Rabbits(99)

“Okay. But as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, Emily also told me that Crow has been terrorizing and killing players, and that his manipulations have messed up the mechanics of Rabbits so badly that it’s become pretty much impossible to play the game, never mind win it.”

“Sounds like a challenge to me.”

“Really? Because, to me, it sounds like a futile and potentially deadly enterprise.”

“So it’s futile and potentially deadly. What the hell else you got going on right now?”



* * *



—

We finished eating, loaded the dishwasher, then sat back down at the table.

“What if we’re not safe here?” I asked.

“In your apartment?”

I nodded. I wasn’t worried about myself. I was thinking about Chloe. Crow had made it clear. If anything happened to Chloe, it would be on me.

“You’re thinking about the Swan lady and her suicide twins?”

“Or anybody else Crow decides to send,” I said.

“If somebody was coming to get us, wouldn’t they be here already?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. What if they’re waiting to see if we start trying to play the game again?”

“Haven’t we been playing the game ever since we saw Minister Jesselman blow his brains out on live TV?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so.”

“Do you believe there’s something fucked-up going on and that our multiverse is in genuine danger?”

I thought about her question for a few seconds. Did I believe all of this was real? I was losing a lot of the details, but I knew I’d seen the movie Before Midnight. I could no longer recall much of the plot, but I remembered where we’d sat in the theater. Something was definitely happening.

“Yes, I think the multiverse might be in danger,” I said, finally.

“Well, then?”

“What I can’t believe is that it’s somehow up to you and me to fix it.”

“Let’s avoid the Chosen One bullshit and just go back to the beginning to see if there’s something we missed. And if we happen to find something, we can decide at that point whether or not to pursue it. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said.

“Great.” Chloe grabbed her laptop, I opened mine, and the two of us went back to the beginning.

We started at the arcade, then moved on to Scarpio’s phone, the attack on Jeff Goldblum, Silvana’s disappearing scar, and finally, Russell Milligan and Golden Seal Carpet Cleaning.

We didn’t find anything new, but we were surprised by the sheer volume of crazy shit we’d been through over the past couple of months.

It was after midnight by the time we shut it down. We decided we’d continue our reexamination of everything in the morning, starting with Baron’s death.

I had just copied the images Chloe had taken of Baron’s murder wall to my computer, and I was about to shut my laptop for the night, when Chloe noticed something.

“Wait,” Chloe said.

“What?”

“There.” She pointed to three Post-it notes in the middle of Baron’s wall of nonsense.

Baron had written three names: Hazel, Murmur, and The Dark Thane.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Those are three really famous Rabbits players.”

“They sure are,” I said. “Do you think that means something?”

“Why did Baron write down their names?”

“No idea.”

“And look at this,” Chloe said as she leaned closer. “Here they are again.”

Chloe had zoomed in on a small scrap of paper featuring the same three names. Only here, Hazel and The Dark Thane’s names had a line through them, and Murmur’s name was circled. “Why is Murmur circled and the other two names crossed out?”

I shook my head. “Baron wasn’t in the most…logical frame of mind. It’s probably just nonsense.”

“Maybe,” Chloe said, “but what if he was looking for help?”

“From Hazel, Murmur, and The Dark Thane?”

“Why not? They’ve all played the game at the highest level. If Baron was looking into something specific about the game, any one of those players would be a great place to start.”

“What does it say here?” Chloe zoomed in on another scrap of paper.

“Where?”

“Baron’s drawn an arrow from Murmur to this printout. It’s titled: ‘Rabbits Groups: Seattle.’ This one is circled.”

I leaned forward. “The Navidsonians?”

“House of Leaves reference?” Chloe asked.

“Probably…but you don’t really think this is some kind of clue, do you?”

“Well, K, it is some kind of clue. But what kind of clue it is sort of depends on your perspective, and maybe your attitude.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, it’s not supposed to mean anything, but what it does mean is that I think you need to get up off your ass and help me find these fucking Navidsonians so we can ask a famous Rabbits player a couple of questions.”

“You think we’re actually going to be able to find Murmur? Why not just try to track down Oprah or Bono?”