She looked at me, Aech, and Shoto. “I think it might be wise for us to observe the same policy, from here on out. Just to be safe.”
I nodded. “If we need to say something to each other that we don’t want Anorak to hear, we should do it in this room.”
“Do we have any way of finding out where Anorak is right now?” Shoto asked.
Faisal closed his browser window and shook his head. “When Halliday created Anorak and released him inside the simulation as an autonomous NPC, he gave him the ability to move around the OASIS freely, uninhibited and undetected by our admins—just as Halliday and Morrow’s own avatars had always been able to.”
I found myself wondering if Fyndoro’s Tablet of Finding would be able to help us locate Anorak. Then I remembered—that artifact only gave you the ability to locate other avatars. It didn’t work on NPCs. And the admins said the system classified Anorak as an NPC. And there were no artifacts that gave you the ability to locate an NPC, because it would break every single OASIS quest that involved tracking one down. Probably at least half of them.
“Thankfully, we have come up with a way for you to detect Anorak if he comes into your immediate vicinity,” Faisal said.
He opened his inventory and removed four plain-looking silver chains. Then he gave one to each of us.
“These are Bracelets of Detection, linked to the Robes of Anorak,” Faisal continued. “They will begin to glow bright red if the robes come within a hundred-meter radius of your current location. That should prevent Anorak from sneaking up on you.”
“Nice,” I said, slipping my bracelet on. “Please thank the engineers for us.”
Art3mis put her bracelet on, too, then she turned to face me.
“OK,” she said. “Spill it, Watts. What’s this ‘Big Red Button’ that Anorak mentioned? And what does it do, exactly?”
I’d been dreading this question. But under the circumstances, I had no choice but to answer it truthfully.
“The Big Red Button is a self-destruct mechanism for the OASIS,” I said. “It’s located inside Castle Anorak, in the study—a room that only the wearer of the Robes of Anorak can enter. If you press it, it will shut down the entire OASIS and launch a tapeworm that will erase all our backup servers, destroying the simulation forever.”
Everyone’s eyes widened in surprise. For a second, Faisal looked as if he might faint.
“Holy shit, Z,” Aech said. “Why didn’t you ever tell any of us about this?”
“Halliday showed me the Big Red Button in secret, so I decided to keep it a secret.” I shook my head. “And I honestly couldn’t foresee a single reason why I would ever need to press it.”
That made Art3mis laugh out loud.
“Well, can you ‘foresee’ one now, Nostradamus?” she asked.
I gave her a sober nod.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “Now I can think of several.”
“Why would Mr. Halliday be reckless enough to build a self-destruct mechanism into the OASIS?” Faisal asked, still shaking his head in disbelief. “He knew there would be disastrous consequences if the OASIS ever went offline and stayed that way. We conducted several studies, involving dozens of simulated scenarios.” He turned to me. “Mr. Watts, if you—or anyone else—ever presses that button, it would disrupt global communications, law enforcement, transportation, and commerce…The world would be thrown into complete chaos.”
Shoto nodded. “The entire drone protection force would go offline and remain offline,” he added. “There would be shipping delays, food and medicine shortages. Rioting. Markets would crash. States would fail.” He shook his head. “Jesus, the whole of human civilization might even collapse.”
“Then why would Halliday take such an insane risk?” Faisal asked.
“It’s better to have a self-destruct and not need it than to need one and not have it,” Art3mis said.
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“So that’s why Anorak went through all that trouble to steal the robes back?” Shoto asked. “To keep Z from pressing that button?”
“If I erased the OASIS, Anorak would be erased along with it,” I said. “Now he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Everyone fell silent for a moment. Art3mis began to pace back and forth while chewing absentmindedly on one of her thumbnails. Samantha was probably doing the exact same thing in the cabin of her autojet, and her movements were being mirrored onto her avatar.