Rabbits(98)

“I don’t think we can.”

“Why not?”

“Aside from the fact that he’s been killing and terrorizing players, Crow’s manipulations have messed up the mechanics of Rabbits so badly that it’s pretty much impossible for anybody to even find the game right now, never mind win it.”

Emily pressed the call button on the elevator.

“Please, I have so many more questions…”

“Believe me, K, I’d love nothing more than to talk for hours. I’ve missed you—I really have—but I have to leave right now, or I won’t make it back.”

“Can’t we have a few more minutes?”

Emily checked the time on her phone. “In about thirty seconds, my manipulation is going to end, and things will go back to the way they were when you woke up this morning.”

“So what am I supposed to do now?”

“You could wish me luck,” she said.

“Why? Where are you going?”

“To kill Crow,” she said, “and try to find a way to win the game.”

And with that, Emily stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind her.

After a moment, I jumped up, opened the sliding door that led outside, and ran down the stairs to the first floor. I turned the corner and sprinted toward the elevator structure at the end of the conveyer belt. There was no way I was going to let Emily Connors out of my sight again.

I easily beat the elevator down and was standing in front of the doors when they opened. But the elevator was empty.

Emily Connors had disappeared.





29


    SO IT’S FUTILE AND POTENTIALLY DEADLY. WHAT THE HELL ELSE YOU GOT GOING ON RIGHT NOW?


The first thing I did after leaving Emily’s friend’s midcentury mansion on the lake was stop by the Fremont Troll.

He (or she) was holding a Volkswagen bug, not an Austin Mini.

A quick online search in the Uber on my way home revealed that there was still no third movie in Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, the weird skyscraper was back where it didn’t belong, and those bears were still called Berenstain and not Berenstein.

It looked like I was back in the world I’d left behind after a day spent following Emily’s series of clues and coincidences. I checked the time on my phone. I was supposed to meet Chloe at my place for dinner in half an hour.



* * *



—

“What are we cooking?” Chloe said as she entered my apartment and kicked off a pair of beat-up black-and-white checkered Vans.

“Cacio e pepe,” I said.

“Ooooh. You know I love your fancy spaghetti,” Chloe said as she reached around and kissed me on her way over to the fridge.

“Are you getting wine?” I asked.

“You know I am.”

“Good, because I think we might need it.”

She turned back to me with a concerned look. “Why? What’s up?”

“Oh, for one thing, I spent the afternoon in another dimension.”

Chloe laughed as she pulled a chilled bottle of white out of the fridge and set it down on the counter. “Well, if that’s the case, we might need more than sauvignon blanc.”

I set the wooden spoon I’d been using to stir the butter, cheese, and pepper into the pasta, and turned to face Chloe.

“What? You’re kidding, right?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I have had one fuck of a day.”

Chloe poured us each a glass of wine and sat down at the dining room table.

“Start at the beginning,” she said, “and don’t leave anything out.”

I plated our dinner, took a sip of wine, and told Chloe about my day—about Emily and everything she’d said regarding my parents, Gatewick, Meechum, Crow, that Rabbits had most likely been created to repair and maintain a much older interdimensional multiverse repair mechanism, and all the rest of it.

When I was finished, Chloe leaned back in her chair and exhaled. “Holy shit,” she said. “I don’t even wanna tell you about my day now.”

I pulled out my phone to show Chloe the photograph I’d taken of the poster advertising the music festival, and a picture I’d snapped of the Fremont Troll holding a Mini Cooper instead of a Volkswagen. Obviously, the music festival poster didn’t mean much out of context, and the troll photo could have very easily been faked, but I could tell Chloe believed me, even without further scientific examination of the evidence.

“Does this mean you have some kind of…super Gatewick powers?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think it just means I’m a little fucked-up because my parents took drugs and made me play weird games as a kid.”

“You’re not fucked-up, K. You’re complicated. Huge difference.”

“Thanks…I think.”

Chloe nodded, then topped up our glasses of wine. “So, after hearing you describe your day of wild adventures, I think there’s only one thing to do.”

“I’m listening,” I said, and folded my arms.

“We have to do what your friend Emily told you.”

“And what is that?”

“Win the game, save the world.”