Depth Perception

  1 The Ejection Expectation

  “OKAY, HERE WE GO,” I said. “In three, two, one…” I pressed the button, and… nothing happened. My thumb depressed the remote again, and I definitely felt the connection engage, but that was all.

  “What’s the deal, Tom?” Noah Newton asked. My best friend’s brow furrowed as his eyes darted from me to the device.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  I gave the rest of the students in my class a nervous glance before I traced the cord leading from the remote switch to our invention. The connections were still in place, so that wasn’t the issue.

  “You mentioned that you installed a fail-safe switch,” Mr. Edge said. “Do you think that’s the problem?”

  “I’ll check,” I said as I knelt beside our invention and reached up under its housing.

  Our engineering teacher had made a valid point. When Noah and I first introduced our newest invention to the class, we explained that the firing mechanism had a special switch that wouldn’t work unless it was submerged in water. The engineering classroom at the Swift Academy of Science and Technology may have been cutting edge, but it wasn’t underwater, so we’d needed to bypass the switch for our invention to work.

  I felt around beneath the housing until my hand landed on the hard foam ball at the end of a short rod. Water would make the ball float and activate the fail-safe switch. Next I shifted my hand until my fingers brushed the small strip of tape Noah and I had used to hold the ball in place, as if it were underwater. That wasn’t the problem either.

  I stood up and backed away from our invention. “It’s not the fail-safe.”

  My mind raced as I tried to figure out what had gone wrong. My gaze settled on the large yellow box sitting atop the worktable. It was about half a meter long and half as wide, with one open end. Strapped to the table, the box kind of looked like a miniature garage for a large toy car.

  Noah and I were trying to demonstrate (in front of the entire engineering class, embarrassingly enough) how our special housing would eject our underwater drone out of its chute and into the foam pads we’d set up on the other side of the classroom. Why would we create something like that? Well, in theory, the housing would be bolted to the underside of our very own submarine!

  Now, building a sub might seem like an ambitious project for a school full of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, but for students at a school like the Swift Academy, not so much. At our school, it was no big deal to see robots roaming the halls, drones flying overhead, or even students coming up with bigger inventions like ours—just ask Jim Mills about his awesome hovercraft.

  “Exciting so far, Swift,” Jim said, smirking. Laughter rippled through the rest of the class.

  I ignored the comment and continued studying the device. Noah seemed just as nervous as I was as he moved in and double-checked the connections I’d just gone over.

  By the way, you might have noticed that I share the same name as our school. The academy wasn’t named after me and my innovative inventions, which was quite evident given the failure I was experiencing at the moment. No, the school was named for my father, Tom Swift Sr. Using the proceeds from his next-door tech company, Swift Enterprises, he’d founded a school where brilliant young inventors could excel in science and technology.

  I’ll tell you one thing, though. At the moment, I wasn’t feeling so brilliant.

  Noah inspected the back of the launcher while I moved toward the front of the device. Reaching into the launch port, I felt past our underwater drone. The drone was essentially a small, oblong submarine with four covered propellers. Its nose had a clear dome that housed its lights and camera. My fingertips finally brushed over the coiled spring and the release mechanism. Everything was where it was supposed to be—at least, it felt that way.

  “Do you two want to figure this out later?” Mr. Edge asked.

  “No need,” Noah replied. “I see the problem.” He bent behind the worktable, then stood back up holding the end of an extension cord. “Nonconductive air gap,” he announced as he dangled the cord in one hand. That was our inside joke for when we forgot to plug something in.

  The class erupted into laughter. Guess it was an outside joke now.

  I pulled my hand from the housing and stepped back just in time.

  THUNK!

  As soon as Noah plugged in the launcher, the drone shot out of the launch port. I fell back onto the floor as the thing shot across the room and bounced harmlessly into the foam pieces we’d set up. Even though it was only forty-five centimeters long, it sure would’ve stung if it had hit me.

  A loud gasp cut through the quiet before our classmates erupted into laughter again.

  “Are you all right, Tom?” Mr. Edge asked as he ran over to my side.

  “I’m fine,” I replied, rising to my feet. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been any foam pieces to protect my backside.

  “Dude!” Noah said, coming over. “I guess the trigger was still activated. Sorry about that.”

  I waved away his concern. “At least we know the launcher works.”

  Mr. Edge turned to face the other students. “This is a perfect example of why safety should always be our number one priority.”

  BEEEEEP!

  The bell sounded, and everyone gathered their backpacks and shuffled toward the door.

  “All right, people,” Mr. Edge called over the commotion. “For those of you not attending next week’s service project, have a great spring break. I expect all kinds of new ideas when you get back.”

  Since Noah and I were among those going on the service project trip, we would see Mr. Edge next week. My dad’s company had organized a volunteer event to help clean up parts of nearby Lake Carlopa. Now, you may wonder why some academy students would choose a service project over, say, going on a family trip to Disney World. Well, for Swift Academy students, it was a chance to come up with all kinds of sweet new eco-inventions to help with the cleanup. As for Noah and me, it was a chance for us to test out our new submarine. How cool was that?

  But for now, Noah and I were definitely going to be the last ones out of the classroom, since we still had to break down our launcher so we could carry it out. Noah crawled under the worktable and began unstrapping the housing while I grabbed the drone and rolled up the foam padding.

  After most of the students had filed out, Mr. Edge joined us by the worktable. “That drone nearly took your head off, Tom.”

  I chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I guess so.” Truth be told, I hadn’t really thought about the incident that way. I’d been so focused on why the launcher wasn’t working that when it finally went off, I was so happy that Noah had solved the problem, that I hadn’t really dwelled on the fact that I was almost beaned by the thing.

  “Today has me rethinking the safety of your submarine project,” Mr. Edge continued.

  Noah shot to his feet. “You’re not shutting us down, are you?”

  Our teacher raised both hands. “I’m not suggesting that. But remember what I said about safety being the number one priority? I think that goes double for an ambitious project like this one.”

  “For sure,” Noah agreed confidently. “We have tons of fail-safes and backups for our backups.”

  I nodded. “It’s true.”

  “All right,” Mr. Edge said with a sigh. “But you need to go over those backups as you test it. Maybe even make a predive checklist.”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  Noah held up a thumb. “Everything is going to work perfectly.”

  Until five minutes ago, I’d shared my best friend’s confidence 100 percent. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  2 The Endurance Assurance

  “THERE’S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT,” Noah said reass
uringly. “Everything will be just fine.”

  Unfortunately, my best friend wasn’t trying to quiet my doubts about our upcoming submarine test. His comments were directed at our friend Amy.

  “That’s what I keep telling her,” Sam added.

  Amy gave a big sigh. “If you say so.”

  After school, I’d joined Noah on the front steps, where he was sitting with our friends Samantha Watson and Amy Hsu while they waited for their parents to pick them up. Sam and Amy were the other half of the formidable foursome, as my dad liked to call us.

  Noah and Sam were in the middle of what they’d been doing all week—reassuring Amy about the upcoming camping trip. Oh yeah, did I mention that we’d be camping at the lake during the service project? That detail had made the trip even more exciting to most of us. Not Amy, though.

  “I thought you were going to do some camping research,” I told her. “To make yourself feel better.”

  Amy, who never had a hair out of place and whose clothes had never met a piece of lint, had also never been camping before. Earlier in the week, I’d suggested she attack the problem like any other—with plenty of research.

  “Oh, I did,” Amy replied. “And I still am.” She jutted a thumb at her backpack resting nearby. “I have the last four camping books the school library had.”

  “You’re going to read all four books by Monday?” Noah asked.

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “Who are you talking to?”

  Noah grinned. “Oh yeah.”

  Along with her near-perfect internal clock and precision calculator, Amy had a photographic memory superpower. Heck, if she somehow grew the nerve to sing in front of people, she’d probably have perfect pitch too.

  “It was a good idea, Tom,” Amy continued. “Getting a handle on the theory before any practical experience.” She squirmed a bit. “But it kind of made me more nervous. I came across all these things that could go wrong, especially in the novels I read.”

  Noah threw his hands up. “You weren’t supposed to read novels about camping. It wouldn’t be a good story if nothing ever went wrong.”

  I nodded. “He’s right, you know.”

  “What kind of things are you worried about?” Sam asked.

  Amy sighed. “Oh… I don’t know… everything.”

  “What? Like rain, lightning…,” Noah listed, counting on his fingers. “Bugs, snakes, coyotes…”

  Amy’s eyes grew wider with every word.

  I chuckled. “I don’t think that’s helping, dude.”

  Sam shot him a look. “No, it’s not.”

  “What?” Noah asked with a shrug.

  “Don’t forget bears,” said a familiar voice. “I hear Lake Carlopa is crawling with them.”

  We all turned to see Andrew Foger standing over us. The new arrival to our school enjoyed ribbing anyone around him whenever he got a chance. And I would know, since I grew up with him. Andrew and I used to be friends when we were little, then adversaries, and now friends again… kinda.

  Sam smiled up at him. “I guess that’s why you’re not going next week, huh?”

  “Please.” Andrew gave a dismissive wave. “Like I’m going to spend my spring break picking up trash and sleeping on the ground.” He grinned. “I’m going to sit in my air-conditioned house, on my comfy couch, and play Advanze Skwad all week long.”

  Noah’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah! That comes out tomorrow.” Noah was always up on the release dates of all the best video games. Part of me was surprised he hadn’t planned to kick back on his own couch next week playing the new game instead of helping us.

  “Come find me in the game when you’re done with your little camping trip,” Andrew told Noah. “My gamer tag is SniperKing365. But I’ll be way leveled up by then.”

  Sam rolled her eyes as Andrew moved down the steps. “At least he’s not going to be there next week,” she whispered to Amy.

  “Hey, he’s coming around,” I said. It was true. Having known Andrew as long as I had, I thought that last encounter was actually pleasant.

  “Coming around, all right,” Sam said. “He’s gone from obnoxious to simply annoying.”

  Noah shrugged at me with a she’s got a point expression.

  Sam had never really forgiven Andrew for framing her after he had someone sabotage several people’s projects months ago. Students from three different schools had come together at a local summer camp to field-test their inventions. Andrew had gone to a different school back then and had wanted Swift Academy to look bad. It turned out that Andrew had made Sam the perfect scapegoat for everyone’s vandalized inventions. So, yeah, I can’t say that I really blamed her for holding a grudge.

  I turned my attention back to Amy, trying to change the subject, or at least get it back to where it was before Andrew came along. “How about, instead of worrying about all the things that can go wrong, maybe concentrate on the things you can look forward to.”

  “Yeah,” Noah agreed. “I can’t wait to see the Beach Comber in action.”

  Sam and Amy had been working on an invention that would pick up wide areas of litter along the lakeshore. They had been inspired by another invention called the Litterbot 2000, a prize-winning invention created by a student at another school, which had been field-tested at the summer camp. Sam and Amy wanted to build something bigger that could theoretically clean up entire beaches.

  Amy’s hands fidgeted in her lap. “Yeah, I’m worried about that working too.”

  Sam rolled her eyes. “It’ll be fine. We’ve tested it enough, haven’t we?”

  “I guess so,” Amy replied with a shrug.

  “And what about meeting J. J. Jefferson?” Sam asked. “How cool is that going to be?”

  A grin stretched across Amy’s face. “I probably won’t be able to talk to him, but at least I’ll get to be near him.”

  That was probably the part of the trip I was looking forward to most. The service project was being cosponsored by none other than J. J. Jefferson. Don’t know who I’m talking about? Well, he’s a rock star for inventors. He’s like the Neil deGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye the Science Guy of the engineering world. My father used to work with him, and, from what my dad said, J. J. Jefferson had jumped at the chance to be a part of the event.

  “You think he’s bringing Great White?” Noah asked.

  I cringed. “I hope not.”

  “What?!” Noah demanded.

  “As cool as it would be to see, that thing would put our sub to shame.”

  Amy shook her head. “What are you two talking about?”

  “Let me show you,” Noah said as he pulled out his phone. “J. J. Jefferson came up with this sub that looks and moves like a real shark.”

  Within moments, Sam and Amy were crowded around Noah’s phone as the screen displayed a video featuring Great White in action. The sleek boat snaked through the water, its dorsal fin cutting through the surf. Then it dove, disappearing from view, before breaching the surface in a spectacular jump. The rows of shark teeth painted on the hull gleamed in the sun before it splashed back into the water.

  “Whoa!” Amy said.

  Sam shook her head. “Why haven’t I heard of this thing before?”

  Noah shrugged. “Guess you’re not cool like me.”

  Sam gave his shoulder a shove before turning her attention back to the video.

  But I couldn’t watch any more footage. Thinking of our sub trying to compete with that next week made me anxious all over again, but for a whole new set of reasons.

  3 The Unexpected Encounter

  DING-DONG.

  The doorbell rang, and I ran downstairs. “I’ll get it,” I called.

  Friday night meant pizza for dinner! Most nights, my dad cooks dinner, or we have leftovers. Ever since my mother died a few years ago, he’s been big on making sure we share a home-cooked meal almost every night. I even pitch in and cook sometimes. I can make anything you want, as long as you want pancakes. My dad’s cooking is great—don’t get me wr
ong—but Friday night pizza had become a fun tradition over the last few months.

  I hit the foyer and peeked through the peephole, then gasped when I saw who was standing on the other side. It wasn’t either of the usual pizza delivery people. No, it was none other than J. J. Jefferson himself. I froze. Sure, I knew I would be seeing him next week, and I knew he and my father had sometimes worked together. Apparently, I’d even met him when I was a little kid, but I don’t remember that. Still, I hadn’t been expecting to see him on our doorstep.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, staring through the peephole, but it must’ve been a while, because Mr. Jefferson reached out and pressed the doorbell again.

  Ding-dong.

  I jumped. Finally coming out of my stupor, I unlocked the door and pulled it open. The tall thin man standing on my doorstep looked almost as shocked as I was.

  “Tom Jr.?” he asked. “Is that you?”

  I nodded, still surprised that the J. J. Jefferson was standing in front of me.

  Mr. Jefferson shifted a small package to his left hand and reached out with his right. My hand was swallowed in his firm grip. “Well, you’ve certainly grown since the last time I saw you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and then tried not to cringe at my stupid reply. I guess I still wasn’t over the fact that J. J. Jefferson was in my house. Except he wasn’t actually in my house. I was so dumbfounded that I hadn’t invited him in. I just stood there, grinning and pumping his hand up and down.

  “Uh, come in,” I finally got out.

  The large man shuffled in just as my father came down the stairs. “Jay!” Dad said. “You made it!”

  “What? You think I’d miss pizza night?” Mr. Jefferson asked. “No way that’s happening.”

  I was still in a daze. Not only was J. J. Jefferson in our house, but he also knew about pizza night? This entire thing felt surreal.

  My father grinned at me as he shook my idol’s hand. “What do you think, Tom? Surprised?”

  “Uh… yeah,” I squeaked out.

  “You didn’t tell him I was coming?”