Rabbits(27)

“Nothing,” Beverly said, staring at me with a new kind of respect. “Wait, is that the name of the game? Rabbits?”

The Magician turned back to me. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to offer anything else, he continued. “The game doesn’t have a name—at least, not officially—but Rabbits has become a kind of…an unofficial moniker. Something to separate it from…everything else.”

“What do you mean by ‘everything else’?” I asked.

“Everything that isn’t Rabbits.”



* * *



—

My curiosity about the game began the night of the accident with Annie and Emily Connors, but if I had to go back and pinpoint the exact moment my complete and total obsession started, it was right there, in the Magician’s office. Hearing the name Rabbits once again connected to a mysterious game felt like some kind of validation—as if that name and all of the strangeness I’d felt the last time I’d heard it wasn’t just something I’d imagined.

Ever since that night in the truck with Annie and Emily Connors, I’d been convinced that Rabbits was something I’d either made up or misremembered, but in that moment, sitting there in the Magician’s office, I felt a shift in my mind and I allowed myself to imagine something I’d never seriously considered.

Rabbits might actually be real.



* * *



—

“It’s clearly fake, some kind of bootleg copy or something,” Travis said.

“Sonic isn’t listed as a monster in the manual,” Beverly added, holding up the copy of the instruction booklet I’d printed out.

The Magician again examined the photograph Travis had taken, then sat back and sank into his chair. “I’ll need to see everything you have on this.”

“Sure,” I said. “I can bring it by sometime in the next few days.”

“What’s wrong with right now?” the Magician asked.

“Oh,” I replied. “I wasn’t expecting to—”

“If that’s okay?” he continued.

I’m not sure why, but I had the feeling this was an important moment. Was the Magician actually in a hurry to examine my copy of the game, or was he simply testing me in order to find out how interested I was in Rabbits? Was I serious or was I just a tourist?

Andrew’s interest in the game had faded when the investigation became too difficult, and Beverly and Travis would soon follow suit, but I was just getting started. I was definitely no tourist.

“I’ll be back in half an hour,” I said.

I made it back to the arcade in under twenty minutes.

I was really fucking interested.

I couldn’t wait to find out what the Magician was going to tell me about the game, but when I returned, out of breath from pedaling as fast as I could, he simply snatched the floppy disk from my hand and closed the door to his office.

I was about to knock—to ask him to give me a timeline or at least tell me something about what he had planned—when I heard a voice behind me.

“He’ll let you know if he finds anything.”

I turned around and met Chloe for the first time.



* * *



—

She was a few weeks shy of her twenty-first birthday, her hair platinum blond, shaggy-short, and choppy. She was wearing a ripped light gray suit jacket over a white T-shirt featuring a graphic of a pink cassette tape. The flashing lights of the arcade sparkled in her eyes as she half smiled and offered a cool, disinterested “Hey.”

“Hi,” I said. “I’m K.”

“Chloe,” she said, and shook my hand like she’d just survived a job interview.

“Do you work here?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” she said as she led me back downstairs to the arcade proper. “What’s your game?”

“Robotron,” I said.

“There’s a Robotron machine in the back. We’re just waiting on a new monitor.” She slipped a quarter into a pinball machine called Centaur.

“Awesome,” I said.

As I stood there watching Chloe prepare to play pinball, I felt like I needed to say something interesting, to let her know I was a kindred spirit.

“Did you know that Harry Williams created the tilt mechanism for pinball machines?” I said, and immediately regretted it.

Who could possibly give a shit?

“I did not know that,” she replied as she pulled back the plunger and launched her first ball onto the playing surface.

I watched her use her hips against the table to adjust the angle of the ball as it moved. She was good.

“So, how long have you worked in the arcade?”

“How long have you been interested in Rabbits?” she asked, ignoring my question. Chloe had a way of constantly reminding you she was going to cut through the bullshit, and that she’d appreciate if you did the same.

“I don’t know that I am interested. I’m just looking into things.”

“Really?” She was still playing her first ball. “Good luck with that,” she said as she saved the ball with a deft shake of the table, hit a difficult target, and started the game’s multi-ball feature.