MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 18

Delphine threw the truck at high speed around dark, winding country roads. The suspension was shot, bouncing Jonah around like a pinball despite his seatbelt.

‘So,’ she said at length, ‘I am curious about this online disguise of yours. Tell me how it came to be that you could filter your father’s avatar.’

Jonah didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t know if he could trust her anyhow. He remained tight-lipped. As they approached the lights of a small town, the roads became smoother and straighter.

‘So, you decided to join the Revolution?’

‘I...I don’t know,’ mumbled Jonah. ‘Maybe.’

‘Your Guardians are fighting for a free, open

Metasphere. This is good for our planet, I think. Here in France, as in many other countries, there are still those who champion the old selfish, destructive ways. But a virtual lifestyle is carbon-free.’

‘You’re an eco-warrior?’ said Jonah.

Delphine pursed her lips in amusement. ‘Samantha did not tell you?’

‘Only that you’re a Guardian ally.’

‘Perhaps you have heard the name GuerreVert?’

Jonah had – and the sound of it filled him with horror. ‘That hotel bombing in Vienna last year? Wasn’t that...?’

‘I did not take part in the operation myself, but I celebrate it as a glorious blow struck for our cause.’

‘But...but a lot of people died in that explosion. Innocent bystanders.’

‘Not innocent,’ snapped Delphine. ‘And not a lot compared to the hundreds of thousands lost yearly to the effects of global warming. There was a conference in that hotel, between the world’s remaining oil producers. They are the ones who chose to wage war upon the Earth – and, in any war, there must be casualties.’

‘I think you’re wrong,’ he said.

Delphine pointed to the glove box. Jonah opened it and pulled out a black canvas bag.

‘Put it on,’ she said. Jonah realised it was a hood. ‘I’m not asking.’

Jonah rode the remainder of the journey in silence and in darkness.

Jonah felt Delphine swing the truck onto a gravel road and then briefly onto a smooth surface before switching off.

‘Put that back where you found it,’ she ordered.

Jonah took off the hood and found himself in a garage. Sam, Axel and Bradbury climbed out of the back, rubbing their bruised arms and legs.

Delphine locked up the garage, then led the way through a maze of dark back streets, to a cobbled alleyway behind a row of old, crumbling houses. She hauled herself up onto a rusted fire-escape ladder, climbed two storeys, then disappeared through an open sash window. Sam and Axel followed immediately, but Jonah hesitated.

He was still thinking about GuerreVert.

Jonah had been prepared to follow Axel, even though he was a Guardian, because he had been his dad’s best friend. Sam, he had liked from the start. Jonah had been ready to accept that he might have been wrong all his life, that the Guardians weren’t the bad guys, because after all how else could his dad have been one of them?

But GuerreVert... There was no doubting what they were.

A large part of Jonah wanted to run while he could, before he got even deeper into trouble. He might have tried it too, had it not been for the daunting presence of Bradbury, behind him, waiting to climb the ladder last.

Where could Jonah have run to in this strange country, anyway? Who else was there to help him?

The window opened onto a narrow landing, in a faded guesthouse. Delphine had disappeared, but a younger girl with a blue bow in her straw-coloured hair showed Jonah upstairs to a cramped attic room with a sink and a bed.

He sat on the side of the bed and buried his face in his hands. He felt confused and alone. What was he doing here, in the middle of France, with known terrorists?

A few minutes later, Sam knocked on his door to tell Jonah that a meal had been prepared for everyone downstairs. He didn’t want to go. He couldn’t face anyone at the moment, not even Sam and especially not Delphine. He only wanted to sleep, in the futile hope that things might look a little clearer to him in the morning. However, the gnawing hunger in Jonah’s stomach won out over his weariness.

Dinner was stew: the usual artificial protein, but served with hunks of real, crusty bread. Jonah sat round a table with Sam, Axel, Bradbury, Delphine, the girl with the bow and two more strangers, a man and a woman.

The others talked about the states of the world governments, and about the rumour that Matthew Granger was in Paris – though there had been alleged sightings of him in three other cities too. Jonah gulped down his food, taking no part in the discussion. However, his ears pricked up at the sound of his surname.

‘—always suspected he was one of yours,’ Delphine was saying.

‘One of the best,’ said Axel.

‘He must have been,’ agreed Delphine, ‘to have worked so deep undercover for so long. For how long was he Matthew Granger’s pilot?’ They were talking about Jonah’s dad. ‘He must have been a source of much useful information.’

‘He might have been,’ said Bradbury, bluntly, ‘if he had survived long enough to bring it to us.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Delphine, ‘a regrettable turn of events – but all is not lost, I hear? Jason Delacroix was able to pass on what he knew to the garçon?’

Jonah almost choked on his stew. Bradbury shot him an accusing glare, and Jonah wanted to protest that he hadn’t told Delphine anything, she was just guessing. By the time he could speak, however, it was too late.

Delphine had continued: ‘The problem must be accessing that knowledge. If you wish, I will contact a specialist who can—’

‘It’s all in hand,’ Axel grunted through a mouthful of bread. ‘We’re gonna run a search of the kid’s brain. Tonight.’

Jonah looked across the table at Sam, in alarm. She seemed as surprised as he was by her father’s pronouncement.

‘A pity,’ sighed Delphine, ‘that your agent couldn’t kill Granger when he had the chance. How careless of him to lose his own life instead. Had he been one of ours—’

‘That’s my dad you’re talking about.’

Jonah hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. He just hadn’t been able to keep them inside. He had muttered them under his breath, but everyone had heard all the same, and everyone had turned to look at him. At first, Jonah squirmed under the unwanted attention. But quickly a defiant spirit rose within him.

‘I said, that’s my dad you’re talking about!’ he repeated, more boldly. ‘And, Guardian or not, he would never have... I know he couldn’t have killed anyone, no matter who they were. And he wouldn’t have worked with anyone who could. It was people like you who killed him!’

He pushed his bowl away from him, stood up, marched to the door with his fists clenched.

He heard Sam’s voice behind him: ‘Jonah...’ He stopped in the doorway, turned back to them all, their astonished faces staring up at him.

He looked at Axel. ‘And you. I don’t know what my father saw in you, but I won’t let you touch my brain.’

Then he turned, and walked calmly up the stairs to his attic room.