I wandered back out of the arcade and continued on my circuit of the house. It was like touring a museum devoted to Og and Kira’s life together. The walls were covered with photos, some of Kira and Og with their arms wrapped around each other, others of just Kira (clearly taken by Og, because of how she smiled at the camera), taken in exotic locations all over the world. Snapshots of a blissful storybook romance that had ultimately ended in tragedy.
There were trophy cases, too, filled with awards, medals, and other honors bestowed on the Morrows over the years, for their charity work and their storied contributions to the field of interactive education. But noticeably absent were photos of children. Og and Kira had devoted the last half of their lives to making free educational software for underprivileged kids. Kids like me. But they had never been blessed with any children of their own. According to Og’s autobiography, it was his and Kira’s only real regret.
Back outside the house, I followed the path of polished stones across Og’s immaculately manicured lawn, taking in the stunning view of the snowcapped mountain range that surrounded the estate.
The path led me past the entrance to the hedge maze where Samantha and I met in person for the very first time. But I didn’t let myself go inside. Instead, I made my way over to the small gated-in garden where Kira Morrow was buried. As I stared down at her grave, I thought of L0hengrin, and the clue she’d discovered by visiting the re-creation of this place on EEarth—something it had never occurred to me to do.
The small garden that surrounded Kira’s grave was filled with flowers that were every color of the rainbow. I picked one at random—a yellow rose—and placed it at the base of her tombstone. Then I traced the telebot’s index finger along the letters of the inscription engraved into its polished marble surface: BELOVED WIFE, DAUGHTER & FRIEND.
I glanced over at the adjacent gravesite reserved for Og. I once again found myself hoping that I hadn’t already missed my last chance to repair my friendship with him.
Once I completed a circuit of the manicured grounds surrounding Og’s house, I walked down to have a look at his private runway, and the small aircraft hangar at the far end of it. There wasn’t much to see there, aside from an empty spot where Og’s missing jet should’ve been parked.
Like his home-security system and telepresence robots, the jet’s onboard computer should’ve been nearly impossible to hack. So either Og had left under his own free will, or somehow, someone had managed to disable the transponder and hijack the autopilot system without setting off a single alarm.
My thoughts on hypothetical alarms were interrupted by a real one—the security-alert klaxon in my home.
I cut my link to the telebot, leaving it to pilot itself back to its charging dock on the GSS transport, and was climbing out of my haptic rig when my phone rang. It was Miles Gendell, head of GSS’s executive security team. Halliday and Morrow had hired Miles in the early days of the company, because he was an ex–Green Beret who also happened to bear a distinct resemblance to a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, after serving the company for over a quarter of a century, he resembled a much older, post–Governator Ahnold.
I accepted the call and Miles appeared on the wallscreen. He wore a grim expression.
“We have a situation, Mr. Watts,” he said. “Nolan Sorrento has escaped from prison.”
I felt like my blood had just turned to ice water.
Sorrento had been serving time on death row at the Southern Ohio Correctional Colony, a maximum-security prison located in Chillicothe, Ohio—exactly 56.2 miles due south of where I was currently standing.
“Do you have any reason to believe he’s headed this way?” I asked, walking over to peek out the nearest window. “I mean, has he been spotted by anyone?”
Miles shook his head.
“No, sir,” he said. “But I wouldn’t worry. It’s unlikely he would come here in an attempt to harm you. I’m sure he knows the sort of security you have in place.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The same sort of security that Ogden Morrow had.” I took another peek out the window. “What the hell happened, Miles?”
“Someone hacked into the prison’s security system and let Sorrento out. Then they locked the whole place down behind him,” Miles said. “The guards and the entire prison staff were trapped inside the prison along with the inmates, with no phone or Internet access. First responders had to break into the prison and restore order before anyone could even check the security footage. By that time, Sorrento had nearly an hour’s head start.”
I was starting to panic.
“Sorrento’s escape has to be connected to Og’s disappearance somehow,” I said, as calmly as I could. “This can’t be a coincidence.”
Miles shrugged. “There’s no evidence of that yet, sir.”
I didn’t respond. My mind was racing now. Sorrento was one of the world’s most famous and infamous criminals. But he’d spent the last three years rotting in a cell, and he no longer had any power or money or influence. So who was helping him? And why?
“We’ve got the entire area around your home under surveillance now, sir,” Miles said. “You can relax. We’ll remain on full alert and notify you the moment we see anything odd. All right?”
“Yeah, OK,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Thanks, Miles.”
I disconnected the call and then opened half a dozen different newsfeed windows. Sure enough, they’d just gotten the word, too, and coverage of Sorrento’s escape was popping up everywhere. I watched as the warden, a somewhat clueless-looking fellow by the name of Norton, told a reporter that Nolan Sorrento had been a model prisoner—right up until his stunning escape, which had been perpetrated in broad daylight, and in full view of the prison’s security cameras.
Watching that security footage, it was obvious that Sorrento never could have pulled off his escape without a great deal of outside help. Someone had infiltrated the prison’s heavily firewalled computer network and seized control of the automated security systems. Then this mysterious accomplice had opened all of the locked doors between Sorrento and the exit, allowing him to simply walk out of there. Then, for an encore, they opened every single cell in the prison, freeing all of the inmates and creating total chaos.
The hacker had apparently attempted to delete the prison’s security camera footage, but luckily everything was backed up on a remote server, so the police were able to retrieve it. The footage showed Sorrento walking calmly out of his cell just a few seconds after the door magically slid open for him. As he made his way out of the prison, he waved each locked door and gate in his path open with a broad sweep of his hand, as if he were conducting an orchestra he alone could hear. As he passed through, each gate closed and locked behind him, preventing pursuit.
A few minutes later, Sorrento strolled out the prison’s front gates, grinning from ear to ear. As the gates closed behind him, he turned toward the nearest security camera and took a bow, then jumped into a self-driving car that was parked there waiting for him. Its plates matched those of a car reported stolen from a nearby dealership lot earlier that morning.
Watching the footage, I wondered how Sorrento had managed to coordinate the details of his escape plan with an accomplice on the outside. According to the prison’s records, Sorrento’s only visitors during his incarceration there had been his attorneys. And he hadn’t made or received any personal phone calls during his stay, either. So if he had conspired with someone, he’d probably communicated with them through the OASIS.
Thanks to the humanitarian efforts of GSS and Amnesty International, all U.S. prison inmates were now allowed one hour of heavily restricted, fully monitored OASIS access every other day. But they were only allowed to use a conventional OASIS visor and haptic rig. Prisoners weren’t allowed to use ONI headsets. And since Sorrento had been imprisoned before the ONI was released, he had spent the last three years reading about it on the newsfeeds without being able to experience it for himself.