Cline Ernest - Ready Player One

“What?” she said, a bit defensively. “You never imagined what?”

“That the famous Aech, renowned gunter and the most feared and ruthless arena combatant in the entire OASIS, was, in reality, a …”

“A fat black chick?”

“I was going to say ‘young African American woman.’ ”

Her expression darkened. “There’s a reason I never told you, you know.”

“And I’m sure it’s a good one,” I said. “But it really doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Of course not. You’re my best friend, Aech. My only friend, to be honest.”

“Well, I still want to explain.”

“OK. But can it wait until we’re in the air?” I said. “We’ve got a long way to travel. And I’ll feel a lot safer once we’ve left this city in the dust.”

“We’re on our way, amigo,” she said, putting the RV in gear.

Aech followed Og’s directions to a private hangar near the Columbus airport, where a small luxury jet was waiting for us. Og had arranged for Aech’s RV to be stored in a nearby hangar, but it had been her home for many years, and I could tell she was nervous about leaving it behind.

We both stared at the jet in wonder as we approached it. I’d seen airplanes in the sky before, of course, but I’d never seen one up close. Traveling by jet was something only rich people could afford. That Og could afford to charter three different jets to retrieve us without batting an eyelash was a testament to just how insanely wealthy he must be.

The jet was completely automated, so there was no crew on board. We were all alone. The placid voice of the autopilot welcomed us aboard, then told us to strap in and prepare for takeoff. We were up in the air within minutes.

It was the first time either of us had ever flown, and we both spent the first hour of the flight staring out the windows, overwhelmed by the view, as we hurtled westward through the atmosphere at ten thousand feet, on our way to Oregon. Finally, once some of the novelty had worn off, I could tell that Aech was ready to talk.

“OK, Aech,” I said. “Tell me your story.”

She flashed her Cheshire grin and took a deep breath. “The whole thing was originally my mother’s idea,” she said. Then she launched into an abbreviated version of her life story. Her real name, she said, was Helen Harris, and she was only a few months older than I was. She’d grown up in Atlanta, raised by a single mother. Her father had died in Afghanistan when she was still a baby. Her mother, Marie, worked from home, in an online data-processing center. In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie had used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.

When Aech first logged into the OASIS, she followed her mother’s advice and created a Caucasian male avatar. “H” had been her mother’s nickname for her since she was a baby, so she’d decided to use it as the name of her online persona. A few years later, when she started attending school online, her mother lied about her daughter’s race and gender on the application. Aech was required to provide a photo for her school profile, so she’d submitted a photorealistic rendering of her male avatar’s face, which she’d modeled after her own features.

Aech told me that she hadn’t seen or spoken to her mother since leaving home on her eighteenth birthday. That was the day Aech had finally come out to her mother about her sexuality. At first, her mother refused to believe she was gay. But then Helen revealed that she’d been dating a girl she met online for nearly a year.

As Aech explained all of this, I could tell she was studying my reaction. I wasn’t all that surprised, really. Over the past few years, Aech and I had discussed our mutual admiration for the female form on numerous occasions. I was actually relieved to know that Aech hadn’t been deceiving me, at least not on that account.

“How did your mother react when she found out you had a girlfriend?” I asked.

“Well, it turns out that my mother had her own set of deep-seated prejudices,” Aech said. “She kicked me out of the house and said she never wanted to see me again. I was homeless for a little while. I lived in a series of shelters. But eventually I earned enough competing in the OASIS arena leagues to buy my RV, and I’ve been living in it ever since. I usually only stop moving when the RV’s batteries need to recharge.”

As we continued to talk, going through the motions of getting to know each other, I realized that we already did know each other, as well as any two people could. We’d known each other for years, in the most intimate way possible. We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a dear friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation.

The rest of the flight seemed to go by in a blink. Aech and I quickly fell into our old familiar rhythm, and before long it was like we were back in the Basement, trash-talking each other over a game of Quake or Joust. Any fears I had about the resiliency of our friendship in the real world had vanished by the time our jet touched down on Og’s private runway in Oregon.

We’d been flying west across the country, just a few hours ahead of the sunrise, so it was still dark when we landed. Aech and I both froze in our tracks as we stepped off the plane, gazing in wonder at the scene around us. Even in the dim moonlight, the view was breathtaking. The dark, towering silhouettes of the Wallowa Mountains surrounded us on all sides. Rows of blue runway lights stretched out along the valley floor behind us, delineating Og’s private landing strip. Directly ahead, a steep cobblestone staircase at the edge of the runway led up to a grand, floodlit mansion constructed on a plateau near the base of the mountain range. Several waterfalls were visible in the distance, spilling off the peaks beyond Morrow’s mansion.

“It looks just like Rivendell,” Aech said, taking the words right out of my mouth.

I nodded. “It looks exactly like Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings movies,” I said, still staring up at it in awe. “Og’s wife was a big Tolkien fan, remember? He built this place for her.”

We heard an electric hum behind us as the jet’s staircase retracted and the hatch closed. The engines powered back up and the jet rotated, preparing to take off again. We stood and watched it launch back up into the clear, starry sky. Then we turned and began to mount the staircase leading up to the house. When we finally reached the top, Ogden Morrow was there waiting for us.

“Welcome, my friends!” Og bellowed, extending both his hands in greeting. He was dressed in a plaid bathrobe and bunny slippers. “Welcome to my home!”

“Thank you, sir,” Aech said. “Thanks for inviting us here.”

“Ah, you must be Aech,” he replied, clasping her hand. If he was surprised by her appearance, he didn’t show it. “I recognize your voice.” He gave her a wink, followed by a bear hug. Then he turned and hugged me, too. “And you must be Wade—I mean, Parzival! Welcome! Welcome! It’s truly an honor to meet you both!”

“The honor is ours,” I said. “We really can’t thank you enough for helping us.”

“You’ve already thanked me enough, so stop it!” he said. He turned and led us across an expansive green lawn, toward his enormous house. “I can’t tell you how good it is to have visitors. Sad to say, I’ve been all alone here since Kira died.” He was silent a moment; then he laughed. “Alone except for my cooks, maids, and gardeners, of course. But they all live here too, so they don’t really count as visitors.”