I stepped out of the transit tunnel and looked up into the dark gray sky. It wasn’t raining, but there was a pretty good chance that was about to change. I pulled my hood up against the cool briny ocean air, and hurried down toward Third Avenue.
I was running over a few of the recipes that I could pull off in my mind （I was thinking fish and pasta） when I noticed a few things in quick succession: First, I saw a black sports car—some new model of Audi maybe—run a red light, turn, and start speeding in my direction. Next, I saw Swan and her bleached-blond twins walking toward me from about fifty yards up the street. Then, as if one onrushing car and the Swan/twins situation wasn’t enough, two other cars abruptly changed direction, tires squealing, and started speeding toward me against the traffic on either side of the Audi.
Suddenly, three cars were coming straight for me.
I turned and started to run as fast as I could, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to avoid getting hit if at least one of them didn’t stop.
Just before those three cars were about to hit me or hit the brakes, a white van roared through the intersection and came to a screeching halt directly in front of them. The cars swerved out of the way like they were in a videogame, and I was left staring at the passenger-side panel door of a white van. The magnetic logo on the door read: GOLDEN SEAL CARPET CLEANING. That was the name of the company tied to the number Russell Milligan told us might belong to Hazel.
The side panel door slid open.
“Get in.”
I jumped inside and the man who’d spoken closed the sliding door behind me.
The van sped away from the intersection.
* * *
—
The interior was finished more like some kind of modern high-end camper than a carpet cleaning company’s equipment van. In fact, there was no equipment inside, just two small cream-and-teak Danish Modern sofas with a rectangular coffee table set between them.
The man who’d opened the door for me took a seat on the small sofa to my right. He had brown eyes and jet-black hair.
“I got your message,” he said, and motioned for me to take a seat across from him.
He spoke with a slight British accent and looked to be in his early forties. His ethnicity was hard to place, maybe Turkish or Italian. He was wearing a black suit, clearly tailored to fit his thin athletic frame.
“What message?” I asked.
“This one,” he said, and then pressed play on his phone. Suddenly my voice filled the car.
My name is K. I’m here with my friend Chloe. We’d like to speak to you about…well, about a lot of things, but I suppose most pressing is the fact that Alan Scarpio told me something was wrong with the game, and that I needed to help him fix it before the next iteration began. Now Scarpio’s missing and we’re not sure where to turn. Please call me back.
“Hazel?” I asked.
The man just smiled.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m supposed to drop you off,” he said as he received a text alert on his phone.
“You’re supposed to drop me off?” I echoed.
He nodded.
“Where?”
“Please excuse me for just a moment,” he said as he started composing a message to somebody.
Was I actually taking a van ride with the legendary Rabbits player known as Hazel right now? Should I ask him about Alan Scarpio? I thought about it for a moment. No. Even though he may have just saved my life, I had no way of knowing who this guy really was.
Hazel or not, Chloe was going to be so pissed that she missed this.
As I was thinking about Chloe and how mad she was going to be, I noticed something for the first time.
There was nobody driving.
I’d never been inside a driverless car before, but the ride itself didn’t feel all that different. The way the steering wheel moved reminded me of an amusement park ride. I was fully prepared to be freaked out when I’d noticed nobody was driving, but actually, I found it oddly comforting.
* * *
—
A few minutes later, the van pulled over, and the mysterious man who may have been Hazel opened the side door and stepped outside.
“This is where I leave you,” he said.
“Where are we?”
“Seattle,” he said.
“Thanks a lot.”
He smiled.
“What am I supposed to do now?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” he said as he walked around the van and peeled off the magnetic sign that read GOLDEN SEAL CARPET CLEANING.
“Who sent you?” I asked.
“You called,” he said, and then he stepped into the driver’s seat, and guided the van away from the curb and out into traffic.