text: By four o'clock, we are racing around the corner. And then another until we burst through the double doors, grinding to a stop to have our bags scanned, which given the amount of electronic toys between us all, takes an annoying amount of time.
  
  As we get through, I realize it's pretty quiet inside, because, duh, it is Sunday. My emotional roller coaster starts slowly making its way over the edge, preparing for its next drop, which looms directly ahead ...
  
  ...at the elevated desk sergeant's desk. The desk sergeant being the only incredibly busy party, with one not-quite-firing-on-all-cylinders would-be client. Happily the sergeant not only looks up but recognizes us, and ignoring the cacophony emanating from the man ahead of us, laughs, although not particularly kindly, and says, "Oh yeah, he's back there. Just go right on through."
  
  Which is great for three reasons. One, it's Sunday and he's here. Two, time is of the essence. And three, if I don't need to be in the waiting area, which I can confirm shows no sign of having been cleaned since my last visit, my ever so slightly germaphobic self has no reason to appear.
  
  My roller coaster is back on the rise as we take off, tearing around the corner, until we are bursting in on our old pal— no, that might be too much of an exaggeration, bursting into Detective Robert Tsarnowsky's office— where we throw the door open, crashing it head on into some guy.
  
  Ow.
  
  "Nice work, Sid." Tsarnowsky seems much more amused than perturbed. "Maybe you broke his nose. I keep telling him he needs to get it fixed. Broke it in a couple of places back in his soccer days, but he was too busy heading balls or something to get it fixed properly."
  
  And despite his partner's glare and our obvious need to talk, Tsarno the Barno, as I like to think of him, is too busy amusing himself to let us interrupt.
  
  "You know, with your aim, you might think about trying out for the football team. Put that uncanny talent to use."
  
  Hysterical, Barno. Guffaw. Guffaw. Must be nice to find yourself so amusing.
  
  "Let me introduce you to your latest target." Tsarnowsky continues unabated. "Officer DeShawn Jordan." We look over, nod, and we're done. But he's not. "DeShawn, let me introduce you to infamous-in-these-parts, dangerous-to-stand-next-to, or under, Sidonie Rubin, and her gang of LARPers. Let's see, we have Jimmy, hmmm, Vikram, Ari, and Imani, right?
  
  "And," Tsarno spots Ze. "Who's this?"
  
  I interrupt, or at least talk over this introduction to clarify my name is Sid, before Tsarno even finishes his question. I do, however, manage to finish said interrupting in time to answer his question.
  
  "This is Ze. Ze is helping us with a case."
  
  I am pleased to report Tsarno did not even blink. About the Ze of it all. But referring to our case, he did more than blink. He bugged out his eyes, snorted a bit, and even did that drawn-out-fake-surprise-sarcastic thing.
  
  "Wow. You have a case? You don't say."
  
  "Hysterical." And I wait for him to put his eyeballs away. "No. What I mean," and pause to correct myself here. "What we mean is you have a case. And it's urgent. And you need to jump all over it, or whatever it is you do, before someone dies."
  
  Tsarno pauses, surveys all of us, and gets our urgency, because he glances at DeShawn, nods, and we fill them in.
  
  "So just so I'm getting all this correctly." Tsarnowsky pauses and looks back down to his notes. "You," and he looks over to Vikram, "you were playing some internet game called Contagion. And your," and again he scans his notes, "inventory was stolen by some guy named Qi who is purportedly being held hostage somewhere in China, and who you think is about to die." He looks at us, to put it kindly, slightly askance. "And you know all this because this one here," head motioning towards Ze, "translated a mah-jongg tile."
  
  Which I have to admit, when put that way, sounds a tad improbable, and a lot far-fetched. Of course, the barely disguised scoffing isn't helping either.
  
  "Look, Detective." Vikram stands up. "I know this sounds very foolish and dramatic, but it's not."
  
  "He's right." Jimmy chimes in. "This is not just because Ze translated a tile. Sid had Qi go find his IP address, so we could trace it and determine first if he is actually in China, and not some guy around the corner spoofing us, and then, if he was who he said he was, we could use the trace to try and save him."
  
  Getting his metaphorical arm into it, he verbally tosses a tight spiral right into Tsarno's hands. "You do remember, Detective, Sid's pretty good with this stuff."
  
  Which does seem to hit home. As Tsarnowsky stares hard at me, I meet his eyes and make one final plea.
  
  "You must know someone who can do something. You know, run a check on it. I mean if they would just go over there and find out it's nothing, then we'd all know we were suckered. Which would make no sense, but there you have it."
  
  Tsarno stares at me, evaluating. I sit, staring back, hoping whatever my stare says is the right answer.
  
  "So DeShawn, do we know anyone who can just dash over to," and again Tsarnowsky looks down at his notes, "Anhui Province, in China, and just," pause for emphasis of our idiocracy, "check this out?"
  
  Apparently my stare came up short. We know we're being mocked and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, except collect ourselves and our things and head to the door. Unless ...
  
  "Look." I wheel back around. "We came here because I thought you would listen. Ze," I point to my left, "thought we should put out an SOS on a forum to reach all gamers in the province. See if we can use our recovered geolocation to get them to group together to find this place, crash wherever or whatever it is, and rescue Qi."
  
  I sense Tsarnowsky is growing uneasy. Although he may not be a web expert, he knows what I just said is not out of the question. I'm not sure it would actually work, but it sounds pretty good as a spur-of-the-moment backup plan. I watch as he and Officer Jordan exchange glances. Then I press on.
  
  "But thanks anyway."
  
  DeShawn looks at Tsarnowsky. "I can give Bobby Hong a call. He works in the Chinatown division. Maybe they know someone."
  
  Tsarnowsky nods. DeShawn leaves. We inch our way back in. But remember, no one likes to be played.
  
  "So, any of your parents know you were dropping by today?"
  
  The shifting eyes and shuffling feet speak volumes.
  
  "I'll take that as a no. Hard to believe you haven't managed to share your latest hijinks with them."
  
  Now we all know, I do love a great word choice. Not to mention a bit of a dare. And maybe even a bit of a distraction. "Did you know hijinks actually comes from a Scottish drinking game?"
  
  And with that Tsarnowsky gives me the most curious of looks, which I choose to interpret as, "gosh I've missed you," laughs, and leans back in his chair. "No, Sid, I did not."
  
  "Well, the game doesn't seem to have any known strategy or anything, but apparently it did involve dice."
  
  "Of course."
  
  Yeah. I am right. That is definitely an "I've missed you." And the tension breaks for at least the moment.
  
  Officer Jordan returns with some not-bad news. He's reached Detective Hong, who it turns out is at least familiar with what we were talking about, if not the specifics. So Detective Hong has agreed to reach out to a police officer he knows in China and see what they might have to say.
  
  And with that we are sent on our way with a promise they will follow up and let us know.
  
  I have to say Tsarnowsky did get in the last digs in of the day. We were in the hallway, heading out, and he, let's not say yells, but announces, "Don't forget, when I have news, I will need to find you. Hate to shock your parents a second time."
  
  Checkmate.
  
  So while I didn't relish doing it, I went home and told the parents our agreed-upon CliffsNotes version of events, about Vikram being ripped off, and how we all met up to play the game and find the thief, as though it was something that had happened overnight. I am relieved to report it didn't go too poorly.
  
  I don't want to say it went great, either.
  
  But with no actual wrongdoing— all we did was chat with some dude in the game who put up a tile saying SOS in Chinese, and we went to the police— we left our parents nothing to hang us, or ground us, for. So other than a slightly raised eyebrow or two, I am goodish to go.
  
  But I know thin ice when I am skating on it. And thus I head directly upstairs whereupon I force myself to finish my English paper.
  
  Monday and Tuesday pass pretty uneventfully. By that I mean no word. By Wednesday afternoon, we have tested all the robots, and it is time for bag and tag, which means our time for building robots is up, and ready or not, they are locked away until the competition begins.
  
  Thursday. Yeah, it's now Thursday and eerily quiet. I want to call Tsarno, but I don't. I know if he had something to tell us, he would. Well, not exactly true. In all truthfulness, I would have called him, but we took a vote and agreed we would not check in before Tuesday of next week.
  
  So here I am, on the losing side, sulking, but not calling. Which I'm sure is not a big surprise. But I didn't think it would be four to one. Against me.
  
  Finally the call did come. Right after he called our parents first, which was incredibly annoying, insulting, and, I'm going to concede, most likely mandated protocol.
  
  I like to think our history deserves better than simple spite.