Being human totally sucks most of the time.Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable. — Anorak's Almanac

Everyone his age recalls where they were and what they were doing when they first learned about the contest. He was sitting in his hideout—his big brother's private mancave—watching webtoons when a news bulletin came in on his video feed, announcing that Bang Sihyuk died during the night.

We've all heard of Bang everyone had. He was the H.Y.B.E. videogame designer in charge of creating the OASIS, a massively multiplayer online game that had eventually developed into the globally networked virtual reality that most of human civilisation now uses on a daily basis.

Bang is now one of the world's wealthiest people, thanks to the OASIS' phenomenal success.

He couldn't understand why the media was making such a big deal out of the billionaire's death at first. After all, the people who live on Earth have more pressing concerns. The current energy crisis in the South .Climate change that is catastrophic in the North. Famine, poverty, and disease were widespread in the East Crazy statesmen, obnoxious monarchies, and a half-dozen wars and rumors of wars in the North. You know, don't bring up corruption and injustice and human immoral behaviour :"Dogs and cats coexisting... mass hysteria!" Unless something major happened, the news feeds didn't usually interrupt everyone's interactive sitcoms, kdramas, and soap operas. Like a new killer virus outbreak or another major city vanishing in a mushroom cloud.

That kind of thing. Bangs' death, as famous as he was, should have gotten only a brief mention on the evening news, so the unwashed masses could shake their heads in envy when the newscasters announced the obscenely large sum of money that would be distributed to the rich man's heirs.

But here's the catch. Bang had no heirs.

He died as a 67-year-old bachelor with no living relatives and, according to most accounts, not a single friend.

He'd spent the last fifteen years of his life in self-imposed isolation, during which time, rumors said, he'd gone completely insane.

So the truly shocking news that March morning, the news that had everyone from Seoul to Tokyo crapping in their kimchi breakfast, Concerned the contents of Bangs' last will and testament, as well as the fate of his large fortune.

Bang had prepared a short video message and had instructed that it be released to the world media at the time of his death. He'd also arranged for a copy of the video to be emailed to every single OASIS user that same morning. He remembered hearing the familiar electronic tune when it arrived in his inbox, just a few seconds after seeing that first news bulletin.

His video message was actually a finely crafted short film titled Anorak's Invitation. Bang had a lifelong obsession with the 1980s, the decade in which he was a teenager, and Anorak's Invitation was crammed with cryptic '80s American pop culture references, nearly all of which were lost on him the first time he viewed it.

The entire video was just over five minutes long, and it would go on to become the most scrutinized piece of film in history, surpassing even the Parasite film. 

His entire generation would memorize every word of Bang's message.

...

The sound of trumpets signals the start of Anorak's Invitation, which is the opening of an old song called "Dead Man's Party."

For the first few seconds, the song is played over a dark screen, until the trumpets are joined by a guitar, at which point Bang appears. But he isn't a 67-year-old man ravaged by time and illness. The entire video was just over five minutes long, and back then .He looks exactly like he did on Time magazine's cover in 2034: a tall, muscular, healthy man in his early forties with unkempt hair and his signature horn-rimmed eyeglasses. He's also dressed similarly to how he appeared on the Time cover: faded jeans and a vintage superman T-shirt.

Bang is attending a high school dance in a large gymnasium. He's surrounded by teenagers whose clothing, hairstyles, and dance moves all point to the late 2000s. Bang is also dancing, which no one has ever seen him do before.

He spins in rapid circles, swinging his arms and head in time with the song, flawlessly pedaling through several signature '80s dance moves, grinning madly. However, Bang has no dance partner. He is, as the saying goes, dancing with himself.

As if this were an old MTV music video, a few lines of text appear briefly in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, listing the name of the band, the title of the song, the record label, and the year of release: Oingo Boingo, "Dead Man's Party," MCA Records, 1985.

It appears that an old American song was featured on their music variety show. Tae Hyung did not know as much about American pop culture as he does now. Jennie, his long-term high school sweetheart, is Asian-American.

When the lyrics begin to play, Bang begins to lip-synch while still twirling: "All dressed up and no place to go. I was walking with a dead man on my back. Don't flee, it's just me..." 

He abruptly stops dancing and cuts the music with his right hand. At the same time, the dancers and gymnasium behind him vanish, and the scene around him abruptly changes.

Bang is now at the front of a funeral home, next to an open casket.

A second, much older Bang lies inside the casket, his body undernourished and ravaged by cancer. Each of his eyelids is covered with gleaming coins.

With mock sadness, the younger Bang looks down at his older self's corpse, then turns to address the assembled mourners. His fingers snap, and a scroll appears in his right hand. With a over exaggerated gesture he opens it, and it falls to the floor, unraveling down the aisle in front of him. He breaks the fourth wall by speaking directly to the viewer and begins to read.

"I, Bang 'Hitman' Sihyuk, being of sound mind and disposing memory, do hereby make, publish, and declare this instrument to be my last will and testament, hereby revoking any and all wills previously made by me." He keeps reading, faster and faster, plowing through several more paragraphs of legal stuff until he's speaking so fluently that he's a little hard to understand. 

Then he stops abruptly. "Forget it," he says. Even at that speed, it would take me a month to read the whole thing. Sad to say, I don't have that kind of time. He drops the scroll, and it vanishes in a shower of gold dust. "Let me just give you the highlights."

The funeral parlor vanishes, and the scene changes once again. Bang now stands in front of an immense bank vault door. My entire estate, including a controlling share of stock in my company, H.Y.B.E Simulation Systems, is to be placed in escrow until such time as a single condition I have set forth in my will is met. The first individual to meet that condition will inherit my entire fortune, currently valued in excess of two hundred and forty billion dollars in won-dollars.

The vault door swings open, and Bang walks inside. The interior of the vault is enormous, and it contains a huge stack of gold bars, roughly the size of a large house. "Here's the dough I'm putting up for grabs," Bang says, grinning broadly. "What the hell? You can't take it with you, right? " Bang leans against the stack of gold bars, and the camera pulls in tight on his face. "Now, I'm sure you're wondering, what do you have to do to get your hands on all this moolah? Well, hold your horses, kids. I'm getting to that... " He pauses dramatically, his expression changing to that of a child about to reveal a very big secret.

Bang snaps his fingers again and the vault disappears. In the same instant, he shrinks and morphs into a small boy wearing brown corduroys and a faded Superman T-shirt.

The young Bang stands in a cluttered living room with burnt orange carpeting, woodpaneled walls, and kitschy late-'70s decor. A 21-inch Zenith television sits nearby, with an Atari 2600 game console hooked up to it. His parents  relished in the outdated 70's decor.

"This was the first classic video game system I ever owned," Bang says,now in a child's voice. "An Atari 2600. I got it for Christmas in 1999. Its' a classic. One of a kind.You don't get these type of video machines anymore."

He plops down in front of the Atari, picks up a joystick, and begins to play. "My favorite game was this one," he says, nodding at the TV screen,where a small square is traveling through a series of simple mazes. "In the amount of painstaking frame-by-frame analysis devoted to it in the days and weeks that followed. It was called Adventure Slay. Like many early videogames, Adventure Slay was designed and programmed by just one person. But back then, Atari refused to give its programmers credit for their work, so the name of a game's creator didn't actually appear anywhere on the packaging. "On the TV screen,you see Bang use a sword to slay a red dragon, although due to the game's crude low-resolution graphics, this looks more like a square using an arrow to stab a deformed duck.

"So the guy who created Adventure Slay, a man named Jay Park, decided to hide his name inside the game itself. He hid a key in one of the game's labyrinths. If you found this key, a small pixel-sized gray dot, you could use it to enter a secret room where Park had hidden his name."

On the TV,  Bang guides his square protagonist into the game's secret room, where the words created by Jay Park appear in the center of the screen.

"This," Bang says, pointing to the screen with genuine reverence, "was the very first videogame Easter egg. Park hid it in his game's code without telling a soul, and Atari manufactured and shipped Adventure Slay all over the world without knowing about the secret room. They didn't findout about the Easter egg's existence until a few months later, when kids all over the world began to discover it. I was one of those kids, and finding Parks' Easter egg for the first time was one of the coolest videogaming experiences of my life."

The young  Bang drops his joystick and stands. As he does, the living room fades away, and the scene shifts again. Bang now stands in a dim cavern, where light from unseen torches flickers off the damp walls.

In the same instant Bangs's appearance also changes once again, as he morphs into his famous OASIS avatar, Anorak—a tall, robed wizard with a slightly more handsome version of the adult Bang's face (minus the eyeglasses). Anorak is dressed in his trademark black robes, with his avatar's emblem (a large calligraphic letter "A") embroidered on each sleeve.

"Before I died," Anorak says, speaking in a much deeper voice, "I created my own Easter egg, and hid it somewhere inside my most popular videogame—the OASIS. The first person to find my Easter egg will inherit my entire fortune."

Another dramatic pause.

"The egg is well hidden. I didn't just leave it lying under a rock somewhere. I suppose you could say that it's locked inside a safe that is buried in a secret room that lies hidden at the center of a maze located somewhere"—he reaches up to tap his right temple—"up here.

"But don't worry. I've left a few clues lying around to get everyone started. And here's the first one." Anorak makes a grand gesture with his right hand, and three keys appear, spinning slowly in the air in front of him. They appear to be made of copper, jade, and clear crystal. 

As the keys continue to spin, Anorak recites a piece of verse, and as he speaks each line, it appears briefly in flaming subtitles across the bottom of screen:

Three hidden keys open three secret gates

Wherein the errant will be tested for worthy traits

And those with the skill to survive these straits

Will reach The End where the prize awaits.

As he finishes, the jade and crystal keys vanish, leaving only the copperkey, which now hangs on a chain around Anorak's neck.

The camera follows Anorak as he turns and continues farther into the dark cavern. A few seconds later, he arrives at a pair of massive wooden doors set into the cavern's rocky wall. These doors are banded with steel,and there are shields and dragons carved into their surfaces. "I couldn't playtest this particular game, so I worry that I may have hidden my Easter egg a little too well. Made it too difficult to reach. I'm not sure. If that's the case, it's too late to change anything now. So I guess we'll see."

Anorak throws open the double doors, revealing an immense treasure room filled with piles of glittering gold coins and jewel-encrusted goblets.

Then he steps into the open doorway and turns to face the viewer,stretching out his arms to hold open the giant double doors.

"So without further ado," Anorak announces, "let the hunt for  Bang's Easter egg begin!" Then he vanishes in a flash of light, leaving the viewer to gaze through the open doorway at the glittering mounds of treasure that lay beyond.

Then the screen fades to black.

.....

At the end of the video, Bang included a link to his personal website,which had changed drastically on the morning of his death. For over a decade, the only thing posted there had been a short looping animation that showed his avatar, Anorak, sitting in a medieval library, hunched over a scarred worktable, mixing potions and poring over dusty spellbooks, with a large painting of a black dragon visible on the wall behind him.

But now that animation was gone, and in its place there was a high-score list like those that used to appear in old coin-operated videogames.

The list had ten numbered spots, and each displayed the intial BH— Bang Sihyuk the amount of painstaking frame-by-frame analysis devoted to it in the days and weeks that followed. followed by a score of six zeros. This high-score list quickly came to be known as "the Scoreboard."

Just below the Scoreboard was an icon that looked like a small leather-bound book, which linked to a free downloadable copy of Anorak's Almanac, a collection of hundre Bangs' undated journal entries.

The Almanac was over a thousand pages long, but it contained few details about Bangs'  personal life or his day-to-day activities. Most of the entries were his stream-of-consciousness observations on various classic videogames, science-fi ction and fantasy novels, movies, comic books, and '80s pop culture, mixed with humorous diatribes denouncing everything from organized religion to diet soda.

The Hunt, as the contest came to be known, quickly wove its way into global culture. Like winning the lottery, finding Bangs'  Easter egg became a popular fantasy among adults and children alike. It was a game anyone could play, and at first, there seemed to be no right or wrong way to play it.

 The only thing Anorak's Almanac seemed to indicate was that familiarity with  Bang's various obsessions would be essential to finding the egg. This led to a global fascination with 1980s pop culture. Fifty years after the decade had ended, the movies, music, games, and fashionsof the 1980s were all the rage once again. By 2020, spiked hair and acidwashed jeans were back in style, and covers of hit '80s pop songs by contemporary bands dominated the music charts. People who had actually been teenagers in the 1980s, all now approaching old age, had the strange experience of seeing the fads and fashions of their youth embraced and studied by their grandchildren.

A new subculture was born, composed of the millions of people who now devoted every free moment of their lives to searching for Bangs'egg. At first, these individuals were known simply as "egg hunters," but this was quickly truncated to the nickname "gunters."

During the first year of the Hunt, being a gunter was highly fashionable, and nearly every OASIS user claimed to be one.

When the first anniversary  Bangs' death arrived, the fervor surrounding the contest began to die down. An entire year had passed and no one had found anything. Not a single key or gate. Part of the problem was the sheer size of the OASIS. It contained thousands of simulated worlds where the keys might be hidden, and it could take a gunter years to conduct a thorough search of any one of them.

Despite all of the "professional" gunters who boasted on their blogs and numerous Youtube-channels  that they were getting closer to a breakthrough every day, the truth gradually became apparent: No one really even knew exactly what it was they were looking for, or where to start looking for it.

Another year passed.

And another.

Still nothing.

The general public lost all interest in the contest. People began to assume it was all just an outlandish hoax perpetrated by a rich nut job. 

Others believed that even if the egg really did exist, no one was ever going to find it. Meanwhile, the OASIS continued to evolve and grow in popularity, protected from takeover attempts and legal challenges by the ironclad terms of  Bang's will and the army of rabid lawyers he had tasked with administering his estate.

Bangs' Easter egg gradually moved into the realm of urban legend,and the ever-dwindling tribe of gunters gradually became the object of ridicule. 

Each year, on the anniversary of Bang's death, newscasters jokingly reported on their continued lack of progress. And each year, more gunters called it quits, concluding that Bang had indeed made the egg impossible to find.

And another year went by.

And another.

Then, on the evening of February 11, 2045, an avatar's name appeared at the top of the Scoreboard, for the whole world to see. After five long years, the Copper Key had finally been found, by an eighteen-year-old kid living in an upscale private estate on the outskirts of Seoul.

That kid was him, Kim Taehyung youngest son of strict and wealthy parents...who longs for an escape out of his well-controled prison  of security gates and fences.

And nobody knew his identity...outside the Oasis.

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