Эрнест Клайн - Ready Player Two

Bad news first won by unanimous vote.

“Another problem has arisen due to Anorak’s firmware hack,” he said. “I’ve kept it from you until now because I didn’t want to distract you while you were looking for—”

“Spill it already, Faisal!” Aech shouted.

“It’s OK,” Art3mis said. “Just tell us what’s going on. We’re not going to fire you.”

Faisal pursed his lips, and for a few seconds he looked like he might break down and cry.

“Anorak has figured out a way to alter the behavior of our NPCs,” he said.

We all shouted “What?!” in unison, so loud it made Faisal flinch. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then he opened them and continued.

“About an hour ago, all the NPCs in sectors one through four started to behave erratically and wander outside their designated operational boundaries. Some of these rogue NPCs have even gone off-world….”

“NPCs can’t go off-world,” Art3mis said. “Unless they’ve been programmed to do so, as part of a user quest…”

“That’s true,” Faisal replied. “Anorak must’ve altered their programming somehow.”

“OK,” I said. “What exactly are these rogue NPCs doing?”

Faisal motioned to the viewscreen, where he began to play a rapid series of simcap clips. Each one gave us a first-person view of one or more NPCs suddenly breaking character, going berserk, and attacking an unwitting player avatar. We saw surfers, sidekicks, shopkeepers, pit mechanics, butlers, maids, background citizens, and wise old mentors all going postal, on hundreds of different OASIS worlds. Taken as a whole, the footage made it look like the OASIS had suddenly turned into a nightmarish mash-up of Westworld, Futureworld, and Jurassic World, with a smattering of Imaginationland, Tomorrowland, and Zombieland all mixed in for good measure.

“The NPCs in those sectors all turned homicidal at the same time,” Faisal said. “A little over twenty minutes ago. And they’re able to use public teleportation terminals now, so they’re running amok all over the simulation, attacking and killing every avatar unlucky enough to cross their path. They appeared to be attacking players on sight and at random. Even in safe zones, where getting zeroed-out by an NPC is supposed to be impossible. The NPCs loot all of the money, weapons, magic items, and artifacts dropped by the avatars they kill.” He motioned to the viewscreen. “And then they take all of that loot to Chthonia and deliver it to Anorak inside his castle. Watch….”

He showed another piece of simcap footage, which looked as if it had been taken from the POVs of several different hijacked NPCs. We saw a shot of Castle Anorak from a distance, and there were hundreds of thousands of NPCs lined up in front of it. They were slowly filing into the castle’s front entrance, and then back out one of its numerous exits, each of them now dressed in matching red-and-black studded leather armor. Once the NPCs were back outside, they joined the orderly ranks that were forming up around the castle. These ranks already stretched to the horizon in every direction, like orcs amassing around Isengard.

Then the simcap we were watching cut to another POV—that of an NPC standing inside the castle throne room. Anorak was sitting with one leg draped over the arm of his golden throne. Sorrento was standing off to his right with a malevolent smile on his face, trying to look imposing. He was dressed in black plate-mail armor that was covered in spikes. Both of his hands (enclosed in enormous black gauntlets) were resting on the hilt of a giant black-bladed bastard sword with magic runes carved into its blade. When I translated them, I realized that Sorrento’s avatar appeared to be wielding the cursed blade Stormbringer, and I suddenly felt ill.

Faisal paused the simcap file for a moment and zoomed in on Sorrento’s smug mug.

“We did find out how Anorak was communicating with Sorrento while he was in prison,” Faisal said. “As we suspected, it was during his allotted weekly OASIS recreation time. For thirty minutes every Saturday, Sorrento was allowed to log in with a conventional haptic rig. His usage logs indicate he spent nearly all of that time at a free public library on Incipio, reading articles about Mr. Watts and the other members of the High Five. Anorak appears to have taken control of the library terminal Sorrento was using to open a line of text communication with him. The inmate-monitoring software didn’t catch it at the time, and Anorak erased any record of what they said to each other, but we think it must be how they coordinated Sorrento’s escape.” He let out a sigh. “Still no sign of either him or Og.”

“Can’t we track Sorrento’s location in the real world?” Shoto asked. “Through his OASIS connection?”

Faisal shook his head.

“Sorrento appears to be accessing the simulation through a series of overseas proxy servers, to mask his real-world location,” he said. “Anorak clearly took security precautions on his behalf.”

Faisal motioned back up at the viewscreen. He recentered the simcap footage on Anorak, sitting on his bejeweled throne. Anorak had his left hand held out toward the chain gang of NPCs who were rapidly filing past him, so that he could vacuum up the constant stream of weapons and magic items they were presenting to him. As he hoovered up all of this loot, I could see his eyes darting around rapidly, as if he were scanning each new item description on his HUD as it was added to his inventory. With his right hand, Anorak was also constantly discarding unwanted items, which were then picked up and carried out of the room by other NPCs, who were all now dressed in the same studded black-and-red armor, which matched the color scheme of his own robes. As each NPC donned this new attire, the name tag over their head would also change to read “Acolyte of Anorak.”

“Mother pus bucket,” Art3mis muttered. “It looks to me like Anorak is building an army. And an arsenal.”

“To me, it looks like he’s searching for one item in particular,” Shoto replied. “Maybe that’s why he reprogrammed the NPCs to start killing avatars to loot their inventory? Because he’s trying to find something specific? Like an artifact with unique abilities?”

Faisal shrugged.

“Maybe,” he replied. “I guess we’ll find out….”

“OK, Faisal,” said Art3mis. “Go ahead and hit us with the ‘even worse news.’ ”

“Christ,” Aech muttered, shaking her head. “I forgot there was even worse news.”

Faisal nodded, fidgeted for a few seconds, and then took another deep breath.

“The avatars of ONI users have stopped respawning when they die,” he said.

The room fell silent for several seconds, as everyone tried to process what he’d said.

“OK…” Art3mis said slowly. “Then what happens to the user when their avatar gets killed?”

“ Nothing happens,” Faisal said. “Their avatar doesn’t respawn inside the OASIS, and they don’t wake up in the real world either. But their ONI headset stays powered up and locked onto their skull. The users’ brain patterns indicate they’re still logged in to the OASIS.” He shrugged. “They all appear to be trapped in limbo.”

“Jesus,” Art3mis muttered. “Can they feel anything? What are they experiencing?”

Faisal shook his head.

“We don’t know,” he replied with a shaky voice. “We have no way of finding out what the users themselves are actually experiencing.”

Aech cleared her throat.

“Does anyone else find this shit completely terrifying?” she asked, raising her right hand. “Because I do.”

Shoto and I both raised our right hands in solidarity.

“It’s possible that Anorak’s infirmware has simply broken the respawning process,” Faisal said hopefully. “So that now, when an ONI user’s avatar gets killed, they get stuck in a dreamless limbo, where they’re no longer experiencing anything at all.”