The Jump, page 4
“Could be a glitch,” I say.
Or someone held down the silence button that’s on each alarm lever. But then someone—a human—would’ve had to pull another one to set it off again. And they just evacuated the school, so… unlikely.
It has to be a hack.
“Okay, Yas,” I say, determined to get us back on topic so we can get to the bottom of this. “If it’s not the Order, and it’s not an AI, who do you think it is?”
Jax cuts in before she can answer.
“Listen, I know the Order, okay?” he says. “I’ve studied every move they’ve ever made. They’ve had typos in their social posts. They’ve made mistakes. Small ones. Inconsequential, but mistakes for sure. Besides, behind every sophisticated AI, there’s at least one human anyway, right?”
“I guess,” Yas says with a shrug. “So then the question still lingers. Why the fire alarms? Why now?”
Han pushes himself slowly to his feet. Although his wispy brown hair hangs down low over his eyes, I can tell they’re still glued to his phone as he scrolls and scrolls. Then an idea hits me.
“Hey, Han, maybe you can help us figure out who might have remote access to the fire alarms. Is it a pretty secure system?”
He looks up at me and nods.
“Is there only one party with access?”
He nods again, and I grin. My heart is beating a little faster, like it always does when I start piecing things together, crawling through the labyrinth of clues in front of us, looking for an out. That’s why they call me Spider.
“Which party, Han?” asks Jax. Han glances up from his phone just long enough to zero in on the administration building and point.
There are only a few departments in that building. Administration—of course, admissions, Principal Antony’s office, security, and janitorial. I start with the most likely one.
“Principal Antony?”
Han shakes his head.
“Janitorial?” asks Jax.
Han shakes his head again.
And then I’m left with the only department that makes sense anymore.
“Security,” I say. Shannon High is notorious for daily incidents, most of which are nonviolent—drugs, truancy, theft, your average run-of-the-mill misdemeanors. But every other month, there’s a fight or an assault that lands somebody in the hospital. One kid was pushed down the stairs and ended up in a coma a few years ago. There’s enough chaos here to warrant a full-time officer stationed at the front entrance at all times. Armed. Dangerous. Freaks me out every time I walk through those doors.
“You think security has access to the fire alarms, Han?” asks Yas.
“Yas, you’ve known Han for how long?” asks Jax. “He doesn’t think. He knows.”
I spot a few faculty weaving their way through crowds of students closer to the building, so while Jax and Yas continue their debate about whether the Order sneaked into Shannon High security’s mainframe, I listen in.
“Buses will begin running in twenty minutes. Please board your regular bus number,” says one of the teachers I’ve seen around—I don’t know her name. “If you don’t ride the bus, you are advised to contact your guardians and seek transportation home. Please wait for them in the library until they get here. I repeat. Buses will begin running in twenty minutes. Either report to the bus roundabout or report to the library, please. Single file, everyone…”
“Hell yeah!” I say, turning back to the group, whose attention I now have. “Did you hear that? We’re all going home!”
Han looks at me blankly from under his wispy hair. Yas raises an eyebrow. Jax lowers both of his skeptically.
“Why?” he asks.
I shrug.
“Maybe they’re having trouble turning off the alarms?”
“So they’re just going to give us a day off?” asks Yas.
The teacher is closer now—close enough that we can’t not overhear her.
“Log into your online student portal to finish your day remotely, please.”
A collective sucking of teeth, groans, and sighs ripple through our little circle.
“Bold of them to assume all of our parents can just take off work to come get us,” says Yas. “Abba has to work, and the school bus route to my place takes so long—by the time I get home, the school day will be over.”
“Doesn’t the light rail go right to your dad’s store?” asks Jax.
“The light rail is an hour and a half between here and the store, and two hours between here and home. It’ll be lunchtime by then, I’ll be late, and I’ll miss my classes and Zuhr prayer. And then I’ll have to watch the recordings late into the night, when I should be listening to Billie Eilish and eating garbage in peace.”
My stomach grumbles its irritation at having had only a bowl of chicken-and-rice porridge for breakfast. Mom makes the best dak juk in the morning, but only for me. The stuff at Seoul Food—our restaurant downstairs from our apartment? It’s made with… shortcuts. The chicken simmers for only an hour. The rice is ground less finely. The vegetables are chopped coarser. Just enough finesse to satisfy the taste buds of the American students staying in the International District so they can be close to the kinds of Asian food they ate on their summer study-abroad trip to Seoul, and still drive twenty minutes to their parents’ houses for their all-American Thanksgiving dinner.
Only my friends get the real stuff. The stuff with love in it.
“You’ve all got your laptops, right?” I ask, slinging my messenger bag over my shoulder. “Come to my place! The 21 will take us straight there in ten minutes. You know my mom won’t mind. Besides, then we can get to the bottom of this Order business while Mrs. Henry waxes poetic about why some dead white authors were important once upon a time.”
Jax, Yas, and Han all exchange a quick glance before silently agreeing, and soon their backpacks are on and we’re walking to catch the 21 bus. I’m hungry, I’m tired, and my binder’s getting itchy under this shirt.
Besides, I have to find out what happened with that alarm situation. As we walk, I can’t shake the feeling that some serious shit is about to go down. Whoever these Order people are, if they’re messing with the cops and public schools’ alarm systems, I’m intrigued.
* * *
Here’s the thing about my mom’s restaurant: It’s named Seoul Food—a Korean name with a meaning most Americans understand. Because we’re Korean. Living in Chinatown. Selling ramen, tteokbokki, and pad Thai to white people who want a little bit of everything—tech executives with clientele who know their way around some Asian fusion and want “American” service—the smiles, the shameless ass-kissing, the altruism offered up humbly in the hopes that they’ll receive a living wage folded between the walls of the receipt wallet.
Shit makes me sick.
I lead the way through the glass front doors with the twin cartoon garlic bulbs smiling under a sign that advertises TONKOTSU RAMEN WITH BLACK GARLIC OIL—$14.99. The prices these people will pay for our food almost make up for the stares I get when I walk in—most people probably wondering what a group of four high school kids is doing walking through the restaurant at this hour in the middle of a school day, some looking at me like I might work here. I silently love when people raise a finger, which I’m sure they think is polite, in my direction and say, “Oh, um, excuse me—” I love walking right on by like I haven’t seen them.
Mom hates it when I do that.
“You could at least act like these people pay our rent,” she said once.
We pay our rent with our labor.
And I don’t work for free.
Looking these people in the face with a smile is hard enough when I’m on shift, let alone on my days off. But at least when I’m washing dishes, or sweeping, or tidying the stockroom—anywhere in the kitchen away from customers—I’m home. Nobody asks me where I’m from, or how to say X or Y in Korean, or whether I’m XX or XY.
Nobody deadnames me.
The minute I told my mom everything, she asked me ten thousand questions. She understood some things, like, I wasn’t a girl. I wasn’t her daughter. But she didn’t understand that it didn’t mean I wasn’t her child.
I heard her say, “It feels like my daughter has died.”
But later, I heard her ask, “How do you clean this… ‘binder’?” and “Do you… need tampons anymore?”
I smiled, because I do. For now. I was told when I started T that my period might linger for a while.
And eventually, one day, out of the blue, she came into my room with a plateful of sliced Asian pears, told me she’d been watching transgender people on “YouTube”—she says each word separately—asked if I was okay with her telling the staff I was transitioning, and as soon as half a “yes” was out of my mouth, she marched into the kitchen waving a wooden spoon and said she’d better not hear my birth name uttered again in her restaurant or there would be consequences.
It’s been Spider, or Daeshim, ever since.
Tae-jin Hyung spots me from his position behind the counter and nods hello with a warm smile and a wave, with his black watch around one wrist and his blue bandanna around the other. He’s only a few years older than me, but something about his demeanor—the way nothing seems to really get him down—speaks of someone much, much older.
“Hey, it’s Daeshim and the gang, playing hooky from school.” He winks. I have to smile as I approach the counter. I’ve found that the deeper into the restaurant I go, the more deeply I’m understood.
“Guilty,” I say, nodding to Jax, Yas, and Han as they shuffle in behind me. “I’m playing hooky and didn’t immediately seek out an underground bunker, because I forgot who my mother is.”
Tae-jin Hyung nods and sucks his teeth with a smile. “Your mom could sniff out a penny in a river of blood.”
“But,” I say, “she’d also give her last penny for us. Or her last drop of blood.”
He nods, knowing I’m right, and then he looks at the rest of Team JERICHO with a welcoming grin. “Hey, y’all.”
They all nod hello and smile.
“Hey, Tae-Jin,” Yas says, smiling and leaning on the counter, “I traded Spider here a few secrets for a bowl of that heavenly ramen of yours. Can you spare a bowl before we go upstairs? Veggie broth, please?”
“Ooh, veggie broth for me too, please,” says Jax.
Han leans on the counter and nods up at Tae-Jin Hyung in agreement.
“Hey, hey.” Yas frowns. “Did you all provide some intel? No. So the ramen’s mine.”
“Is that Yas I hear?” sings a familiar, bubbly voice from around the corner that I’d recognize anywhere. My mom bursts into the room, lighting up the whole place with her ear-to-ear smile. She’s as tall as me, and slender like me. Her short, black hair is still as she moves, with one gray streak in the front, the only indication that she’s over forty.
“Hello, ma’am,” says Jax. Han raises a hand. Yas grins.
“I told you,” my mom snaps suddenly, flattening her hands into an X and then yanking them down on either side of her. “No ‘ma’am.’ Please, call me Mom.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and then quickly corrects himself, “Yes, Mom.”
“Good,” she coos, her face melting back into a smooth smile.
Everyone calls her “Mom.” I’m the only one who calls her “Umma.” She’s insisted upon it since I was little.
“Hi, Umma.” I nod at her. She turns to me and her smile grows threefold.
“Daeshiiiiim, my love,” she says, pulling me into a hug. She smells like a blend of her oat lotion and shampoo. “Mind telling me what you’re all doing here? School get canceled suddenly? Hmm?”
I know she’s playing with me, but actually, yeah. I pull away and look up at her.
“They couldn’t stop the fire alarms from going off, so we’re all going online for the rest of the day.”
She looks around at Jax, Yas, and Han, who all nod in turn. She knows I’d never lie, but I guess it’s a habit to confirm with the rest of them.
“Ah.” She seems to breathe the word out as a sigh of relief, clasping her hands together. “In that case, Tae-Jin, please,” she says, motioning elegantly toward the kitchen. Tae-Jin Hyung looks at her with raised eyebrows, waiting for the request. “Ramen for them all. My treat.”
Tae-Jin Hyung nods and salutes us before ducking back into the kitchen to get us four bowls of the good stuff.
“I heard two eggs this time, Yas?” asks my mom, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Yes, Mom,” she says, a hint of unsteadiness in her now-shrunken voice, maybe humility all of a sudden? Yas is cool asking me for extra eggs—haggling even, twisting my arm for more info, but bring my mom into this? And she goes as soft as the buttery, soft-boiled yolks.
My mouth waters just thinking about it.
“Must be some interesting secrets.” My mom grins, raising an eyebrow at me. Oh god, she’s at it again, hoping to set me up with anything that moves, especially Yas, who I’ve known since before everyone knew I was a guy. Except Yas.
That’s right. Yas was the first to know. Way back in seventh grade. We’d already been friends for years. We were practically siblings, so it only felt right to tell her. It was around the time she decided to start wearing her hijab.
So many changes happened for both of us that year.
I look over and smile at Yas now, apologetically, and she rolls her eyes back at me in understanding, as if to say That’s just how your mom is, as if I didn’t know. Unfortunately for my mom, I’m just not interested in Yas like that. She’s a friend, and she’ll probably always be.
Besides, also unbeknownst to my mom, Yas isn’t into guys.
“Secrets about a puzzle, Mom,” Jax cuts in. My mom’s eyes get huge, and her mouth forms an exaggerated O.
“Ohhhh.” The word drags out of her mouth as it sinks in. “A new internet game!”
“Kind of,” says Jax. “I guess you could call it that.”
I’ve explained to her before how cryptology puzzles work. They’re just scavenger hunts, only with digital clues. And they usually cover more area than a traditional scavenger hunt. They’re bigger. Sometimes much bigger. And if I know anything about this new puzzle from “The Order,” it’s sure to be the biggest one we’ve ever seen. The way they phrased the intro made it sound so… exclusive. I play the words over in my head.
WE SEEK ONLY THE MOST ELITE TO JOIN OUR GROUP.
THIS GAME WILL REVEAL THE MOST DESERVING.
That sounds intimidating. Not that I’m intimidated. Just that they meant to intimidate us. Everyone on the forum knows, JERICHO always wins. The other groups know from the jump that they’re competing for second place. But the most fascinating thing I read in the intro was:
THE GAME IS ANARCHY.
THE PRIZE IS POWER.
My thoughts swirl, wondering what kinds of clues they’ll have in mind with a prize like that. Power—what I’d give to have some of that around here. I’d do away with tips and force all companies registered in the state of Washington to pay their employees a living wage. I’d cap rent prices—Umma refuses to discuss our financial situation with me, but I know what rent prices look like across Puget Sound. Everyone seems to be talking about the cost of living around here except my mom, and she’s started hiding the mail when she brings it in. I wonder if she’s shielding me from it. If she’s struggling, I know she’d never let on. But I’ll do whatever I gotta do to keep this place afloat. My grandparents lived here. They started this restaurant when my mom was just a baby. What right does the free market have to decide this place can’t be ours anymore?
I look at Tae-Jin Hyung again, knowing what it would mean for him if this place closed down. I got him this job, papers or not. Without me, he wouldn’t be working here at all.
He still doesn’t, not on paper. But the state thinks he does. And that’s all that really matters in the end.
A flurry of voices shouting outside grows louder behind me, and we all turn to look out the window, where colorful, bandanna-wearing young people are marching past chanting, “Fuck your refinery!” I watch the window, my heart swelling with pride knowing I’m on their side, that what they’re doing is helping our cause. Every time I see them, they’re even more passionate, this time screaming so loud, their voices are breaking. One even raps on the glass window outside and rallies to all of us in here with an aggressive raising of their hands. But, one by one, customers in business suits with big round designer glasses and fresh haircuts and blue badges turn back to their lunch companions with a snicker or an eye roll that says, Ugh, sorry for the riffraff interrupting our peace and maybe even a This place wasn’t always so grimy.
That pride from earlier sizzles into angry determination.
I’ll do whatever I have to. For me. For Umma. For Tae-Jin Hyung. For so many others in this place who aren’t actually on the payroll books, because they can’t work in the US. Sure, plenty of places in the International District could “hire” them, but with all the gentrification going on, those places are rapidly dwindling.
This puzzle could mean protection for everyone here, if only for a little longer.
So then my mind turns to wondering what kinds of wild clues we’ll have to decode to get to the finish line first.
The first rule of the forum is that there will be zero breaking the law. All puzzles must be legal—no reading serial numbers scratched into crack pipes in alleyways.
My mom gasps suddenly as if she’s forgotten something. And then, “Tae-jin!!!!” she turns and hollers toward the kitchen, startling all of us. I look around the restaurant and clutch my messenger-bag strap a little tighter. It feels like everyone’s staring from behind me. I don’t dare turn to look.
An indistinguishable yet undeniably questioning yell bounces back from the kitchen at her.
“Two eggs for Yas’s bowl, please!”
Just as I think the yelling is over, she turns back toward the kitchen and follows up with “Oh, and veggie broth for Jax and Yas!”
“Got it!” rings out from the kitchen.
“And,” she continues one more time, “a fork for Han!”
“Right away!”
Or someone held down the silence button that’s on each alarm lever. But then someone—a human—would’ve had to pull another one to set it off again. And they just evacuated the school, so… unlikely.
It has to be a hack.
“Okay, Yas,” I say, determined to get us back on topic so we can get to the bottom of this. “If it’s not the Order, and it’s not an AI, who do you think it is?”
Jax cuts in before she can answer.
“Listen, I know the Order, okay?” he says. “I’ve studied every move they’ve ever made. They’ve had typos in their social posts. They’ve made mistakes. Small ones. Inconsequential, but mistakes for sure. Besides, behind every sophisticated AI, there’s at least one human anyway, right?”
“I guess,” Yas says with a shrug. “So then the question still lingers. Why the fire alarms? Why now?”
Han pushes himself slowly to his feet. Although his wispy brown hair hangs down low over his eyes, I can tell they’re still glued to his phone as he scrolls and scrolls. Then an idea hits me.
“Hey, Han, maybe you can help us figure out who might have remote access to the fire alarms. Is it a pretty secure system?”
He looks up at me and nods.
“Is there only one party with access?”
He nods again, and I grin. My heart is beating a little faster, like it always does when I start piecing things together, crawling through the labyrinth of clues in front of us, looking for an out. That’s why they call me Spider.
“Which party, Han?” asks Jax. Han glances up from his phone just long enough to zero in on the administration building and point.
There are only a few departments in that building. Administration—of course, admissions, Principal Antony’s office, security, and janitorial. I start with the most likely one.
“Principal Antony?”
Han shakes his head.
“Janitorial?” asks Jax.
Han shakes his head again.
And then I’m left with the only department that makes sense anymore.
“Security,” I say. Shannon High is notorious for daily incidents, most of which are nonviolent—drugs, truancy, theft, your average run-of-the-mill misdemeanors. But every other month, there’s a fight or an assault that lands somebody in the hospital. One kid was pushed down the stairs and ended up in a coma a few years ago. There’s enough chaos here to warrant a full-time officer stationed at the front entrance at all times. Armed. Dangerous. Freaks me out every time I walk through those doors.
“You think security has access to the fire alarms, Han?” asks Yas.
“Yas, you’ve known Han for how long?” asks Jax. “He doesn’t think. He knows.”
I spot a few faculty weaving their way through crowds of students closer to the building, so while Jax and Yas continue their debate about whether the Order sneaked into Shannon High security’s mainframe, I listen in.
“Buses will begin running in twenty minutes. Please board your regular bus number,” says one of the teachers I’ve seen around—I don’t know her name. “If you don’t ride the bus, you are advised to contact your guardians and seek transportation home. Please wait for them in the library until they get here. I repeat. Buses will begin running in twenty minutes. Either report to the bus roundabout or report to the library, please. Single file, everyone…”
“Hell yeah!” I say, turning back to the group, whose attention I now have. “Did you hear that? We’re all going home!”
Han looks at me blankly from under his wispy hair. Yas raises an eyebrow. Jax lowers both of his skeptically.
“Why?” he asks.
I shrug.
“Maybe they’re having trouble turning off the alarms?”
“So they’re just going to give us a day off?” asks Yas.
The teacher is closer now—close enough that we can’t not overhear her.
“Log into your online student portal to finish your day remotely, please.”
A collective sucking of teeth, groans, and sighs ripple through our little circle.
“Bold of them to assume all of our parents can just take off work to come get us,” says Yas. “Abba has to work, and the school bus route to my place takes so long—by the time I get home, the school day will be over.”
“Doesn’t the light rail go right to your dad’s store?” asks Jax.
“The light rail is an hour and a half between here and the store, and two hours between here and home. It’ll be lunchtime by then, I’ll be late, and I’ll miss my classes and Zuhr prayer. And then I’ll have to watch the recordings late into the night, when I should be listening to Billie Eilish and eating garbage in peace.”
My stomach grumbles its irritation at having had only a bowl of chicken-and-rice porridge for breakfast. Mom makes the best dak juk in the morning, but only for me. The stuff at Seoul Food—our restaurant downstairs from our apartment? It’s made with… shortcuts. The chicken simmers for only an hour. The rice is ground less finely. The vegetables are chopped coarser. Just enough finesse to satisfy the taste buds of the American students staying in the International District so they can be close to the kinds of Asian food they ate on their summer study-abroad trip to Seoul, and still drive twenty minutes to their parents’ houses for their all-American Thanksgiving dinner.
Only my friends get the real stuff. The stuff with love in it.
“You’ve all got your laptops, right?” I ask, slinging my messenger bag over my shoulder. “Come to my place! The 21 will take us straight there in ten minutes. You know my mom won’t mind. Besides, then we can get to the bottom of this Order business while Mrs. Henry waxes poetic about why some dead white authors were important once upon a time.”
Jax, Yas, and Han all exchange a quick glance before silently agreeing, and soon their backpacks are on and we’re walking to catch the 21 bus. I’m hungry, I’m tired, and my binder’s getting itchy under this shirt.
Besides, I have to find out what happened with that alarm situation. As we walk, I can’t shake the feeling that some serious shit is about to go down. Whoever these Order people are, if they’re messing with the cops and public schools’ alarm systems, I’m intrigued.
* * *
Here’s the thing about my mom’s restaurant: It’s named Seoul Food—a Korean name with a meaning most Americans understand. Because we’re Korean. Living in Chinatown. Selling ramen, tteokbokki, and pad Thai to white people who want a little bit of everything—tech executives with clientele who know their way around some Asian fusion and want “American” service—the smiles, the shameless ass-kissing, the altruism offered up humbly in the hopes that they’ll receive a living wage folded between the walls of the receipt wallet.
Shit makes me sick.
I lead the way through the glass front doors with the twin cartoon garlic bulbs smiling under a sign that advertises TONKOTSU RAMEN WITH BLACK GARLIC OIL—$14.99. The prices these people will pay for our food almost make up for the stares I get when I walk in—most people probably wondering what a group of four high school kids is doing walking through the restaurant at this hour in the middle of a school day, some looking at me like I might work here. I silently love when people raise a finger, which I’m sure they think is polite, in my direction and say, “Oh, um, excuse me—” I love walking right on by like I haven’t seen them.
Mom hates it when I do that.
“You could at least act like these people pay our rent,” she said once.
We pay our rent with our labor.
And I don’t work for free.
Looking these people in the face with a smile is hard enough when I’m on shift, let alone on my days off. But at least when I’m washing dishes, or sweeping, or tidying the stockroom—anywhere in the kitchen away from customers—I’m home. Nobody asks me where I’m from, or how to say X or Y in Korean, or whether I’m XX or XY.
Nobody deadnames me.
The minute I told my mom everything, she asked me ten thousand questions. She understood some things, like, I wasn’t a girl. I wasn’t her daughter. But she didn’t understand that it didn’t mean I wasn’t her child.
I heard her say, “It feels like my daughter has died.”
But later, I heard her ask, “How do you clean this… ‘binder’?” and “Do you… need tampons anymore?”
I smiled, because I do. For now. I was told when I started T that my period might linger for a while.
And eventually, one day, out of the blue, she came into my room with a plateful of sliced Asian pears, told me she’d been watching transgender people on “YouTube”—she says each word separately—asked if I was okay with her telling the staff I was transitioning, and as soon as half a “yes” was out of my mouth, she marched into the kitchen waving a wooden spoon and said she’d better not hear my birth name uttered again in her restaurant or there would be consequences.
It’s been Spider, or Daeshim, ever since.
Tae-jin Hyung spots me from his position behind the counter and nods hello with a warm smile and a wave, with his black watch around one wrist and his blue bandanna around the other. He’s only a few years older than me, but something about his demeanor—the way nothing seems to really get him down—speaks of someone much, much older.
“Hey, it’s Daeshim and the gang, playing hooky from school.” He winks. I have to smile as I approach the counter. I’ve found that the deeper into the restaurant I go, the more deeply I’m understood.
“Guilty,” I say, nodding to Jax, Yas, and Han as they shuffle in behind me. “I’m playing hooky and didn’t immediately seek out an underground bunker, because I forgot who my mother is.”
Tae-jin Hyung nods and sucks his teeth with a smile. “Your mom could sniff out a penny in a river of blood.”
“But,” I say, “she’d also give her last penny for us. Or her last drop of blood.”
He nods, knowing I’m right, and then he looks at the rest of Team JERICHO with a welcoming grin. “Hey, y’all.”
They all nod hello and smile.
“Hey, Tae-Jin,” Yas says, smiling and leaning on the counter, “I traded Spider here a few secrets for a bowl of that heavenly ramen of yours. Can you spare a bowl before we go upstairs? Veggie broth, please?”
“Ooh, veggie broth for me too, please,” says Jax.
Han leans on the counter and nods up at Tae-Jin Hyung in agreement.
“Hey, hey.” Yas frowns. “Did you all provide some intel? No. So the ramen’s mine.”
“Is that Yas I hear?” sings a familiar, bubbly voice from around the corner that I’d recognize anywhere. My mom bursts into the room, lighting up the whole place with her ear-to-ear smile. She’s as tall as me, and slender like me. Her short, black hair is still as she moves, with one gray streak in the front, the only indication that she’s over forty.
“Hello, ma’am,” says Jax. Han raises a hand. Yas grins.
“I told you,” my mom snaps suddenly, flattening her hands into an X and then yanking them down on either side of her. “No ‘ma’am.’ Please, call me Mom.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and then quickly corrects himself, “Yes, Mom.”
“Good,” she coos, her face melting back into a smooth smile.
Everyone calls her “Mom.” I’m the only one who calls her “Umma.” She’s insisted upon it since I was little.
“Hi, Umma.” I nod at her. She turns to me and her smile grows threefold.
“Daeshiiiiim, my love,” she says, pulling me into a hug. She smells like a blend of her oat lotion and shampoo. “Mind telling me what you’re all doing here? School get canceled suddenly? Hmm?”
I know she’s playing with me, but actually, yeah. I pull away and look up at her.
“They couldn’t stop the fire alarms from going off, so we’re all going online for the rest of the day.”
She looks around at Jax, Yas, and Han, who all nod in turn. She knows I’d never lie, but I guess it’s a habit to confirm with the rest of them.
“Ah.” She seems to breathe the word out as a sigh of relief, clasping her hands together. “In that case, Tae-Jin, please,” she says, motioning elegantly toward the kitchen. Tae-Jin Hyung looks at her with raised eyebrows, waiting for the request. “Ramen for them all. My treat.”
Tae-Jin Hyung nods and salutes us before ducking back into the kitchen to get us four bowls of the good stuff.
“I heard two eggs this time, Yas?” asks my mom, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Yes, Mom,” she says, a hint of unsteadiness in her now-shrunken voice, maybe humility all of a sudden? Yas is cool asking me for extra eggs—haggling even, twisting my arm for more info, but bring my mom into this? And she goes as soft as the buttery, soft-boiled yolks.
My mouth waters just thinking about it.
“Must be some interesting secrets.” My mom grins, raising an eyebrow at me. Oh god, she’s at it again, hoping to set me up with anything that moves, especially Yas, who I’ve known since before everyone knew I was a guy. Except Yas.
That’s right. Yas was the first to know. Way back in seventh grade. We’d already been friends for years. We were practically siblings, so it only felt right to tell her. It was around the time she decided to start wearing her hijab.
So many changes happened for both of us that year.
I look over and smile at Yas now, apologetically, and she rolls her eyes back at me in understanding, as if to say That’s just how your mom is, as if I didn’t know. Unfortunately for my mom, I’m just not interested in Yas like that. She’s a friend, and she’ll probably always be.
Besides, also unbeknownst to my mom, Yas isn’t into guys.
“Secrets about a puzzle, Mom,” Jax cuts in. My mom’s eyes get huge, and her mouth forms an exaggerated O.
“Ohhhh.” The word drags out of her mouth as it sinks in. “A new internet game!”
“Kind of,” says Jax. “I guess you could call it that.”
I’ve explained to her before how cryptology puzzles work. They’re just scavenger hunts, only with digital clues. And they usually cover more area than a traditional scavenger hunt. They’re bigger. Sometimes much bigger. And if I know anything about this new puzzle from “The Order,” it’s sure to be the biggest one we’ve ever seen. The way they phrased the intro made it sound so… exclusive. I play the words over in my head.
WE SEEK ONLY THE MOST ELITE TO JOIN OUR GROUP.
THIS GAME WILL REVEAL THE MOST DESERVING.
That sounds intimidating. Not that I’m intimidated. Just that they meant to intimidate us. Everyone on the forum knows, JERICHO always wins. The other groups know from the jump that they’re competing for second place. But the most fascinating thing I read in the intro was:
THE GAME IS ANARCHY.
THE PRIZE IS POWER.
My thoughts swirl, wondering what kinds of clues they’ll have in mind with a prize like that. Power—what I’d give to have some of that around here. I’d do away with tips and force all companies registered in the state of Washington to pay their employees a living wage. I’d cap rent prices—Umma refuses to discuss our financial situation with me, but I know what rent prices look like across Puget Sound. Everyone seems to be talking about the cost of living around here except my mom, and she’s started hiding the mail when she brings it in. I wonder if she’s shielding me from it. If she’s struggling, I know she’d never let on. But I’ll do whatever I gotta do to keep this place afloat. My grandparents lived here. They started this restaurant when my mom was just a baby. What right does the free market have to decide this place can’t be ours anymore?
I look at Tae-Jin Hyung again, knowing what it would mean for him if this place closed down. I got him this job, papers or not. Without me, he wouldn’t be working here at all.
He still doesn’t, not on paper. But the state thinks he does. And that’s all that really matters in the end.
A flurry of voices shouting outside grows louder behind me, and we all turn to look out the window, where colorful, bandanna-wearing young people are marching past chanting, “Fuck your refinery!” I watch the window, my heart swelling with pride knowing I’m on their side, that what they’re doing is helping our cause. Every time I see them, they’re even more passionate, this time screaming so loud, their voices are breaking. One even raps on the glass window outside and rallies to all of us in here with an aggressive raising of their hands. But, one by one, customers in business suits with big round designer glasses and fresh haircuts and blue badges turn back to their lunch companions with a snicker or an eye roll that says, Ugh, sorry for the riffraff interrupting our peace and maybe even a This place wasn’t always so grimy.
That pride from earlier sizzles into angry determination.
I’ll do whatever I have to. For me. For Umma. For Tae-Jin Hyung. For so many others in this place who aren’t actually on the payroll books, because they can’t work in the US. Sure, plenty of places in the International District could “hire” them, but with all the gentrification going on, those places are rapidly dwindling.
This puzzle could mean protection for everyone here, if only for a little longer.
So then my mind turns to wondering what kinds of wild clues we’ll have to decode to get to the finish line first.
The first rule of the forum is that there will be zero breaking the law. All puzzles must be legal—no reading serial numbers scratched into crack pipes in alleyways.
My mom gasps suddenly as if she’s forgotten something. And then, “Tae-jin!!!!” she turns and hollers toward the kitchen, startling all of us. I look around the restaurant and clutch my messenger-bag strap a little tighter. It feels like everyone’s staring from behind me. I don’t dare turn to look.
An indistinguishable yet undeniably questioning yell bounces back from the kitchen at her.
“Two eggs for Yas’s bowl, please!”
Just as I think the yelling is over, she turns back toward the kitchen and follows up with “Oh, and veggie broth for Jax and Yas!”
“Got it!” rings out from the kitchen.
“And,” she continues one more time, “a fork for Han!”
“Right away!”
