MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 13

Jonah had skated through the night.

What choice had he had? Dover was over seventy miles from London – and, even if he could have afforded to take a train, they only ran there once a month since carbon rationing had been introduced.

The sun was rising as Jonah bladed through the deserted streets, and he feared he might be too late. But skating on instinct and adrenalin, he found the old RAF base on the eastern edge of town.

The base had been closed down some years ago. It was little more than an airstrip, really: a single runway, with a tilted control tower and a few decrepit bunkhouses. The tarmac was cracked and overgrown. No plane could have landed here now, even if any still flew to England.

An airship was hovering above the crumbling runway. Jonah stopped at the fence line and stared at it. It was massive, at least ten buses long. It was covered in reflective solar panels, and resembled a giant, shiny, black tortoise.

A bearded man dangled from the airship in a harness. He was thin, but clearly strong from the way he hoisted himself along the dirigible’s underbelly. He wore black coveralls, with all manner of tools attached to his belt by carabiners. His wavy, grey hair was whipped by the wind that blew in from the nearby English Channel. He was tinkering with one of the propellers beneath the cockpit.

‘Test it now, Sam!’ he shouted, pushing himself out of the way. The propeller began to whirl, and the man looked pleased with himself. ‘OK, kiddo, we’re good to go!’

‘Then let’s get airborne, Axel.’

Jonah followed this new, gruff voice to a large man on the ground, who was belaying the suspended man. He had a black moustache and gnarly, dark hair, and he wore a long trench coat over a blue suit. Jonah didn’t much like the look of him.

Axel hesitated. ‘It’s only just dawn,’ he said. ‘He could still make it.’

‘We can’t wait,’ insisted the burly man on the ground. ‘We’re sitting ducks here.’

‘You don’t know Jason. He’ll be here.’

It sounded like as good a cue as any. Jonah eased himself through the broken fence and skated across the uneven tarmac. As he neared the airship, he opened his mouth to introduce himself.

The burly man must have heard him coming. In a rapid motion that belied his size, he spun around, pulled a shotgun from inside his trench coat and pointed it at Jonah.

‘On the ground!’ he screamed. ‘Hands on your head! Now!’

Startled, Jonah did as he was told. He dropped to his knees – something he had been close to doing anyway, from sheer exhaustion. Still suspended from the airship, Axel whipped out a smaller pistol and pointed it down at Jonah.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘How did you find us?’

Jonah hadn’t expected this. He understood, of course, that these men had been expecting to see his father, not a teenager on wheels. He had known they would be suspicious of him. But he hadn’t expected guns – let alone two men who looked as if they would happily use them in an instant.

His heart was racing. He was panting for breath.

‘You. You told me yourself,’ he stammered. ‘D-Delta. Delta House.’

A look of horror spread across Axel’s face. ‘That was you inside the Icarus?’ he cried. ‘Inside the dragon?’

The burly man scowled. ‘What did I tell you, Axel?’