by Terry Miles
* * *
—
Back down in the arcade proper, I took a closer look at the Space Ace machine. Once again, I had the urge to put a quarter in and play.
“So, this version of The Circle is from the seventh iteration?”
“Yes, it’s an important artifact. Seven was one of the most highly competitive cycles of the game.”
“So, what’s going on now? The eighth version is already over?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“When does the next cycle start?”
“When players begin discovering something we refer to as The Phrase.”
“A phrase? What phrase?”
“There’s a phrase that always precedes the beginning of the game, something that starts appearing just before the next iteration is about to begin.”
“What’s the phrase?”
“The Door Is Open.”
I felt like I’d uncovered something in the arcane mythological puzzle that was Rabbits—an access point to a world as far away from our own mundane existence as Narnia or Middle-earth. It was a world of mystery that I desperately wanted to access.
The Door Is Open.
Those were the words I’d heard coming from the radio the night of the accident with Annie and Emily Connors.
Did my hearing those words coming from the radio back then mean that a new iteration of the game had begun? And if so, was it version six? Seven?
From this point forward, Rabbits became more than an obsession. It was the first thing I thought of when I woke up in the morning, and the last thing I considered before I fell asleep at night.
Rabbits was everything.
NOTES ON THE GAME:
MISSIVE BY HAZEL
(AUTHENTICATED BY BLOCKCHAIN)
It’s commonly accepted by those interested in Rabbits lore that The Phrase and The Circle can appear anywhere in the world at any time. Before and after each iteration of the game, players from all over the globe flood underground Rabbits chat rooms with pictures and reports about finding the phrase “The Door Is Open” or what they believe is an official representation of The Circle.
There have been rumors of The Circle showing up spray-painted on the side of a building in Red Square, replacing the track listing on side two of a Wilco vinyl record in 2002, and more than one player reported seeing The Phrase listed in the end credits of an independent Canadian film that screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010—although, so far, no video or screen capture evidence has surfaced to support these alleged appearances.
No organization has ever officially addressed how or why The Phrase or The Circle appears, which isn’t all that surprising, considering the fact that no organization has ever officially acknowledged the existence of the game itself.
—HAZEL 8
10
WORGAMES
A few days after we’d brought Alan Scarpio’s phone over to the arcade, Chloe called to tell me that the Magician wanted to take another look.
When I got there, Chloe and Baron were waiting. The Magician stuck a Back in Fifteen Minutes sign on the window, locked the door, and led us up to his office.
“You said Scarpio received a call while you were sitting with him in the diner?” The Magician motioned with his fingers, and once again, I handed over Scarpio’s phone.
“Yeah,” I said, “but we checked, there’s nothing on the phone. No call log, no records of anything.”
“Right,” the Magician said, “but call logs are stored in a few places, both on the device and in the cloud.”
“We checked the cloud,” Baron said. “There’s nothing there.”
“Did you find something?” Chloe asked as the three of us watched the Magician plug Scarpio’s phone into the same laptop he’d hooked it up to before.
“The last time you were here, I checked if this phone’s data had been updated with the call he’d received while you were in the diner, but the cloud connection had been completely wiped.”
“Exactly,” Baron said. “There’s nothing there.”
“So what are you doing now?” I asked.
“Rooting the phone.”
“That’s definitely going to void the warranty,” Chloe joked.
“Apparently, this particular phone backs up call and messaging information in a database file, and that file is accessible only by rooting the phone and using a file manager application.”
“Shit,” Baron said. “That’s a great idea.”
Rooting a phone—or, more accurately, hacking it to gain root access—isn’t uncommon among people who want less “restrictive” experiences with their mobile devices. Chloe was right, however; rooting would immediately void the warranty.
It took the Magician two minutes to locate the database, and another two minutes to crack it open. Eventually, he spun the laptop around and showed us the contents of the file he’d discovered. There was one entry: the call Scarpio had received while he’d been sitting with me in the diner. That entry contained three pieces of information: the time of the call, its length, and the incoming number.
“Well?” Baron asked.
“Well what?” Chloe replied.
“We’re calling the number, right?”
The three of them turned to look at me.
“K?” the Magician asked.
I nodded and dialed.
Somebody picked up on the second ring.
“Hello, and thank you for calling WorGames Seattle. How may I direct your call?”
I hung up.
The call that had clearly upset Alan Scarpio shortly before he disappeared had come from WorGames.
* * *
—
WorGames was the brainchild of a man named Hawk Worricker. The following is an excerpt from an article written by Yumiko Takada for Wired magazine in 2016:
Not much is known about Hawk Worricker’s early life, although it’s generally accepted that he grew up in Washington State and moved to Southern California with his family sometime after high school.
A decade later, while at Stanford, Worricker created a computer programming language similar to COBOL that he called LEMON. Rather than sell LEMON to one of his many suitors, however, Worricker decided to give it away for free, and as a result, it’s still in use today in some smaller countries’ telecommunication devices.
In 1983, after a brief stint at Apple, Worricker, then forty-nine, founded his flagship company, WorGames. Less than a year later, after WorGames’ first titles—Warz and Tankz—had shipped, the company was profitable, and investors were clamoring to buy in. Worricker turned everyone down.
He took an enormous risk by circumventing existing distributors and selling directly to buyers, but his gamble paid off. Big time. By preserving ownership, he was able to both maximize his profits and maintain complete creative control over his games.
Despite his success, Worricker remained notoriously reclusive. He disappeared completely from the public eye not long after forming WorGames.
The following is a brief timeline of some key events in Worricker’s professional life:
1988: WorGames challenges Nintendo with Worricker’s platform game masterpiece, Dragonize Wide Open.
1990: The sequel to Dragonize Wide Open becomes the second-biggest–selling sequel in gaming history.
1993: Worricker tells his board of directors that he’s going to recharge his creative batteries by traveling the world and digging into the popular games and ancient traditions of other cultures.
1999: WorGames releases Alienation Nation, their biggest game to date. Rumors swirl around Worricker’s potential return to the United States, but WorGames refuses to confirm or deny these reports.
2001: WorGames purchases the first building of what will eventually become the company’s flagship
campus in the Wedgwood neighborhood of Seattle, not far from the University of Washington. With his company now responsible for over a thousand employees, Worricker remains completely absent from public life.
2010: Hawk Worricker reportedly passes away peacefully in his home in Seattle at the age of seventy-six. If there is a funeral or memorial ceremony of any kind, those details are kept private by Worricker’s estate.
Although he was an extremely well-known figure in the world of videogames and technology, almost every single thing we know about Hawk Worricker comes to us secondhand. Very little is known about his private life. He avoided all public contact with the outside world since around 1983, and only a few photographs of Worricker are known to exist, almost all of them from his high school or college days.
In the late nineties, as a publicity stunt, a well-known technology magazine offered two hundred thousand dollars for a verified photograph of Worricker.
Many tried, but nobody was able to claim the reward.
Although Hawk Worricker himself is no longer at the helm, over the years, WorGames’ continued commitment to innovation has transformed it into one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed videogame companies in history.
* * *
—
“So Alan Scarpio spoke with somebody at WorGames before he disappeared? How does that help us?” Baron asked.
“It’s a start,” the Magician growled as he scratched his chin with his thumb.
“No matter where the call came from,” I said, “the expression on Scarpio’s face when he picked up was…well, whatever the call was about, it was clearly something serious.”
The Magician nodded. “He gets a call that clearly affects his demeanor, then he disappears. These things we know.”
“Scarpio told K that whatever’s wrong with the game needs to be fixed before the next iteration starts up,” Chloe said. “What if it’s too late?”
“The game remains between iterations.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
The Magician nodded. “I’m sure.”
“So, what do we do now?” Chloe asked.
“I’ll see if I can find out more about the current state of things surrounding the game,” the Magician said, “and you keep looking into everything connected to Scarpio and his phone.”
As the Magician was speaking, I thought I saw something through the window behind him—a gray pulsing form, swirling around in the clouds.
I shook my head and looked down at the floor. Not now.
“I have a friend who works at WorGames,” Baron said. “I could ask her if she knows anything about Scarpio or whatever.”
“That’s good,” the Magician said. “Anybody else with friends over there?”
“No,” Chloe said.
“K?” the Magician asked.
I shook my head again, then looked over at the wall behind Chloe. The strange shadows had changed direction and were now swirling toward her. I took a step closer, trying to position myself between Chloe and the creeping darkness moving across the wall. She looked at me and shook her head, confused. “What?”
“Nothing,” I whispered. The shadows were suddenly gone.
“I might know a couple of people at WorGames,” the Magician said. “I’ll make some calls.” He stood up and handed back Scarpio’s phone.
Baron said he needed to go home, and Chloe was working until five. I told everyone I was going back to my place to see if I could dig up anything new on Tabitha Henry and the Jeff Goldblum attack video, but I really just wanted to sleep.
I was suddenly exhausted.
* * *
—
A green Dodge minivan sped through a busy intersection, windows down, music blasting. I recognized the song. I think it was Band of Horses, something from an album I used to listen to all the time, but I couldn’t pull the name.
A tall dark-haired woman with a miniature greyhound smiled at me as she stepped off the curb and started walking across the street, her little dog’s legs a furious blur as it hurried to keep pace.
I smiled at the dog and stepped off the curb a second later.
I could hear the Band of Horses song fading as the minivan moved away. The way the music echoed high among the skyscrapers in the distance reminded me of a soundtrack from the edge of a dream.
Suddenly, I felt a hand grab the collar of my jacket and yank me back. A split second later, a white Volvo station wagon sped through the amber light.
That car had come so close to hitting me that whoever was driving didn’t have time to honk.
I looked across the street.
The light hadn’t changed, and the woman with the greyhound hadn’t actually stepped off the curb.
She was the one who’d pulled me back onto the sidewalk and away from the oncoming station wagon.
“Thank you,” I said—and although my “thank you” was definitely genuine, it felt and sounded distant in my head, as if I were speaking through some kind of reverse megaphone from someplace far away. My voice was also clearly missing the requisite “holy shit I almost died” sense of urgency.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Her dog looked up at me, maybe wondering the same thing.
“I was thinking about something else,” I said, which wasn’t true. I couldn’t actually remember thinking about anything at all.
“You stepped in front of that car,” she said.
Did she think I just tried to kill myself?
I shook my head and forced a smile. “I was just distracted.”
“Maybe you should call someone?” she said, still slightly concerned, but clearly ready to move on with her day.
Saving my life—or, at the very least, saving me from a significant number of broken bones—would be an interesting story she’d repeat a few times throughout the day, probably adding a little extra drama each time she told it, but I could tell she was looking forward to the experience being over, especially if it turned out I actually was suicidal and was gearing up to try again.
“I’m good, thank you. Thanks so much,” I said, waving her away with a smile.
Thanks so much. I sounded like an asshole.
When the woman and her dog were safely across the street, I took a closer look at my surroundings.
Where the hell was I?
The world in front of my eyes appeared foreign, like a word I’d momentarily forgotten how to spell. I looked up at the closest street sign. I was standing on Nineteenth Avenue, directly across the street from a restaurant called The Kingfish Cafe.
Okay, this was looking familiar.
I loved The Kingfish. I often went there for lunch, but I had no idea what I was doing there at that moment.
Then the world slowly began slipping back into focus.
The last thing I remembered was standing in the Magician’s office with Chloe talking about WorGames.
I looked at the time on my phone. It was five thirty.
Somehow, I’d lost more than six hours.
* * *
—
I slipped into The Kingfish Cafe’s bathroom, splashed water on my face, and took inventory: Everything was where it should be, no scrapes or bruises. Whatever I’d done during the past six hours hadn’t involved bodily harm.
Losing time was obviously disconcerting, but the accompanying feeling of helplessness was worse. What had happened during that time? Had I done something that I was never going to remember?
Then something else hit me that was even more disturbing. The Kingfish Cafe had closed permanently in 2015.
* * *
—
“What’s up?” Chloe said, stepping past me and into the living room.
“Nothing much,” I said.
I watched as she moved around my place to s
ee if something in her expression might reveal whether I’d contacted her during the past six hours.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Like what?” I said, shutting the door to my apartment and following her into the kitchen.
“Like a weirdo,” she said as she grabbed a soda from my fridge and cracked it open.
“I don’t know. Let’s go with lack of sleep,” I said, doing my best to sound nonchalant.
She tilted her head a little. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I said I’m fine,” I snapped.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Settle TFD.”
I would have loved to have settled the fuck down, but I’d just lost six hours.
Chloe pulled out her laptop and opened a browser window. “Check it out.”
“What is it?”
Chloe pointed at her screen. “You were right. Tabitha Henry is connected to WorGames.”
“She is?”
“Yeah, through Chronicler Enterprises.”
“What is Chronicler Enterprises? Why does that sound familiar?”
“Um…because they own Tabitha Henry’s escape room company? Baron’s finance bros dug that shit up, remember?”
“Right, I remember, but why do we care what WorGames has to do with Tabitha Henry?” I asked.
“Are you serious?”
“What?” I asked.
She pulled up a bunch of legal documents and a list of shell corporations.
“K, you asked me to look into a possible Chronicler Enterprises/WorGames connection hours ago.”
“I did?”
Chloe crossed her arms and glared.
I forced a laugh, trying to sound casual. “What?”
“Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?”
I shook my head. “I’m just feeling a bit tired.”
“K…”
“Fine. I can’t remember the past six hours.”
“Oh, all right, Memento,” she said and shook her head as she looked something up on her laptop. “If you don’t wanna tell me what’s wrong, I’m not gonna push.”