MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 12

Jonah hit the ground hard.

He had glided nearly five miles south-east of the City

of London and positioned himself to land on a straight stretch of road near the Crystal Palace shelter. In the air, he had felt as if he was going slowly, but the busy road had rushed up to meet him with alarming speed.

Jonah kept his knees bent, and let the eight rubber wheels still attached to his feet take the brunt of the impact for him.

His sudden drop out of the sky took a number of bicyclists and rickshaw drivers by surprise. Jonah heard their cries but kept his head down, didn’t let them see his face. Any one of them, he thought, could have been a Millennial spy searching for him.

Somehow, he managed to remain upright and, miraculously, not collide with anyone. If only he could have said the same last night, he thought. If only!

As soon as he had slowed down, he unclipped his harness and ditched the glider pack. It was the last thing his mother had ever given him, and he couldn’t bear to look at it. Jonah skated away as fast as he could. He needed to put more distance yet between himself and the City. He skated until his legs ached.

His mind was racing. He had a million questions, things he should have asked his mum when he had had the chance.

He found an open meta-pub and skated in. It was an old-style pub, with dark wood timbers and a low ceiling. An obese landlord glowered at Jonah’s blades from behind the bar. ‘Gotta take those things off, kid,’ he grumbled.

Jonah obeyed, holding onto a polished brass railing as he untied his boots and surveyed the room. There were about a dozen other patrons, meta-tranced at their terminals, spread across the small, dimly-lit space.

Jonah looked hungrily at the Pro-Meal pouches hung behind the bar and asked about getting online. ‘It’s eighty meta-dollars an hour, kid,’ said the landlord. ‘And the protein is thirty.’ Jonah didn’t have enough money for both – but he needed the access now, and his real world body needed rest. Food would have to wait.

‘Just the access,’ he said. He took a seat at the last open terminal. ‘And I need an adaptor.’ The landlord snatched a foil packet from a clip-strip, tossed it across the room to him and watched as Jonah set his Point of Origin co-ordinates.

‘Goin’ to see the deadies, eh?’ the landlord sniggered. ‘Just don’t go trying to Upload yerself. I run a respectable establishment, not a suicide bar.’

Jonah ignored the fat man’s blathering. He inserted the adaptor into his spine, and slumped out of the real world.

Jonah’s red dragon avatar splashed down in warm water. His exit halo bobbed beside him like a buoy. He hadn’t swum in this body before, and it took him a moment to realise that the dragon’s stumpy arms alone wouldn’t keep its bulk afloat. He had to use his wings.

He was caught by a wave and washed ashore. He landed face first and got a mouthful of sand. Another wave crashed down around him as he struggled to his feet. He was still gasping for air when he heard a familiar – and reassuring – chuckle.

‘I hope you don’t land your planes like that, son.’

It was Jonah’s grandmother. The trunk of her grey elephant avatar flapped about as she shook with mirth.

Jonah trudged up the beach, a white sandy paradise that stretched as far as he could see. He sank into the wet sand with each of his heavy steps. The elephant came stomping up to meet him. She wrapped her dry, grey trunk around his shoulders, pulling his head into the crick of her neck. She couldn’t fully envelop the dragon avatar in her hug, the way she had with Jonah’s old humatar. Still, he had always found comfort in Nan’s embrace, and he was grateful for it now. He didn’t want to let her go.