Ready Player Two (9781524761356)

by Cline, Ernest

  Art3mis threw back the hood of her cloak. “OK, Z,” she said. “Here’s the plan. Normal magic doesn’t work on Morgoth, but I’m hoping a Middle-earth song spell should knock him out, just like it did Carcharoth. I’ve got a ninety-ninth-level one that should be impossible for him to resist. Let’s just hope my Quenya pronunciation is up to it.”

  Then she strode forward, walking boldly through the open doors of Morgoth’s throne room as if she were visiting royalty, while I remained in the form of a wolf, trotting close by her heel.

  The Nethermost Hall was a large, cavernous chamber, with a floor made of polished bronze. Torture racks and iron maidens lined the walls, along with statues of writhing black serpents. A massive iron throne dominated the other end of the hall, and a dark giant sat upon it. Morgoth was even more terrifying than I’d imagined. He was a towering demonic figure covered in black plate armor who looked like he belonged on the cover of every hardcore heavy-metal album ever made. His only fashion accessory was a seven-foot-long melee weapon laid across his lap, which, my HUD helpfully informed me, was named Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, and was capable of killing any avatar with a single blow.

  The moment we laid eyes on Morgoth, Art3mis began to sing. Her voice echoed off the black chamber walls, and as she finished her song, all of the Orcs, Balrogs, and other fearsome creatures that stood guard in Morgoth’s court were lulled to sleep. A few terrifying seconds later, Morgoth himself tipped forward out of his throne, unconscious, and crashed face-first onto the bronze floor with a thundering clang that sounded like an avalanche of iron. His crown rolled off his head and came to rest on the floor directly in front of me, with three shining Silmarils set into the band of black iron.

  When I glanced over at Morgoth’s face, all I saw was a whirling mass of formless darkness. It was utterly terrifying, so I averted my eyes. That was when I noticed that both his hands were covered in scar tissue, as if they had been badly burned, and that part of his massive right foot was missing, as if it had been hacked off in battle.

  Art3mis motioned me forward, toward the crown, as she began to sing the same song spell again. She’d have to keep casting it continuously to keep everyone asleep.

  I removed the Wolf-hame and transformed back into my human form. Then I drew Angrist and used it to pry one of the glowing Silmarils free of its setting in Morgoth’s iron crown. But when I took the glowing jewel in my hand, nothing happened. No burst of light, no flashback. No transformation into the Sixth Shard. It was still just a Silmaril.

  The Silmaril was emanating a great deal of light, like a shining beacon, so I stored it in my inventory. Then I looked back at the crown. I was tempted to pry a second jewel loose from it. And a third, too, just for the hell of it. They were right there in front of me! But with great effort, I heeded Arty’s warning, hoping she was right. If this was indeed the jewel we needed, maybe it would transform into the shard once we’d escaped the confines of Angband.

  Once she saw that I had obtained our prize, Art3mis stopped singing. Then we both donned our magical disguises once again and headed for the surface, following the same secret route by which we’d come in.

  * * *

  When we reached the top of the stairs and spied the great iron gates, we found our way blocked once again. The giant wolf Carcharoth had awoken from his slumber.

  In this same moment, the Silmaril suddenly appeared in my right hand. I tried to store it back in my inventory, but found that I couldn’t. The jewel was stuck to the palm of my right hand. I couldn’t let go of it.

  “If you try to get past Carcharoth, he’ll bite off your hand and swallow it along with the Silmaril,” Art3mis said. “Just like he did to Beren. And if that happens, the Silmaril will burn Carcharoth from the inside and drive him mad with pain, and he’ll go tearing across the countryside. We’ll have to chase him down, and that would cost us even more time. Time we no longer have to spare.”

  “OK,” I said. “Then why don’t you just put him to sleep again?”

  “I can’t,” she replied. “Lúthien was only able to enchant him once, on their way in.”

  “Then how are we going to get past that thing?”

  “With a little help from a friend,” Art3mis replied. “There’s only one creature who can put Carcharoth out of his misery….”

  She removed a small glass figurine from her inventory. It looked like a large dog with shaggy white hair. I realized that it must be another Figurine of Wondrous Power, like the ones I possessed of Shadowfax and Felaróf. But I’d never seen one in the form of a dog before.

  Art3mis set the figurine on the ground in front of us. Then she put two fingers in her mouth and let out a long, shrill whistle, before shouting, “Huan!”

  The figurine began to grow and morph into an enormous Irish wolfhound with a coat of long white hair. He was the size of a small horse. The wolfhound bowed his head to Art3mis, then sniffed the air and turned around. When he spotted Carcharoth, he immediately bared his razor-sharp teeth.

  Art3mis leaned over and whispered something in Sindarin to Huan, and he bounded forward and lunged at Carcharoth, snapping his mighty jaw closed around the wolf’s neck. The impact knocked Carcharoth aside, clearing our path to the exit.

  Art3mis and I ran forward while the wolfhound distracted the wolf long enough for us to escape through the open gates.

  As soon as I crossed the threshold and emerged from the dark fortress of Angband, the Silmaril in my right hand transformed into the Sixth Shard—and another flashback began.

  * * *

  For the first second or two, I couldn’t see anything. Then someone removed the blindfold I was wearing, and I found myself staring at the waterfalls of Rivendell, with a familiar-looking mansion nestled among them. Og was showing Kira the house he’d constructed for her for the very first time. The place where they would spend the rest of their lives together.

  Kira turned a full circle, and I could feel her heart pounding as she took in her beautiful surroundings. Then she looked into her husband’s eyes and said, “Oh, Og—I never want to leave.”

  * * *

  Then it was over, and I found myself back on Arda, standing next to Art3mis outside the Gates of Angband, clutching the Sixth Shard in my right hand. I glanced down at it. There was an ornate, calligraphic letter L etched into its crystalline surface. I immediately recognized it as Leucosia’s character symbol—the one that had adorned her Dungeons & Dragons character sheet. I’d seen that same letter L in Kira’s notebook, in her illustration of the Shrine of Leucosia. Her character symbol was etched into the stone altar’s surface, and it matched the symbol etched into the Sixth Shard exactly.

  I pinpointed the shrine’s location on Chthonia in my OASIS atlas, and attempted to teleport us both there. But I couldn’t. We weren’t in a designated departure zone.

  Suddenly, thunder rumbled from the gray sky overhead, and bolts of red lightning began to arc upward from the ground around us as the earth itself began to shake. What sounded like a series of explosions boomed from above, and we both looked up to see fire and smoke erupting from the three volcanic peaks of Thangorodrim. A moment later, a hail of flaming rock and molten metal began to rain down on the landscape below.

  “Angband is awakened!” Art3mis shouted, pulling me away from the gate. I could already hear all sorts of foul creatures screaming and roaring and growling as they made their way to the surface. Morgoth’s minions began to pour out of the secret gate behind us. And we could hear even more of them approaching the main gate directly ahead of us. We were trapped in the middle of two dark armies, both of which were rapidly closing in on us.

  There didn’t appear to be any way for us to escape. When I turned to Art3mis for guidance, she pointed toward the sky.

  A pair of giant eagles were descending toward us, with their claws out. But Art3mis didn’t move, so neither did I, and a split seco
nd later, the eagles scooped both of us up and spirited us away.

  Once we were safe and soaring high above in the clouds, we climbed up onto their backs and Art3mis introduced me to our new friends. She was riding on Gwaihir and I was astride Landroval.

  “These are the eagles who rescued Beren and Lúthien when they were fleeing Angband,” Art3mis said. Then she pointed toward the three volcanic peaks that still loomed behind us, spitting fire and lightning into the darkening sky. “The Great Eagles used to roost back there, on the peaks of Thangorodrim. But now their eyrie is in the Crissaegrim mountain range in southern Echoriath.”

  For some reason, her calm tour-guide demeanor made me laugh out loud.

  “Sorry,” I said, when she looked over at me. “I just love listening to you geek out, Arty. I always have.”

  She gave me a sad smile and then looked away. But I kept right on staring at her. In that moment, she looked more beautiful than ever. Like some warrior goddess, riding across the skies of Arda on the back of a Great Eagle, with her dark hair trailing out behind her in the wind.

  Aech was right. I was still in love with her. And I always would be. I just wanted to live long enough to correct my mistakes and redeem myself in her eyes, if I could.

  Looking at Art3mis, I felt a wave of pity for Anorak. In his warped mind, he was doing all this because he believed he was in love, too, with Kira, and longed to bring her back to life. And somewhere in his deluded soul, he was sure that he could convince her to return his feelings and end his loneliness.

  But Anorak was crazy—not stupid. Surely, he didn’t really think we’d leave him to blissfully roam the OASIS forever, after everything he’d done. What was his endgame?

  I shivered as I thought again of that “Ship in a Bottle” scenario—the standalone simulation where he could have Kira alone in his mad clutches, forever.

  Maybe Anorak had built a server farm in a subterranean bunker somewhere, fed by solar panels up on the surface? Or maybe he intended to use a solar-powered satellite up in orbit?

  I didn’t think Anorak would have constructed a virtual jail cell for himself. He’d need processors powerful enough to create a simulation he could spread out in, and roam for centuries. An OASIS of his own.

  Except that Anorak didn’t have to create his own ship in a bottle, did he? I had already created the perfect one for him, aboard the Vonnegut. Its onboard computer held our own private simulated universe. ARC@DIA. And there wasn’t a single human-controlled avatar inside it yet. It was populated solely by NPCs. All Anorak would have to do was upload himself and Leucosia, using the same data uplink I already had in place for uploading new OASIS content. Then both AIs could hide inside the onboard computer unnoticed until after the ship left Earth.

  Unless Anorak figured out a way to take control of the ship and launch it prematurely. And that probably wouldn’t be too difficult for him to pull off, since I had taken great pains to ensure that we would be able to control all of the ship’s functions and service telebots while we were logged in to ARC@DIA.

  That had to be it. Once he had Leucosia, Anorak was planning to steal our interstellar spacecraft and flee Earth.

  I considered sharing my new theory with Art3mis, but I decided it was better to keep quiet while we were still in the presence of NPCs. It didn’t seem at all paranoid to think that Anorak might have figured out a way to spy on us through them.

  * * *

  Soaring on their great feathery wings, Gwaihir and Landroval carried us over the scorched wasteland of Anfauglith, and over Taur-nu-Fuin, to the valley of Tumalden in the Encircling Mountains, where the hidden Elven city of Gondolin was located. They set us down in an open field just outside the city, and just inside a designated teleportation departure zone. We gave the eagles our thanks and then bade them farewell, just before they flew off into the brilliant red-and-purple sunrise.

  As soon as they were gone, I told Art3mis my new theory about Anorak’s plan for the Vonnegut. I thought she might shoot holes in it, but she didn’t. Instead she simply nodded in agreement.

  “As soon as I log out, I’ll relay all of this to Miles and our security team,” she said. “We’ll take it into account and formulate a plan while you go after the final shard. Sound good?”

  I nodded. Art3mis took a small object out of her inventory and handed it to me. It looked like a miniature haptic rig, about two inches tall. The item description said it was a Tactical Telebot Control Station.

  “This will allow you to sync with one of the telebots we’re going to deploy at Og’s old mansion,” Art3mis explained. “I’ll signal you to activate.”

  “Thanks, Arty,” I said, adding the item to my own inventory. “For everything.”

  “You’re welcome,” she replied, smiling. Then, to my surprise, Art3mis leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  “For luck,” she said, a split second before she teleported away and her avatar vanished.

  I stood there for a moment, touching the spot on my cheek where she had kissed me. Then I noticed that my hands were starting to tremble a little. I was running out of time fast.

  I took a deep breath and teleported myself to Chthonia, to obtain the last of the Seven Shards.

  I double-checked the coordinates in the OASIS atlas, then teleported myself directly to the top of the highest peak of the Xyxarian Mountains, which were located on the continent of Xyxaria in Chthonia’s southern hemisphere.

  I had flown over these mountains several times, on my way to explore other parts of Halliday’s world. But I had never set foot in the mountains themselves. There was no reason to, because there was nothing there. The whole mountain range was a groan zone—an unpopulated plot of procedurally generated landscape, where there were no NPCs to meet and no quests to complete. Thousands of other gunters had explored every inch of these mountains and they’d all confirmed that there was absolutely nothing of interest here.

  But when my avatar rematerialized on the top of that mountain, I did see something there—the Shrine of Leucosia. A Stonehenge-like circle of seven chiseled granite pillars, with a raised altar at the center.

  I knew this structure couldn’t have been there before today. Someone would have noticed it. Hell, I probably would’ve noticed it myself on one of my flyovers.

  I entered the shrine and approached the altar. Then I took out Kira’s Trapper Keeper and opened it up. I flipped through the pages until I found the pencil illustration of the Shrine of Leucosia. The shrine in front of me looked exactly like Kira’s drawing. A stone statue of her avatar, Leucosia, stood at the head of the altar. In her right hand, she held a round shield with her character symbol emblazoned on the front. Her left hand was outstretched and empty, with her palm facing upward toward the gray sky overhead. Beneath the statue, chiseled into the flat stone surface of the altar, were these words:

  Seek the Seventh Shard of the Siren’s Soul

  on seven worlds where the Siren once played a role.

  For each fragment my heir must pay a toll

  to once again make the Siren whole.

  Beneath this inscription, also carved into the surface of the altar, were six identical shard-shaped cavities.

  It seemed obvious what I was supposed to do.

  I removed all six of the shards I’d collected from my avatar’s inventory and placed them into the six cavities in the surface of the altar. Each one began to glow bright blue when I dropped it into place. Once all six shards were in place, there was a blinding flash of light directly ahead of me. When my eyes recovered, I saw that the seventh and final shard had appeared in the statue’s outstretched hand. It was glowing bright blue, like all the others.

  I retrieved the first six shards from the altar in front of me and placed them back inside my inventory. Then I reached up and took the Seventh Shard from the statue’s hand and placed it in my own. When I di
d, I experienced one final flashback….

  * * *

  Kira was sitting in a chair in the Accessibility Research Lab at GSS, back before Halliday shut it down. I recognized it from some of the archival photos and video I’d seen.

  James Halliday was standing directly in front of her, holding what appeared to be an early prototype of an OASIS Neural Interface headset. It was much larger and far less streamlined than the production models. It was so bulky that it actually looked more like a helmet than a headset.

  Og was standing just a few feet away, with a nervous look on his face.

  “This device will allow people to control the movements of their OASIS avatar with their mind,” Halliday said as he lowered the prototype gently onto my/Kira’s head. “It just takes a minute to calibrate it.”

  Then Halliday reached over and pressed a button on a control panel and I saw a brief, blinding flash of light.

  * * *

  When the flashback ended, I found myself back on Chthonia, standing before the Shrine of Leucosia, clutching the Seventh Shard. I immediately added it to my avatar’s inventory. I looked at all seven of them, lined up side by side. Then I glanced back over at the words etched into the altar beside me: For each fragment my heir must pay a toll.

  I recalled each of the “tolls” I’d been forced to pay—the seven flashbacks I’d experienced.

  On Middletown, I’d seen Kira creating her first piece of digital artwork at school.

  On Kodama, it was the moment that Og told her he loved her for the first time.

  On Shermer, it was Og showing up at Kira’s house in London, to rescue her and bring her back to Ohio.

  On Halcydonia, it was the moment Kira showed Og the logo she’d designed for their new company.