Rabbits(28)

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—

It took three days for the Magician to get back in touch.

I went over to the arcade and found him playing a game called Space Ace.

Released in 1984, Space Ace was a follow-up of sorts to the much more successful Dragon’s Lair. Both games featured high-quality LaserDisc animation, and both were designed by legendary animator Don Bluth. Because those games relied on memorizing patterns, it didn’t take me more than a few days (and about twenty-five dollars in quarters) to figure out how to finish both of them.

Space Ace was the science fiction counterpart to the fantasy setting of Dragon’s Lair. Space Ace was fine, but I much preferred Dragon’s Lair. The character of Dirk the Daring was a lot more fun. He didn’t take himself too seriously.

“It’s a very interesting anomaly,” the Magician said, handing me the floppy disk I’d dropped off the last time I was there, “but I wasn’t able to find anything to connect it to the game.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said, disappointed.

I’d felt certain he was going to uncover something mysterious—maybe not proof this Sonic thing was connected to a strange and dangerous secret game running beneath the surface of our world, but I was pretty sure he’d find something.

I was about to leave when I looked over and saw Chloe watching me from the stairway the led up to the Magician’s office, and I suddenly caught the feeling that I was standing at the precipice of a whole new world. I could turn around, walk out of the arcade, and return to my regular life, already in progress, or I could do something else.

I went back over to the Magician and tapped him on the back of his shoulder.

“What can you tell me about Rabbits?” I asked.

He stopped playing the game for a moment and turned to face me.

His expression was unreadable, but I thought I detected a hint of menace beneath the surface, and I wondered—for just a moment—if I’d made a terrible mistake.

I was about to turn around and leave when he asked me a question.

“What is it that you would like to know?”

“Everything,” I blurted. Hint of menace or not, I just couldn’t help myself.

His expression softened and then he laughed as his onscreen character caught a blue baby that had just fallen from the sky.

I lowered my voice and leaned forward a little.

“Is Rabbits real?” I asked.

The Magician smiled, leaned forward a little himself and whispered. “Just wait.”

I stared at the action on the screen as the Magician continued his game.

“What are we waiting for?” I asked.

“The Circle,” he said.

“What’s The Circle?”

“It’s a list of the winners of the game, a kind of Rabbits hall of fame.”

“So people really can win the game?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“And that list of winners is here, in this Space Ace machine?”

“One particular list, yes.”

The Magician continued to guide his onscreen character flawlessly through a series of complex moves, eventually defeating the evil Commander Borf and winning the game.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, The Circle is a mystery. Nobody knows who updates it, or where to find it. It can show up anywhere in the world at any time, but it most commonly appears when the current iteration of the game ends.”

“It just appears?”

“Yes,” he said as we watched the end credits of the game scrolling up the screen.

“And that’s what happened to this Space Ace machine?”

“Wait,” he said, and we watched as the last of the credits faded away, leaving behind an animated inky blue-black background filled with glowing space clouds and twinkly little stars.

A few seconds later, a list of names and numbers appeared.

“This,” he said, pointing at the screen, “is The Circle, circa the seventh iteration of the game.”

It looked just like the regular list of high scores on any videogame, except there were Roman numerals instead of regular numbers. Those Roman numerals, seven in total, were followed by seven names.

I leaned in and took a closer look at the screen.

I: Mickie Mouth

II: The Condor

III: Alison Cat

IV: Radio Knife

V: Carbon Thing

VI: Californiac

VII: Nova Trail



As I stood there staring at that Space Ace machine, I started thinking about how difficult it would be to add something like this to the game. Unlike other titles from this period, Space Ace was played using a closed LaserDisc system. All of the information was contained on that large silver disk. There was no real programming involved.

“How did they do it?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” the Magician asked.

“How could somebody create a brand-new LaserDisc for a videogame from 1984?”

“You’ll have to ask Chloe. She knows a lot more about the technical side of it all.”

We stood there for a moment as the game rebooted and the Space Ace intro started playing on the small screen. I wanted to slip a quarter into the machine immediately; I hadn’t played that game for ages.

“This list of players just appeared on that Space Ace machine out of nowhere?” I asked.