We all turned to look at her.
“That hasn’t been reported on the newsfeeds yet,” Daito said. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “Afraid so. When I heard about the Sixers this morning, I decided to hide an uplink camera in some trees near the tomb entrance, to keep an eye on the area.” She opened a vidfeed window in the air in front of her and spun it around so the rest of us could see. It showed a wide shot of the flat-topped hill and the clearing around it, looking down from a spot in one of the trees high above. From this angle, it was easy to see that the large black stones on top of the hill were arranged to look like a human skull. We could also see that the entire area was crawling with Sixers, and more seemed to be arriving every second.
But the most disturbing thing we saw on the vidfeed was the large transparent dome of energy that now covered the entire hill.
“Son of a bitch,” Aech said. “Is that what I think it is?”
Art3mis nodded. “A force field. The Sixers installed it just after the first of them arrived. So …”
“So from here on out,” Daito said, “any gunter who finds the tomb won’t be able to get inside. Not unless they can somehow get through that force field.”
“Actually, they’ve put up two force fields,” Art3mis said. “A small field with a larger field over it. They lower them in sequence, whenever they want to let more Sixers enter the tomb. Like an air lock.” She pointed to the window. “Watch. They’re doing it now.”
A squadron of Sixers marched down the loading ramp of a gunship parked nearby. They were all lugging equipment containers. As they approached the outer force field, it vanished, revealing a smaller domed field inside the first. As soon as the squadron reached the wall of the inner force field, the outer field reappeared. A second later, the inner force field was dropped, allowing the Sixers to enter the tomb.
There was a long silence while we all contemplated this new development.
“I suppose it could be worse,” Aech said finally. “If the tomb were in a PvP zone, those assholes would already have laser cannons and robot sentries mounted everywhere, to vaporize anyone who approached the area.”
He was right. Since Ludus was a safe zone, the Sixers couldn’t harm gunters who approached the tomb. But there was nothing to stop them from erecting a force field to keep them out. So that was exactly what they’d done.
“The Sixers have obviously been planning for this moment for some time now,” Art3mis said, closing her vidfeed window.
“They won’t be able to keep everyone out for very long,” Aech said. “When the clans find out about this, it’ll be all-out war. There will be thousands of gunters attacking that force field with everything they’ve got. RPGs. Fireballs. Cluster bombs. Nukes. It’s gonna get ugly. They’ll turn that forest into a wasteland.”
“Yeah, but in the meantime, Sixer avatars will be farming the Copper Key and then filing their avatars through the First Gate, one after another, in a freakin’ conga line.”
“But how can they do this?” Shoto asked, his young voice brimming with rage. He looked to his brother. “It’s not fair. They’re not playing fair.”
“They don’t have to. There are no laws in the OASIS, little brother,” Daito said. “The Sixers can do whatever they please. They won’t stop until someone stops them.”
“The Sixers have no honor,” Shoto said, scowling.
“You guys don’t know the half of it,” Aech said. “That’s why Parzival and I asked you all here.” He turned to me. “Z, do you want to tell them what happened?”
I nodded and turned to the others. First, I told them about the e-mail I’d received from IOI. They’d all received the same invitation, but had wisely ignored it. Then I related the details of my chat-room session with Sorrento, doing my best not to leave anything out. Finally, I told them how our conversation had ended—with a bomb detonating at my home address. By the time I’d finished, their avatars all wore looks of stunned disbelief.
“Jesus,” Art3mis whispered. “No joke? They tried to kill you?”
“Yeah. They would have succeeded, too, if I’d been at home. I was just lucky.”
“Now you all know how far the Sixers are willing to go to stop us from beating them to the egg,” Aech said. “If they’re able to locate any one of us, we’re dead meat.”
I nodded. “So you should all take precautions to protect yourselves and your identities,” I said. “If you haven’t already.”
They all nodded. There was another long silence.
“There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” Art3mis said a moment later. “How did the Sixers know to look for the tomb on Ludus? Did someone tip them off?” She glanced around at each of us, but there was no hint of accusation in her voice.