Ready Player One - Ernest Cline [181]
I stopped moving forward and the sound of hoofbeats also ceased, but not until a few seconds later. I turned around and saw the source of the sound. It wasn’t a horse. It was a man banging two coconut halves together.
Then I knew where I was. Inside the first scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Another of Halliday’s favorite films, and perhaps the most-beloved geek film of all time.
It appeared to be another Flicksync, like the WarGames simulation inside Gate One.
I was playing King Arthur, I realized. I wore the same costume Graham Chapman had worn in the film. And the man with the coconuts was my trusty manservant, Patsy, as played by Terry Gilliam.
Patsy bowed and groveled a bit when I turned to face him, but said nothing.
“It’s Python’s Holy Grail!” I heard Shoto whisper excitedly.
“Duh,” I said, forgetting myself for a second. “I know that, Shoto.”
A warning flashed on my display: INCORRECT DIALOGUE! A score of –100 points appeared in the corner of my display.
“Smooth move, Ex-lax,” I heard Art3mis say.
“Just let us know if you need any help, Z,” Aech said. “Wave your hands or something, and we’ll feed you the next line.”
I nodded and gave a thumbs-up. But I didn’t think I was going to need much help. Over the past six years, I’d watched Holy Grail exactly 157 times. I knew every word by heart.
I glanced back up at the castle ahead of me, already aware of what was waiting for me there. I began to “gallop” again, holding my invisible reins as I pretended to ride forward. Once again, Patsy began to bang his coconut halves together, galloping along behind me. When we reached the entrance of the castle, I pulled back on my “reins” and brought my “steed” to a halt.
“Whoa there!” I shouted.
My score increased by 100 points, bringing it back up to zero.
On cue, two soldiers appeared up above, leaning over the castle wall. “Who goes there?” one of them shouted down at us.
“It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot,” I recited. “King of the Britons! Defeater of the Saxons! Sovereign of all England!”
My score jumped another 500 points, and a message informed me that I’d received a bonus for my accent and inflection. I felt myself relax, and I realized I was already having fun.
“Pull the other one!” the soldier replied.
“I am,” I continued. “And this is my trusty servant Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of knights who will join me in my court at Camelot. I must speak with your lord and master!”
Another 500 points. In my ear, I could hear my friends giggling and applauding.
“What?” the other soldier replied. “Ridden on a horse?”
“Yes!” I said. 100 points.
“You’re using coconuts!”
“What?” I said. 100 points.
“You’ve got two empty halves of coconut and you’re bangin’ ’em together!”
“So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia, through—” Another 500 points.
“Where’d you get the coconuts?”
And so it went. The character I was playing changed from one scene to the next, switching to whomever had the most dialogue. Incredibly, I flubbed only six or seven lines. Each time I got stumped, all I had to do was shrug and hold out my hands, palms up—my signal that I needed some help—and Aech, Art3mis, and Shoto would all gleefully feed me the correct line. The rest of the time they remained silent except for the occasional giggle fit or burst of laughter. The only really difficult part was not laughing myself, especially when Art3mis started doing note-perfect recitations of all of Carol Cleveland’s lines in the Castle Anthrax scene. I cracked up a few times and got hit with score penalties for it. Otherwise, it was smooth sailing.
Reenacting the film wasn’t just easy—it was a total blast.
About halfway through the movie, right after my confrontation with the Knights of Ni, I opened up a text window on my display and typed STATUS ON THE SIXERS?
“Fifteen of them are still playing Tempest,” I heard