Who is Action Jack?

We are going to do this properly. Corkboard, red string, the works. Here is everything the arcade knows about Action Jack, presented without conclusion, because there isn't one.

#The mask

Pink. Ski mask. Not a balaclava — a ski mask, which he has reportedly corrected people on. Not tactical pink. Not a muted, dignified, gear-catalogue pink. The pink of a novelty birthday cake.

The obvious question is whether he skis. Nobody has ever seen him ski. Nobody has ever seen him near snow. The mask is worn indoors, at sea level, in July, by a man who has never once explained it and appears mildly annoyed that you asked.

There is a theory that the mask is the whole answer — that Action Jack is a normal person and the mask is doing all of the work. Tone is cheap. Mechanics are expensive. A pink ski mask costs eleven dollars and buys you a decade of speculation.

This theory has never been tested, because to test it you would have to find him.

#The women

This is the part where the investigation gets away from us.

An unusual number of women claim to know Action Jack. Not to have met him — to know him. The distinction matters and every one of them draws it unprompted. They do not agree on his height. They do not agree on his voice. Several of them describe, independently and in nearly identical language, that he "was very calm about the whole thing," which raises the immediate follow-up question of what thing, to which the answer has consistently been a change of subject.

One described him as "a great listener." One described him as "the only one who came back." One provided a phone number that rings a hardware store in Fresno. The hardware store has been contacted. The hardware store says they get this call a lot and would like it to stop.

No two accounts are compatible. All of them are delivered with total confidence. This is either a hoax of impressive coordination or the least likely thing about him is that he is one person.

#The athlete hypothesis

Somebody, at some point, said the word athlete, and it stuck to him permanently.

The evidence for Action Jack being a professional athlete:

• The name is Action Jack
• The physique, per multiple accounts, "tracks"
• He allegedly caught something once
• The mask, arguably, is equipment

The evidence against:

• No league has heard of him
• No sport has been named
• The catch is unverified and the object is disputed (accounts range from "a phone" to "a falling air conditioner")
• Professional athletes have statistics; he has anecdotes

We contacted the sports. All of them. Not one had a comment. Several asked how we got this number, which is a fair question we are not equipped to answer.

#The ownership question

Here is where it stops being funny.

cerebras.com has been privately held since 2015. Somebody pays for it. Somebody decided there should be eight games here and a shelf for silly prizes. Somebody built the labyrinth a room in the middle that the doubts cannot enter, which is not a thing you build for traffic. It's a thing you build because you needed the room to exist.

Nobody has ever seen that person and Action Jack in the same place.

That's not evidence. It's the shape of evidence, which is worse, because it's the shape that makes you keep looking. The domain's registration is a matter of public record and the public record is a name and an address and it tells you nothing at all about why the baby escalates or why the wheel apologises in that particular voice.

#What we actually know

Nothing. That's the finding.

A pink ski mask, a chorus of women with irreconcilable testimony, one disputed catch, and an arcade that somebody is quietly paying to keep online. Everything else is a rumour wearing a rumour's clothes.

He has never confirmed anything. He has never denied anything either, which the internet has correctly identified as the more suspicious of the two.

If you see him, don't approach. Just note the time.

Update: we should not have printed the bit about the phone number. The hardware store has a policy now, it is laminated, and we are named in it.

Then go do something useful, like feeding the baby or flying into the master blaster, and try not to think about the fact that somebody has already beaten every game here and left no name on any of it.