Cline Ernest - Ready Player One

“I had to look at them!” I said. “To find out how much they knew about each of us! You would have done the same thing.”

She leveled a finger at me. “No, I wouldn’t have. I respect other people’s privacy!”

“Art3mis, chill out!” Aech interjected. “He probably saved your life, you know.”

She seemed to consider this. “Fine,” she said. “Forget it.” But I could tell she was still pissed off.

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept plowing forward.

“I’m sending each of you a copy of all the Sixer data I smuggled out. Ten zettabytes of it. You should have it now.” I waited while each of them checked their inbox. “The size of their database on Halliday is unreal. His whole life is in there. They’ve collected interviews with everyone Halliday ever knew. It could take months to read through them all.”

I waited for a few minutes, watching their eyes scan over the data.

“Whoa!” Shoto said. “This is incredible.” He looked over at me. “How the hell did you escape from IOI with all of this stuff?”

“By being extra sneaky.”

“Aech is right,” Art3mis said, shaking her head. “You are certifiably nuts.” She hesitated for a second, then added, “Thanks for the warning, Z. I owe you one.”

I opened my mouth to say “you’re welcome,” but no words came out.

“Yes,” Shoto said. “So do I. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, guys,” I finally managed to say.

“Well?” Aech said. “Hit us with the bad news already. How close are the Sixers to clearing the Third Gate?”

“Dig this,” I said, grinning. “They haven’t even figured out how to open it yet.”

Art3mis and Shoto stared at me in disbelief. Aech smiled wide, then began to bob his head and press his palms to the sky, as if dancing to some unheard rave track. “Oh yes! Oh yes!” he sang.

“You’re kidding, right?” Shoto asked.

I shook my head.

“You’re not kidding?” Art3mis said. “How is that possible? Sorrento has the Crystal Key and he knows where the gate is. All he has to do is open the damn thing and step inside, right?”

“That was true for the first two gates,” I replied. “But Gate Three is different.” I opened a large vidfeed window in the air beside me. “Check this out. It’s from the Sixers’ video archive. It’s a vidcap of their first attempt to open the gate.”

I hit Play. The video clip opened with a shot of Sorrento’s avatar standing outside the front gates of Castle Anorak. The castle’s front entrance, which had been impregnable for so many years, swung open as Sorrento approached, like an automatic door at a supermarket. “The castle entrance will open for an avatar who holds a copy of the Crystal Key,” I explained. “If an avatar doesn’t have a copy of the key, he can’t cross the threshold and enter the castle, even if the doors are already open.”

We all watched the vidcap as Sorrento passed through the entrance and into the large gold-lined foyer that lay beyond. Sorrento’s avatar crossed the polished floor and approached the large crystal door set into the north wall. There was a keyhole in the very center of the door, and directly above it, three words were etched into the door’s glittering, faceted surface: CHARITY. HOPE. FAITH.

Sorrento stepped forward, holding out his copy of the Crystal Key. He slid the key into the keyhole and turned it. Nothing happened.

Sorrento glanced up at the three words printed on the gate. “Charity, hope, faith,” he said, reading them aloud. Once again, nothing happened.

Sorrento removed the key, recited the three words again, then reinserted the key and turned it. Still nothing.

I studied Aech, Art3mis, and Shoto as they watched the video. Their excitement and curiosity had already shifted into concentration as they attempted to solve the puzzle before them. I paused the video. “Whenever Sorrento is logged in, he has a team of consultants and researchers watching his every move,” I said. “You can hear their voices on some of the vidcaps, feeding him suggestions and advice through his comlink. So far, they haven’t been much help. Watch—”

On the video, Sorrento was making another attempt to open the gate. He did everything exactly as before, except this time, when he inserted the Crystal Key, he turned it counterclockwise instead of clockwise.

“They try every asinine thing you can imagine,” I said. “Sorrento recites the words on the gate in Latin. And Elvish. And Klingon. Then they get hung up on reciting First Corinthians 13:13, a Bible verse that contains the words ‘charity, hope, and faith.’ Apparently, ‘charity, hope, and faith’ are also the names of three martyred Catholic saints. The Sixers have been trying to attach some significance to that for the past few days.”

“Morons,” Aech said. “Halliday was an atheist.”

“They’re getting desperate now,” I said. “Sorrento has tried everything but genuflecting, doing a little dance, and sticking his pinky finger in the keyhole.”

“That’s probably next up on his agenda,” Shoto said, grinning.

“Charity, hope, faith,” Art3mis said, reciting the words slowly. She turned to me. “Where do I know that from?”

“Yeah,” Aech said. “Those words do sound familiar.”

“It took me a while to place them too,” I said.

They all looked at me expectantly.

“Say them in reverse order,” I suggested. “Better yet, sing them in reverse order.”

Art3mis’s eyes narrowed. “Faith, hope, charity,” she said. She repeated them a few times, recognition growing in her face. Then she sang: “Faith and hope and charity …”

Aech picked up the next line: “The heart and the brain and the body …”

“Give you three … as a magic number!” Shoto finished triumphantly.

“Schoolhouse Rock!” they all shouted in unison.

“See?” I said. “I knew you guys would get it. You’re a smart bunch.”

“ ‘Three Is a Magic Number,’ music and lyrics by Bob Dorough,” Art3mis recited, as if pulling the information from a mental encyclopedia. “Written in 1973.”

I smiled at her. “I have a theory. I think this might be Halliday’s way of telling us how many keys are required to open the Third Gate.”

Art3mis grinned, then sang, “It takes three.”

“No more, no less,” continued Shoto.

“You don’t have to guess,” added Aech.

“Three,” I finished, “is the magic number.” I took out my own copy of the Crystal Key and held it up. The others did the same. “We have four copies of the key. If at least three of us can reach the gate, we can get it open.”

“What then?” Aech asked. “Do we all enter the gate at the same time?”

“What if only one of us can enter the gate once it’s open?” Art3mis said.

“I doubt Halliday would have set it up like that,” I said.

“Who knows what that crazy bastard was thinking?” Art3mis said. “He’s toyed with us every step of the way, and now he’s doing it again. Why else would he require three copies of the Crystal Key to open the final gate?”

“Maybe because he wanted to force us to work together?” I suggested.

“Or he just wanted the contest to end with a big, dramatic finale,” Aech offered. “Think about it. If three avatars enter the Third Gate at the exact same moment, then it becomes a race to see who can clear the gate and reach the egg first.”

“Halliday was one crazy, sadistic bastard,” Art3mis muttered.

“Yeah,” Aech said, nodding. “You got that right.”

“Look at it this way,” Shoto said. “If Halliday hadn’t set up the Third Gate to require three keys … the Sixers might have already found the egg by now.”