Scavenger Hunt

by Dani Lamia

“So I’m not signing either,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean this contest has to be some brutal family blood sport, like a game of Sea Farmers.”

  “I think Dad would want us to take care of each other,” says Gabriella. “He never wanted us to stop being a family, especially because of money.”

  “Very true,” says Henley.

  Angelo Marino collects the unsigned contracts.

  “Shall we move on to superpowers?” he asks.

  We all look down at our character-creation screens. I know that this is a trick. Our father always used to tell us that we didn’t need superpowers, that our superpower was the family itself. He hated comic books and adolescent power fantasies that relied on brute strength. I wonder if anybody else remembers how often he said this. I open my mouth to remind them all, but something bad in me makes me shut it again. I click “no” on the character screen and watch as the others make their decisions.

  “I got ‘invisibility,’” says Henley.

  “I got ‘the ability to open any lock,’” says Alistair.

  “I got ‘impervious to bullets,’” says Gabriella, looking worried. “There won’t be bullets, will there?” She looks at me for reassurance and I shrug my shoulders.

  Bernard leans back in his seat, smiling.

  “No superpower for me, thanks,” he says.

  “I passed too,” I pipe up.

  “Dad always said we didn’t need superpowers,” says Bernard.

  “Right,” I say, giving him a cold look.

  “What does invisibility even mean?” asks Gabriella.

  “I guess we’ll find out,” says Alistair.

  We all shift around in our seats, pouring ourselves more drinks and looking over the rule book. There isn’t much that Angelo Marino hasn’t explained already.

  “We are ahead of schedule,” says Angelo Marino. “But we can go ahead and get started if you like. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t have some extra time to complete today’s hunt, since you are all here together already.”

  “Sure,” says Bernard.

  “I have a meeting this afternoon,” I say. “So yeah, we might as well get started.”

  Angelo Marino sends out a text and all of our phones light up, vibrating and ringing at the same time. The song the phones play is the Nylo Corporation theme, a bright, trilling chime that we have used for decades in commercials to create a unified sonic brand, ideally meant to brainwash generations of children into associating Nylo with the sound of “fun” and “adventure.”

  I suppose that is what is about to happen to us now. Fun. And adventure.

  This whole game feels a little silly. Thrown together. It doesn’t have the polished obsessive professionalism of one of Dad’s signature amusements. But he didn’t plan on dying, after all. I’m sure he was going to refine this game over the years. The augmented reality technology is new and untested. We are breaking ground as gamers. It is not surprising that one of Dad’s final acts would be to use us yet again as free play testers for one of his half-good ideas.

  We all stare at our phones. After a few moments of fuzz, the screen clears, revealing a Chatroulette-style video feed. A person in a Guy Fawkes mask is leering at us in front of a green screen showing a cascade of falling cartoon gold coins.

  “Fucking seriously?” I mutter.

  “This is quite embarrassing,” says Henley.

  “Hello, gamers!” The voice has been digitally altered to make it deep and sludgy, with vaguely electronic undertones. The person behind the mask could be a man; it could be a woman. I discover very quickly that I don’t really care who it is. I am already bored by this contest and want it to be over. I try to focus on the money, on winning, on power, on control.

  “You are about to embark on an epic quest,” says the Game Master. “You will learn about yourselves and you will learn about each other. Has there ever been a game of skill and chance with higher stakes in the history of human events? Probably not, unless you consider war itself a game! Ha ha!”

  “I hate this so much already,” says Gabriella.

  “And now for your first clue, the location of your first box. Remember, the last person to find the box will lose a life and you only have until the end of the day. Are you ready? Here we go: ‘Your empire awaits atop cage 1.’ Good luck to you all! Bernard: on the roof of this building, you will find your helicopter gassed up and ready to go with a pilot hired from American Helicopters who knows nothing else and cannot help you. Henley: in the parking garage on level 1, there is a Lamborghini waiting for you. Alistair: on level 2, there is a motorbike. Caitlyn: your phone itself is now a transit pass good for any train or subway in the country. Gabriella: the day is very fine outside! I hope you enjoy walking.”

  “I can’t even take the subway?” Gabriella asks, her brows raised in shock.

  The Game Master in the Guy Fawkes mask disappears. Our phones all display the clue, hovering in pink over the image of cascading coins: “Your empire awaits atop cage 1.”

  I look around to see if anyone else has figured it out yet. I already know exactly what the answer is and where we are supposed to go. Bernard seems to be lost in thought. Henley is rubbing his temples. Gabriella looks frustrated. She is furiously scrolling on her other phone. What is she looking up? A map of the city, perhaps? Alistair is biting his lower lip, making the same expression as when he is coding.

  There is nothing in the rules that says I can’t just blurt out the answer and then we can all head out together. But I keep silent.

  “Well?” says Angelo Marino. “Any questions?”

  Nobody says anything.

  “This is so stupid,” sighs Bernard.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” says Alistair. “Excuse me.”

  We all watch him get up, cross the room, and leave. Bernard stands up and then sits back down.

  “He’s not coming back,” says Henley. “I hope you all know that.”

  Now Bernard bolts for the door. Gabriella and Henley look at each other. They both stand up at the same time.

  “I have some work to do,” I lie. “I’ll be in my office if anybody needs me.”

  11

  I stuff the T-shirt and rule book in the briefcase and take the briefcase down to my office. I then take the elevator to the first floor and go out into the street. It is a nice afternoon in Dumbo and the breeze hits my face and dries the tears that have mysteriously started leaking out of my eyes. I wipe them away and almost hail a taxi before remembering the rules.

  How long has it been since I’ve taken the subway in this town? Years, certainly. I know Olivia and Jane take the subway all the time. Their father is always trying to make them into peasants. But now I must venture underground myself, like a dirty pill bug.

  I am briefly confused by how the game phone works as a subway card, but it turns out that all I have to do is move the phone close to the turnstile. It clicks and beeps, letting me know that I have successfully paid for a ride. The bars click around as I step through effortlessly. An old woman carrying a giant tote bag full of Polish-language magazines looks at me suspiciously, but she doesn’t say anything.

  I take the F train into Manhattan. The train is practically empty, on account of it being the middle of the day. I sit down and put on my best “fuck off” expression, but no one even tries to bother me. Actually, the train is much nicer than I remember. There are station clocks and everything, letting me know when the next train will arrive. I guess this is where all my taxes have been going.

  I get out of the F train at Herald Square. The station here is also almost empty, but aboveground there are swarms of people, and I am reminded exactly why we moved Nylo headquarters down to Brooklyn. I’m extremely relieved I don’t have to come here every day.

  I walk over to the Empire State Building. Empire was even in the damn clue, as if “cage 1” had
n’t given it away. “Your empire awaits… ”

  We must have all heard the story of our father’s first date with our mother a million times.

  Our mother wasn’t from New York City, unlike our father. Misty Lynn MacAteer was a Southerner from Alabama, and when they met she was working at a disco called Scorpio’s as a coat check girl. Our father was trying to meet someone in the feverish early seventies singles scene, and he was having a hard time in the clubs. But the coat check girl at Scorpio’s had no choice but to talk to him and laugh at his awkward flirtations.

  After several weekends of clumsy overtures, Dad finally asked Mom out, and for some reason she said yes. She must have been feeling lonely. Anyway, something about his persistence appealed to her. I have often found that people who don’t know what they want are too depressed to fight off those who do.

  Dad quickly figured out that Mom hadn’t yet done any of the dumb tourist stuff, like visiting the Statue of Liberty or seeing the Empire State Building. She had been too busy trying to make money to pay rent. In a bombastic gesture of nerdy glee, he booked a reservation at the restaurant in the Empire State Building and invited her to join him there for their first date. He wasn’t a famous game designer yet, but he wanted to show off that he wasn’t just some penniless hustler. He had family money to spend and he wanted to spend it on her.

  They met at a grim Irish bar around the corner (Doolan’s? O’Hanahan’s? Fluterty’s? Rafafafaf’s?—it doesn’t matter, all these Midtown bars are exactly the same in a way that is actually a little eerie). They had a quick drink and made awkward conversation, and then they went to the Empire State Building on 34th Street.

  This is where things became mythopoeic instead of just quotidian. This is where our family history starts, since none of us would exist without that evening at the Empire State Building. When she got drunk, Mom used to say that she was having second thoughts about even going on a date with our father right up until the moment that he kissed her.

  What happened was that on their way up to the restaurant, the elevator came to a crashing halt and then actually jerked downward a few feet, sending both of them tumbling. It was everyone’s worst nightmare: being in a falling elevator in an NYC skyscraper.

  The elevator didn’t drop far, but it was enough for our mom to scream and clutch our father. They were only trapped for fifteen minutes (they were rescued by the Empire State Building security team), but this was long enough for Dad to become a fearless protector in her eyes merely by staying calm. He took advantage of her dewy dependence. He kissed her.

  She never forgave him for that. In a cute way, sometimes. But often in a very non-cute, real, vengeful way.

  In exchange for signing release forms that said they wouldn’t sue, they were treated to a free five-course meal and open bar. They were given an exclusive tour of the building, including the underground rooms where the closed-circuit security cameras showed the video feed from them falling: our mother clutching our father, our father grinning and remaining totally calm, the kiss that he stole.

  Do the rest of them remember that the elevator was called “cage 1”? That our mother remembered the fact vividly and always included it as an addendum in her retelling of the story? The first cage in their life together but definitely not the last, she would say. And Dad would laugh but she wouldn’t be joking.

  This is a stretch of the city that I know well, mainly because the best board game store in town is right on this block, the Compleat Strategist. I used to compete in Magic: The Gathering tournaments there as a teenager (I exclusively played a blue control deck, obviously). It wasn’t quite fair: I was able to buy every single card I wanted. But I was honorable about my dominance. As I got older, I switched over to competing in Diplomacy and Cosmic Encounter tournaments, also playing a lot of the board game version of Dune with very old men who leered at me as they lost.

  Now, back on the same block, I walk right up to the front desk of the Empire State Building, where ten bored security guards all compete against each other to ignore me.

  “Hello,” I say. “I am Caitlyn Nylo, CEO of the Nylo Corporation. Could I see the head of security here?”

  I give one of the security guards my card. He squints at it. He is a portly man with a walrus mustache and stubble all the way down his neck to his shoulders.

  “Yep, alright,” he says, looking me over. Soon, we are joined by a man in a cheap suit and a headset microphone.

  “Hi there,” I say. “My name is Caitlyn Nylo and I need to know which elevator is cage 1. I am only asking for sentimental reasons. My mother and father came here on their first date. They are both dead now, and I just wanted to ride in the same elevator where they first fell in love.”

  “Cage 1?” asks the security guard. He stares at the guy at the help desk, giving him a “why did you call me over for this?” stare.

  “It’s the first one,” he says. “The one closest to the ticket counter. But you gotta buy a ticket like everyone else.” He points to the line of tourists weaving through a maze of velvet rope barriers and stanchions. Thankfully it’s not too long.

  “Okay, awesome,” I say. They are definitely going to watch me now on the security cameras. I have to be smart if I don’t want them to stop me and question me on my way out.

  “I’m going to take a million selfies in there,” I say flirtatiously. “Gotta get a picture from every angle for the Insta.”

  “Okay,” he says, shaking his head and walking away.

  I join the queue behind a family speaking French and am soon sandwiched between them and a large group wearing matching T-shirts and name tags on lanyards around their necks. We move quickly and when I reach the ticket counter, I again explain how I want to ride up in “cage 1” for sentimental reasons. The ticket seller raises her eyebrows but doesn’t skip a beat.

  “Sure, no problem. Just stay in line and tell Frank over there which elevator you want to be in, and he’ll take care of you.” She gestures toward a tall, thin man in a maroon jacket and slacks, one of many identically clad workers who guide the masses through the building.

  I take my ticket and soon find myself at the front of the line.

  “Frank?” I ask, putting on my sweetest smile. “The woman at the ticket counter said you could help a girl out. My parents had their first date here back in the seventies and got trapped in an elevator—cage 1—on their way to the restaurant. My dad just passed away over the weekend and I want to remember their love by riding in the same elevator they did all those years ago. Can you put me in cage 1 for the ride up?”

  Frank’s face opens into a wide grin. “Of course, ma’am. I love me a good love story. You wouldn’t believe how many people come here with stories like yours and we always try to honor them. You just stand over here with me until cage 1 opens up.” He gently grabs my arm and pulls me to the side, letting part of the big tour group fill the next elevator. It only takes two more rounds before the doors to cage 1 slide open and Frank holds out his arm with a flourish to guide me in.

  I step inside, along with another tour group and a woman with a baby strapped to her back and a toddler clinging to her leg.

  “All the way to the top!” jokes one of the tourists, a man in a Michigan Wolverines T-shirt. I laugh too loudly.

  “My parents met in this elevator!” I tell the group. “Do you mind if I take some pictures?”

  “Go right ahead,” says the doughy, red-faced wife of the Michigander. The mom is too busy pulling their tickets out of her toddler’s mouth to respond.

  I take out the game phone and start moving it all over the elevator. I hold it to each side, pretending to take a picture of myself. Nothing happens. I glance again at the clue on the screen: “Your empire awaits atop cage 1.” Of course, the box must be on top of the elevator.

  I hold the phone up as high as I can. Standing on my tiptoes, I scrape the ceiling. I hear a click
and a whir and my phone starts playing the Nylo Corporation theme.

  “Sea Farmers!” says the Michigander.

  “Totally,” I say. I put the game phone back in my purse. Eventually, the Nylo music stops playing. We ride the rest of the way up in silence. At the top, I immediately hop in the next open elevator going down.

  I take out the game phone again and look at it. The clue has disappeared and has been replaced with a gold medal that says “First Place.” My name is above the medal. It also shows me four other slots for medals, but they are currently empty.

  Outside, I stand by the doors and light up a cigarette, checking my real phone now, seeing if there are any more messages about Playqueen. There aren’t. Instead, there are about fifty messages of condolence from other CEOs, from “friends” at my Ladies in Business Women’s Roundtable, even from some old boyfriends and acquaintances from college. I don’t feel like answering any of them.

  Actually, maybe it’s the game, but I suddenly don’t feel like our father is actually dead anymore. It doesn’t seem real. He is still sending us messages and we are still fighting each other for his approval, each of us trying to be the best at some arbitrary set of rules and tasks.

  I can’t tell if this whole thing is going to be therapeutic or traumatic. Funeral plans and last requests are often about helping the living feel some sense of closure—of giving them something arbitrary to do while they are reeling from grief, while they are still talking to their dead loved one in their head. We make up for the fact that we can no longer love them or hate them in person by doing their bidding in an effort to banish them.

  But this is an extremely complicated wake and possibly not a healthy one, since none of us can really rest until the game is over and we have either been defeated by or beaten our siblings.

  I finish my cigarette, feeling pretty sanguine. I will win this thing easily and I will dole out Dad’s fortune fairly and wisely.

  There’s no need to be bitter that he hasn’t just given me control over the company’s assets outright. I can prove that I deserve them. Maybe that will be better.