MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 30

Jonah spotted the lifeboat and flagged it down.

Captain Teng must have done a headcount, realised they were missing, feared they might be in the water and sent someone back for them. Two crew members helped lift Axel aboard the small red vessel. Jonah and Sam were both weary and dispirited, but at least now they didn’t have to trek all the way to Sydney. The city still looked a long way away across the bay.

Soon enough, however, they were sailing beneath the famous, arched Sydney Harbour Bridge, past the armadillo-shaped Opera House. It wasn’t used for that purpose any more, of course. Jonah recalled from school that the iconic building had been pressed into service as a desalination plant.

Captain Teng was waiting for them at an old wharf, all apologetic for having left them behind – although he did remind Jonah that he had sent him to a lifeboat.

The captain noted Axel’s condition with a sad shake of the head.

‘Where can we get online?’ asked Jonah. ‘We need to find Axel’s avatar – Bradbury’s too – before they can wander too far from—’

‘We don’t have time,’ said Sam. Her voice was quiet but firm. She turned to Captain Teng. ‘Jonah and I have a plane to catch.’

‘You’re not serious!’ cried Jonah.

Three times, he had seen schoolmates become accidentally disconnected. Each time, he had helped keep their lobotomised avatars from floating away. On the most recent occasion, he had helped Mr Peng and a couple of others take Kylie Ellis out into the schoolyard. They had waited for someone to find her real-world body and plug her in again so that her exit halo would reactivate. Then they had pushed her through it.

Axel’s avatar hadn’t been with friends when Sam had unplugged him – only with the equally befuddled Bradbury. Sam knew this. She knew that, the longer they delayed, the harder it would be to find the pair of them. Jonah had heard tales of disconnected avatars lost forever, wandering the Metasphere like ghosts while their real- world bodies were kept alive and fed through tubes.

‘I know my dad,’ said Sam, stubbornly, ‘and he’d want us to go on. He wouldn’t want us to compromise the mission for...for his sake.’

‘Maybe so,’ said Jonah, ‘but can we even go on without him? Without Bradbury?’

‘We’ve no choice,’ said Sam. ‘There are people relying on us. The whole world is relying on us to...’ She glanced at Captain Teng and said no more.

‘All the same, how can we—?’

‘Please, Jonah!’

Jonah looked at Sam again. Her fists were balled, her whole body tensed as if to keep herself from breaking down. He could see how hard this was for her, leaving her father behind, but he could also see how determined she was. He had an idea.

‘Captain Teng,’ he said. ‘Maybe you could...?’

Teng anticipated his request and nodded solemnly. ‘I know nothing of your mission,’ he said, ‘and perhaps this is for the best. However, it is important to my employer, Mr Chang, else he would not have held up my sailing schedule to accommodate the four of you. So, I remain at your service.’

Captain Teng explained that he and his crew would be staying in a bunkhouse in Sydney, until another Chang Corp freighter could pick them up. He sounded resigned to this, as if he had lost boats in this way before. He probably had, thought Jonah.

‘You mean it?’ said Sam. ‘We can leave Dad and Bradbury with you? You’ll take care of them... Of their bodies?’

‘My crewmen will have much time on their hands,’ said Teng. ‘I will have them search the Metasphere for your friends’ missing avatars.’