Rabbits(58)

“What message?”

“This one,” she said as she pulled up a screen capture on her computer. Sprawled across the forum’s home page in a bright red spray paint font was a message that read:





“Shit,” I said.

Chloe closed her computer and took a sip of my coffee (she’d finished hers a while ago).

“This is it, isn’t it?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“What Scarpio warned me about. He said if we don’t fix the game before it starts, we’re all truly fucked. What if this is just the beginning of us getting well and truly fucked?”

“Maybe,” Chloe said.

She sat there thinking for a moment.

“But…what if this is all part of it?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, false corruption of the game, people disappearing. That doesn’t feel out of line with Rabbits, does it?”

“Maybe not…but this stuff still feels different.”

“Well, didn’t you say different iterations of the game had different…vibes or something?”

“I said that?”

“During one of your sessions, you explained how each version of the game teaches you how to play it as you’re playing, like the novel Gravity’s Rainbow teaches you how to read it as you’re reading. You went on to use Pynchon’s novels to describe some clue from the sixth iteration of the game.”

This was starting to sound familiar. Maybe Chloe really had been paying attention during my information sessions.

“Jesus, I sound pretentious. I haven’t even read Gravity’s Rainbow.”

“For real?”

“I’ve tried a bunch of times. I’m saving it for the old-age home, along with Proust.”

“Sometimes you are so fucking on the nose,” Chloe said.

I smiled. She had me there.

“Still, I’m worried about the Magician,” Chloe said. “I haven’t seen him since he told us not to play the game.”

“Isn’t there anybody you can ask?”

Chloe shook her head.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” I said, doing my best to sound like I believed what I was saying. “He’s probably just out shopping for a new Asteroids cabinet or something.”

“Maybe.” Chloe nodded, but she wasn’t convinced.

I took a sip of coffee and looked out the window. Something had caught my eye—something was off—but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Next time I see him, I’m going to tag him with a fucking tracking device.”

“Good idea,” I said, and laughed.

As I was laughing, I noticed the sky darken, and felt a familiar buzzing up through the lower half of my body.

I realized what had been bothering me.

In the distance, visible across the street and towering over a section of Seattle I knew like the back of my hand, was an enormous green glass skyscraper I’d never seen before in my life.

Seattle is in a perpetual state of construction, but even though the skyline is a forest of cranes atop buildings in various stages of completion, there was no way I could have missed this thing. It was huge.

“What is it?” Chloe asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Where the hell is our server with the check?”



* * *



—

I was startled awake by my phone. I must have fallen asleep sometime after I got home from the restaurant. I stumbled around in the dark trying to track down the source of the blaring Pink Floyd song I’d chosen as my ringtone.

“Hello?”

“What the fuck, K?”

It was Chloe.

“What the fuck what?”

“You forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“What do you think?”

“This conversation is starting to feel like a test I’m failing. What’s going on?”

“Your horde of misfits is here at the arcade waiting for you.”

“Shit,” I said, jumping out of bed, “I’ll be right over.”

“Hurry up,” she said. “These animals are getting unruly.”





20


    AN ASSHOLE IN A JOURNEY T-SHIRT


“What do you know about the game?” I asked as I leaned back against a racing game by Namco (via Atari) called Pole Position, and crossed my arms.

The group was mostly composed of the usual suspects, but there were a dozen or so new faces, which was always nice to see.

“It’s a dangerous thing. They sweep this shit under the fucking rug, man, but the government knows everything.” It was a thin man in his early thirties who’d spoken. He’d grown a spotty orange goatee since I’d seen him last.

“There are rumors about deaths connected to the game, yes,” I said. “Anybody else?”

“It’s been going on for centuries.” It was Sally Berkman, our resident Advanced Dungeons & Dragons librarian. She’d been here last time, along with Orange Goatee.

“There are many who believe that’s possible,” I said.

“What do you believe?” Sally asked.