Rabbits

by Terry Miles

  I experienced a sudden chill. It was probably the fact that the Magician had recently opened a window. I crossed my arms to try to keep warm.

  “I was very interested in what Neuromancer had to say,” the Magician continued, “not only about the historical version of the game, but the danger surrounding the modern version as well. He came at everything from a new angle, told us he was searching for something ‘behind the game,’ something…” The Magician trailed off, seemingly lost in thought for a moment.

  “Something otherworldly?” I suggested.

  The Magician took a long drag from his cigarette and closed his eyes.

  I didn’t move. I didn’t want to do anything to startle the Magician, to make him stop talking.

  “Neuromancer believed,” the Magician said, “that if you were willing to look hard enough, you’d eventually find direct connections between the game and significant world events: wars, market collapses, assassinations, mass suicides, and many other global occurrences.”

  He fell silent again, and this time, I felt like if we didn’t keep the conversation moving, we were going to lose him.

  “But couldn’t connections to events on that scale just as easily fall into the world of conspiracy theorists and other nut jobs?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” he said as he extinguished his cigarette in a small glass jar.

  “What happened to Neuromancer?” Chloe asked. She clearly wasn’t ready to let this information session end either.

  “One day, just as suddenly as he appeared, he stopped posting.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “Sometime near the end of the eighth iteration of the game.”

  “Do you think this Neuromancer could have been Hazel?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so…but it’s possible, I suppose.”

  We sat there in awkward silence for a moment before we were startled by a loud ringing. The old yellow analog phone on the Magician’s desk rang once and then stopped.

  The Magician ignored the phone and walked over to an old wooden filing cabinet that stood beside the door to the bathroom. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a gray metal box. He lifted the lid of the box, removed an ancient Motorola flip phone, and dialed a number.

  I looked over at Chloe. She shrugged.

  The Magician held the phone to his ear and listened. He didn’t say a thing. After a minute or so, he hung up, put the phone back into the box, and slid it back into the drawer.

  “The Jesselman suicide has everybody freaked out,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Who’s everybody?” Chloe asked.

  The Magician ignored her question. “Eleven has started, and something is wrong.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means you have to stop,” he said.

  “Stop what?”

  “Playing the game.”

  “But it just started,” I said.

  “A significant number of players are disappearing…and worse,” the Magician said as he pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Hmmm?” the Magician replied.

  “On the phone.”

  “A friend,” he said.

  The Magician clearly wasn’t going to give us any more details.

  “What about Neuromancer? Any idea who he is…or was?” I asked.

  The Magician exhaled and pressed his fingers to his temples. “How the fuck do I know? It’s the name of a William Gibson novel. Could be anybody.”

  “How does your friend on the phone know that players are disappearing, or whatever?” Chloe asked.

  The Magician stood up and started digging through a mess of printed pages on his desk. Eventually he found what he was looking for and handed it to Chloe.

  “That is a list of people who were playing the game and then went missing. I recognize most of the names on this list. These are experienced players. Very careful people.”

  “Are you sure they’re actually missing?” Chloe asked.

  “Are you sure you want to keep asking stupid fucking questions?” he spat, his voice loud and strained.

  The Magician wasn’t himself.

  He’d always been quick to anger if you came at him with any theory or question that he deemed lazy or half-baked, and he could shut you down easily with a partially raised eyebrow or a well-placed sigh, but in all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him like this. He’d never once raised his voice with Chloe.

  “Here are some more from Germany and Canada,” he said, lifting up another printed page.

  “What do you think it means?” I asked.

  “The game has become corrupt. These people are gone. And if you two keep playing, the same thing is going to happen to you.”

  He grabbed Chloe and me by our shoulders, held us together, and did his best to focus his wild, bloodshot eyes. “From now on, the game is off-limits. You understand?”

  We nodded.

  “I have to get back to work,” he said, and with that, the Magician kicked us out of his office.

  As I was closing his office door behind us, I heard him yell out: “I mean it. No playing the game!”

  The Magician’s warning was sobering. His had been by far the most knowledgeable and encouraging voice when it came to the game.

  * * *

  —

  It was right after I’d met the Magician that my interest in Rabbits became a lifelong obsession.

  From that point forward, I did almost nothing but try to uncover the strange anomalies, patterns, and connections that might lead me into the game. I had almost as much fun uncovering secret Rabbits chat groups filled with similarly obsessed people as I had trying to figure out how to play.

  The entire experience felt like coming home.

  I’d spend days combing through clues online, talking to other players, trying to find out information about the next iteration.

  One day, shortly before the ninth iteration ended, I was out following a clue.

  I’d uncovered an anomaly in a scanned photograph of the top Billboard hits from 1979 that I’d found online. A misprint in a certain artist’s chart position led me to an independent art show in a gallery in San Francisco. At the gallery, I discovered something in one of the paintings that led me to a small theater in Portland, Oregon, where I met with a bunch of musicians who told me about a secret exclusive event—a performance that was being held at the home of the owner of a local boutique record label. There was supposed to be a clue of some kind hidden in the band’s set list, something potentially relevant to winning the current iteration of the game.

  It turned out there was no clue—at least nothing I was able to uncover at the time—but it was a really great show.

  On the way back to my hotel, however, something strange happened.

  The night was overcast and cool, the moon and stars hidden somewhere deep behind the dark gray clouds that had been threatening rain all day. I’d been going over some recent clues in my mind, trying to find a connection between a Blue Oyster Cult album, a Kundera short story, and a gas plant in northern Russia.

  As I walked through the quiet streets of an upscale residential neighborhood mulling all of this stuff over, I was struck by an overwhelming feeling that somebody was following me.

  I spun around, but nobody was there.

  I started walking a bit faster, but no matter how fast I walked, I could still feel somebody or something back there not only matching my speed, but accelerating. I turned around again.

  Nothing.

  As I continued to walk through that neighborhood, I could feel whatever it was behind me getting closer, slowly sucking the air and light out of the world as it moved.

  I felt a sudden windless chill
and turned around again.

  This time I saw something—or rather, a lack of something.

  There was a kind of darkness hanging way up in the sky—a pool of thick inky murk, blacker than the rest of the night—and it was moving toward me, slowly sinking into the world from somewhere else. I could feel its hunger. Not only did I understand that this thing was invading our physical world from someplace far away, I knew that it was coming for me specifically.

  I doubled my speed in an effort to get farther away from it, even as I told myself there was no way that thing could be real. I was simply experiencing a mental break of some kind. I just needed to relax and let it pass.

  But it didn’t pass.

  And at that point I felt something moving forward from within the swirling darkness like a wave. This wave was darker than everything around it—and I understood that, whatever this thing was, it was going to completely erase me from the world.

  I felt the temperature drop again, and a dampness filled my nostrils. It smelled like moldy grass and sludge from the shore of a rotten lake.

  I tried to run, but my feet were stuck.

  As I stood there, a wet cold entered my body from somewhere deep beneath the ground and moved slowly up my legs, eventually clouding its way into my head. I tried to call out for help, but my mouth was suddenly filled with coarse black hair that tasted like the sour musk of an oily animal from the sea.

  I tried everything to shake it off and get away, but I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place as the darkness rose up into the night sky and poured forward to devour me completely.

  Then I woke up.

  I was incredibly hungover, with no memory of how I’d made it back to the hotel.

  I suppose I probably should have have mentioned the fact that I’d consumed what one might call a shit ton of bathtub gin at the show, but what took place later wasn’t related to alcohol. No way.

  It had happened. It was real.

  And it had happened before.

  I’d experienced something similar when I played Connections with my parents, and again in the truck with Annie and Emily Connors.

  The return of what I used to call the gray feeling felt not only familiar, but strangely inevitable. It was as if my body were saying: Aha, you forgot this was something that happens to you, didn’t you?

  Well, buckle up, fucker. It’s back.

  NOTES ON THE GAME:

  MISSIVE BY HAZEL

  (AUTHENTICATED BY BLOCKCHAIN)

  A coincidence is defined as a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.

  When you move through the game, you begin to notice things that people outside it would never notice—the title of the song playing on the radio is a combination of the name of the restaurant you’re walking past followed by the name of the street you’re walking on. Or maybe you receive two wrong number calls four minutes and forty-four seconds apart. And maybe those two numbers are identical except for the area code, or maybe the numbers are completely different but the two unrelated callers have the exact same name.

  Carl Jung referred to meaningful coincidences as synchronicities.

  What if I told you that just as I was typing those words, the song “Synchronicity II” by the Police started streaming from the speakers in the random restaurant I’d chosen to sit and drink coffee in while I composed this note?

  Just because there is no apparent causal connection, doesn’t mean a connection isn’t there.

  —HAZEL 8

  17

  IT SMELLS A LITTLE BOOZY IN HERE

  A month or so after Baron’s death, Chloe and I got together to celebrate his birthday. The Magician had agreed to close for the day in Baron’s memory, so I picked up some sandwiches, a case of beer, and a bottle of Baron’s favorite Icelandic vodka and made my way over to the arcade, where Chloe and I had decided to spend the afternoon day-drinking and playing Baron’s favorite games.

  We were doing our best to follow the Magician’s edict and avoid Rabbits.

  It wasn’t all that hard. Baron’s death had left us both pretty shaken, and digging into the mystery surrounding the game didn’t feel quite as important or exciting after losing our friend.

  The Magician was supposed to meet us at the arcade for dinner, but he didn’t show. Chloe was worried. She hadn’t seen him since the night he’d demanded the two of us stop playing the game.

  We played every single pinball machine in the arcade at least once, but reserved most of our time for videogames like Galaga, Gauntlet, Joust, and Wonder Boy. It was nice to relax and spend some quality game time together. No Minister Jesselman suicide. No impossible attacks on famous actors.

  And no Rabbits.

  Halfway through the bottle of vodka, about an hour after we’d polished off a large pizza, we heard banging coming from the front door of the arcade.

  “What time is it?” Chloe asked.

  “Almost midnight.”

  “We’re closed,” Chloe yelled in the direction of the door.

  Immediately, the banging became louder and more insistent.

  “What the fuck?” Chloe said. “I’m close to my high score.”

  Chloe was in the middle of an intense game of Missile Command.

  “I’ll check it out,” I said.

  As I turned the corner, I could see that somebody was standing outside, but I couldn’t see them clearly.

  “I’m sorry, but the arcade is closed,” I yelled.

  “Please, I need to talk to you.” It was a woman’s voice. She sounded desperate.

  I slowly approached the door and leaned forward to see who it was.

  Fuck me.

  I unlocked and opened the door, and a slender redheaded woman slipped out of the rain and into the arcade. She was wearing faded blue jeans, a light gray T-shirt, and a dark blue hoodie. She brushed aside a mop of wet hair and held out her hand.

  “You don’t know me, but my name is Sidney Farrow,” she said.

  “I know you,” I replied. “I mean…I’m sorry, I’m K.” I shook her hand.

  “I wanted to stop by earlier,” she said, “but things got a bit crazy at work.”

  “Oh…okay.” I didn’t know what to say. “So what’s…going on?”

  “I’d like to talk to you about Baron.”

  “Baron? What about him?” The vodka suddenly seemed to have left my system.

  “Who the fuck is this?” Chloe threatened, suddenly beside me. The vodka clearly hadn’t left her system.

  “Chloe, this is Sidney Farrow.”

  Chloe leaned forward for a closer look. “Holy shit, it is you.”

  “She wants to talk about Baron.”

  “What? Why?”

  Sidney Farrow looked down at the mostly empty bottle of vodka in Chloe’s hand.

  Chloe followed Sidney’s eyes and then slowly extended the bottle.

  Sidney took a sip of vodka, exhaled, and shook her head. “Have you guys ever heard of a game called Rabbits?”

  I looked at Chloe.

  Was this shit really happening?

  * * *

  —

  Those of us who have spent countless hours playing her games know Sidney Farrow not only as the greatest architect of game-engine dynamics to ever work in the industry, but also as an extremely creative builder of characters and story. I’ve spent so much time living with her characters that I’ll occasionally find myself remembering situations and conversations I’ve had while playing her games more vividly than events that took place in my real life.

  Sidney Farrow was directly responsible for four of my top-five favorite gaming experiences of all time.

  And she was standing right in front of me.

  “Why are you asking about Rabbits? If you don’t mind my…asking?” I felt l
ike a complete idiot. I’d suddenly lost the ability to speak in coherent sentences.

  “Something had been bothering me about the technology WorGames was using to playtest my newest game,” Sidney said. “When I started asking questions, I felt like I was being handled.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “As soon as I started poking around, I noticed that I was being watched, very carefully, by certain people in my department. So, I decided to try another approach. I asked somebody completely unconnected to look into it.”

  “Baron,” I said.

  Sidney nodded. “I work fairly closely with his friend Valentine. She told me Baron was a fan of my games.”

  “That’s an understatement,” I said. “We’re all huge…fans.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’m so sorry about what happened to your friend. He was cool.”

  “Thank you,” I said. Chloe nodded and took a respectful sip of vodka.

  “So,” I said, “you’re interested in Rabbits because of Baron?”

  Sidney nodded and pointed at the vodka bottle. It was empty.

  “Hey, you guys wanna grab a drink somewhere?”

  I looked over at Chloe and then back to Sidney. We couldn’t possibly let Sidney Farrow leave without telling us everything she knew about what had happened with Baron.

  “We could go to K’s place,” Chloe said, pulling a wild tangle of keys from her pocket. “It’s not far.”

  “Sounds good, but maybe I should drive,” Sidney said. “It smells a little boozy in here.”

  “I hope you can drive a stick,” Chloe said, tossing Sidney the keys.

  “Of course,” Sidney replied. “I’m not some kind of monster.”

  * * *

  —

  Back at my place, Chloe opened a bottle of wine and we sat down with Sidney Farrow.

  “So, what can you tell us about what happened with Baron?” I asked.

  Sidney explained that Baron’s team had been playtesting her game using WorGames’ proprietary high-tech cutting-edge system—something called the Byzantine Game Engine. She said they’d been running the game on the new platform for about a week when one of the women on the testing team was injured. Worried her game might be responsible in some way, Sidney confronted the executive in charge and demanded to know what happened. She was told that the woman, a game tester named Mary, had experienced a minor seizure, but that WorGames had been cleared of all liability due to the fact that the woman had some kind of preexisting condition.