It was the biggest news story in years:
One quarter of the Metasphere lost. Hundreds of avatars missing, presumed deleted. Matthew Granger blames Guardians for Metasphere crash.
Granger was, in fact, appearing on countless news programmes, ensuring that his version of events reached the widest possible audience.
A different story emerged from Mr Chang, however – or rather, from his spokespeople; as the young entrepreneur remained hidden in the shadows as usual.
Chang Corp’s take on the crash was that it proved the folly of giving one man too much power. They said it was Matthew Granger’s hubris that had led to this disaster. Chang Corp claimed the credit for the saving of the Uploaded, and invited everyone to join them in their new and more efficient Changsphere.
Granger was furious, of course. He accused Mr Chang of stealing his proprietary software, and of wanting nothing less than total power for himself.
Meanwhile, reports of casualties were still coming in. Fortunately, they were few in number, thanks to Sam’s evacuation of the affected zones. Still, a lot of people had lost a lot of meta-dollars in the crash. They wanted compensation from someone.
Some were saying they were afraid to go back into the Metasphere now. What if more servers failed, they asked? What if there was no warning next time?
Many took up Chang Corp on their offer. Settlers began to move their families, their businesses, their whole online lives to the Changsphere.
At the edge of the Metasphere – its new edge – there was an aching grey void. But, in the heart of that void, visible for miles around, a window of pure white light shone. In increasing numbers, avatars were flying across the void, into that light. They were seeking a new world of safety and security. And the Changsphere was ready to accommodate them.
Jonah followed these events on a monitor, in his bunkroom, inside Ayers Rock. Sometimes, he had to pinch himself to be sure he wasn’t dreaming.
Everyone was talking about what he had done. Oh, sure, they hadn’t mentioned him by name. They didn’t know what he looked like.
But Jonah knew. He knew the part he had played in recent events.
When he had filtered his father’s avatar, those few short weeks ago in the gift shop cellar, he couldn’t have imagined it would lead to this.
Jonah was just a poor nobody from a Clapham Common bus-flat. He had just been trying to stay alive – and yet somehow, in the process, he had changed the world.
It was a very odd feeling.
Three days after the taking of the Southern Corner, amid the clean up at Uluru, Sam got a lead from a Guardian contact, and she and Jonah plugged themselves into the Metasphere to visit a virtual fairground.
The fairground boasted re-creations of the world’s greatest rollercoasters. It all seemed a little old hat to Jonah, who was used to greater thrills. Still, the rides were popular with the older generation.
At the end of a long pier, beside a candyfloss stand, they found two familiar avatars: a gryphon and a Clydesdale horse.
‘There they are,’ said Sam.
Axel and Bradbury were hovering aimlessly, mindlessly, gazing out to sea. Sam ran up to her father, threw her front legs around him in relief. He looked right through her.
‘Dad, it’s me, Sam,’ she said. Jonah could sense the tears behind her trembling voice. ‘We found you.’
They led the disconnected avatars away from the pier. Axel and Bradbury came willingly, but Jonah and Sam had to keep a close eye on them to keep them from forgetting where they were and wandering off again.
They flew all day, Sam dragging her father and Jonah pushing Bradbury. Jonah grew tired – mentally tired – and worried that his real-world body hadn’t eaten, but Sam wouldn’t hear of them taking a break for any reason.
At last, they reached the virtual city of Neo Tokyo, where their charges had entered the Metasphere three days ago.
Jonah and Sam searched the skies above the neon streets until two exit halos glowed, beckoning Axel and Bradbury back to the real world. Sam nudged her father towards his halo.
‘Please wake up, Dad,’ she said, and she kissed Axel softly on his forehead before she pushed him through the ring of light. The halo swallowed him and disappeared. Jonah then gave Bradbury an almighty shove into his halo, leaving Sam and Jonah hovering in the sky together, waiting for news from the real world.
‘Thank you, Jonah,’ she said.
‘For what?’ asked Jonah. He felt he was just doing what anyone would do for a best friend.
‘For never giving up. Ever.’
The news came, at last, in the form of a pop-up addressed to Sam. Jonah couldn’t see the private message, but he saw Sam’s reaction as she read it. He put his arms around the unicorn avatar’s neck and hugged her tightly as she cried with relief.
‘They’re all right!’ she said, regaining her composure. ‘Captain Teng says they woke up in his bunkhouse a few minutes ago, confused and hungry but with no brain damage.’
Jonah was delighted for her. For the past few days, Sam had looked as if she was carrying a great weight around on her shoulders. Now, she was smiling again. He had missed seeing her smile.
‘They’re on their way from Sydney in a land yacht,’ said Sam. ‘They should be with us in two days.’ She darted forward and, before Jonah knew what she was doing, she had planted a quick kiss on his cheek. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that maybe his avatar was blushing.
Axel and Bradbury weren’t the only Guardians en route to Ayers Rock.
They arrived in dribs and drabs over the next few days, from all over Australia and in some cases from beyond. Some of them were fighters, pledged to defend the Southern Corner from any Millennial attempt to recapture it. Others were technicians and engineers, who set about repairing the damaged servers.
Axel and Bradbury joined them, as scheduled, on the evening of the second day. Sam raced across the red sand to greet her father, who jumped out of his land yacht and ran to meet her. Axel picked up Sam and swung her around.
‘I’m sorry I got lost, kiddo,’ he said.
‘But we found you,’ said Sam.
Axel was like a kid at Christmas, too excited to keep still. He insisted on touring the facility inside Uluru, and on hearing the story of its capture three or four times.
‘The Southern Corner,’ he kept saying to himself, with a broad grin on his face. ‘I’m inside the Southern Corner. I can’t believe it!’
One time, he even ruffled Jonah’s hair and said, ‘And it’s all down to our secret weapon here. Jason’s little boy. Who’d have thought it?’
Jonah didn’t want to take any credit. Granger’s words still played on his conscience: I’m just asking you to think again about some of your choices... We would make an excellent team, the two of us.
‘It was Sam who led the attack,’ he mumbled.
‘And a brilliant job she did of it too,’ said Axel, with a wink in his daughter’s direction. ‘Well done, kiddo. A real chip off the old block!’
Bradbury was less effusive with his praise. He reminded Axel that not everything had gone according to plan. Granger still controlled the three other corners.
‘And what exactly did happen on the Island?’ he challenged. ‘Why was the Chang Bridge installed at all?’ The answers made him scowl, and Jonah felt as if Bradbury was blaming him personally for everything that had gone wrong.
Axel, however, was not to be disheartened. ‘So, Mr Chang has his new world up and running,’ he said. ‘Who cares? The Changsphere might be flavour of the month right now, but people will soon see it’s just the same old same old.’
‘Maybe,’ said Bradbury, doubtfully.
‘Definitely,’ said Axel. ‘Once they have a choice, between another dictatorship and a Metasphere that’s free and open...’
‘We’re a long way from that,’ Sam reminded him.
‘We’re a quarter of the way there,’ said Axel, ‘and we still have our secret weapon.’ He turned to Jonah, slapped him on the back. ‘How about it, kid? You found us one of the Four Corners. You reckon you can find us the other three?’
They rebooted the Southern Corner the next morning. The control room was packed with Guardians, poised with baited breath over rows of blank monitor screens. At Axel’s nod, Sam flicked the switch, and Jonah felt vibrations from the servers beneath him thrumming through the floor.
Five seconds passed, ten, and then the monitors began to light up one by one.
At first, only white lines appeared on them, snaking across grey backgrounds, but then those white lines intersected and began to form the skeletons of shapes, and those shapes were filled with colours and after that textures.
Soon enough, Jonah was looking at cities and forests and oceans and deserts, and his ears were ringing with the cheers of his Guardian allies.
They hadn’t been able to bring everything back. Some of the data on the hard drives was badly corrupted. Still, about ninety-eight per cent of the Southern Corner’s lost infrastructure had been restored – and it was safely out of Granger’s control.
Jonah’s gaze lingered on one particular screen, at the familiar image of the Island of the Uploaded. With the sun shining upon it and the sea lapping its shores, it looked like the paradise it had always been. But the Island was empty now, of course.
In the sky above the Island, white light still streamed from the opening to the Changsphere. Bradbury thought he might be able to close that opening, using Mr Chang’s device, but Axel talked him down.
‘I don’t like it any more than you do,’ he said, ‘but right now the Chang Bridge isn’t just a way out of the Metasphere, it’s also the path back. We have to keep it open.’
Axel had brought something with him from Sydney: a bottle of sparkling wine. Jonah couldn’t imagine how he might have come by it without spending a fortune. Axel handed paper cups around the room, and poured a splash of wine into each of them until the bottle ran dry. Then he lifted his own cup and proposed a toast.
‘To the Guardians,’ said Axel. ‘To victory. To freedom!’
‘Freedom!’ the assembled Guardians chorused.
Jonah didn’t enjoy his wine. It had a bitter aftertaste to it, and the fizz went up his nose. Anyway, he wasn’t sure he had much cause for celebration.
He had helped the Guardians seize control of the Southern Corner. Without him, they would still be searching for it.
In the process, he had caused the biggest disaster the Metasphere had ever seen. He had almost wiped out the Uploaded, and had stood by as scores of people had died in the real world.
And he had lost his home, and his mum.
And this was only the beginning of the metawars. I’m just asking you to think again about some of your choices.
Granger had been so sure of himself, convinced he was right. He had presented his case not emotionally but with cold, hard logic. And, when faced with those logical arguments, Jonah had been unable to counter them. He still couldn’t.
What Granger had said – about the Metasphere needing structure, organisation and vision – that was what Jonah had believed for most of his life. But then, he believed in freedom too. He believed in Sam and in Axel, and in what they stood for.
Yes, Jonah Delacroix had changed the world.
He only wished he knew if he had changed it for the better or for the worse.