I think you have a misplaced adjective – the tournament is a cross-country video game? How does one steal someone else’s student loans? When I received a student loan, it went straight to the school or came in a form of a check addressed to me. And is the coming of age/dramatic element occur during the road trip to the tournament or during the tournament? By your logline, the stakes are they can’t go home if they don’t win, which are… pretty low stakes.

What would grab my interest is if the tournament was like a Call of Duty type game and they had to employ skills attained from playing the game to hurdle obstacles encountered during their road trip to the tournament. But I realize that’s probably nothing like your story.

Also, I found your title a little odd – Wasted Youth. To me, it’s implying that the adventure your protags are embarking on is a waste of time. Probably not the impression you were going for.

How about:

After stealing money to enter a video game tournament, a misfit group of on-line gamers have 36 hours to travel cross-country from Boston to San Diego. Can they make it without killing each other?

I?m stumbling on how the brilliant? and genetically engineered? and con-artist? are connected. Sounds a bit too much cramming into the logline. Perhaps concentrate on one major trait. Or highlight why being a con-artist is tied into the goals/stakes. Also, I think it?s important to be clear if the protag is an android or more like a replicant in Blade Runner.

A biogenetic android must hunt down her maker before her life is terminated in three days.

With only three days before her 21st birthday, a biogenetic android must hunt down her maker before she is terminated.