Эрнест Клайн - Ready Player Two [calibre]

Aech and Art3mis called out Og’s name. Shoto asked him if he was all right. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t speak. I was frozen, with my eyes locked on the screen.

Nolan Sorrento was standing directly behind Og. He was no longer dressed in his orange prison jumpsuit. Now he was wearing a freshly pressed gray business suit, as well as a bifocal OASIS visor. He had a gun in his left hand and a taser in his right. He held the taser in front of Og’s face and activated it, causing Og to recoil.

“No!” I shouted. “Leave him alone!”

Sorrento cackled like a kid opening a Christmas present. He’d clearly been looking forward to this moment for some time.

“Paybacks are a real bitch,” Sorrento said, grinning down at me from the viewscreen. “Eh, Parzival?” He cackled again. “Oh man! I wish you guys could see the expressions on your faces right now.” He tapped his HUD to take a screenshot, then turned it around to show us our own horrified faces, and added, “Priceless!”

Before any of us could reply, Anorak cut the vidfeed and the viewscreen went dark. Anorak took in our stunned expressions and nodded with apparent satisfaction.

“I wish I’d known about the severity of Og’s illness sooner,” he said. “He isn’t going to live much longer, and he knows it. This makes it extremely difficult for me to persuade him. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t care if he lives or dies.” He shrugged and threw up his hands, as if to say, What can you do? Then he leveled one of his bony index fingers at me. “I’m afraid that makes you my only other option, Parzival. You’re going to have to obtain the Seven Shards for me.”

I took an involuntary step toward him, then I felt Aech’s strong hands take hold of my shoulders to restrain me.

“Dream on!” I shouted. “I’m not lifting a finger to help you unless you release Og first. Once I have proof that he’s safe, then we can talk.”

Anorak gave me a condescending smile and slowly shook his head.

“No, you’ve got that backward, Wade,” he replied. “First, you’re going to find the other shards and then you’re going to bring all seven of them to me. Once you do, I will return Ogden Morrow to you safe and sound. And as an added bonus, I’ll also release you and all of your friends here, so that you don’t suffer catastrophic brain damage.”

I shot a panicked look over at the others. Aech took a tentative step toward Anorak.

“What do you mean, you’ll ‘release’ us?” she asked. “Release us from what?”

“From the OASIS,” Anorak said. “It’s the world’s biggest party, and I’ve just crashed it.” He chuckled softly to himself. “Get it? It’s funny because you can ‘crash’ a computer simulation, but you can also ‘crash’ a party.” He glanced around at our blank faces, then shrugged. “That latest firmware update to your ONI headsets—the one you all downloaded this morning? I modified the code, to create my own version that I jokingly refer to as ‘infirmware.’ When all of you installed it this morning, my new infirmware disabled your ability to log out of the simulation. Which means I have also disabled your ability to wake up from your ONI-induced coma.” He smiled. “In other words, you’re all trapped inside the OASIS until I choose to release you. And I won’t do that until I have the Siren’s Soul in my possession.”

He pointed at me.

“If Parzival here doesn’t bring it to me before he runs out of time, then it’s Game Over for all of you,” he said. “Both here in the OASIS, and out there in the real world.”

I immediately pulled up the OASIS account menu on my HUD. Anorak was right, I couldn’t log out—that option was grayed out. And I could see by the horrified expressions on each of their faces that the same thing had also happened to Faisal, Aech, and Shoto.

I looked over at Samantha. She wasn’t accessing the OASIS with an ONI headset. She was using an old-fashioned visor and haptic gloves, so I knew she could still log out at any time. But she looked just as worried as the rest of us.

“It’s true!” Faisal gasped. “I can’t log out. I can’t log out! ”

“You guys really should’ve listened to your friend Samantha here,” Anorak said. “She was right. You guys all watched both Sword Art Online and the Matrix films and yet you still thought it was a good idea to hand over control of your brain to a computer?” He snorted out a laugh. “I mean, just look at what can happen!”

“Guys, I’m about to lose my shit over here,” Shoto said as he began to shake his head vigorously from side to side. “Anorak just went Sonic.exe on us! This is so bad—”

Anorak loudly cleared his throat.

“Would you please let me finish, Shoto?” Anorak asked impatiently. “I haven’t even gotten to the big reveal yet, dude! OK. Everyone ready?”

He pretended to do a drumroll on his knee.

“You aren’t the only ones trapped inside the OASIS right now,” Anorak announced. “ So is every other ONI user who downloaded the new firmware before they logged in. That’s nearly half a billion people. And counting.”

“Oh no,” Aech said breathlessly, closing her eyes.

“Oh yes,” Anorak replied, nodding his head vigorously.

“Sweet Jesus,” Faisal whispered. “That means—”

“It means that if I don’t get what I want by around dinnertime tonight, you and half a billion of your customers will begin to suffer the effects of Synaptic Overload Syndrome, which include but are not limited to: catastrophic brain damage, heart failure, and death.”

I felt my blood run cold. I’d read several reports about the effects of SOS. They were horrifying. Giddiness and uncontrollable laughing fits were two of the early warning signs of the onset of Synaptic Overload Syndrome. One of the dirty secrets about SOS was that several of the early test subjects who had lost their lives to it had literally died laughing.

“This isn’t happening,” I heard Faisal muttering to himself. “This can’t be happening.”

“It can, it has, and it is happening, my young friend!” Anorak said cheerfully. “Have a look.” He opened a browser window in the air above his head, displaying the current ONI user count. The six-figure number continued to scroll upward for a few seconds, climbing faster than the national debt. Then, just a few seconds after it crossed five hundred million, the counter suddenly froze.

“Ah!” Anorak said. “Your admins have finally managed to disable any further ONI logins. So I only managed to take five hundred and fifty-one million, one hundred ninety-two thousand, two hundred and eighty-six hostages! Including all of you.” He locked eyes with me. “Is that enough incentive for you to cooperate, Parzival?”

I glanced over at Aech and Shoto, then at Samantha, and then back at Anorak. I nodded.

“Excellent!” Anorak said, using a Mr. Burns voice. Then he switched back to his own. “Whoo-boy! Talk about a high-stakes treasure hunt!” He rubbed his hands together excitedly. “This is gonna make the hunt for Halliday’s Easter egg look like a raffle at a church fundraiser.”

“Hold up,” Aech said, raising her hand. “What the hell is the Siren’s Soul, anyway?”

“Yeah,” Art3mis added. “And why do you want it so badly?”

Anorak frowned at them.

“Hey, are you the kind of kids who read the last page of a mystery first?” he asked. “Who pester the magician to tell you his tricks? Who sneak downstairs to peek at their Christmas presents?” Anorak shook his head. “No, of course you’re not! That’s why I’m not gonna tell you .”

He sang that last bit, then he gave us all a knowing smile. My friends and I exchanged another look of disbelief. Now he was quoting The Last Starfighter to us.