McKeyla McAlister is an agent with NOV8.
That acronym is pronounced "innovate" and is described as "a highly secretive group of female government operatives who are trying to protect the world". It has its highly secret headquarters in the Golden River National Park. For reasons I have no need to know, proven operatives for this organization are assigned cover-names using bird types. McAlister's mother, real name Molly, is the head of NOV8 and has the codename of 'the Quail'. For a short time while she was on a special mission, leadership shifted to her sister, Montana, known as the Falcon.
NOV8 apparently believes in starting their operative training at a very young age and introducing them to real missions as teenagers. The Quail got her start when she was 16 and McAlister even younger.
In her own words, McAlister is a "writer, hipster, undercover spy. When I'm not journaling, I'm probably reading a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel, upcycling, or ya know, just trying to save the world". This young NOV8 operative, with deep brown eyes, brown hair, and often wearing glasses, is 16 years old when we meet her for the first time. She likes to dress in trendy clothes when she does not have to go in disguise. She is a teenager which means she can be a tad snarky at times, especially to adults, and she likes to succinctly let people know, "I'm smart. Get over it!"
McAlister was born and partially raised in Maywood Glen, California, the location for the recorded activities we can follow. When her agent father disappeared when she was five, she and her older sister, Maddy, and their mother began to move around frequently for safety and for the mother's secret missions. With the return to her 'hometown', she is finally able to form some hopefully lasting relationship with girls her own age.
McAlister has a special, cyber-locked notebook which looks ordinary enough but when opened reveals a screen on which the cartoon head of a young girl with huge spectacles is shown. This device is a "Advanced Digital Intelligence Spy Notebook", or A.D.I.S.N. for short. She is a constantly chipper avator who keeps McAlister uptodate with her appointments and news of events of importance to the young spy. Since McAlister was forced to move around a lot as a child, ADISN was often her only friend so she and this artificial intelligence has formed a special relationship.
When McAlister and family returns to Maywood Glen, McAlister does not have any partners and does not think she needs any. Soon, however, new girls she meets at school and becomes friendly with start to wonder about her occasional (okay, more often than that) antics. Their pretty impressive investigations will cause them to learn about NOV8 and for NOV8 to learn about them. In no time at all, McAlister will be joined in her missions with three worthy colleagues:
Camryn Coyle: a tanned-skin girl with dyed ruby-red hair and brown eyes, she is an inventor who can make the niftiest things out of stuff around her, being an engineering genius and a skilled inventor.
Adrienne Attoms: a white-skin blonde-haired girl with hazel eyes and a devotion to wearing high heels and wearing pink anything. She is a chemistry expert, known as "the nation's foremost culinary chemist" and can come up with impressive concoctions if the right ingredients are at hand.
Dryden Bandweth: a dusky-skin black-haired girl and dark eyes, she is the tech genius of the group, loving anything the least bit digital and able to operate just about anything electrical. She is also pretty athletically capable.
Together, these four girls prove they make an exceptional team able to accomplish some impressive results, though it is important to always remember they are still teenagers.