MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 33

Across the virtual sea from the Island of the Uploaded, the main ferry terminal was packed with avatars shouting and waving banners.

As Jonah flew closer, he saw they were protesting the blockade of the Island. He touched down in their midst and they closed in around him, jostling him. A mean- eyed vulture thrust its beak right up to Jonah’s face and demanded to know if he was, ‘Millennial or Guardian?’

‘Matthew Granger killed my mother,’ said Jonah, bitterly. ‘What do you think?’

Clearly, this was the right answer. The avatars parted before him, and Jonah was able to reach the ferry terminal’s sliding doors.

The atmosphere inside the terminal couldn’t have been more different. As the doors slid together behind Jonah, they blocked out the sound of the protest completely. The air had a cool, almost sterile taste to it. There were plastic benches and electronic departure boards, the latter detailing the sailings of the day’s ‘death barges’. The next departure was in forty-five minutes.

There were several knots of people standing around the terminal: mourners gathered to say goodbye to cherished friends and family members. Some of them were weeping. Jonah could see the waiting death barge through the windows, and the sight of it made him shudder. It sat at the end of a long wooden jetty. It was sleek and black, and it flew a single flag: a white infinity symbol upon black.

As Jonah watched, a small group of mourners floated up to the barge. They took turns hugging and kissing an ancient, stooped blue frog, which finally turned away from them and half hopped, half shuffled up the boarding ramp. The mourners returned along the jetty and found a place at the waterside from which to wave loved ones away on their final voyage.

The man behind the blue frog avatar was probably lying on a comfortable couch in an Uploading centre. When the mourners returned to the real world, he would be gone, his corporeal body removed by the centre’s undertakers. At least they would know that, in the virtual world, his avatar lived on.

As Jonah had guessed, Matthew Granger hadn’t stopped the death barges from sailing, allowing the Island to collect more avatars and thus making his ownership of the Island all the more valuable. So he had left that single route to the Island open, confident in the knowledge that no one could survive the trip.

Jonah was gambling on the desperate hope that Granger was wrong.

He waited for another group to step outside, then tagged along behind them. Jonah felt conspicuous in his huge red dragon avatar. He hoped no one would notice him and ask awkward questions.

He floated as far along the jetty, as close to the death barge as he dared. He waited impatiently as the mourners said their last farewells to an ageing pixie whose glow was dimming. He watched as the pixie climbed the boarding ramp, to be greeted by a red dialogue balloon at the top. He couldn’t read what the pop-up said, but the pixie touched it with her finger, and it closed.

The pixie boarded the barge. Her mourners floated back along the jetty, passing by Jonah. He drew a few glances from them, as he had feared, but the mourners’ eyes held nothing but sympathy for him. Of course, it must have seemed to them as if Jonah was preparing to Upload himself alone.

He could guess what the red pop-up had said. The pixie’s avatar had been scanned and indexed, before she could set foot on board the barge. She had confirmed her agreement to the Uploading process, which would take place as she made her slow journey towards the Island. It couldn’t be stopped now, for her.

Jonah went back into the terminal. He needed time to think. He watched through the windows as more avatars boarded the barge. Its deck was filling up.