Shoto and I both raised our right hands in solidarity.
“It’s possible that Anorak’s infirmware has simply broken the respawning process,” Faisal said hopefully. “So that now, when an ONI user’s avatar gets killed, they get stuck in a dreamless limbo, where they’re no longer experiencing anything at all.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Aech said. “Or maybe Anorak is making them respawn in the fire pits on the Ninth Circle of Hell, Faisal!” She threw up her hands, suddenly on the verge of hysteria. “Who fucking knows, man? Maybe now, when one of our avatars gets killed, instead of respawning, we’re going to suddenly find ourselves being tortured by Klingons in the dilithium mines on the frozen Rura Penthe asteroid! And we’ll also probably be on an accelerated timeline that makes three seconds feel like three thousand years!”
“Holy shit,” Shoto whispered. “Could Anorak really do that?”
“No, of course not!” Faisal said. “I mean, I highly doubt that what Ms. Harris described is even possible…” He paused to listen to his admins argue in his ear for a moment, then he let out a sigh and said, “The consensus seems to be…we don’t know what those users are experiencing. And we don’t think we’ll be able to find out until one of them wakes up and tells us.”
“Or until one of us gets killed on Anorak’s scavenger hunt,” I said. “And then we find out for ourselves. Firsthand…”
Everyone fell silent for a few seconds. I resisted the urge to check my ONI usage counter. Instead, I began to massage my temples in an effort to remain calm.
“Have those simcap clips you showed us already been posted to the ONI-net?” Art3mis asked.
“Yeah,” Faisal replied. “That’s where we found them.”
“So now the whole world knows that Anorak has gone berserk,” Art3mis said. “They can also see that he’s taken control of our NPCs. Why don’t we just come clean and tell our users the truth? They deserve to know that Anorak is the one who hacked the ONI firmware, and that he’s the reason they can’t log out or respawn. GSS isn’t going to be able to keep that a secret, Faisal.”
“Not forever,” he replied. “But if we keep releasing updates, saying that we should have the problem fixed in just a few more minutes, we might be able to hold off the panic until this is over. If we told them the truth—”
“It would create total chaos, online and off,” Aech said, shaking her head.
Faisal nodded and cleared his throat.
“If the four of you all approve,” he said, “our PR department would like to release another update, blaming the NPC’s erratic behavior on another glitch, caused by the same ‘corrupted’ ONI firmware update responsible for the logout issue. Once again, we’ll assure them we’re working on the problem and should have it fixed within the next thirty minutes. We’ll also apologize for the rogue NPCs’ behavior, and guarantee resurrection for any users who had their avatars killed, and promise that we’ll restore their lost credits and items as soon as we have the problem corrected.”
“What about Anorak?” Shoto asked. “How do we explain his behavior?”
“As far as the public knows, Anorak is just another NPC,” Faisal said. “Left dormant in the system by Halliday. So we can blame his behavior on the same firmware glitch that’s affecting the other NPCs.”
“What about the respawning issue?” I asked. “Has that also gone public?”
“Not yet,” Faisal said. “The users experiencing it are stuck in limbo, so they obviously can’t talk to anyone to complain about their situation. But before too long, people are going to figure out that their friends aren’t respawning and then…”
“They’ll start to fear the worst,” Aech said. “I know I sure do.”
“There’s another reason we need to keep up the fa?ade,” Faisal said. “Remember, less than ten percent of our ONI users have an immersion vault to protect themselves while they’re under. Most people lock themselves in a room or a closet when they nap, with the assumption that they’ll be able to see trouble coming on their surveillance feeds and log out in plenty of time to wake up and defend themselves. A lot of those people are completely vulnerable now. If the whole world knew what was really going on…”
“He’s right,” Art3mis said. She lowered her head and closed her eyes. “What do you think will happen when criminals all over the world figure out that they’re surrounded by sitting ducks? People who can no longer log out of the OASIS to protect themselves?” She opened her eyes, as if she’d finished seeing into the near future. “The police—the ones who aren’t hostages themselves—are going to be too overwhelmed to help everyone. It’ll be the crime wave of the century.”