MetaWars: Fight For The Future

Chapter 19

There was an unwelcome knock on Jonah’s door.

‘Go away!’ he shouted.

He was lying on his bed, his arms wrapped around his pillows. His heartbeat was still racing after the scene in the dining room downstairs. The door opened. Jonah looked up, hoping despite himself that it might be Sam who had come to see him. It was Axel.

‘Pretty tough words,’ said Axel. ‘Can’t say that maybe I don’t deserve them.’

‘Maybe?’ replied Jonah.

‘OK, probably. And that’s the best you’ll get.’

Jonah didn’t say anything. He knew Axel wanted to get inside his head, and he wasn’t going to let him.

Axel turned a chair around and sat on it, resting his elbows on its back. Jonah didn’t move. ‘Listen, I just

came to check you were all right.’

‘No,’ said Jonah, ‘you didn’t. You came to talk me

into letting you search my brain. To find more places to blow up. More people to kill. Well, you’re wasting your time.’

‘Now listen here, son,’ said Axel.

‘I’m not your son,’ snapped Jonah. ‘I’m not anybody’s son! Not any more.’

‘I know you’re upset by what Delphine said, but I think—’

‘You almost had me believing... On the airship,

you said my dad was one of you, that he died for the Guardians. But he didn’t. My dad didn’t die for the Guardians. The Guardians killed him!’

‘No. No, Jonah, that’s not what happened.’

‘If the Guardians didn’t do it, then someone like GuerreVert did, someone like Delphine, and you... You’re happy to work with them, knowing what they are.’

‘Jonah, no one ever claimed responsibility for the airport bombings,’ said Axel. ‘You must know that. The media blamed the Guardians, but—’

‘Who else should they have blamed? The Millennials? Do you think they’d try to kill their own leader? The Millennials would have known Mr Granger was flying into London that day – that my dad was flying him into Heathrow.’

‘The Millennials killed your mother, Jonah. That much, we do know.’

As if Jonah had needed reminding. He pushed his face deeper into his pillows and willed himself not to cry. ‘It might not help you to hear this,’ said Axel, ‘but Delphine lost her parents too. She was six when Mauritius finally sank into the sea. There weren’t enough rescue boats. She was sent away with the other kids. Her mother promised her she would follow. That’s what drives Delphine, Jonah. She blames everyone who flies a plane or drills for oil or who manufactures plastic for the genocide of her people and the murder of her family.’

‘Sounds right up her street, then,’ said Jonah, ‘to bomb an airport.’

‘Maybe,’ conceded Axel, ‘but if GuerreVert had done something like that, I figure they’d be shouting it from the rooftops, don’t you?’

Once again, Jonah found he had nothing to say to that.

‘We need Delphine,’ said Axel. ‘Hell, I wish we didn’t. You know this wasn’t the plan. We were meant to take the airship to Iran, hop a plane to China from there. No can do, not any more. Our contact in Tehran won’t wait for us. Too much Millennial heat. Only Delphine can help us.’