MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 21

Granger’s destination was in sight, at last.

He had flown for over twenty hours, stopping only

twice to refuel his chartered plane. It was still late morning in Paris, but here in the Northern Territories of Australia, the sun was already setting. Its fading rays glinted red off the vast arrays of solar reflectors that covered the rusty desert sands.

Granger was pleased to see a tight column of military jeeps crawling along the dusty Lasseter Highway below him. His southern strike team was on schedule, although the size of the force was rather less than he had hoped for. He instructed his pilot to wait to hear from him at Alice Springs, the nearest town, almost three hundred miles away. Then he opened the aft door and jumped out of the plane.

The broad, flat top of Ayers Rock was an irresistible target, the only geological feature of note for hundreds of miles around. It was largely covered in solar panels, but Granger angled his descent towards a gap between them. He executed a flawless landing, his cyber-kinetic legs absorbing the bulk of the impact, and he shed his parachute as if it were an overcoat he no longer needed.

Granger sat with his back to the metal entrance hatch, and enjoyed the beautiful sunset. Some three hundred and fifty metres below him, he could see his people just passing the first of the two perimeter fences.

He picked himself up and casually trekked down the well-trodden, now-abandoned climbing path that sloped to the base of the rock. He could have parachuted straight to the bottom, of course – but he liked the symbolism of coming down from the rock to meet his followers.

Ayers Rock was many hundreds of millions of years old. It had endured while the rest of the mountain range had been eroded to sand. Granger was confident his own legacy to the world would last as long.

That was one of the reasons why he had built a part of that legacy here.

Granger remembered when Ayers Rock had been a tourist attraction – until the prohibitive cost of transport had caused the tourist trade to drop off. Today, it was well known that it now housed a much-needed solar power plant.

But only a handful of people in the world knew the rock’s real secret.

Granger stood at the base of the huge rock and waited for the first of the approaching jeeps to grind to a halt at his titanium feet. A blond teenager in combat fatigues scrambled out of the passenger seat. His eyes were purple-rimmed with tiredness, and he blinked a little too often. He threw up a salute in Granger’s direction – not strictly necessary, but Granger accepted the compliment. ‘Southern strike team reporting as ordered, sir,’ said Warren, the possessor of the red spider avatar. He looked as Granger had always imagined he would.

‘Is this all you have?’ sniffed Granger.

There were five jeeps in all, each with five or six men packed into them. They were flanked by four quad bikes, each bearing a rider and passenger.

Warren’s face fell. ‘As I tried to explain, sir, when you moved up the timetable—’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Granger impatiently, ‘I remember. I had hoped, however—’

‘I even brokered a deal with a religious militia in Perth to transport thirty volunteers across the Outback. If we could only wait twelve more hours, sir—’

‘No,’ said Granger. ‘The attacks on the Four Corners must be synchronised, to give us the element of surprise.’ He did a quick headcount. ‘Even thirty-seven agents should be more than enough to take out a handful of government stooges.’