Эрнест Клайн - Ready Player Two [calibre]

According to Skylar’s user profile history, she’d legally changed her gender to female when she was sixteen, a few months after she received her first ONI headset. Around the same time, she’d changed her avatar’s sex classification to øgender, a brand-new option GSS had added due to popular demand. People who identified as øgender were individuals who chose to experience sex exclusively through their ONI headsets, and who also didn’t limit themselves to experiencing it as a specific gender or sexual orientation.

Coming out as øgender became incredibly common in the wake of the ONI’s release. For the first time in human history, anyone eighteen years of age or older could safely and easily experience sexual intercourse with any gender and as any gender. This tended to alter their perception of gender identity and fluidity in profound ways. It had certainly altered mine. And I was certain it had done the same thing for every other ONI user with even a mildly adventurous spirit. Thanks to the OASIS Neural Interface, your gender and your sexuality were no longer constrained by—or confined to—the physical body you happened to be born into.

Skylar’s profile also indicated she had no living family members. Her mother, Iris Adkins, had died of heart failure two years ago. Somehow, Skylar had been living on her own since she was seventeen. In the DFW stacks, no less.

I heard movement and quickly closed Skylar’s user profile. Then I glanced back over at her avatar, just in time to see L0hengrin’s eyes flicker open—an indication that she’d logged out of Kastagir’s chatroom.

Her avatar stood up and began to walk toward the exit. I was standing directly in her path. Instead of stepping out of her way, I folded my arms and assumed an ominous wizard pose. Then I made my avatar visible once again.

L0hengrin froze, and when hereyes locked on to me they seemed to double in size. Then she bowed her head and slammed her right fist against her heart as she dropped to one knee.

“My liege,” she said in a shaky voice, keeping her eyes on the floor. “I’m L0hengrin. Your humble servant. And a huge fan, sir. Truly.”

“Please rise, L0hengrin,” I said. “I’m a big fan of yours too.”

She stood and slowly raised her eyes to meet mine.

“Sir Parzival,” she said, shaking her head in wonder. “It’s really you.”

“It’s really me,” I replied. “It’s an honor to meet you, L0hengrin.”

“The honor is all mine,” she said. “And please, call me Lo. All my friends do.”

“All right, Lo.” I offered her my hand and she shook it. “My friends call me Z.”

“I know,” she said, giving me a sheepish smile. “I’ve read every single one of the books written about you over the past few years, including your autobiography, which I’ve read at least two dozen times. So I know pretty much everything there is to know about you. Everything that’s ever been made public, anyway. I’m kinda obsessed with you—”

She suddenly cut herself off, wincing in embarrassment. Then she pounded her right fist lightly against her forehead several times before finally meeting my gaze again.

Her cheeks had turned a bright shade of red—an indication she hadn’t shut off her avatar’s blush response. She probably hadn’t switched off any of her avatar’s other involuntary emotional responses either. Younger ONI users did this intentionally. They referred to it as “rolling real.”

Poor Lo. Her nervousness at meeting an idol reminded me too much of myself for comfort. Hoping to rescue her—and impatient to learn what she knew—I tried to keep things moving. “I’m intrigued to see what you’ve found,” I said. “Would you like to show me?”

“Sure!” she replied. “You mean, like, right now?”

I nodded. “No time like the present.”

“Right,” she said. She cast a nervous glance toward the basement windows and lowered her voice. “But first I need to show you how I found it, so that you can repeat the same steps. That’s why I was waiting for you here, instead of at Kira’s house.”

“OK,” I said. “Go ahead.”

L0hengrin took a few hesitant steps toward the other end of the basement before halting and turning back to me. “Listen, Mr. Watts,” she said, keeping her eyes on the floor. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but would you mind verbally confirming that the reward is still one billion U.S. dollars?”

“Not at all,” I said. “If anything you tell me helps me locate one of the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul, then I will immediately transfer one billion dollars to your OASIS account. It’s all outlined in the contract you signed when you sent me your clue.”

Before anyone could try to claim the reward, they were required to sign a digital “Shard Clue Submission Contract” that my lawyers had drafted. I located the copy L0hengrin had signed and displayed it in a window in front of her. The print was too fine to read without squinting, and the text scrolled on for several pages.

“This contract states, among other things, that if the information you present to me proves to be valid, you agree not to share it with anyone else for a period of three years. You also agree not to discuss the details of our transaction with anyone, including the media. If you do, you forfeit the reward and I can take it all back—”

“Oh, I’ve read the contract,” she said, grinning, but still not meeting my gaze. “A few thousand times. Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just—that’s a lot of zenny for me.”

I laughed. “Don’t worry, Lo. If you can help me find one of the Seven Shards, then that money is all yours. I promise.”

She nodded and took a deep breath. The look of nervous anticipation on her face set my own heart racing. If this kid was lying about finding one of the shards, then she deserved an Academy Award for her performance.

L0hengrin turned and walked over to the bookshelves that lined the basement’s far wall. They were filled with sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks, role-playing-game supplements, and back issues of various vintage gaming magazines, like Dragon and Space Gamer . Lo began to flip through the huge collection of old Dungeons & Dragons modules shelved there, apparently looking for one in particular.

I’d browsed through that very same bookshelf seven years ago, during the early days of Halliday’s contest. And I’d read or skimmed over most of those old modules and magazines—but not all of them. The remaining titles were still on my reading list when I won the contest, at which point I’d forgotten all about them. Now I was kicking myself, wondering what I’d missed.

“For the past few years, I’ve been scouring Middletown, looking for a way to alter the time period of the simulation,” Lo said. “You know, because of the couplet.”

“The couplet?”

She paused in her search and turned around to look at me. “On Kira’s headstone?”

“Oh, right,” I said. “Of course.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, and L0hengrin could obviously see it on my face. Her eyes widened in surprise.

“Oh my God. You don’t even know about the couplet. Do you?”

“No,” I replied, throwing up my hands. “I guess I don’t.”

She frowned at me and shook her head, as if to say, How far the mighty have fallen.

“You know how in Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Two Towers, there’s a scene were King Théoden places a Simbelmynë on Théodred’s tomb?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Well, if you visit the re-creation of Kira’s grave on EEarth and place a Simbelmynë taken from Arda on it, a rhymed couplet appears on her headstone,” Lo said. “Other types of flowers indigenous to Middle-earth might work too. I’m not sure. I didn’t try any of them.”