by Terry Miles
After I’d finished washing my hair, I stood there with the window open and listened to the sound of the rain outside as it merged with the steady splash of the water hitting the tiles. I went back over what Crow had said about my parents and the Meechum Radiants—about his army of operatives working to butterfly-effect the world—but my mind kept going back to Emily Connors. What the hell was she doing there?
Had she really been there?
Was it possible Chloe was right about what she’d said earlier?
Was I losing it?
Had I imagined the whole thing?
* * *
—
After I’d used up what had to be most of the building’s hot water supply, I dried off, slipped on my most comfortable jeans and a promotional T-shirt from a newish HBO Max sci-fi show I’d never seen, and sat down next to Chloe on the couch. She turned and smiled, and I felt my body relax. We still hadn’t spoken about our make-out session the other night.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Shit,” she said.
“What?”
Chloe jumped up and started putting on her shoes.
“You’re leaving?”
“I have to go home and get some clothes, and cover a shift at the arcade,” she said as she grabbed her hoodie and left my apartment.
A few seconds later, she came back in, ran over, and kissed me. “I’ll come by right after,” she said. “And, K?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re not going to do anything Rabbits-related for a while, okay?”
“You keep saying this.”
“I’m fucking serious this time.”
“You’re fucking serious every time.”
Chloe just stared.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“I’m not kidding. No Rabbits.”
“I’m not kidding either. I’m totally fine.”
“You passed out.”
“I’m sure it was just low blood sugar.”
“Please don’t treat me like an asshole. I’m growing kind of fond of you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m kind of fond of you too.”
“That means no Alan Scarpio, no Tabitha Henry, no Sidney Farrow—at least for a while. I mean it. Promise me.”
I nodded, and then Chloe left my apartment again, this time for real.
I meant what I’d said to Chloe. I was fond of her. In truth, I’d been crazy about her for quite a while, but I wasn’t being quite as honest when I’d agreed to avoid the game.
Rabbits had opened up something within me the night that Annie Connors died, something that needed to be fed—a hunger that would eventually lead me to the Magician’s arcade, and, finally, to playing the game myself.
I couldn’t let it go.
After Chloe left, I went online and looked up the album Crow had been listening to when I’d arrived, Song of Innocence by David Axelrod. That album had been released on Capitol Records, and the image of the record’s label I was looking at on my screen was identical to the label on the record that had been spinning on Crow’s turntable.
I hadn’t imagined it.
I’d never heard of David Axelrod before in my life, which meant that, barring some weird blocked memory from my childhood that included information about that album, what I’d experienced up there in the penthouse of The Tower wasn’t a dream or some kind of mental break.
It had happened. It was real.
Next, I looked up Emily Connors.
There was nothing. No information online about the girl I’d grown up with. No Facebook, no LinkedIn, and no White Pages.
Emily Connors was what hackers referred to as a ghost.
Crow had also mentioned Kellan Meechum, so I searched his name as well. One of the first things that popped up was an article that had been published a few months before Meechum’s death. The article was titled “Invisible Lines.”
Imagine there is an enormous fingerprint beneath the surface of the world—a web of channels or grooves or something similar. Now, imagine that by traversing, crossing, or manipulating those invisible lines in very specific ways, one is able to effect material changes in the fabric of our universe. I believe there is another level of reality—or perhaps multiple levels—and that understanding and mapping these channels or grooves—these lines that I refer to as Radiants—is the key to understanding not only those other worlds, but our own world as well.
The scientific community believed that Kellan Meechum’s later work—most of which had been focused on the existence of these Radiants—was simply the product of a man slowly losing his mental faculties. Like Nikola Tesla’s research near the end of his life where he’d claimed to have created a perpetual motion machine, nobody took Kellan Meechum or his Radiants seriously.
But I wasn’t so sure.
What if Meechum was right? What if his Radiants were the key to understanding Rabbits? What if they were the key to understanding something about my parents?
25
WHAT ELSE ARE WE GONNA DO, PLAY TETRIS?
I woke up to the sound of buzzing in my head.
I must have fallen asleep at some point while looking into Kellan Meechum and his Radiants. It was pitch-black in my bedroom.
I checked the time. It was just after five in the morning.
At first I thought the sound might be the familiar gray feeling creeping around the corners of my skull, but it wasn’t that.
It was somebody buzzing my apartment.
I pressed the talk button of my intercom. “Hello?”
No answer.
Whoever it was didn’t buzz again.
I checked my phone. Three missed calls from Chloe. There was no way I was going to be able to get back to sleep, so I decided to go for a run.
* * *
—
Morning near the water in Seattle feels primal. The breeze moving over the ocean delivers a constant salty brine that wraps around your senses like a blanket. When that scent hits, it almost always brings me back to weekends in Seattle with my parents. I can hear the voices at the market yelling over the distant roar of the waves, and I can see the ubiquitous posters advertising bands playing venues like the Off Ramp and the Showbox—local bands that would soon be filling arenas.
I ran along the seawall, doing my best to forget what had happened at WorGames, focusing my attention instead on the smells of the early morning and the sounds of my feet as they hit the wet concrete and grass. But I eventually found myself thinking about my parents. I’d always imagined the two of them up there in my mother’s office, working on ledgers and calculating expense account deductions. But what if Crow was telling the truth? What if they weren’t accountants after all? What if they were up there working on something completely different?
When I got home, I took a shower and avoided another call from Chloe.
I’d come to a decision during my run.
A stranger named Crow had painted an entirely different portrait of my parents. I needed to find a way to speak with him again, and hopefully Emily Connors as well, but before I could speak with either of them, I needed to find a way to get back up to The Tower.
I sent Sidney Farrow a text asking if she’d be able to meet me.
It was Sunday, so I suggested a brunch place that had good food but was never busy for some reason. She said she was in the office working all weekend, but I could just come by whenever.
* * *
—
I arrived at WorGames an hour or so later.
A few minutes after I’d stepped back onto the campus, I started to feel the familiar anxious humming and throbbing in the back of my head. I did my best to push that feeling out of my mind and kept walking toward the low brick building that housed Sidney Farrow’s game design tea
m.
I didn’t have time for the gray feeling. Not now.
As I made my way along the concourse, I passed a handful of WorGames staffers on their way to work. I was surprised to see so many here on a Sunday. In fact, the entire campus was alive with movement. I was passed by a bunch of people riding bikes and scooters, and there was a group of a dozen or so incredibly bendy bodies practicing morning yoga in the grass, just a few yards off the paved pathway.
As I walked past the longhaired yogi leading the session, I almost bumped into a middle-aged woman yelling and tugging on a black-and-white dog’s leash. The dog had started pooping in the middle of the wide path, and the woman was begging the dog to stop.
I smiled and slowed down as I reached the last major intersection before Sidney’s building, a four-way stop.
I ended up standing next to another WorGames staffer who was also walking a dog. This guy was in his early thirties, about five foot six with dark wavy hair and a light beard. He wore a wool hat, a green plaid jacket, and Dr. Martens boots. His dog was a Dalmatian, the same breed as the pooping dog I’d just passed.
I smiled and had just bent down to pet the dog when I noticed a strange look on the man’s face. He wasn’t moving. He just kept staring around the intersection as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. I followed his eyes and saw what he was reacting to.
There were people standing at every one of the other three stop signs.
This wasn’t surprising, as the campus was fairly busy. What was surprising, however, was that every single one of those people had a dog. And what was even more surprising was the fact that every single one of those dogs was a Dalmatian.
I felt a chill pass through my body as the gray feeling started to cloud my mind. I hurried through that intersection and quickened my pace. I had the sense that the gray feeling was pushing me forward, guiding me toward something inevitable.
I didn’t like it.
I felt exposed and alone, and I suddenly wanted to get to Sidney as soon as possible. I needed to see a friendly face.
I kept my eyes forward, focused on the path ahead, and I didn’t encounter any other dogs between that intersection and Sidney’s building.
* * *
—
About ten minutes after I’d entered the lobby area and checked in with the receptionist, Sidney Farrow stepped out of an elevator, into the lobby, and walked over to the reception area. After a brief conversation, the receptionist pointed to where I was sitting, and Sidney approached.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Sidney.”
I just stared.
“Farrow.” She held out her hand.
“Um…I’m K.”
“K? K-A-Y, or just the one letter?”
“Just the letter. I mean…it doesn’t really matter…Are you okay?”
She smiled, awkwardly. “What do you mean?”
“Are you…” I leaned in and whispered, “Am I supposed to act like I don’t know you or something?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been seeing a lot of people these days. Have we met before?”
The expression on Sidney’s face in that moment left room for two possibilities: one, she was the greatest actor in the history of the world, or two, she firmly believed that we had never met.
“I’m pretty busy today. What can I do for you?” she continued.
“Do you really not remember me? Or Chloe? Drinking wine, talking about my friend Baron?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember the two of us meeting at any point. Are you talking about Baron Corduroy?”
I nodded.
“You were friends with Baron?”
“Yeah…”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “We really miss having him on the team.”
“You don’t remember texting with me earlier this morning?”
“Definitely not, no.”
I pulled out my phone to show Sidney our text exchange, but something was wrong. There was nothing there, and Sidney’s number no longer existed as a contact. And there was something else. My phone said it was Monday. It was Sunday when I woke up and left the house. I started to sway, and stars sparkled in my peripheral vision.
“We’ve met,” I said. “We drank wine, you showed us your tattoo—House Atreides, from Dune.”
“Okay,” Sidney said. At the mention of her hidden tattoo, her tone changed completely. She lowered her voice. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, but if you don’t turn around and leave right now, I’m calling security.”
“My name is K. You came to the arcade because of something that happened with Baron, because of the Byzantine Game Engine.”
Sidney pulled out her phone and started dialing.
“Please,” I said. “I really need to get back up to The Tower.”
Sidney spoke into her phone. “Albert, I need you in the lobby immediately.”
I turned away from Sidney and hurried out of the building.
* * *
—
I stepped out into a light rain and called an Uber.
I waited around for a couple of minutes for the driver to show, but I was pretty freaked out by what had just happened, so I eventually canceled the ride and just started walking.
I walked for hours.
The rain had completely soaked my hoodie and jeans, but I just kept walking, doing my best to put one foot in front of the other, working to keep the gray feeling at bay and pushing all Rabbits-related thoughts away as quickly as they popped into my head. I couldn’t have lost an entire day. There had to be some kind of logical explanation.
It was at this point that I noticed a car following me.
A yellow Prius had been driving behind me for about ten minutes, maintaining its distance while other cars sped up and passed. I could tell it was the same car because it had a decal on the passenger-side door that featured a tree floating above the words: ASK ME ABOUT NATURE-X. I tried to get a look at whoever was inside the car, but the windows were tinted.
The person behind the wheel may have had a perfectly good reason for driving slowly, and perhaps the fact that they’d been traveling the exact same route as me was a coincidence, but just in case, I crossed the street and left the Prius at an intersection in the far lane, unable to follow. Then, to make certain they wouldn’t be able to find me again, I turned down a random alley half a block down. Unless they had some kind of drone or stealth helicopter technology, I’d definitely lost them.
* * *
—
But I saw the Prius again a few blocks later, and once again, it was following me, keeping its distance a few cars back. I thought about turning around, running up to the car and knocking on the driver’s-side window, but something about the entire situation didn’t feel right.
That’s when the floodgates finally opened, and the familiar wave of anxiety poured into my mind and body. Suddenly, I had the feeling I was walking alongside myself, my body completely untethered from my mind. In that moment, I had one thought: If I could just lose that yellow car, everything would return to normal.
I pulled out my phone to take a picture of the car’s license plate, but the rain kept interfering with the touch screen. I was eventually able to open my phone’s voice recorder application, so rather than write it down, I simply dictated the license plate number into my phone.
I walked for another block or so and then turned around. The car was still there.
After another half block, I pulled the same trick that had momentarily worked before. I left the yellow car stopped at a red light, but this time, instead of turning down a random alley, I stepped directly onto a bus that had conveniently just pulled over. There was no way they could possibly follow me now.
* * *
—
The bus was packed with
people. I paid the fare, made my way through the crowd, and found a seat near the back. I stared out at the street through the windows. The yellow Prius was nowhere to be seen. I tried to relax, but I was feeling strange.
I took a deep breath. The car was gone. Everything was fine.
So why was there an unpleasant warm buzzing feeling moving through my body? Why was my heart racing, and why were my eyes unfocused and blurry? I started running through a deep-breathing exercise as I looked around.
The bus was filled with a mix of genders, ages, races, and socioeconomic classes. I’d taken the only available seat, between two older Eastern European women who were holding at least seven Target shopping bags between them.
As I was looking around the bus, I saw a face I recognized, near the back. He was seated next to a young South Asian couple with a baby.
It was Crow.
He smiled and nodded.
I forced myself to smile back as I watched him reach up and pull the cord. A loud bell rang, and the bus pulled over at the next stop.
But instead of Crow exiting the bus, everybody else got up and walked off, leaving the two of us alone.
At that point, the bus started moving again, and Crow came over and took a seat directly across from me.
We were now the only two people on the bus except for the driver.
“Hello again,” he said.
“Hi,” I said. “I was hoping I might be able to speak with you.”
“And here we are.”
I nodded. What the fuck was happening?
“You were surprised that Sidney Farrow didn’t recognize you.”
“Yes.” I was just about to ask him how he knew that, but I stopped myself; I wasn’t sure I was ready to handle the answer.
“I have some questions about you and my parents, and I’d like to speak with Emily Connors,” I said.
“I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.”
“Why not?”
“I’m going to ask you to do something, K—but please understand that I’m not asking you to do this for me. This is for you. I’m giving you this…opportunity out of respect for your parents. If you were anyone else, this conversation would be much different.”