MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 10

It was the smell that hit Jonah first: a rank odour of spices and leather.

A vast market, like a Moroccan souk he had once seen in a movie, materialised around him. It was thronged with avatars, shouting and haggling.

The City Tower terminal had automatically sent him to the virtual trading floor. Many of the avatars buying and selling here must have belonged to the young bodies that Jonah’s mother cared for in the real world.

He was still dressed in his father’s red dragon avatar.

Unfurling his immense wingspan, Jonah took to the sky. He examined the souk from above, and noted the location of his glowing exit halo. It was easy to get lost in an unfamiliar part of the Metasphere.

He felt his whole body surge as he flapped his wings. Jonah felt strong, powerful, and a part of him couldn’t help but relish this new sensation.

But he was also afraid and confused – and even angry. He was angry with himself for having been so quick to filter the dragon avatar. And he was angry with his parents for having hidden so much from him.

He was still trying to take it all in, everything his mum had said. His dad – a Guardian? How could that have been? The Guardians had killed his dad. That was what he had always believed. And what had Jason Delacroix known that was worth killing him for?

As he glided through the virtual air, Jonah let out a scream of frustration. His breath turned into a stream of fire, and the flames washed back over his red, scaly body.

Jonah flew over Venus Park, over his family’s gift shop, and banked left. He was soaring over one of the oldest areas of the virtual world. They called it ‘The Mirrors’. The buildings here had been coded to a lower resolution than was now customary, and felt flat, almost 2D, and lacked the realistic texture of the modern Metasphere. Beneath him, Jonah saw MetaOx Street, a copy of the real Oxford Street in London. In its earliest days, much of the Metasphere had been designed to replicate such real-world locations. Jonah couldn’t imagine why.

A line of digital red buses inched their way along the busy shopping promenade, and he despaired at the sight of them. They all bore the number 137. His bus. His home. Gone forever.

The Icarus bar was a large, conical building. A neon sign outside depicted a man with winged feet, outlined by a bright orange circle. The entrance was up on the third floor; its patrons had no option but to fly in. Jonah’s dad had often remarked that this was only fitting for a pilot’s haunt.

Jonah touched down on the landing perch and collapsed his wings. He had waited outside the Icarus for his father many times before. But now, for the first time, he flew through its doors.

Inside, the bar resembled a giant birdcage. It was six storeys high – the entrance on a middle level – and it was packed with avatars, mostly birds or other winged creatures, chatting, drinking, reminiscing about days gone by. They rested on broad perches which jutted out from the sides of the cage at all levels, or on swings that hung from the high, caged domed ceiling.

‘Jason Benedict Delacroix,’ the tinny voice announced. Jonah had been scanned and his avatar identified, his father’s avatar.

Suddenly, the chatter that had filled the Icarus ceased. The birds all turned to look at the new arrival as if they had just seen a ghost. As far as they were concerned, Jonah realised suddenly, they had.

He almost turned and flew out of there. The last thing he had wanted was to be the centre of attention. But if he fled now, he would never find Axel Kavanaugh, his dad’s old friend. And Axel was the only hope he had, the only one who might be able to dig him out of this mess he was in.