping device to quickly find the target building.

But inside the windowless structure, things slowed down. The place was like a dark maze trapped inside a fun house.

Except this house was more dangerous than fun.

Jake and Kojo followed the blinking green dot through a series of switchbacks and found themselves trapped inside a black box of a room. The instant their feet hit the floor, a huge metal door slammed shut behind them.

“We need to get out of this room, Jake,” said Kojo, checking his glowing watch. “Fast! We only have ten more minutes to secure the package.”

“Working on it,” said Jake. He was thinking. Trying to come up with a solution.

“Where to next?”

“I’m, uh, not sure.”

“What? Come on. Use your big jelly-beaned brain.”

This mission was, clearly, a test of Jake’s superior intellect.

And that made him a little nervous.

Jake hadn’t become super intelligent the usual way--studying, reading books, doing homework. He’d taken a short cut: Ingestible Knowledge capsules in the form of jelly beans.

Jake never knew if or when his mental superpowers would disappear.

He just hoped it wasn’t today.


2


“Oh, wow, check it out,” said Kojo, rustling around inside the sleek nylon sling bag the Consortium had given them for this mission. “There’s all sorts of cool gear in here. Duct tape. A Swiss Army knife. A pair of binoculars. Hold up. I think there’re some Hershey bars in here, too.” He sniffed loudly. “Oh yeah. That’s chocolate.” Another sniff. “This one has almonds.”

“Great,” mumbled Jake. He was distracted. His whole mind was focused on the mapping device. But the green dot in the center of the grid had stopped moving. All it was doing now was blinking.

“Looks like that thing’s busted,” said Kojo, peering over Jake’s shoulder.

Jake nodded, even though he wasn’t sure Kojo was right.

He needed time.

To study the sequence of blinks.

“Two long, one short,” he muttered. “Three long. Long, short, short, short, short . . .”

“You thinking about pants?” said Kojo. “Shirtsleeves?”

“Nope.”

Jake reached into his own nylon sling bag. He shoved aside the binoculars and pulled out a spiral notebook and a pen.

“It’s Morse code. Short blinks and long blinks. Dots and dashes.”

“Cool,” said Kojo, biting off a chunk of chocolate bar.

Jake wrote down the sequence of light flashes. He knew Morse code from a book he’d skimmed a couple of weeks ago.

“What’s it mean?” asked Kojo.

“Go through the door in the floor.”

“There’s a door in the floor?” said Kojo. “Who designed this building?”

Jake and Kojo dropped to their knees. The room was so dark, they’d have to feel their way to any kind of hidden doorway. They patted around with their hands.

“Got it!” said Kojo, pulling up and twisting a ring latch.

He yanked on it.

It opened. Jake peered in. Once his eyes adjusted, he saw another room directly below the room they were in.

That was where they needed to be.

But first they’d have to get past the web of crisscrossing laser beams.


3


“Those lasers are a trip wire!” said Kojo, looking down at the web of thin green beams. “Just like in Mission: Impossible. The movie, not the TV show. Although Eartha Kitt did evade a bank vault’s light sensors in season one of the TV show.”

Jake looked at Kojo. His best friend streamed a lot of old-school TV. He’d even adopted the “Who loves you, baby?” catchphrase of the 1970s Tootsie Pop–loving TV detective Kojak.

“We might be soul mates,” Kojo had once told Jake. “He’s Ko-jak and I’m Ko-jo. Sure, he’s a bald, old Greek dude and I’m a handsome, young Black dude, but come on--we both dig Tootsie Pops.”

“We can’t just drop down into the room,” said Jake.

“Well, duh,” said Kojo. “You break those laser beams, they’re gonna set off some kind of alarm. Even I know that, and I haven’t eaten a single one of Mr. Farooqi’s magic jelly beans.”

Kojo was one of only three people who knew about Jake and the jelly beans. Their friend Grace Garcia was another. The third was Haazim Farooqi, the Ingestible Knowledge capsules’ creator.

“To safely break the beams,” said Jake, “I’m gonna need to break these first.”

He pulled the binoculars out of his go bag and smashed them against the floor.

“Ouch,” said Kojo. “Let’s hope they don’t charge us for that.”

Jake reached into the cracked-open binoculars and removed one of the prisms between the eyepieces and the lenses. “The prisms are what turn the image right-side up.”

“I know,” said Kojo. “We studied prisms in seventh grade. Back when you weren’t paying attention to anything except video games.”

Jake carefully lowered the prism into the path of one of the flickering lasers and, without breaking the beam, cautiously angled the glass until the pinpoint of light was deflected back to its source.

There was an electronic screech. The green beams disappeared. The laser had destroyed itself.

“MacGyver did that once,” said Kojo. “I should’ve remembered.”

“Who’s MacGyver?” asked Jake as he positioned himself over the floor opening.

“Star of a 1980s TV show.”

“Cool. What was it called?”

“MacGyver,” said Kojo.

The two friends took turns lowering themselves down into the chamber. Lights automatically snapped on. They were in a ten-by-ten metal cube. Jake looked up and saw pipes overhead. Those pipes have to be there for a reason, he thought.

The pipes disappeared through the far wall with a stenciled 9 on it. That nine was above the spray-painted image of an equilateral triangle with three circles on each side. To the left of the triangle diagram were six small numbered circles.

“That’s our next challenge,” said Kojo.

Jake went to the number circles and peeled one off the metal wall.

“They’re rubbery magnets,” he said.

“So what’re we supposed to do?” asked Kojo, glancing at his wristwatch....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593480910
• ISBN 13: 9780593480915
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Purmerul LTD; https://strengholt.nl/en/; ; 22 Liuleburgaz Str., floor 4, app. 9; Plovdiv; Bulgarien