Ready Player One - Ernest Cline [79]
There was a long silence while we all contemplated this new development.
“I suppose it could be worse,” Aech said finally. “If the tomb were in a PvP zone, those assholes would already have laser cannons and robot sentries mounted everywhere, to vaporize anyone who approached the area.”
He was right. Since Ludus was a safe zone, the Sixers couldn’t harm gunters who approached the tomb. But there was nothing to stop them from erecting a force field to keep them out. So that was exactly what they’d done.
“The Sixers have obviously been planning for this moment for some time now,” Art3mis said, closing her vidfeed window.
“They won’t be able to keep everyone out for very long,” Aech said. “When the clans find out about this, it’ll be all-out war. There will be thousands of gunters attacking that force field with everything they’ve got. RPGs. Fireballs. Cluster bombs. Nukes. It’s gonna get ugly. They’ll turn that forest into a wasteland.”
“Yeah, but in the meantime, Sixer avatars will be farming the Copper Key and then filing their avatars through the First Gate, one after another, in a freakin’ conga line.”
“But how can they do this?” Shoto asked, his young voice brimming with rage. He looked to his brother. “It’s not fair. They’re not playing fair.”
“They don’t have to. There are no laws in the OASIS, little brother,” Daito said. “The Sixers can do whatever they please. They won’t stop until someone stops them.”
“The Sixers have no honor,” Shoto said, scowling.
“You guys don’t know the half of it,” Aech said. “That’s why Parzival and I asked you all here.” He turned to me. “Z, do you want to tell them what happened?”
I nodded and turned to the others. First, I told them about the e-mail I’d received from IOI. They’d all received the same invitation, but had wisely ignored it. Then I related the details of my chat-room session with Sorrento, doing my best not to leave anything out. Finally, I told them how our conversation had ended—with a bomb detonating at my home address. By the time I’d finished, their avatars all wore looks of stunned disbelief.
“Jesus,” Art3mis whispered. “No joke? They tried to kill you?”
“Yeah. They would have succeeded, too, if I’d been at home. I was just lucky.”
“Now you all know how far the Sixers are willing to go to stop us from beating them to the egg,” Aech said. “If they’re able to locate any one of us, we’re dead meat.”
I nodded. “So you should all take precautions to protect yourselves and your identities,” I said. “If you haven’t already.”
They all nodded. There was another long silence.
“There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” Art3mis said a moment later. “How did the Sixers know to look for the tomb on Ludus? Did someone tip them off?” She glanced around at each of us, but there was no hint of accusation in her voice.
“They must have seen the rumors about Parzival and Aech that were posted on all of the gunter message boards,” Shoto said. “That’s how we knew to look there.”
Daito winced, then punched his little brother in the shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you to keep quiet, blabbermouth?” he hissed. Shoto looked sheepish and clammed up.
“What rumors?” Art3mis asked. She looked at me. “What’s he talking about? I haven’t had time to check the boards in a few days.”
“Several posts were made by gunters who claimed to know Parzival and Aech, saying they were both students on Ludus.” He turned to Aech and me. “My brother and I have spent the past two years searching for the Tomb of Horrors. We’ve scoured dozens of worlds looking for it. But we never thought to look on Ludus. Not until we heard that you attended school there.”
“It never occurred to me that attending school on Ludus was something