My Name is Arthur Pearce

Finally, it's over. I lean forward to press the mute button on the microphone in front of me. Maybe I should have listened to Hanna and just played a pre-recorded message, or… Nah, this is better. I get a stronger sense of connection to the situation. I feel as if I am actually delivering divine retribution or something, as stupid and conceited as that sounds.

I put my hands on my mechanical keyboard and type into an encrypted direct messaging server, 'Hanna, you can tell the penetration team to back out of their mainframes now. There is no point in sending their cybersecurity teams into a bigger panic,' and I hit the enter key.

It's dark in my room. The only source of illumination comes from the computer screens spilling white light onto my face.

A bubble containing my message is sent into the cloud, and a few seconds later, three loading dots pop up from Hanna's account.

'Got it, Arthur. How did the speech go?' Hanna's message comes through.

'According to plan. There were a few thousand people who saw it firsthand, so I would imagine it to be ripping through social media like a tornado right now. Turn on any news channel, you'd probably see it,' I write.

'It's currently 1:00 am where I live, so I don't think I will see anything when I turn on the TV. I am just gonna go to bed soon and check out the aftermath tomorrow,' Hanna writes.

Right, I keep forgetting that we are in different time zones. Speaking of, I have never known which country Hanna is from. Well, there are many things I don't know about her. Actually, now I think about it, there isn't anything I know about her, not her age, not her voice, not her real name, not even the fact that she is really a her, but I don't see a reason why she would have lied about that. To be fair, she doesn't know anything about me, either, nor does anyone. My identity is probably the single most securely hidden on the entire planet.

Well, I do give people my first name, though, but they all probably think it's just an alias I came up with. Plus, what can they do even if they think Arthur is my real name? There are millions of Arthurs out there.

But I digress. Where in the world is 1:00 am right now? I quickly pull up a timezone map on my computer. Let's see… 16 hours ahead of Ottawa… New Zealand? Well, it's either that or the very eastern part of Russia, and I doubt there are many genius cryptanalysts working in rural mountain ranges on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

'Anyway, it's been a while since you have personally involved yourself in an operation, Arthur. How does it feel to be back after disappearing for two months for no reason at all?' Hanna asks.

Indeed, it has been a while. Biology class is killing me, but I can't tell Hanna the reason that I skipped out on preventing a rogue extremist militia from launching an assault on Paris was that I am borderline failing high school bio.

Oh, right, it looks like I have forgotten to introduce myself yet again. My name is Arthur Pearce, and I am a twelfth-year student at Norman Hills Public High School in Canada's capital city, and what you just witnessed was me taking down a global human trafficking ring funded by elite American businessmen with my organization known as QUALIA.

What do I mean by MY organization? Aren't I just some random high school kid? Well, I would like to ask the same question. I have no idea how this got started.

I have always been interested in computers. I started taking part in hackathons and CTF events before I could ride a bike. I was the winner every single year for every single competition. They became so easy that I got bored of them. I wanted to do something real, something exciting. That was when I found out about some corruption accusations against a few politicians in my area. With nothing else to do, I hacked into their "secure" email accounts and found out that they were indeed committing all types of crimes with their funding, so I exposed them for the world to see.

I was a dumb kid, so I thought it would have been cool to pretend like I was some kind of superhero, and I called myself QUALIA. Apparently, people thought that was some kind of vigilante group's debut. The news spread across the globe in a week, and hackers everywhere just started breaking into potentially corrupt politicians' personal accounts under the name QUALIA. Many of the politicians were merely victims of rumors. It got so out of hand, I had to go to some dark-web forums to tell these hackers that's not what QUALIA is about. People asked who I was to speak for QUALIA, and I told them I was the person who started it all. When they didn't believe me, I showed them logged data from when I breached into my local politicians' emails, and would you know it? They started worshiping me like some cult leader, begging me to join the "QUALIA movement". Again, as a dumb kid with barely any friends at the time, I enjoyed the reverence, so I was like, "JOIN ME, YOUNG BLOODS, AND WE SHALL BE THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT PIERCES THROUGH PERCEPTION AND SHOWERS IN ULTIMATE TRUTH" or whatever. I can't help but cringe every time I think about it.

And now, here I am, taking down 6 of the top 200 from Forbes World's Billionaires List. Life sure is strange sometimes.

'It's great to be back, Hanna,' I write into the messaging server, and she sends back a smiley face emoticon.

'That's good to hear. Anyway, the caffeine is wearing off. I am gonna go to sleep now. Good night,' Hanna writes.

'Good work today. You deserve some rest.'

Her icon turns gray, signifying the fact that she has gone offline.

I should go soon, as well. The school bus is almost here. Speaking of, what time is it? I turn to the clock hanging on the wall above my bed and squint my eyes to make out the positions of the hands.

8:46 am.

Shit! I am going to miss the bus!

I shoot up from my desk and dash to the window. After spreading apart the curtains and letting the morning sun blast into my dimly-lit room, I see the bright yellow school bus pulling into the apartment driveway seven floors below me.

Fuck, fuck. I have a math unit test in the morning. If I am late… I shudder at the thought of what hellfire Ms. Pauley is going to rain down on me.

With one hand tripping over the other, I turn off all the screens and computers on my desk. I run out into the living room and pluck some leftover bread from last night out of the fridge.

Bag, bag, where is my bag?

Oh, fuck, it's in the bedroom. I sprint back as quickly as I can, hammering my hand on my room's doorknob in the process, sending a shockwave of pain up my arm, but there is no time to stop and cry.

I snatch my backpack and run for the main door. There are quite a few other students in this apartment complex, so the bus will have to wait for some time, but I don't know if I can make it down seven flights of stairs in that while.

I will just have to pray, then. I slam my front door open with cold bread hanging between my teeth and rush out into the apartment hallway.

Where are my parents? You may ask, wouldn't it be better if I had someone make breakfast for me and warn me whenever I might miss the bus? Yes, it would, but my dad is an international aid worker, and my mom works alongside him as a traveling nurse, so they spend most of the year somewhere in the jungles of Brazil or on the plains of North Africa, but I mostly don't mind. It would be awkward if my speech earlier was interrupted by, "Arty! You are going to miss your bus! It's test day!", anyway.

The bus doors are just closing when I stumble out of the front gate into the sunlight. Thankfully, the bus driver sees me from a distance, and he opens the doors back up to wait for me.

Phew… I made it in time for the test. Take that, Ms. Pauley.