Ready Player One Chapter 26 Summary

How It All Goes Down

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  • Now that all the sad death stuff is out of the way, where were we? Oh, that's right: looking for the Second Gate.
  • Wade has a revelation: the square of foil that covered the key reminds him of Blade Runner, so he heads into a replica of the Tyrell building from the movie in search of the Voight-Kampff machine, a machine that tests people to see if they're real people, or replicants
  • Parzival fights off dozens of security guards "like the climax of a John Woo movie" (26.27). 
  • Reaching the Voight-Kampff machine, he puts the Jade Key inside, opens the Second Gate, and tumbles inside.
  • This time, he has to play a 3D recreation of the Capcom game Black Tiger. 
  • Triumphant, Parzival gets to claim a prize: a giant robot toy. He selects Leopardon, a giant robot used by Supaidaman, some sort of Japanese Spider-Man. We hadn't heard of him either, and we still don't know why he needs a giant robot, but here you go.
    After putting the robot in his inventory, Parzival gets a clue for the location of the Crystal Key: a glowing red circle with a star inside. 
  • Boom. He knows exactly where the key is.