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And then I saw it. Halliday had once written in his journal: "The greatest enemy is the part of you that refuses to let go."

The Second Gate was a Blade Runner cityscape. The key was hidden in a replicant's locket. I had to recite Roy Batty's "tears in rain" monologue perfectly while dodging spinner cars. My throat was dry, my heart hammering against my ribs.

I went to the Third Gate: a perfect replica of Halliday's childhood bedroom in Middletown, Ohio. The gate wasn't locked by a riddle. It was locked by regret. I had to play a perfect game of Tempest —Halliday's favorite—while watching a hologram of his younger self crying over a lost friendship with his partner, Ogden Morrow.

What followed was the largest digital battle in history. Mechagodzilla fought a Sixer dreadnought. Aech piloted the Serenity from Firefly . I summoned the Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam —a 60-foot robot that punched through Sorrento's flagship. ready-player-one

I got it. Third line, third word—"shoulder," not "shoulders." Halliday would have known.

"No," I said, looking at the cracked screen of my window. "I'm just playing for the other side now."

James Halliday, the eccentric genius who co-created the OASIS, had died five years earlier. His will announced a contest: three keys, three gates. The first to find the Jade Key would unlock a fortune—$240 billion and total control of the OASIS itself. And then I saw it

"Today," I whispered to my avatar's reflection, "everything changes."

I finished the game. My score: 1,000,000 exactly. The score Halliday never achieved.

Now it was the Third Key. The one no one could find. I had to recite Roy Batty's "tears in

The tomb of horrors was a retro arcade. Halliday had hidden the First Key inside a perfect simulation of the Dungeons of Daggorath —a text-based maze from 1982. Thousands of gunters (egg hunters) had died there, torn apart by pixelated demons.

All ten thousand of them. Led by Sorrento's avatar, a black knight with a burning crown.