Rabbits(66)

As we walked along the wide, polished micro-cobblestone path known colloquially among WorGames employees as Main Street, we passed a few workers—hoods and umbrellas up against the rain, headphones in against the world—but other than that, the campus was fairly quiet. We walked for a few more minutes before we rounded a corner and entered a small park. At that point, we got our first full glimpse of The Tower.

Rising up and out of the back corner of a low red-brick structure called Building A, The Tower loomed over the WorGames campus like some kind of brutalist glass-eyed sentinel. It was tall, at least twenty stories, but it was hard to tell exactly how many floors there were due to the heavily tinted windows.

As we moved closer, we could see that most of the visible bricks of both Building A and The Tower were vertical rather than horizontal, giving both structures a unique look and feel—like contemporary science fiction crossed with Antonioni-esque Italian noir.

We slowed as we approached the entrance to Building A, and I looked up at The Tower.

The way it was slightly backlit, dark and foreboding against the dusty gray sky, reminded me of the monolithic structure from my elevator dream and a sudden ominous dread came over me like a shadow slowly blocking out the sun. Perhaps sensing my discomfort, Chloe grabbed my hand, and the two of us followed Sidney inside.



* * *



—

Like all of the buildings on the WorGames campus, Building A was almost as green inside as it was out. The wide glass entryway was filled with a large collection of small trees and hanging plants.

As we entered the lobby area, Sidney smiled and waved at the lone receptionist seated behind a long polished wooden counter that ran the length of the entire room. The wall behind the counter was covered in some kind of bluish-green ivy or moss. It reminded me of the check-in counter at a high-end Las Vegas casino.

Sidney wasn’t able to access The Tower because her security clearance didn’t allow it, but she had a plan.

We were going to walk right in like we owned the place.

Sidney led us through the lobby, down a wide staircase and into a long corridor. The sound of our shoes echoed off the smooth walls and polished dark red floor as we walked.

As we approached the end of the corridor, a security guard waved at us from a nearby bench. He looked to be about sixty-five, bald, with an easy smile.

“Hey, Albert,” Sidney called out.

“Hiya, Sid.”

Visible through a series of floor-to-ceiling windows on our left was an enormous courtyard—a dense world of deep green. As we passed by, I pictured myself employed at WorGames, sitting on a bench out there, eating lunch with my co-workers, breathing in oxygen-rich air and dreaming about the worlds we’d be creating together—worlds pulled directly from Sidney Farrow’s imagination. What would my life have been like working at a place like WorGames? Would that have helped me forget about Rabbits?

It didn’t help Baron.

I was snapped out of my reverie as we left the courtyard behind us and entered what Sidney referred to as The Tower atrium.

The atrium was spacious and circular, with an incredibly high, slightly domed ceiling. The floor appeared to be made of the same dark red polished stone as the hallway, but where the hallway floor was unadorned, the floor of the atrium was covered in a mosaic of intricate, swirling designs. Those designs were centered around a specific point in the middle of the room: a small white circle located directly beneath a giant pendulum. The pendulum hung from the ceiling by a long thin wire, and at first, its slow, hypnotic movement lent the room a sense of peaceful calm, but I could feel it up there, fighting its way through the space, doing its best—against the spinning axis of the planet—to trace a perfect line in the air.

As I thought about the pendulum, struggling in vain against vast universal forces outside its control, I shivered, and couldn’t help but feel the weight of everything we were up against.

I actually did a double take to make sure the Earth was spinning in the right direction.

There were two reception desks on our left as we entered, and a number of long low wooden benches to the right. The lobby appeared to be unoccupied except for a tall black-haired woman with a narrow face standing behind the desk closest to us on the left.

“Good morning, Ms. Farrow. How can I help you?”

“We need to go upstairs,” Sidney said.

“I’m sorry?”

Sidney pointed. “We’re going up.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have security clearance to access The Tower.” I could tell by her expression that she clearly didn’t want to say no to Sidney. “I hate to do this, but is there maybe somebody you can call for additional clearance?”

Sidney ignored her and led us between the two reception desks, down a short hallway, and into a long foyer. On our right was another wall covered in ivy, on our left two sets of tall elevator doors.

Sidney walked over and pressed the call button.

Both sets of elevator doors opened, and the three of us stepped into the elevator closest to the reception area. The doors closed behind us.

Inside there were two rows of twelve buttons set beneath a wider button marked with the letters PH.

Sidney mashed every single button immediately, but none of them stayed lit.

A few seconds later, the doors opened.

We were still on the ground floor, but now the security guard was standing in front of us.