Blind Speed Dating #17 (YA)

Title: STRANGE ATTRACTORS

Genre: Young Adult Sci-fi

Word Count: 80,000

Query:

Seventeen-year-old Piper Newton has the multiverse at her fingertips. As a corporate spy, she uses her ability to pass through the veils between universes to spy on alternate versions of her father’s competitors. Most of the time she loves her job and loves the feeling of importance it gives her. 

But when Piper finds out that a competitor from a parallel universe might be experimenting on the veils, her father asks her to infiltrate the company through the competitor’s seventeen-year-old son, Calvin. Piper’s hesitant at first. Dating--even for a mission--is the last thing she wants to do. Guys lie and cheat and are more destructive than supermassive black holes.

But Calvin quickly disarms Piper with his intelligence, quesadilla-making-skills, and butterfly-effect-smile. Piper’s soon sneaking off to the parallel universe to see Calvin behind her father’s back and neglecting to tell him what she learns. She rationalizes that his father is more mad-scientist than sinister-villain and wonders if they were wrong about Calvin’s. He’s only studying the veils. He’s not trying to be malicious. 

But when red flags start appearing and lies begin unraveling around her, Piper must accept the truth when it finally punches her in the face.

And ultimately ask a former enemy for help. 

First 250:

THE POLLUX UNIVERSE

 OCTOBER 4th, THE PRESENT DAY

I couldn’t find anything on Michael Silverstone’s desk because it was a complete disaster, like a hoarder-snuck-into-an-office-building type of disaster. As I looked through the receipts, hand written notes, half-eaten food, and coffee-stained papers, I wondered how someone so messy could be organized enough to run New York City’s most successful financial advising company. This extreme amount of junk was like an inexpensive theft-deterrent or more like an inexpensive Piper-deterrent.

What the Hell? I thought, touching a still-wet, soiled napkin. There were words scrawled across the napkin, but “purch-dia-glass” didn’t really tell me anything. I had a knack for remembering random bits of information and passwords, so I made a mental note of the phrase in case it was important. 

Beep!

I cursed under my breath before turning off my stopwatch. Time was up. I quickly stacked all the papers with numbers or percentages in the hope that something of value made it into the pile. Since Silverstone’s desk was such a mess, I didn’t worry about him noticing a few missing documents. He would probably assume he’d misplaced them.

I paused, thinking I’d seen a flash of light, and listened. The muffled sound of footsteps on carpet soon followed. Someone was in the hallway! My heart hammered as I slipped beneath the disordered desk. I pulled a knife from my pocket and held it in front of me.