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“People who live in glass houses should shut the fuck up.”
The moment IOI took it over, the OASIS would cease to be the open-source virtual utopia I’d grown up in. It would become a corporate-run dystopia, an overpriced theme park for wealthy elitists.
The Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation was a big place.
knowing is half the battle.
I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing ’80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn’t part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.
You’d be amazed how much research you can get done when you have no life whatsoever.
Three hidden keys open three secret gates Wherein the errant will be tested for worthy traits And those with the skill to survive these straits Will reach The End where the prize awaits
The Copper Key awaits explorers In a tomb filled with horrors But you have much to learn If you hope to earn A place among the high scorers
“Thank you, noble Acererak,” I replied, resisting the urge to jump up and down and shake my ass victoriously in his general direction.
The captain conceals the Jade Key in a dwelling long neglected But you can only blow the whistle once the trophies are all collected
“It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity,” he wrote. “A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect.”
Shoto and daito were the Japanese names for the short and long swords worn by samurai. When worn as a set, the two swords were called daisho, and this quickly became the nickname by which the two of them were known.
I’d also received invitations to join four of the biggest gunter clans: the Oviraptors, Clan Destiny, the Key Masters, and Team Banzai.
I would roll into the meeting wearing my default skin and a fuck-off attitude.
kiss my simulated ass.
“Can’t you take a hint? You can’t buy me. So piss off. Adios. Good. Bye.”
With everything else that’s going on in the world, do you think anyone will care about an explosion in some ghetto-trash rat warren in Oklahoma City? They’ll assume it was a drug-lab accident. Or maybe a domestic terrorist cell trying to build a homemade bomb. Either way, it will just mean there are a few hundred less human cockroaches out there collecting food vouchers and using up precious oxygen. No one will care. And the authorities won’t even blink.”
I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal. —Groucho Marx
Because I don’t want to find out that I’ve got a crush on some 300 lb. dude named Chuck who lives in his mother’s basement in suburban Detroit.
So I’m supposed to believe you’re one of those mythical guys who only cares about a woman’s personality, and not about the package it comes in?
Art3mis: Do you have time for an online romance? Parzival: I’ve got time for you. Art3mis: You’re too much.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Multitasking all over the goddamn place.
Before long, we were meeting in private chat-room sessions at least once a day. We played vintage board games, watched movies, and listened to music. We talked for hours. Long, rambling conversations about everything under the sun. Spending time with her was intoxicating. We seemed to have everything in common. We shared the same interests. We were driven by the same goal. She got all of my jokes. She made me laugh. She made me think. She changed the way I saw the world. I’d never had such a powerful, immediate connection with another human being before. Not even with Aech.
Another sign that civilization was going straight down the tubes.
That night was easily the most fun I’d ever had in my life up to that point. I told Art3mis so afterward, and that was when she leaned over and kissed me for the first time. I couldn’t feel it, of course. But it still set my heart racing.
I could feel it, deep in the soft, chewy caramel center of my being.
twinked-out wannabe-gunter überdorks
As I walked toward the entrance, the crowd bombarded me with a mix of insults, autograph requests, death threats, and tearful declarations of undying love.
She was wearing evening attire: a gunmetal blue dress that looked like it was spray-painted on. Her avatar’s dark hair was styled in a pageboy cut, perfectly framing her gorgeous face. She looked devastating.
Capitalism would inch forward, without my actually having to interact face-to-face with another human being. Which was exactly how I preferred it, thank you.
The crown jewel in my rig was, of course, my customized OASIS console. The computer that powered my world. I’d built it myself, piece by piece, inside a modded mirror-black Odinware sphere chassis. It had a new overclocked processor that was so fast its cycle-time bordered on pre-cognition. And the internal hard drive had enough storage space to hold three digitized copies of Everything in Existence.
Our hands evolved to grip tools, all right—including our own.
“Get those legs up, you s-s-sissy! Feel the burn!”
I’d come to see my rig for what it was: an elaborate contraption for deceiving my senses, to allow me to live in a world that didn’t exist. Each component of my rig was a bar in the cell where I had willingly imprisoned myself.
“No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful.”
Besides, now that everyone could vote from home, via the OASIS, the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV personalities, or radical televangelists.
Once, in a supreme act of desperation, I stood outside her palace gates for two solid hours, with a boom box over my head, blasting “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel at full volume.
My X-wing was far more maneuverable than the Oviraptors’ large transport ship, so it was no trouble for me to avoid the barrage from their aftermarket guns, while I bombarded them with laser bolts and proton torpedoes. After I disabled their engines, I boarded the ship and proceeded to kill every avatar there. The captain tried to apologize when he saw who I was, but I wasn’t in a forgiving mood.
I spotted several ships camped out in a high orbit above Falco. The usual suspects: crazed fans, wannabe disciples, and aspiring bounty hunters. A few of them, the ones currently turning to follow me, were tagalongs—people who spent most of their time trying to tail prominent gunters and gather intel on their movements so they could sell the information later. I was always able to lose these idiots by jumping to light speed. A lucky thing for them. If I couldn’t lose someone who was trying to tail me, I usually had no choice but to stop and kill them.
I also copped to being a colossally insensitive, self-centered asshole and begged him to forgive me.
You know you’ve totally screwed up your life when your whole world turns to shit and the only person you have to talk to is your system agent software.
First, I would choose one of the kids in my official fan club, someone with no money and a first-level newbie avatar, and give her every item I owned. Then I would activate the self-destruct sequence on my stronghold and sit in my command center while the whole place went up in a massive thermonuclear explosion. My avatar would die and GAME OVER would appear in the center of my display. Then I would rip off my visor and leave my apartment for the first time in six months. I would ride the elevator up to the roof. Or maybe I would even take the stairs. Get a little exercise.
I would sit up there and breathe the unfiltered city air for a while, feeling the wind on my skin. Then I would scale the barrier and hurl myself over the side.
We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx Our great computers fill the hallowed halls. We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx All the gifts of life are held within our walls.
I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon. City and sky become one, merging into a single plane, a vast sea of unbroken grey. The Twin Moons, just two pale orbs as they trace their way across the steely sky.
Behind my beloved waterfall, in the little room that was hidden beneath the cave, I found it. I brushed away the dust of the years, and picked it up, holding it reverently in my hands. I had no idea what it might be, but it was beautiful. I learned to lay my fingers across the wires, and to turn the keys to make them sound differently. As I struck the wires with my other hand, I produced my first harmonious sounds, and soon my own music!
My haptic suit did its best to simulate the sensation of torrents of falling water striking my body, but it felt more like someone pounding on my head, shoulders, and back with a bundle of sticks.
The guitar came free of the stone with a prolonged metallic shhingggg!
I’d never held an actual guitar, but on a virtual axe, I could totally shred.
