Ready Player Two

Once we were all back inside the conference room, seated in our usual spots around the table, Faisal had our OASIS engineers confirm that Anorak wasn’t in the vicinity, or on the planet. They also said they had placed Anorak on the planet’s block list, so Anorak should no longer even have been able to visit Gregarious. We also had our admins add several extra layers of security to our conference room, which effectively sealed it off from the rest of the OASIS, making it impossible to eavesdrop on us through any magical or technological means.

Once we had taken all the precautions we could think of, Faisal stepped up to the podium and cleared his throat a few times. Then, in a defeated voice, he asked us if we wanted the “bad news” or the “even worse news.”

Bad news first won by unanimous vote.

“Another problem has arisen due to Anorak’s firmware hack,” he said. “I’ve kept it from you until now because I didn’t want to distract you while you were looking for—”

“Spill it already, Faisal!” Aech shouted.

“It’s OK,” Art3mis said. “Just tell us what’s going on. We’re not going to fire you.”

Faisal pursed his lips, and for a few seconds he looked like he might break down and cry.

“Anorak has figured out a way to alter the behavior of our NPCs,” he said.

We all shouted “What?!” in unison, so loud it made Faisal flinch. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then he opened them and continued.

“About an hour ago, all the NPCs in sectors one through four started to behave erratically and wander outside their designated operational boundaries. Some of these rogue NPCs have even gone off-world….”

“NPCs can’t go off-world,” Art3mis said. “Unless they’ve been programmed to do so, as part of a user quest…”

“That’s true,” Faisal replied. “Anorak must’ve altered their programming somehow.”

“OK,” I said. “What exactly are these rogue NPCs doing?”

Faisal motioned to the viewscreen, where he began to play a rapid series of simcap clips. Each one gave us a first-person view of one or more NPCs suddenly breaking character, going berserk, and attacking an unwitting player avatar. We saw surfers, sidekicks, shopkeepers, pit mechanics, butlers, maids, background citizens, and wise old mentors all going postal, on hundreds of different OASIS worlds. Taken as a whole, the footage made it look like the OASIS had suddenly turned into a nightmarish mash-up of Westworld, Futureworld, and Jurassic World, with a smattering of Imaginationland, Tomorrowland, and Zombieland all mixed in for good measure.

“The NPCs in those sectors all turned homicidal at the same time,” Faisal said. “A little over twenty minutes ago. And they’re able to use public teleportation terminals now, so they’re running amok all over the simulation, attacking and killing every avatar unlucky enough to cross their path. They appeared to be attacking players on sight and at random. Even in safe zones, where getting zeroed-out by an NPC is supposed to be impossible. The NPCs loot all of the money, weapons, magic items, and artifacts dropped by the avatars they kill.” He motioned to the viewscreen. “And then they take all of that loot to Chthonia and deliver it to Anorak inside his castle. Watch….”

He showed another piece of simcap footage, which looked as if it had been taken from the POVs of several different hijacked NPCs. We saw a shot of Castle Anorak from a distance, and there were hundreds of thousands of NPCs lined up in front of it. They were slowly filing into the castle’s front entrance, and then back out one of its numerous exits, each of them now dressed in matching red-and-black studded leather armor. Once the NPCs were back outside, they joined the orderly ranks that were forming up around the castle. These ranks already stretched to the horizon in every direction, like orcs amassing around Isengard.

Then the simcap we were watching cut to another POV—that of an NPC standing inside the castle throne room. Anorak was sitting with one leg draped over the arm of his golden throne. Sorrento was standing off to his right with a malevolent smile on his face, trying to look imposing. He was dressed in black plate-mail armor that was covered in spikes. Both of his hands (enclosed in enormous black gauntlets) were resting on the hilt of a giant black-bladed bastard sword with magic runes carved into its blade. When I translated them, I realized that Sorrento’s avatar appeared to be wielding the cursed blade Stormbringer, and I suddenly felt ill.

Faisal paused the simcap file for a moment and zoomed in on Sorrento’s smug mug.

“We did find out how Anorak was communicating with Sorrento while he was in prison,” Faisal said. “As we suspected, it was during his allotted weekly OASIS recreation time. For thirty minutes every Saturday, Sorrento was allowed to log in with a conventional haptic rig. His usage logs indicate he spent nearly all of that time at a free public library on Incipio, reading articles about Mr. Watts and the other members of the High Five. Anorak appears to have taken control of the library terminal Sorrento was using to open a line of text communication with him. The inmate-monitoring software didn’t catch it at the time, and Anorak erased any record of what they said to each other, but we think it must be how they coordinated Sorrento’s escape.” He let out a sigh. “Still no sign of either him or Og.”

“Can’t we track Sorrento’s location in the real world?” Shoto asked. “Through his OASIS connection?”

Faisal shook his head.

“Sorrento appears to be accessing the simulation through a series of overseas proxy servers, to mask his real-world location,” he said. “Anorak clearly took security precautions on his behalf.”

Faisal motioned back up at the viewscreen. He recentered the simcap footage on Anorak, sitting on his bejeweled throne. Anorak had his left hand held out toward the chain gang of NPCs who were rapidly filing past him, so that he could vacuum up the constant stream of weapons and magic items they were presenting to him. As he hoovered up all of this loot, I could see his eyes darting around rapidly, as if he were scanning each new item description on his HUD as it was added to his inventory. With his right hand, Anorak was also constantly discarding unwanted items, which were then picked up and carried out of the room by other NPCs, who were all now dressed in the same studded black-and-red armor, which matched the color scheme of his own robes. As each NPC donned this new attire, the name tag over their head would also change to read “Acolyte of Anorak.”

“Mother pus bucket,” Art3mis muttered. “It looks to me like Anorak is building an army. And an arsenal.”

“To me, it looks like he’s searching for one item in particular,” Shoto replied. “Maybe that’s why he reprogrammed the NPCs to start killing avatars to loot their inventory? Because he’s trying to find something specific? Like an artifact with unique abilities?”

Faisal shrugged.

“Maybe,” he replied. “I guess we’ll find out….”

“OK, Faisal,” said Art3mis. “Go ahead and hit us with the ‘even worse news.’ ”

“Christ,” Aech muttered, shaking her head. “I forgot there was even worse news.”

Faisal nodded, fidgeted for a few seconds, and then took another deep breath.

“The avatars of ONI users have stopped respawning when they die,” he said.

The room fell silent for several seconds, as everyone tried to process what he’d said.

“OK…” Art3mis said slowly. “Then what happens to the user when their avatar gets killed?”

“Nothing happens,” Faisal said. “Their avatar doesn’t respawn inside the OASIS, and they don’t wake up in the real world either. But their ONI headset stays powered up and locked onto their skull. The users’ brain patterns indicate they’re still logged in to the OASIS.” He shrugged. “They all appear to be trapped in limbo.”

“Jesus,” Art3mis muttered. “Can they feel anything? What are they experiencing?”

Faisal shook his head.

“We don’t know,” he replied with a shaky voice. “We have no way of finding out what the users themselves are actually experiencing.”

Aech cleared her throat.

“Does anyone else find this shit completely terrifying?” she asked, raising her right hand. “Because I do.”

Shoto and I both raised our right hands in solidarity.

“It’s possible that Anorak’s infirmware has simply broken the respawning process,” Faisal said hopefully. “So that now, when an ONI user’s avatar gets killed, they get stuck in a dreamless limbo, where they’re no longer experiencing anything at all.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Aech said. “Or maybe Anorak is making them respawn in the fire pits on the Ninth Circle of Hell, Faisal!” She threw up her hands, suddenly on the verge of hysteria. “Who fucking knows, man? Maybe now, when one of our avatars gets killed, instead of respawning, we’re going to suddenly find ourselves being tortured by Klingons in the dilithium mines on the frozen Rura Penthe asteroid! And we’ll also probably be on an accelerated timeline that makes three seconds feel like three thousand years!”

“Holy shit,” Shoto whispered. “Could Anorak really do that?”

“No, of course not!” Faisal said. “I mean, I highly doubt that what Ms. Harris described is even possible….” He paused to listen to his admins argue in his ear for a moment, then he let out a sigh and said, “The consensus seems to be…we don’t know what those users are experiencing. And we don’t think we’ll be able to find out until one of them wakes up and tells us.”

“Or until one of us gets killed on Anorak’s scavenger hunt,” I said. “And then we find out for ourselves. Firsthand…”

Everyone fell silent for a few seconds. I resisted the urge to check my ONI usage counter. Instead, I began to massage my temples in an effort to remain calm.

“Have those simcap clips you showed us already been posted to the ONI-net?” Art3mis asked.

“Yeah,” Faisal replied. “That’s where we found them.”

“So now the whole world knows that Anorak has gone berserk,” Art3mis said. “They can also see that he’s taken control of our NPCs. Why don’t we just come clean and tell our users the truth? They deserve to know that Anorak is the one who hacked the ONI firmware, and that he’s the reason they can’t log out or respawn. GSS isn’t going to be able to keep that a secret, Faisal.”

“Not forever,” he replied. “But if we keep releasing updates, saying that we should have the problem fixed in just a few more minutes, we might be able to hold off the panic until this is over. If we told them the truth—”

“It would create total chaos, online and off,” Aech said, shaking her head.

Faisal nodded and cleared his throat.

“If the four of you all approve,” he said, “our PR department would like to release another update, blaming the NPC’s erratic behavior on another glitch, caused by the same ‘corrupted’ ONI firmware update responsible for the logout issue. Once again, we’ll assure them we’re working on the problem and should have it fixed within the next thirty minutes. We’ll also apologize for the rogue NPCs’ behavior, and guarantee resurrection for any users who had their avatars killed, and promise that we’ll restore their lost credits and items as soon as we have the problem corrected.”

“What about Anorak?” Shoto asked. “How do we explain his behavior?”

“As far as the public knows, Anorak is just another NPC,” Faisal said. “Left dormant in the system by Halliday. So we can blame his behavior on the same firmware glitch that’s affecting the other NPCs.”

“What about the respawning issue?” I asked. “Has that also gone public?”

“Not yet,” Faisal said. “The users experiencing it are stuck in limbo, so they obviously can’t talk to anyone to complain about their situation. But before too long, people are going to figure out that their friends aren’t respawning and then…”

“They’ll start to fear the worst,” Aech said. “I know I sure do.”

“There’s another reason we need to keep up the façade,” Faisal said. “Remember, less than ten percent of our ONI users have an immersion vault to protect themselves while they’re under. Most people lock themselves in a room or a closet when they nap, with the assumption that they’ll be able to see trouble coming on their surveillance feeds and log out in plenty of time to wake up and defend themselves. A lot of those people are completely vulnerable now. If the whole world knew what was really going on…”

“He’s right,” Art3mis said. She lowered her head and closed her eyes. “What do you think will happen when criminals all over the world figure out that they’re surrounded by sitting ducks? People who can no longer log out of the OASIS to protect themselves?” She opened her eyes, as if she’d finished seeing into the near future. “The police—the ones who aren’t hostages themselves—are going to be too overwhelmed to help everyone. It’ll be the crime wave of the century.”

“Jesus, Arty,” Aech whispered. “Don’t sugarcoat it now.”

“We need to know what is at stake, Aech,” she replied, then glanced in my direction.

“Just to be clear,” Faisal interjected, “none of this has actually started to happen—yet. But Ms. Cook is right. If this goes on much longer, that sort of thing will start to occur. So…the sooner we can get Anorak to release everyone unharmed, the more lives we are likely to save.”

I resisted the urge to yell, No shit, Sherlock! But just barely. Things were beginning to spiral out of control, and I felt a sense of hopelessness setting in. Even if my friends and I managed to survive this ordeal, I no longer believed the OASIS would. It had already begun to self-destruct. I was powerless to prevent it….

“We have to find Og,” Art3mis suddenly announced, locking eyes with me. “He’s the only person in the world who might know a way to stop Anorak.”

I nodded.

“When Og collected the first three shards for Anorak,” I said, “I think he only did that so he could leave behind some clues of his own. I’m hoping they’ll lead us to him.”

I pulled up the screenshot I’d taken of the Ninja Princess high-score list—the one with Og’s score in first place—and threw it up on the conference room’s main viewscreen:

RANK

SCORE

NAME

1st

550750

KRA

2nd

365800

KRU

“Og outscored me by nearly two hundred thousand points,” I said. “I don’t think he could have earned that big of a lead in a single run to Kanten Castle. Could he, Shoto?”

Shoto thought for a second, then shook his head.

“No,” he said. “To get a score that high, he would have had to beat the final level of Ninja Princess, and then continue playing when the game started over on the first level, instead of quitting like you did.”

“That’s what I thought,” I replied. “But why bother racking up all of those extra points when he didn’t need to?”

Art3mis stood up and took a step toward the viewscreen, narrowing her eyes.

“To leave that specific score at the top of the high score list,” she said. “Where he knew you would see it.”

I stared up at those six digits, repeating them over and over in my head. Five-five-zero-seven-five-zero. The number 550750 didn’t ring any bells in my memory. I tried searching my grail diary for it, but there wasn’t a single hit. And those six digits didn’t appear to be map coordinates either. I did a general Internet search for that sequence of numbers, but the vast majority of the results were all prices and product numbers. If the number 550750 contained some secret message from Og, I still couldn’t decipher it.

“Those first three numbers,” Art3mis said. “Aren’t they part of the street address of your house?”

I stared at her, puzzled, and shook my head.

“No,” I said. “My street address is 2112 Monsalvat Boulevard.”

She smirked.

“The original address, back when Halliday lived there,” she said. “Before you moved in and had it changed…”

I searched my memory, and a few seconds later it produced the address, and I said it out loud.

“550 Babbitt Road!” I shouted. “B-A-B-B-I-T-T! Spelled just like the last name of the two brothers in Rain Man. Played by Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman…”

I pulled up the screenshots I’d taken of the Charlie and Raymond Babbitt NPCs and put them up on the viewscreen.

“I spotted these two NPCs on Halcydonia,” I said. “Charlie and Raymond Babbitt. They were both tapping out Morse code.”

I pulled up a street map of the New Albany neighborhood where I lived, located on the northeastern outskirts of the city. Then I zoomed in on my house, at 550 Babbitt Road.

“Guess who owns the property located a few miles down the street?” I said. “At 750 Babbitt Road, near the intersection with Morse Road?”

Art3mis jumped to her feet, eyes wide.

“Holy shit!” she whispered. “That used to be Og’s old house, right? Before he and Kira got married and left Ohio to move to Oregon?”

Faisal nodded.

“When Gregarious Games took off and they became multimillionaires, Halliday and Morrow both bought mansions located on Babbitt Road, just a few miles apart,” Faisal said. “Og moved out of his residence at 750 Babbitt Road when he got married, but he never sold the property.” He turned to me. “When he left GSS, Mr. Morrow told us he wanted to hold on to the house for sentimental reasons,” he said. “And just in case he ever needed to move back here. The place has been sitting vacant for decades. Guarded by automated security and maintenance drones, all of which are probably now under Anorak’s control.”

I pulled up an aerial satellite view of the building. All it showed was the roof of a large mansion, with a garage and a few other small buildings clustered around it, surrounded on all sides by empty, wide-open farm fields. “Hiding Og here would be a pretty clever move, actually. It’s definitely the last place I ever would’ve thought to look for him.”

Faisal nodded. “That house still has a direct fiber-optic connection to the main OASIS server hub,” he said. “We installed it for Mr. Morrow when he still lived there. It would give them the fastest possible connection to the simulation. Just like the connection at Mr. Watts’s estate down the road.”

“OK,” Aech said. “Let’s assume that is where Anorak and Sorrento are keeping Og. How are we going to get him out of there alive?”

“We need to offer him a trade,” I said. “Og’s freedom for the Siren’s Soul.” I turned to Art3mis. “But I’m betting Og left us more to work with, back on Middletown.”

I pulled up my HUD and sent a text message to L0hengrin, asking her to teleport to my location on Gregarious immediately, then instructed Faisal to give L0hengrin and the rest of her clan permission to join us in the conference room.

Less than a minute later, the conference-room doors flew open, and in walked L0hengrin, followed by Rizzo, Wukong, Lilith, and Kastagir.

They were all staring around wide-eyed, taking in their surroundings. But when they saw me, Aech, Shoto, and Art3mis, their eyes grew even wider. Then, in unison, all five of them dropped to their knees and bowed their heads. I told them to rise and we all ran over to greet them.

And that was how the High Five met the L0w Five for the very first time, under extremely dire circumstances.