Max had had a word with Klaus and Keeto on the drive from the Chittaganj Airport to Jitwan.

“We don’t need to tell the rest of the team about the mistake Klaus made with his phone,” she’d said.

“But—” Keeto had started to protest before Max cut him off.

“We all make mistakes. Even my hero, Albert Einstein. The only mistake in life is the lesson not learned.”

“Well, I definitely learned my lesson,” said Klaus. “No more cell phones for me.”

“Or you could just, you know, switch off the GPS locator,” said Keeto.

“Oh. Right. Good idea. Thanks.”

Jitwan was a crowded hillside town of brightly colored three- and four-story buildings. A narrow-gauge railroad hauled vacationers up from the stifling heat swamping most of India to the somewhat cooler temperatures of the Himalayan foothills, where pink primroses bloomed outside English-style cottages. That was up at the top of the hill. Down in the Lower Bazaar, the air stank of sewage runoff from the fancy houses.

The benefactor had arranged rooms for the team at the very posh Royal Duke Hotel in Jitwan. It was at the top of the highest hill.

“It also has air-conditioning and very clean bathrooms,” Max’s CMI teammate and friend, Vihaan, had said when he’d greeted the new arrivals in the hotel lobby. “Toma, Annika, and Hana have already checked in. They are off sampling butter buns and tea. Thank you all for coming to India. I hope you are all comfortable here; not everyone in this district is as fortunate as we will be in this very nice and posh hotel.”

Vihaan had dark, soulful eyes and was dressed in a kurta, a loose collarless shirt. He was only thirteen, but already had a PhD in quantum mechanics. Max always thought Albert Einstein would’ve liked Vihaan Banerjee. They were kindred spirits.

“Jitwan is my family’s ancestral home,” Vihaan continued in his soft voice. “My grandparents, in fact, still live here. Dada, my father’s father, is a key man here.”

“What’s a key man?” asked Keeto.

“A very important civil servant, especially during a water crisis. They open and close the valves that supply water to each neighborhood. Some days they are heroes; others, villains. It depends on whether they are turning on or shutting down the water, which flows through the crumbling network of subterranean pipes built here more than seventy years ago under British colonial rule. Mobs follow Dada through the streets. So do the bottled water merchants. They do not like my grandfather ‘cutting into their profits,’ as they say.”

“I guess they won’t like us being here, either,” said Klaus.

“No,” said Vihaan. “They will do everything they can to stop us from fixing Jitwan’s water problem.”

“Great,” said Klaus. “Maybe we should just leave while we’re still alive.”

“Um, we just got here, dude,” said Keeto.

“We must be the change we wish to see in the world,” said Vihaan. “My personal hero, Mahatma Gandhi, said that.”

“Um, dude? Do you have a suitcase filled with Gandhi figurines?” asked Keeto.

“Not yet,” said Vihaan. “But, inspired by Max, I might start doing so, soon.”

Max smiled. “Well, my hero liked your hero, Vihaan. He thought Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political people of their time. He said we should strive to do things in Gandhi’s spirit. Not to use violence fighting for a cause, but to fight by not participating in anything you believe is evil.”

“But we still have Charl and Isabl, right?” asked Keeto. “I mean, protection is smart.”

“Right,” said Klaus sarcastically. “We have two highly trained security guards versus a whole army of water merchants and an angry mob. I like our odds. Big time.”

That night, during their first team meeting, twelve-year-old Hana addressed the group. A botanist from Japan, she hated when anybody wasted water.

“We need to set a good example while we’re here,” she urged, pulling her long, dark hair into a ponytail. “Take shorter showers. Skip a day if you can. I don’t need to wash my hair every day, for example,” she said, flipping her shiny ponytail.

“Except you, Klaus,” joked Keeto. “You reek of garlic….”

“You guys?” said Hana. “This is no joke. Clean, fresh water is essential to all life on the planet: plants and animals. And if humans can’t get water? Watch out—they’ll quickly turn into animals!”

Toma and Annika had also joined the group in the Royal Duke Hotel’s dining hall, which had a spectacular view of the majestic landscape filled with towering mountains.

Toma was a budding astrophysicist from China. He was obsessed with the nature of celestial bodies and how this study might lead to an understanding of black holes, dark matter, and wormholes. He had short brown hair and was wearing a black T-shirt with nerd written across the chest to look like the NASA logo.

“You know,” he said, “there’s hope for the future. Researchers recently found evidence of a body of liquid water on Mars.”

“Which will help absolutely no one here on Earth,” said Annika in her clipped German accent. She adjusted her dark, square-framed glasses and continued, “There is no Planet B, Toma.”

Annika was a master of formal logic. She and Max had been on a hair-raising adventure together in Jerusalem when two Corp thugs chased them around the campus of the Hebrew University, home to the Albert Einstein Archives. Eluding bad guys together? That’ll make you friends for life.

On their third day in India, when all the team members had more or less acclimated to the higher altitudes in the Himalayan foothills, the group assembled in the hotel’s meeting room to brainstorm solutions to the water crisis.

“Recycling will, one day, be the ultimate solution,” said the logical Annika. “Back home in Frankfurt, one drop of water is recycled eight times before it reaches the sea. Here in India it isn’t recycled even once.”

“What can we do now?” asked Max, prodding the group. “Today. How can we collect clean water for immediate delivery?”

“We could try to draw it from the air,” suggested Vihaan. “I have read about a process where large mesh nets are set up to capture fog moisture. There is fog in the nearby mountains most mornings. They already use this technique to great effect in Chile, South Africa, and even California.”

“Because Californians are all super smart, dude,” said Keeto, smirking and tucking his hands into the pocket of his red Stanford hoodie.

The group laughed just as Charl and Isabl entered the meeting room.

“Good news,” said Charl. “We think your plan worked, Max.”

“What plan?” asked Toma.

“A way to make sure that the Corp didn’t follow us to India,” said Max, without mentioning Klaus or his phone. “We sent them to the middle of nowhere. Literally.”

Everyone applauded.

Except Klaus. He turned to Max and whispered, “Thanks.”

Max grinned. “No problem.”