MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 5

Jonah’s senses came back to him, starting with his vision. A bright, three-dimensional digital landscape unfolded around him – around his digital self.

He was standing in ivy-covered grounds before the stately facade of one of the best, and most expensive, public school franchises in the online world: the Chang Academy for Gifted Youths.

Jonah was just in time. The main doors were already closing. He took to the sky, leaving behind him a hovering, giant gold ring, his exit halo, his own personal portal between worlds. He felt the cool, sweet air of the Metasphere in his face and a familiar thrill in his stomach. In here, he felt at home.

Jonah guided his flight precisely, in control over every muscle in his virtual body. He swooped through the school doors, through the scanner that logged his arrival.

‘Jonah Benedict Delacroix,’ the automated scanner announced in a tinny voice as the doors clicked shut behind him. A forbidding padlock icon appeared over them, to lock the students in and keep the freeloaders out.

Jonah had attended a real-world school once, but it had been closed down and the next nearest had been a four-mile walk away. He had hated it there, anyway. He had been on the losing end of one too many schoolyard fights. His dad had hunted down a Chang scholarship for him. He could never have afforded to have come to a place like this, otherwise.

He came to a graceful landing in the entrance hall – flying in the corridors was against school rules. A red dialogue balloon popped up by Jonah’s side, to notify him that his presence had been marked in the school register along with a demerit for his late arrival. He dismissed it with a flick of his fingers and hurried to his classroom, making sure that his feet touched the floor with every step.

He passed a silver centaur, which looked at him with disapproval. ‘Late again, Mr Delacroix?’ it said in a fluting, female voice.

‘Yes, miss,’ said Jonah. ‘Sorry, miss.’

The rest of Jonah’s class were already at their desks. He apologised to his teacher, a golden Chinese phoenix called Mr Peng, as he hurried to his usual seat at the back.

‘Glad you could make it, humatar,’ clucked Harry, whose desk was next to Jonah’s. He had the shape of a fidgety rooster.

Jonah was, in fact, surrounded by all manner of creatures: cats and dogs, a panther, a yellow cow, even a seven-foot-tall robot. In the Metasphere, everyone was represented by a unique avatar, some more bizarre than others.

Jonah’s avatar, however, was human-form – a ‘humatar’ – a digital doppelgänger of his real-world body. It had the same freckled cheeks, the same tuft of dark hair that he could never quite get to lie down. It was a little taller than Jonah’s real body – which was short for his age – and yet still shorter than the majority of the beasts around him. He was still waiting, impatiently, for a major growth spurt.

Jonah’s was the only humatar in the school, much to his embarrassment. He hated the fact that he looked so ordinary. Not that there was anything he could have done about it. No one could control what their avatar looked like. Each one was born in a deep recess of its owner’s subconscious mind.

He flexed his wrist, and an icon that only Jonah could see – a small iron safe – appeared before him. This was Jonah’s inventory space, a private storage locker for his files, photos and apps. Jonah reached in and plucked out his virtual datapad. It downloaded the notes from the lesson so far.

The class had been discussing the only topic on everyone’s minds: the fall of the United States government.

‘My dad says it’s a good thing the governments are collapsing,’ said a panther from the far side of the classroom. His name was Mike Sawyer, and he was the only other student in the class from England. ‘He says the sooner we get rid of ours too, the better.’