Ernest Cline - Ready Player One

During the mid-’90s, back when Gregarious Simulation Systems was still just Gregarious Games, Morrow had moved in with his high-school sweetheart, Kira Underwood. Kira was born and raised in London. (Her birth name was Karen, but she’d insisted on being called Kira ever since her first viewing of The Dark Crystal. ) Morrow met her when she spent her junior year as an exchange student at his high school. In his autobiography, Morrow wrote that she was the “quintessential geek girl,” unabashedly obsessed with Monty Python, comic books, fantasy novels, and videogames. She and Morrow shared a few classes at school, and he was smitten with her almost immediately. He invited her to attend his weekly Dungeons & Dragons gaming sessions (just as he’d done with Halliday a few years earlier), and to his surprise, she accepted. “She became the lone female in our weekly gaming group,” Morrow wrote. “And every single one of the guys developed a massive crush on her, including Jim. She was actually the one who gave him the nickname ‘Anorak,’ a British slang term for an obsessive geek. I think Jim adopted it as the name of his D and D character to impress her. Or maybe it was his way of trying to let her know he was in on the joke. The opposite sex made Jim extremely nervous, and Kira was the only girl I ever saw him speak to in a relaxed manner. But even then, it was only in character, as Anorak, during the course of our gaming sessions. And he would only address her as Leucosia, the name of her D and D character.”

Ogden and Kira began dating. By the end of the school year, when it was time for her to return home to London, the two of them had openly declared their love for each other. They kept in touch during their remaining year of school by e-mailing every day, using an early pre-Internet computer bulletin board network called FidoNet. When they both graduated from high school, Kira returned to the States, moved in with Morrow, and became one of Gregarious Games’ first employees. (For the first two years, she was their entire art department.) They got engaged a few years after the launch of the OASIS. They were married a year later, at which time Kira resigned from her position as an artistic director at GSS. (She was a millionaire now too, thanks to her company stock options.) Morrow stayed on at GSS for five more years. Then, in the summer of 2022, he announced he was leaving the company. At the time, he claimed it was for “personal reasons.” But years later, Morrow wrote in his autobiography that he’d left GSS because “we were no longer in the videogame business,” and because he felt that the OASIS had evolved into something horrible. “It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity,” he wrote. “A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect.”

Rumors also surfaced that Morrow had chosen to leave because he’d had a huge falling-out with Halliday. Neither of them would confirm or deny these rumors, and no one seemed to know what sort of dispute had ended their long friendship. But sources within the company said that at the time of Morrow’s resignation, he and Halliday had not spoken to each other directly in several years. Even so, when Morrow left GSS, he sold his entire share of the company directly to Halliday, for an undisclosed sum.

Ogden and Kira “retired” to their home in Oregon and started a nonprofit educational software company, Halcydonia Interactive, which created free interactive adventure games for kids. I’d grown up playing these games, all of which were set in the magical kingdom of Halcydonia. Morrow’s games had transported me out of my grim surroundings as a lonely kid growing up in the stacks. They’d also taught me how to do math and solve puzzles while building my self-esteem. In a way, the Morrows were among my very first teachers.

For the next decade, Ogden and Kira enjoyed a peaceful, happy existence, living and working in relative seclusion. They tried to have children, but it wasn’t in the cards for them. They’d begun to consider adoption when, in the winter of 2034, Kira was killed in a car accident on an icy mountain road just a few miles from their home.

After that, Ogden continued to run Halcydonia Interactive on his own. He managed to stay out of the limelight until the morning of Halliday’s death, when his home was besieged by the media. As Halliday’s former closest friend, everyone assumed he alone could explain why the deceased billionaire had put his entire fortune up for grabs. Morrow eventually held a press conference just to get everyone off his back. It was the last time he’d spoken to the media, until today. I’d watched the video of that press conference many, many times.

Morrow had begun it by reading a brief statement, saying that he hadn’t seen or spoken to Halliday in over a decade. “We had a falling-out,” he said, “and that is something I refuse to discuss, now or in the future. Suffice it to say, I have not communicated with James Halliday in over ten years.”

“Then why did Halliday leave you his vast collection of classic coin-operated videogames?” a reporter asked. “All of his other material possessions are to be auctioned off. If you were no longer friends, why are you the only person he left anything to?”

“I have no idea,” Morrow said simply.

Another reporter asked Morrow if he planned on looking for Halliday’s Easter egg himself, since he’d known Halliday so well and would therefore probably have a better chance than anyone of finding it. Morrow reminded the reporter that the contest rules laid out in Halliday’s will stated that no one who had ever worked for Gregarious Simulation Systems, or anyone in their immediate families, was eligible to take part in the contest.

“Did you have any idea what Halliday was working on all those years he was in seclusion?” another reporter asked.

“No. I suspected he might be working on some new game. Jim was always working on a new game. For him, making games was as necessary as breathing. But I never imagined he was planning something … of this magnitude.”

“As the person who knew James Halliday the best, do you have any advice for the millions of people who are now searching for his Easter egg? Where do you think people should start looking for it?”

“I think Jim made that pretty obvious,” Morrow replied, tapping a finger against his temple, just as Halliday had in the Anorak’s Invitation video. “Jim always wanted everyone to share his obsessions, to love the same things he loved. I think this contest is his way of giving the entire world an incentive to do just that.”

I closed my file on Morrow and checked my e-mail. The system informed me that I’d received over two million new unsolicited messages. These were automatically filed in a separate folder, so I could sort through them later. Only two new messages were left in my inbox, from people on my authorized contact list. One was from Aech. The other was from Art3mis.

I opened Aech’s message first. It was vidmail, and his avatar’s face appeared in a window. “Holy shit!” he shouted. “I don’t believe this! Now you’ve cleared the motherfucking First Gate and you still haven’t phoned me ? Call my ass! Now! The second you get this!”

I considered waiting a few days to call Aech back but quickly abandoned that idea. I needed to talk to someone about all this, and Aech was my best friend. If there was anyone I could trust, it was him.

He picked up on the first ring, and his avatar appeared in a new window in front of me. “You dog!” he shouted. “You brilliant, sly, devious dog!”