But at that exact moment, L0hengrin arrived on the scene, teleporting to the planet’s surface just a few meters directly behind Anorak, out of his line of sight.
The bad news was that she was completely alone. The good news was that she held the Dorkslayer sword aloft in her right hand. Blinding sunlight glinted off its silver blade.
Og spotted her right away. As soon as he did, he drew an artifact of his own from his avatar’s inventory—a ridiculously large cartoon sledgehammer that he must’ve picked up on the planet Toontown. He swung the hammer in a wide arc and used it to shatter the glowing bars of the magical cage surrounding his avatar, freeing him from Anorak’s spell. Then he swung the hammer a second time and struck Anorak on the top of his head, pile-driving his avatar several feet down into the ground, burying him up to his waist. As Anorak struggled to free himself, Og ran over to L0hengrin and held his hand out to her. She bowed her head and presented him with the sword.
In the same moment, Anorak pulled himself free of the ground and pointed the Wand of Orcus at Og’s back. But just as he activated it, Og did an evasive sidestep at the last second, so his attack hit L0hengrin instead. A swirling black cloud issued forth from the wand’s tip and enveloped her avatar, disintegrating it and killing her instantly. Her avatar turned to black ash and vanished, leaving behind a pile of inventory that Anorak scooped up. Then he turned back to face Og, flashing him a self-satisfied grin.
But his smile vanished the instant he spotted the sword in Og’s hand. He seemed to recognize the ornate runes carved into its silver blade, because his eyes widened in an expression that could only be described as absolute terror.
Og held the sword aloft, then he teleported directly behind Anorak, who turned to face him just as Og swung the Dorkslayer around and sliced Anorak’s avatar in half, miraculously killing him with a single blow.
Anorak’s avatar slowly vanished, leaving behind the biggest loot drop in history. Og was standing right in the midst of it, so all of Anorak’s items were automatically added to his inventory.
But Og didn’t seem to notice. The moment after he killed Anorak, all of the color drained out of his face, and what little remaining energy he had seemed to evaporate. He began to sway on his feet. He dropped to one knee and clutched his chest. A red cross appeared above his avatar’s head, pulsing on and off in time with the sound of an alarm bell.
I knew what this icon meant, even though this was the first time I’d ever actually seen it in person. It meant that the user operating that avatar was experiencing a serious medical problem in the real world. When this happened, the user was automatically logged out of the OASIS, and an ambulance was summoned to their real-world location （if one was on file）。
A second later, Og’s avatar froze in place. Then it slowly vanished.
* * *
Anorak turned out to be an AI of his word after all. When he died, his infirmware shut down, and the ONI overrides took over. His hostages around the world were released and logged out, and everyone woke up all at once, all around the globe.
I experienced two or three seconds of fleeting consciousness—just enough time to open my eyes, see the canopy of my immersion vault crack open, and feel the cool air outside hit my face. Then, due to the effects of Synaptic Overload Syndrome, and my complete physical and mental exhaustion, I immediately passed out and lost consciousness again.
Then I was dead to the world.
* * *
I didn’t wake up again until the following day, a little over fifteen hours later. I was in a hospital bed in the private infirmary on the GSS Building’s tenth floor. I recognized the view. Faisal was sitting by the window, in the flesh, smiling at me. He looked to be in perfect health. I shifted my eyes to the right and saw Aech and Shoto smiling at me from vidfeed windows on a monitor mounted above my bed. They were teleconferencing in from their own recovery beds, which were in their own homes. They both looked fine too—alive, healthy, and enormously happy. They had emerged from their immersion vaults in perfect health, without any lingering signs of SOS.
I realized someone was holding my left hand. I turned to see who it was and saw Samantha sitting there beside my bed. When she saw that I was awake, she squeezed my hand tightly.
“Hey there, Sleeping Beauty,” she said, just before she planted a kiss on me.
“Hey there, Prince Charming,” I replied once the kiss was finally over.
I sat up in bed and looked around at all of my friends uncertainly. Then I asked them what happened. And they told me.
For reasons I’m still not sure I understand, Anorak had told the truth. He’d programmed his hacked ONI firmware to suspend all headset activity once a user hit their usage limit, but to keep them logged in. This prevented all of his hostages from suffering the effects of Synaptic Overload Syndrome. Everyone had been released from their ONI headsets unharmed.