by Terry Miles
“What is it?” I asked.
“Not sure. Looks like random pictures.”
She was right. The website was just the title and a group of seemingly unrelated photographs. Directly below the photographs was a blank input form with a send button.
“Is this legit?” I asked.
“A bunch of people on YouTube and Reddit have been trying to put together a full list of players officially involved in the last iteration of the game. This is their latest lead, but so far they haven’t been able to crack it.”
I took a look at the pictures. There was a flower in the middle of a field, some kind of old Bavarian or other German town, a looped rope, and a photograph of a smiling thirtysomething Black man holding a Canadian flag.
Apparently the Reddit folks had tried to endsource both the Web page’s form and send buttons, and then they’d put every image on that Web page through a number of queries, reverse image searches, and a process Chloe referred to as a social media combthrough, but they hadn’t been able to find any obvious link between the images.
I found it in less than a minute.
There was a connection between the photographs—but a tenuous, distant connection that most people would miss. The flower was a Collie rose. The town was located in central Thuringia, Germany: Apolda, the birthplace of the Doberman pinscher. The looped rope was a bit trickier. “Looped” is an anagram for “poodle.” The image of the man holding the Canadian flag might have been tough, but with the other clues already trending in such an obvious direction, it was easy. The man was a professional boxer named Trevor Berbick.
Boxer, collie, Doberman, poodle. The key was dogs.
We tried a few things, but in the end it was the word “canine” that led us to another Web page. That page displayed an image, what appeared to be some kind of screen capture of a list of usernames.
It didn’t feel like we were any closer to figuring out what was going on with Alan Scarpio, but it was still exciting to see the names (or pseudonyms) of official Rabbits players up there on the screen. If we hadn’t opened a door into the world of Rabbits, we might have at least lifted up the corner of a rug.
There were a few names that would have been familiar to anybody with even a passing interest in Rabbits: Intrepid23, Sadie Palomino, The Wrecking Crew, and the controversial player who had allegedly almost won both Nine and Ten—the merciless clue hunter known only as Murmur.
While I was writing all of the names from that list down in a journal so we might refer to it later, I noticed another handle I recognized: MorganaLaPhazer69.
I stared at that username for a long time, but there was no mistaking the handle and its unique spelling. I knew exactly who it was, although I couldn’t imagine him having anything to do with Rabbits.
12
DEATH AND VIDEOGAMES
“Hey, K,” Russell Milligan said, smiling up at me from behind a pair of thick black designer glasses. “What’s up?”
“Not much. Just living, I guess.”
“Aren’t we all?” he said. An impossibly high wave of thick black hair atop his head barely moved as he stood up for a quick embrace.
“Can I sit?” I asked.
He motioned to the empty chair across from him.
The day after Chloe and I had discovered Russell’s unique pseudonym on that website, I’d tracked him down to the Suzzallo Library on the University of Washington campus. He was sitting in the Reading Room—a huge Gothic hall, something right out of Harry Potter.
“When was the last time I saw you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. A long time ago, maybe at Monty’s place?”
“Yeah, Monty’s place. Wow.” He nodded, probably doing his best to remember who Monty was. I’d grown up around Russell’s younger brother, Luke, but I didn’t know Russell very well. We’d spent a grand total of a few hours together, spread out over five or six years, a hell of a long time ago.
“Yeah, so listen,” I said. “I need to ask you a question.”
“What is it?”
I lowered my voice a little. “What do you know about Rabbits?”
Russell’s face twisted up and changed before he’d even heard the last syllable. He shot out of his chair, yanked me up, and dragged me through the Reading Room, outside, and onto the front steps of the library.
“Whatever you’re doing, you need to stop,” he said, looking around nervously as he spoke.
“What do you mean?”
“The game isn’t what you think. You’re not going to get rich or become a secret agent, K.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about real people actually dying while playing.”
All of the color had drained from his face and his eyes were wild. I suddenly felt scared, exposed.
“Jesus, Russ, did something happen?”
“Look, it’s not a game—or, at least, it’s not only a game. It’s something else. Terrible shit has been happening around that thing. It took me a long time to get my life back, and I’m not getting pulled in again. It’s nice to see that you still exist, K, but please, leave me the fuck alone.”
And with that, Russell Milligan turned and made his way back into the library while I stood outside on the steps, trying to work out exactly what the hell had just happened.
* * *
—
“So, how freaked out was this guy?” Chloe asked, sitting cross-legged on my couch.
“On a scale of ‘who gives a shit’ to ‘totally freaked out,’ I’d put him somewhere just shy of ‘Scanners-style exploding head,’ ” I said, handing Chloe a cup of tea.
“Thanks,” she said.
“I don’t get it. I mean, I barely knew him, but he always seemed cool—not the kind of guy who’d lose his shit at the mention of a game.”
“He told you to stay away from Rabbits, that people had died while playing,” Chloe said.
I nodded.
Chloe took a sip of her tea, then added one more packet of sugar.
“He’s right, you know,” I said.
“About what?”
“That people have died while playing Rabbits.” I did my best to judge Chloe’s reaction to my statement. She didn’t even blink.
“People die playing all kinds of games, K.”
“Yeah, but what if this is…different?”
She stared at me for a moment. “Did you read that thing on death and videogames I sent you from VICE last year?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I sent it to you twice.”
“Maybe?”
Chloe shook her head, unimpressed. “So, that article talks about how game addiction creates the same changes in your brain as drug addiction.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. A kid actually died just this year from playing Diablo for forty hours straight without eating.”
“That’s messed up.”
“It’s fucking horrifying is what it is. I love Diablo. I’ll send you the article. Again.”
Chloe toyed with the handle of her mug for a moment before she looked up. “K…”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know somebody who died?”
I’d told Chloe that I’d been in a car accident as a kid, but I never mentioned the fact that the accident had anything to do with Rabbits.
“Yes,” I said.
“Playing the game?”
“I think so, maybe.”
“What makes you think it was Rabbits?”
“I don’t know. I’m probably just seeing connections that aren’t there,” I lied. I didn’t want to get into what had happened in that truck with the Connors sisters. I noticed my mouth was a bit dry, and I was starting to feel a familiar buzzing in my head.
I looked down at my hands and realized I’d been ta
pping out an Australian Open match between Andre Agassi and Michael Chang.
I casually slipped my hands beneath my thighs. I didn’t think Chloe noticed.
“You know Rabbits is all about connections,” Chloe said.
She could tell I was hiding something, and I got the feeling she was thinking about asking me a direct question I most likely wasn’t prepared to answer.
She put her hand on my thigh and looked into my eyes.
She was worried.
Maybe she had noticed my weird thigh-tapping ritual, after all.
13
PROPERTY OF SHIRLEY BOOTH
A couple of weeks after I’d spoken with Russell Milligan, Chloe and I met up at my place to go over everything we had so far. We invited Baron, but he didn’t show. We tried calling, but it went straight to voicemail.
“When’s the last time you heard from him?” I asked.
Chloe scrolled through the messages on her phone. “Nothing since right after he started working at WorGames.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You?”
I shook my head. “Same.”
“I’d probably go AWOL for a while if I got to spend time living in Sidney Farrow’s latest digital dreamscape.”
“Me too,” I said, “but it’s been over two weeks.” Sidney Farrow aside, I couldn’t remember going more than a couple of days without some kind of text message or phone call from Baron Corduroy.
“Should we maybe send him a towel?” Chloe suggested.
Baron knew Chloe and I used the towel meme in emergencies, so he would understand it was important.
“Let’s give him until the end of the day.”
“Sounds good,” Chloe said.
“What’s going on with the Magician?” He’d also told us he was going to look into what was happening with the game. That was close to three weeks ago.
“I don’t know,” Chloe said. “Ever since we discovered the WorGames connection on Scarpio’s phone, he’s been a bit…off.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve only seen him at the arcade once since then, and he wasn’t all that open to conversation. He just kind of wandered in muttering about a band called Toto, and then went upstairs and locked himself in his office.”
“Do you think he’s still trying to figure out what’s going on with the game?”
Chloe shrugged.
“Do you know if he ended up getting in touch with anyone at WorGames?”
“No idea. You sure got a lotta questions.”
“We need to sit down with the Magician as soon as possible.”
Chloe nodded. “Can you stop pacing? You’re making me nervous.”
“Sorry,” I said, and sat down on the couch.
Alan Scarpio had gone out of his way to tell me that something was wrong with the game—that if the next iteration started up before that something was fixed, we were well and truly fucked. Then he’d gotten a call from WorGames and vanished.
I kept picturing the look on his face while he was telling me that. He’d been smiling, speaking somewhat flippantly, but there was something behind his eyes.
Something I recognized.
Fear.
“I’ll try to pin him down,” Chloe said. “In the meantime, I think we should talk to your friend who freaked out when you mentioned Rabbits. It sounds like he might know something useful.”
“Maybe, but he made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested in talking about it.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t have me.”
I was pretty sure having Chloe tag along wouldn’t make the least bit of difference, but Russell Milligan clearly knew a lot about Rabbits, including something that had freaked him way the hell out.
“We could try,” I said, “but he’ll most likely tell us to fuck off.”
“Let’s go collect our ‘fuck off’ then.”
* * *
—
I got back in touch with Russell and he agreed to meet two hours later at a coffee shop a few blocks away from the University of Washington campus.
“Hey,” I said, sitting down across from him. “This is Chloe.”
Chloe sat down beside me and shook hands with Russell.
“Hey, Chloe. K tells me you’re looking for a UX designer?”
So, yeah, I’d kind of lied to Russell about why we wanted to meet.
“Not exactly,” Chloe said.
Russell’s face darkened a little as he realized what was happening.
“I told you to stay away from that thing,” he said as he stood up and started to leave.
“Alan Scarpio said something was wrong with the game and asked for my help,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s happening.”
Russell stopped walking and turned around.
Even though he’d clearly experienced something horrible related to the game, I could tell he was intrigued—excited, even—by the mention of Alan Scarpio. Then, just as quickly as that flash of excitement had appeared, it was gone.
He took a few steps back toward our table and lowered his voice. “What’s happening is stay away from the game if you want to stay alive.”
“Is there anything you can tell us about what’s going on? Anything at all?” Chloe asked.
“Just leave it alone. It’s nothing but trouble, I promise you.”
“Please,” I said. “It’s important.”
“You’re really not going to stop, are you?” he asked, resigned.
“I don’t think we can,” I said.
Russell looked at Chloe, then over at me.
“You could try the phone number.”
“What phone number?” I asked.
“Hazel’s phone number.”
“Hazel has a phone number?”
“Yeah, an 800 number. Like Bill Murray.”
“Bill Murray the actor?”
Russell sighed. “Bill Murray doesn’t have an agent or a manager, so the only way to get in touch with him if you want him in your movie is to track down his 800 number and leave a message.”
“You’re fucking with us,” I said.
“Nope,” he said. “That’s the rumor.”
I looked over at Chloe. She just shrugged.
“There was a Rabbits player in Bali who claimed they’d set up a meeting with Hazel using some kind of 800 number,” Russell continued. “Most people believe the number’s nothing but an unsubstantiated myth, but I heard it from a couple of sources I trust. The phone number is real.”
“Do you have the number?” I asked.
“No. I never went looking for Hazel, but I can point you in the direction of somebody who might know how to get in touch.”
“Who?”
“No offense, K, but if I give you this, do you promise I’ll never see you again?”
“I promise,” I said.
He nodded at Chloe. “You too.”
“But we just met.”
He stared at her, unimpressed.
“Fine,” Chloe said.
Russell looked at me, then Chloe, and finally back to me. After shaking his head one last time, he grabbed my phone and entered the name “Amanda Obscura” along with a number.
“Text her and tell her you’re playing,” he said, then he got up and left.
Chloe took a sip of her coffee. “Fun guy.”
Per Russell’s instructions, I sent a text message to Amanda Obscura.
I received an answer a few minutes later. It was an address and a time. The address was about twenty minutes away, and we had fifteen minutes to get there.
* * *
—
Amanda Obscura’s place was a thrift store called Bloom Vintage. I’d actually been there a few times before. They had great prices on used vinyl.<
br />
The front of the store was filled with vintage clothing, including a huge selection of genuine rock T-shirts from the seventies and eighties. The back section was a combination used-record store and junk shop. There was a sixtysomething-year-old man with thick silver hair that had been roughly pulled back into a long ponytail sitting behind the front counter reading a novel called Elf when we arrived. We told him we were there to speak with Amanda. Without looking up from his book, he pointed toward the back of the store.
We found her sitting behind a desk, working on a crossword puzzle.
“What’s an eight-letter word for ‘know-it-all’?” she asked without looking up.
Amanda Obscura appeared to be in her midthirties. She wore round pink-tinted sunglasses and a tight blue jean pantsuit from the seventies. Her untamed bleached-blond hair was wrapped up in a pink-and-blue paisley scarf.
She held a pen between her teeth as she spoke.
“ ‘Polymath’?” I suggested.
“Shit,” she said. “I messed it up.”
“I could be wrong.” I looked over at Chloe. She shrugged.
“No, yours makes more sense. I should be using a pencil.” She tossed the crossword into a nearby trash can and smiled. “What do you need?”
“We’re looking for a phone number,” I said.
Amanda smiled. “I mean, what do you need from the store?” She motioned around the room. There were dozens of bins filled with vinyl records, and the back wall was covered in floor-to-ceiling shelves of books, CDs, cassette tapes, and all kinds of old electronics.
“Oh,” Chloe said. “We don’t really need anything. We’re just looking for Hazel’s number.”
Amanda nodded and smiled, but didn’t say anything.
I could tell by her face that we were missing something.
“Well, I could certainly use some new records,” I said.
Amanda smiled yet again. “That’s great. We have a terrific selection. Just let me know if you need help finding anything.”
I ended up picking out three albums: Neil Young’s On the Beach, Let It Be by the Beatles, and Arthur by the Kinks. I took those back to Amanda, but she wasn’t quite ready to help. When Chloe added a jade necklace and a Posies concert T-shirt to the pile, Amanda walked over to the back wall and dug something out of a box on a high shelf.