I opened my HUD and texted Art3mis the signal we’d agreed upon in advance:
WE CAN DANCE IF WE WANT TO
Her reply flashed across the top of my HUD a few seconds later:
IT’S ON LIKE RED DAWN!
I smiled and removed the tiny Tactical Telebot Control Station Art3mis gave me from my inventory and tossed it onto the stone floor. It instantly grew to its full size. Its height and appearance resembled that of a conventional OASIS immersion rig. It even had a built-in omnidirectional treadmill at its base. I found this similarity ironic, since the device served the exact opposite purpose. Instead of allowing me to use my real body to control an OASIS avatar, the Telebot Control Station allowed me to use my OASIS avatar to control a robotic body in the real world.
The Telebot Control Station automatically powered itself on when I climbed into it. Spindly robotic arms extended from the rig to place a virtual OASIS visor and haptic suit on my avatar. These allowed me to see, feel, hear, and touch the real world from inside the OASIS, through the sensory apparatus of the telebot I was now piloting.
Through its head-mounted cameras, I could see that my telebot was still in its charging dock, which was located in the back of an ATC—an armored telebot carrier—which was currently in motion. I was surrounded by about two dozen other identical telebots. I recognized them as brand new Okagami ACT-3000s—armored combat telebots with forearm-mounted machine guns and shoulder-mounted missile racks. The security team at my house used ACT-2000s, which were designed for home defense. The 3000s were designed for military use in all-out warfare. Miles and Samantha had apparently decided not to take any chances.
When I swiveled my telebot’s head around to take in my surroundings, I spotted both Samantha and Miles just a few feet away, on the other side of a bulletproof window that separated the cargo hold from the ATC’s heavily armored cab. They were both wearing OASIS visors and haptic gloves, because they were each controlling one of the telebots in the back of the transport too. Their bots both nodded at mine as soon as they saw it activate.
Then Samantha’s bot turned toward mine. It was a combat medic telebot, outfitted with surgical tools and medicine instead of weapons and ammo. Its armor plating was painted white, and it had a big red cross on its forehead. Its armored chest plate swung open like a pair of doors, revealing a small monitor that displayed a live vidfeed of her OASIS ravatar’s face, which looked like a live mirror image of Samantha’s face in reality, minus the OASIS visor she was currently wearing.
It took me a few seconds to find the button that opened my own bot’s chest plate. When I pressed it, she had an unobstructed view of my own avatar’s face too. Through all those layers of machinery and technology, we locked eyes. I saw determination in her eyes, but then her expression softened, and for a second I could swear I saw her looking at me the way she used to—with love and warmth and hope.
Then Miles addressed me through his telebot and the moment was over.
“Hello, Mr. Watts,” he said. “It’s very good to see you, sir.”
“Hey, Miles,” I replied. “Thanks for arranging all of this.” I turned back to address Samantha. “What are you doing here?” I asked her. “I mean, why are you physically here, in the cab of this truck? It isn’t safe.”
“Because Og is physically here too,” she replied. “And he isn’t safe right now either. He’s also sick. So if we manage to get him out of there, I don’t want him to be surrounded by telebots and total strangers. I want to be there to put my arms around him.”
I nodded, momentarily unable to speak. Unlike me, she was thinking about Og instead of herself. Her instinct was always to act out of kindness and generosity instead of self-interest. She was a better person than me, and I was a better person when I was around her. And I desperately wanted to get her back in my life. For that to happen, I needed her to be alive.
“Og wouldn’t want you to put yourself in danger,” I said. “And—I don’t want you to either, Samantha.”
“News flash, sweetie,” she replied. “We’re all in danger right now. The whole human race. So get over yourself, and get your game face back on, OK?”
I couldn’t argue with that, so I didn’t. I just nodded and took a deep breath.
“We’re just a few seconds away from the house now,” she said. “So far, no sign of any aerial drones in the area, aside from our own. But stay alert.”
I checked the mission map on my telebot’s HUD. It showed that we were already approaching Og’s former residence from the east, trundling up the long paved driveway that led from Babbitt Road up to the main house. I could see it in one of the vidfeed windows on my display, coming from a camera mounted on the front of our transport. It was a large ultramodern mansion, similar in size and style to my own house. Halliday and Og had their mansions constructed at the same time, and on the same street, shortly after they co-founded Gregarious Games and both of them became multimillionaires.