The Shipwreck: An Official Minecraft Novel Page 5

  This village definitely isn’t random, with the abundance of supplies and resources and eye for detail here. Usually in villagers’ chests there’s some food or books or random ores and things, but Jake’s never come across potions before.

  Satisfied he’s seen everything in the village, he cuts wood from the nearby forest, thick and lush with oaks and saplings. As darkness falls, he watches zombies and skeletons roam the well-stocked fields from the safety of one of the houses. He wonders about the village. Who built it, and why? What does Riddle the Seventeenth mean? Are there sixteen that came before it?

  Jake crafts some more tools, listening to the zombies groan before sleeping in the bed. Daylight comes quickly. He considers taking the bed with him, but decides to leave it when he notices that the dyed-blue bedspread matches the paintings and tiles in the wall.

  Jake takes some wool instead.

  He doesn’t see another village or come across any more signs for hundreds of blocks. He’s not sure what he’s looking for. He’s been in servers before, joined public ones just to try, and he’s wandered around in other worlds with Danny, seen entire cities built by other people. He never really warmed to it, all the different mods and rules people came up with. It’s cool to look at but he’d rather be in control of his world. The idea of new rules, new mobs, adding and changing things, it’s just…it’s not what he wants. He didn’t want to learn how to handle the complicated new things that people were coming up with all the time. He likes his Minecraft exactly as it is. He knows all the rules and always has a good time, and is in control of what he builds and why.

  This server is different, though. Someone else is in control here, and they left behind an intricately designed village with a riddle in the middle of it.

  It must be a part of something bigger.

  Jake traverses hundreds of blocks, drifting through the world before deciding to go back to see the riddle again. Maybe he missed something. He tries to head back the direction he came, but gets lost in the forest. He curses; he didn’t mark the coordinates or anything. He’s probably not going to find it again.

  Disappointed, he decides to keep going and see if he can find anything else. He covers more ground by boat, swiftly following a river through jungles and plains until it peters out to a dead end. Jake emerges in a sandy desert.

  Wait, what’s that?

  There’s something strange on the horizon.

  Jake runs, watching trees and mountain crags materialize as he gets closer. There’s another village, and even more structures. Buildings. Signs.

  Possibly more of the riddles.

  He walks toward the village; he’s still got a bit of time before dark, and he’s well-armed enough to fight off a zombie or two.

  Something blue glimmers in the distance.

  The ocean?

  Jake turns, striding forward toward the expanse of blue. It actually is the ocean, and not just the misty blue haze that surrounds the horizon, a mirage of water that disappears once the details of the world fill in when you get close. He steps onto the shore. It’s just a little detour. He can still make it to that village before dark.

  There’s no tide here, just calm, smooth waters, the sun a perfect block. Fish swim in schools, and a turtle slowly makes its way across the sand. Soft, calming music starts to play, gentle chimes and a soothing melody, as if to say, Hello. Enjoy the view. You’re here.

  Jake’s never seen the Pacific Ocean, and he shakes his head remembering Dad’s promises to go to the beach together now that they’re here. Well, until that happens, he can enjoy this and get to cool places and experience things all on his own.

  Maybe he’ll cross this ocean tomorrow. For now, he just dives into the water, enjoying the serenity of the kelp forests and the schools of fish playfully swimming by. He’s careful to watch his health, coming back up for air periodically. The shoreline is dotted with cliffs and rocky slopes, so he swims alongside it, making a good pace. He watches the forest on the edge change from tall trees to the open plains of rocky desert, and there’s an inset bay dotted with sugar cane that looks fairly promising. The sun is setting now, the sky a brilliant orange-yellow-gold over the horizon. He shouldn’t be wasting time, but there’s something about sunsets that makes him stop to look. He’s definitely too far from the village to make it by dark now, and he has precious minutes to get to land and set up a camp for the night, but Jake stays where he is, treading water and taking in the peaceful way the square sun is sinking behind the horizon.

  With the last light of the setting sun, Jake turns around to head back toward land when he spots something underwater. It’s a huge, hulking shape, looming dark just beyond the kelp forest.

  Jake should go. He won’t be able to get very far if he’s in the water in the dark.

  But his curiosity is calling him and he dives.

  The ocean is murky and ominous, but Jake can still kind of see. He swims down, down, watching his oxygen level carefully. As he swims past dolphins and fish and through the kelp forest, the thing starts to take shape: a tall mast, the clear and obvious bow of a ship. It’s broken in half, resting on an outcrop of rock like it tried to survive a tempest and failed. Jake’s running out of air and swims directly up, surfacing and taking a deep breath.

  It’s all dark now, but in the depths Jake can see an eerie green glow emitting from the wreck.

  Jake dives again.

  With the shipwreck directly underneath him, it’s easy enough to find his way back. He lands on the deck of the ship, looking around for the source of the light. It’s coming from the inside of the ship. He smashes through some empty chests, clearing the deck until he spots it. A trapdoor.

  Once inside, he can see the source of the light: an underwater torch mounted on the wall, casting its blue-green light over everything. Someone went to the trouble of lighting this place, like a beacon.

  Or a trap.

  There’s a single chest in the center of the room, and another trapdoor leading downward.

  Jake opens it carefully.

  There’s a smattering of treasure inside—gold bars, some emeralds, and a piece of paper.

  Jake takes everything and heads back to the surface. A crescent moon is just starting to rise, and stars blink overhead. Treading water, he takes a closer look at what he got.

  Jake’s heart pounds with excitement. A treasure map?

  Wait. There was another door.

  Jake dives back down to the wreck, past the first room, and makes for the second door. Outside, movement catches his eye—something too big to be a fish, not the right shape to be a dolphin. He’s too deep for squid.

  He jerks away from the door and stares out the gaping maw of the broken ship. Bubbles and kelp drift slowly in rhythm, and then it moves again.

  Wait, could that be—

  A mermaid?

  Jake swims outside and he can see the shadow of a tail.

  “Come back!”

  He swims after the mermaid, not watching his health until—

  MCExplorerJake drowned

  Great.

  * * *

  —

  Jake respawns in the dark. It takes him a few seconds to remember where he is: the last place he set up camp, a basic box in the middle of nowhere, built quickly as night fell.

  Clink. Clink. Clink.

  Just awesome—skeletons nearby.

  Groan.

  And zombies.

  Jake punches the ground furiously to get enough dirt to close the box, but he built the walls out of stone and it’s taking too long for him to break it without a pickaxe. He lost everything when he drowned, and he has no tools, no torch to light his way, no crafting table to work on making items to use his time at night wisely. He doesn’t even have a bed where he can pass the time with sleep.

  Worst of all, he’s lost the treasure
map.

  He’s not that far from the coast; he would only have to retrace the day’s travel. He just has to get back in less than five minutes before they disappear forever. Minecraft mechanics. Jakes loves them and hates them sometimes. Like now. He can’t just wait out the rest of the night. He curses himself for not saving the coordinates of the shipwreck. He’s sure he can find it again—just head west and follow the river and go north up the coast until he reaches that bay, right? He punches his way out of the hideout again and starts heading in that direction.

  Stars glimmer in the sky, and a zombie approaches. Ugh. Jake breaks into a run; maybe he’ll be able to make it if he runs fast.

  Another zombie groans. Panic sets in, and Jake scurries back to the hideout, setting blocks down to close it back up, but he can’t see much and he missteps more than once, and he doesn’t have enough—

  Creak.

  The door to the computer lab opens and shuts, and Jake looks up in surprise.

  A girl breezes in, typing furiously on her phone, biting her lip in concentration. She hasn’t noticed Jake, just walks to his row and takes the computer on the end, booting it up as if on autopilot while still typing away, her fingers flying across her phone. She’s cute—too cute, like the kind of girl who’d never even talk to Jake back at his old school, with dark skin, soft-looking wavy brown hair curling softly down to her shoulders, and a heart-shaped face.

  A zombie groans, startling Jake out of his reverie and interrupting the dusty silence of the computer lab. He’d forgotten the speakers were on, and sometimes there’s a lull of no music. Jake catches the time; he’s been here for hours. He looks up to see the girl blinking at him, looking genuinely startled.

  Jake backs away from the zombie, punching ineffectively at it with his bare fists. He can’t believe this. He looks totally inept, but he can’t go down without a fight. Not that this girl would be impressed anyway, but he’s got standards. He’s torn between just disconnecting and minimizing everything, but he doesn’t want to risk losing the map.

  She glances at his screen and watches him die from the zombie attack; a look of surprise crosses her face for a brief moment before it’s replaced with bored annoyance. She glances at her phone and scowls.

  “Great,” she says, standing up with an aggravated huff.

  “Uh, hi. I’m Jake—I just moved here.” He glances back at the screen and at the clock on the desktop menu; with a sinking feeling, he realizes his stuff is gone now. He disconnects from the game and sighs, leaning back in his chair, kicking up another round of dust. He looks at the girl and gives her a shy smile. He might as well try to make a friend, right?

  She gives him a cursory glance, and suddenly Jake feels very aware of the spaghetti stain on his faded T-shirt. She’s shorter than he is, and has to be about his age, but is exuding a confidence Jake has never had. With one look she somehow radiates both judgment and annoyance.

  It’s just in your head, Jake tells himself. You think everyone is out to get you.

  His nervousness jumps to his throat and before Jake can stop himself, he’s babbling. “From Maryland actually, but I’ve lived all over in the last year. I’ve never been to California, though. My dad keeps saying we can go to the beach now that we’re close.”

  She snorts. “Close. Yeah, right,” she says, drawling out the last word.

  “So what’s there to do for fun around here?”

  “Here? You’ve pretty much seen it all, the best Pacific Crest has to offer.” She gestures broadly to the computer lab and the open rec room through the doorway.

  “Yeah,” Jake agrees. “This computer lab isn’t bad, though.” He shrugs. “I don’t have Wi-Fi working in my apartment yet.”

  “Shame.” She stands up and smooths her dress, shaking out her hair.

  Jake doesn’t mean to stare, but it’s like he’s frozen and he can’t do anything but watch the curls bounce effortlessly, making this dusty old room suddenly the most beautiful place in the world.

  “What?”

  “You know, when someone introduces themselves, it’s nice to, like, introduce yourself back. Like I’m Jake, and you are…?”

  “Leaving,” she says, rolling her eyes. She strolls out the door without a second glance, her curls catching the scant afternoon light streaming through the windows as she goes.

  Right.

  And that’s why Jake shouldn’t even bother trying.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EMILY

  Of course they’re late. We’ll pick you up at 4pm, the text said. It’s 4:33 and Emily feels like a fool just waiting by the curb outside the fancy Glen Oaks Apartments two blocks away from home. She always waits here whenever Pattie picks her up, but usually Pattie isn’t quite so late. Emily sighs and, pretends to be busy on her phone so people passing her by won’t find her suspicious. She’s already annoyed at wasting an hour. Emily was ready to go by three, after all, since originally Pattie said she’d pick her up at three-thirty. So she had already left her apartment when she got the four P.M. text, and it wasn’t like she could just go back in after she’d negotiated a later curfew with her parents. So she’d gone to the old computer lab to wait a bit before walking over to Glen Oaks instead, but there was already someone there, and she had no choice but to leave early.

  She shifts, tucking a stray curl behind her ear, fidgeting and trying to put the annoyance behind her, but she was in the middle of an epic construction and was on a roll. She could have been adding a new floor to that new watchtower for the village she just fortified. Emily snorts and shakes her head.

  If you had them pick you up at your actual apartment you could have played for another half hour, a small voice inside her says. It’s a logical one, a practical one, so of course, Emily ignores it.

  She checks her nails, hoping that the gold-green color she’d mixed together to go with this outfit will be met with approval. Emily had been proud of it an hour ago, admiring the glint in the safety of her bedroom, imagining Pattie and Nita’s reaction to the bold statement, but now she’s starting to second guess. It doesn’t quite match, though that was the point. But what if they don’t get it?

  Emily spots Pattie’s mom’s flashy Lexus rounding the corner just as her phone buzzes with a new text. Probably Pattie telling her she’s outside, even though she’s all the way at the end of the block. Pattie hates waiting, never mind that Emily’s been here on the sidewalk forever.

  The gleaming black car slows to a stop in front of Emily. Nita waves excitedly out the window; Pattie doesn’t look up from her phone in the front seat. Emily bites back the scathing comment she had prepared and instead goes for flippancy. “We going to absolutely crush this sale or what?”

  Nita giggles as she opens the back door for Emily. “Or what!”

  Emily hops into the car, returning Nita’s hug with equal fervor.

  “We’re going to do H&M, Forever, and then Orange Julius, but only because I’ve got this coupon, but it’s buy one get one free, but that’s fine because I’m only going to have half. Emily, you can share with me because Nita doesn’t like chocolate malt.” Pattie hardly breathes as she says this, but she glances over her shoulder, her lips quirking up in a smile as she gives Emily a once-over from the front seat. “Your nails look great. Nice color,” she says, quirking her eyebrow at Emily’s outfit. “Goes well with your shoes. Not quite matching is totally in right now.”

  “Heh, I thought it would be cute,” Emily says, basking in the approval.

  “I love it!” Nita grabs her hands and coos over her nails. “Do you still have this color? Paint mine next!”

  “Seat belt, Emily,” chides Pattie’s mom in the front seat. She’s glamorous and beautiful and works as a producer in television, and today has her hair in a sleek updo, offsetting an effortless pantsuit.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Anderson,” Emily says sheepishly, b
uckling herself in.

  “Darling, call me Rose,” Mrs. Anderson says smoothly.

  Emily shakes her head and smiles as they glide out of the neighborhood and onto the freeway, leaving the sad gray mediocrity of their not-quite-suburb behind.

  * * *

  —

  After spending more than two hours browsing stores at the mall, Emily hasn’t spent any money, so she counts the trip as a success so far. She claimed she forgot her purse, and Nita still owed her for yesterday’s ice cream so with that and Pattie’s coupon, she still got to have the chocolate malt at Orange Julius and hang out with her friends. It’s going to take a while with her very minimal allowance to make up for even half of last week’s shopping trip, but Emily’s sure she can make it work. Now Pattie wants to take pictures by the fountain, and it seems like they’ve been here forever trying to catch the perfect light dancing through the water in the background of her shots. Finally Pattie is satisfied, and offers generously to take a photo for Emily as well. Emily can’t say no; Pattie takes amazing photos, and if she posts it on her feed then Emily will have confirmation of what she has been unsure of the whole summer: that Pattie sees her as a friend, an equal.

  Click.

  Emily shakes her hair out of her eyes, pouts a little, and stares beyond Pattie’s shoulder.

  Click.

  “Hmm,” Pattie says, looking down at her phone.

  Emily looks over Pattie’s shoulder and sees herself and the result of two hours of getting ready and then waiting for the perfect lighting—artfully blown-out hair, subtle-looking makeup, long lashes, a casual-but-artsy outfit—reflected in Pattie’s hands. She can see her flaws immediately, though: the clumsiness of the contour, how her brows are uneven, and that expression. What was she even thinking? Pattie said she should look like she’s thinking of a secret, a good one, and that this would definitely get Toby—and other boys—to notice her. And Emily couldn’t think of a good secret except that she was afraid, afraid Pattie didn’t really like her, that all of this would end, and the alliances she’d been building all year would disappear like smoke.