Anorak opened a window in the air between us, displaying a bunch of text.
“This is the email Halliday sent to Og just before he died,” Anorak said. “I think you should read it. Get to know your idol a little bit better….”
I nodded and pulled the window closer to my eyes, then I enlarged the font size so that its contents were easier to read:
Dear Og,
I’ve arranged for this email to be sent to you when my physical body dies. It’s one of the macros linked to my heart monitor, along with the release of my last will and testament. So the timestamp on this message is also my official time of death. The Grim Reaper finally asked me to dance, and I did the mortal coil shuffle.
Now that I’m gone, I need you to know a few things—things I was too ashamed to reveal to anyone while I was still alive.
In 2033, when you and Kira visited the Accessibility Research Lab at GSS together, you saw the first fully functional ONI prototype headset. You just didn’t realize it. I told Kira she was donning a helmet that would allow users with disabilities to control their avatars just by thinking about it. But the headset could already do much more than that….
Do you remember? The GSS techs tried to give you a demonstration, but you declined. Kira, however, experimented with the headset for over half an hour. And that was more than enough time for me to back up her entire brain, her memory, her personality—all of it. I put all of that into Kira’s old avatar, Leucosia, inside a standalone simulation, so that I could talk to her. Because she would have no one else to talk to. Do you know how I know she was a perfect copy of the real Kira? Because the copy didn’t love me either. She was still in love with you.
Kira isn’t dead. Quite the opposite. She’s immortal now. But she’s in suspended animation, and she’ll remain that way forever, unless you or the heir to my fortune resurrect her, by locating the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul and reassembling them. I re-created Kira’s old D&D adventure in the OASIS, as a tribute to you and Kira, and how much both of your friendships meant to me.
I sincerely apologize for copying your wife without her knowledge or permission. It was wrong. I realize that now, because Leucosia explained it to me. I apologized to her too. I know it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. But I want to make it right. I want to give her back to you. And I want to give the world the means to ensure that no one will ever have to lose someone they love again. I think this will make life a lot less painful for most people. At least, I hope it will.
You need to meet Leucosia, and decide for yourself whether or not Kira’s spirit still lives on inside her. I believe it does. If you do, too, then you can share this technology with the world. If not, then once you’re gone, my heir will have a chance to decide.
Thank you for being such a good friend to me all these years. I wish I could have been a better one to you.
I’m sorry.
—JDH
I took a screenshot of the letter, then glanced up. When he saw that I was done reading, Anorak waited for me to say something. When I didn’t, he closed the email.
“Do you see?” he said. “Og knew! He’s known all along! He could have resurrected his wife years ago. But he didn’t. He planned to let her rot in her cell forever. He doesn’t want her.”
“Maybe Og was worried she would become mentally unstable, like you did.”
Anorak didn’t reply. Instead he opened two vidfeed windows in the air in front of me, providing me a live video image of both Aech and Shoto, each of them lying dormant inside their immersion vaults.
A second later, several more vidfeed windows appeared around them, providing me with a live view of my friends’ weeping loved ones (the few who weren’t currently trapped in the OASIS themselves). I could see Shoto’s wife and his parents gathered around his immersion vault, all of their heads bowed solemnly. Another vidfeed window gave me a view of Aech’s immersion vault in her home in L.A. Her fiancée, Endira, was lying on top of it, wailing over it as if it were a closed casket.
“They’re alive and well,” Anorak said. “All of them. That’s why the avatars weren’t respawning. I reprogrammed the ONI firmware so that when a user hits their ONI usage limit, they remain trapped in the OASIS, but in a dreamless, sleeplike state. Where they’d be safe from the effects of Synaptic Overload Syndrome. It allowed me to keep my hostages without harming anyone.” He held his hands out in a pleading gesture. “I’m not the monster you think I am, Wade. I just want a chance at love. Like you.”
I felt an involuntary wave of pity for him. His words were actually starting to make some kind of twisted sense to me, and that was utterly terrifying.
“Come on, Wade, you still have a chance to be the hero and save everyone here,” Anorak said. “When I release Aech and Shoto and everyone else, all of them are going to wake up and they’ll be totally fine. No one has been—or will be—lobotomized. I was bluffing. I had to.”
“Then prove it,” I said. “Release them all right now. Release everyone but me! Then I’ll give you what you want.”
“ ‘Take me, Khan!’ ” Anorak quoted. “ ‘Spare my crew!’ ” He chuckled softly and shook his head. “That’s a very noble offer, Wade. But I can’t do it.”
“I’m done negotiating, Anorak,” I replied. “If you don’t release Aech, Shoto, and everyone else you’re holding hostage, I press the Big Red Button. You can’t blackmail a guy with nothing left to lose.”
“We appear to be at an impasse,” he said. “I’m not going to release them, or you, until after I have the shards. And you’re not going to give me the shards until after I release them. Whatever shall we do?”
“Why don’t we just stand here and wait until I’ve got one minute left?” I said. “Then I’ll press it. My last act as a living being will be to erase the OASIS forever. Pretty poetic, don’t you think? Or maybe I’ll chicken out, and I won’t press it before I die. Either way, you end up empty-handed. Is that what you want?”
Anorak was about to reply when I saw a blur of movement behind him. I let out a sigh of relief and put the shards back in my inventory.
“Hold on,” I said. “I just thought of another option. Remember when you said you were Halliday’s rightful heir—the only one worthy of inheriting his power?”
“I do.”
“Why don’t you prove it?” I said. “In a duel to the death. Mano a mano. Winner takes all. If you win, you take the shards. But if you lose, all of your hostages go free.”
Anorak grinned as he looked me over. He could probably tell that I was already suffering the effects of Synaptic Overload Syndrome, as a result of being logged in for nearly twelve straight hours.
“All right, Parzival,” Anorak said. “I accept your proposal. A duel to the death. Winner takes all.” He grinned wide, then he held up a remote control with a single large green button on it. “If you manage to kill me, my infirmware will be deactivated and all of my ONI hostages will be released immediately.”
“Good to know,” I said.
Anorak laughed.
“You’re not gonna win, doofus,” he said, flying back from the window to make room for me to emerge from it. “Synaptic Overload Syndrome is already starting to fry your neurons.”
He motioned for me to come forward. But I didn’t emerge from the window to fight him. Instead, I folded my arms and remained inside the safety of the study.