Rabbits(65)
“What about the other files Baron uploaded?” Chloe asked.
Sidney picked up her phone and opened the next file.
It appeared to be a frame grab from a security camera, taken at night in a modern office building lobby. The time stamp read: 12:34 a.m.
The image was dark, but I could make out two figures moving away from the lobby entrance toward a bank of elevators. The figure farthest from the camera didn’t look familiar, but I recognized the other person immediately.
It was Alan Scarpio.
Above the video’s time stamp was a date. That security camera footage had been recorded the night Alan Scarpio met me at the arcade.
“Any idea what Scarpio was doing at WorGames?” I asked.
Sidney shook her head. “No, but the bigger question might be: What was Scarpio doing in The Tower?”
“Wait,” I said. “That footage was taken in The Tower?”
Sidney nodded.
This was starting to feel like some kind of crazy dream.
Sidney Farrow.
Alan Scarpio.
What the fuck was happening?
“Can we get up there and check it out?” Chloe asked.
“My deal gives me access to everything but The Tower. They were extremely clear about that. In retrospect, kind of terrifyingly clear.”
“And that’s what they’re doing up there?” Chloe asked. “Working on their super-high-tech game engine?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“What about the other files Baron uploaded to the WorGames folder?” I asked.
“Four more pictures,” Sidney said and handed me her phone.
They were all screen caps of that news program. The talking heads were the same two generic male and female news anchors, but the story running along the ticker at the bottom of the screen was different.
In three of the screen captures, the text was related to the hurricane story we’d seen in the first image, but the text in the fourth screen capture was different.
I zoomed in.
“Holy shit,” Chloe said. She was looking over my shoulder. “I still can’t believe this resolution.”
“What are you looking at?” Sidney asked.
“The story scroll along the bottom of the screen.”
“Looks like they’re complaining about immigration. It makes sense. This show is supposed to be a right-wing broadcast.”
“Notice the headline above that news ticker?”
“What about it?”
“Holy shit,” Chloe said, leaning forward as I zoomed in until the headline filled the screen. The headline was four words: The Door Is Open.
“What does it mean?” Sidney asked.
“It’s a key phrase in the game,” Chloe said.
“It looks like somebody at WorGames was either playing or looking into Rabbits,” I said.
“Okay.” Sidney stood up. “Fuck it. Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We’re going to visit The Tower.”
NOTES ON THE GAME:
MISSIVE BY HAZEL
(AUTHENTICATED BY BLOCKCHAIN)
The metaphor of the house.
The key to playing the game is to avoid thinking too big.
Just take a look at what’s in front of you and start to build. Eventually, you’ll discover that you’ve created a foundation you can stand on. Once you have your foundation, you’ll be able to build faster, eventually adding scaffolding, then framing, and finally, if you’ve done the work—if you’ve followed the clues in the proper order—you’ll step back and see that you’ve built an entire house.
At that point, once you’ve built your house, you’ll see so much more. At that point, you’ll discover a secret.
At that point, you’ll learn you’re actually going to have to build an entire city.
—HAZEL 8
23
THE MEECHUM RADIANTS
In 2005, decades after Hawk Worricker had disappeared completely from public life, WorGames began construction on the building that would eventually become known as The Tower.
Sidney told us there were countless rumors whispered among WorGames employees about what was “really” going on up there. Depending on who you asked, The Tower was either some kind of high-level experimental (and perhaps illegal) genetics laboratory, a corporate multinational gaming think tank, the U.S. home base for something called alternative astronomy, or a secret society so secret that nobody had ever heard of them.
The fact that there were no interior photos of The Tower available anywhere online, and Google Earth revealed nothing but a bunch of blurry rectangles, only deepened the mystery. Sidney told us she’d heard whispers that the top floor of The Tower had been sold as residential space in order to help finance the structure: Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, and William Shatner were just some of the names she’d heard connected to it.
* * *
—
We parked in the employee parking structure—which was relatively deserted on a Saturday—and made our way onto the campus proper.
Everything was top-of-the-line, from the irrigation system that took care of the exotic trees and plants, to the high-speed glass elevators gliding silently up some of the taller buildings. If it was new and exciting—and expensive—they had it at WorGames.