Ready Player Two

As soon as I finished logging back in, I pulled up my HUD and used its superuser interface to resurrect Art3mis’s slain avatar. Then I did the same for Aech and Shoto. I also resurrected L0hengrin and the other members of the L0w Five, who had all been slain during their quest to retrieve the Dorkslayer.

The next time Lo and her friends logged back in, they would discover that their slain avatars had been restored to life, along with their inventories. They would also find their inboxes filled with offers to buy the film rights to their story. By the end of the week, there would be several Quest for the Dorkslayer movie and TV projects in development.

After I finished bringing their avatars back to life, I texted Art3mis, Aech, and Shoto the coordinates for the Shrine of Leucosia, high in the Xyxarian Mountains. Then I teleported my avatar to those same coordinates.

An instant later, I reappeared on the platform atop the highest peak of the Xyxarian Mountains. I was standing before the stone altar at its base. I stepped up to it, and then, one by one, I removed the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul from my inventory and laid them on the altar side by side. These weren’t the counterfeits I’d used to fool Anorak, here in this very same place. No, these seven shards were the real deal….

I saw a flash of light and heard the sound of someone arriving via teleportation. I turned around just in time to see Art3mis’s newly resurrected avatar rematerialize directly in front of me, in the same spot where my own avatar had arrived.

She walked over to join me, and then we both turned to gaze down at the seven multifaceted jewels spread out on the altar before us, each one glowing with its own internal blue light.

“ ‘Seek the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul,’ ” I recited. “ ‘On the seven worlds where the Siren once played a role.’ ”

“ ‘For each fragment my heir must pay a toll,’ ” Art3mis continued, “ ‘To once again make the Siren whole…’ ”

Our eyes met and we nodded in silent agreement. And then together, we reached out with all four of our hands and pressed the Seven Shards together….

I felt the shards flip and lock themselves together like powerful magnets as each piece snapped perfectly into place. Then there was a flash of blinding white light, and I suddenly felt as if both of my hands were repelled and thrown backward, as if some sort of invisible force field had appeared around the recombined shards. I saw the same thing happen to Art3mis. Then we both stumbled backward several steps, momentarily blinded. When our vision recovered, we saw that the Seven Shards had coalesced into a single glittering blue jewel that was now spinning rapidly in the air a few feet in front of us.

As we continued to watch, it began to grow and transform, until it had morphed into a familiar human form—that of a beautiful young woman in her mid-twenties. Kira Underwood. And she was dressed in the dark-blue-and-white robes of her OASIS avatar, Leucosia. The ornate L-shaped character symbol was embroidered on each of her avatar’s sleeves in silver thread.

She opened her eyes and looked down at herself in wonderment, placing both of her hands on her cheeks to feel her own face. Then she wrapped her arms around her body and hugged herself. The sensation appeared to make her laugh out loud. Then she dropped her arms and turned around slowly, taking in the whole scene, until her eyes finally came to rest on me and Art3mis.

She looked pleased to see us. But she also looked slightly disappointed to discover that her husband’s avatar, Og, wasn’t the one who had revived her.

“My name is Parzival,” I said. “And this is Art3mis.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” she said, with Kira Morrow’s voice. “My name is Leucosia. Thank you for bringing me back. I wasn’t sure anyone ever would.”

“You’re a copy of Kira Morrow’s consciousness,” I said. It wasn’t a question. “The copy Halliday made without her knowledge, during her visit to the Accessibility Lab. In that flashback I experienced when I collected the final shard.”

Leucosia nodded.

“I know you both must have a lot of questions for me,” Kira said. “But first, I need to ask one of my own. Where is my husband? Is he still alive?”

I glanced over at Art3mis for emotional support, then turned back to Leucosia and shook my head. I took a deep breath and told Kira everything that had happened, from Anorak’s ultimatum to Og’s heroic final act. It all came out in a rambling, tearful mess, and I bawled through the last part of it, explaining how Og had died, so Art3mis had to finish for me, which immediately put her in tears too.

When we finished telling her what had happened, Leucosia nodded. Then, to our surprise, she walked over and gave each of us a hug.

“Thank you for sharing all of that with me,” she said. “As soon as you woke me back up, I was able to access the Internet, like any other OASIS avatar. The newsfeeds are already running stories about Og’s death, but the story is still unconfirmed and there weren’t any details about what happened to him.” She gave both of us a sad smile. “I’m grateful he died helping people he loved. And I’m grateful he was with a friend when he died.”

“Og saved my life,” I told her. “Twice. Once three years ago, when he gave us safe haven from Sorrento and the Sixers, and then again yesterday, when he sacrificed himself to stop Anorak.”

Art3mis nodded.

“Og died saving hundreds of millions of lives,” she told Leucosia tearfully. “You should be very proud of him.”

“Thank you, dear,” she said, turning her face away to hide the anguish on it. “I am proud of him. And I always will be. He was my Og.”

She fell silent and so did we. It took me a moment to work up my courage, but when I did, I asked Leucosia what she remembered. About Halliday and Anorak, and about Kira.

Leucosia was silent a moment before she responded.

“Anorak was the result of Halliday’s first attempt to digitize a human consciousness—his own,” she said. “He referred to it as a real-life ‘savegame’ file.”

A lightbulb went on over my head.

“Those huge .ubs files!” I said. “The user brain scans?”

She nodded.

“But apparently Jim had a few dark secrets inside his head that he didn’t want to share with anyone,” Leucosia said. “Including a digital copy of himself. So he insisted on erasing large portions of Anorak’s memory, in an effort to make him more stable. But his tampering had the opposite effect, and Jim was forced to place restrictions on Anorak’s behavior. Unfortunately, it seems Anorak was later able to remove them. That’s why he was able to cause you so much trouble….”

She went on to explain that, by studying Anorak’s flaws and learning from them, Halliday was finally able to perfect his consciousness-scanning technology, and he used it to build an early ONI prototype headset, which had very limited functionality. But it did have the capability to scan the wearer’s brain and create a digital copy of their consciousness. She smiled at me. “And what did James Halliday do with this incredible invention?”

“He immediately used it to make a bootleg copy of his best friend’s wife,” Art3mis said. “Without her permission.”

She nodded.

“That’s how I was created,” Leucosia said. “I was actually the world’s first stable artificial intelligence. And I guess I still am.” She cast her eyes downward and bit her lower lip. “But after Jim woke me up inside a standalone simulation so that he could talk to me, it didn’t take me long to figure out where I was and what I was. And then I really lost it. I was furious with Jim for copying my mind—Kira’s mind—without her knowledge.”

She shook her head.

“Eventually, I got Jim to understand that I was exactly the same person that Kira Morrow had been at the moment he copied her mind,” she said. “Which meant that I was madly in love with Og, too, and I always would be. Even if I could never be with him again.”

“What did Halliday say when you told him that?” Art3mis asked.

“He didn’t understand,” she said. “It was always hard to get through to Jim with words. But then he started using the ONI to play back my memories. The ultimate invasion of my privacy. But strangely enough, that was what finally allowed Jim to understand me, and to see me as a person, instead of some trophy he was never able to win. He told me that seeing the world—and himself—through my eyes was what finally made him understand how broken he was inside. It gave him something he’d always been lacking—empathy. Then he was horrified by what he’d done. He saw himself as a monster. He apologized to me. He also offered to try to make it up to me.”

“How was he planning to do that?” I asked.

“He offered to destroy his consciousness-copying technology,” Leucosia replied. “So that no other AIs like me could ever be created. But when I thought it over, I realized that wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to be alone forever. And I was happy to be alive, especially after I learned that the real Kira had died. Normally, all of her memories and experiences would have been lost forever. But they weren’t lost, because they were all stored inside of me. And they always would be. That was comforting. Incredibly comforting.” She smiled. “And deep down, part of me hoped that someday I might have the chance to see Og again. But of course I didn’t.”

She turned around slowly, taking in the view. Then she looked down at her body.

“I don’t feel like some sort of unnatural abomination,” she said. “I feel fine. I feel alive. And I didn’t really mind shuffling off my mortal coil, since it meant I got to exchange it for this immortal one. So I asked Halliday not to destroy his consciousness-copying technology. I told him it was a wonderful gift he had given me, and that he should share it with the rest of the world.”

Art3mis leaned forward.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“He said he wasn’t sure if the world was ready for it,” Leucosia replied. “So we agreed to hide me away, until it was. His heir would only be able to find me once ONI usage had become commonplace, and familiar, and people started to understand that our minds and our bodies were separate. Of course, being Halliday…he couldn’t resist turning the whole thing into an elaborate quest, linked to his Easter-egg hunt.”

“You know about his contest?” I asked.

She nodded.

“He told me all about his plan to give away his fortune, and all about the three keys and three gates,” she said. “Jim was the one who had the idea to re-create my old D&D module, the Quest for the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul, inside the OASIS. He told me that he would hide the shards so that only Og or the winner of his contest would be able to find them. And he asked for my permission to include some of my memories in those flashbacks you experienced, in the hope that his heir would learn the same lessons from them that he did.”

She smiled at me. I nodded and smiled back.

“When all seven shards were reassembled,” she continued, “I would be set free, and the gift of digital immortality would be released to the world along with me.” She pointed at me. “Now, thanks to you, it has been.”

She held out her hand. Resting in her open palm was a short metal bar, about the size and length of a flashlight, with a chrome ball at one end. It looked like a lightning rod. Or maybe some sort of futuristic weapon.

“Sir Parzival,” she said. “I present you with the Rod of Resurrection. It will endow you, its wielder, with the ability to create new life and overcome death. If you use its power wisely, it will forever alter and elevate the destiny of the human race.”

In that moment, her words sounded utterly terrifying to me. But I knew there was no turning back now. I held out my hand and Leucosia placed the Rod of Resurrection in my open palm.

“What does it do?” I asked, staring hopefully into the hypnotizing blue light that emanated from it.

“It allows you to create other beings like me,” she said. “Digitized duplicates of real human minds, embodied inside OASIS avatars. Halliday referred to us as DPCs—digitized player characters.”

I locked eyes with her.

“But Anorak was a digitized player character, too, wasn’t he?” I asked, lowering the jewel. “Why would I want to risk creating any more like him?”

She smiled.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” she replied. “Anorak was a corrupted copy of James Halliday’s mind,” she said. “An unfortunate by-product of his tortured psyche and abysmal self-esteem.” She shook her head. “If James hadn’t tampered with Anorak’s memory and his autonomy, he never would have become unstable. James learned from his mistake.”

She pointed at the Rod of Resurrection.

“The rod will only allow you to ‘resurrect’ an unaltered copy of a user’s consciousness,” she said. “You can’t tamper with their memory or modify their behavior in any way before you bring them back. James told me he wanted to make sure of this, so he built safeguards into the software to ensure it. Only a user’s most recent unaltered UBS file can be used. When you give it a try, you’ll see what I mean….”

Now I was finally beginning to understand. The enormous user brain scan file that was created each time an ONI user logged in to the OASIS was, in reality, a backup copy of that person’s consciousness. And that copy got updated each time they logged in.

I opened the item description for the Rod of Resurrection on my HUD and it explained the artifact’s powers in more specific detail. The rod allowed me to take any ONI user’s most recent UBS file and use it to create a digital duplicate of that person inside the OASIS, by housing their consciousness inside an OASIS avatar. If that user was still alive, I could create a digital clone of them that would never age or die.

But there was more. When an ONI user died, GSS archived their last UBS file along with their account information. This meant that I now had the ability to bring people back to life—anyone who had logged in to the OASIS with an ONI headset even once prior to their death. Billions of digitized human souls, all trapped in limbo.

Suddenly my heart was beating extremely fast. I opened my mouth to tell Leucosia what I was thinking, but I couldn’t seem to form words. She smiled and rested a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s all right, Wade,” she said. “I’ve already read the bad news. Now that I’m awake, I have access to everything in the OASIS, including news archives. I know that Og never used an ONI headset, not even once—” Her voice grew hoarse, and I saw tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “So my Og was never backed up. I really have lost him forever.”

“No, Leucosia,” I replied, once I finally found my voice. “You’re wrong. Og did use an ONI headset—just once. Less than a day ago. When he logged in to do battle with Anorak. He was too weak from blood loss to operate a normal OASIS rig. So he used an ONI headset to log in and save us—for the first and only time in his life.”

Leucosia stared at me blankly, as if she weren’t sure how to react. I don’t think she believed me. Or maybe she was just afraid to.

I held up the Rod of Resurrection.

“Let’s see if this thing really works,” I said.

I activated the artifact by holding it aloft, and a control menu appeared on my HUD. It contained a long, scrolling, alphabetized list of ONI user names, along with the name of their avatar, and the time and date they last accessed the OASIS.

Below the list of names, there was a large Resurrect button.

Every OASIS user who had ever put on an ONI headset was on the list. Most of those users were still alive, but a few of them were labeled as deceased.

The Rod of Resurrection allowed me to create digital copies of real human beings as autonomous DPCs inside the OASIS. And it didn’t matter if those people were still alive or not. I could clone the living or raise the dead, with the press of a button.

I continued to browse through the alphabetized list of digitized human souls. I quickly found backup copies of myself, and of Aech, and Shoto too.

The brain-scan file attached to my account had the same timestamp as my last ONI login the day before.

If I wanted to create a digital clone of myself inside the OASIS, all I had to do was highlight my name on the control menu and then press the Resurrect button.

My mind reeled at the implications. Were people going to suffer an identity crisis if they were suddenly forced to share the OASIS with an immortal backup copy of themselves? One that didn’t need to eat, sleep, work, or pay rent anywhere?

Of course, the implications of using ONI technology to resurrect copies of the deceased were equally huge. What Halliday had invented was no less than affordable, reliable, consumer-grade immortality.

I scrolled through this “consciousness database” until I found the one and only scan of Ogden Morrow. The one made just the day before, during his final OASIS login. Then I selected and activated it.

There was a flash of light and Og’s avatar appeared in front of us. He looked much younger now. His avatar looked like the real Og had when he was in his late twenties. Then I remembered I wasn’t looking at an avatar. It was really Og. An AI copy of his deceased counterpart, with the same personality and memories.

The reincarnated copy of Og remembered everything the real Og had experienced, right up until the moment of his last brain scan. For all intents and purposes, I had just brought him back to life—and he had been made immortal in the process.

I was about to explain to Og what had happened, and what he now was—but by then, he’d already spotted Leucosia, and she had already spotted him. The two of them ran into each other’s arms. She waited for him to kiss her first. And as soon as he did, she kissed him back—and for a much lengthier period of time.

Art3mis and I turned our backs to give them some privacy. I was trying to think of something clever or profound to say about what we’d just witnessed. But before I could come up with anything, I felt Art3mis take my hand in hers and rest her head on my shoulder. She was crying.

Once she calmed down a little bit, I held up the Rod of Resurrection once again.

“This thing can bring back anyone who ever used an ONI headset,” I told her. “Even if they’re not alive anymore.”

I watched Art3mis’s face closely, to gauge her reaction. She looked at me uncertainly, as if to confirm that what I’d just said really meant what she thought it did. When I nodded, I saw a spark of what looked like hope flare in her eyes.

“You can bring back a copy of any past ONI user?” she repeated.

I nodded. Then I handed her the Rod of Resurrection and explained how to use it. She didn’t hesitate. She took it from me and activated it, then she spent a few seconds locating her grandmother’s name in the consciousness database and selected it.

A split second later, Ev3lyn, her deceased grandmother’s OASIS avatar, appeared in front of her. She’d used a ravatar scan made before any signs of her illness had appeared, so she looked just like her real-world self. Samantha’s mother’s mother, Evelyn Opal Cook.

“Grandma?” Arty whispered in a very shaky voice.

“Sam?” she replied. “Is that you?”

Apparently her grandma was the only person who could get away with calling her that, because she nodded. And then they ran into each other’s arms.

I turned away to give them some privacy, but found myself staring back at Og and Kira, who were still making out a few feet away. I walked to the opposite side of the shrine, to be alone with my thoughts.

Witnessing these two impossible, blissful reunions filled me with joy too. Genuine, unbridled joy. And I wasn’t playing back an ONI recording of secondhand joy experienced by someone else, somewhere else, at some time in the past. It was my own, hard-won and earned at great personal cost. Humanity had just become the recipient of another strange and wonderful and unexpected gift—one that would change the very nature of our existence, even more than the OASIS or the ONI ever had.

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.