MidReal Story
Reality's Rebellion: Uniting Minds to Unmask Illusions
Scenario: The Earth has gone into chaos with people living in the Augmented Realities. A group of young people with high IQ from around the world get together to get rid of technology by hacking the whole system.
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This isn’t you”, they said when they sentenced me to five years in prison for resisting arrest at a political protest.
You’re better than this.”
The world is a mess.
It’s been a mess for a long time, but it’s getting worse.
Maybe I was better than that, but I was also better at that than anything else I’d ever tried to do.
I can see it in the eyes of the people around me, in the way they walk and talk and live their lives.
So I kept doing it, kept fighting the system in whatever way I could until I found a way to fight back on a bigger scale than ever before.
They’re all so disconnected from reality, so absorbed in their own little worlds that they don’t even notice what’s happening right in front of them.
It was the biggest hack I’d ever attempted, one that would change everything for everyone everywhere if I could pull it off successfully.
They don’t see the poverty, the corruption, the violence.
And I was so close to doing it—so close to finally making a difference after all these years—when I hit a wall so high that I couldn’t see over it or find a way around it no matter how hard I tried.
They don’t see the way the government controls every aspect of their lives, or how the corporations are slowly taking over.
It’s not fair”, I said as I stared at my computer screen in disbelief.
They don’t see it because they don’t want to see it.
I can do this.”
It’s easier to just pretend everything is fine, to keep living in their little bubble and ignore what’s going on outside of it.
You can hack into the AR network?”
Liam Zhang said from halfway around the world when I showed him what I’d found.
But I can’t do that.
I can’t just sit back and watch as the world falls apart around me.
I can access it from this end”, he said after a moment of contemplative silence.
“But it’s heavily encrypted… even more than usual…”
I have to do something about it.
And I will do something about it.
I know,” I said with a sigh.
And I knew what he was thinking too because it was the same thing I’d been thinking since the moment I got stuck.
Because I’m not like them.
I’ve always been different.
It’s not possible.”
No”, he said as he shook his head.
Even as a little girl, I knew there was something wrong with the world, that things weren’t as perfect as the grownups liked to pretend they were.
I’m not saying it’s not possible.
I never bought into the lies they fed us, never accepted things at face value just because that was the way it had always been done.
I questioned everything, from the stories they told us in school to the rules they forced us to follow.
I’m saying it’s not worth it.”
What are you talking about?”
I demanded answers, and when they couldn’t give them to me, I made it my mission to find them myself.
I’m talking about the fact that the AR system is the most secure network on the planet.
Growing up in the aftermath of the Collapse, I learned early on that the world was a dangerous place, one that was constantly changing and evolving in ways we couldn’t predict or control.
Even with all the resources at your disposal—and all the time in the world—you’d never be able to break through all the layers of encryption and security protocols they have in place.”
I quickly discovered that the only way to survive in such a world was to adapt, to be willing to learn new things and try new experiences, even if they scared me or made me uncomfortable.
But there was one change I never embraced, one thing I refused to assimilate into my life no matter how hard they tried to force it on me.
He’s right”, Maya Kapoor said as she suddenly appeared on my screen as well.
Even if you could pull it off—which is unlikely at best—there’s no way you’d get away with it.
They called it the Augmented Reality system, and from the moment it was introduced, they made it clear that it was mandatory for every citizen of the Global Union to use it, whether we wanted to or not.
But I didn’t want to.
They’d detect an intrusion within seconds and shut you down before you could do any damage.”
There has to be another way”, I said.
I didn’t want to be plugged into some computer program all day long, living my life through a digital avatar while my real body wasted away in front of a screen.
I didn’t want them tracking my every move, monitoring my thoughts and emotions and using that information to manipulate me however they saw fit.
There has to be some kind of backdoor or vulnerability in the system that we can exploit.”
And I sure as hell didn’t want them erasing our history and rewriting our memories, turning us all into mindless drones who were incapable of thinking for themselves or questioning their authority.
If there is, we haven’t found it yet”, Liam said.
We’ve been looking for months and haven’t come up with anything.”
So I rebelled.
I fought against it with everything I had, pushing back against anyone who tried to force me to conform and obey their rules.
But I kept looking”, I said.
And I found something…”
But no matter how hard I tried, I was always outnumbered and outgunned, always fighting an uphill battle that I could never hope to win on my own.
It was a losing battle, but I fought it anyway because it was important to me, because I refused to give up without a fight.
“I can see why you’re so excited”, Liam said as he stared at his computer screen in shock.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
As I got older, I became even more rebellious, lashing out against anyone who tried to control me and make me do things their way instead of how I wanted to do them.
“Me neither”, I said as I looked over my notes one more time to make sure I hadn’t missed anything important.
I became more aggressive and confrontational, more willing to take risks and break rules if it meant getting my way.
And as a result, I got into a lot of trouble over the years, more trouble than most people would have been able to handle.
“I don’t know how long it’ll take us to work out the details… but if we can pull this off…”
“…we’ll change the world forever”, Liam said as he stared at his screen in disbelief.
But I could handle it.
“It’s complicated”, Liam said after we spent hours going over everything together and he finally had a chance to catch his breath.
“But it’s doable…”
“It is”, I agreed with him.
The next day, my heart was still pounding like a drum from all the adrenaline still rushing through my veins when a news alert popped up on one of my screens and caught my eye.
A few taps of my keyboard were all it took for a video feed to pop up and show me a news report from a local network.
Even though the story had just broken, there was already a huge crowd gathered around an empty lot in the middle of downtown.
The reporter on screen was saying that construction on the new infrastructure that would support the AR network was already underway and that it was being funded by Wildfire Global.
The Corporation’s New York headquarters were located downtown, not too far from where construction was taking place.
And with all the commotion going on outside, most—if not all—of their employees were probably out there watching as well.
My heart started racing again as soon as I realized what that meant.
If Wildfire Global was building the infrastructure for the AR network, that meant they were responsible for maintaining it as well.
And that meant they had access to all of its core system codes.
I don’t know…”
Maya said as she chewed on her lower lip.
“It’s risky”, she added after a long moment.
“But it could work.”
It’s the only way”, Liam said as he stared at his screen with his brow furrowed in concentration.
And he was right too.
There was no way we could take down the AR network without first getting our hands on its core system codes.
And that meant… “We’re going to have to break into Wildfire Global’s headquarters and steal them.”
That’s not going to be easy”, Maya said.
Especially with all the security they have in place to prevent cyber attacks like this one.”
Which is why Elena’s going to need your help”, Liam said as he turned his attention back to me.
“I’ll have to get you in and keep you hidden until you can find what you’re looking for.”
“I’m in”, Maya said as she flashed me her trademark grin.
“I’ll meet you back in New York in four days.”
I’ll see you there”, she said with a smirk.
I said as I watched her disappear from my screen and then turned my attention back to Liam.
“You’re sure you can pull this off?”
I asked him as soon as the door to his room was closed behind him and there was no one else around to listen in on our conversation.
“I don’t know”, I admitted with a frown.
“It’s complicated… and I don’t think we’ll have time to run a simulation before we try it for real.”
“Do you want me to write you some code?”
“I’m okay for now”, I told him because the last thing I needed was for him to suggest I use some kind of backdoor or vulnerability to get into the system and then have him slip up and accidentally leave it behind while he was disabling all of the security protocols.
“No offense”, I added after a long moment because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings either.
He raised an eyebrow at me after that, suggesting that I hadn’t fooled him, but he didn’t call me on it either, so I slipped my hands into my front pockets and turned my attention back to the street we were walking down.
For a long moment, there was nothing but silence between us, so I took a deep breath and let it out again before asking, “Do you think we can really pull this off?”
he asked as he looked over at me again with his head tilted to one side, his eyes hidden behind his glasses so that I could only see my own reflection staring back at me.
“Even if we do…”
“I know”, he said as soon as he realized what I was trying to say, “but we don’t really have a choice, do we?”
I shook my head at that because he was right; we didn’t really have any other options unless we wanted to let Wildfire Global continue to control all of our lives through the AR system they had set up all around us.
And we didn’t, so that meant we had to take them down and free the billions of people who were still trapped inside the network.
Even if it meant that… “I’m going to have to go back in too”, I said after a long moment.
My voice was barely above a whisper as I spoke the words out loud for the first time, but I knew that Liam would still be able to hear them, so I looked over at him again even though he couldn’t see me through the reflection in his glasses.
“I know I said I’d never get caught again… but I also said that we’d fight until everyone else was free too.”
“And you meant it”, he said with a small smile after a moment.
“I know you did.”
“It’s just…”
But I didn’t know how to put into words what it felt like, knowing that I was going to have to go back inside the AR system.
It was like a piece of my soul had been ripped out when they took me out of there.
Even if I had already known about everything that was going on inside the network when they hooked me up for the first time. I’d seen the news reports and read all the stories people were sharing online, but none of that had prepared me for how bad it was going to be once I got there.
But the truth was that I’d never really had much hope growing up in the slums of Mexico City.
Not the way that some people thought children did anyway.
I just got even better at hiding that part of myself from everyone else.
I grew up in the slums of Mexico City with my parents and my little sister.
We lived on top of each other in a tiny one-bedroom apartment that had no heat and no air conditioning and no clean water or plumbing or anything else you needed to survive and be healthy.
The summers were so hot that it felt like you were going to melt into the pavement, and then the winters were so cold that you couldn’t stop shivering no matter how many layers you put on.
But my parents were both from Mexico City too, and when they were younger they’d both dreamed of going away to college and getting good jobs and making something better out of their lives than what they’d had growing up poor.
My mother had even gotten accepted to a computer science program at a university in Mexico City, but then she got pregnant with me and she decided that she needed to stay home and take care of my sister and me instead.
So my father went away instead and joined the military, but he came back home after just a few years and then he spent most of his days sitting around getting drunk and beating up my mother instead of doing anything else.
And then when I was twelve years old, my parents both died in a car accident while they were out driving around drinking too much one night and left my sister and me all alone in the world.
Our parents had never quite managed to save up enough money to get us out of Mexico City like they’d always wanted, but they did leave us with an envelope full of cash and a list of phone numbers for our relatives who lived up near the border with Texas that they’d kept in touch with over the years.
They even wrote a letter and left it for my sister and me to find too, with a list of instructions about what they wanted us to do if something ever happened to them.
They asked our aunt and uncle to come down and take care of us, and my sister and I went to live with them in a different city that was far enough away that we wouldn’t have to see the same empty streets and abandoned buildings and think about our parents being gone.
But my aunt and uncle didn’t have any children of their own, and they didn’t really want to take care of two young girls who they didn’t know very well either.
So after my uncle got sick and died a couple of years later, my aunt decided that she couldn’t afford to keep both of us anymore.
