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  Praise for Calculated

  “A high-stakes YA tale of betrayal, revenge, and numbers... An enjoyable thriller with an intriguing, relatable protagonist.” — Kirkus Reviews

  This delightful book will hook readers from the first page and have them longing for more. VERDICT Recommended for readers who enjoy fast-paced stories. — School Library Journal

  “An intense and wonderfully complex thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat and turning pages!” – Jessica Day George, NYT bestselling author of SILVER IN THE BLOOD and the TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES series

  “I can’t think of a word good enough to describe this book. Masterful? Gripping? Addictive? Powerful? Perfect? Calculated is all of these things, and yet the words don’t feel big enough, or strong enough, to encompass all that is contained within these pages. It is a thrill ride from start to finish, with so many twists and turns, you wonder how it could ever be wrapped up, only to have your mind blown at the end and your heart aching for the next chapter. Don’t let another minute go by without reading this book.” — Chelsea Bobulski, author of THE WOOD and REMEMBER ME

  “Calculated is smart with plenty of page-turning action, and a brave heroine who is deeply relatable. The timely subject matter is heart-wrenching even as it inspires us to use our gifts to make a difference in the world. Twisty and original, this story will keep readers guessing and hoping to its pulse-pounding end!” – Lorie Langdon, best-selling author of DOON and OLIVIA TWIST

  “A cunning story of strategy destined to keep readers chasing resolution from Seattle to Shanghai.” – Jennifer Jenkins, co-founder of Teen Author Boot Camp and author of the NAMELESS series and TEEN WRITER’S GUIDE

  “Calculated is an intelligent thrill ride! In Jo Rivers, author Nova McBee has given readers a heroine who is mathematically gifted beyond what most can imagine, and somehow immensely relatable, even as her greatest skills are exploited by international criminals. Sleek and sophisticated, with dark secrets at every turn, Calculated is impossible to put down.” – Shannon Dittemore, author of WINTER, WHITE AND WICKED

  "Fast-paced and suspenseful. A thrilling debut!" – Stephanie Morrill, author of WITHIN THESE LINES and THE LOST GIRL OF ASTOR STREET

  “Calculated is a fast-paced and thrilling story that will keep you reading long into the night. Its twists and turns will take you from Shanghai's glittering high rises to underground prisons and the plights faced by the characters who feel achingly real. An action-packed adventure with heart.” – Judy Lin, author of the forthcoming A MAGIC STEEPED IN POISON

  “In this gripping thriller, McBee balances high-stakes, page-turning action with a powerful exploration of revenge, justice, forgiveness, and love, as well as an inspiring heroine readers won’t soon forget.” – Kimberly Gabriel, award-winning author of EVERY STOLEN BREATH

  “Nova McBee’s Calculated and its heroine, [Jo] catapult readers through the highs and lows of the pits of despair and pinnacles of power without sacrificing warmth and authenticity. The book’s cinematic imagery entices and immerses the reader in deceit and corruption so suffocatingly thick that only a tenacious fight for justice and freedom can satisfy. What a ride! Don’t miss out.” — Wayne Lo, illustrator of the Star Wars CLONE WARS graphic novel series

  “I was fortunate to read an early version of Calculated, and I can’t recommend it enough. The pacing is excellent, the characters jump off the page, and the story grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go until the very end. Add this one to your must-read list. You won’t be disappointed.” – Ernie Chiara, Literary Agent Assistant at Fuse Literary, PitchWars Mentor

  Calculated

  Nova McBee

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, publications, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  CALCULATED. Copyright © 2021 by Nova McBee.

  All rights reserved.

  For information, address Wolfpack Publishing,

  6032 Wheat Penny Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89122

  wisewolfbooks.com

  Cover design by Cherie Chapman

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-953944-50-4

  eBook ISBN 978-1-953944-00-9

  First Edition: February 2021

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  1. Past: Josephine

  2. Present: Double-Eight

  3. Present: Double-Eight

  4. Past: Josephine

  5. Present: Double-Eight

  6. Present: Phoenix

  7. Past: Josephine

  8. Present: Phoenix

  9. Present: Phoenix

  10. Past: Octavia

  11. Past: Octavia

  12. Past: Octavia

  13. Past: Octavia

  14. Present: Phoenix

  15. Past: Double-Eight

  16. Past: Double-Eight

  17. Present: Phoenix

  18. Present: Phoenix

  19. Past: Double-Eight

  20. Past: Double-Eight

  21. Present: Phoenix

  22. Present: Phoenix

  23. Past: Mila

  24. Past: Mila

  25. Present: Phoenix

  26. Present: Phoenix

  27. Present: Phoenix

  28. Present: Phoenix

  29. Present: Phoenix

  30. Present: Phoenix

  31. Present: Phoenix

  32. Present: Phoenix

  33. Present: Phoenix

  34. Present: Phoenix

  35. Present: Phoenix

  36. Present: Phoenix

  37. Present: Phoenix

  38. Present: Phoenix

  39. Present: Phoenix

  40. Present: Phoenix

  41. Present: Phoenix

  42. Present: Phoenix

  43. Present: Phoenix

  44. Present: Phoenix

  45. Present: Phoenix

  46. Present: Phoenix

  47. Present: Josephine

  Epilogue

  A Look At: Simulated (Calculated Book 2)

  Join the Wise Wolf Books Mailing List

  Calculated Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Bethany Zhu

  &

  For the Chengdu Crew—

  and an era that impacted our lives forever

  “They say believing in infinity will ruin you;

  make you long for impossible things;

  a limitless world; even love that lasts forever.

  If anyone asks what happened to me,

  tell them I believed.”

  – Jo Rivers

  Calculated

  Prologue

  THE PRATT, SHANGHAI, CHINA

  I planned to start by telling you my name, but that won’t work. I’ve had too many. I don’t know who I am, much less which name suits a girl like me. So I’ll start by telling you what they call me. Double-Eight. Like the digits. 88.

  I live in China—no, living implies choice. I exist in China and my existence depends on my gift.

  I don’t believe in luck, but that’s what people say I have. Of course, all they see is my ability to make millions of dollars at the drop of a hat, not the constant bombardment of numbers that rule my inner world.

  I’ve learned to live with my gift, even maneuver in it, but if someone had told me how my life would turn out, I’d have opted for the fate of a sewer rat instead.

  My mother, whose hands are clean of anything that has happened to me over the past two years, told me I had this rare gift for a reason. I remember her eyes shining brightly, gazing down at me. “You could change the world with your mind, Little Seagull.” If only she knew what my mathematical genius was being used for. The shoc
k might cause her to jump right out of her grave.

  But she’d die twice if she knew what Dad and Mara had done. It almost makes me laugh—a girl who can predict almost everything around her, except the betrayal of her own family.

  It’s completely logical that I missed it. I loved them and love cannot be calculated or measured in numbers. It requires trust, which acts on unseen forces, not sound theory. It takes risks and sometimes we lose. In my opinion, it’s easier to stay away from things like love.

  People who don’t see the world through a screen of equations often say love happens by chance. But accidents are a joke in my world of numbers. There’s no such thing as coincidence. I’d be a fool to say my ending up here was left to chance.

  But numbers, no matter how you calculate them, can never answer the question we all ask at some point, the one burning craters in my heart: Why?

  Red—the only reason I’m not some fengzi rocking back and forth in a corner—says that each one of us is given a destiny. That the choice to walk in that destiny is also ours. He says I can go down in history.

  But at seventeen years old, I have no future to speak of, let alone history to make. “So what do you do,” I asked Red, “if your destiny doesn’t turn out as you once thought it would?”

  Red gazed at me with his dark piercing eyes and said, “That part, qin ai de, is up to you.”

  1

  Past: Josephine

  ALKI BEACH, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  My dad is going to kill me. I went and did the very thing he asked me not to do. It wasn’t as if I planned it. I didn’t wake up thinking, Today I will defy my father. Not at all, he’s the best dad in the world—even if he did fire me without an explanation from his company three days before graduation, on the anniversary of Mom’s death. Hopefully, he’d take my news as well as I took his.

  I twisted the stem of a white lily between the pads of my fingers as I stared out into my ocean waiting for him to return. As always, my calculations kept me company.

  A girl in green Nikes ran down the beach. From the footprints in the sand, I could tell that her stride is 4 feet, 8 inches, which means she was roughly 5’7” and over-striding by 3 inches. At her current stride, she would reach Alki Point Lighthouse in 15 minutes, 48 seconds. If she shortened her stride, she’d run faster and arrive 1 minute and 12 seconds sooner. But she wouldn’t think about this, because she isn’t me. She isn’t a mental calculator. Numbers don’t invade every aspect of her life and odds are she isn’t fifteen years old and graduating with a PhD in Mathematical Economics.

  Thirty-eight waves had rolled in during the six minutes and thirty-two seconds since dad left to buy ice cream—my compensation. Why he fired me, I had yet to discover.

  Dad stepped out of the corner shop with two double-decker cones in his hands. Mint chocolate chip for me, peanut butter chocolate for him. Our usual.

  The light at the crossing was red. He stood there, dressed in a suit, patiently waiting to cross. His hair, the color of dry driftwood, was loose and wispy. Since Mom died, he didn’t comb or style it as nicely as he used to. He saw me and waved with his pinkie.

  The light ticked down from forty-five seconds. Numbers streamed through my mind. At a speed of 1.5 miles an hour, with 89 steps to go, it would take less than 35 seconds for him to cross after the light turns green.

  Green.

  A seagull shrieked overhead. A familiar bitter-sweet sting pinched my stomach. Looking up, I followed the bird’s descent into the salty waves below—seagulls always remind me of Mom.

  Like me, Mom loved the Pacific Ocean. As often as we could, we took Dad’s boat out and released a lily on the water to remember her. It was where we could still feel her.

  After months, I’d finally trained myself to focus on good memories whenever Mom came to mind. Lily, my youngest sister, named after the flower Mom loved, had almost bounced back to normal but Mara, my older sister, had gotten worse.

  When mom was alive, Mara was my best friend, my biggest fan. After mom died, she believed I was born to ruin her life. She claimed that because of my gift Dad did everything for me, placing her and Lily on the back burner.

  It wasn’t true, of course. But if you calculated the time and money Dad put into me—and I did—Mara’s argument appeared valid. But what was I supposed to do about it? Stop being a genius? Yeah right. I already calculated the chances of that happening, and while it was possible for prodigies to lose their gift when they got older, it was also highly unlikely.

  Dad plunked down beside me and handed me the ice cream cone. A troubled expression was wedged between his furrowed brows like a man caught outside during a storm.

  “Here you go, Little Seagull.”

  I stiffened at the sound of the old nickname that Mom gave me. If I met his gaze, I might lose it and our talk would become a cryfest. I released a long breath and accepted the ice cream. “Thanks.”

  Dad bit off the top of his and said, “All right, I gave you my news, your turn. Spill it.”

  I licked at my ice cream, torturously slow. “Dad, before you explode with all the reasons I shouldn’t do this, hear me out. I know you didn’t want me to start working right after graduation, but I can’t sit around doing nothing. Especially with Mara breathing down my neck every day. So, I’ve accepted a job…” And then I dropped the bomb…“with Prodigy Stealth Solution…in China.”

  He froze, looking icier than the ice cream in our hands. “Jo. How could you?” His face was visibly hurt. “You know how I feel about PSS,” he grumbled in his serious tone. “They shouldn’t be hiring kids. It’s not right. It’s dangerous. If anyone finds out what you can do…”

  “PSS doesn’t just hire kids. They hire prodigies, no matter how old,” I said, more whiny than I intended. “It just happens that most of us are young.”

  PSS was a private think tank out-sourcing company, which drew on solutions from prodigies like me to solve all kinds of economic, agricultural, and political world problems. They operated secretly, to avoid drawing attention to the prodigies they employed. When they sought me out during my first year at Stanley, my family and I had to sign a confidentiality agreement just to learn more about them. Despite my father’s outspoken dislike, I’d always been interested in the work PSS did. They did real things to help people.

  Just like every other prodigious kid I knew, I’d always been expected to do something great. Most of us were shoe-ins for high paying jobs in very boring companies. Some were content with that, but not me. I wanted to know why I was born with this gift. Was it for the greater good or could I just use it to eat, drink, and be merry? Did it even matter?

  I wanted what Mom said to be true, that I had this gift for a reason. But numbers could not prove it. So, working with PSS made sense while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.

  “How long is the job?” Dad asked in his get-to-business tone.

  “Three to six weeks, max. There’s an economic issue—stock related, they think—in the China Asia Bank. If it’s not solved it could cause serious trouble for the markets around the world.”

  “They have economists for that.”

  “Not like me.” I didn’t have to remind him that the European Union used my theory to solve the last two economic crashes before Asia Bank stepped in to stabilize the world economy with the Chinese Yuan. “PSS thinks I might be the only one who can fix it.” I paused, reexamining my strategy. Dad didn’t care about the stock market or bank issues. He cared about me. I sighed. “Dad, no one is going to discover anything. I promised you I’d never tell anyone what I can do.”

  After my mom died, the house was as happy as a graveyard. Even Tails our cat walked around groaning for Mom. So I joined Dad at the office. It was there that I realized my untapped potential. In less than a year, Dad’s company made more money than he’d or I’d ever imagined. So we made even more. It was thrilling for a while. But money wasn’t as joyful as everyone thought; it couldn’t bring back someone you loved. Eventua
lly my gift frightened him. He worried I’d be taken advantage of. He made me promise that under no circumstances was I to tell anyone what I did there, not even my sisters.

  “I know, sweetie. I’m sorry. I trust you.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just don’t trust others and that scares me.”

  A month before graduation the phone had started ringing and it hadn’t stopped—job offers, everything from professorships to government to private enterprise. My dad told everyone the same thing. She’s fifteen. Call back in a few years.

  But he was coming around. “Dad, PSS is not dangerous. It’s a bunch of geeks getting together to do math. And no one knows about this job. PSS is totally confidential. I’ll be escorted there and taken care of the whole time.” I grabbed him by the chin and turned his face to look at me. “Come on. I want to be useful. Mom would have wanted me to go.”