Scarpio waited for her to leave, then pulled out his phone and set it on the table. “What do you know about Rabbits?”
I glanced down at his phone. I thought maybe he was recording our conversation for some reason, but I couldn’t see any voice recorder app, just the date, time, and a cute dog as wallpaper—some kind of spaniel with a light blue bandana around its neck.
“Well, I mean, I know what most people interested in the game know,” I said, trying to work out the best way to answer.
“Which is what?”
I had no idea what Scarpio was fishing for here. If he was Californiac, the alleged winner of the sixth iteration of the game, he knew a lot more than I did. And if he wasn’t Californiac, well, he was still a billionaire, and if he wanted to learn about Rabbits, all he had to do was hire an expert. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know quite a bit. Among my friends and the handful of Rabbits aficionados I know, I am considered something of an authority on the game. But Alan Scarpio could afford the best—or, at the very least, somebody a fuckload better than a perpetually underemployed gamer who’d spent the last few minutes frantically tapping out a decades-old tennis match.
“You’re not worried about the warnings surrounding the game? ‘You play, you never tell?’？” Scarpio asked, repeating a section of the Prescott Competition Manifesto that I’d played earlier in the arcade.
“Of course not,” I said, although, like anyone seriously interested in the game, I’d heard rumors about all kinds of dangerous things surrounding Rabbits, including the mysterious Wardens—potentially deadly figures whose job it was to protect and maintain the integrity of the game at all costs.
“Now onward goes,” Scarpio said.
“I’m sorry?” I asked.
“Those are the first three words of the tenth canto of Dante’s Inferno. ‘Now onward goes.’？”
“Right,” I said. “？‘Now onward goes along a narrow path, between the torments and the city wall. I follow my master,’ or something like that.”
“Very good,” Scarpio said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I spent half a semester studying Dante’s Inferno. What…I mean, why—？”
“Sorry, I’ve been trying to remember that line all day.”
“Why not just look it up online?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Alan Scarpio smiled and took a sip of coffee, and that’s when I heard the strange creaking and cracking sounds. For a second I thought I saw the lights of the diner flicker in concert with the odd noises, but I couldn’t be sure.
Did talking about Rabbits somehow summon the game’s Wardens into existence? Was Scarpio’s Dante quote some kind of strange evocation?
“What is that sound?” I asked.
“The rhubarb,” he said, and pointed to his phone. “It’s so creepy. Throw a bit of reverb on it and it’s a fucking horror movie soundtrack.”
I nodded. It was definitely creepy.
Scarpio stared at me for a moment, as if he was waiting for something, then he finally smiled.
“Something’s wrong with the game,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘wrong’？”
“I’m not sure exactly, but if we don’t fix it before the next iteration begins, we’re all well and truly fucked.”
At this point, Scarpio’s phone buzzed. He looked down at the small screen. “Excuse me for one second.” He picked up his phone.
“What is it?” he asked.
I watched as most of the color slowly drained from his face.
“Are you sure? Okay, I’ll be right there,” he said and hung up.
“I gotta run,” he said, clearly flustered by the call he’d just received. “Late meeting. Do you mind walking me to my car?”
“No. I mean—”
“I’d like to keep talking for a bit as we walk, if that’s okay with you.”
If Alan Scarpio wanted to keep talking, I’d be walking until my legs gave out.
“Um, sure,” I said.
As we stepped outside, I pulled my collar up against the light rain. Scarpio didn’t seem fazed by the weather at all. He started walking up the street. I hurried to keep up.
“I’m going to tell you everything I know about what’s happening, I promise,” he said. “I just need to get a few things straight first, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Great. So let’s start with my earlier question. What do you know about Rabbits?”