MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 35

Matthew Granger had barely closed his eyes when the internal phone by his bed chirruped. He snatched it up, barked angrily into the mouthpiece, ‘What now?’

A nervous programmer apologised for disturbing his sleep. But, she went on to say, she was following Granger’s own explicit orders.

By the time he put the phone down again, Granger was no longer angry.

He was smiling to himself as he reached for his cyber-kinetic legs, attached them to his stumps. This was finally it, he thought. The day he had been waiting for.

The Southern Corner’s long-range sensors – brought back online by Granger only three days ago – had detected the approach of some twenty vehicles across the desert. The Guardians were coming.

He had expected them sooner. He had overestimated them. His enemies had given him plenty of time to prepare for them.

It was perfect, thought Granger. He would personally direct his Millennials into battle. The Guardians would be crushed, and news of their defeat would spread across the virtual world. That would set an example to the remaining dissidents. It would show them that Granger was not to be messed with. It would show everyone that his position, his power, was unassailable.

The sun was going down. It was almost time.

Ayers Rock had been visible, through the clear plastic canopy of the land yacht’s cockpit, for some miles now. It had taken far longer than Sam had expected to reach it. She had underestimated its sheer size. Now, however, she could see the security fences that ringed the rock – and the facility within it.

She looked back at Jonah. He was still slumped in his seat, meta-tranced.

She looked down at the pistol she was cradling in her lap. Her dad’s pistol. Sam had taken it from the comatose Axel’s pocket. She would have to use it, soon.

For the past two days, since her dad had been lost, Sam had been putting on an act. She had had to affect a confidence she didn’t feel. She had had to appear strong, or else the Guardians wouldn’t have followed her.

The truth was, Sam had never fired a gun in anger before.

Oh, she knew what to do. Her dad had tutored her in the use of a variety of weapons. They had spent many hours on virtual shooting ranges and in combat simulations. Sam could have stripped down Axel’s pistol, cleaned it and reassembled it in a matter of minutes. But to aim it at someone – a living, breathing human being, not a computer construct – and to squeeze that trigger... She didn’t know if she could do that.

There was only one way through the electric fences: a security checkpoint across the desert highway, manned by two figures in black fatigues. Sam could see more figures – just dots from this distance, like ants – swarming down the side of the rock.

She turned back to Jonah. ‘If you’re going to do something,’ she muttered through clenched teeth, although she knew he couldn’t hear her, ‘now would be a good time.’

The sun still shone upon the Island of the Uploaded. Jonah was painfully aware, however, of the passing of time in the real world. It was sunset in the Australian Northern Territories. He was almost out of time. He had done nowhere near enough.

The avatars of the dead were still coming to him.

Jonah waited for them in a quiet forest clearing and they gathered around him, forty or fifty of them. It was something. It meant his grandmother was still spreading the word about him. She hadn’t forgotten, as Jonah had feared she might.