Rabbits

by Terry Miles

  I was familiar with Michio Kaku’s analogy, but if that’s the case, then the Meechum Radiants were more like a three-hundred-lane fuckmonster speedway.

  “So what you’re saying is that human beings are essentially incapable of understanding the Meechum Radiants?”

  “Most of us, yes.”

  “Most…but not all?”

  “Hawk Worricker understood, and he used that understanding to build something incredible.”

  “Rabbits.”

  Scarpio nodded and continued. “Way back in the 1940s, Alan Turing suggested that a machine shuffling ones and zeros could simulate any process of formal reasoning. Artificial intelligence grew in fits and starts, but as promising as AI was, it never came close to reaching its full potential.”

  “Okay, so what does that have to do with the game?”

  “What if I told you that Hawk Worricker had developed an advanced cloud-based quantum computing system decades before the rest of the world?”

  “You mean it’s not some kind of multiverse repair mechanism?”

  “Umm…are you messing with me?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, I don’t think it’s anything like that.”

  “So what is it?”

  “What if everything that happened to you had been already been set in motion?” Scarpio continued.

  “You’re talking about determinism?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “How is Rabbits connected to the question of free will?”

  “Let’s take that book, The Horns of Terzos, as an example.”

  “What about it?”

  “What if that particular clue had been planted decades ago?”

  “A fake book was created by the game as a clue that wouldn’t be uncovered until forty years later?”

  “No. What if a real book was created by the game because you needed to find it decades later?”

  “Shit,” I said.

  Scarpio nodded and smiled. “It’s a mindfucker, isn’t it?”

  “You’re saying it’s all the Moriarty Factor? That this Rabbits AI did everything? There are no multiple universes?”

  “I have no idea if we’re living in a multiverse or not. I was never interested in quantum physics, I’m afraid.”

  “What about the discrepancies?”

  “You’re talking about the Mandela effect? The Berenstain Bears?”

  “I’m talking about the Fremont Troll holding a Mini Cooper instead of a Volkswagen bug, a movie that used to exist but no longer does, a restaurant that closed permanently six years ago suddenly open again for business, a dead artist miraculously alive, writing and recording amazing new songs.”

  “Okay, so, based on what you’ve seen and experienced over the past few months, do you believe it’s possible that, given absolutely unlimited financial resources and imagination, a group of people could have been hired to adjust the Fremont Troll sculpture and then put it back as it was? Or to reopen a restaurant? Or to manipulate your devices to avoid delivering search results related to one film? Or even create a new album from a dead artist?”

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  “But there is another possibility.” He paused for a moment, and appeared uncertain whether he should continue.

  “What is it?”

  “As you know, the game is extremely complicated. Uncovering sophisticated patterns, reality-questioning discrepancies, and unbelievable coincidences can be exhausting. Often this exhaustion—coupled with the mental and emotional gymnastics required to move forward during gameplay—results in some players experiencing certain…”

  “What?”

  “Breaks. With reality.”

  “You think I imagined the whole thing?”

  “Not at all; I’m just describing a phenomenon. The scope and impact of the game is sometimes hard to imagine.”

  “Why did you come to visit me at the arcade that night?”

  “I was led there, by the game.”

  “You were led there? What does that mean?”

  “I was simply following the signs.”

  “Playing Rabbits?”

  He just shrugged and then grabbed something off a nearby counter and handed it to me.

  It was my phone.

  On the screen was a video taken on the floor of what appeared to be a stock exchange somewhere in Asia.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “This was running for half an hour this morning on the ticker at the Tokyo Stock Exchange.”

  It was The Circle.

  Eleven Roman numerals and ten names (there was a blank space after VIII) moved along the ticker atop the huge displays that made up the index perched high above the trading floor.

  Next to the Roman numeral XI was a one-letter name: K.

  “Is this real?” I asked.

  Scarpio nodded.

  “Are you sure I was alone when you found me?”

  He nodded. “Were you with somebody before that?”

  “Yeah, a friend of mine named Emily Connors.”

  He appeared genuinely surprised.

  “Emily Connors?”

  I nodded. “You recognize the name?”

  “I do,” he said. “A friend of mine named Emily Connors occasionally uses my lake house in Seattle, in exchange for watering the plants.”

  “Does she have a sister named Annie?” I asked.

  Scarpio shook his head. “Not anymore, but she did. Her sister died years ago.”

  “Do you have any idea where Emily Connors is now?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t spoken with her for a few weeks. I’ve tried calling, but the number I have for her is out of service.”

  Emily’s friend who owned the amazing lakeside mansion was Alan Scarpio. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “So, wait, if I won the eleventh iteration of the game…” I said.

  “You’re wondering if there’s a prize?”

  “Is there?”

  “Oh yes. There most certainly is,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  He shrugged. “Remember, we’re talking about the most sophisticated artificial intelligence system ever imagined by humankind, capable of advanced recursive self-improvement, running on a limitless quantum system. Now imagine that system had access to every single piece of information ever uploaded, scanned, or spoken near a microphone connected to a modem.”

  “Okay…”

  “The game knows your heart’s desire. Chances are you already have it, or it’s on the way.”

  “It is?”

  He smiled. “And there’s most likely money as well. I’d check your bank account if I were you.”

  “Do you know a man named Crow?”

  “Not that I can recall, no.”

  “So you never went to visit him in The Tower at WorGames?”

  I thought I saw a brief flash of recognition move across Scarpio’s face when I mentioned Crow and The Tower, but before I could press him further, there was a loud knock at the door. I jumped.

  “Come in!” Scarpio yelled.

  The front door of the house swung open and Chloe rushed inside. She jumped into my arms, wrapped her legs around my waist, and kissed me.

  Eventually, we stopped kissing, but it took a minute.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “Got a tip from a billionaire who answered your phone.” She turned to Scarpio. “Thanks.”

  He smiled. “No problem.”

  Chloe turned her attention back to me. “What the fuck happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You disappeared.”

  “You’re the one who disappeared,” I said. “I looked everywhere.”

 
“I was in there for like two minutes. When I came out you were gone.”

  I shook my head. “Either way, I’m damn happy you’re alive.”

  “Me too, weirdo. Now, do you mind telling me what the fuck is going on?”

  I handed Chloe my phone.

  She stared at the phone for a few seconds. “Is that The Circle?”

  “Sure is,” I said.

  As soon as she saw the winner of the eleventh iteration of the game, she turned to face me, her eyes huge.

  I smiled.

  “What the fuck have you been doing since I went pee?” Chloe asked.

  I laughed. It was the first genuine heartfelt laugh I’d experienced in quite a while.

  “The Magician is going to lose his mind,” Chloe said as she took a photo of my phone with her own.

  “He’s alive?” I asked.

  “He’s fine,” she said. “He said he was out of town for something personal related to his family. But it sounds fucking fishy, if you ask me.”

  “What about that Super 8 movie? We saw him torn apart.”

  “He says it definitely wasn’t him, but he’s demanding to see that thing ASAP.”

  I felt a wave of relief wash over me that quickly turned into something else. If the Magician was okay, was it somehow possible that Baron and Fatman Neil might still be alive?

  I excused myself and stepped into the bathroom.

  I ran water in the sink, sat down on the edge of the bathtub, and pulled out my phone. A quick search through social media revealed that Baron and Neil were still gone.

  I checked my bank balance. Somebody had deposited what can only be described as a ludicrous amount of money into my savings account.

  Just as I was about to put my phone back into my pocket, I received a message from a text-based mailing list of some kind. The message read as follows:

  From WorGames, the studio that brought you Missile Strike: Silo and City of Falling Glass, comes a brand-new title that’s going to redefine what it means to play a game.

  Nothing is ever going to be the same.

  Get ready to play.

  The Door Is Open by Sidney Farrow is coming soon.

  Preorder your copy today.

  I sat there on the edge of the bathtub for a moment wondering how my number ended up on that WorGames mailing list, when there was a knock on the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Who the fuck do you think? Let me in.”

  I opened the door and Chloe stepped into the room.

  “What are you doing in here?” she asked.

  “Just washing my hands,” I said and handed her my phone.

  “What’s this?”

  “Mailing list spam.”

  I watched Chloe’s eyes as she read over the article.

  “Shit,” she said. “Is this real?”

  “Looks like it,” I said, sitting back down.

  “Interesting choice for a title.”

  “Sure is,” I said. “What do you think it means?”

  “No idea,” Chloe said as she sat down next to me.

  We sat there in comfortable silence for a moment.

  “So what the hell are we supposed to do now?” I asked.

  “I guess we wait for the next iteration of Rabbits to begin.”

  “Then what?”

  “What do you think?” Chloe asked as she grabbed my hand and pulled me up. “Win the game, save the world.” She laughed, and the two of us went back into the kitchen to eat French toast.

  For Luna

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many years ago I discovered something hidden, something barely visible in the cracks, a mysterious thing that nobody was talking about. Over the years I’ve done my best to compile the pieces, decipher the whispers, decode the messages, and come up with the best way to tell you the story, the story of the game.

  This book is for those of us out there stumbling through the madness, doing our best to hang on to the magic of mystery, the rush of discovery, and a thrilling sense of wide-eyed wonder.

  Although some names have been changed, and some real-life incidents adjusted to protect certain individuals, and even though you probably found it in the fiction section, Rabbits is real.

  R U Playing?

  With thanks to my smart, tenacious, well-dressed, and remarkably cool agent, Marc Gerald, for continuing to push me to write a book, and to my editor, Anne Groell, for taking a chance on me and acquiring Rabbits for Del Rey, guiding me through a journey of narrative discovery that would result in my typing more than a million words and then helping me choose the best 120K (or so) of those words and arrange them in the (more or less) proper order.

  I must also deliver a heartfelt thank-you to those of you who have been kind enough to support my work in film and podcasting through the years. Without you continually watching, listening, and responding so positively to everything, I’m not sure Del Rey—an imprint responsible for a significant number of my most formative reading experiences via Piers Anthony, Stephen R. Donaldson, Terry Brooks, and many more—would have taken a chance on an unproven writer of prose (no matter how clever the cliffhanger at the end of my sample chapters).

  And finally, thanks to my mom and dad for putting up with a kid whose nose was always buried in a book, to my wife, Isabel, for dealing with a husband whose face is far too often stuck in front of a computer, and to Ruby and Chelsea for lighting the way.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Terry Miles is an award-winning filmmaker; creator of the Public Radio Alliance and that network’s series of hit podcasts: Tanis, Rabbits, Faerie, and The Last Movie; and co-creator of The Black Tapes. He splits his time between the dark emerald gloom of the Pacific Northwest and sunny Los Angeles.

  terrymiles.com

  publicradioalliance.com

  rabbitspodcast.com

  Twitter: @tkmiles

  Instagram: @tkmiles

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