Deep Dive! Page 2

  “Or we could go all the way back to our castle,” Jodi added. “We could make it even bigger! And I could create more sculptures.”

  “That’s not really what Minecraft is all about, though—at least for me,” Ash said. “Sure, building is fun…but I don’t want to stay in one place. I always want to see what’s out there, beyond the horizon.”

  “Yes!” Po said. “Especially if there’s a treasure map pointing the way. Who knows what we might find?”

  “It could be a trap, though,” Morgan said.

  Po shrugged. “Then we’ll deal with it together.”

  “As friends,” Ash said.

  Jodi smiled. “That works for me.”

  “I’m convinced, too,” said Harper. “But we should make sure it’s unanimous.” She turned to Morgan. “What do you say?”

  Morgan gazed out over the still-dark horizon, and Po looked over his shoulder. As far as the eye could see, there was only water.

  “I say X marks the spot,” Morgan said at last.

  Jodi was certainly curious about the mysteries of Minecraft. But she had a mystery to solve in the real world, too.

  She got to school early the next morning. She wore her best spy gear: dark sunglasses, quiet sneakers, and a wide-brimmed hat.

  Despite the clothes, Harper still recognized her immediately. “Hey, Jodi,” she said. She was sitting on the school’s front steps, reading a graphic novel with a dragon on the cover. “Where’s Morgan? Don’t you usually walk together?”

  “He was taking too long to eat breakfast,” Jodi answered. “I had to leave him. I didn’t want to, but it was for the greater good!”

  Harper grinned. “On a mission, are you?”

  Jodi looked around the schoolyard, making sure no one was listening. She lowered her voice just to be safe. “Doc has been acting strange all week. I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

  Doc Culpepper was their science teacher. She was also the inventor of the VR goggles they used to enter the game world. (Though she seemed to have no idea what that particular invention was really capable of doing.) For Doc, “acting strange” was actually quite normal.

  Jodi and Harper were both fascinated by their teacher. But they were fascinated in different ways. Harper thought of Doc as a creative and inventive role model who was dedicated to science. Jodi thought of Doc as a puzzle to be solved—mysterious, secretive, and quite possibly descended from an ancient race of mer-people dedicated to taking over the surface world.

  “Does your investigation have room for an apprentice?” Harper asked. “Maybe I could help out.”

  Jodi gave Harper a grateful smile. She also gave Harper her hat. “Glad to have you on board,” Jodi said, “because that hat is way too big for me!”

  * * *

  Jodi led Harper to a staircase. The stairs descended into a dark basement.

  “Why are we going down here?” Harper asked. “Doc’s lab is on the ground floor.”

  “That’s what made me suspicious,” Jodi said. “I’ve seen Doc go down here three times this week. Each time, she was carrying buckets full of water.”

  “That is strange,” Harper said. She held the handrail, careful not to lose her footing in the low light. “Do you think it’s for a science experiment?”

  “No,” said Jodi. “I think she’s building a basement swimming pool. Or an ice-skating rink!” She frowned. “Although I have to admit, your idea does sound more likely.”

  They reached the bottom of the stairs. There was a large furnace on one side of the room. Against the back wall was a large closet with a chain-link door. In the closet, cleaning supplies were neatly stacked upon the floor-to-ceiling metal shelves.

  “Do you smell that?” Harper asked.

  Jodi sniffed the air. “It smells like…the beach?”

  “It’s salt water,” Harper said.

  “Of course!” Jodi said. “Harper, what if Doc is from Atlantis? That would explain why her science is so advanced!”

  Harper gave Jodi a funny look. “She went to college and got two doctorate degrees,” said Harper. “That explains why her science is so advanced.”

  “Maybe she went to college…in Atlantis?” Jodi suggested.

  “Maybe,” Harper said. She pointed at a series of small puddles leading down a side hallway. “The trail leads that way.”

  They walked to the end of the short hallway. A door was ajar. Jodi peered inside.

  “What do you see?” Harper whispered.

  “It looks like a classroom,” Jodi whispered. “But there are big tanks of water. And I think I hear something. An animal, scuttling and squeaking.”

  Jodi strained her ears. Just then, a shrill noise sounded out. It was so loud and unexpected that Jodi nearly screamed.

  “We must have tripped an alarm!” she hissed over the noise. “Sharkmen are probably already on their way to detain us! We have to get out of here!”

  “No, wait,” Harper said. She reached into her backpack and pulled out…a phone.

  A moment later, the door swung open. Doc stood in the doorframe. “What in the name of Ada Lovelace’s morning tea is going on out here?” she asked.

  “Sorry!” Harper said. She seemed to be apologizing to both Jodi and Doc at the same time. “I just got my sister’s hand-me-down smartphone. I guess I forgot to turn the sound off.”

  Jodi slapped her own forehead. Harper was talented at many things, but apparently she was not much of a spy.

  “But what are you two doing down here at all?” Doc asked. “I didn’t miss the morning bell again, did I?”

  “We, uh, we were…” Jodi fumbled for an excuse.

  “We were just curious,” Harper said. She gave Jodi a look that said We may as well be honest, right?

  Jodi shrugged. “Yeah. I saw you yesterday with a bucket of water.”

  “Ah, yes,” Doc said. “Well, the mermaids do get very thirsty….”

  Jodi vibrated with excitement. “You’ve got mermaids down here?”

  Doc chuckled. “I’m just teasing. No, I have something better than mermaids. Come and take a look.”

  The girls followed Doc into a room that smelled strongly of the sea. It looked very much like her classroom lab, but it was bigger. There were a dozen long black tables, and each table held a large aquarium. The aquariums were filled with water but otherwise empty. And in the back of the room…

  “Baron Sweetcheeks!” Jodi cried, spotting the class hamster in his cage. “What is he doing here?”

  “Minerva let me borrow him,” Doc answered. “It gets lonely down here. And science needs observers.”

  The hamster lapped water from his water bottle. Jodi thought he looked extra adorable today. Then she noticed the aquarium beside him. Unlike the others, it was full of life. Small fish darted back and forth above a colorful seabed.

  “What kind of science are you doing?” asked Harper. “It looks like you’ve re-created a little slice of the ocean.”

  “That’s right,” said Doc. “This is just the start of a great experiment. Tomorrow, I’ll remove pieces of coral from the main aquarium. The coral will be transferred to the other tanks you see all around you.”

  “That’s coral?” Jodi asked. She took a closer look. She’d thought the seabed was mostly rocks. Up close, however, the material looked somewhat bony or shell-like. It grew in interesting shapes—swirls and branches. The mix of colors was strikingly beautiful.

  “It’s like a whole reef!” Jodi continued. She’d seen pictures in books of great coral reefs, environments where ocean life thrived. The images always reminded her of the rain forest, but underwater.

  “This is for an experiment?” Harper said. Her eyes drank in all the color. “Can we help?”

  Doc smiled. “I was hoping you’d offer. In fact, for a
project this big, I’ll need the help of your entire class.”

  Jodi said, “Cool!”

  Harper said, “Great!”

  Suddenly, Harper’s backpack made a shrill electronic chirping sound again.

  “Oops! Sorry!” she said, and she slapped her backpack until the phone went silent.

  As morning dawned in Minecraft, Harper and her friends built their first boats.

  It was Ash’s great idea to use old wood planks from the shipwreck. That way, they wouldn’t have to use up any of the wood from their inventories. It also felt poetic to make small boats out of the large one. The ship was landlocked, but pieces of it would be sailing the ocean once more.

  The crafting formula was quite simple. In a matter of moments, five small rowboats bobbed in the water.

  “I wish we could all share a boat,” Morgan said.

  “Boats here can only hold a single person,” Ash said. “But we’ll travel together. Everyone will stay close.”

  “Arr, daylight’s wasting,” Po said. He was dressed as a pirate, complete with captain’s hat and a black beard. He hopped into his birchwood boat. “Shove off!”

  “Shove off?” echoed Jodi.

  “It’s sailor talk,” Harper said. “It means ‘Let’s go, already.’ ”

  “Oh.” Jodi giggled and climbed into her own boat. “In that case: Aye, aye!”

  Ash was nervous at first. She had been on boats in real life, and the rocking motion had made her seasick. That wasn’t a problem here, though. The sea was calm and quiet, like a great glistening blue carpet.

  They talked about school, and Po’s basketball team, and how excited Harper was for Doc’s coral assignment. Before they knew it, the sun was setting.

  “There’s nowhere to put down a bed out here,” Morgan said.

  “But there aren’t any mobs to worry about, either,” Ash pointed out. “We may as well keep going.”

  So they traveled through the night, gliding onward by the light of the moon.

  When daylight had come again, Morgan checked the map. “We still have a long way to go,” he said.

  Ash felt a desire to be useful. “We may as well do some fishing,” she suggested. “Who has the fishing rod?”

  “That’d be me, matey,” said Po. He steered over to her and placed the rod in her boat. Harper had enchanted it, so it was quite easy to use. Along with bread and apples, cooked fish had quickly become their main source of food. Raw fish wasn’t as filling, but it was better than nothing. And Ash wanted to be sure they had plenty to eat. She was a Wildling Scout. That meant she liked to be prepared for anything.

  They settled into a comfortable silence, and the sun moved steadily across the sky. The days were short here, and the nights were even shorter.

  They kept going.

  * * *

  On the fourth day, Po cried, “Land HO!”

  Ash turned her head to look where Po was pointing. He was right—land! “Is that where we’re headed, Morgan?” she asked.

  Morgan was already consulting their map. “No,” he said. “We still have a distance to go. But I can see that landmass on the map. It’s a small island.” He shrugged. “We may as well check it out. I’d like to set up our beds and reset our spawn point.”

  “We should probably disconnect soon, anyway,” Harper added. “This is the longest we’ve been in the game without taking a break.”

  “Harper’s excited to get to her homework,” Jodi teased.

  “That’s not true!” Harper said. “Although tonight’s long-division worksheet does look deliciously challenging….”

  “Arr!” Po cried. “Any more talk of homework and I’ll have ye swabbin’ the deck.”

  They made landfall just as the sun set. The ground was a strange shade of gray, and huge mushrooms towered above them.

  “What is this place?” asked Jodi.

  “It’s a mushroom island!” Po said. Ash noticed he was so excited that he forgot to talk like a pirate. “And that means we might see the best animal of all time!”

  “A llama?” Jodi guessed hopefully. She really liked llamas.

  “No,” said Po. “Better.”

  “A panda?” Jodi said. “A dolphin? A monkey? A dog? A dog wearing a silly outfit?” She really liked pandas, dolphins, monkeys, dogs, and dogs wearing silly outfits. Who didn’t?!

  Ash laughed. “You have a lot of favorite animals, Jodi.”

  “But nothing you’ve seen in real life can prepare you for that,” Po said, pointing.

  A mob rounded a corner, stepping into view. It looked like a cow, but it was spotted red and white, with tiny mushrooms growing along its back.

  “What…,” said Jodi. “What is that marvelous, wonderful, lovable creature?”

  “Mooshroom!” Po cried, and he leapt for joy. “Someone give me some wheat! Hurry, hurry!”

  Ash cycled through her inventory. She found a sheaf of wheat and dropped it on the ground. Po snatched it up and ran toward the speckled, big-eyed animal.

  He waved the wheat in front of the mooshroom’s face. That got its attention. Now, as Po ran around the small island, the mooshroom followed wherever he went.

  “Me next!” Jodi cried. “Me next!” She followed the mooshroom, who followed Po, and that made everyone laugh.

  Then a dark shadow loomed over them. And then another and another.

  Ash looked up. By the light of the moon, she could just make out a trio of flying shapes. “Are those bats?” she asked.

  “It’s hard to tell,” Harper said. “But I think they’re too big to be bats.”

  “Oh no,” Morgan said. “Jodi! Po! Get over here!”

  The smiles dropped immediately from Ash’s and Jodi’s faces. They recognized the seriousness in Morgan’s voice. “What is it, brother?” Jodi asked.

  “Find cover!” he said. “Those are phantoms. And they’re coming our way!”

  Morgan got a good look at the first phantom as it swooped low over the island.

  At first, it did look batlike. But it was much larger than a bat from the real world, and its wings were tattered like an old, ragged curtain. Morgan could see white bones sticking out through its broken blue skin. Its eyes glowed an eerie shade of green.

  The phantom looked dangerous. And it was.

  It swooped low, slashing into Jodi. She flared red, a sign that she’d taken damage.

  “Ow!” she said. “I felt that!”

  The phantom returned to the sky after hitting her. Along with the other two phantoms, it circled high above their heads.

  “There’s nowhere to hide!” said Po. “Harper, get your bow out!”

  “It’s useless,” Harper said. “I don’t have any arrows. I can’t make more without feathers!”

  “We can fight back with swords,” said Ash. “We just have to wait for the phantoms to swoop down at us.”

  “That’s too risky,” Morgan said. “Jodi’s already hurt. How many more hits can she take?”

  “I’m fine,” Jodi argued, but she sounded scared.

  Fighting was dangerous. The island didn’t provide any shelter. The boats were too slow for a getaway.

  Morgan had only one idea for how they could escape the phantoms. But he wasn’t sure it was a very good idea.

  Then one of the phantoms broke from the pack. It dove for them.

  It was now or never.

  “Everyone into the water!” Morgan cried.

  He waited just long enough to make sure Jodi made it to the edge of the island. Then they all jumped, splashing into the water together.

  At first, Morgan couldn’t see much. Everything beneath the surface was a hazy blue. But as he went farther down, a whole new world opened up before him.

  Colorful schools of Minecraft fish darted through th
e water. An entire forest of long strands of kelp waved in the currents. In the distance, a squid sped through the water using its tentacles.

  It was a beautiful sight. But one thing was missing: air to breathe.

  Morgan blinked twice, an action that brought up a menu. His health and hunger meters were full, but his air was already half gone.

  He took out a potion of water breathing. Before he could drink it, Ash swam in front of him and shook her head.

  Morgan didn’t understand. The potions were only a temporary solution, but they were better than nothing.

  Ash gestured for Morgan and the others to follow her. She pointed at something in the water. Something moving.

  It was a great column of bubbles. The bubbles rose from a glowing orange square of magma on the seafloor. They floated all the way to the surface. And inside the column of bubbles…

  He could breathe! Morgan took a big breath, then looked above and below him. In the light cast by the magma block, he could see the others had all made it safely to the bubbles.

  He could also see the shadows of the phantoms. They were still circling above the surface, like hungry sharks.

  Morgan breathed a sigh of relief that there weren’t any actual sharks in Minecraft. Of course, there were other underwater dangers—but it was best not to think about that right now.

  They needed a shelter. He swam over to Harper. She was the fastest builder. And she usually remembered the recipes and formulas that Morgan forgot.