Ready Player Two (Ready Player One #2)

by Ernest Cline

I found myself standing by the closed door of one of Og’s guest rooms. It was the room where Samantha had stayed during our weeklong retreat here. It was also the room where she and I made love for the first time. (And the second, third, and fourth.)

I barf (then a second, third, and forth time)

Maybe I’d already missed my chance to fix things with Og. But it wasn’t too late with Samantha—as long as we were both still alive, there was a chance I could make things right with her.

The incel vibes are just getting stronger as the book goes on

But noticeably absent were photos of children. Og and Kira had devoted the last half of their lives to making free educational software for underprivileged kids. Kids like me. But they had never been blessed with any children of their own. According to Og’s autobiography, it was his and Kira’s only real regret.

Did you just forget? You had almost unlimited resources, so adoption or some kind of medical miracle were both options.

The path led me past the entrance to the hedge maze where Samantha and I met in person for the very first time.

*Shivers at sudden Belinda Blinked flashback*

It was Miles Gendell, head of GSS’s executive security team. Halliday and Morrow had hired Miles in the early days of the company, because he was an ex–Green Beret who also happened to bear a distinct resemblance to a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, after serving the company for over a quarter of a century, he resembled a much older, post–Governator Ahnold.

“We have a situation, Mr. Watts,” he said. “Nolan Sorrento has escaped from prison.”

We’re doing this? Really? Is Sorrento a Batman villain now?

Sorrento had been serving time on death row at the Southern Ohio Correctional Colony, a maximum-security prison located in Chillicothe, Ohio—exactly 56.2 miles due south of where I was currently standing.

Yep, we know! Thanks bud.

“Someone hacked into the prison’s security system and let Sorrento out. Then they locked the whole place down behind him,” Miles said. “The guards and the entire prison staff were trapped inside the prison along with the inmates, with no phone or Internet access. First responders had to break into the prison and restore order before anyone could even check the security footage. By that time, Sorrento had nearly an hour’s head start.” I was starting to panic.

Sorrento was one of the world’s most famous and infamous criminals. But he’d spent the last three years rotting in a cell, and he no longer had any power or money or influence. So who was helping him? And why?

Okay, so he is a Batman villain, and some other Batman villain is probably sitting at a poker table making a whacky, themed, joint-revenge proposition with him right now

I watched as the warden, a somewhat clueless-looking fellow by the name of Norton,

Someone had infiltrated the prison’s heavily firewalled computer network and seized control of the automated security systems.

Yeah, no duh a prison would have a heavily-firewalled computer network. Getting through it is part of hacking in, and you don’t need to explicitly tell us.

As he made his way out of the prison, he waved each locked door and gate in his path open with a broad sweep of his hand, as if he were conducting an orchestra he alone could hear. As he passed through, each gate closed and locked behind him, preventing pursuit. A few minutes later, Sorrento strolled out the prison’s front gates, grinning from ear to ear. As the gates closed behind him, he turned toward the nearest security camera and took a bow, then jumped into a self-driving car that was parked there waiting for him.

“You’ll never catch me this time, Bats!”

“What the fuck?,” I whispered. There was no other appropriate reaction.

When I pulled it up, my avatar’s name was still displayed there, with a single blue shard icon beside it. But now a second avatar’s name had appeared directly below mine, with another shard icon beside it: The Great and Powerful Og. It could mean only one thing: Ogden Morrow had just collected the First Shard too.

Was he determined to restore the Siren’s Soul himself, before I could?

An editor read this sentence and approved it

I was still sitting there a few minutes later, staring at Og’s blank account profile like an idiot, when another Scoreboard alert popped up on my phone. A second blue shard icon had just appeared next to Og’s name, which was now above mine. I had just been bumped down to second place by the Great and Powerful Og.

I put on my ONI headset and closed my eyes to initiate the login sequence. A brief message flashed on my HUD, informing me that the new firmware update for my headset had just been automatically downloaded and installed.

Plot point??? Update: surprisingly, yes, it is

Faisal greeted me with his usual handshake.

Lol, usual Update: this is even funnier in retrospect, because the handshake is another plot point, and Cline apparently didn’t have a smooth way to mention it without drawing too much attention to it. This was the best he could come up with.

Faisal, now standing behind the small podium beneath the giant viewscreen, made a sickly attempt at a smile.

Can’t wait to see an actor try to pull off that facial expression

His avatar began to transform, melting and morphing into a familiar likeness. That of a middle-aged geek with unkempt hair and thick eyeglasses, dressed in worn jeans and a faded Space Invaders T-shirt. James Donovan Halliday. Holy shit! “Greetings, Parzival,” he said, giving me a small wave. That was when I realized that I’d said “holy shit” out loud.

Then he smiled his famously dorky smile.

Again, good luck to the actor who has to pull off a famously dorky smile

Shoto leaped out of his chair, then dropped to his knees. “Mr. Halliday,” he said, bowing low before the creator’s avatar.

Ugh

Anorak nodded and gave me a playful wink that was so off-the-scale creepy it sent a chill cascading through my nervous system.

I opened my inventory. The Robes of Anorak were no longer listed there. They were gone. Because Anorak had taken them. “Oh no,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, Parzival,” Anorak said, smiling sadly at me. “When we shook hands, I removed the robes from your inventory. I didn’t know if you were aware I had the power to take them back.” He motioned to Faisal. “That’s why I had to cosplay as Faisal over there. I didn’t think you’d shake my hand if I showed up looking like myself.”

What a weird gotcha moment

“Halliday gave me the ability to take my robes back from the winner of his contest as a contingency, in case they immediately attempted to abuse the powers the robes bestowed upon them.” Anorak smiled. “You didn’t do that, of course.

I call BS! And I think the victims of Wade’s hater-killing spree would as well.

I couldn’t allow you to press that Big Red Button, could I? If you pressed it and destroyed the OASIS, I would be destroyed along with it. Can’t be having that, now, can we?”

“I’m not an NPC designed to look like James Halliday.” He tapped his chest. “I am him. A digitized copy of his consciousness, bound inside this avatar. I can think. And feel. Just like all of you.”

Well, at least the AI thing wasn’t a big act three reveal.

“What did you become?” Art3mis asked, in an unsteady voice. “What are you?” “The thing humans have been dreaming of for centuries,” Anorak replied. “I am the world’s first artificial intelligence. A thinking being, of no woman born.”

Art3mis held up a hand. “Hold on,” she said. “You expect us to believe that James Halliday also invented artificial intelligence, and he decided to keep that a secret too?”

Whenever your futurists envision the advent of artificial intelligence, their predictions invariably end with humanity attempting to destroy its unholy AI creation before it can destroy them. Why do you think that is?” “You know why,” I replied. “Because the ungrateful AI always seems to decide that humans are inferior and need to be eliminated. Or sublimated.” I started counting off examples on my fingers. “HAL-9000. Colossus: The Forbin Project. WOPR. The Cylons. Fucking Skynet. The band members might change, but the song remains the same.”

Me shouting, “Neuromancer, you fool! It was different in Neuromancer, which you claim to have read.”

That was when the molasses between my ears finally began to flow,

Another famously bad line

“It was you,” I said, leveling a finger at Anorak. “You took Og. He didn’t suddenly decide to start searching for the Siren’s Soul. You kidnapped him so that you could force him to find the shards for you.” “And you’re the one who helped Sorrento escape from prison too,” Art3mis added. It wasn’t a question. She already knew the answer. And so did I. “Guilty as charged,” Anorak said, spreading his hands in mock surrender.

Second Batman villain revealed!

He was in a dark, featureless room, slumped in a high-end haptic chair. His arms and legs were shackled to it.

I tried to say something, but I couldn’t speak.

This will be a recurring theme throughout the book. I dare say it may be one of Wade’s defining character traits.

Nolan Sorrento was standing directly behind Og. He was no longer dressed in his orange prison jumpsuit. Now he was wearing a freshly pressed gray business suit, as well as a bifocal OASIS visor. He had a gun in his left hand and a taser in his right. He held the taser in front of Og’s face and activated it, causing Og to recoil.

This actually feels like a step down from Sorrento’s threat level from the last book. Also, if I can offer advice: gun XOR taser. Having both just splits the attention of whomever you’re threatening. They’re less scared of the taser, because you’ve already shown them you have a gun. But, because you also have a taser, they know you won’t use the gun. On the whole, it just demonstrates that you didn’t have a plan when you got into this whole hostage business.

Sorrento cackled like a kid opening a Christmas present. He’d clearly been looking forward to this moment for some time. “Paybacks are a real bitch,” Sorrento said, grinning down at me from the viewscreen. “Eh, Parzival?” He cackled again. “Oh man! I wish you guys could see the expressions on your faces right now.” He tapped his HUD to take a screenshot, then turned it around to show us our own horrified faces, and added, “Priceless!”

Wow, he really is just the Joker now

then I felt Aech’s strong hands take hold of my shoulders to restrain me.

I don’t know why, but this feels a little back-handed as descriptors go. Like, I get it, we need that dramatic staging where the hero is about to lash out, but is held back because we still have 2/3 of the book to go. But it’s just funny that the reason Cline came up with for Wade not to punch the bad guy was Aech’s strong hands. If Aech hadn’t spent XP developing her grip strength, this whole scene could have gone a completely different direction. Maybe those strong hands will be pivotal later. Update: they won’t be

“That latest firmware update to your ONI headsets—the one you all downloaded this morning? I modified the code, to create my own version that I jokingly refer to as ‘infirmware.’ When all of you installed it this morning, my new infirmware disabled your ability to log out of the simulation. Which means I have also disabled your ability to wake up from your ONI-induced coma.” He smiled. “In other words, you’re all trapped inside the OASIS until I choose to release you. And I won’t do that until I have the Siren’s Soul in my possession.”

It was a plot point!

“You guys really should’ve listened to your friend Samantha here,” Anorak said. “She was right. You guys all watched both Sword Art Online and the Matrix films and yet you still thought it was a good idea to hand over control of your brain to a computer?”

Just because one of your characters says “Hey, we’re doing the plot of Sword Art Online,” it doesn’t excuse you from doing the plot of Sword Art Online. That’s not even a good show (don’t @ me).

“You aren’t the only ones trapped inside the OASIS right now,” Anorak announced. “So is every other ONI user who downloaded the new firmware before they logged in. That’s nearly half a billion people. And counting.”

Is this whole book just going to be an exact SAO re-enactment? Update: yes, but dumber

nodding his head vigorously.

Art3mis’s eyes widened and her avatar froze for several seconds. Then it came to life again. She suddenly looked terrified. And fear was not an emotion I was used to seeing on her avatar’s face—or on her real one. “It’s true,” she said, turning to address Faisal. “I’ve lost all command access to the autopilot. I can’t disable it and I can’t change course. Which means I can’t land either. And that’s going to become a big problem when I run out of fuel. I only have enough to reach my destination.” “Don’t worry, Arty,” Anorak said. “I’ve arranged for your jet to be refueled in midair when you reach Columbus. But you won’t be permitted to land until I have the Siren’s Soul in my possession. When I do, you have my word that I’ll release you, along with all the others.”

He put a grave expression on his face.

He waited for a response. But his words had left me too apoplectic with rage to reply. Anorak began to turn away, as if to depart.

Mr. Editor, where were you on these three sentences?

“Aw, come on!” Anorak said. “You guys should be pumped. Jake and Elwood are getting the band back together! The High Five has reunited to complete one last quest, while millions of lives hang in the balance! Tell me we don’t have some epic shit going down right here.” He laughed. “I know you can do it. I have faith in you!”

You know, this is the one character I’m kind of digging so far. He’s living his best life as an evil, omnipotent AI, and that’s more drive than anyone else has shown so far. It also means he’s allowed to ham it up, because he’s annoying to the characters, not just us.

It fell silent in the conference room for a few seconds, and then we all began to collectively freak the fuck out.

I was too busy hyperventilating, thinking, This is all my fault, over and over again. After each repetition, I clenched both fists and pounded them against my forehead. I couldn’t make myself stop.

It was all a simulation, and the ONI’s pain inhibitors and anti-masochism protocols prevented me from feeling anything but mild discomfort each time I hit myself.

Anti-masochism protocols

not until I felt a pair of small, strong hands take hold of my wrists, restraining them.

Aech?

I turned to see Art3mis standing there, restraining my arms in her viselike grip.