Episode 104: Doglover in Hell

CARLY: (voiceover) Okay. So, before we get to the coffee shop incident from our last episode, a quick update from the police. I brought everything I had on Yumiko into the detective who had been assigned to the case, but I quickly realized that she wasn't gonna respond well to my telling her about paintings that appeared to change, discrepancies in birth certificates, and impossible photographs. So, rather than assault her with my mounting pile of strange occurrences, I asked her if they'd been able to dig up anything new on Yumiko's case.

They had nothing.

She assured me that somebody would get in touch with the family - she stressed the word "family" - if and when they found anything. She asked me to get in touch if Yumiko contacted me. I got the feeling they were stretched pretty thin resource-wise, and I still suspect that they believed she'd taken off on her own.

I knew Yumiko's brother Adam would get in touch the minute he heard anything from them, but still, I felt like I needed to remind the police about Yumiko. I wanted finding my friend to be a priority for them - it was priority number one for me.

Now, back to what happened at the end of our last episode. I entered that coffee shop believing I was there to meet Jones. It turns out, I wasn't. At least, not exactly.

I sat down and waited. And, as you heard last time, my phone's audio recorder was running. About ten minutes after I'd arrived, the twenty or so patrons in the coffee shop suddenly cleared out, very quickly. It was strange. The place was bustling, and two minutes later, silence. Even the guy behind the counter was gone, maybe to the back room, or something. I should also clarify something began interfering with my phone at this point. The audio recording became unusable static. It was really creepy.

After the people left, I got up and stepped outside to call Jones, but, like I mentioned, my phone wasn't working. That's when I saw the two figures, dressed in grey, walking toward me on the sidewalk, one on each side. I don't know how to explain it, but something didn't feel right. I can't remember if they were male or female, it was strange. The image of Harry Potter's dementors popped into my head, which wasn't good. I couldn't move. I was frozen in place. Maybe it was the situation, or the intensity of the two figures, but, well, it was weird. It didn't feel like... supernatural, or anything; it was more... deer in the headlights, with an overwhelming sense of... not fear, but... more like... inevitability.

I didn't have anywhere to go to get away from them. The whole scene reminded me more of a movie than real life. I felt like I was watching myself, standing there, waiting. At that moment, just before the two figures were about to converge on me, a dozen kids on skateboards rolled toward me in an exuberant, youthful roar of life. I'm not sure how, but they managed to pull me along with them. It all happened in a blur. A few seconds later, we'd moved at least a block down the street, and all of the kids were gone, but one. He pulled back his hoodie. He wasn't a kid. He was about five-eleven, dark hair, leather cafe racer-style motorcycle jacket over a very thin dark grey hoodie. He had deep blue eyes and a bit of stubble. He had a funny crooked tooth, but... yeah. He wasn't bad looking. At all. This is when Jones introduced himself, which you heard last episode.

He pulled me into an alley, through a doorway, down a hallway, back onto another street, and finally, onto the back of a black Honda motorcycle. Ten minutes later, we were at my place.

CARLY: Okay, so that happened.
JONES: Yeah.
CARLY: What's going on? Who were those people in grey? How did they know you called to meet me there?
JONES: Ah, well, first of all, what's going on? That's gonna take a while.
CARLY: I've got time.
JONES: I don't. At least not right now. As far as who those people were, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure they were in-game participants. There's a small chance they may have been Wardens.
CARLY: Like, the scary Wardens from Rabbits Wardens?
JONES: Yes.
CARLY: Have you ever seen a Warden?
JONES: No. Nobody has since VI.
CARLY: Are they really... dangerous?
JONES: And as to your third question, I didn't call to meet you.
CARLY: Sorry. Text.
JONES: I didn't text. I didn't set up any meeting.
CARLY: See? Your phone, your number, your text.
JONES: I told you, I was no longer using that phone.
CARLY: So what? Somebody texted me to meet them from an old number that you no longer use?
JONES: Yes. That's why I believe those two may have actually been participants. I have to believe the Wardens wouldn't interfere so... directly. At least not at this point.
CARLY: What do you mean?
JONES: If they were Wardens, we probably wouldn't be here now.
CARLY: [sighing] What the hell is going on?
JONES: What do you think? You're playing Rabbits.
CARLY: I'm not. I didn't sign up for anything.
JONES: That's not how it works.
CARLY: Well, if I am playing Rabbits - and I'm not saying I am -
JONES: Okay.
CARLY: Can I stop playing? If I want to?
JONES: Yes. But you're not going to.
CARLY: What makes you say that?
JONES: Nobody ever stops.
CARLY: What do you mean?
JONES: Are you telling me that you're really just willing to let it go? Stop searching for your missing friend?
CARLY: I didn't say I was gonna stop looking for Yumiko, only that I'm not playing some... game.
JONES: You think the two things aren't related?
CARLY: I don't know what I'm saying, but yes, I can look for Yumiko and not take part in some weird ancient alternate reality game. [A pause] Can't I?
JONES: I don't think you can. You believe you've been investigating two things: Yumiko's disappearance, and the game known as Rabbits.
CARLY: Yes.
JONES: What if those two things are one thing?
CARLY: What one thing?
JONES: The game.
CARLY: This conversation is starting to feel a bit... elliptical.
JONES: If you think this is elliptical, hang on. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
CARLY: So, if I'm playing Rabbits and I'm not saying I believe I am -
JONES: Right, but you are -
CARLY: If I'm playing the game, what can I win? Do I find Yumiko? Is she okay? Do I become a secret agent?
JONES: Maybe. I dunno.
CARLY: No idea?
JONES: If you win the game, you get a place in the Circle. The rest is just... speculation.
CARLY: That's it? What about Yumiko?
JONES: I'm not... sure.
CARLY: A place in the Circle.
JONES: That's the thing most participants care about.
CARLY: Why would I care about that?
JONES: You probably don't.
CARLY: So why play?
JONES: For Yumiko.
CARLY: That's me, but why would somebody else play?
JONES: Besides the Circle?
CARLY: Yes.
JONES: Money? A chance to become a secret agent, perhaps? The obscure notoriety?
CARLY: Right.
JONES: Because there's supposed to be an answer at the end?
CARLY: An answer to what?
JONES: An answer to everything? Life, the universe, and everything.
CARLY: Douglas Adams. [A pause] Is there really an answer?
JONES: That's the rumor.
CARLY: I heard another rumor.
JONES: Okay.
CARLY: I've heard that people die playing Rabbits.
JONES: I've heard that one, too. You've been back to see the police.
CARLY: How do you know that?
JONES: Did they tell you anything new?
CARLY: No.
JONES: Did they tell you that other people have been disappearing after watching strange videos or chatting with strangers online?
CARLY: No... What are you talking about?
JONES: There's been chatter. About a bunch of different disappearances all over the world.
CARLY: What chatter, I haven't heard anything.
JONES: Well, you're... you're not exactly... plugged into the types of places you hear that kind of chatter.
CARLY: Is there any connection to Yumiko?
JONES: I believe there is.
CARLY: Do the authorities believe these disappearances are connected?
JONES: No chance. They're too spread out, too disparate.
CARLY: What makes you think they're connected?
JONES: I believe that these people disappeared under similar circumstances to your friend: strange vidoes, hidden clues -
CARLY: Strangers who appear in real life after somehow remotely installing a chat app on your computer?
JONES: I'm on your side.
CARLY: Yeah?
JONES: Yeah.
CARLY: Okay. So do people all over the world normally disappear while playing the game?
JONES: Normally? Not like this. No.
CARLY: How did you know I'd be at that coffee shop?
JONES: I had somebody keeping an eye on you.
CARLY: What? Why?
JONES: They noticed somebody following you.
CARLY: They just... noticed?
JONES: Yes.
CARLY: Who was following me? Those skateboard kids?
JONES: One of them, yes.
CARLY: Is anybody following us now?
JONES: No.
CARLY: Does that mean we're safe? [A pause] Jones?

[Advertising break]

CARLY: (voiceover) We ordered some Thai food and shared a six-pack. I suddenly realized just how alone I'd been feeling since Yumiko's disappearance. It was nice to have an... I don't know what to call Jones. We spoke about a lot of stuff, mostly unrelated to Rabbits, which was nice, but of course, things eventually came back around to that subject.

CARLY: I've heard that Alan Scarpio won money playing an underground game. He came to prominence around 1988, which, if this is true and he was playing Rabbits, that would make him...
JONES: Californiac.
CARLY: Yeah.
JONES: It's understood in certain circles that Alan Scarpio is Californiac.
CARLY: You know for sure?
JONES: Nobody knows any of the winners' identities for certain.
CARLY: Why are people convinced Alan Scarpio is Californiac?
JONES: Because when he drinks, he likes to talk.
CARLY: Oh.
JONES: Seems likely that the winners of Rabbits receive some type of employment, or financial... or other form of compensation, but it's all just speculation and hearsay.
CARLY: If the rumors are true, and Alan Scarpio is Californiac, there must have been a significant amount of... compensation.
JONES: If the rumors are true, then yes. Probably was.
CARLY: So, okay. Are we safe here? Are they gonna come after me again?
JONES: If they'd known you lived here, they probably would have met you here. They must have seen you at that coffee shop at some point, I don't know.
CARLY: I've been there a few times.
JONES: That's probably how they found you.
CARLY: So... what now?
JONES: Now? We go see The Magician.
CARLY: The Magician.
JONES: Yeah.
CARLY: ...Great.

CARLY: (voiceover) The Magician had a space in the back of an old brick building in the Capitol Hill area. It was part dive bar, part old video arcade. I'd actually been here before, to play video games. This place is a popular hipster bar on the weekends, lineups around the block. They have some of my favorite games, although most of them aren't working half the time.

As we walked through the bar, I noticed two of the games that were working at the moment: Robotron 2084 and Missile Command. Even now, in this situation, I wanted to stop and play. What can I say? I love arcade games.

Jones lead us through the arcade proper to a back room. He knocked three times on the door. It opened, seemingly on its own, and revealed a large rec room-style wood paneled room with more video games, and two pinball machines, Pinbot and Centaur. A young woman in aviator goggles stood on the other side of the door. Her name was Scarlet. She was about four foot nine with a cute button nose and green hair. Tangerine Dream-y synth music played through and early generation iPod. There was an extremely tall, thin man in a light blue suede jacket, hunched over a console against the back wall. He was playing Space Ace, a Don Bluth animated game from the 80s. I was more into Dragon Slayer, but I'd played them both. My brother had a Laserdisc special edition. I'd never seen an actual Dragon Slayer or Space Ace stand-up cabinet until this moment. It was cool.

There were a few other games there as well: Asteroids, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - which was another game I'd never seen before, and Tron. I loved Tron.

We sat there for five minutes or so, as The Magician finished his game. Scarlet handed me a signed release form. I pressed record, and The Magician turned to face me. His eyes were sunken and coal-black. His teeth, the color of yellow muck. But he had a shine about him, a way of... almost sparkling as he talked. And he talked. A lot.

JONES: We need to know what's going on with the game.
MAGICIAN: You need, you need, you need.
JONES: Please.
MAGICIAN: [To Carly] And what do you need, my dear?
CARLY: What he said.
MAGICIAN: What do you know about chaos theory?
CARLY: Okay, hello, my name is Carly Parker. I'm looking for my friend, Yumiko. She's gone missing.
JONES: He knows your name. And he knows about Yumiko.
CARLY: Should I just call you Mister The Magician?
MAGICIAN: What do you know about strange attractors?
CARLY: Not much.
MAGICIAN: Okay. An attractor is a set of numerical values toward which a system tends to evolve. An attractor is considered strange if it results in a fractal.
CARLY: ...Great.
MAGICIAN: A strange attractor represents the parameter space of a chaotic system, so each output of the equation becomes a parameter for the next step, or iteration. There are things; movements, flow, what the Chinese call "chi."
CARLY: Kay.
MAGICIAN: I used to design games for a living. I worked at Atari for a few years, ActiVision after that.
JONES: The Magician was involved in IV.
MAGICIAN: Let me tell it, Jones.
JONES: Is there any way to speed this up?
MAGICIAN: ...While working at Atari, I began noticing certain things, patterns. In 1976, just before they sold Atari to Warners, I found the rabbit hole. It was the game, Tank, which would eventually become the cartridge that was released as Combat.
CARLY: Yeah, I remember Combat. My brother had that game. There wasn't much to it.
MAGICIAN: The rabbit hole remained there, in the commercial version as well. It was what we now refer to as an easter egg. Programmers like Owen Rubin were known for including their initials as easter eggs were all suspected, but they all denied any involvement in the frag system doorway.
CARLY: Uh - what's that?
MAGICIAN: The doorway to IV. It was a virtual clue into a real world game. There had been whispers of Rabbits behind the scenes, but the last game had ended in 1970.
CARLY: III.
MAGICIAN: That's right. III. But IV was special. I remember my first following. I went to one of the real-world entry points and followed the instructions.
CARLY: What instructions?
MAGICIAN: I don't remember exactly, but it involved getting on the BART train, sitting beside the first man in a hat you saw, getting off when he did, and waiting at the station for a sign.
CARLY: Sounds complicated.
MAGICIAN: It's not easy to influence the undercurrents of the world.
CARLY: No. I suppose not.
MAGICIAN: I continued. I followed a man to a building, I found numbers hidden in graffiti that turned out to be longitude and latitude, I went there and found instructions to listen to a specific radio station at a specific time, and eventually, I got lost. It took me three months to find my way back in. Through a card in the back of a book in a library in Oakland, California. A few weeks later, it was over. V started up some time in 1979, but I was burned out, so I began studying rather than playing the game.
JONES: The Magician is an expert in everything related to Rabbits.
CARLY: So, you know who's playing and what's happening.
MAGICIAN: It's not that simple, I'm afraid. Nobody knows everything, at least, not at any one time. But I can usually tell you when each game started, give or take a day or a month, or in one case, a year, and I can normally tell you where it began within a marker or two. I make it my business to be aware of as many participant code names as possible, along with the most solid rumors and clues to recent markers.
CARLY: Is knowing all of these details helpful?
MAGICIAN: It can be extremely helpful. I am the first place prospective players come to find out if a game is starting, how long it's been running, if there are serious... complications.
CARLY: Complications like what?
MAGICIAN: Like patterns in motion, convergence approaching, inflection points, ignored or misjudged.
CARLY: Yeah, now I think it might be getting a little complicated.
JONES: Can we get back to now? Back to IX?
MAGICIAN: In quantum mechanics, observation can often change the reality, the state, of a photon or an electron. Does it behave like a particle? Or a wave? Well, that might depend on whether we're looking at it or not, whether we're thinking about it or not, whether hundreds of people are thinking about it or not.
CARLY: Like that book, The Secret.
MAGICIAN: Manifest energy, thought. If you think it, you can make it happen.
JONES: Okay, Oprah. Get to the point.
MAGICIAN: As you know, the iteration of Rabbits known as VIII ended in 2007.
JONES: Yes.
MAGICIAN: Since 1959, the beginning of the modern era of Rabbits, there's never been more than a four or five year gap between games.
CARLY: Okay.
MAGICIAN: It's been almost ten years. Most people believe Rabbits has been sleeping, waiting as it was before 1959. Until last year, I was one of those believers.
JONES: What happened last year?
MAGICIAN: The first stirring; hints and chatter in the deep web, strange alternate reality games, weird psychological events, missing time, missing people, missing people missing time, the usual.
CARLY: That's... the usual?
MAGICIAN: My best guess is that IX began running in early 2016. I've never had this much trouble pinning the start date down. Something is different now, something that changed near the end of VIII.
JONES: How many are playing IX?
MAGICIAN: I'm not sure.
JONES: You're not sure?
MAGICIAN: No. [A pause] This is where things get interesting.
CARLY: How so?
MAGICIAN: The game changed.
CARLY: The game... changed?
MAGICIAN: At some point near the end of VIII, it became more... aggressive. Harder to follow. It had become far less... forgiving, and there were significantly more... losses.
CARLY: Losses? Like deaths?
MAGICIAN: Deaths, yes, but there are other kinds of losses as well. Losing property, time, your mind.
CARLY: People disappearing all over the world after watching strange videos, and... other things?
MAGICIAN: Yes. Of course, with Rabbits, these types of events, these physical dangers, are always present; that's the price of admission. But nothing like this since the end of VIII. I don't know, it's as if the game has mutated, or... changed to fit the times, maybe.
JONES: Is it possible... to see Wardens involved this early?
MAGICIAN: [A pause] Nobody's seen a Warden since III, maybe VI, but certainly not since then.
JONES: ...Right.
MAGICIAN: If you're seeing Wardens, especially this early, something's wrong, something is very wrong. You need to be careful, Jones.
JONES: Maybe you're off with the start date. Maybe IX started earlier. Maybe the year before.
MAGICIAN: That's impossible. There's no way that I am that far off.
JONES: You're sure?
MAGICIAN: I'm sure. IX just started, very recently. VIII was forfeited in 2007.
CARLY: By Hazel.
MAGICIAN: That's right. There was no winner of VIII. That was the end. Until now. Do you believe you've seen Wardens? [A pause] It's important.
JONES: Maybe. I don't know.
MAGICIAN: Things are different this time. If you really want to know what's happening with IX, you need to look into what happened with VIII.
CARLY: What do you mean?
MAGICIAN: That's when things changed. If you wanna find out what happened to your friend, you should start by looking at what happened to Hazel.
CARLY: Hazel? What about Hazel?
MAGICIAN: Hazel was the best of them. For some reason Hazel just stopped.
CARLY: Stopped what?
MAGICIAN: Playing the game.
CARLY: And you think that's when things... changed somehow with Rabbits.
MAGICIAN: Something happened, yes.
CARLY: I haven't been able to find much of anything about Hazel, only that he or she was about to win the game known as VIII before, as you say, something happened.
MAGICIAN: Hazel found something, and just... disappeared. Something happened to Hazel, something... important. And now the game is different.
JONES: We should get going.
MAGICIAN: He's right.
CARLY: Is there someplace I can go to find out more about Hazel? Or the eighth version of Rabbits?
MAGICIAN: The place VIII began is here. Literally. In this room.
CARLY: Where?
MAGICIAN: The game.
CARLY: What, Rabbits?
MAGICIAN: The game I was playing when you entered.
CARLY: Space Ace.
MAGICIAN: Yes.
CARLY: Okay, can you elaborate?
MAGICIAN: It was 1994. Three years since VII had ended. Don Bluth's game was one of the first indicators that VIII had begun.
CARLY: What do you mean?
MAGICIAN: I mean, the Circle just appeared out of nowhere, replacing the tradition high score list on this machine, which was in an arcade in South Carolina at the time.
CARLY: This machine?
MAGICIAN: This exact machine.
CARLY: So the regular high score list was replaced by a list of players.
MAGICIAN: A list of winners.
CARLY: Of Rabbits.
MAGICIAN: Yes. At that time, the Circle only included I through VII. When this list appeared on this machine, it included the number VIII with a blank space where the winner's name was to eventually be filled in.
CARLY: So, players knew that the eighth iteration of Rabbits had begun.
MAGICIAN: Yes.

CARLY: (voiceover) I stepped over to the Space Ace cabinet. The name of the game was stenciled in red on the side of the cabinet in billowing smoke. There was a high score screen, which made perfect sense, of course. Pretty much all video games had a screen where the players' high scores were listed. But this high score screen wasn't exactly standard. There were nine numbers. Roman numerals. Next to the numbers there were names - but no scores.

CARLY: "I. Mickey Mouth. II. The Condor. III. AlisonCat. IV. Radio Knife. V. Carbonthing. VI. Californiac. VII. Novatrail. There's a dash after VIII, and IX is blank."
MAGICIAN: And that is the Circle.
CARLY: So these are the names of the players who won each of the games?
MAGICIAN: Yes.
CARLY: But no Hazel.
JONES: No.
MAGICIAN: You've heard of the deep web?
CARLY: Yeah.
MAGICIAN: The dark net?
CARLY: I've downloaded my share of tor browsers... probably more than my share, actually.
MAGICIAN: Have you heard of the sub net?
CARLY: ...No.
MAGICIAN: Marianas web?
CARLY: That's a myth.
MAGICIAN: Well, yes and no.
CARLY: What do you mean?
MAGICIAN: I mean, yes, there's currently no such thing as a secret place deeper than the deep web that's accessible only by quantum computers.
CARLY: Computers that don't exist yet.
MAGICIAN: Well, let's put a pin in that one.
CARLY: O...kay?
MAGICIAN: Marianas web isn't on the internet as you know it. It's on a hidden, exclusive intranet.
CARLY: So, it's small.
MAGICIAN: Yes. Very exclusive, and very secure. Their encryption makes BitCoin security coding look like the Milwaukee Public Library.
CARLY: Okay, so what does all of this mean to me?
MAGICIAN: Go here. Find out.
CARLY: Okay, but... don't I have to physically access an intranet?
MAGICIAN: There is something between an intranet and an extranet, a system that incorporates a series of wireless transmitters, a complex relay set up. Lucky for you, Seattle is a hotspot.
CARLY: ...Right.
MAGICIAN: Jones?
JONES: Yeah?
MAGICIAN: If you really did see the Wardens? We don't have much time.

[Advertising break]

CARLY: (voiceover) The Magician handed me a business card with one really long number on it, followed by a login and password combination. Back at my place, I pressed Jones for more information about the Wardens, about The Magician's warning, but he told me I should be focused on finding Yumiko, on considering the clues we had so far: the passenger pigeon, the steps to the lighthouse, and the Marigold recordings, which were sitting on his laptop, loaded and ready to play.

He put his headphones on and pressed the space bar. I pulled out The Magician's business card and typed the long number into a search engine, and suddenly I was staring at a flashing login screen. I typed in the login information from the card which was two letters: "no;" and then the password: "future." No future. Cute.

The Hazel Dossier, as the website was called, was a list of links. I clicked on the first and up popped a graphic. It was an acronym, three letters: "WTF." But the initials didn't mean the usual. In this case, the words beside the letters spelled out, "Where's the future?"

I clicked on the next link which turned out to be a screen capture from what looked like a large American bank's front page. It had been hacked. The hacker had written a message in red inside a large graphic of a scary-looking rabbit.

Some of the other links included photographs of similar images on posters taped to telephone poles, traffic light poles, and stapled onto a variety of walls in various cities all over the world.

The message from that first screen capture was brief: "I want the future we were promised, not the future we deserve. - Hazel."

The other links were filled with similar things: a diatribe about the future we were promised, something Hazel referred to as, "The Roddenberry," which details how we should be much further along the path to ending racism, sexism, homophobia, abolishing money, greed, and entitlement culture. Hazel talks at length in one section about how we ended up living in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, instead of starting down the path to the inclusive world of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek.

The last link I clicked brought up a photograph of an old painting. It was a dark red and black oil painting of an old Nazi SS officer holding a small dog while fires burned behind him in the distance. I called Jones over to have a look.

JONES: It's called "Doglover in Hell."
CARLY: You've seen it before?
JONES: Yeah. There's a lot of mythology surrounding this painting. It's almost like... an artifact of the game.
CARLY: What's special about it?
JONES: It was allegedly uncovered in 1959. It was the marker that finally confirmed the reemergence of the game.
CARLY: The version that became known as I.
JONES: Yes.
CARLY: So how did it become known as Rabbits, instead of Creepy Nazi Dog Guy?
JONES: The images of the rabbit were discovered first. The list of rules in the laundromat, and, later, other rabbits were discovered stamped on sidewalks in Brussels, Hong Kong, and Portland. This painting was kind of the final confirmation that the game had reappeared.
CARLY: So... the rabbit clues eventually lead to... this thing?
JONES: "Doglover in Hell."
CARLY: Yikes.
JONES: Do you recognize the artist?
CARLY: I don't.
JONES: It's Manet.
CARLY: Right, okay. It does look a lot like Manet. Kind of exactly like a Manet now that you mention it. But that's a century too early.
JONES: Yes. So it would appear.
CARLY: You're not trying to tell me that you believe it's genuine.
JONES: I'm not trying to tell you anything.
CARLY: In other news, they didn't have Nazis in the mid-nineteenth century.
JONES: It's an interesting painting, though, isn't it?
CARLY: It's creepy AF.
JONES: There's actually a copy of an alleged authentication session, but, of course, nobody's willing to officially go on the record.
CARLY: That's not surprising. Because it's not Manet.
JONES: You see the symbol on the officer's collar?
CARLY: The scary birds?
JONES: Yes. But these particular scary birds have an interesting design woven into their feathers. Where there are normally just three lines per wing, here they're broken up. These, along with similar broken lines in the dog's collar, here.
CARLY: So...
JONES: These lines represent a coded message.
CARLY: Coded message? What kind of code?
JONES: A Smitty code.
CARLY: What's that?
JONES: Rumor has it that Captain Carlyle Smitty Harris came up with it in Vietnam. Harris allegedly heard it from an Air Force instructor. It was based on a Polybius square.
CARLY: Like the video game?
JONES: ...No. Not at all. It's a five-by-five alphabet matrix. Each letter is communicated by tapping two numbers; the first gives you the horizontal row, the second, the veritcal.
CARLY: Sounds... complicated.
JONES: It's dead simple. But the code isn't important. It's the message that was interesting.
CARLY: What message?
JONES: Four words: "The door is open."

CARLY: (voiceover) "The door is open." Jones went on to explain how that phrase was widely considered, among students of the game, to indicate the start. Kind of like a, "Gentlemen, start your engines," thing. He seemed to believe that this phrase had been used to kick off the game for ages, from as far back as the very first Olympic games in Greece around 776 BCE.

The door is open.

Before Jones went home, wherever that might be, I wanted to make sure I found out everything he knew about what had happened to my parents. He wasn't leaving until I got everything.

CARLY: Tell me everything you know about what happened to my parents.
JONES: You know what I know.
CARLY: I don't believe you. You hinted that they were... into something. [A pause] Okay, let's start with this: Why do you have their death certificates and where did you get them?
JONES: Getting involved in the game means researching some... dark corners of the world of information.
CARLY: I'm getting that sense.
JONES: Right. Well, it used to mean ancient libraries, secret societies; real Tomb Raider-type stuff.
CARLY: And now?
JONES: Now, all that ancient stuff remains, but we also have the information superhighway to contend with.
CARLY: I get it. There's a lot of information.
JONES: Right. And sometimes the relevance of that information isn't apparent for a long time.
CARLY: What does this have to do with my parents?
JONES: Copies of your parents' death certificates were discovered in a purse in a train station in Prague in 2007. [A pause] To be more specific, they were found in the personal belongings of a woman who jumped in front of a train in that station in mid-January.
CARLY: That's impossible. My parents died on February 14 of 2007. The dates must be off.
JONES: That's what I thought. At first.
CARLY: At first? What do you mean?
JONES: The available data, which includes some video footage. It appears to corroborate that version of the story.
CARLY: Well that version is wrong.
JONES: A reporter, playing Rabbits.
CARLY: I'm sorry?
JONES: She was a reporter playing Rabbits, the woman who jumped in front of the train.
CARLY: How do you know she was playing Rabbits?
JONES: The Magician. And other research.
CARLY: Other research. Okay. Did your "other research" tell you anything else about my parents? Anything at all? [A pause] I'm serious. You promised to be open with me about everything.
JONES: There was something else, yeah.
CARLY: Something about the reporter?
JONES: I don't know yet, it's... it's unclear.
CARLY: Tell me.
JONES: Have you heard of something called The Gatewick Institute?
CARLY: No.
JONES: I found your parents' names on a sign-in document tied to a prescreening test for a study funded by The Gatewick Institute.
CARLY: What's the Gatewick Institute?
JONES: There's not a lot of information available but from what I've been able to dig up so far it looks like they were a kind of medical research organization. They funded a number of studies in the 70s and 80s.
CARLY: And you found my parents' names on some list?
JONES: A prescreening test, yeah.
CARLY: Why were you looking for my parents' names on some medical study from the 70s or 80s?
JONES: I wasn't.
CARLY: Then what were you looking for?
JONES: I was looking for my parents' names.
CARLY: Did you find them?
JONES: Yes.

CARLY: (voiceover) So, why was Jones looking into The Gatewick Institute? Well, I'll get into that next time, along with updates on Yumiko's disappearance, and the information we received from The Magician.

It's Rabbits. I'm Carly Parker. We'll be back again in two weeks. Until then, stay safe.