Hazardous Materials by Matthew Quinn Martin Page A

six blocks from Geoff’s apartment to the library. He no longer felt the game’s pull—time and distance had granted him some immunity to that, at least—but he still didn’t trust himself with it. He promised himself he’d stay safely settled on Geoff’s couch until he got some answers.
    The library was as good a place as any to start. He managed to find a free computer terminal, sandwiched between an aging baby boomer working on her résumé and a tween plugging away at Minecraft .
    The screen was bigger than his phone’s. The connection was more stable. But the answers were as skint. He typed in everything he knew: Polybius, Polybius video game, Polybius arcade game , and so on. He scrolled through page after page and found absolutely zilch. As far as the Internet was concerned, the game had never existed.
    There had to be something he was forgetting. Something about the game that only someone who’d played it would have known. He typed in Polybius dreams and Polybius nightmares , and still nothing. On a whim, he tried Polybius track w heel , and the results were, predictably, the same.
    He gripped the edge of the desk tightly, wanting to heave it over. Come on! I can’t be the only person on earth who’s seen this thing besides Ludwig and a dead spree killer! Someone must have made the damn thing! And then it hit him. Someone had made the damn thing.
    Jarrod hit the keys with a vengeance, typing Polybius Sinneschlöshen 1981.
    The screen went blank, then started to scroll through bank after bank of code. Numbers and symbols spilled down the frame, too fast to comprehend, even to read.
    Jarrod shot up. He scanned the room for help. “Um, excuse me? I—”
    Something else popped up on Jarrod’s terminal, just a simple line of text: Are you prepared?
    Almost without realizing it, his fingers found the keyboard and typed in a response: Prepared for what?
    A moment later, more words scrolled across the screen: Prepared to take aim.
    Jarrod pushed back from the desk as if it had just caught on fire. He wanted to get up, to run, but he was cemented to the chair, staring helplessly at the screen, Another line of text appeared: Remain where you are. You have been identified and will be collected.
    He flicked a couple of glances to the terminals on either side of him. Both seemed normal. And when he looked back to his own screen, it had changed back. It showed only the New York Public Library logo and asked for a login. No spiraling code and no You will be collected.
    Is this what had happened to Brian Shaw? Had the politicians been right? Could it be true that the long-ago arcade massacre was the fault of video games? One video game in particular? Jarrod did the math. The credit screen had said 1981 . According to the article he’d read, Shaw had been an employee at the rink around then. He’d have had more than enough spare time to play games after hours while he painted the mural.
    What if the game had put those images in his mind? What if it had done the same thing to Shaw? Shaw had complained of nightmares of sleepwalking. What if the mural and the poetry were just the beginning for that thing, the first physical manifestations of what the game wanted? The final thing being—
    The shooting.
    It needed to be destroyed. It had to go. It had to die. A cold determination came over Jarrod. He shut his eyes, slowed his breathing, and rose from his chair. Then he found his way to the library’s exit, not daring to take a single breath until he reached the open air.
    He took his time on the way back to his apartment, letting his rage cool and his resolve calcify. He desperately wanted a shower, but not before he put an end to the game once and for all. After it was over, he’d take a shower. And after that, he’d stuff a change of clothes and some clean skivvies into his worn knapsack and skip town.
    As his stoop finally came within view, Jarrod