“Well?” Baron asked.
“Well what?” Chloe replied.
“We’re calling the number, right?”
The three of them turned to look at me.
“K?” the Magician asked.
I nodded and dialed.
Somebody picked up on the second ring.
“Hello, and thank you for calling WorGames Seattle. How may I direct your call?”
I hung up.
The call that had clearly upset Alan Scarpio shortly before he disappeared had come from WorGames.
* * *
—
WorGames was the brainchild of a man named Hawk Worricker. The following is an excerpt from an article written by Yumiko Takada for Wired magazine in 2016:
Not much is known about Hawk Worricker’s early life, although it’s generally accepted that he grew up in Washington State and moved to Southern California with his family sometime after high school.
A decade later, while at Stanford, Worricker created a computer programming language similar to COBOL that he called LEMON. Rather than sell LEMON to one of his many suitors, however, Worricker decided to give it away for free, and as a result, it’s still in use today in some smaller countries’ telecommunication devices.
In 1983, after a brief stint at Apple, Worricker, then forty-nine, founded his flagship company, WorGames. Less than a year later, after WorGames’ first titles—Warz and Tankz—had shipped, the company was profitable, and investors were clamoring to buy in. Worricker turned everyone down.
He took an enormous risk by circumventing existing distributors and selling directly to buyers, but his gamble paid off. Big time. By preserving ownership, he was able to both maximize his profits and maintain complete creative control over his games.
Despite his success, Worricker remained notoriously reclusive. He disappeared completely from the public eye not long after forming WorGames.
The following is a brief timeline of some key events in Worricker’s professional life:
1988: WorGames challenges Nintendo with Worricker’s platform game masterpiece, Dragonize Wide Open.
1990: The sequel to Dragonize Wide Open becomes the second-biggest–selling sequel in gaming history.
1993: Worricker tells his board of directors that he’s going to recharge his creative batteries by traveling the world and digging into the popular games and ancient traditions of other cultures.
1999: WorGames releases Alienation Nation, their biggest game to date. Rumors swirl around Worricker’s potential return to the United States, but WorGames refuses to confirm or deny these reports.
2001: WorGames purchases the first building of what will eventually become the company’s flagship campus in the Wedgwood neighborhood of Seattle, not far from the University of Washington. With his company now responsible for over a thousand employees, Worricker remains completely absent from public life.
2010: Hawk Worricker reportedly passes away peacefully in his home in Seattle at the age of seventy-six. If there is a funeral or memorial ceremony of any kind, those details are kept private by Worricker’s estate.
Although he was an extremely well-known figure in the world of videogames and technology, almost every single thing we know about Hawk Worricker comes to us secondhand. Very little is known about his private life. He avoided all public contact with the outside world since around 1983, and only a few photographs of Worricker are known to exist, almost all of them from his high school or college days.
In the late nineties, as a publicity stunt, a well-known technology magazine offered two hundred thousand dollars for a verified photograph of Worricker.
Many tried, but nobody was able to claim the reward.
Although Hawk Worricker himself is no longer at the helm, over the years, WorGames’ continued commitment to innovation has transformed it into one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed videogame companies in history.
* * *
—
“So Alan Scarpio spoke with somebody at WorGames before he disappeared? How does that help us?” Baron asked.
“It’s a start,” the Magician growled as he scratched his chin with his thumb.
“No matter where the call came from,” I said, “the expression on Scarpio’s face when he picked up was…well, whatever the call was about, it was clearly something serious.”
The Magician nodded. “He gets a call that clearly affects his demeanor, then he disappears. These things we know.”
“Scarpio told K that whatever’s wrong with the game needs to be fixed before the next iteration starts up,” Chloe said. “What if it’s too late?”