“What does it mean?” Sidney asked.
“It’s a key phrase in the game,” Chloe said.
“It looks like somebody at WorGames was either playing or looking into Rabbits,” I said.
“Okay.” Sidney stood up. “Fuck it. Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We’re going to visit The Tower.”
NOTES ON THE GAME:
MISSIVE BY HAZEL
（AUTHENTICATED BY BLOCKCHAIN）
The metaphor of the house.
The key to playing the game is to avoid thinking too big.
Just take a look at what’s in front of you and start to build. Eventually, you’ll discover that you’ve created a foundation you can stand on. Once you have your foundation, you’ll be able to build faster, eventually adding scaffolding, then framing, and finally, if you’ve done the work—if you’ve followed the clues in the proper order—you’ll step back and see that you’ve built an entire house.
At that point, once you’ve built your house, you’ll see so much more. At that point, you’ll discover a secret.
At that point, you’ll learn you’re actually going to have to build an entire city.
—HAZEL 8
23
THE MEECHUM RADIANTS
In 2005, decades after Hawk Worricker had disappeared completely from public life, WorGames began construction on the building that would eventually become known as The Tower.
Sidney told us there were countless rumors whispered among WorGames employees about what was “really” going on up there. Depending on who you asked, The Tower was either some kind of high-level experimental （and perhaps illegal） genetics laboratory, a corporate multinational gaming think tank, the U.S. home base for something called alternative astronomy, or a secret society so secret that nobody had ever heard of them.
The fact that there were no interior photos of The Tower available anywhere online, and Google Earth revealed nothing but a bunch of blurry rectangles, only deepened the mystery. Sidney told us she’d heard whispers that the top floor of The Tower had been sold as residential space in order to help finance the structure: Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, and William Shatner were just some of the names she’d heard connected to it.
* * *
—
We parked in the employee parking structure—which was relatively deserted on a Saturday—and made our way onto the campus proper.
Everything was top-of-the-line, from the irrigation system that took care of the exotic trees and plants, to the high-speed glass elevators gliding silently up some of the taller buildings. If it was new and exciting—and expensive—they had it at WorGames.
As we walked along the wide, polished micro-cobblestone path known colloquially among WorGames employees as Main Street, we passed a few workers—hoods and umbrellas up against the rain, headphones in against the world—but other than that, the campus was fairly quiet. We walked for a few more minutes before we rounded a corner and entered a small park. At that point, we got our first full glimpse of The Tower.
Rising up and out of the back corner of a low red-brick structure called Building A, The Tower loomed over the WorGames campus like some kind of brutalist glass-eyed sentinel. It was tall, at least twenty stories, but it was hard to tell exactly how many floors there were due to the heavily tinted windows.
As we moved closer, we could see that most of the visible bricks of both Building A and The Tower were vertical rather than horizontal, giving both structures a unique look and feel—like contemporary science fiction crossed with Antonioni-esque Italian noir.
We slowed as we approached the entrance to Building A, and I looked up at The Tower.
The way it was slightly backlit, dark and foreboding against the dusty gray sky, reminded me of the monolithic structure from my elevator dream and a sudden ominous dread came over me like a shadow slowly blocking out the sun. Perhaps sensing my discomfort, Chloe grabbed my hand, and the two of us followed Sidney inside.
* * *
—
Like all of the buildings on the WorGames campus, Building A was almost as green inside as it was out. The wide glass entryway was filled with a large collection of small trees and hanging plants.
As we entered the lobby area, Sidney smiled and waved at the lone receptionist seated behind a long polished wooden counter that ran the length of the entire room. The wall behind the counter was covered in some kind of bluish-green ivy or moss. It reminded me of the check-in counter at a high-end Las Vegas casino.
Sidney wasn’t able to access The Tower because her security clearance didn’t allow it, but she had a plan.