by C. B. Lee
“Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just go in a straight line?” Jake calls.
“I’m just following the path of least resistance,” Emily says. She nods at Tank now that he’s caught up, and dashes ahead until she’s just a gray shimmer amongst the green.
Tank picks up the pace, running after her; it’s easier now that he can just follow behind her without having to guess where to go, and they’re making good time. He glances at the map in his hand; it’s filling up in quick bursts of green, and Tank’s pleased to see how much they’ve covered so far.
He looks back up and realizes he can’t see Jake or Emily anywhere.
“Where are you?”
“Oh, I’m on top of the trees. See me?”
“How are you—” Tank shakes his head. He spots movement in the treetops—Jake jumping up and down. “Do you see Emily?”
“Yeah. You coming up?”
He might as well. Climbing the tree takes some effort and throwing blocks of dirt underneath him, but Tank makes it to the top of the jungle canopy, where Jake’s waiting patiently for him. From here, the treetops stretch out endlessly in a lush, verdant expanse. In the distance, lava streams from a cavern just visible in the high cliffs of a mountain.
“It’s easier than cutting your way through—I think jungle’s the best for this. Forests aren’t usually grown in thick enough, and it’s easy to fall.”
It makes Tank nervous, walking across the treetops—a single misstep and he could fall and lose precious health at this early stage of the game, but he watches Jake and follows his path.
Finally they catch up to Emily just as the sun is starting to set. Torches light a simple dirt building. “Ready? I know Jake here is scared of the dark.”
“I am not,” Jake mutters. “It’s just smarter to wait out the night.”
“You could say thank you for building you a hideout,” Emily says, snorting.
Tank is the last to enter, and he stacks dirt carefully behind him to prevent any wayward mobs from coming in.
“Thank you,” he says, grinning over at Emily.
“And now we wait,” Jake says. “Anyone bring a bed?”
“Nope,” Emily says.
Tank has a bed but figures it would be pointless to say, so he keeps quiet. He leans back and stretches, wondering if they should go back to cleaning for a bit. His stomach growls, and Tank remembers he brought a snack. He gets up and grabs the pack of instant ramen from his backpack, popping it open. He tears open the bag of seasoning and sprinkles it inside the pack before crushing it and shaking it. He opens it back up and pops the crunchy dry noodles in his mouth, chewing noisily.
Jake blinks at him.
“You want some?” Tank offers him the bag.
Jake pulls a chunk of noodle out and crunches it thoughtfully. “That’s actually pretty good,” he says.
Tank tilts the bag at Emily, who takes a piece without looking away from her screen, where she’s categorizing her inventory. “Nice. You ever put butter on it and put it in the toaster oven?”
“Huh. That sounds good,” Tank says. “We don’t have one anymore after my dad messed it up. I think he was trying to repair the TV.”
“With the toaster oven?” Emily asks, raising an eyebrow.
“He likes to fix things,” Tank says, with a sigh. “I think there was a wire he needed or something. Sometimes what he comes up with is pretty cool, and sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”
“That sucks,” Emily says. “My older sister once ruined the sink with her hair dye and I had purple hands for days. Days! It was the worst.”
“I always thought having siblings would be fun,” Jake says wistfully.
Emily gives him an incredulous look. “Fun? It’s never quiet and everyone’s always touching my stuff.”
“I have a little sister,” Tank says. “She can be annoying sometimes because she thinks she knows everything.”
Emily laughs. “I’m right in the middle. I bet that’ll be fun once the twins get older.” She shakes her head. “You don’t know how lucky you are,” she says to Jake.
Jake shrugs, opening his mouth and then closing it again.
“Right,” Tank says, suddenly feeling awkward. He never talks about his family. Shark and AJ and Gus never wanted to talk about anything except shoes and what to do at Fortress Park.
He focuses on the game and smashes through the dirt hideout wall to see how much time has passed—it’s already midmorning, judging from the sun’s position. Clouds flutter across the bright blue sky, and they’ve wasted precious time.
“All right, got all the torches? Let’s go.” Jake leads the way, stopping every now and then to make sure Tank is right behind him.
The mural becomes visible quickly; it’s a huge swath of wall, made out of thousands of blocks, outside a village. Up close, it’s hard to tell what it depicts, but Tank can see the sheer amount of work that went into creating this huge, elaborate mosaic. From across the valley, they climb a mountain to see the mural as it was meant to be seen—from afar.
It’s breathtaking.
Tiers and tiers of pyramidlike buildings. Platforms and bridges suspended across streets and alleyways dripping with seaweed. Chests filled with sparkling gems. Mermaids swimming back and forth in the sparkling sunlight filtering through the water.
“An underwater city,” Emily breathes.
“Incredible, right? I think for what’s next we would need potions and enchanted armor to get farther, and I’m nowhere near—”
“We need to get to work then!” Emily says with a brusque confidence Tank wishes he had. He likes building things in Creative and designing things, but when he played with Viv she usually gave him items she’d already worked on. She did still complain about him being too slow or not having the drive to just fight mobs and go exploring with her enough. What if Emily and Jake find that he isn’t fun to play with, either?
“Sounds like a good plan. We’ll need to buff up to get enchantments and to brew potions, need paper for books—I’ve got a good place started a little east of here.”
They follow Jake to his base, and though Tank is still skeptical about Jake’s farming skills, he has to admit this place has much more potential than the one he saw Jake in yesterday.
“Tank, you like organizing and building, right? Can you make the farm at the base super efficient? Emily and I can go look for diamonds.”
“Yes! Mining!” Emily whoops. “We’re gonna need the best armor and weapons to go into the Nether for the nether wart we’ll need.”
With the tasks set and a plan to level up, Tank has to admit he likes that Jake has identified what he’s good at. He would be terrible at the mines. It would be good to get experience, but he doesn’t want to if he doesn’t have to. Instead, he’s glad to be useful in this way.
Tank whistles as he seeds a new line of wheat, admiring the rows and how efficient they are. The new pumpkin patch is coming along quite nicely now that he’s organized Jake’s previously chaotic mess. Tank harvests a new batch of sugar cane before planting more along the shore of the lake he’s dug out inside the perimeter of the base. There. That’s great. Now the sugar cane looks healthy and happy. Maybe it would be fun to make a little design with the water. What about a moat?
“Hey, this looks great,” Jake says when he and Emily get back from their next mining run. It’s been a nice way to spend the time, getting to be creative and decorate while Jake and Emily focus on fighting monsters and mining. Jake and Emily came back a few times to drop off loot and to refresh their supplies, and then Jake spent some time working on the south end of their base on something as Emily went back on her own.
“Ooh, super efficient. I like how you’ve organized all the inventory,” Emily says with approval as she digs up the ground in front of each of the carefully lab
eled chests, placing crafting tables in a neat row in front of them. “Never got this specific before, but I like how you can find everything easily. Stone, wood, weapons, seeds, food…”
“Thanks,” Tank says, proud of his process.
“You know, there’s a redstone thing you can build that sorts all of this stuff for you. I can put one together if you like,” Emily says.
“Oh, that would be great!” Tank beams.
Emily closes the last chest at the end of the row. “Yeah, it’s no problem, I like figuring stuff out like that. Huh, you have so many flowers collected. For potions and stuff?”
“Yeah. I mean, I also just like to decorate with them. I, uh, I like it when things are colorful,” Tank says, watching for their reactions, waiting for the judgment or laughter or teasing.
“That’s cool,” Jake says. “Yeah, I really liked how you set up your farm in the world you showed me yesterday. You know, there’s a field here, next to where we put the cows—”
“Oh yeah!” Emily walks over to the empty area, which was exactly where Tank was considering building something decorative, but he wasn’t sure with a shared base if the others would like it.
“A hedge maze would look great,” Jake muses.
“Oh, okay, sure,” Tank says, unable to keep the pleased note out of his voice. “I know decorating isn’t like finding treasure or fighting monsters, or even the point of the game—”
Jake shakes his head. “Everyone has their own way of playing and having fun. This is great! Come on, let me show you what I’ve been working on.”
“Brewing stand is complete, and an enchanting table,” Jake says. There’s a new corner of the house, decked out in bookshelves. Tank walks inside, pleased with the ambiance. It feels like a magical library, with all the books stacked up on shelves and the miasma of purple dust floating over the enchanting table in the center.
The base is hustling with activity. Tank’s never quite fit in with Viv’s friends on her server—they were leagues ahead of him, always building epic constructions and designing things that he could barely comprehend. When he and his sister play together, it’s a specific kind of partnership that has evolved over time.
This feels good, being a part of a team.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JAKE
“What in the—” Jake stumbles backward as he watches his health drop. “Who put a campfire in the middle of the hallway?”
“Oh, I needed to cook some food,” Emily says.
“Why didn’t you use a furnace?” Jake scowls as he retreats to a safe, fire-free section of the hallway. Who puts a fire right in the middle of the main hallway of the house, anyway? He quickly eats a few loaves of bread before grabbing a pickaxe to get rid of the hazard.
“Eh, didn’t have all the materials on hand,” she responds.
“There’s a room I set aside for a kitchen,” Tank says. “There are furnaces in there.”
Jake enters the room next to the main room, admiring the way Tank’s used staircases and trapdoors to mock up chairs and tables. There’re even potted plants in front of glass windows. Furnaces line a wall, giving it a stove-and-cabinets effect with how the chests are embedded in the wall. He cooks a stack of raw beef, watching them cook into steaks one by one.
Jake’s stomach growls; sometimes he forgets he has a body when he’s so absorbed in the game. The kitchen reminds him that there’s actually a kitchen in this community center. There was a microwave, too.
“Do you all want lasagna? My dad forgets that we’re only, like, two people, and he made a ton. If you don’t help me eat it we’re gonna have it for dinner for the next few nights, and I’d really rather not.”
“Uh, sure. Yeah, I could use a lunch break.”
Tank blinks at him. “Do you need help?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
Jake runs back up to his apartment and grabs the half-full lasagna and three plates and forks, then carefully walks it all back to the community center.
The microwave in the center’s kitchen is old but is still working, and Jake can hear Tank and Emily in the computer lab as it heats up.
“Tank, where are you?”
“Expanding the farm. Do you need me?”
“Yeah, I need cover! Mining this obsidian takes forever and I can’t get it with all these skeletons. Come on!”
“All right, all right.” There’s a long pause before he says, “Do you need anything?”
“Did Jake get any more diamonds? This pickaxe is about to break.”
“I put some in the chest earlier!” Jake calls out.
“Found it. On my way,” Tank says.
Jake watches the microwave count down and listens to the soft electronic hum of it heating up and the sounds of Tank and Emily from the other room with a smile.
“Lunch is ready!” Jake calls.
“Where even are you?” Emily’s voice echoes from the hall.
“The kitchen.”
“There’s a kitchen?” Tank asks, incredulous.
“Go through the lobby and past the game area.”
Emily opens the door, peering inside curiously. “Whoa, I never even knew this was here. You think they used to have like events and stuff?”
“Yeah. According to the articles, there were cooking classes and all sorts of stuff. Mrs. Jenkins had a lot of programming.” Jake hands them each a plate.
“Thanks,” Emily says. “I can bring food next time, if you want.”
“That sounds good.”
They eat in silence for a bit, the dusty room echoing the sounds of chewing. It’s awkward now that they aren’t playing Minecraft or busy cleaning. Eating together is—it’s a thing you do with people you like.
“So did you all get in trouble with your parents for this? I mean, I was already grounded before and at first I thought they might double down on the punishment, but my parents gave me back my phone because I’m doing the work here.” Emily smiles, pleased with herself.
“My parents don’t know and I’m going to keep it that way,” Tank says. “My mom has enough to worry about.”
“What about you?” Emily turns to Jake. “What’s the level of strictness here? Your dad is in charge of the construction site, huh? That must have really hurt.”
“He thinks the community service is good,” Jake says carefully. He shrugs. “Dad’s never really been the strict one.”
“Your mom, then? She must have had a fit.” Emily nods as she pulls a forkful of lasagna toward herself, admiring the cheese dripping from the utensil. “It’s always my mom who comes down much harder. Papa at least can be convinced if I promise not to do it again.”
“My mom died three years ago,” Jake says quietly.
Tank pauses, his fork halfway to his mouth.
“Oh,” Emily says. “That sucks.”
And that’s it. Just a simple statement of truth, no fake apologies or pretending to understand. Right after it happened, Jake had hated it—how the school made him talk to a counselor, her saccharine smile, the way other kids had treated him, like they didn’t know how to talk to him.
He suddenly appreciates Emily’s bluntness.
“My ông nội—my grandfather—he died last year,” Tank says. “It was a lot. I still miss him. He had the best jokes, and he taught me how to play cards.”
“He sounds cool,” Jake says wistfully. “Yeah, Mom was the best.”
They eat in silence for a while, and then Tank takes their empty dishes to the sink, rinsing them off.
“Thanks for the lunch,” Emily says, squeezing Jake’s shoulder. “I can bring tamales sometime if you like. My family makes a whole bunch of them every Christmas and we always have some in the freezer.”
“Sounds good,” Jake says.
“I can bring food the next day. We can swit
ch? Or go out, there’s a good pizza place down the street.” Tank smiles, and for once he actually looks his age instead of the intimidating linebacker Jake thought he was.
“Ooh yeah, or tacos! The best stand in town is only like a ten-minute walk.” Emily grins, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Tell your dad the lasagna was amazing.”
Jake smiles and shakes his head. “I won’t, it’ll go to his head. He’s been trying a lot of new things lately, and if I say one of my friends likes something he’ll just keep making this forever. Not that it’s a bad thing, but some variety is nice.”
Emily just tosses her hair back as she laughs.
Tank chuckles. “My dad is a disaster in the kitchen. Drives my mom wild because he makes a mess if he attempts to cook. He can make, like, one thing pretty much, it’s like a braised pork dish with marinated eggs.” He looks at his plate, an embarrassed flush starting on his cheeks. “This is nice, the lunch. Thanks, Jake. Should we—should we clean a little and then get back to the game?”
It snaps him back to reality, that Tank and Emily are here because they have to be, and they have a project to do. “Yeah, we played for most of the morning,” Jake says. “Let’s go through the kitchen since we’re already here, and then we can play.”
* * *
—
The kitchen is tougher than the first storage room, which had been books and knicknacks and files. The fridge thankfully is empty and unplugged, so no surprises there, but Jake can’t believe how much stuff is in the cupboards. There are cobwebs and crusted-over pans from ages ago, and Emily gags at the smell of them when they dig them out. With gloves, they manage to dump all the unusable cookware into the trash, and finally get everything out of the pantry.
“Don’t eat that!” Jake says in horror, grabbing a box of Twinkies out of Tank’s hands.