“Hey, Rivera.” Josh greeted me cheerfully, waving a purple-armored hand as he stepped into the room. “Miss me?”
“Like a Minecraft Creeper,” I muttered. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugged. “Just bored. I’m stuck at my grandpa’s all week, and there’s nothing to do. It’s pouring rain, so even soccer’s out. I figured I’d see what you guys were up to.”
“How did you find us?” Starr asked.
“Oh, that was easy. Grandpa keeps a copy of the master game controls locked up in his virtual Fortress of Solitude. I simply accessed your profiles and tracked you down.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Virtual Fortress of Solitude?”
“It’s a Superman joke, evidently,” Josh clarified. “The place is like his own private level on the server that no one can access unless they know the password. This way he can control the game from the inside if he wants to. Find any player, warp anywhere. It’s pretty awesome. What he doesn’t know is I figured out the password a long time ago.” He grinned. “It’s my birthday backward. You’d think a mastermind game creator would be more crafty with his passwords, but Grandpa has always been sentimental. Which gives me the keys to the kingdom.”
“Um, congratulations?”
“Thanks.” Josh looked around the room. “So where are we, anyway? This doesn’t look like the beta.” Then his eyes widened. “Ooh! Are we off-grid?”
“Um…” I didn’t know what to say. I could try lying, but he would easily figure it out. Maybe playing dumb was best. “I don’t know. We just jumped off this cliff and ended up here.”
“Nice,” Josh exclaimed. “I’ve been wanting a chance to spy on the new levels. Grandpa told me they’re off-limits until they can be proven safe for users. Evidently there’s some nasty glitches down here that can delete your character files completely. Make you start over from the beginning and lose all your experience, level gains, and items. Which would totally stink, if you cared about those kinds of things. Which I don’t.”
“Of course you don’t,” I muttered. We, on the other hand, definitely did. We’d already spent so much time just getting here. Imagine having to start over from the beginning!
“Well, we’re glad to have you,” Lilli assured him. “We’re still pretty low level for this place, and we actually just failed a big quest.” She still looked a little troubled by this. “Which means we could use all the help we can get in trying to escape this building… and the zombie horde.”
“Cool.” Josh grinned at her. “Escaping zombie hordes is practically my superpower.”
I rolled my eyes. Sure it was. Also, what was my sister thinking? That last thing we needed was to have Josh tag along. What if he figured out what we were really up to? It was bad enough to be lying to Starr. Now we had to lie to Admiral Appleby’s actual grandson, too? What would Josh do if he found out we were trying to spring his grandfather’s prisoner? Would he report us? Get us kicked out of the game?
But then again, what choice did we have? He already knew we’d gone off-grid. If we made him mad now, he could report back to the powers that be that we’d violated the game’s terms of service and get us kicked off the server for good. Better to keep on his good side for the time being, at least; let him think we were on the same team.
“Lilli, you said that you found a way down to a lower floor?” I asked.
“Oh, right. Yes! Hopefully it’s still there.” She beckoned for us to follow.
We headed out of the room and down the dimly lit hall, tiptoeing as we went to avoid any more zombie encounters. Thankfully, NPC Ikumi was nowhere to be seen. Maybe Lilli had disposed of her body when she was out by herself. Or maybe the quest had reset by now.
When we reached the end of the hall, Lilli beckoned for us to enter the room to the left. Inside, we found what looked like a large classroom. Guess the office building had now turned into a school? Or what used to be a school, anyway. Desks were overturned, windows were broken. On the far wall there was a dirty, stained whiteboard with a cartoon drawing of Rocky the Robot. Underneath, someone had written Gear up, Mech Heads in what looked suspiciously like blood. Ew.
“So where’s this hole?” Starr asked, scanning the ground.
My sister walked behind the teacher’s desk. “It was right here,” she said, frowning. “I swear. It was huge. But now it’s gone.”
My heart sank. The designer must have fixed it before we got here. “We’ll keep looking,” I said. “There’s got to be something—”
“BRAINS!” came a moaning voice from outside.
“Crap. They’re back!” Starr cried, running to the door and slamming it shut. “Help me!” she commanded, and I ran and grabbed a chair, propping it under the door handle to help keep it closed. The zombie smooshed its rotting face against the window, slime oozing from its skin and onto the glass.
“BRAINS,” it moaned again.
Josh made a dash for the door, tapping on the window. “Sorry, ugly! No brains for you!”
The zombie moaned, thrashing at the door. Josh laughed, dancing goofily in front of the glass. “Mmm. Delicious brains,” he added, pointing to his head. “Come and get ’em while they’re hot!”
“Don’t tease the trash mobs,” Lilli scolded, dragging him away from the window.
Josh grinned. “Sorry, Speedy. I just didn’t like the way that one was looking at me.”
“Can we please focus here?” I broke in, exasperated. I knew we had no choice but to keep Josh around, but did he really have to be so annoying? “How are we supposed to get out of here?”
Lilli abandoned Josh and headed over to the windows. “Well, there’s definitely no way to jump,” she mused. “We’re too high up.”
“And the new floor is solid concrete,” Starr added, tapping it with her foot. “I don’t see any cracks or holes, either.”
I slumped my
