The Shipwreck: An Official Minecraft Novel Read online

  Jake shrugs and shuts the door, waving Dad off before returning the apartment to its optimal dimly lit state. He finishes his cereal and contemplates starting another new world. Or he could just keep building and making the next step in technological improvements, but what he really wants is to see what Danny left for him and work the builds he had in that server. It’s annoying starting over when he’s already made so much progress; mining just isn’t the same or as efficient when he doesn’t have his diamond tools.

  Laughter echoes from the courtyard.

  Jake peers through the blinds, spotting the boys from the other day playing tag with a few other kids, racing around the play structure, screaming and laughing with one another.

  Jake rinses his bowl and stretches, imagining Dad’s voice about how lucky he is to have this Summer of Possibility. That’s what he’s been calling it, like it’s going to Mean Something. Dad has this idea about every day as a teen leading to some magical, profound adventure or something.

  There’s a whole wide world out there, and you can do anything, Dad would say. Never mind the fact that Jake would always be stuck far away from anything interesting, with no money, no easy way to get there, and the whole “you can do anything” idea is so limitless that it’s daunting.

  Jake’s always been up for trying his best—it’s how he survived being the new kid three times. He wouldn’t have made any friends at all if he didn’t take that first step, but he hasn’t seen anyone around the complex so far except these little kids.

  Jake peers out the window. The kids playing tag have scattered from the playground area, and he can see clearly why. There are three boys leaning against the dull gray brick of the courtyard’s inner walls, talking to one another. They look older, tougher, meaner, and part of him instinctively says he should stay inside, that he shouldn’t meet these boys at any cost.

  The tallest of the boys laughs as he pulls a golden-colored bottle out of his pocket and pours generous amounts onto rags. The other two snicker as they start wiping the playground equipment. It’s cooking oil, Jake realizes with horror.

  Jake’s phone buzzes on the kitchen counter. It’s probably Dad; there isn’t any one else in his address book aside from Danny and pizza delivery places for towns he no longer lives in.

  Dad 9:23 A.M.

  Have a great day!

  Dad 9:24 A.M.

  Remember to keep an eye out for the cable company. They might not be able to get into the building and the buzzers don’t work.

  Jake sighs and brings his laptop to the living room so he can watch the window. He goes back to yesterday’s game and refortifies the wall around his base, fingers itching to make progress on his other projects. Danny doesn’t text back, but then again, Jake doesn’t expect him to. He’s probably busy with his soccer friends.

  Movement out of the corner of his eye startles him; there’s a guy in a polo shirt and official-looking hat holding a clipboard and peering through the back gate behind the building.

  The cable company! Wi-Fi!

  Jake scrambles off his seat and races out of the apartment, bounding down the stairs two at a time. He sprints through the courtyard, trying to remember where he saw the cable guy—Left? No, right. Jake turns and darts for the corner, nearly tripping on his unlaced shoes as he throws himself around the corner.

  FLOMP.

  Jake crashes into something—someone—solid, and falls backward, and several soft things bounce off him. He blinks, startled for a moment, and his first thought is sheep?

  “Hey!”

  It’s the boy from yesterday—Tank. Up close, he’s even bigger and more intimidating, a broad-shouldered Asian boy with slicked-back hair and a leather jacket. He’s built like a linebacker, taking up all the space in the narrow alley between the two towers.

  Tank scowls and reaches for the fallen objects: rolls of paper towels, not sheep, now that Jake can see them clearly.

  “Sorry, so sorry,” Jake mumbles. With relief, he spots the cable guy still puzzling at the intercom, and hastily grabs one of the rolls and offers it back to Tank, who balances it atop his laden armful, his mouth hardening into a thin line.

  Jake awkwardly pretends not to run as he makes his way to the back gate, but he sees the guy turn around to leave and he’s got to—

  Yes!

  Jake flings open the gate. “Hi,” he says breathlessly. “Wi-Fi?”

  The man blinks at him. “Oh. No, delivery for B-three-oh-seven. That you?” He holds aloft a bulky cardboard box.

  Jake shakes his head.

  “Which one of these towers is it, do you think? I can never figure out this complex. Like, is this the front door or the back door, and there’re like three different addresses inside, it’s all a mess, and this intercom never works, and if I have to call that scary lady again I’m just gonna leave these at the post office.”

  Jake squints at the address on the box. “Uh, the shiny new one is A. B and C are the older towers, so uh, one of them?” He shrugs.

  “Thanks for the door, kid.” The delivery man shakes his head and makes his way into the courtyard before heading for the West Tower.

  Jake closes and latches the gate, shuffling back inside to the courtyard. The sun is out in full force now, and he winces at the heat. At least the air conditioning is working in the apartment.

  He walks back toward his own tower, distracted by his disappointment until it’s too late.

  The low-pitched laughter sends the hair on the back of his neck straight up, and Jake realizes with horror he’s walked right into the midst of the older boys by the vending machine. They’re leaning against the wall, staring at him, the tallest of them wearing a beanie and a smirk on his face. They must have seen him run through the courtyard like an idiot.

  Great. Well, now they’ve already spotted him, so Jake has to just pretend he came here on purpose. He has to walk past them to get to his tower, and he tries to make it as quick as possible, even as he feels their eyes bearing down on him. In the distance, he spots Tank over by the playground, hiding the paper towels in the shrubberies. Huh. Must be some sort of weird game. Tank’s eyes widen when he catches Jake’s gaze, and he dashes away out of view.

  “What are you looking at?” Tall and skinny grins at Jake. One of his teeth is crooked, a sharp incisor that juts out like a fang. The way the smile stretches is slow and terrifying, one Jake’s come to associate with boys like these who find humor in other people’s pain. “Who are you supposed to be?”

  “Uh…I’m Jake.”

  “Going to get yourself a soda?”

  Jake shrugs as if to say obviously.

  It’s the wrong move, of course.

  The grin widens. “I’m Shark. This is Gus and AJ.”

  “Do you live here?” Jake tilts his head, thinking about the long list of rules that he found on the kitchen counter when they moved in that lists COMMUNITY GUIDELINES. He’s pretty sure he saw something about only residents and their guests.

  “Oh. Yeah. We’re friends of Tank.” Shark glances at Gus. “He text back? He said he’d meet us here at noon.”

  Gus shrugs.

  AJ steps forward, closer to Jake. “I think you should buy us all a soda. Shark here likes the root beer.”

  Jake doesn’t have any money on him. He doesn’t even have his keys, he thinks. He just ran out without thinking. He takes a step backward, his head spinning, wondering if these guys will end up going to his school. He thinks about Dad shaking his head in disappointment when he learned that Jake had been giving his lunch money every week to a menacing boy with a bad haircut who scared him, and that the school counselor had said it was important to set boundaries and he—he—

  “Hey, Shark.” Tank appears out of nowhere, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

  The three whirl around just as Tank jerks his head in a way that Jak
e has come to recognize as some sort of secret boy code he doesn’t know.

  What is Jake supposed to do? Smile? Wave? Nod back? He doesn’t even know how to do that head thing; it’s more of a shake than a nod—

  “Thought we were going to Fortress Park,” Tank says casually. “You said you wanted a rematch on the go-kart race, remember?”

  Wait, no, this is a distraction—

  Jake stumbles backward before catching his balance, scurrying across the open courtyard. He ducks into the first door he sees.

  “Hello?”

  Jake lets his eyes adjust to the dark; the scant afternoon sunlight barely filters through the glass doors, as grimy as they are. He’s in one of those big empty lobbies at the front of the main entry building. He wipes his hands on his jeans, looking around. Oh. Right. This is the community center his dad was talking about, the one his company is going to renovate.

  Might as well look around. Shark and those guys are still out there, and there isn’t another way back to his tower without walking past them again. He takes another step inside the dimly lit room, exhaling with relief. He’s far from the bullies and he’s got something to explore. He smiles in spite of himself, imagining he’s found a cavern and he’s safe from the mobs outside.

  Jake crosses the empty lobby to the set of wooden doors propped open with a broken milk crate. The doors could have been handsome once, carved with intricate details of leaves and letters to form the words PACIFIC CREST COMMUNITY CENTER. The space for the rest seems to linger with sadness. Jake brushes his fingers over the carvings, wondering how long it took to craft this dedication to this space.

  He crosses the threshold into the area he only gave a passing glance when they first moved in, taking it all in. There’s a pool table but no pool cues, and three lonely-looking balls are sitting on the faded green felt. On the far wall there’s a television that’s seen better days, an archaic-looking model that more resembles a refrigerator than television. Jake jabs a few buttons experimentally and gets nothing but static. There are some DVDs on the shelf below it, nothing of interest, just some movies made for toddlers and boring documentaries. On the bookshelf next to the TV are a bunch of yellowing romance novels and Westerns, a few faded board games, and several tattered decks of cards. Jake pokes at the boxes half-heartedly; it looks like everything is broken or missing pieces.

  He sighs. So much for amenities. At least when Dad’s company is done with this project it’ll be nicer. It’s not like they’d be able to stick around to enjoy it, though. Dad’s just gonna get another project and they’ll move again.

  Jake glances at the stained couch and decides not to sit on it.

  There are three more doors to try.

  The first is locked, and because the door is smaller Jake assumes it’s probably a closet. The second door is also locked, but has a window to see inside. It doesn’t look like much: a mishmash of broken furniture, desks and tables and chairs heaped together, all covered by a thick helping of dust. Jake pushes against the third door experimentally; it’s unlocked and creaks open with a solemn groan. It’s heavier than he expected. Jake throws his shoulder against the door and presses it open in its entirety.

  The next room is equally dusty, and completely dark. He amuses himself by imagining he’s going deeper into the unknown cave, looking for treasure and fighting monsters, going by touch. The wall is cold and bits of paint flake off onto his fingers as he fumbles along the wall. Finally he finds a light switch.

  Click.

  The room is bathed in ugly fluorescent lights flickering onto the rows of blocky computers. It’s a mess of electronic debris, desktops and towers and dust-covered machines. There’s one row at the front of the room that is fully set up, like someone started to build a computer lab ten years ago and then couldn’t be bothered to finish. The rest of the room is a cluster of old computers and keyboards and boards of circuits and wires all jumbled together. There’s at least a decade’s worth of different kinds of machines, models Jake didn’t even know existed, with tiny monitors and heavy-looking plastic and slots for strangely shaped disks. Jake passes by one that he thinks might even be from before his Dad’s time. Whoa. How could someone even type on this?

  “Wow,” Jake mutters, pulling up a chair in the first row. There isn’t dust on this table, which probably means it’s functional. Three monitors and towers sit on the cracked tabletop, and the one closest to the door has a keyboard that looks well worn. The A key is faded out entirely, and the tower is covered with glittery seashell stickers.

  Jake taps it experimentally, imagining who played on this well-loved computer. It takes him a moment to find the power button on the tower, but he’s rewarded by the familiar sound of it starting up.

  A sign on the wall reads COMPUTER USE LIMITED TO TWO HOURS WHEN LAB IS OPEN. A faded clipboard reads SIGN-UP FOR INTERNET TIME.

  Huh. Internet?

  Jake peers more closely at the row of set-up desktops and spots a familiar bright yellow cord. He follows it and finds it plugged into a phone jack in the wall.

  “Internet!” Jake says, scooting under the table while the computer is still starting up. If these are connected to a LAN, he could get online—

  All the wires are zip-tied together and behind some sort of wire framework built right into the underside of the desk. There’s not even enough room for Jake to pry it open. He’d need a screwdriver or something. There’s no way to pull the Ethernet cable free so he can hook his laptop up to it.

  Jake pulls himself back up onto the chair and stares at the welcome screen with the Pacific Crest logo. There’re a few basic programs installed: browsers, Word, solitaire, and then he sees it: the Minecraft launcher.

  “No way,” Jake says.

  Someone else in this complex must have installed it!

  He logs in to his account, so excited he misspells his name and password twice before he gets in. He wonders who else in this complex plays Minecraft, if they—

  No. It’s too much to think about, to hope that another kid would want a friend like Jake.

  But he could look around and see if there is anyone. Just to see.

  “What if…”

  Jake tries looking in singleplayer first. There are a bunch of worlds here; it looks like someone has been busy. Some of them have silly names, likely named after the people who made them or in-jokes they have with their friends. Jake laughs as he scrolls past the movie references he understands and many he doesn’t. Throughout the list Jake sees the same name pop up over and over again: Bella.

  The names and numbering patterns vary; the creator must have been going between numbering versions, finalizing one, then starting over again. Bella’s World Final. Bella’s World FINAL final. Bella ACTUAL FINAL ACTUALLY. Bella Beta Test. Some of the dates on these worlds go back to when he was younger, from right when Minecraft was first made.

  Whoever was creating all of these worlds was trying to perfect something. But what?

  Jake switches over to multiplayer. After a few seconds of the program searching for local games, a single server pops up: Bella Beta 7. The thumbnail is a simple seashell icon, and it looks heavily modded, but Jake’s up to checking out whatever that person was working on so hard and testing out in singleplayer.

  He spawns on a rocky shore of what seems to be an endless ocean. Stretches of sand and sugar cane line the shore, and a forest sprawls behind him. In the distance, strange buildings rise over the horizon. Excitement starts to thrum in his veins. A whole new world with things to discover.

  Jake cracks his knuckles together before starting to explore. He travels light, gathering the basics and getting a sense of this world. The first set of buildings he comes across is a village, clearly fortified by a player against attack. There’s a perimeter wall with some golems strutting around. In the center of town, there’s a beautiful gazebo lined with blue flowers,
and in the center are several signs.

  RIDDLE THE SEVENTEENTH

  Look westward to the sky and don’t think twice

  Add the number of shells left in the cave of ice.

  Maybe the last players had some sort of ongoing game or something, leaving one another puzzles to solve. Jake takes a screenshot of the riddle and wanders around the village. It seems pretty standard, a blacksmith and a butcher and a few other basic occupations. The villagers grunt at him in their monosyllabic AI speak, and Jake feels the hair on his neck stand up. He turns back to read the riddle again. This sign. The perimeter wall around the village. The one house with a full chest of supplies, including coal and iron armor and feathers for fletching arrows.

  < MCExplorerJake > hello?

  There’s no response.

  It feels strange, like there’s a ghost here. Jake can clearly see this is more than a village that someone left some of their effects in as they passed through. It’s as if it was designed to be a natural stopping point, like an inn in an epic high fantasy where you refuel before going on your main quest, to rest and get some supplies or trade with the villagers here.

  The whole village looks and feels more like someone’s pretty little seaside town. Someone took time to decorate the wall and some of the houses with a similar motif. Blue tiles dot the perimeter wall in a repeating pattern, paintings of shells and kelp and boats are framed in each house.

  Jake looks in each house and finds more questions than answers. In the grandest house, under a hidden trapdoor behind a painting, he finds a pretty library. “Cute,” Jake says to himself, looking around at the bookshelves lining the walls and the way stairs and slabs and pistons have been arranged to look like chairs and tables. An enchanting table sits in the center of the room, which Jake is pleased to note. There’s also a chest in the corner of the room that has a single Potion of Leaping in it. Jake pockets it and then looks around, like he’s expecting another player to enter the room.