Ernest Klajn - Ready Player Two [calibre]

Ready Player Two is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2020 by Dark All Day, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Hardback ISBN9781524761332

International edition ISBN9780593356340

Ebook ISBN9781524761356

randomhousebooks.com

Cover design: Christopher Brand

ep_prh_5.6.0_c0_r0

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Cutscene

0000

Level Four

0001

0002

0003

0004

0005

0006

0007

0008

0009

Level Five

0010

0011

0012

0013

0014

0015

0016

0017

0018

0019

0020

0021

0022

0023

0024

0025

0026

Level Six

0027

0028

0029

0030

Continue?

Dedication

Acknowledgments

By Ernest Cline

About the Author

After I won Hallidays contest, I remained offline for nine straight daysa new personal record.

When I finally logged back in to my OASIS account, I was sitting in my new corner office on the top floor of the GSS skyscraper in downtown Columbus, Ohio, preparing to start my gig as one of the companys new owners. The other three were still scattered across the globe: Shoto had flown back home to Japan to take over operations at GSSs Hokkaido division. Aech was enjoying an extended vacation in Senegal, a country shed dreamed of visiting her whole life, because her ancestors had come from there. And Samantha had flown back to Vancouver to pack up her belongings and say goodbye to her grandmother, Evelyn. She wasnt due to arrive here in Columbus for another four days, which seemed like an eternity. I needed to distract myself until our reunion, so I decided to log back in to the OASIS and try out a few more of the superuser abilities my avatar now possessed.

I climbed into my brand-new top-of-the-line OASIS immersion rig, a Habashaw OIR-9400, then put on my visor and haptic gloves and initiated the login sequence. My avatar reappeared where Id last logged out, on the planet Chthonia, standing outside the gates of Castle Anorak. As Id anticipated, there were thousands of other avatars already gathered there, all waiting patiently for me to make an appearance. According to the newsfeed headlines, some of them had been camped out there all weekever since Id resurrected them in the aftermath of our epic battle against the Sixers.

In my first official act as one of GSSs new owners, just a few hours after the fight ended, Id authorized our admins to restore all the items, credits, and power levels those heroic users had lost, along with their avatars. I thought it was the least we could do to repay them for their help, and Samantha, Aech, and Shoto had agreed. It was the first decision wed voted on as the companys new co-owners.

As soon as the avatars in my vicinity spotted me, they began to run in my direction, closing in on me from all sides at once. To avoid getting mobbed, I teleported inside the castle, into Anoraks studya room in the highest tower that I alone could enter, thanks to the Robes of Anorak I now wore. The obsidian-black garment endowed my avatar with the godlike powers Hallidays own avatar had once possessed.

I glanced around the cluttered study. Here, just over a week ago, Anorak had declared me the winner of Hallidays contest and changed my life forever.

My eyes fell upon the painting of a black dragon that hung on the wall. Beneath it stood an ornate crystal pedestal with a jewel-encrusted chalice resting on top of it. And cradled within the chalice was the object Id spent so many years searching for: Hallidays silver Easter egg.

I walked over to admire it, and that was when I noticed something strangean inscription on the eggs otherwise pristine surface. One that definitely hadnt been there when Id last seen it, nine days earlier.

No other avatars could enter this room. No one couldve tampered with the egg. So there was only one way that inscription couldve gotten there. Halliday himself must have programmed it to appear on the eggs surface. It could have appeared right after Anorak gave me his robes, and Id just been too distracted to notice.

I bent down to read the inscription: GSS13th FloorVault #428675309.

My pulse suddenly thudding in my ears, I immediately logged out of the OASIS and scrambled out of my rig. Then I bolted out of my new office, sprinted down the hall, and jumped into the first elevator to arrive. The half dozen GSS employees inside all avoided making direct eye contact. I could guess what all of them were thinking: Meet the new boss, weird as the old boss.

I gave them all a polite nod and pressed the 13 button. According to the interactive building directory on my phone, the thirteenth floor was where the GSS archives were located. Of course Halliday had put them there. In one of his favorite TV shows, Max Headroom, Network 23s hidden research-and-development lab was located on the thirteenth floor. And The Thirteenth Floor was also the title of an old sci-fi film about virtual reality, released in 1999, right on the heels of both The Matrix and eXistenZ.

When I stepped off the elevator, the armed guards at the security station snapped to attention. As a formality, one of them scanned my retinas to verify my identity, then he led me past the security station and through a set of armored doors, into a maze of brightly lit corridors. Eventually we reached a large room, its walls lined with dozens of numbered doors, like extra-large safety-deposit boxes, each with a number stenciled on its front.

I thanked the guard and told him he could go as I scanned the doors. There it was: number 42. Another of Hallidays jokesaccording to one of his favorite novels, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the number 42 was the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

I just stood there for a few seconds, reminding myself to breathe. Then I punched in the seven-digit combination from the eggs inscription into the code pad beside the vault door: 8-6-7-5-3-0-9, a combination no self-respecting gunter would have trouble remembering. Jenny, Ive got your number. I need to make you mine.

The lock disengaged with a thud and the door swung open, revealing the vaults cube-shaped interiorand a large silver egg sitting inside. It looked identical to the virtual egg on display in Anoraks study, except this one had no inscription on its surface.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my thighsI did not want to drop thisand removed the egg, then set it on a steel table in the center of the room. The bottom of the egg was weighted, so it wobbled slightly before standing perfectly uprightlike a Weeble. (Weebles wobble, but they dont fall down.) As I leaned in to examine the egg more closely, I spotted a small oval-shaped thumb scanner pad near the top, flush with its curved surface. When I pressed my thumb to it, the egg split in half and hinged open.

Inside it, resting in form-fitting blue velvet, was some sort of headset.

I lifted it out and turned it over in my hands. The device had a segmented central spine that appeared to stretch from a wearers forehead to the nape of their neck, with a row of ten C-shaped metal bands attached to it. Each band was comprised of jointed, retractable segments, and each segment had a row of circular sensor pads on its underside. This made the whole sensor array adjustable, so that it could fit around heads of all shapes and sizes. A long fiber-optic cable stretched from the base of the headset, with a standard OASIS console plug at the end of it.