Эрнест Клайн - Ready Player Two [calibre]

I pointed it out to Art3mis, and she smiled.

“There are five different John Candy NPCs wandering around Shermer,” she said. “Can you name all of them?”

“Sure,” I said. “Del Griffith, of course. Then there’s Chet Ripley, C. D. Marsh, and Gus Polinski, the Polka King of the Midwest. Oh, and I saw Buck Russell this morning.”

She grinned at me, impressed.

“Not bad, Watts,” she said. “Still sharp as a tack.” She pointed to a log cabin–style restaurant on the other side of the street called Paul Bunyan’s Cupboard, with large statues of Paul and Babe the Blue Ox by its front entrance.

“Want to stop in and try to eat an Old Ninety-Sixer?” Art3mis asked. “It’s probably a lot harder when you’re using an ONI—”

Appearing to realize what she’d just said, she cut herself off, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her wince.

“Fuck yes, ” I said, elbowing her in the ribs to let her know it was all right. “If we had time, I would destroy an Old Ninety-Sixer right now.” I lowered my voice. “You might think I’d be opposed to eating something with the word ‘sixer’ in its name, but I am not. At all.”

Art3mis laughed her laugh again, and it was music to my ears.

“When this is over, we’re coming back here to chow down, OK?” I said.

She nodded and said, “It’s a date.”

I felt myself turn several different shades of red.

As we continued to drive, I stole a glance over at her in the driver’s seat. The top was down and the wind was in her hair. She looked beautiful. And happy. And I was still madly in love with her. No matter how much I denied it.

Out of nowhere, another needle drop triggered and a new song began to play—“More Than a Feeling” by Boston. The same song plays during a brief flashback in She’s Having a Baby, when Jake falls in love with his future wife, Kristy, at first sight.

As soon as it began, Art3mis snapped her head to the right and caught me staring at her. I glanced away, pretending to look out the windshield. But in the reflection in the glass, I thought I caught a glimpse of her smiling. Then I heard her laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“That song,” she replied. “It starts to play whenever one avatar stares at another avatar for longer than five seconds while also experiencing a drastic increase in their heart rate. It’s a little Easter egg they added for ONI users last year.”

“Great,” I muttered. “Busted by my own bio monitors.”

She laughed, keeping her eyes on the road ahead. I sank down into my seat and pretended to look out the window, wishing that magic worked on this planet, so that I could turn myself invisible.

We arrived at the Shermer Hotel a few minutes later. Art3mis screeched Mr. Ryan’s Rolls-Royce up onto the curb, causing several NPC pedestrians to dive out of the way.

The three of us jumped out of the car and sprinted toward the hotel’s main entrance. But RDJ skidded to a halt just shy of the threshold.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Art3mis. “But I can’t go in there.”

“What?” she replied, grabbing him by his satin lapels. “Why the hell not? You promised! And I already gave you all of Bender’s weed!”

“I know,” RDJ replied. “And I want to help you out. But I can’t go in there. Not like this. I wouldn’t know what to do. Or say.”

“You don’t have to say anything!” Art3mis said, prodding him toward the entrance. “Just go in there, find the hot redhead in the atrocious pink nightgown, and ask her to dance. That’s it! Done!”

The RDJ NPC shook his head and didn’t budge. Art3mis nodded at me, and I grabbed him around the waist, lifted him off the ground, and attempted to carry him across the threshold. But I couldn’t do it. It was like he kept bouncing off an invisible force field that somehow prevented him from going inside.

I tried a few more times anyway, to no avail. Then RDJ began to struggle, trying to get free of my grip.

“I’m sorry!” he cried. “But I’m just not emotionally prepared, at this exact juncture, to go in there. I mean, look how I’m dressed….And I never know what to say at formal social gatherings such as this!”

Art3mis gave me a nod and I let go of him. He straightened his suit and gave me an indignant glare. I thought he might bolt, but instead, he folded his arms and began to absentmindedly tap his foot—an indication that he was running an idle animation.

I turned to Art3mis.

“ ‘Recast the foul, restore his ending,’ ” I recited. “This whole time, we thought the clue meant we were supposed to restore Duckie’s ending. But what if ‘restore his ending’ means we need to restore John Hughes’s ending? The ending of Pretty in Pink he originally wrote in his screenplay?” I nodded at the RDJ NPC. “What if we need to find a copy of the original script and give it to him?”

Art3mis threw up her hands. “And how are we supposed to do that?”

I smiled at her. “We go to the writer’s house,” I replied.

She gave me a puzzled look for a few seconds, then her eyes lit up with understanding.

“Holy shit!” she cried. “That might be it! Z, you’re a genius!”

Before I knew what the hell was happening, she grabbed my face and planted a kiss on me. She wasn’t wearing an ONI headset, so I knew she didn’t feel that kiss. But I did. Then she turned to RDJ.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she told him. “We’ll be right back.”

Then she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back in the direction of the car.

Art3mis knew a shortcut throughthe rich side of town, and was somehow able to navigate from memory, racing through the dark, undifferentiated maze of identical streets, each lined with identical houses. She managed to get us there in just a few minutes, but her erratic driving triggered another needle drop—“March of the Swivel Heads” by the English Beat. I don’t think she touched the brake pedal once, until we finally screeched to a halt in the Johnson family’s driveway.

As soon as our feet touched the driveway, another needle drop went off: “Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes)” by Book of Love. Hearing it, Art3mis glanced over at me, and we shared a brief smile of recognition. Then we both turned and ran to the front door. She rang the doorbell, and a second later, Mrs. Johnson opened it, wearing an annoyed scowl. Her young daughter was standing in the doorway behind her, and she was scowling at us too. I recognized both of them from their brief scene in The Breakfast Club when they drop Anthony Michael Hall’s character, Brian, off at detention, and his mom says, “Well, mister, you better figure out a way to study!” and then his little sister says, “Yeah!” (Another piece of trivia I’d learned from Artie’s blog, years ago, was that they were played by Anthony Michael Hall’s real-life mother and sister.)

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Johnson said, after she spent a few more seconds scowling at us. “We don’t allow solicitors.” She pointed to a small No Solicitors sign with gold lettering nailed to their front door.

“Oh, we’re not selling anything, Mrs. Johnson,” Art3mis said. “My name is Art3mis, and this is my friend Parzival. We’re here to speak with your husband—about our mutual friend, Duckie? Philip F. Dale?”

Mrs. Johnson’s scowl vanished, and she gave Art3mis a huge smile. In the next moment, her face melted and morphed, and she transformed into a completely different woman. Now the NPC in front of us was a slender woman with long blond hair and a warm, friendly smile. I didn’t recognize her at all—but Art3mis did. Instantly.

“Mrs. Hughes!” she said, lowering her eyes and bowing her head, as if she’d just encountered royalty. Then she glanced sideways at me and whispered, “Nancy Hughes! I’ve never seen her here before! I didn’t even know you could!”