<P> Teenager Wade Watts lives with his aunt in the "stacks," a poverty - stricken district constructed of trailer homes piled on top of each other . He spends all his spare time logged on to the OASIS as a "gunter" (a contraction of "egg hunter"), an avatar under the moniker Parzival, reading Halliday's journal Anorak's Almanac and researching films, songs, and TV series from the 1980s mentioned therein, as well as playing classic video games . One day, he realizes during a fit of boredom that the location of the first key is on the world of his online high school, in a re-creation of the Dungeons & Dragons module Tomb of Horrors . He meets Art3mis, a famous female hunter and blogger who had been exploring the place, but is then able to solve the puzzle first by defeating its adversary Acererak in the video game Joust . He is awarded the Copper Key, and Parzival appears on the "Scoreboard", attracting the entire world's attention . </P> <P> Parzival completes the Copper Gate puzzles by playing through the Dungeons of Daggorath video game, and then role - playing Matthew Broderick's character in the film WarGames . Art3mis clears the gate shortly afterwards, as does his friend Aech . His fame enables him to make a living by endorsing virtual products . Nolan Sorrento, head of operations at Innovative Online Industries (IOI), a multinational corporation bent on taking control of the OASIS and monetizing it, attempts to recruit Wade to assist them in finding the egg, only to be swiftly denied . In retaliation, Sorrento attempts to kill Wade by blowing up the stacks under the guise of a meth lab explosion; he barely escapes death, but his aunt and neighbors are killed in the blast . </P> <P> Wade lies low, taking up the persona Bryce Lynch and a residence near IOI headquarters in Columbus, Ohio . He briefly considers an alliance with Aech, Art3mis, and two Japanese gunters, Daito and Shoto, who have also figured out the puzzles . Instead, he and Art3mis progress in a friendship, but when he asks her out, Art3mis declines . IOI operatives called Sixers attempt to assassinate the two at the birthday party of OASIS co-founder Ogden Morrow, but are unsuccessful . Five months after the finding of the Copper Key, no one has made progress on the next clue, the Jade Key, during which Wade finds himself more isolated from both Art3mis and Aech . </P> <P> When Art3mis finds the Jade Key, Parzival scrambles to planet Archaide, where he plays a perfect game of Pac - Man, only to receive an ordinary quarter as a prize . Aech provides a hint leading him to the planet Frobozz where he solves the text adventure game Zork . Sorrento, who had tracked Art3mis and Aech using a premium locator item, quickly establishes a base there to farm their company's avatars with keys, and soon unlocks the Jade Gate and acquires the Crystal Key . Shoto tells Parzival that the Sixers infiltrated Daito's real - life apartment and threw him out of the building's 43rd floor, killing him . </P>

List three details from ready player one that illustrate the deterioration of america