“That’s right.”
“And he received a call that clearly worried him somehow, but there’s no record of that call on this phone?”
I nodded.
The Magician appeared to consider that information carefully.
It was at this point that an old yellow analog phone on the desk rang once and then stopped, the loud clipped ring echoing through the room for a few long seconds.
The Magician looked over at the phone. “I have to take that.”
“It stopped,” I said.
“I’ll be in touch,” the Magician said firmly, then carefully unhooked Scarpio’s phone from his computer, handed it back to me, and led me out of his office.
I could hear him muttering something to himself as he closed and locked the door behind me.
Chloe was sitting outside on the stairs when I stepped out of the office.
“I thought the Magician never plays the game,” I said as Chloe and I walked downstairs and into the arcade proper.
“He used to play, but not anymore,” Chloe said, slipping a quarter into a Mappy cabinet. “He just advises those who do. You know this, K.”
“I know. It just feels like he’s really into it this time.”
“Well, you did just bring him Alan Scarpio’s phone.”
“Fair point.”
I watched Chloe expertly guide her tiny pixelated mouse avatar around the screen.
“What are you gonna do now?” She asked.
“I’m going home.”
“Enjoy the cosmic thrill ride that is your life, K,” Chloe said as she cleared another screen on her game.
I covered her eyes for a second, but she somehow still managed to keep her onscreen character alive.
“I’m unstoppable.” She laughed.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “See you later.”
* * *
—
I woke up at two in the morning to the sound of buzzing.
I normally have my phone set to silent like a rational human being who needs sleep, but Alan Scarpio was suddenly orbiting my life, and there was no way I was going to risk missing anything important because of something as mundane as a good night’s sleep.
I picked up the phone in the middle of the second vibration.
“Hello?”
“Hey, K.”
“Chloe?”
“Sorry for calling so late.”
“No worries. I was up,” I lied.
“In the dark?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you don’t have any lights on.”
I sat up in bed. “Where are you?”
“Out front.”
“What are you doing?”
“I can come back tomorrow or meet you at the arcade, if it’s easier. It’s just that I was on my way home when it came to me.”
“When what came to you?”
“It’ll be way cooler if I show you.”
“Okay. Give me five minutes.”
I hung up, brushed my teeth, then pulled on a pair of light gray jersey pants. I tried on three shirts before I decided on the Red Dwarf T-shirt I’d received in the mail that morning. Red Dwarf was Chloe’s favorite television show of all time. I loved Red Dwarf as well—but to be honest, there’s a one hundred percent chance that I’d bought that shirt specifically because I knew Chloe would dig it.
“Alan Scarpio doesn’t have a dog,” she said as she rushed into my living room. “He’s allergic.”
She didn’t even glance at my shirt.
“What?” I asked.
Chloe picked up Scarpio’s phone from the coffee table. “His phone’s wallpaper features a dog.”
“So?”
“That has to be a clue.”
“Does it?”
“You have Alan Scarpio’s phone, K. He asked you to help him fix Rabbits. This is un-fucking-precedented territory.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You might be right.”
“There has to be something on here,” she said, swiping through the application screens on the phone.
Chloe was experiencing the rush that accompanied the game.
I could see it in the way her eyes were just a little wider and brighter than normal, her movements faster and less precise. We’d all felt it—the sense that the next iteration was about to begin, and that we might be about to discover a way in.
“You want something to drink? Wine or tea?” I asked.
Chloe bit her lip and made a clicking sound with her tongue. She did this when she was thinking.
“Why don’t we do tea,” she said, finally. “If there is something on the phone, we might miss it if we’re on our fourth glass of Malbec.”