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.
They bombarded him with questions. ‘Are you the little humatar with the story to tell?’ asked a giant caterpillar.
‘Are you the boy who can help us to remember?’ asked a rhinoceros.
Jonah climbed up onto a tree stump and held out his hands for silence. Then he began to tell the Uploaded avatars a story, in terms he hoped they would understand. ‘There is an evil spider that has spun a web around this island,’ he told them. ‘He is keeping your loved ones from coming here to see you, until they agree to serve him.’
The Uploaded avatars thought about this for a while, and agreed that none of them had had a visitor in a long, long time.
Jonah didn’t name the villain of his story. He knew that a good proportion of his audience would have been supporters of Matthew Granger in life. Fortunately, the Uploaded, in their confused states, were more than willing to believe anyone who sounded as if he knew what he was talking about.
‘I want you to help me break this evil spider’s web,’ said Jonah. ‘All you have to do is close your eyes, take slow, deep breaths and listen to my voice...’
He was teaching them his grandmother’s meditation trick.
‘That’s right, and now...now, I want you to think about someone you love. Someone you might have not seen in a long while. Think about a memory you shared with them. A good memory. A happy one.’
Some of the Uploaded were already losing interest, floating away, Jonah’s story forgotten. The rest of them, however...
The rest were doing as Jonah had told them – and they were remembering. Not only that, but they were enjoying it; there were smiles on their faces, blissful sighs hanging in the humid forest air.
Jonah could leave now, and none of them would even notice. The Uploaded would remain in their meditative states long after he had gone, long after he had begun to tell his story to another audience in another clearing.
He desperately sought out groups of Uploaded avatars across the Island. He inspired them to remember before moving on to other groups.
The problem was, his audiences so far had been too few and far too small. Of the millions of avatars upon the Island, he had reached only a tiny fraction.
Jonah’s plan was working – his story was spreading – but too slowly.
Sam’s land yacht was in the lead, speeding towards Ayers Rock.
There were at least twenty guards now, between the two electric fences. They raised their guns, and the air was filled with their still-distant reports.
Sam’s driver pulled a release handle, rolled back the cockpit canopy. Sam’s eyes were stung by a gritty wind. She hadn’t realised how fast they were going.
Before they reached the outer fence, the driver pulled his wheel around. The land yacht skidded on its tyres, made a ninety-degree turn to the right.
They were running parallel to the fences now. Sam hunkered down in front of her seat and poked her father’s pistol over the land yacht’s side. A bullet whistled over her head, almost parting her hair. There was sand in Sam’s eyes and she couldn’t see to aim properly, but the Guardians were waiting on her next move.
The Millennials had opened fire first, she told herself.
She squeezed her trigger four, five, six times – every time she saw a dark-clad shape in her sights. Most of Sam’s bullets ricocheted off the outer fence, in showers of blue sparks, before they could reach their targets. There was still current running through those wires. Jonah had failed in his quest to drain the Southern Corner’s power.
But then, thought Sam, why hadn’t he come back?
The other land yachts had followed the lead of Sam’s. They were fanning out around the electric fences: twenty low-riding, fast-moving targets. They were strafing the fences with gunfire, much of it from bigger and nastier weapons than Sam’s pistol.
She heard the chatter of machine guns, and the whistle and crump of a Guardian rocket launcher. A cloud of dust and sand was blasted up from the desert floor, a stretch of the outer fence mangled. The Millennials behind it scattered and took cover, as much they could, behind other fence posts, still firing.
Sam’s land yacht came around again for a second strafing run. As it did, Sam saw the front tyre of another yacht blown out by a machine-gun bullet, sending it into an uncontrolled skid. Her eyes widened when she spotted a Millennial hoist a rocket launcher onto his shoulder.
The disabled land yacht is a sitting duck, she thought. ‘Get out of there!’ she shouted.
The land yacht’s three occupants leapt out of the cockpit and raced to get clear, as their vehicle was blown apart. Sam was showered with debris.
She loosed off a second volley of six shots. The fourth struck a Millennial in the chest, sending him flying in a spray of blood. Sam’s first kill – or a serious wound at the very least. She tried not to think about it. Her victim would have done the same to her in a heartbeat, she told herself.
She was loading a fresh clip into her pistol when she realised something. The fence. It hadn’t sparked, this time, as her bullets had pinged off it. Sam didn’t know if that was because of the damage it had sustained, or because of something Jonah had done. Either way, it meant only one thing.
She switched the cockpit radio to a general channel, snatched up her handset. ‘The electric fences are down!’ she announced. ‘I repeat, the electric fences are down!’
The Guardians knew what to do.
The remaining nineteen land yachts – Sam’s included – broke off their attack. They sped back out into the desert as if in retreat, but then they circled around to approach the fence head-on. Sam’s driver closed their cockpit canopy and put his foot down hard.
The land yachts barrelled towards the dead fences, relying no longer on wind but on their built-up battery power, using the distance they had gained to pick up speed. Many of the Millennials, when they saw them coming, ran for it. A few stayed, and peppered the approaching vehicles with bullets, to little avail. The canopy over Sam’s head was cracked but not holed.
She heard an explosion to her left. Another Millennial rocket. She didn’t have time to wait for the dust to settle, to assess the damage that might have been done.
The nose of Sam’s land yacht hit the first of the fences.
Jonah heard his own voice slurring.
He wasn’t sure what was happening to him. Tiredness, perhaps? He was in another clearing, addressing another audience of Uploaded avatars. He felt it was hopeless. The attack on the Southern Corner must have begun by now. He had to keep trying, anyway.
He was urging the Uploaded to remember – not just sights and sounds, but smells, tastes and textures. He told them they had to build as vivid a picture of the past as they could in their minds. Jonah raised his hand, to rub his weary eyes, but the movement of his arm was slow, sluggish.
He looked closely at his fingers. He wiggled them. There was a noticeable lag between his deciding what to do and his avatar responding to his brain’s command.
A shadow fell over him. Jonah looked up and saw a familiar avatar coming in to land beside him. A sleek and powerful red dragon. Dad.
‘Jonah? Son? Is that you?’
Jonah smiled. ‘It’s me, Dad.’
‘You found me. I knew you’d find me.’
‘Actually, Dad, it was you who found me this time.’
Jonah’s words were coming back to his ears a half-second after he spoke them. It was weird.
‘I spoke to your grandmother,’ said Dad.
‘I’d love to talk,’ said Jonah, ‘I really would. But I’m in the middle of something right now, and I think... I think it might just be starting to work.’
‘I’ve been doing what I can,’ said Dad.
‘I don’t know why it should,’ said Jonah. ‘I didn’t think I’d reached enough of the Uploaded. But it is. We’re putting too great a demand on the Southern Corner’s servers. They’re starting to slow down. They’re... What did you just say?’
‘I’ve been spreading this story of yours,’ said Dad. ‘I can’t say I understand it, but you’re old enough now, Jonah. I trust you to do what you think is right.’
‘Nan told you the story? I didn’t think she’d remember it. I didn’t think you’d remember it, at least not for long enough to—’
‘She said the story was important to you, son. So, it’s important to us too.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Jonah. ‘Yes. Yes, it’s important. It—’
‘I can handle things here from now on, son.’
‘Are you sure? Some of the Uploaded, they must be starting to come out of their meditations already. We need to tell more, keep up the pressure on the—’
‘We’ll keep spreading the story, your grandmother and I,’ Dad promised. ‘We’ll keep telling them to remember.’
Jonah nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Dad. I could do with... I don’t know what’s been happening in the real world, with Sam and the others. I could do with getting back there. They might need my help.’