by C. B. Lee
* * *
—
It is not fine.
At first, the wall seems impenetrable. But a closer look at the riddle makes Emily think there’s more to it than just breaking down the wall. While Jake and Tank attempt to build another bridge on the edge of the cliff with no success, she paces back and forth, studying it.
“Test your mettle…conduit settle,” Emily mutters to herself. What if it’s not a wall? What if it’s a door? Conduits are operated by redstone, so there must be…
Emily pauses. “What if we just can’t see it?” She crafts a wooden shovel quickly and digs directly down in front of the wall. Emily takes a wide swath, uncovering block by block carefully—if there is a controlled system here, she has to be careful not to break it.
“Aha!”
A line of redstone.
Emily digs to the block next to it, careful not to dig any deeper now. For a few moments there’s only the sound of her shovel crunching into the dirt as she reveals an intricate system of redstone circuitry. It’s way more complex than anything she’s built before. It’s definitely not a simple button to push or a pressure plate to step on. There’s some serious programming going on here.
“Whoa, what’d you find?” Jake says.
“This is what the riddle meant,” Emily says. “We have to use redstone to open the door.”
Tank and Jake help her carefully excavate the entire area in front of the wall.
“There’s a chest here!” Jake exclaims, holding up a shovel. “Redstone dust, redstone torches, concrete…are we going to have to build something?”
Tank peers closer. “I don’t know how to do any of this stuff.”
Emily examines the lines of redstone, studying how they connect. She sighs. “I’m going to try.”
She gets to work, building repeaters and attempting to figure out what exactly this setup is missing to make the door work. Emily tries attempt after attempt, and she rips pieces up and can’t remember what the original configuration was, and she tries to repair it, and it keeps not working. She feels like they’ve been at it forever, and Jake and Tank are at a loss.
“Maybe it’s like a red herring. Like a distraction, and the real way to solve it is something else,” Jake suggests after Emily’s fifth attempt.
Tank and Jake have been trying everything to get through the wall every other way while Emily has been working on the redstone.
All tools and weapons shatter upon trying to break through the block. Building a new bridge is impossible. The Wizard thought of everything: They can’t place any new blocks anywhere on the cliff edge or alter the cliff itself in any way.
“There must be a way to remove that wall,” Jake says, pacing back and forth.
“I really think we’re going to have to open it by figuring this out, but I—” Emily groans. “I’m such a fake. I’m not a rock star at redstone construction at all. I really wanted to be, but I can’t—figure this out.”
“It’s okay to ask for help,” Tank says. “That’s what my mom always says.”
Jake nods in agreement. “You are a rock star! You made that automated sorter with the hoppers for all of our inventory back at the base!”
“Yeah!” Tank says. “That was awesome. You worked really hard on that. You’re great at redstone. But like you said, this is complicated stuff. Just because you can’t figure out this one problem doesn’t mean you can’t be good at it.”
Emily takes a deep breath and smiles. “Thanks.” She looks back at the unsolved problem, the pieces out in front of her. PacificViv would love this, she thinks.
“I think I actually know someone who could help,” Emily says. “Only problem is, she could be on the other side of the world.” She’s never asked Viv where she or any of those people on her server was—didn’t they come from all over? Different time zones and stuff? “I think the easiest thing to do would be to get her in here to look at it, but since this server is only on this LAN, we’ll just have to take lots of screenshots.”
Emily backs up, trying to get a good view of the whole thing; she’ll need to build a platform or something to stand on.
“Do you think she would do it?” Tank asks.
“I mean, we haven’t talked in forever because I was grounded, but I can ask. She’s a YouTuber, her channel is full of problems and stuff like this. I bet she’d love it.” Emily takes a few shots at different angles, trying to get as much as possible in. “Her name’s PacificViv, you can look her up. She does stuff like this all the time.”
Emily disconnects from the game, saving the shots. Jake’s pulled up her channel on his computer, trying to load a video on creating an intruder alarm with the very slow Internet. Emily’s gonna have to catch up—Viv’s posted a lot since she’s been grounded.
Tank stares over Jake’s shoulder and sighs.
“What? You know someone better?”
“Getting her in here to look at it won’t be a problem,” Tank says. “That’s my little sister.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
TANK
This is it. Tank knows the minute he introduces Viv to Jake and Emily that they’re going to like her better than him. She’s smart and actually good at Minecraft; Tank is just slow and quiet. Days like this, eating companionably at lunch, are gonna be over. He’s been looking forward to spending time with his friends every day; it’s been nice to have people that actually seem to want him around. Shark’s certainly never brought food for him before.
Tank’s come to like having a normal schedule—he dusts and organizes stuff for a bit with Emily and Jake in the morning, and then they play a whole bunch of Minecraft before he goes home. It’s a nice way of spending the summer; he’d thought he’d be working the whole time, helping make extra money for Ma to pay for those repairs, get Viv some new books and maybe those sneakers as a treat for himself. But Ma had said not to worry about it, that everything was okay, whatever that means.
Ma still doesn’t know he got into trouble, and Tank’s planning to keep it that way. The less she has to worry about, the better. She’s usually sleeping during the day, and he can still make sure she eats before she heads out to work. Mr. Mishra was really understanding when Tank said he couldn’t work as much, and it all worked out, since he didn’t have much for Tank to do in the first place now that he hired someone for real. It’s been weeks now and Tank kept making excuses not to tell Viv about the server; he knows she would love it but…he’s just a boring farm-and-flowers guy, and Viv is a redstone genius. After they meet her, it’ll be obvious they’d rather play with her.
A large part of him doesn’t want to admit that he likes having something that’s just for himself, that he doesn’t have to share. That he’s been looking forward to sitting in that dusty computer lab, laughing at Jake’s terrible jokes and Emily eating hot Cheetos with chopsticks.
“It’s so I don’t get the orange dust on my fingers,” she once said, rolling her eyes at him the first time he saw her do it. It’s actually super smart, and a good way to keep snacking without worrying about messing up the keyboard.
And now instead of the three of them, it’s going to be Emily and Jake and Vivian, and Tank hopelessly plodding along after, trying to keep up. Viv is going to be the one they’ll want to solve the puzzle with.
But if they’re close to solving the puzzle, if Viv is the one who can get them there, and all of this is going to end soon, then Tank might as well go for it and bring them all together. He might lose Emily and Jake as friends, but he was going to lose them anyway.
Emily and Jake are still staring at him; the computer lab has gone silent except for the soft electronic whir of the old computers. An unnatural stillness wraps around them until Tank finds it in himself to muster again, “PacificViv is my little sister.”
“Wait, really?” Emily asks, her mouth falling open in awe.
“Vivian, yeah. She’s really smart and loves programming and redstone stuff.”
“Perfect. Let’s ask her.” Jake stands up decisively after turning off his computer.
Tank does the same and then shuffles into the lobby, noticing how much construction equipment has been stacked here while they’ve been working. He knows Grant has been here at nights, and they’ve been making deliveries in the early morning, but it’s been easy to forget this whole place is going to disappear while they’ve been all wrapped up in another world.
He turns around to wave goodbye, but Emily and Jake have followed him into the courtyard.
“You’re in the West Tower, right?” Emily asks curiously. “Figure we can say hi to your sister and ask if she wants to come back with us. My parents and the twins are at Carmen’s poetry reading tonight; they won’t notice if I’m back late.”
“Yeah, my dad is looking at some materials for work and he’ll be a while,” Jake says. “We can definitely bring her back here if she’s free.”
“Oh,” Tank says, looking toward the community center. “I could just go get her.”
“I don’t mind,” Emily says cheerfully. “Yours is the only place we haven’t gone to.”
Tank realizes she’s right; they’ve lunched at Jake’s before, hung out at Emily’s. He’s the only one who hasn’t shared this aspect of himself.
They look at him expectantly, and Tank can’t think of a good enough reason why they shouldn’t come to his place. He winces as he leads the way up the stairs, thinking about Jake’s clean home and the laughter and warm smells of cooking in Emily’s. “It might be just Viv and my dad at home. My mom works nights so she’d probably be asleep,” he says awkwardly. He hopes Ba is out. He doesn’t want Ba being weird to his friends.
Tank’s never had to think about this before. He’s never had friends who wanted to see where he lived.
“This is it,” he says, turning the key. He squeaks the door open and jerks his head inside. “Uh—shoes.”
Emily’s already toeing off her shoes and kicking them to join the pairs lined up inside the door. Jake follows suit, his eyes taking in the messy living room.
Tank sees it all laid out: the shabby couch, the decades-old television propped up on milk crates that he brought from the convenience store. This morning when he left Ba was asleep in the lounge chair wearing a stained white T-shirt and pants with holes down the knee. But he’s not here now. Maybe he went out.
“This is it,” Tank says.
“Cool,” Jake says.
Emily grins as she points to the cookie tin on the side table. “Heh, you have the same cookie tin—”
“Those are sewing supplies,” Tank says.
Emily laughs. “They’re always sewing supplies.”
“Viv’s room is over here—”
Ba steps out of the hallway, adjusting an orange polo shirt. “Oh, hey!”
Huh. What is he wearing? “Ba, these are my friends,” Tank says. “Emily and Jake.”
“So nice to meet you! Are you going to stay for dinner? I’ll bring groceries back after work.” Ba smiles at Emily and Jake.
“I thought your shift at the mechanics was in the morning,” Tank says, confused.
“I’m also working at the convenience store now!” Ba says cheerfully. “Sanjay appreciates me being such a good handyman.”
“Mr. Mishra…hired you.”
“I’ve already fixed his vending machine. And he shares my appreciation for invention. We had a great conversation about tools the other day. Did you know he has his own workshop where he builds robots?”
“That’s great, Ba,” Tank says, surprised and pleased. He’s glad Ba has somewhere he can be creative instead of looking for ways to be useful.
“I’ll see you later!” Ba waves at them as he exits the apartment.
“So that was my dad,” Tank says.
“He seems nice,” Jake says.
Tank blinks. “Yeah. Um. Viv is over here.” He gestures for Emily and Jake to follow him to her room. Vivian’s at her computer, headphones on; she’s in her server again, talking to her friends and shouting rapid-fire instructions.
Tank taps her on the shoulder.
“Hey, Thanh-anh,” she says in singsong.
Emily giggles. “Is that like a nickname?”
“Tank is a nickname,” he says. Shark gave it to him. He’d felt honored at first, being one of the guys with a cool name. A tough one, one that carried weight. He thinks about it now and wonders if maybe it was because Shark couldn’t pronounce Thanh. It’s too late, anyway; even teachers call him Tank. “Thanh is my name.”
Jake glances at Emily. “Do you want us to call you Thanh instead, or…?”
Tank shrugs, but something inside of him feels warm and pleased. “If you want to. I like both. I like being Tank. I like being Thanh. They’re both me.”
“Anh means big brother,” Viv says. “Are you the detention friends?” She waggles her eyebrows at Tank, who ducks his head sheepishly.
“Community service,” Tank corrects. “She thinks it’s funnier to say detention. Yeah. This is Jake and this is Emily. We’ve been playing Minecraft together at the community center.”
“That’s awesome!” Viv claps her hands together in delight and squeals, “I’m Vivian! I play Minecraft, too.”
“Hey, nice to meet you,” Emily says, suddenly shy. “I’m—I’m RoxXStarRedStone. I was gonna ask you about this thing—”
Viv jumps out of her chair, bouncing up and down. “Ahhh, I was wondering why you hadn’t responded in forever!”
“Yeah, I was grounded with no social media or games so I haven’t been able to play at home or message you on YouTube or anything. No way, is that Mina’s new house?”
“You two already play Minecraft together?” Tank asks in disbelief. It’s already starting. Emily and Viv are already friends.
Emily shrugs. “We started talking at the beginning of the summer and I played in Viv’s server once—oh wow, you’ve done a lot!” She peers over Viv’s shoulder as Viv excitedly starts showing her around.
“Have you told her about the server?” Jake asks from Tank’s right.
“Viv, hey. I wanted to ask you a redstone thing.”
“Really? Why? You never wanted to learn before.” Viv’s eyes widen in interest.
“So in the community center, you know how you’ve played Minecraft there—have you ever logged in to one of the servers on the LAN?” Tank asks.
“Eh, no. Figured they were somebody’s pet project. Why?”
Tank hedges, trying to figure out how to explain what they’ve been doing for the past few weeks, but Jake beats him to it.
“One of them is set up like an epic game, and we’ve been playing it. Look.”
Jake pulls up a screenshot on his phone from the first shipwreck; the mermaid is as clear as day, tail, scales, and all. Tank remembers that moment vividly: It was the start of something new, a change from the reluctant dynamic of a way to pass the time to really playing together, going into the game to uncover the truth of the mystery.
Viv takes the phone and tilts her head. “A mermaid mod for your avatar?”
“No. We saw them around this shipwreck.” Jake flips to another shot of the first shipwreck, and then to the mural of the underwater city.
The story comes out in bits and pieces, how Jake had found the seventeenth riddle and they were playing around and working on figuring out the next clue until the Wizard appeared and forced them back to the start.
Vivian is buzzing with questions, about the mermaids and the riddles themselves, the strange structures all over the world. “The mermaids act like a neutral mob? Where did they spawn? Are there more?”
“We’ve only seen them near shipwrecks, and yeah, they’ve mostly just swam a
round and then disappeared somewhere,” Jake says.
“I think that the clues that we’ve been finding, they’re all leading toward this treasure in a completely hidden underwater city.” Tank shows the mural again. “This is where we’re going. The treasure is in here.”
“Atlantis,” Viv exhales with wonder.
“Something like that,” Emily says. “But the treasure, really.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like this. Who made this and modded the server?”
Jake and Emily share a knowing look. “We only know the player as TheCrestWizard.”
“Yeah, he’s a real grumpy jerk,” Tank says. “He’s really strong and aggressive and attacked us the first time he saw us. He wanted us to leave at first, but he’s been kind of helpful since.”
“Yeah, he gave us back all our stuff,” Emily says. “And made us a shortcut.”
“I think we are impressing him,” Jake says. “If he didn’t want us in the game, he could have deleted the world, or made it private or banned us or something. He hasn’t done anything except start us at the beginning, and he picked out seven riddles for us to solve.”
“So far we’ve done four. So we’re about halfway there,” Tank says.
“I think you might be able to solve this next clue,” Emily says. “Want to help?”
Vivian stands up and flexes her fingers together. “Do I ever.”
* * *
—
The energy inside the community center is charged with a frenetic excitement as Tank leads the way back to the computer lab. Jake is trying to catch Vivian up on everything they’ve done, with Emily’s colorful commentary, telling her the story of the creepy temple they first found themselves in and all their adventures in the Nether along the way. Tank boots up the three computers and sits Viv in the center. A feeling of dread rises in his stomach as Vivian laughs and accepts Jake’s high five. Emily squeals as Viv joins them with Tank’s avatar in front of the bridge.
It’s happening. The first friends he’s had who like him for who he is are going to like hanging out with Viv more, and then they’ll forget all about him and he’ll just fade into the background.