An Alternate Reality Game (ARG), the parasite was crafted for the 2017 University of Chicago first-year student orientation. The goal of ARG was directly linked to fostering aspects of collaboration, leadership, inclusivity, digital media capacities, and twenty-first literacies to encourage development and learning in incoming students to the University. As with all of Fourcast Lab’s works, the parasite was a creation of the collaboration of a team that ranged from professors of the University of Chicago to its administrators to professional artists and students. Participants gained knowledge and experience from the ARG in time management, physical and mental health, identifying resources, and conflict resolution. This transmedia experience unfolded across multiple online platforms from May to September 2017, and across nine site-specific participatory challenges in September 2017. Students discovered a secret society and located 121 unique objects, hidden around Chicago. They infiltrated a secret society that had allegedly existed at the University of Chicago since 1896 en route to unlocking a singular room and uncovering an entity known only as “the parasite.”