MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 14

‘But...but you were the one who told me to come!’ said Jonah.

‘When I thought you were your father,’ grumbled Axel. ‘It’s my own fault, I guess. I wanted so much to believe that Jason might be alive...’ He sighed. ‘Maybe we drop him in Tehran. He can find work there until—’

‘But I don’t want to... I mean, I can help you! I can... My dad, he knew something, didn’t he? That’s what my mum said, before she... She told me Dad knew things. Secrets. She said that, now, I know them too.’

Axel’s eyes narrowed. ‘What “secrets”?’

It was Sam who answered him. She repeated what Jonah had told her, about the images he had seen in his head – and, as she spoke, Axel Kavanaugh slowly lowered himself to sit on the bed beside Jonah, with a cautious new hope in his eyes.

‘So, that’s what he did,’ breathed Axel, ‘I should have guessed... Jason always had a back-up plan, and this must have been it. He couldn’t tell anyone in the world what he knew, so he left a copy of his memories for the kid to find.’

‘I’m not a kid,’ Jonah protested.

‘Jonah, listen,’ said Sam, ‘this is important. Have you heard of the Four Corners?’

‘Of course,’ said Jonah. He might have made some mistakes, but he wasn’t an idiot.

‘What do you know?’ asked Axel.

‘They’re the four server farms that run the Metasphere,’ said Jonah, as if he were answering one of Mr Peng’s questions in school. ‘But only Matthew Granger knows where they all are. He built them, and he kept their locations a secret.’

‘That’s not quite true, kid,’ said Axel. ‘Right now, those farms are in the hands of four different world governments, which is bad enough. And no one government is revealing their location.’

‘Everything the Metasphere is,’ said Sam, ‘everything that happens in it, is defined by the Four Corners. Anyone who could find and control all four—’

‘—would control the world,’ concluded Axel. ‘The virtual world. And you and I both know that that’s the only world that matters these days.’

‘Granger is out of jail,’ said Sam. ‘We think he’s planning to retake those server farms with his Millennials.’

Jonah’s first instinct was to retort So what? Until yesterday, after all, he had believed that Matthew Granger was the rightful steward of the Metasphere.

But then, the Millennials had killed Jonah’s mother. They had tried to kill him. And he had discovered that his father was an agent for the Millennials’ sworn enemies: the Guardians, whom Jonah had spent his entire life hating.

‘No one man should have that power,’ growled Axel, answering Jonah’s unvoiced question. ‘But we can’t stop Granger unless we can find the Four Corners ourselves, and only one other man in the world ever knew where all four of them are.’

‘A man who Granger had no choice but to tell,’ continued Sam.

‘His private pilot,’ said Axel. ‘Your father.’

Jonah looked at Axel. He looked at Sam.

‘You said you have your father’s memories,’ said Sam.

‘That means you can tell us where the Four Corners are.’ Jonah didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t know what he should do. ‘I can’t...’ he stammered. ‘I’ve been told I have these memories, and I’ve seen a few flashes, but I don’t...I don’t know how to get at them.’