THRALL

ARTHUR, you have a new reward waiting for you!

Rewards [2]

Museum of Death Voucher 25% off…[redeemed]

Invitation to ALLIUM [new!]

You said you can keep a secret. Wanna keep ours?

CLICK TO ENTER FREELY

Google Hangouts

5:17 PM

Arthur Quincey

Hey, V, have you by any chance looked at your Thrall app lately?

A. Van Helsing

No, I was under the impression my need for it was in the past.

Arthur Quincey

Definitely but…if you have it handy, can you check and see if you got an invite to download an app called Allium?

It would be under the "reward" tab where we got that Museum of Death voucher

A. Van Helsing

Yes, one minute.

No, I don't have anything in mine except an invitation to make more exciting romantic connections with other local singles. Do I need other local singles, Arthur?

Arthur Quincey

You 100% do not

No singles, local or otherwise

A. Van Helsing

You know I am comforted by data.

Arthur Quincey

But this is weird. It's like… "You said you can keep a secret. Wanna keep ours?"

Remember when we were on our app-date and it asked that? I know we both said yes so it's just strange that you didn't get it

I want to ignore it, but…

A. Van Helsing

Is this some kind of…dating or sex game?

Arthur Quincey

I saw a notif on the app and I saw it there, and it's strange. Lots of apps include in-app advertisements for other apps, but this doesn’t look like an advertisement. It looks like a personalized invitation. Except the style looks totally different than Thrall. I'm going to click yes and see what happens.

And then tell you, thereby ruining the whole point, but I'm curious.

A. Van Helsing

It isn't as if the application will know that you told me, is it?

Wait, it can't really do that, can it?

Arthur Quincey

I really want to tell you yes

But no :)

Holy shit, Van

A. Van Helsing

What?

Arthur Quincey

HOLY SHIT

Wait, let me screenshot it for you

A. Van Helsing

I…don't know what this means. It's so small I can't read it.

Arthur Quincey

V, click on it to enlarge it

:)

A. Van Helsing

Ah, I see.

[screenshot]

ALLIUM

[garlic icon]

ARE YOU GAME?

JAY INGRAM—FOUND DEAD IN 2011, EXSANGUINATED

ROSEMARY BECK—FOUND DEAD in 1998, MULTIPLE FRACTURES

OLIVIA ROBERTSON—LEFT HOME IN 2006 AND PRESUMED DEAD

FOLLOW THE CLUES TO FIND THE KILLER! ONLY ONE CAN WIN THE GAME AND RECEIVE A REWARD!

ENTER, WON’T YOU…

A. Van Helsing

These are…aren't these the names?

Arthur Quincey

YES

It’s a damn GAME.

Jesus, Harker was playing the game this whole time.

A. Van Helsing

Do you really think he is just off somewhere playing this…game? Would it take him away from home?

Arthur Quincey

Yeah, this kind of game has you go to different locations to follow leads and find clues. And, as Lucy said, research was her brother's one true love. If he got sucked into trying to find the killer and it appealed to his researcher kink…

A. Van Helsing

I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense. Writing a dissertation is quite stressful. A number of scholars require distractions from it. And sometimes those distractions can…swell to take up huge amounts of time. Call them avoidance tactics. Not to mention the ways that these avoidance tactics can activate true aversion to the work itself. I had one student who trained for a marathon while writing her dissertation. She completed the marathon but abandoned her scholarly pursuits. Another student took up tatting lace, purportedly to calm himself when he would become stressed about his project. He had become so averse that he’d break out in a rash at even the mention of his project. However he did tat me some truly beautiful placemats.

Arthur Quincey

JFC why does anyone put themselves through that *screams*

But Harker seems to really love his work, right? That’s what M and L say.

A. Van Helsing

Yes, Harker has never struck me as someone who is forcing himself to pursue this work against his will.

This isn't like any game I've ever seen, though. It requires players to go places? That seems quite elaborate.

Arthur Quincey

Yeah it's…there are games like this that are created as promotion for things.

They’re basically like interactive narratives that use the real world as the playing field or platform. And then you use different kinds of media to tell the story.

But the story changes based on the player’s choices and ideas.

It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure book if you had to close the book and look up stuff in a dictionary. That make sense?

A. Van Helsing

A bit, yes.

What is the point of these games? Simply to win?

Arthur Quincey

Sure, I mean, people play them for all kinds of reasons.

Sometimes it’s just because it’s a neat idea or puzzle.

Sometimes it’s used as marketing for other media.

There was one for the show Lost, there was one for the movie AI.

It's kinda like geocaching, which I bet you'd be super into ;)

A. Van Helsing

I don't mean to be dismissive, but it seems rather…frivolous. For Harker to leave without telling his family where he was going or when he'd be back? I wouldn't have thought he'd do that.

One of my colleagues geocaches. I enjoy the word.

Arthur Quincey

Well I mean, it makes more sense than him being a serial killer, doesn't it?

A. Van Helsing

Ah, certainly, yes.

Arthur Quincey

Ok I need to show this all to Lucy stat. She is either going to be VERY relieved or VERY mad. Knowing Lucy, probably both ;)

Text Message

Arthur Quincey to Lucy Westenra

6:00 PM

Arthur: Lucy, are you at home?

Lucy: Yeah, what's up?

Arthur: I need to come see you.

Lucy: Can it wait until tomorrow, A?

I'm not really in the mood for company.

Arthur: No. It's about Harker.

Lucy: What about him

Seriously, A what about my brother

Arthur: I have some new information and you need to see it.

Lucy: I—is it—bad?

Arthur: It's not bad. It's just…it's hard to explain

on voice-to-text thing, while I’m driving okay?

I'll be there in two secs

Lucy: Okay