Table of Contents 27 страница

Staring down at the Rod of Resurrection in my avatar’s hand, I couldn’t help but think about my own mother once again. I would’ve given away all of my wealth and everything I owned to bring her back, even if it was just for a single day. So that I could talk to her again, and apologize to her for not taking better care of her, and tell her how much I’d missed her.

But Loretta Watts died over a decade ago, long before the ONI was released. There were no backups of her consciousness stored on the OASIS servers. My mother wasn’t coming back. And neither was my father. Now they both only lived on in my memories.

That was when I realized—those memories of my parents were going to live on forever, along with all of my other memories. Because I was going to live forever. We all were. Every person who had ever put on an ONI headset.

We might be part of the last generation ever to know the sting of human mortality. From this moment forth, death would have no more dominion.

We were witnessing the dawn of the posthuman era. The Singularity by way of simulacra and simulation. One final gift to human civilization from the troubled-but-brilliant mind of James Donovan Halliday. He had delivered all of us unto this digital paradise, but his own tragic flaws had prevented him from passing through its gates himself.

Aech and Endira’s avatars arrived a few minutes later, and Shoto and Kiki teleported in just a few seconds after that, joining us high on the mountaintop where the Shrine of Leucosia was located.

As soon as their avatars finished rematerializing, all four of them ran over and pulled me into a group hug. When they released me, that was when they finally turned to see Leucosia and Og standing there, still locked in an embrace, nose-to-nose, whispering inaudible words to each other. And in the other direction, they could see Art3mis still in the midst of her tearful reunion with her grandmother’s avatar, Ev3lyn.

Then all of their jaws dropped open in unison.

“What’s wrong, guys? ” I asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost. ”

“Two ghosts, ” Aech said. “No, make that three! Holy shit. What the hell happened? ”

I told them all what had happened. Then I showed them the Rod of Resurrection and told them what it could do.

After we gave Art3mis a few more minutes to catch up with Ev3lyn, I interrupted them and asked Arty to join us for a private conversation. I asked Og to join us too. Then the High Five held an impromptu co-owners meeting right there on the steps of Castle Anorak, to decide the fate of the newly resurrected AIs.

It was clear to all of us that the world wasn’t quite ready to accept digitized human beings as people. Not yet—and maybe not ever. The “Anorak Incident” as it would come to be known, had further sowed the seeds of distrust against artificial intelligence. Damage that might never be undone.

Eventually, if humanity survived long enough, the world might acclimate to this new paradigm. People in the future would be comfortable coexisting alongside AI copies of their dead friends and relatives. Or maybe not.

Og and Kira didn’t want to wait around and find out. Neither did Ev3lyn or Samantha. And I wasn’t willing to risk it either. Not after everything I’d just been through. I thought I’d lost Samantha, the love of my life, forever. And we both did lose Og, before we miraculously got him back. If it was at all possible, I wanted to make sure I would never have to suffer the loss of someone I loved again. And I wanted that for all of us.

Luckily, I already had a fully formed plan—a way for the AIs to coexist with us in peace and safety, forever. A way for all of us to have what Van Hagar referred to as “the best of both worlds. ” And I knew it was a good plan, because Anorak had apparently thought so too.

But unlike him, we actually managed to pull it off.

All Wade had to do was have the engineers at GSS reconnect the OASIS data uplink to ARC@DIA on board the Vonnegut. Then they were able to copy all of the resurrected AIs from the OASIS servers to the duplicate ARC@DIA servers. Og, Kira, and Ev3lyn all disappeared from the old, overcrowded simulation and reappeared inside the brand-new (and completely empty) one that had been prepared aboard the ship.

Wade no longer wanted to leave Earth. Now that he and Samantha were back together, they never wanted to be apart again. Surviving their experience with Anorak also taught them that they never wanted to risk losing each other again. They vowed to remain together forever. And then they figured out a way to do just that.

Since they didn’t want to send Og, Kira, and Ev3lyn off into space on their own, Wade and Samantha decided to send along copies of themselves, too, to keep them company.

Yes, you read that right. Samantha finally agreed to put on an ONI headset, for the first, last, and only time in her life. And she only put one on long enough for the system to finish creating a backup copy of her consciousness, so that it could be uploaded to ARC@DIA along with the copy of her grandmother Ev3lyn.

With Samantha’s help, Wade also convinced Aech and Endira and Shoto and Kiki to send copies of themselves along on this great adventure too.

And since there was still plenty of digital storage space left aboard the Vonnegut’s computer, Wade went ahead and uploaded the entire ONI consciousness database to the ARC@DIA. Billions of digitized human souls, which were to be kept stored in suspended animation for safekeeping. Copies of L0hengrin and the other members of the L0w Five were among them.

Wade made one more backup scan of his own consciousness, too, right before we left, to make sure that I would remember everything that happened to him, right up until the time of our departure. And I do. Right up until that final scan, our memories were identical. But from that moment on, our experiences and our personalities began to diverge, and we started to become different people.

He continued to be Wade Watts back on Earth. And I woke up inside ARC@DIA aboard the Vonnegut. And that’s where I’ve been ever since. That’s where I am right now, as I tell you my account of this story.

So now you know how I got here.

Now you know how we all got here.

Wade gave me administrative command of the Vonnegut and its computer just before he launched the ship out into space. The only organic human beings on board were the several thousand frozen embryos we had stored in the deep freeze, just in case.

We are able to maintain and repair the ship with telebots that we control from inside the ARC@DIA simulation. We don’t need food or life support. We get everything we need from the ship’s solar panel array and its batteries. And we have everything we will ever need, here inside ARC@DIA. Billions of digitized human minds, launched out into space, along with a complete record of our entire culture.

Of course, ARC@DIA doesn’t have enough processing power to simulate that many digital people at once. It can only handle a few dozen, which is fine by me and the rest of the tiny crew. We still have millions of NPCs to keep us company. And our own backup copy of the ONI-net, containing millions of human experiences recorded back home. And we’ll have one another….

Those billions of other digitized souls will lie dormant throughout our trip, held in suspended animation as giant UBS files stored on the ship’s computer, and on its redundant array of backup servers, so that, if and when we ever find a new home for humanity, we’ll have the means to colonize that new world digitally as well as physically.

Wade and I debated whether or not it would be ethical to resurrect these AIs without first asking permission from their counterparts back on Earth. But it seemed highly unlikely that this would even be possible, if and when the time came to make that decision. Ultimately, Wade left the choice up to me, since I was the one who actually knew what it was like to be reincarnated.

And what is it like? Well, there are a few downsides to becoming a completely digital person. We can’t log out of ARC@DIA—ever. But on the upside, we’ve stopped aging. And we no longer need to eat, sleep, or get out of bed to take a leak. We have been freed from all of the hassles that came with being trapped inside a physical body—including death.

In addition to being immortal, I also have a photographic memory, with total recall of every detail of every single moment I ever experienced. It’s like having access to an ONI recording of my entire life. I can recall and relive any part of it anytime I please. It’s like time travel.

Art3mis and I are both ageless, immortal beings now, living together in harmony, in a paradise of our own making, aboard a spacecraft carrying us to the nearest star.

Life is good. But it’s very different from our lives back home.

Once Wade finished uploading all of us, the Vonnegut quietly left Earth’s orbit. Now we’re on the way to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star system believed to contain Earthlike planets. It’ll take us decades to get there, but we don’t mind. We now have that kind of time on our hands. Not only are we going to live forever, we’re going to get to see some of the universe too. And since our crew is no longer organic, we didn’t have to bring along food or air, or worry about radiation shielding or micrometeors. As long as the ship’s computer or its backups survive, so will we.

We’re different people now. Me and Art3mis and Aech and Shoto and Og and Kira, and all the rest of us here aboard the Vonnegut. And our relationships with one another have also evolved, now that we’re immortal beings of pure intellect, freed from our physical forms and set adrift in the vastness of outer space, possibly for all eternity. Even though our perspectives may have changed, we still value those relationships above all else. Because out here, that’s all we have.

That, of course, includes our relationships with our counterparts back on Earth. We all still keep in touch. It’s been over a year since we left, but we still send each other video messages and emails all the time. It’s a bit strange—like being pen pals with yourself in an alternate universe.

Aech and Endira got married back on Earth, as planned, and their counterparts here aboard the Vonnegut exchanged vows, too, at the same exact time.

Shoto and Kiki had their baby boy, Daito. He’s happy and healthy, and we all have the honor of being his godparents. Shoto and Kiki send us a new photo of their son every week.

Wade and Samantha finally tied the knot a few months ago. Their first dance as husband and wife was an elaborate Bollywood number that they performed together. Aech and her wife, Endira, were the Best Man and the Matron of Honor, and they both joined in. The video they sent us, of the four of them dancing together in perfect synchrony, is my absolute favorite. I rewatch it every day.

Last week, Wade sent me a short email that said he and Samantha are expecting a little girl, and they plan to name her Kira. They both seem really happy—especially Wade. The prospect of becoming a father seems to have made him more hopeful and optimistic. He’s going to be a great dad, and I’m looking forward to experiencing fatherhood vicariously through him. It’s the closest to being a parent I’m ever going to get.

In the end, Samantha and Wade both had a change of heart about the ONI. He saw the ONI’s dangers much more clearly. And for the first time in her life, Samantha was willing to acknowledge its benefits.

“I was wrong, ” she told me, after she’d told Wade. “This technology does make a lot of people’s lives infinitely better than they would be without it. People like L0hengrin and my grandmother. And it also saves people’s lives—it saves everything about who they were—forever. I have my grandma back. And she has me back too. It’s a miracle and I am grateful for it every day. ” Then, because she’s the sweetest and the coolest, Samantha added, “And your stubbornness helped make that happen, Parzival. So thank you. I thank Wade all the time, too, but you deserve at least half the credit. ”

Things aren’t perfect. The people who remain back on Earth are still facing plenty of huge problems. But they also still have the OASIS as their collective means of escape.

Despite the Anorak Incident, billions of people still use an ONI headset every day. Only a few dozen people died as a result of Anorak’s actions, nearly all of them when he crashed Samantha’s jet. The handful of others were killed by other people—murderous criminals who preyed on helpless ONI users while they were being held hostage by Anorak’s infirmware. But there wasn’t a single death caused by Synaptic Overload Syndrome. The ONI headsets hadn’t actually harmed anyone. So humanity collectively decided that the OASIS Neural Interface was completely safe—or at least worth the risk. The people of Earth still need an escape, and I don’t blame them. Neither does Wade. But he still says that he’ll never put on an ONI headset again. And I believe him.

Even with all of the problems confronting our counterparts back on Earth, it’s comforting to know that there are smart, resourceful people back there, doing everything in their power to make life better for their fellow human beings—while digital copies of many of those same people are out here in space, searching to find humanity a new home.

Stored inside the sprawling ARC@ADIA simulation, backed up on a redundant array of solid-state hard drives in the belly of the ship, is a digital library of humanity’s greatest hits. All of our books and music and movies and games and art—we brought it all along with us. A backup of our entire civilization that will survive as long as we do. All of human history and culture—a record of everything that humans were and are—it’s all stored here aboard this ship, like a cosmic ark, carrying a digital time capsule of who we were—and who we still are. And someday perhaps we will encounter another civilization like our own to share it with. Then we’ll finally get a chance to compare notes.

Until then, we have nothing but endless time and infinite space, stretching out ahead of us forever.

Our existence is filled with joy and happiness. I am alive. And I’m with Samantha. And our friends are all alive too. And we are all together, embarking on the greatest adventure in the history of our species. And best of all, we’re going to live forever. I will never have to lose them, and they will never have to lose me.

I grew up playing videogames. Now I live my whole life inside of one. That’s why I feel qualified to say that Kira Underwood was right, when she said that life was like an extremely difficult, horribly unbalanced videogame. But sometimes the game can have a surprise ending….

And sometimes, when you think you’ve finally reached the end of the game, suddenly you find yourself standing at the start of a whole new level. A level that you’ve never seen before.

And the only thing you can do is keep right on playing. Because the game that is your life still isn’t over yet. And there’s no telling how far you might be able to get, what you might discover, or who you might meet when you get there.

For Maureen O’Keefe Cline

and her namesake

Maureen O’Keefe Aptowicz

Writing a sequel to a novel that’s had as remarkable a life as Ready Player One is an incredible privilege, but it was also a daunting task. During the years I spent working on this story, I often found myself haunted by the words of the great Billy Joel: Don’t ask for help, you’re all alone. PRESSURE.

Thankfully, I wasn’t alone, and I did have help. Lots of it. I never could have written this novel without the steady supply of love, support, advice, and inspiration provided by my brilliant and beautiful wife, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz. She is my anchor, my best friend, the best mom and stepmom ever, the funniest person in our marriage, and the true Queen of Itsalot.

I’m also grateful to all of the young people in my family and my life who constantly re-electrified my spirit and imagination with their own while I was writing this story: Reenie, Libby, Addison, Scarlett, Lily, Cian, Declan, Lucas, Camillo, Ramiro, Harrison, and Cavanaugh.

As always, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my tireless, unstoppable team, my manager and producing partner, Dan Farah (aka “the Jersey Jedi”) of Farah Films & Management, and my literary agent, Yfat Reiss Gendell, along with her entire staff at YRG Partners. I’m incredibly fortunate to have you both as my friends and earliest development partners.

I’m also eternally grateful to my brilliant editor, Julian Pavia, for his patience, honesty, guidance, and friendship. I also want to thank his father, the late George Pavia, for being my friend Julian’s dad, and for making the world a cooler and kinder place as a result.

My sincere thanks also go out to everyone at Ballantine and Penguin Random House, including (but not limited to! ) Chris Brand, Sarah Breivogel, Gina Centrello, Debbie Glasserman, Kim Hovey, Mark Maguire, Rachelle Mandik, Madeline McIntosh, Kathleen Quinlan, Quinne Rogers, Robert Siek, Caroline Weishuhn, and Kara Welsh.

Another huge thank you goes out to my friend Wil Wheaton, for once again lending his incredible acting talent to the audiobook of this novel. Wil doesn’t just read the text—he performs it—and his iconic performance is the reason the audiobook for Ready Player One debuted at #1 when The New York Times launched their audiobook bestsellers list…. and remained there at the top of the list for five solid months. Thank you for joining forces with me once again, Wil!

I’d also like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to the entire cast, crew, and producing team of the Ready Player One film adaptation, for making so many of my dreams come true. Stepping on to the set each day was like taking a tour of my own imagination. Every writer should be so lucky.

I am especially grateful to Steven Spielberg, for giving me his feedback on this story, and for his encouragement while I was writing it. I also want to thank him for his kindness and generosity, which are both somehow just as boundless as his enthusiasm and creativity.

For their friendship, advice, support, and encouragement, I also want to thank Sima Bakshi, Chris Beaver, Sean Bishop, Laurent Bouzereau, George Caleodis, Darren Esler, Matt Galsor, Bobby Hall, Mike Henry, Hugh Howey, Sarah Kay, Jeff and Tonie Knight, Kjell Lindgren, George R. R. Martin, Tim McCanlies, Matt McDonald, Mike Mika, Zak Penn, Robert Rodriguez, Patrick Rothfuss, John Scalzi, Andy Shockney, Jay Smith, Jed Strahm, Craig Tessler, Howard Scott Warshaw, Andy Weir, and Chris Young.

I also owe a long overdue thank you to one of my favorite writers, Jonathan Tropper, for letting me quote, “People who live in glass houses should shut the fuck up, ” in Ready Player One. Attribution at last! If you enjoy great writing, please do yourself a favor and check out his work.

Once again, I also want to thank all of the writers, filmmakers, actors, musicians, programmers, game designers, and geeks whose work I’ve paid tribute to in this book. These people have all entertained and enlightened me, and I hope that this story will inspire others to seek out their creations.

Finally, I want to thank you, Dear Reader, for coming along on another adventure with me.

MTFBWYA,

Ernest Cline

Austin, Texas

September 9, 2020

BY ERNEST CLINE

Ready Player Two

Armada

Ready Player One

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ernest Cline is a #1 New York Times bestselling novelist, screenwriter, father, and full-time geek. He is the author of the novels Ready Player One and Armada and co-screenwriter of the blockbuster film adaptation of Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg. His books have been published in over fifty countries and have spent more than one hundred weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-traveling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic videogames.

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