My thoughts always seemed to gravitate to a dark place during these meetings.
“If none of you have any questions, we can move on to the final item on our agenda,” Faisal said. No one spoke up, so he continued. “Fantastic! There’s just one more thing that needs your approval—the ONI headset firmware update we’re planning to roll out tomorrow. Very little has been changed since our last update earlier this year. Our engineers have just added a few more security measures to prevent illegal overclocking.”
“That was the same reason for your last two updates, wasn’t it?” Art3mis asked. She had a talent for making her questions sound like accusations.
“Yes, it was,” Faisal replied. “Unfortunately, each time we implement a new set of security measures, hackers quickly figure out new workarounds. But we’re hoping this update finally does the trick, and puts an end to overclocking once and for all.”
There had only been a handful of deaths caused by the ONI since its release, and every last one of them had been due to overclocking—hacking an ONI headset’s firmware to exceed the daily twelve-hour limit. Despite our safety warnings and disclaimers, there were always a few users who chose to ignore them. Some people were convinced that they were special, and that their brains could handle fourteen or even sixteen hours of consecutive ONI usage with no ill side effects—and a few of them actually could, for a day or two. But when they pushed their luck too far, they ended up lobotomizing themselves. And that was very bad for business.
Thanks to our ironclad end-user license agreement, GSS couldn’t be held legally responsible for any of these deaths. But we still wanted to protect the overclockers from themselves, so we updated the ONI firmware whenever a new exploit was discovered.
Ever since the ONI’s introduction, there had been an urban legend floating around the OASIS, claiming that Halliday himself had exceeded the ONI’s daily usage limit when he was testing the first prototype headset, and that this is what had caused his terminal cancer. But it was complete bullshit. According to all of the intensive studies and tests we’d conducted, there was no link between the OASIS Neural Interface and the lymphoma that had ended Halliday’s life.
Faisal called for a vote on the ONI firmware upgrade. Aech, Shoto, and I all voted to approve it, while Art3mis chose to abstain. She always abstained from any vote related to the ONI headsets, even in instances like this, when we were voting to enact new safety measures.
“Fantastic!” Faisal said, maintaining a cheerful tone despite the tension in the room. “That was our last order of business. If no one has anything further, we can adjourn—”
“Oh, I have something further,” Art3mis announced, cutting him off.
Aech, Shoto, and I all let out a sigh—unintentionally in unison.
Art3mis ignored us and continued.
“Studies have shown that the human brain doesn’t finish developing until around the age of twenty-five,” she said. “I think that should be the age limit for using an ONI headset, but I know you’ll never agree to that. So, as a compromise, and for the safety of our youngest customers, I propose that, going forward, we only allow ONI headsets to be used by people who are eighteen or older. At least until we have a better understanding of the ONI’s long-term neurological and psychological effects.”
Shoto, Aech, and I exchanged weary looks. Faisal kept a sunny smile plastered on his face, even though he was clearly growing tired of this crap too.
“Aech, Shoto, and I are all under twenty-five,” I said. “Are you suggesting that we’ve all suffered brain damage from using the ONI?”
“Well,” she replied with a smirk, “that would certainly explain some of the decisions you’ve made over the past three years.”
“Arty,” Aech said, “every time the four of us meet, you propose some new limitation on the ONI headsets. And every time, you get outvoted three-to-one.”
“I’m not asking any of you to give up your precious ONI habit, OK?” Art3mis said. “I’m talking about kids who aren’t even old enough to vote yet. We’re turning an entire generation of children into ONI junkies, before they even have a chance to experience life in the real world.”
“News flash,” I said, as soon as she stopped speaking. “Life in the real world totally sucks for most people. And reality went to shit long before we started selling those headsets, Arty….”
For the first time in years, Art3mis locked eyes with me.
“You,” she said, leveling a finger at me. “You don’t get to call me Arty anymore. And are you seriously trying to lecture me about the state of the real world?” She gestured at our surroundings. “You still spend all of your time hiding in here. Meanwhile, I’m out there trying to save the real world. Reality! Our reality!”
She pointed at me again. “Maybe you don’t see the danger, because you won’t. You love your magic dream machine too much to see what it’s done to humanity. But I see it. And so does Ogden Morrow. That’s why he’s never put on an ONI headset either! And I bet that’s why he won’t work here anymore, even as a consultant. He doesn’t want to help you bring about the end of human civilization either.” She shook her head at me. “What a huge disappointment we must be to him….”
She folded her arms and kept her eyes fixed on me, waiting for my response. I clenched and unclenched my jaw a few times, to keep myself from screaming in frustration. Then I switched on my emotion-suppressing software and did one of the breathing exercises Sean had taught me, to calm myself down.
My immediate instinct was to bring up Samantha’s grandmother. Her father’s mother, Evelyn Opal Cook, was the one who raised Samantha after her parents died. Her grandma had never shared Samantha’s prejudice against the ONI. Quite the opposite. She’d ordered one of the first headsets off the assembly line, and she used it every day for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, that wasn’t long. Just two years.
When Evelyn was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she started using her ONI headset for the maximum of twelve hours every day, to disconnect her mind from her chemotherapy-ravaged body as often and for as long as she possibly could. In the OASIS, Evelyn had a perfectly healthy body that never felt any trace of pain. While her body battled its disease, she could leave both behind and go for a run on any beach in the world, or picnic on a mountaintop. Or dance the night away in Paris with her friends. The OASIS Neural Interface allowed her to keep on living a joyous, happy life for half of each day, right up until she’d finally succumbed to her illness a little over a year ago. According to her nurses, Evelyn passed away peacefully and painlessly, because she’d been using her ONI headset at the time, to talk to Samantha inside the OASIS. The neural interface had allowed her to continue to communicate with her granddaughter long after her physical body had grown so weak she’d lost the power of speech.
I’d made the mistake of mentioning Samantha’s grandmother once before, during one of our previous arguments about the ONI. Samantha had gone ballistic. Then she’d warned me never to mention her grandmother’s name again. So I didn’t. No. I didn’t say anything. I did my deep-breathing exercises and I bit my goddamn tongue.
“What about education?” Shoto said when I failed to hold up my half of the argument. “People can learn all sorts of valuable skills through ONI playback. How to grow food or speak a foreign language. Doctors can learn how to perform new medical procedures from the best surgeons in their field. Why should people be denied access to such an important tool for learning just because of their age?”