Ready Player One

IOI Staff Member #1:
Who is this Parzival and how the hell is he winning?

Nolan Sorrento:
Here's a better question: who cares?

[Toshiro pulls Sorrento out of the OASIS by taking off his VR headset, and points a gun at him, as does Wade.]

Wade Watts:
Where is she?

Nolan Sorrento:
How did you get in here?

Wade Watts:
Art3mis.

Nolan Sorrento:
Who?

Wade Watts:
Samantha Cook! Where is she?!

Nolan Sorrento:
If you want to talk, we can talk, but you gotta put that gun down.

Wade Watts:
You killed my mom's sister. You think I won't kill you?

Nolan Sorrento:
Whoa, whoa, whoa, just slow down, okay? That was a corporate decision. It was not personal.

Wade Watts:
WHERE IS SHE?!

Nolan Sorrento:
Uh, she's downstairs, in the Loyalty Center.

Wade Watts:
I know she's in the goddamn Loyalty Center! [advances on Sorrento] You're gonna tell me exactly which rig she's in, and the access code to contact her.

[Toshiro reinforces Wade's threat by placing his gun on Sorrento's rib.]

Nolan Sorrento:
Yeah, that seems appropriate.

[Wade walks towards the door.]

Toshiro:
Start with the access code.

Nolan Sorrento:
645-725.

Toshiro:
Where's the rig?

[Wade walks through a door, revealing Aech's workshop, and Aech and Sho's avatars on the other side, which in turn reveals that they're all in the Oasis. He confirms this by unmasking himself as his avatar, Parzival.]

Wade Watts:
I think he pissed himself.

Aech:
Good job, Z. We're in his account.

Sho:
So he really doesn't know he's in the Oasis?

Wade Watts:
[shows a screen to Sho] This is what Sorrento should be seeing. [shows another screen to Sho] But this, this is what we're making him see. We grabbed him in transit just as he was logging out of the Oasis, so he thinks he's back in his office in the real world, but actually, he's here, in the identical office that Aech built.

Sho:
So, you basically just remotely hacked his rig?

Aech:
A fixed rig like Sorrento's is easy to locate, but hard to hack.

Wade Watts:
Unless he's stupid enough to leave his password lying around.

Aech:
Loyalty Center, I'm in.

Wade Watts:
Okay, let's get to work.

Wade Watts:
Citizens of the Oasis, I am Parzival, first to the key. I'm here talking to all of you now because our future's being threatened, by people who will stop at nothing to win this contest. Some of you already know this, and you've lost more than just your avatars, or your weapons. Some have lost their freedom. Some have lost their lives. And now, this. A force field around the third challenge. I only came here to escape the shitty hand that life dealt me. But I stayed, like many of you, because I found something much bigger than just myself. I found a cause. I found my friends. And, yes, I know it's kind of a groaner, but...I found love.

[Samantha smiles. In the Sixer war room, Sorrento watches with several Sixers.]

Wade Watts:
And I don't want to lose that to this colossal douchebag Nolan Sorrento!

Nolan Sorrento:
[laughs] Back to work, people. [signals to cut the screen as the Sixers move away]

Wade Watts:
He thinks that we're all too distracted to even notice-

[the screen gets cut, but Parzival can still be heard on another]

Wade Watts:
Nolan Sorrento thinks that we won't put up a fight!

IOI Staff Member #2:
Sir! Sir! This is going out live! It's absolutely everywhere!

Wade Watts:
And now we're supposed to hand him the Oasis?

[Sorrento wipes the broadcast from the employee's tablet. He goes into his office with two other employees. As Samantha escapes the room, they help Sorrento into his VR suit.]

Wade Watts:
He thinks that we won't even put up a fight! Well, I say he's wrong. I say tell that to the Gunter clans in the gold mines of Gygax!

Helen Harris:
Activate the Iron Giant.

[In Aech's workshop, the Iron Giant awakens and connects its top and bottom halves together.]

Wade Watts:
[as the Iron Giant and Sho stand next to him] Ask yourselves: are you willing to zero out for the Oasis? Are you willing to fight?! I am Parzival of the High Five. In the name of Art3mis, in the name of Aech, in the name of Daito and Sho, we ask you to join us on Planet Doom. [raises his fist] In the name of James Halliday himself, help us save the Oasis.

Parzival:
The third we did wasn't as popular. We closed the Oasis on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I-I know, it seems like a weird move, but people need to spend more time in the real world. Because, it's just like Halliday said - reality is the only thing that's real.

Wade:
[To Rick] My boys were in that challenge, you could've beat them in a bootsuit, you noob. [Rick turns to Wade, grits his teeth and punches Wade]

Alice:
STOP! NO, NO!

Wade:
Alice, call the police!

Alice:
No, we are not calling the cops! Go to your room, Rick! [Alice pushes Rick to his room]

Rick:
Come on, Alice.

Wade:
[About Rick] Why do you put up with this guy? He's a sh*t-show.

Alice:
[To Wade] I ought to kick the both of you out. I swear to G-O-D, Wade Watts. If I catch you touching my stuff again... NOT JOKING, OUT!!

Parzival:
Wow, you were amazing!

[As a result of his foolishness, Art3mis kicks Parzival in the stomach, resulting in Parzival/Wade to fall to the ground]

Art3mis:
This isn't a game, Z. I'm doing this to stop IOI. I'm talking about real-world consequences. People suffering. Actual life and death stuff.

Parzival:
I know, I know.

Art3mis:
No, you don't know! My dad died at loyalty center. He borrowed gear. He built up debt. He moved in with the promise of working out, but he never did. IOI just raised his living expenses, then he got sick and he couldn't afford to get out and then he died!

Wade Watts:
My name’s Wade Watts. My dad picked that name because it sounded like a superhero’s alter-ego, like Peter Parker or Bruce Banner, but he died when I was a kid, my mom too, and I ended up here. Sitting here in my tiny corner of nowhere, there’s nowhere left to go. Nowhere, except The Oasis. A whole virtual universe. People come to The Oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay because of all the things they can be. It’s the only place that feels like I mean anything.

Wade Watts:
I was born in 2027, after the corn syrup droughts, after the bandwidth riots, after people stopped trying to fix problems and just tried to outlive them. My parents, they didn't make it through those times, so I live here in Columbus, Ohio with my aunt Alice. In 2045, Columbus is the fastest growing city in the world. It's where Halliday and Morrow started Gregarious Games.

Wade Watts:
These days, reality is a bummer. Everyone's looking for a way to escape, and that's why Halliday, that's why he was such a hero to us. He showed us that we could go somewhere without going anywhere at all. You don't need a destination when you're running on an omnidirectional treadmill with quadraphonic pressure-sensitive underlay. James Halliday saw the future, and then he built it. He gave us a place to go, a place called the Oasis.

Wade Watts:
This is the Oasis. It's a place where the limits of reality are your own imagination. You can do anything, go anywhere. Like the Vacation Planet. Surf a 50-foot monster wave in Hawaii, you can ski down the Pyramids, you can climb Mount Everest with Batman. Check out this place. It's a casino the size of a planet! You can lose your money there, you can get married, you can get divorced, you can...you can go in there. People come to the Oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay because of all the things they can be: tall, beautiful, scary, a different sex, a different species, live action, cartoon, it's all your call. Yeah, that's me...well, that's my avatar, at least until I feel like changing it. Except for eating, sleeping and bathroom breaks, whatever people want to do, they do it in the Oasis. And since everyone is here, this is where we meet each other. This is where we make friends.

Wade Watts:
Planet Doom. The most dangerous place in the Oasis...and a pretty great place to pick up coins. Figures Aech would be there. Aech is my best friend in the Oasis. He's my best friend, period, even though I've never actually met him in the real world.

Wade Watts:
Artefacts. Those were key. Halliday made sure the Oasis was littered with enough randomly powerful stuff, that anyone could win if they had the skills. Death matches and artefact hunts are a good way to coin snatch, but depending on your level of armour, they're risky. You see, everyone starts the same, but the more coins you make, the more you level up. If you get killed, your avatar can come back to life, but you lose all your stuff. Everything you've ever worked for. All your money, your clothes, your weapons... Since people spend most of their time in the Oasis, losing your sh*t means...well, losing your sh*t.

Wade Watts:
The Oasis was the brainchild of James Halliday. He and his partner, Ogden Morrow, released the first Oasis build in 2025. It was an instant success, and it made them both very rich. But Morrow was out of the picture after a few years. And Halliday, he wasn't just the owner of the world's biggest company; he was like a god. People loved him. They worshipped him as much as his creation. And then, on January 7, 2040...he died. What he left behind changed everything.

Wade Watts:
The challenge is to find three keys, but in five years, no one has even got one key, and the big scoreboard, still empty. Some long-forgotten Gunter cracked the first clue and found the first challenge, then this portal appeared. But the challenge to find the first key was a race designed by Halliday that was so hard, no one had ever finished it. The only ones still trying are the Gunters – as in "egg hunters" – like me and Sho and Daito and my best friend Aech. Oh, and of course, the Sixers. The Sixers work for IOI – Innovative Online Industries. They're the second largest company in the world, with desires on becoming the first, which is why they're putting everything they've got into winning Halliday's contest. We call them Sixers because that's the company rule – no name, just numbers. They have a support team made up of Halliday scholars. Like me, they spend all their time studying pop culture that Halliday was obsessed with, trying to find clues to solve the contest. They're just following the orders of the head of IOI, this dickweed named Nolan Sorrento.

Wade Watts:
[reading the second clue] A creator who hated his own creation. A hidden key, a leap not taken. Retrace your steps, escape your past and the key will be yours at last.

Wade Watts:
First to the key! (Aech: First to the Egg!)

Samantha Cook:
The contest has got to be about connecting with someone, connecting with the world.

Samantha Cook:
Welcome to the rebellion, Wade.

Samantha Cook:
This isn’t just a game. I’m talking about actual life and death stuff.

James Halliday:
Hello. I'm James Hallida