FADE IN:

EXT. THE MOTHER OF ALL TRAILER PARKS

TEENAGER TYE SHERIDAN lives in a TRAILER which is stacked on top of a pile of OTHER TRAILERS like a game of JENGA for GIANTS.

TYE SHERIDAN

You’re probably wondering what the deal is with this weird, visually arresting setting, aren’t you? And maybe you’re puzzled as to why I’m going to now go play some VR inside an abandoned van down at the dump, instead of just playing at home. There’s actually interesting backstory for all of this but you don’t give a shit do you, you’re waiting for all the pop culture references aren’t you, WELL LET’S NOT WASTE ANY MORE TIME HERE WE GO AND IT WILL NEVER STOP!

He puts on a VR HEADSET and dives into virtual universe THE OASIS.

TYE SHERIDAN

This is a virtual reality MMORPG, it’s like World of Warcraft if instead of set in Azeroth it was set in EVERY POSSIBLE PLACE REAL OR IMAGINED and the available races to play were FUCKING WHATEVER AND WHOEVER YOU FEEL LIKE. Naturally, faced with the ability to be any creature that springs forth from the wildest recesses of your imagination, most people have decided to just cosplay as Overwatch characters and shit. Let’s check ’em out!

He heads out into a crowd of EVERY REFERENCE STEVEN SPIELBERG COULD SECURE THE RIGHTS TO.

TYE SHERIDAN

Awright here we go, there’s Freddy Krueger over there and there’s Duke Nukem and there’s Marvin the Martian and there’s the car from Christine and - wait, six guys just ran past and I think one of them was like a Power Ranger or something - what was that in that blurry whip-pan? Looked like it was supposed to be something, I don’t know - shit, slow down - was that Zaphod Beeblebrox? - damnit - SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, I CAN’T MAKE ANY OF THIS OUT, JESUS! Oh well, I guess I’ll just wait for the YouTube videos to catalogue all this shit.

(pause)

As for me, you’ve probably recognized that my avatar is based on my favorite superhero, Random Shit Scribbled All Over His Gross Clammy Skin Man.

TYE goes to get into his BACK TO THE FUTURE DELOREAN and take part in a RACE with like TEN BILLION OTHER CARS.

TYE SHERIDAN

Oh the race, let me explain. The Oasis was created by a world-famous tech god called Mark Rylance. When he died, he released the following cheesy video:

MARK RYLANCE

(in flashback, in cheesy video)

Hi there! I died with five hundred billion dollars to my name, and no heirs. I could have left all that money to various charities, to help alleviate all the crushing poverty going on in this dystopian future, but I decided fuck that, I’m having a NERD-OFF!

(grins)

Are you the biggest fucking nerd on the face of the planet? Are you obsessed with pop culture trivia to the point that you have nothing else going on in your sad, wasted life? Well I’m here to reward that behavior with untold wealth and power! I’ve hidden three keys in The Oasis behind a hodgepodge of geeky references, riddles and challenges. Find them all and you win an Easter Egg which grants you all my money, plus total control over The Oasis, because who better to run a multinational corporation than a socially crippled couch potato?

TYE SHERIDAN

Somebody figured out his first clue, and it turns out to get the first key you have to win this crazy-ass car race full of deadly hazards, about half of which come in the form of yet more pop culture references, because every scene of this movie has to meet the quota somehow.

TYE races the race, moving from the REAR OF THE PACK to the FRONT by the brilliant tactic of EVERYBODY IN FRONT OF HIM DYING HORRIBLY. But then at the very end of the track KING KONG smashes a huge hole in the road and he brakes.

TYE SHERIDAN

Damnit, this one obstacle which has made the race unfinishable by anybody every time it’s been raced since the history of ever, has happened AGAIN! I just figured if I tried to drive the course real fast, the exact same strategy which has always failed for everybody, that that permanent scripted event would just not be there this time.

The same plan has occured to fellow racer OLIVIA COOK3, except she figures FUCK THAT BRAKING THING, SHE’S GOING FOR IT, but then TYE grabs her and stops her so she just smashes her MOTORCYCLE rather than HERSELF.

TYE SHERIDAN

Ooh, don’t worry, my friend Leonard is the best mechanic in The Oasis, he can fix your bike.

OLIVIA COOK3

Why the hell does a digital bike need a mechanic? Why can’t I just spend some of my in-game money and make it instantly go “BING!” and be new again? Are all the other twenty thousand cars that just crashed gonna need to be taken to be repaired? Are the people who got injured in the race going to have to go see a virtual doctor? Maybe have virtual surgery? This makes no fucking sense.

Nevertheless, they go to see TYE’S FRIEND LEONARD WAITHE, who’s like an URUK-HAI or something.

LEONARD WAITHE

Check out my other projects! I’m particularly proud of this hoverboat I invented, I took inspiration from the natural form of the manta ray-

TYE SHERIDAN

(clears throat)

LEONARD WAITHE

Oh, whoops, what I clearly mean is that I don’t have a single original design to my name and instead have just made a whole bunch of vehicles from movies and TV because REFERENCES REFERENCES REFERENCES. Look, I can make you the Sulaco from Aliens, if you want an intense action-packed space adventure kind of thing, and I apparently also have the Valley Forge from Silent Running, if you’re a total weirdo and want more of a depressing ecoterrorism vibe.

OLIVIA COOK3

Cool, but all I want is to get my bike fixed and rag on Tye’s life choices. Tye, you shouldn’t have bailed on the race like that, even though completing it was impossible! Brave people never hold back from doing stupid things which can’t possibly succeed, it’s only cowards who stop and think twice about whether there’s a better way than just beating their head against the wall uselessly forever. Chew on that, loser!

(rides off on bike)

(oh and it’s the bike from Akira because of course it is)

TYE SHERIDAN

Wow, she’s really given me a lot to think about. I’m really going to take that advice to heart, by going and doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what she said, and immediately succeeding as a direct result.

INT. LIBRARYLANCE

TYE goes to visit a VIRTUAL LIBRARY in The Oasis which is curated by a SNARKY ROBOT.

ROBO-LIBRARIAN

Welcome to this library which Mark Rylance set up before he died. Some rich people set up libraries dedicated to natural history or indigenous cultures or whatnot; Mark set up a library dedicated to Mark Rylance, which chronicles every single thing he did, said and thought throughout his entire life.

TYE SHERIDAN

Yep, and then he made several clues in the Easter Egg hunt relate specifically to obscure biographical details about himself, thus offering people a five-hundred-billion-dollar bribe to memorize everything about him.

ROBO-LIBRARIAN

A fitting tribute to the most self-obsessed egomaniac who ever lived.

TYE SHERIDAN

Anyway, I want to be shown the day that Mark Rylance ended his business partnership with co-creator of the Oasis, Simon Pegg. I’ve been reminded of it by an offhand comment Olivia made, which kinda had nothing to do with anything, so if this clip actually DOES tell me how to win the race then it’ll be the mother of all coincidences.

The ROBO-LIBRARIAN pulls up a VIDEO CLIP of MARK and SIMON.

SIMON PEGG

Damnit Mark, it wounds me that I, the charismatic businessman of our partnership, have been marginalized and not allowed a voice in this company to the point that I have to walk away and leave it entirely in the hands of you, the actual tech genius behind our most successful product line! This... this appears to be somebody’s Jobs/Wozniak alternate universe fanfic???

MARK RYLANCE

Look I wish we could have agreed on a direction for the company to take, but that was never going to happen as long as you kept insisting that we “progress” and “grow”. We need to wallow in nostalgia and crawl ever further into the comfortable warmth of our own buttholes, like I do with every other aspect of my life! I want to GO BACKWARDS VERY FAST!

TYE SHERIDAN

“Go backwards very fast”? That’s the clue! I’ve got to drive BACKWARDS at the start of the race!

ROBO-LIBRARIAN

Are you sure that’s the clue? A single offhand comment Mark made at one point of his entire life? As video game puzzles go, that’s some next-level Nintendo Power bullshit right there.

TYE SHERIDAN

Hmm, you’re probably right. I mean I’ll give it a try, but surely people have been trying to find hidden shortcuts in the race for years, and when it comes to hidden secrets in games, “go left at the beginning instead of right” is kindergarten stuff. It’d be like trying to fool a team of professional magicians by pulling coins out of their ears.

But lo and behold, next time he tries the RACE he goes backwards and immediately finds the entrance to a SECRET TRACK NOBODY EVER FOUND BEFORE, which lets him just drive straight past every single obstacle and WIN.

TYE SHERIDAN

YES! I did it, I won the race and got the first key and the second riddle!

OLIVIA COOK3

And now that you’ve figured out the secret to the race, the next time I just copied what you did and ALSO got the first key and the second riddle!

LEONARD WAITHE

Me too!

PHILIP ZHAO AND WIN MORISAKI

And us, who are characters who barely show up in this movie!

TYE SHERIDAN

Which means that the playing field has immediately been leveled again, and being the one who actually does the work and figures this shit out offers no advantage whatsoever. Brilliant. Oh well, at least getting the key won me some in-game money I can use to buy a fancier VR suit.

LEONARD WAITHE

Wait, you can use fake money won by playing a free game to purchase real, expensive items in the real world?

TYE SHERIDAN

I know, right? It’s like EA but in reverse.

INT. NIGHTCLUB

TYE and OLIVIA meet up at a virtual dance club.

TYE SHERIDAN

So how do you figure the next clue points us here?

OLIVIA COOK3

I dunno, some tortured logic that turns out to be wrong anyway. This is really just a contrived way to get us slow-dancing together on a non-date date and force the romantic subplot forward.

TYE SHERIDAN

Ew, we’re supposed to hook up? Who wants to see that, my avatar has the complexion of a lamprey eel and yours looks like a meth-addicted pixie.

OLIVIA COOK3

Yeah well, we’re the male and female protagonists and it’s movie law. Now hold still and let me awkwardly dry-hump you in public.

Suddenly BAD GUYS BURST IN and try to KILL THEM!

OLIVIA COOK3

Oh fuck! Fight these guys, Tye! Fight them with guns rather than just unplugging from The Oasis and instantly getting away!

TYE SHERIDAN

What the fuck? Who are these people?

OLIVIA COOK3

They’re from the evil corporation, IOI! They’re a company that sells... uh, that makes... actually it’s not clear what they are, they seem to just make money for a living.

TYE SHERIDAN

I see, and they’re out to kill us because why?

OLIVIA COOK3

IOI want to win the contest so they can take over The Oasis and ruin it with pop-up ads! You’d think we’d have gone with something more satirically on-point like pay-to-win microtransactions, but no, pop-up ads are the current scourge of online multiplayer as far as our seventy-one-year-old director is aware.

TYE SHERIDAN

So, wait... there’s an evil corporation oppressing innocent people, and the only way to thwart their evil scheme is to beat them in a geek contest? You’re telling me that Ernest Cline did all this world-building just to justify a premise where being the world’s most obsessive pop culture junkie allows you to SAVE THE FUCKING WORLD?

OLIVIA COOK3

Hey, blame not the shameless self-insert fic, blame the people who bought a million copies of it.

A LASER BLAST nearly hits TYE!

OLIVIA COOK3

Careful! Your playsuit lets you feel all the pain your avatar does!

TYE SHERIDAN

That would explain why Mortal Kombat sales are in the toilet.

Or…

TYE SHERIDAN

WHAT? Why would you give Twitter trolls the power to kick you in the balls? That’s a fucking nightmare.

OLIVIA COOK3

And yet everyone in the movie bought one, even the geek-hating CEO. And that's not even the worst part! When your avatar dies, you lose everything you earned using it, which we heavily imply includes your life savings! The world we're fighting to protect is just a Reddit-flavoured Mad Max.

INT. TYE’S VR VAN

TYE gets a call from IOI EXECUTIVE BEN MENDELSOHN.

BEN MENDELSOHN

So I’ve noticed you’re getting close to winning the contest and I thought, what if I paid you like a bajillion dollars to come win it for our company instead? I’m not such a bad guy, look: Nintendo! Tron! See? I’m a geek just like you! Thundercats or whatever!

TYE SHERIDAN

You expect me to believe you’re a non-asshole when you’re standing there being played by Ben Mendelsohn? You’re a fake geek! How dare you make a fraudulent claim to geekdom, which we’re honestly treating like a cardinal virtue at this point!

BEN MENDELSOHN

Fine, fuck you too, I was just stalling anyway while I set up real bombs at your real house! My agents saw you enter your trailer, then somehow didn’t notice when you left to go to your van and think you’re still there, and now we’re going to KILL YOU FOR REALS!

(pause)

Yes! We’ll be setting those bombs off all right! To make you DEAD!

(pause)

So yeah, prepare for THAT to happen!

(pause)

Don’t know why I told you this so far in advance of actually doing it, and thus giving you a huge chance to just get the hell out of there.

(pause)

There isn’t even a story reason for me to delay, since I’m wrong about your current location and I could have blown your trailer up immediately without derailing the story.

(pause)

Oh well, here goes nothing!

He BLOWS UP TYE’S TRAILER, killing his AUNT and his AUNT’S BOYFRIEND! But we only SORT OF CARE because those guys were ASSHOLES.

TATTOOED GUY

(running up)

Tye, I’m a friend of Olivia’s and I know a place where you can be safe! By which I mean

(abducts Tye without even trying to explain)

INT. REBELLION HQ

TYE is brought to a WAREHOUSE.

OLIVIA COOK3

Welcome to the rebellion, Tye! Allow me to introduce my fellow anti-IOI rebels,

(looks around)

Oh right I forgot, they don’t have names or characterizations or say or do anything or matter to the plot, and there’s really no reason there even has to be a rebel group in this story at all. Sorry guys, you can just go home.

(brightens)

On the plus side, I figured out what the second clue means! Mark was filled with regret that he screwed up on a date with a girl once, and now he’s commemorated that romantic failure in a massively-publicized online treasure hunt. The girl also went on to be Simon’s late wife, so it’s all kinds of weird and inappropriate.

TYE SHERIDAN

Hmm, what movies did Mark watch around that time? Ah, here we go, the date movie he picked must have been The Shining, one of the least romantic movies of all time! I know this because the clue mentions “A creator who hated his own creation”, and Stephen King hated the movie The Shining, which he didn’t create!

OLIVIA COOK3

Well I’m sold! Let’s go to The Shining, which is a thing we can do apparently.

They and LEONARD and those OTHER TWO GUYS WHO ARE SORT OF IN THIS MOVIE all go to THE OVERLOOK HOTEL.

LEONARD WAITHE

Okay then, the key could be anywhere, but fortunately we can search at our leisure, as the dangers in The Shining were more of a slow, amorphous sense of supernatural dread rather than just scary monsters or action-based-

He gets SMASHED THROUGH THE WALL into the HEDGE MAZE where he nearly gets CHOPPED IN HALF by THE CREEPY WOMAN FROM ROOM 237, who is wielding an AXE and is A HUNDRED FEET TALL NOW and also A ZOMBIE FOR SOME REASON!!!

LEONARD WAITHE

(fleeing)

Uh huh yeah, I’m sure the Kubrick geeks out there who get all excited to visit their favorite horror movie are gonna be just tickled pink about this respectful interpretation.

Eventually they stumble across a ROOM which contains a digital recreation of SIMON’S DEAD WIFE, which, what the fuck, MARK? OLIVIA asks her to dance and in return gets the SECOND KEY!

TYE SHERIDAN

Oh shit, to get the second key you have to talk romantically to a pretty girl? I think significantly fewer geeks are going to be able to surmount this particular hurdle.

In the REAL WORLD, TYE and OLIVIA go back to the REBEL BASE, but then IOI attacks! They get OLIVIA but TYE manages to run away. Then he’s picked up by LEONARD... or should we say LENA WOOOOAAAAHHH

LENA WAITHE

That’s right, in real life I’m actually a woman! Shocking twist, huh?

TYE SHERIDAN

Meh, no offense, but the goofy digitally-altered voice was kind of a dead giveaway.

LENA WAITHE

Shoot. Are you at least surprised that it turns out that Philip is only ten years old?

TYE SHERIDAN

...Which one was he again?

LENA WAITHE

Ugh, forget it. We have to go stop IOI before they win the contest, take over the Oasis, enslave half the country, hunt puppies to extinction and burn down the Hundred Acre Wood. But first we have to rescue Olivia!

TYE SHERIDAN

Wait, that sounds like the exact wrong order. How about let’s save the world, THEN save that one additional person? I mean all they’re doing to her right now is making her do a job. Once we get half a trillion dollars we can just pay her way out instantly with zero risk or effort.

LENA WAITHE

Sure, but the plot has some stuff for her to do in the climax so we gotta do it this way.

EXT. PLANET DOOM

BEN’S ARMY have found where the last CHALLENGE is and have sealed the whole area off with a FORCE FIELD. But then OLIVIA shuts the force field down from the inside!

BEN MENDELSOHN

Damnit, she must have left her cell but then stayed in the IOI building so she could take over one of our VR rigs and sabotage us! Security thug Hannah John-Kamen, I want the building physically searched!

HANNAH JOHN-KAMEN

What, you mean like pulling our employees’ headsets off one at a time and checking their faces to see if they’re Olivia? We have like ten thousand soldiers here, that’d take forever.

BEN MENDELSOHN

Well what else do you suggest, we root her out using the same automatic facial-recognition tech we were already shown using earlier this movie?

HANNAH JOHN-KAMEN

Um, yes, do that? I mean even though she switched to a random new VR rig and is signed in to a company account, her new avatar still has the same stupid meth-pixie face as her old one, which means that this movie’s unexplained tech which allows a pair of goggles to fully mocap your face must have already recognized her. We could probably find her instantly by pressing like three buttons.

BEN MENDELSOHN

Eh, I still think the one-at-a-time manhunt thing is the right way to go.

Meanwhile TYE, LENA and those OTHER TWO GUYS prepare to take on IOI, by sending out a message out to everybody in the OASIS.

TYE SHERIDAN

Oh hey, this MMO has a feature where you can interrupt every single other player’s game with a personal message. Glad that’s not a real thing, I mean fucking hell what an obnoxious thing to do. Anyway!

(DRAMATIC SPEECH MODE)

My people! We need to stop Ben from destroying The Oasis! This plan will also make me, Tye Sheridan, spectacularly wealthy, but don’t think about that just think of what a Noble Cause it is. So come and fight for our future!

(pause)

Oh yeah but ONLY come if your avatar is some famous character from geek culture, or at least if you’re driving a car from Mad Max or carrying Rick Deckard’s gun or something. Seriously we’re way behind on our references and we want to put EVERY FUCKING REFERENCE WE CAN FIND into this one scene. Bring it!

And so a GIANT CROWD OF PLAYERS ARRIVES and the FIGHT BEGINS! OPTIMUS PRIME and LARA CROFT and CHUN LI and SPAWN and HE-MAN and some GREMLINS and some DEADITES and some BATTLETOADS and WAY MORE BATTLEBORN CHARACTERS THAN YOU’D THINK CONSIDERING NOBODY PLAYS THAT STUPID GAME and DEADSHOT and MASTER CHIEF and GANDALF THE GREY and GANDALF THE WHITE and MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL’S BLACK KNIGHT and BENITO MUSSOLINI and THE BLUE MEANIE and COWBOY CURTIS and JAMBI THE GENIE, ROBOCOP, THE TERMINATOR, CAPTAIN KIRK and DARTH VADER, LO-PAN, SUPERMAN, EVERY SINGLE POWER RANGER, BILL S. PRESTON and THEODORE LOGAN, SPOCK, THE ROCK, DOC OCK and HULK HOGAN all start fighting IOI’S TEAM of BORING SAMEY ROBOTS!

RANDOM CITIZENS

DIE, IOI SCUM! WE CHARGE DOWN CITY STREETS WEARING OUR VR STUFF TO ATTACK YOU! Wait, why are we playing VR games out in public, that seems like a really stupid and unlikely-

(hit by bus)

TYE and OLIVIA try to drive through the IOI ARMY!

TYE SHERIDAN

We're about to be killed by the drones!

OLIVIA COOK3

Don't worry, we just got saved by a bunch of Master Chiefs!

TYE SHERIDAN

Well now there's-

OLIVIA COOK3

We got saved by the Holy Hand Grenade!

TYE SHERIDAN

There's-

OLIVIA COOK3

Saved by a Chucky doll!

TYE SHERIDAN

FUCK! How do we build up tension when at any moment we can be saved by random CGI bullshit?

BEN yells at his HENCHMAN, T.J. MILLER.

T.J. MILLER

I’m sorry sir! I can’t hold them off!

BEN MENDELSOHN

I’ve paid you a small fortune.

T.J. MILLER

And this gives you power over- wait, that’s wrong. Goddammit, why’d you have to play so many identical villains?

BEN MENDELSOHN

This is nothing like my role in “The Dark Knight Rises”! Now to send word to the construction crews I’ve had working around the virtual city to implant explosives that'll stop anyone from interfering in the...

(trails off)

…huh.

(beat)

All right then, let’s kick it up a notch! I will become MECHAGODZILLA! And then not one other person in my army will even think to do a useful thing like that!

(becomes Mechagodzilla)

LENA WAITHE

Nice try, but I’ve come as The Iron Giant and I’ll fight your Mechagodzilla with it!

THE IRON GIANT

(snapping necks)

I'M SUPERMAN!!!

WIN MORISAKI

(you know, one of those other two guys)

And I have a powerup which allows me to control “any giant robot for two minutes”, and I’ll fight your Mechagodzilla with THAT!

BEN MENDELSOHN

Aw shit. With Lena using all The Iron Giant’s unstoppable weapons from the climax of the movie The Iron Giant, and Win presumably becoming Metroplex or some other robot four times my size, I’m FUCKED!

LENA WAITHE

Er, actually I seem to have built my Iron Giant entirely without the suite of kill-anything hyperweapons that he’s canonically supposed to have.

WIN MORISAKI

And instead of Metroplex, the robot I choose is Gundam. Not even a specific Gundam, just... “Gundam”.

BEN MENDELSOHN

Wow. You’re lucky I suck at this even worse than you.

(loses anyway)

TYE SHERIDAN

Also, I'm kicking you in the nuts.

BEN MENDELSOHN

(doubling over)

AAAAAAARRGGG!!!

TYE SHERIDAN

Why does Ben's VR suit allow him to feel everything that happens to his avatar's genit- wait actually don't answer that, I really don't want to know.

The gang buys TYE time to head towards the FINAL CHALLENGE.

OLIVIA COOK3

So the last challenge is to play an Atari game. But you have to pick the right one, which IOI haven’t done yet.

TYE SHERIDAN

Ooh, an Atari game inside The Oasis? That sounds like it’ll be really visually stunning! Big minimalist white walls and black floors and huge blocky pixels the size of-

He turns the corner and sees IOI employees trying to play an ACTUAL NO-FOOLING OLD ATARI CONSOLE which is hooked up to AN OLD TWENTY-EIGHT-INCH CRT TELEVISION. Like, an actual VIDEO GAME CONSOLE has been lovingly rendered within this VIDEO GAME and people are using their VR HANDS to operate a VR CONTROLLER and play ATARI, and that’s how the most EPIC CONTEST IN HISTORY is supposed to conclude.

TYE SHERIDAN

What the fuuuuck, this actually manages to make the rest of this movie seem smart by comparison.

The last IOI employee beats “ADVENTURE” but this turns out to be the WRONG THING TO DO and he LOSES THE CONTEST. Then TYE goes to the console and chooses... “ADVENTURE”?

IOI EMPLOYEE

See the point is clearly not to BEAT Adventure, but to find the hidden room IN Adventure, which is considered to be the first Easter Egg in gaming! It’s test of your cleverness and knowledge!

OTHER IOI EMPLOYEE

Wait, you already figured this out?

IOI EMPLOYEE

Yep! While that previous employee was playing the game.

OTHER IOI EMPLOYEE

And you just didn’t bother to mention this fact, thus losing this company untold billions?

IOI EMPLOYEE

Uuuuuhhhhhhh

(so, so fired)

TYE finds the EASTER EGG and wins the entire damn contest! A digital MARK shows up to congratulate him.

MARK RYLANCE

Good work, The Oasis is yours! Now just sign this fake piece of paper with this fake pen without any witnesses and the ownership will be officially, legally complete.

TYE SHERIDAN

Wha? That makes no sense. Is... is this another test? Did you move the goalposts on me and insert a trap right when I think I’m safe, you fucking asshole? Fine then, I won’t sign, because having just fought tooth and nail to become sole proprietor of The Oasis, I clearly don’t believe one person should be sole proprietor of The Oasis.

MARK RYLANCE

So shines a good deed in a weary world. Tye, my boy, you’ve won! And I hope throughout all this you’ve learned the lesson that you shouldn’t spend all your time in the fake, virtual world like I did. Go out and live your life, in the real world!

TYE SHERIDAN

THAT’S what you were trying to teach people? You offered people five hundred billion dollars to endlessly scour The Oasis for obscure clues, in the hope that they would then spend LESS TIME in The Oasis?!

MARK RYLANCE

Not my best gambit, I’ll admit. Now here, I should hand you the Easter Egg real quick because Ben’s showing up in the real world to straight-up shoot your ass!

BEN MENDELSOHN

(in real world)

That’s right, I’m here to commit murder in front of two hundred witnesses because that’ll work out for me somehow!

But then when he reaches TYE, he sees that TYE has already received the EGG and his gloves are GLOWING AS A RESULT, why not.

TYE SHERIDAN

I’ve finally won the Easter Egg!

(beat)

Fuck me, was this why this was released on Easter?

BEN MENDELSOHN

Fuck, I’m too late! At least I hope I am just supposed to be giving up because I’m too late, because my performance right now really makes it look like I gave up my whole quest because “OOH SHINY LIGHTS ARE PRETTY”.

SIMON PEGG

And look, Tye, I’m here too! And did you know I was the sassy robo-librarian from earlier? The character who sounded exactly like me was me all along, who’d have thought?

OLIVIA COOK3

Wait, you’re a one-man search engine? How does that even work? What happens when two people want to look something up? What if someone twelve time zones away gets lost? How did you end up curating a giant shrine to the man who stole your life's work?

TYE SHERIDAN

But don’t you see, Simon? All along, it was losing your friendship that was Mark’s biggest regret! This whole contest was his way of making up for forcing you out of the company all those years ago!

SIMON PEGG

Oh really? That’s nice.

(mumbles)

You’d think leaving the company to me would have gotten the message across better than giving it to a random teen but WHATEVER.

TYE SHERIDAN (V.O.)

So there you have it, folks! I won the contest, and then I shared the wealth and the power with Olivia, Lena and those other guys. And to enforce Mark’s hypocritical advice about spending more time in the real world, we started shutting The Oasis down every Tuesday and Saturday, which since we established people use it for work caused the global economy to shatter into pieces.

BEN MENDELSOHN

Wait, no Oasis on Tuesdays and Saturdays? Awesome! Thanks for creating a huge hole in the market that we can just drive right into, idiot!

(starts competing VR MMO which runs all week long)

(gets massive business on Tuesdays and Saturdays)

(people start getting tired of juggling two different accounts and just switch to IOI game full-time)

(Oasis becomes MySpace to IOI’s Facebook)

(bad guys win)

TYE SHERIDAN

Oops.

END.