Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)

by Ernest Cline

That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit.

Mrs. G was super-religious and spent most of her time in the OASIS, sitting in the congregation of one of those big online mega-churches, singing hymns, listening to sermons, and taking virtual tours of the Holy Land.

The ability to mute my peers was one of my favorite things about attending school online, and I took advantage of it almost daily. The best thing about it was that they could see that you’d muted them, and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Joining the Sixers was a lot like joining the military.

“This chump is so broke that he has to bum rides to Greyhawk, just so he can kill kobolds for copper pieces! And he’s calling me a poseur!”

“Thank you, noble Acererak,” I replied, resisting the urge to jump up and down and shake my ass victoriously in his general direction. Instead, I solemnly returned his bow.

I confronted the grim realization that virtual sex, no matter how realistic, was really nothing but glorified, computer-assisted masturbation.

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.

I took control of a Happy Helpdesk avatar, a cookie-cutter Ken doll that I used to take tech-support calls. This avatar appeared inside a huge virtual call center, inside a virtual cubicle, sitting at a virtual desk, in front of a virtual computer, wearing a virtual phone headset.

Then I removed the Glock from its clear plastic blister packaging.

We’d known each other for years, in the most intimate way possible. We’d connected on a purely mental level.

I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.

Some time later, she leaned over and kissed me. It felt just like all those songs and poems had promised it would. It felt wonderful. Like being struck by lightning.