Эрнест Клайн - Ready Player Two

“ ‘Once the Seven Shards are reassembled, they coalesce into the Siren’s Soul, a powerful magical artifact with the power to free Leucosia from suspended animation and bring her back to life.’ ” I looked up from the page. “That’s all it says.”

We were still processing all of this new information when Lo hit us with another stunner.

“OK,” she said. “We saved the best for last.”

She took a large piece of graph paper out of her inventory and unfolded it. There was an elaborate dungeon map drawn on it in pencil. It was covered with carefully lettered notations and room descriptions written in a very tiny, very familiar script.

“I found this stuck inside Kira’s notebook,” she said. “But that isn’t Kira’s handwriting.”

“It’s Og’s handwriting!” Art3mis and Aech shouted, beating me to the punch.

Lo nodded.

“According to this text across the bottom of the map, it leads to the hiding place of a powerful magic sword known as the Dorkslayer, which was ‘specially forged at the dawn of the OASIS, for the express purpose of slaying the mighty wizard Anorak, if he should ever become corrupted by his power and turn to evil.’ ” Lo glanced up at me. “This was tucked inside the front cover of the notebook. Someone wanted to make sure I saw it.”

“Holy shit,” Aech muttered. “You think Og forged a special sword to kill Anorak?”

Lo nodded excitedly. “I think so!” she replied. “Maybe!”

“The Dorkslayer?” Shoto repeated. “Og named his Anorak-killing super sword ‘the Dorkslayer’?”

“He did,” Lo said. “And this map is dated here at the bottom right. April 1, 2022—just a few months before Og left Gregarious. He must’ve made the sword before he quit.” She folded the map in half and flipped it over so she could read the text across the top. “It says here that the Dorkslayer was hidden for safekeeping in the hoard of a fearsome dragon, located in a deep underground cave on an uncharted island in the Nilxor Sea called Farhell.”

She opened a three-dimensional OASIS sector map in the air in front of her.

“There just happens to be a small planet in the OASIS named Farhell,” Lo replied. “Its coordinates are scribbled in the corner of Og’s map. According to the planet’s colophon, it dates back to the earliest days of the simulation, when Kira and Og both still worked at GSS.”

“Farhell?” Shoto said. “Never heard of it.”

“Me neither,” Aech added.

“Because it’s an uncharted planet,” Lo said. “And it’s located out in Zone Zero.”

This threw all of us for a loop. “Zone Zero” was what everyone called the area outside the twenty-seven core sectors that made up the OASIS. It was an endless, procedurally generated virtual space that didn’t spring into existence until an avatar flew their ship into it. So Zone Zero was continuously expanding its size and geography on the fly, as avatars traveled farther and farther out into it. Halliday and Morrow had designed the OASIS this way on purpose, so that if people ever used up all of the surreal estate in the initial twenty-seven sectors, the simulation would still always have plenty of extra room available out in Zone Zero. An infinite amount, to be exact.

I’d only ever traveled out into the Zero once, just to be able to say that I had. When we were kids, it used to be a rite of passage, to travel out to the edge of the simulation in a spaceship, and then keep on going a little farther, to force the OASIS to grow a little more in size, just for you.

The first time I flew my X-Wing to the outer edge of the core twenty-seven zones and ventured into Zone Zero, I remember flying past a signpost floating at the border that read: OUT HERE, ON THE PERIMETER, THERE ARE NO STARS….

“I think Og created a real Dorkslayer,” Lo said. “Here, inside the OASIS, when he was still working at GSS. Maybe as a contingency, in case he and Halliday ever got into a disagreement with their invincible avatars.”

A burst of elation ran through me—followed by one of profound sadness. This might be the weapon we needed against Anorak. But how terrible must Halliday’s behavior have been for Og to feel he needed to prepare for battle against his best friend?

“It must be real,” said Shoto. “That’s why Anorak reprogrammed all of those NPCs to kill off high-level avatars and collect their items! He’s trying to find the Dorkslayer sword before anyone else can.”

“I thought that Anorak and Og both made their avatars all-powerful,” Aech said. “And indestructible.”

“I’ve read that too,” Lo replied. “But the writing on Og’s map says that the Dorkslayer is ‘the only weapon that can slay he who cannot be slain.’ It also says that Morrow’s character, the Great and Powerful Og, is the only avatar who can wield it, due to his ‘noble birth.’ ”

“Jeez Louise,” Shoto said, rolling his eyes. He turned to me. “We’re gonna be looking for Horcruxes next.”

“Excellent work, Lo,” Art3mis said, then turned to me. “We need that sword!”

“I don’t think we have time for a side quest right now, Arty,” Aech said. “We need to find the last three shards, now, while we still can!”

L0hengrin suddenly dropped to one knee in front of us. Then she motioned to the rest of her clan members, and they all did the same.

“Members of the High Five,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “The L0w Five is at your command. Please, allow us to retrieve the Dorkslayer for you while you complete your quest. I promise you, we will not fail.”

She raised her eyes to meet mine, and I could see the steely resolve in them. I glanced over at Aech, Shoto, and Art3mis, and they all nodded their approval.

“Thank you, L0hengrin,” I said. “The High Five gratefully accepts your offer.”

I reached out and offered her my hand. Lo rose to her feet and shook it. Her companions stood up too.

“Thank you for your help,” I said. “If you find the sword—”

“You mean when we find the sword,” she said.

“Forgive me,” I replied. “ When you find the Dorkslayer, teleport to wherever I am immediately. I’ll share my location with you so you can track me.”

Lo nodded. Then she grinned and abruptly transformed into a young James Spader.

She gave me an exaggerated salute and said, “Aye-aye, Captain.”

Then Lo snapped her fingers and teleported away, taking the other members of the L0w Five with her.

“Wow,” Aech said, turning to me. “That chick is amazing .”

“Yeah,” Art3mis said, shaking her head at me. “I don’t know how you do it, Z. You have a gift for making friends who are much cooler than you are.”

“Humility, madam,” I said. “That’s my secret. That and my clean, close shave.”

Art3mis laughed and rolled her eyes. Then she turned to Faisal.

“Do you think that sword will really work?” she asked him.

“Who knows?” he replied. “According to our OASIS engineers, Anorak still appears to function like any other NPC, at least as far as the system is concerned. So theoretically, he should still be bound by the same rules and operating parameters they are. Which means he can be killed if his avatar sustains enough physical damage.”

“What if we can’t kill him?” Shoto asked. “Are we just gonna give him the shards and hope that he’ll keep his word?”

The mental image of my avatar handing the Seven Shards over to Anorak actually made me feel nauseous for a few seconds. But then it gave me an idea….

I looked back down at the last page of Kira’s notebook and reread the section describing how the players in her module were supposed to go about combining the Seven Shards. By the time I had finished, the rough framework of a plan had formed in my head. When I shared it with the others, they seemed to think there was a chance it might work too. We spent a few more minutes working out the broad details of it with Faisal, so that he could relay it to our OASIS admins, and to the GSS security team gearing up to try to rescue Og.