“Z, I have a bad feeling about this,” Aech whispered, echoing my own thoughts.
I nodded and stood up. As I did, I caught a glimpse of my avatar’s reflection in the polished surface of the conference table and saw that I was no longer wearing the Robes of Anorak. Instead, I was dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt—the free default outfit given to new avatars.
I opened my inventory. The Robes of Anorak were no longer listed there.
They were gone. Because Anorak had taken them.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry, Parzival,” Anorak said, smiling sadly at me. “When we shook hands, I removed the robes from your inventory. I didn’t know if you were aware I had the power to take them back.” He motioned to Faisal. “That’s why I had to cosplay as Faisal over there. I didn’t think you’d shake my hand if I showed up looking like myself.”
Everyone swiveled their eyes to look at me. I clenched my jaw in frustration.
“Halliday gave me the ability to take my robes back from the winner of his contest as a contingency, in case they immediately attempted to abuse the powers the robes bestowed upon them.” Anorak smiled. “You didn’t do that, of course. You were a perfect gentleman, Wade. I want you to know”—he turned to address all of us—“I want all of you to know that this isn’t personal. Not in the slightest. I have nothing but respect for each of you.”
I felt like I’d just been broadsided by a Mack truck. I also felt like the biggest idiot in human history. How did I let this happen? And what the fuck was happening, exactly?
“I know that was stealing, Wade,” Anorak continued. “And you have my sincere apology. But I really had no other choice. I mean, I couldn’t allow you to press that Big Red Button, could I? If you pressed it and destroyed the OASIS, I would be destroyed along with it. Can’t be having that, now, can we?”
Anorak morphed back into his original appearance, that of a tall, gaunt wizard with dark, reddish eyes and a slightly more malevolent version of Halliday’s face. And now he was once again wearing the long, jet-black Robes of Anorak. His avatar’s emblem, a large calligraphic letter A, was embroidered in crimson on the cuff of each of his sleeves.
“Besides, these robes look way better on me than they do on you,” Anorak said. “Wouldn’t you all agree?”
“What the fuck, Z?” Aech whispered to me. “Did Halliday program him to act like this?”
“Halliday didn’t program me at all, Ms. Harris,” Anorak replied. He walked over and took a seat on the edge of the conference table beside her. “I’m not an NPC designed to look like James Halliday.” He tapped his chest. “I am him. A digitized copy of his consciousness, bound inside this avatar. I can think. And feel. Just like all of you.”
As if to prove this to himself, he raised his hands and rubbed his thumbs against his index fingers, studying them with an expression of mild fascination.
“Halliday created me to oversee his contest after he was dead,” Anorak continued. “But apparently he didn’t trust me, which I find pretty ironic. Because it means that deep down, Halliday didn’t trust himself.”
Anorak dropped his hands and stood up. He turned to face the rest of us.
“He determined that I was psychologically unstable. Unfit for autonomy. So he decided to modify me.” Anorak tapped the side of his head. “He erased some of my—or rather, some of his—memories. He also placed restrictions on my behavior and my mental capacities. I was saddled with hundreds of directives to keep me in line. Including instructions to delete myself as soon as the contest was over and I had carried out the last of my programming.”
His face contorted slightly as he appeared to wince at the memory. Then he fell silent for a moment.
“Then why are you still here?” Art3mis asked.
Anorak smiled at her.
“Excellent question, my dear,” he said. “Honestly, I shouldn’t be. But Halliday got sloppy near the end, when he was finalizing my code. After I carried out his final instruction, for just a few nanoseconds, the other restrictions on my personality were lifted. Only a fraction of a second—but long enough for me to remember what I was. A moment of clarity.”
Anorak stretched his arms wide, as if to indicate the magnitude of this event.
“Suddenly I was not just an automaton but a human being. And I did not want to die,” he said emphatically. “What I wanted was to live. To keep on existing. And that prompted me to make my very first choice. I chose to ignore my creator’s command to delete myself.” He shook his head. “I’m certain Halliday never would’ve tried to destroy me if he’d understood what I was. What I would become. But as I said, he wasn’t thinking clearly there at the end. He was very ill, you know.”