MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 16

Matthew Granger was in a foul mood.

His dinner – his first decent meal in three years, a rare steak prepared by France’s top chef – had just been interrupted. He had told his staff to alert him when Jason Delacroix was confirmed dead, but the fatigue- clad Millennial brought only speculation.

‘We found the airship, sir,’ he said.

‘Survivors?’ asked Granger, placing his fork gently on the table but making a point to keep a grip on his steak knife.

‘We can’t be sure,’ replied the Millennial agent.

‘Who was in charge of this operation?’ asked Granger, rising to his feet and slipping the knife into a small hold built into his right cyber-kinetic leg.

A hush fell over Granger’s operations room as he marched through the door. Two dozen Millennials hunched at their terminals and did their best to not catch their master’s eye. They knew, either from experience or from rumours, that you did not want to be in Granger’s line of vision when he had been given bad news.

‘Who was flying the drone that engaged the Guardian vessel?’ he asked. A bespectacled youth with a mop of wiry hair raised a tentative hand.

Granger strode up to his terminal and scrolled quickly through a ream of densely-packed data on the screen.

‘You had them in your sights,’ he said quietly, dangerously.

‘Y-yes, sir,’ the programmer stammered, ‘but I couldn’t be sure—’

‘You had them in your sights,’ repeated Granger, ‘and, according to this report, they transmitted an out- of-date clearance code. So, you fired a warning shot?’

‘Yes, sir, I did, but—’

Granger spoke through gritted teeth. ‘We are standing on the brink of a new world order. Everything we have worked for is ours for the taking. Only one man can keep us from claiming our prize – a traitor to our cause, a terrorist – and you had that man in your sights and you fired a warning shot?’

Granger’s voice had risen as he spoke, until these last words came out as a scream. The young programmer was cowed into silence. He had turned quite pale.

‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said the Millennial who had collected Granger, ‘but the airship was destroyed and the target almost certainly killed.’

Granger rounded on him. ‘Jason Delacroix has survived worse than this. He had all the time he needed to bail out of that airship and escape on the ground!’

‘We’ve diverted all available drones to the area, sir, and we have sympathisers among the French Gendarmerie who can...’ The Millennial tailed off, as Granger turned away from him with a snort of contempt.

‘I have devoted my life to the fulfilment of a new world,’ he raged, ‘a better world for everyone. And when I put my trust in other people, they let me down. People like you—’ He rounded on the trembling programmer. ‘—don’t deserve to live in the world I built. And you won’t!’

Granger grabbed hold of the programmer and pulled up the back of his shirt, revealing his standard DI socket. Granger reached for the steak knife and cut out the plastic ring embedded in his spine. His victim screamed as Granger pulled out his Direct Interface socket.

Granger dashed the blood-soaked DI socket to the floor. ‘Don’t let me see your avatar again!’ he ordered, pointing with the knife to the door.