It was 2045, and the world smelled of burnt circuits and regret. Most of humanity lived in the Stacks—vertical trailers stacked like rusty Jenga towers—but no one really lived there. They lived in the OASIS.
They didn't play to win. They played to own .
All ten thousand of them. Led by Sorrento's avatar, a black knight with a burning crown.
I called Art3mis. Her real name was Samantha. She lived in Canada. She picked up on the first ring. ready-player-one
"The high ground's taken," Art3mis said, drawing her katana.
Behind me, the sky filled with avatars. Art3mis. Aech. Daito and Shoto. And then hundreds. Thousands. Millions.
But I'd studied Halliday's journal. Every movie, every song, every Zork command he'd ever loved. It was 2045, and the world smelled of
I went to the Third Gate: a perfect replica of Halliday's childhood bedroom in Middletown, Ohio. The gate wasn't locked by a riddle. It was locked by regret. I had to play a perfect game of Tempest —Halliday's favorite—while watching a hologram of his younger self crying over a lost friendship with his partner, Ogden Morrow.
Now it was the Third Key. The one no one could find.
And then I saw it. Halliday had once written in his journal: "The greatest enemy is the part of you that refuses to let go." They didn't play to win
The egg cracked open. Light poured out.
James Halliday, the eccentric genius who co-created the OASIS, had died five years earlier. His will announced a contest: three keys, three gates. The first to find the Jade Key would unlock a fortune—$240 billion and total control of the OASIS itself.
I woke up in my Stacks, wires unplugged. The world was still broken. My aunt was still drunk. The sky was still brown.
The Second Gate was a Blade Runner cityscape. The key was hidden in a replicant's locket. I had to recite Roy Batty's "tears in rain" monologue perfectly while dodging spinner cars. My throat was dry, my heart hammering against my ribs.