Team FTW #2 ROBOT BILLIONAIRE BOYFRIEND (YA)

ROBOT BILLIONAIRE BOYFRIEND

YA Sci-fi

62,000 words

QUERY:

Eighteen-year-old Lucca Mach is the go-to genius of Scrapyard City. Inventing spray-on bodysuits and swarms of housekeeping nanobots is routine for a prodigy like her. So when her older sister, Eden, calls Lucca an anomaly for not dating like everyone else, the logic does not compute. Relationships are a waste of brainpower when there’s the impossible to invent into reality.

To shut Eden up, Lucca engineers the perfect solution: she builds Robb out of scavenged parts. A boyfriend who doesn’t talk back and exists only to please her? He’s flawless.

But dating a tin can isn't good for business. No one wants to hire a mastermind crazy enough to make out with scrap metal, so Robb decodes the financial market to provide for her. Becoming the newest billionaire on the block takes Robb from scourge to savior, the solution to a city starving for resources. Now everyone wants a piece of the perfect man.

Selling Robb off means handing over her greatest invention and losing the only companion she’s ever allowed herself to depend on. But refusing to sell means never getting hired again, defending Robb from the increasingly violent masses, and worst of all—admitting she’s fallen for a bunch of 0's and 1's.

FIRST PAGE:

Flying a quadcopter with your brain was no easy task. When it came to reading those ever-so-faint electrical signals blipping from neuron to neuron, seven millimeters of solid skull had an impressive damping effect. And then there were all those pesky invasive thoughts to deal with. Decoding one brainwave as “fly straight,” versus “do a loop-de-loop,” compared to “where’s that damn screwdriver? Oh, sorry, fire the missile” was a technological problem of the highest complexity.

I’d say that type of neutral interface was completely impossible to create—for anyone besides me, of course. Because I had just invented it.

A headset mounted my scalp like a parasite. It pressed electrodes to my temple, the base of my neck, and the peak of my eyebrow, begging for commands. All it needed was a gentle wave of electromagnetic signals to come to life.

I stilled my mind. The chorus of fans and motors whirring in my shop quieted.

The quadcopter woke. Batteries fed life to the gears, the juice warming its blades as they whirred faster and faster. The copter teetered back and forth on its landers like a drunk rediscovering his limbs.

I bid my baby to fly.

A tiny shudder rolled through the copter’s frame as it rose above the worktable and accelerated forward…

And tried to take my sister’s head off.

Eden screeched and dodged left, the whirling blades claiming a chunk of hair instead of her face. Impressive reaction time. Eight years of shacking up together in this shed-turned-home-turned-workshop had some benefit.

“Lucca! What the Scrap are you doing?”

Team FTW #3 GEEK CAMP (MG)

GEEK CAMP

Upper middle grade mystery

53,000 words

QUERY:

Thirteen-year-old Jared lives for video games, so he’s pumped for the chance to design his own at summer camp. When star-teen programmer, Brent Kagon, shows up too, Jared figures he’ll learn exactly what he needs to top the iTunes Apps chart. After all, Brent may be just Jared’s age, but he’s already made it big.

But Brent is too busy finishing his latest killer app to waste time with “noob” programmers. Noob? Jared’s determined to show his idol he has skill by making his app the Best. Game. Ever. But his plans crash when he finds Brent unconscious, slumped on his MacBook. Brent’s game code is missing!

Chaos descends as cops and the media arrive, then levels up as accusations fly.  Everyone’s freaking — Brent because the thief stole his best ideas, the camp director because Brent’s threatening to sue, and Jared because his name’s at the top of Brent’s suspect list. Things can’t get any worse. But then Jared’s mystery-loving twin sister, Maxine, gets her “Nancy Drew” look. The last thing Jared wants is his flirty sister’s “help” solving a high-tech mystery. Jared needs Aaron, his best friend and gaming bud, to help find the real thief and clear his name. Maxine’s “help” is more likely to scramble Aaron’s brain and leave Jared headed to juvie.

FIRST PAGE:

 

I’ve been to plenty of summer camps, but the steep, winding drive to this one made me twitchy. Tree limbs blocked the sun, creating a gloomy twilight that made me think of Frodo leaving The Shire. Like Frodo, I was beginning a dangerous quest into hostile territory: a week at Geek Camp. I peered out the window into the creepy forest, not sure what I might find. A shiver ran up my spine.

The bus bumped over a last pot-hole and broke into a clearing at the top of the mountain. It stopped in front of a white building surrounded on three sides by trees – Hartland Mountain Academy. Geek Camp was run by this private school for math and science nerds. This place didn’t do swimming, hiking and crafts. Smart kids came here to learn about robotics, rocketry or the animal life of the forest. Or, like me, to design video games. 

My best friend and gaming bud, Aaron, elbowed me. “Dude, this is your best idea ever,” he said with a smirk.

Right. Right. Best idea ever. I couldn’t back out now.

But the thought of spending a week surrounded by brainiacs made my hands clammy. I had no clue what geniuses talked about. Maybe they never watched anything but Discovery Channel shows. Maybe they wouldn’t waste time playing any game but chess. I wondered if I could hang with a bunch of geniuses without feeling like an idiot.