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 around 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.
“Show her the clue, Jake,” Tank says, jerking his head impatiently.
“Sure,” Jake says. “Oh man, we should show you the base and all the other cool stuff we found sometime.”
“I bet Thanh has a farm, huh!” She giggles. “Has he found all the different flower biomes yet in this world?”
“Shush,” Tank says.
“Aw yeah, he loves decorating. Our base looks amazing. Check out this hedge maze and flower field,” Emily says proudly, her lips quirking up in a smile.
“Our last clue Tank totally solved in no time,” Jake said.
“Aw, nice. It’s good to see you having fun in a server with friends, Tank.” Viv beams at him.
Tank folds his arms together, embarrassed but pleased. He jerks his head back toward the screen to remind them to stay on track.
“This is pretty intense.” She looks at the screenshots of the clues they’ve solved so far. “So each clue leads you to the next?”
“Yeah. There have been different challenges, like solving a riddle or finding the next clue in a shipwreck or a book hidden inside a cavern filled with mobs. It’s like the Wizard wanted the game to take you all over the world, chasing down this impossible treasure. None of the clues are the same. Sometimes the riddle is a poem, or it points you toward specific coordinates.” Jake flips through his phone, showing her each of the clues.
“All right, so where are you stuck?”
Tank hangs back behind Vivian’s chair. Emily walks her to the edge of the cliff. The obsidian bridge stretches out behind the impossible barrier, the redstone circuitry in front of the door laid bare in the dirt.
“Whoa.” Viv paces back and forth in front of the exposed circuitry as Emily walks with her, pointing it out.
“Here, look at this,” Emily says. “All I’ve been able to figure out is that when it works, standing on the pressure plate here should open a hidden door in that wall to the bridge, but I can’t figure out how.”
“There’s redstone dust and a bunch of supplies in the chest here,” Tank says, pointing at Viv’s screen. “Do you need anything else? Crafting table is here.”
“No, no, I just want to see.” Vivian examines the circuitry, Tank’s avatar zipping all over the area so quickly it makes Tank dizzy. It’s disorienting, watching three different screens from behind with too many perspectives looking at the same thing. He tries to concentrate on Viv’s, but she’s going too fast, so he settles on watching Jake’s screen and focusing on the bridge and the landscape behind them. Emily and Jake at least aren’t moving as erratically as they’re talking, and he can barely follow that conversation as it is.
Emily and Viv are hunched over the lines of redstone and repeaters in the ground. “Okay, so this repeater here—”
“Tried that. What about this over here?”
“That doesn’t go to anything, it’s a decoy. Let’s see. The whole thing is wired to this pressure plate somehow—Jake, can you stand over there and be ready to hop on it for the test when I say go?”
“Yeah.” Jake follows her direction, bouncing over to the pressure plate.
Tank taps the back of Viv’s chair, watching her do her magic. Her face is scrunched up in concentration as she studies the wire work, walking back and forth and checking in with Emily about the placement, what she’s tried and hasn’t tried. Emily follows her to the crafting table as she deftly builds another one alongside it.
“Can you make me—three repeaters? And five bits of wire—no, I got three here.”
“Two bits of wire, done!” Emily says quickly.
“Do you get redstone at all?” Tank nudges Jake.
“Tried to build a trapdoor once, seemed more trouble than it was worth,” Jake says. “I just like building in general.” He grins at Tank, patting the empty seat beside him. “What do you think, Tank? See anything with your eagle eyes?”
“My what?” Tank sits down next to Jake.
“You know, since you’ve got the bird’s eye view.” Jake tilts his head, watching Emily and Viv laugh as they try another solution. “Your sister is pretty cool.”
“I know,” Tank says, accepting what’s about to come. “You know, if you want to do the rest of the puzzle and stuff with her, I don’t mind.”
“What do you mean? You don’t want to play with us anymore?” Jake blinks at him in confusion.
“No, I mean, if you’d rather play with Viv. You know, instead of me,” Tank says quietly.
Emily turns around. “We started this together, Tank. We’re gonna finish this together.”
“I—” Tank doesn’t know what to say.
“I mean, if you really don’t want to play anymore, you don’t have to. But is that true?”
Jake nods. “There isn’t a limited inventory for people, you know. We don’t have only so many spots for friends.”
Emily looks quickly at Jake and then back at her feet.
“You’re so weird, Thanh-anh,” Viv says, rolling her eyes. “I like meeting new people, but you know I have no patience for riddles or RPGs. Even if I did, this is your thing, not mine.” She smiles up at him, as if it’s so simple.
“Oh.” Maybe it is. Maybe Tank’s been making this complicated all along.
Emily and Jake both nod in understanding.
“I also have my own server filled with friends. I’m glad you found this crew, though, they seem awesome.” She cracks her knuckles together. “Anyway, I think I figured this out!” She stands on the pressure plate, and then a set of hidden double doors in the center of the wall slide open, revealing the bridge. “There you go!”
Jake whoops in celebration. “Thank you so much!”
Viv scoots back on her chair, stands, and gives Tank a jaunty little salute. “It was nice to meet you two. Have fun storming the castle!”
Tank sits down in the chair between his two friends and looks forward at the open pathway between them. He feels Jake clap him on the shoulder before turning back to his own computer.
They’re ready.