Rabbits(138)

“Looks like it,” I said, sitting back down.

“Interesting choice for a title.”

“Sure is,” I said. “What do you think it means?”

“No idea,” Chloe said as she sat down next to me.

We sat there in comfortable silence for a moment.

“So what the hell are we supposed to do now?” I asked.

“I guess we wait for the next iteration of Rabbits to begin.”

“Then what?”

“What do you think?” Chloe asked as she grabbed my hand and pulled me up. “Win the game, save the world.” She laughed, and the two of us went back into the kitchen to eat French toast.





For Luna





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Many years ago I discovered something hidden, something barely visible in the cracks, a mysterious thing that nobody was talking about. Over the years I’ve done my best to compile the pieces, decipher the whispers, decode the messages, and come up with the best way to tell you the story, the story of the game.

This book is for those of us out there stumbling through the madness, doing our best to hang on to the magic of mystery, the rush of discovery, and a thrilling sense of wide-eyed wonder.

Although some names have been changed, and some real-life incidents adjusted to protect certain individuals, and even though you probably found it in the fiction section, Rabbits is real.

R U Playing?

With thanks to my smart, tenacious, well-dressed, and remarkably cool agent, Marc Gerald, for continuing to push me to write a book, and to my editor, Anne Groell, for taking a chance on me and acquiring Rabbits for Del Rey, guiding me through a journey of narrative discovery that would result in my typing more than a million words and then helping me choose the best 120K (or so) of those words and arrange them in the (more or less) proper order.

I must also deliver a heartfelt thank-you to those of you who have been kind enough to support my work in film and podcasting through the years. Without you continually watching, listening, and responding so positively to everything, I’m not sure Del Rey—an imprint responsible for a significant number of my most formative reading experiences via Piers Anthony, Stephen R. Donaldson, Terry Brooks, and many more—would have taken a chance on an unproven writer of prose (no matter how clever the cliffhanger at the end of my sample chapters).

And finally, thanks to my mom and dad for putting up with a kid whose nose was always buried in a book, to my wife, Isabel, for dealing with a husband whose face is far too often stuck in front of a computer, and to Ruby and Chelsea for lighting the way.