Chapter XV

The hunt for Mew followed a similar pattern as Halliday's contest. After solving a riddle there was another assignment to complete. It had me worried, because of what that previous task had been. After beating the Mario Kart quest, the OASIS sent Ghostface after me. What kind of horrorous event would this "ladies night" be?

Finn didn't find much useful information on our competitors and we agreed to first catch some sleep. I couldn't count the hours I had been up. The pill Riley slipped lost the last of its effect long while I had been collecting badges around Westeros, that felt like days ago. For a change, I had no trouble falling asleep.

When I woke up, it was early morning. I had to check what date it was. There was a message from Finn saying he'd be back on Satoshi when I wanted to discuss the next quest. But he also stressed me not to hurry. "Take your time, if you get a heart attack I'll have to restart the whole thing from Rainbow Road…"

I felt the urge to go outside. Not just my balcony, but the real outside. I took the elevator downstairs and walked the quiet streets of Surrey, feeling the dawn of spring with all my senses. I stopped at a stall that sold breakfast dumplings and got a cup of coffee.

Sitting on a bench I saw people walking their dogs and I realised I had no idea that still existed. There were joggers, and when the morning progressed kids got to school while more and more shops opened their windows. The world really was different than what I had started to believe.

For a moment I contemplated the woman that probably triggered this wanting to be outside stuff. Should I forget all about Sara and focus on Riley? Maybe I should ditch the whole OASIS, get a job in the real world. I knew there was a whole lifestyle built around leaving the virtual world, rapidly growing in popularity with support groups and everything.

On the other hand, I was in fourth place in an epic scavenger hunt. The OASIS was still obsessed with the Pokémon infestation. This was probably the most noteworthy moment of my life. I better put all I had in it.

The new clue was a perfect excuse to revisit The Titty Twister. The stripclub and vampire sanctuary in which From Dusk Till Dawn is set. Finn and I already investigated this 1996 movie and were pleasantly surprised by the dance scene featuring Salma Hayek.

The topless bar was actually the front of an ancient Mayan temple filled with demons. We almost were petting each other's back for connecting the dots this quickly. You have 1996, a ladies night and a demon gate. What else could it be?

After completing the flicksync and a lot of free exploration around The Titty Twister we once more came to the conclusion that we had it all wrong. Nothing seemed to trigger anything.

One night another player was hanging out at the bar. We asked this EddieBrandt if he was a regular and whether he had noticed anything out of the ordinary lately. He was and he did not. We only later realised it had been 83-year-old Quentin Tarantino himself.

And like that days went by without any progress. We were debating letting the other competitors know we were right behind them and ask them for help. The Pokémon community was small and WinstonYin92 always treated us with respect, even though he clearly felt he was superior.

We didn't do anything like that. We knew who were in front of us, but they had no idea how many others were breathing down their necks. You couldn't revisit the Westeros gyms and see an updated plaquette. We knew because we tried.

We couldn't devote our whole day to researching the year 1996. There were Pokémon to be bred and sold. After all, that was our day job and we would be crazy not to cash in on the current hype.

Searching for the right "demon gate" we ended up playing Diablo, released in 1996. But we didn't find a link. I also read the 1996 novel Conan at the Demon's Gate and found the corresponding portal on Hyboria. I got trapped in a tiresome story which took hours to complete, even after finding out the book was originally published in 1994 and I wasted my time anyway.

After taking Demon Gate as a synonym for hell's entrance I immersed myself in mythology and things like Dante's Inferno. Eventually I ended up watching a pretty bad 1996 movie called Underworld, not to be confused by the pretty great 2003 film with the same title. Nothing happened.

My latest lead was a CD-ROM on eBay called Demon Gate. It was released in 1995 and contained the diabolical number of 666 new levels for the shooter game Doom and its sequel. I figured I might as well check out if the levels were present in the OASIS.

Because I was under fifty I had never visited the planet "id" before. It was a planet dedicated to classic titles from game developer id Software, located in a system filled with other Bethesda planets. And that star belonged to the Microsoft cluster. Together they formed a "X" from every angle, like a zodiac sign honoring the past.

I teleported from orbit to the main Doom spawn point and materialized in a primitive 3D tunnel. The walls were flat but had stone textures. There were various doors to choose from, they all looked the same. They were grey and had red tubes all over them. There were little lights and yellow and black lines. When they opened they made a whooshing, pneumatic sound.

There was a lot to explore. My main focus was the first Doom game and its direct sequel, released in 1993 and 1994. You could play these games, or just select a single level from them. I found various multiplayer maps and even fan made levels.

According to some I walked on holy ground, because Doom's multiplayer mode is considered the cradle of the genre. And in line with that thought it could even be considered a spiritual parent of the OASIS itself. Just like a hundred other games claimed that honor.

I was pretty sure that the 666 levels from the Demon Gate expansion were present here, but there was no way of telling which maps were from that CD-ROM. I could of course buy the disc from eBay. That would cost me two months of rent and I wouldn't be able to extract data from it without ancient hardware.

Walking the catacombs I pressed the walls between the doors. I did some reading on my way here and knew that Doom levels were usually filled with secret corridors leading the player to powerful items. No luck so far.

After a while I noticed a different door at the end of a hallway. It was more square. The door was white and had a few red markings. Actually it was a double door. The two sides of it didn't quite meet in the middle, but they were connected diagonally and the right door took a bite out of the left. My interface said this gate would lead to "Quake".

The sound was different too, I noticed while entering. A lot shorter. The wall textures were different from those in the Doom area. It took longer than it should've for me to realize this was a whole different game. Quake, a new title from the same creators, released in 1996.

I had seen it show up during our research dozens of times, but it never gave any reason to delve into it. There was a long list of video games from 1996 that were more successful, better received or more influential looking back. I think Quake's sequels did better, but the original had a hard time fifty years ago.

It was highly anticipated. being the new game from the creators of Doom. Fans were slightly disappointed in the single player stuff, hoping it would've been a bigger leap in advancement. And Duke Nukem 3D, with the strippers, looked more fleshed out. It's mainly credited for the innovations in multiplayer.

I walked the catacombs of Quake and decided to check out some of the multiplayer lobbies. I had yet to meet a single soul on this planet today, so I was surprised to see the silhouette of another player near one of the doors.

It appeared to be a male avatar sitting down, gasping and dejected as if he just lost the marathon at the Olympics. The closer I got, the stronger the feeling became that I knew his particular person. In fact, I did. It was Matcheon.