Pure Imagination, a Ready Player One Story

Prologue: ONI

"He went that way! Get him!"

Breathing heavily, the lone GSS employee hurried out of the derelict building,  serving as  a parking structure for the employees of the company's Santa Monica branch, and into the cool early Autumn evening  as he tried to shake off his pursuers. He wasn't entirely sure who they were, he could hazard a guess, but he knew what they wanted from him and he would not let them get their dirty hands on it. Huffing, the shadowed game developer felt like a buck evading hunters out for blood as he exited the structure and came upon the scene of the sun setting behind the waters of Santa Monica's famed beach, the last rays of sunlight sparkling on the darkening blue water and leaving a purple and blue hue  with a lone gray evening cloud hanging over the water like a tapestry piece.

The year was 2046,  in the first half of the month of October, over a year when the High Five and their Gunter allies had won the competition for Halliday's Quest, the year of IOI's supposed downfall and the preservation of James Halliday's legacy. Only, folks who he suspected were former IOI employees or Sixers were gunning for him in order to learn the secrets of the OASIS or GSS's newest pet project,  which was confidential and was set to be introduced into the market the following year. That was the timeline that was optimal for all testing to be done and all bugs to be fixed before mas production. 

"There he is! Don't let him escape!"

Hearing the shouts of his pursuers, the pursued GSS staff member sprinted east of 5th Street , clasping a strap of his raspberry-colored backpack with a leering face of an Oni, a demonic ogre/troll in Japanese mythology,  patched onto the center. The contents of this bag was the reason he was being chased by these corpos which was why he couldn't let it get into their hands at any cost. 

Wheezing and nearly out of breath, the GSS suiter weaved between a few people before he made a dash toward an alley to lose his pursuers. Letting out a yelp, he nearly collided with a prone body on the floor , the legs sticking out behind the filthy light blue dumpster. As he righted himself after stumbling, he scrutinized the shape he nearly tripped over and realized it was just a homeless man who looked to be sleeping. Or that was what he had hoped the man was doing.  Closing his eyes, the marked GSS employee continued the rest of the way, muttering prayers that he'd lose his pursuers.  Only the shouts and squeals of tires were the indication that he had not in fact accomplished what he intended to do.

"Box him in from both sides! "

His head twisting from side to side, the cornered man spotted both the front end as well as the back end of the alley cutoff  by two identical Lincoln sedans as black as obsidian.  Breath hitching, he knew there was no escape on either side as groups of individuals dressed in street clothes and business attire poured out of the vehicles and prepared to enclose him like a fisherman's net. 

There needs to be an alternative exit here. Think! You played Metal Gear , Splinter Cell, Max Payne, and Tomb Raider. Surely, you can think of something. Ah, up there!

He spotted the ladder ten feet above him and decided to use that as an alternative method of escaping his pursuers. Taking a breath, the fugitive broke into a run and tried to leap for the silver rusty ladder's bottom rung, but fell short. Panicking that he would not make it, the desperado spotted the an old air conditioning unit  right beside the ladder and decided to use that as a platform.

Here goes nothing! 

All those years of playing as Crash Bandicoot, Banjo Kazooie, and Spyro should have trained him to land on the ladder. Or perhaps being Ezio or Spiderman made him think he was invincible yet he failed to factor in the load on him and couldn't make it to the ladder.  Glancing up after falling flat on his face, he noticed that his pursuers were only mere seconds from him so he did the next best thing. Wedging the backpack between the crack behind the AC unit, the hunted worker raised his hands as the crowd of his chasers surrounded him.