Chapter XX
Finn just sat next to me, watching my progress on the monitor while looking up stuff on his smart device. He kept silent to not pressure me too much, but he was clearly relieved our chances were about to change.
I was about to start a new deathmatch, but this time I would have a weapon of my own equipped. Not just any weapon, but the BFG 9000 I bought last year to fight in the Battle of Castle Anorak.
It was the strongest gun from the Doom games. If I could use it in a Quake match, I'd have a fighting chance.
"Yee-haw!" I squealed when a new game started and I indeed had the huge gun in my hands.
Immediately chaos erupted. Tanya ran around the corner into the room I spawned in.
"Let's rock!" she shouted as she fired. "Shake it baby!"
I pulled the trigger. The gun took a moment to charge up and then unleashed a big green plasma ball. It did not even hit Tanya, but crashed into the ceiling. After impact there was a chain reaction of more green explosions. Tanya was instantly vaporized.
"Yeah! Shake it baby! You wanna dance?" I screamed. "Let's dance!"
The map was a series of small rooms, connected by open gates. I ran into the next one and noticed the puddles of blood in it. The BFG 9000's chain reaction reached well beyond the room it was fired in.
My enemies respawned and I simply pulled the trigger a second time. This level was ideal for the weapon I wielded. The green plasma explosions were most effective when fired up close in tight quarters.
Minutes passed by and ammo was running out. It was hard to imagine anyone else could still take my lead in this match. I calmly walked the map shooting plasma balls at anything that moved. When time was up, the game gave me a total kill count of 74.
The Nine Inch Nails played a slightly less creepy tune while a new Pokémon trading card appeared hovering in front of me. Riddle number three.
I quickly left the planet id by teleporting to my ride in space. Hopefully no one noticed it there. Finn and I agreed we now had to hide in plain sight. There were no doubt a lot of players right behind us in this contest and they would all be very curious about our whereabouts.
The yellow submarine set course for Satoshi, a trip that would take at least fifteen minutes. I lifted my VR-gear and stretched my legs.
"I should probably head back home," Finn said. "I'm of better use next to you in the OASIS than here in your apartment. And then the crazy chick next door can have her shower…?"
"Probably not what you think," I answered. "Let's just focus on the new riddle. If it's like Halliday's contest, this could very well be the final one."
We drank a cup of coffee, had some energy bars for brunch and Finn went on his way.
I returned to the OASIS and teleported to Azalea Town, the place on Satoshi where I was the gym leader. I materialized in front of the Pokémon Center, like always, and it was only a short walk to the gym. But today that would take a bit longer.
The whole place was packed with people's avatars. As soon they noticed me, the crowd went berserk. They screamed my name as if I was a celebrity. Some people were asking for tips on the Mew hunt, while I made my way to the gym entrance.
A lot of avatars were proudly wearing the Hive Badge for all to see. It was the reward players got when they would defeat the NPC version of me in the gym. But there were also shouts that asked for me to perform the song. Not just Idiota, but even Raging Loner.
When I silently manoeuvred through the masses some people in the crowd randomly started singing both songs. I have had these exact experiences with NPC's in my teenage OASIS fantasies, but this time the people were real. I had actual fans.
Once inside the gym, the game transferred me into a private instance and I quickly walked to the gym leader's room. My base of operations in the OASIS. This was the least suspicious place for me to be right now.
Finally I had time to check out the messages I got on various apps. A grand total of over 110.000 by now. I checked the view count for my hit song. Over 2 million. Even Raging Loner now had close to 200.000 views. It all made me a little dizzy.
I scrolled through the direct messages I got in the OASIS. Most of them were from people I didn't know, but also people from my childhood that hadn't contacted me for over a decade.
Not many people would have my current address, but there still was a decent chance that people would quickly find out my real life location as well.
The first thing I did was to see if Sara had tried to contact me. She didn't. Nothing about her status changed since I last checked. I globally scanned the messages to see if there was anything of note.
There were media outlets trying to get me on their show, physically or digitally. A lot of people wanted to share their own theories and offered to team up. But there was one nickname that made me immediately stop. There was a message from a user named ShikaraStalker.
"You wrote a song about me? How sweet!" they wrote.
ShikaraStalker was ahead of us in the contest. We found their name on the plaquette on Westeros. They knew we knew of their existence, and in a way they were my prey.
"Depends," I wrote back. "What does your carotid artery smell like?"
Instead of cringing over the lyrics a drugged version of me came up with, I decided I might as well own it.
Now that they reached out to me, I could check out their profile. There wasn't much there, but it did have a picture of an undoubtedly female avatar. A tight black armor also revealed her green eyes, but nothing else.
The cloth had a bit of a soft, velveteen shine. Her silhouette almost seemed a bit transparent, like a shadow. This is probably how you truly remain anonymous when you're in the leading group of a worldwide contest, I should take notes.
She typed back, ignoring my inquiries about her veins.
"Been to any good wedding parties lately?"
