MapleSAP Special: Hackers
Part 5: Hacker Rehab

It’s Monday, and we have been in 7ung Hwang for two days now, staying at a youth hostel down the street from the Toa Payoh hacker residence. Over the weekend, Alysha consulted a lawyer about the death warrant.
The attorneys at Bluebird Associates conduct their legal work defending hackers in court. They specialize in protecting civillian hackers from the long arms of the law, which they say is repeatedly twisted and broken by the city courts.
Alysha was sent on referral by the counselor at her school. The lawyer, Mr. Fred Yeung, was assigned to the case. He agreed to speak to us.
“I looked over the copy of the warrant and the other papers the girl handed to me. This is an easy case. This warrant is illegal because, Ms. Erickson is living within the safety zone, which covers both Kerning and Yazhou. The judge who authorized this warrant overlooked the laws that protect hackers’ rights.”
Mr. Cheung assured Alysha and her school counselor that the warrant will be negated within a week.

After much debate, Alysha has allowed only Malon to accomopany her to school. Alysha is attending Sunwing High School, an all Chinese speaking institution. Students wear uniforms here, and are taught according to the Singapura school curriculum.
“My first class used to be Literature, but since I can’t read Chinese, I’m with this other teacher doing pinyin.”
“What’s that?” Malon asked.
“It’s writing Chinese words with latin letters, but it’s like French; the letters don’t sound the same. It’s kind of hard.”
Learning pinyin involves identifying the different tones in the words.
“Like ma and ma sound the same, but even though the spelling is the same, different voice tones make them completely different words.”
Alysha; the only english speaker in the school, studies her pinyin under the guide of her Chinese teacher.
“She’ll give me a work sheet, and I do it, and when she’s done talking to everyone else, she looks at my stuff.”

On the other hand, math is easier. Alysha still maintains the B grade she had at Holly X. But she says math is still a nightmare. “I can crunch out the numbers, but because I can’t read the instructions, I have to do each question like five different ways.”
Classes such as Science, social studies, and other acedemic structures, Alysha’s progress is dead. However in gym class, art, home functions, and textiles, Alysha learns well from watching other students.
Today, she completed her first textyles project, a woolen flap ear cap. “Check it out!” she said. “Monkey see, monkey do!” she laughed.
“Well done,” Malon said as she wore the cap. O.m.g it’s so warm!”
“I hate brainfreeze, and i somehow get it when im out in the cold,” Alysha said, snatching the cap off Malon’s head, and put it on. The teacher examined the hat and gave Alysha a 96% grade. He shook her hand and spoke in Mandarin.
“Shyeh shyeh,” Alysha said for thanks.

Despite her progress and oppertunity to overcome challenges at Sunwing School, this former pureblood has seen only the bad side of fellow students and teachers here. At lunch hour, she told Malon about it as she was cleaning out her locker.
“That’s the third lock they gave me since I got here. People keep breaking into my locker, take my stuff and make a big fuqking mess of everything. two of my textbooks got stolen and now I owe the teachers 50K. When the hallways are crowded, people shove me and stuff, and call me hackii, and say a bunch of crap in Chinese.”
She checked the t-shirt wrapped around her neck.
“Do the teachers let you wear that in class?”
“No, but I don’t care. I mean they know I got hack marks on my neck, and they tell me to take it off anyways, but they don’t care anymore. On Friday, these snob preps came up to me and friggin threw me into the girls’ bathroom, all because of my scarf! This one rich bich, Wei Zhao, who’s got–[puts on sweat shirt]–her own clique said she hated my guts. Her friends took it off, half choking me and threw it away. Then they jammed my face in the toilet, and took me out and pushed me down the hall. Everyone was yelling and sneering and shyt!”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Malon said sadly.
“o.m.g, there she is!” Alysha said, pointing at a group of glitzy girls strutting down the hall. They wore make-up, with snooty facial expressions to go with it. Their shirts and skirts had patches pinned on them.
The group walked past.
“I swear I wish I had hack powers so I could kill her!” Alysha fumes.
“You don’t have hack powers?”
“No! The only thing that happens is when I have bad dreams at night. I wake up and I’m floating in the air, then I drop and hit the floor!”
“Ohh, so that’s how you got that bruise on your face.”
“Yeah!” Alysha said, rubbing the bruise on her cheek.
“What about the teachers? How are they?”
“They suck! They’re so mean! This one guy punched out a kid in my science class and he shredded up his paper and threw it in his face!”
“Ouch!”
“Let’s get outta here!”

Alysha attends only morning classes now. After lunch, she takes the bus accross town every Monday ,Wednesday, and Thursday to the Irioka Community Center, perhaps the largest rec centre in 7ung Hwang. The building sits on the campus of the XinHua Collegiate. Irioka Center hosts the Hacker Rehabilitation Program, which is designed to counsel, and train hackers, and re-integrate them back into society. The program is open to all civillian hackers either those who are born hackers, or those who became hackers by other means. The HRP is funded and controlled by the Kiang Mental Health Foundation; a key financer of mental health services accross the Kerning City area.
The KMHF established the HRP back in 1981. The program was approved by Kerning City’s council in their own hopes to curb the city’s worsening hacker nightmare. So far, the program has worked.

Alysha and Malon were given a ride by her counselor Mrs. Pei, who obviously did not trust Malon.
The building is three floors high, and painted white and green.
The women walked in to the front desk at the lobby. “Hello Alysha ni hao?”
“I’m good.”
“Who’s this with you?”
Mrs. Pei spoke out. “This is Malon Windsworth of MapleSAP media. She wants to see what Alysha does here.”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t allow strangers inside. It violates the kids’ privacy rights leh.”
“What about quick tour?”
The secretary paused a minute. “Okay we allow tour, but it has to be quick.”
“Thanks” Malon said.
“Xie, xie, ma’am”

The tour was guided by one of the teachers.
“My name is Jerry Lim, I am the trainers. It’s my job to help young hackers learn to control their special abilites. Training them to control their powers helps them avoid the dangers that their powers would otherwise control. Come. I show you gym.

The gym wasn’t part of the building, but part of the Collegiate. Jungle gyms and gymastics equipment were set up, and there were hacker kids playing around. Kids were bouncing on the trampolines, climbing the ladders to the ceiling and letting themselves drop to the giant cushions below.
“As you can see, these children are playing around, using all of their muscles in their bodies and exerting their own energy. In this free play, they learn to use their own bodies to do these things. These kids are all fly hackers, and in today’s excercises, they are learning to detect their fly hacks and to not use them,”

Some girls and boys, about age 6-8 climb the ladders and ropes above the cushions.
“I can fall faster than you lah!” one girl said.
“Ka ni na!”
“Hey! Ray! You watch your mouth lah! Don’t make me put you on time out again!”
“What did he say?” Malon asked.
The other training instructor came up. “He said very bad swear word. It essential to keep foul words from spreading, it threatens the peace environment we maintain here liao.”
Up on the ladder, the girl jumps, and falls. “Weeeeee!”
She lands on her back on the cushion.
The boy said something out in Mandarin, as he clung to the ladder.
“Ray! Come on! you can do it!” the instructor said.
The little boy lets go of the ladder, but instead of falling he floats in the air, and drifts away from the jungle-gym.
“Wa kao la! I flying!” he squeals.
“Ray! This not time to use your fly skill! You have to avoid using it!” The instructor looks at us. “He’s a difficult one. He love flying ever since he was in focus training class. Drop, Ray!”
“Wo bu!”
“Focus out! Focus out! Pretend you fall!”
The kid finally got it and plunged into the cushion; screaming all the way.

Other kids climb the ropes, bounce off trampolines.
“The trampolines are the difficult step in controlling fly skill. It involuntary action that take control over you because if you feel like you are not control of your entire kinetic motions, your brain thinks you are in danger and activates fly skill. Even though these children love bouncing on trampoline, they forget to focus and go flying everywhere!” the guy laughed. “Then we have to hold up hooks for them to grab on and pull them down again!”

“Why not train them at an earlier age?” Malon asked.
“The power has to be developed enough for them to recognize it. It has to show. If we just training three or four year olds, we just wasting time.”
“Oh,”
Alysha watches as one kid struggles to pull himself up the rope.
“That boy is James. He speak Malay, but he know what to do here. We had him for two years now; he come to us at age 6. Born from hacker family. When he 6 years, his fly power explode and was out of control, flying around against his will banging into everything. His father bring him here every day. He slow learner, but he gain progress.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“Ah, James finally master control of his fly ability, and is focusing not to use it. He is finally using his own muscles for first time, and things like climbing, running, working are very difficult for him. His muscles will develop fast, so we put him on protein diet to ensure muscle growth. He do rigorous workout of sit up, push up, and running every day.”
“Alysha, you go on trampoline, let’s see how you have been doing.” the other trianer said.
“Okay.”
Alysha took off her shoes and sweatshirt (donated items issued to her by Mr. Rei).
She climbed onto the platform next to the trampoline. “What do you want me to do?”
“Bounce on it, then I wan you to hop the circuit! Do five bum-drops on each!”
“Okay”
Alysha stepped to the center of the first trampoline and started bouncing slowly.
“She also fly hacker.” the trainer said to Malon and Mrs. Pei. “In her first examination, we were surprised at how quickly her hack powers developed. She said she floating when she asleep and she fall and hurt herself when she away. She also fly when running from bullies. Said they threw crap at her as she float in air.”
“Oh crap!” Alysha screamed as she accidently bounced too high. Because she was startled, she lost control, and flew up wards.
“Oh crap oh crap oh crap!”
“Alysha! Go to rope, and climb down!”
“I can’t! I don’t know how to fly!”
The instructor looked at Malon and the counselor. “She still need to begin fly program. You can’t not use a power if you don’t know how to use it.”
The other guy grabbed the long metal pole and pointed it upwards. Alysha grabbed the end and he lowered the pole, bringing her to the floor again.
She pressed her feet on the wood, but still felt like she was about to drift off again.
“Focus out! You need to shut off the power!”
Alysha stood, drifting inches off the floor, like an astronaut on the floor of a shuttle in space. Her hair also looked like it was in zero-gravity.
“Concentrate, Alysha. You can do it!”
Still shaking, she nodded, closed her eyes and pressed her hands together like she was praying.
“Stupid hack power, stop!”
Then, her feet hit the floor and she wobbled till she got her balance. Alysha stood bent over, her hands on her knees, panting like she just run a marathon.
“The hack uses up alot of energy in untrained people. You okay?”
Alysha nodded. “Yeah. That was so scary!”
“You going to be alright. Take a break and try again.”

10 minutes later, she bounced around on the trampolines and made her way accross all 10 of them. After the last one, she jumped and landed on her feet.
“When I jumped, I thought it was going to kick in again,”

The instructor left the other guy to resume class, and the tour continued.
“We have opposite classes here. One to train young hackers to use their powers, and one to train them NOT to use their powers. It is a controversy, because the general public fears if hackers know how to use their powers, they will hack more and more, but if we don’t train them to identify and use their powers, they will be a danger to themselves and everyone around them.

In a classroom near by, children and some adults sat at tables, palms flat on the tables, and stacks of blocks in front of them. One guy took a deep breath, held it, and watched the blocks in front of him float and orbit eachother right in front of him.
“These are vack-hackers. They are in an advanced class where they use their vac powers to control the motion of objects. It’s like telekinesis; but these are not magicians, so it’s called vack. Come. I show you a junior class.”

The room next door was like the rooms at Naora Psychiatric Hospital; the ceiling, floor, and walls were all covered in thick foam. There were toys, but they were all plush toys.
“These rooms are common. They are where we first train vac and fly hackers. Fly hackers who have no control over their abilities fly out of control and at high speed too, and crash into everything. Here they do, but without the injuries. It’s until they have some control they stay in these rooms.”
“Were you in here?” Malon asked Alysha. the girl nodded grudgingly.
“I’ll never forget all the headaches I got from constantly slamming face first into everything! I was here for, like three days straight. I really tweaked out and went out of control when a bunch of kids beat me up at the spoiled brat’s school.” she said, fighting back tears.
“You got beat up? That’s how you lost control?” Malon asked.
“It was like a stress trigger! I got stomped and shyt-kicked and beat up by all these hacker haters and Victorian kids who were visiting, and I just snapped!” she cried, wiping her eyes. “I-I finally lost it and shot into the air spinning like I got shot out of a cannon. I was whipping around the air like a fly on crack! I got so airsick I was vomiting and everything!”
The instructor cut in. “It happened right outside. Mrs. Pei brought her here for an examination about 5 weeks ago, and she strayed off with the kids from Kerning City, and they all attacked her. The local pureblood kids joined the gang beat
and as a response to her situation, the hackium power exploded, and she flew away. We have high level vac hackers on site to restrain out of control fly hackers. Mr. Kun used his power to bring her in and she was placed in this room until the power died down.”
Mrs. Pei put an arm over Alysha’s shoulders to comfort her. “Let’s not dicuss this and move on.”

“I come here three days a week. I’m, like, the only white kid here, but on Thursdays I get to see other kids like me and we hang out do the drills with eachother.” Alysha said. They walked upstairs to where the leisure rooms were.
“Here we, uh, play games, with eachother, we watch movies, play video games, draw, that sort of thing. They have bedrooms here because there are some kids who stay here over night.

The hacker rehab center also has a swimming pool where the hackers continue to train themselves. The pool works well for new vack hackers, because vacking liquids is extremely difficult.
“We let them go in, and tell them to go nuts. This is the place where they can swim, use their muscles, and train while their vack powers are going off like crazy. All that happens is a small harmless current of water. Vacking water is like using a scoop with large holes in it. The vack constantly is grasping at the water and can’t hold all of it. As for walls, the majority of our pupils’ vack powers tend to ignore the walls of the pool, but there are the few who just latch on, and it takes on of the vack-hacker coaches to pull them off. We only allow one at a time in each pool because they would just be stuck to eachother like magnets, and in the water, that can be really dangerous.”

The training programs here are intense, rigoruous, and anything but lenient. Despite the staff’s intent on keeping a positive atmosphere, they must be harsh with their methods to ensure the hackers learn to control and discipline themselves. Sometimes, an uninformed visitor may think it is child abuse.
“That’s why we don’t allow visitors anywhere other than the visiting rooms by the lobby. If a visitor see’s people hacking they will probably become alarmed or enraged. And strangers’ presence also breaks the comfort the hackers have as they are trying to master their powers and ability to control them.

Acedemic classes are also held here, but they mostly center on the subject of hackers, like social issues, history, and relations with purebloods. Law classes are also held to inform hackers of their legal rights and responsibilities.
“The Kerning-Yazhou region is a legislated safety zone as per federal law, as well as municipal law. Provided you don’t break the law, and you keep in control of yourself, the cops and GMs cannot touch you.”
The teacher took some time to spoke to Malon.
“law is an important subect, because I believe knowing about these sorts of things will help hackers function and contribute to society.”

For those who pass the final exams, the job search is next. They learn to create resumes, and how to act in job interviews. Upon passing the final exam, the students are issued a certificate of completion. Under law, employers or other people cannot use the certificate as a means of refusal.
“They refuse them anyway, but there are employers out there in the city and they know about us and will gladly hire a well-trained hacker that will work for them. That number is growing, and now companies even in Kerning City are willing to hire our alumini. It’s great.”

Alysha Erickson has only begun the program and may be here for a year or more. The staff admit her powers are still growing, and she will need to continue attending classes and training for at least a year to handle her powers.
The children and adults who come to hacker rehab usually have anxieties, depression, and other mental illness that relate to their lives as hackers. Many hackers develop forms of autism, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, dementia among other things. Hackium tends to alter brain functions on a minor scale.
Kiang Mental Health provides treatment or support for these conditions, and the students here are welcome to any of the KMHF’s clinics in Yazhou County.
“Just controlling your powers isn’t enough. Mental instabilities like depression, anxiety, delusions or paranoia are the product of the kinds of experiences out clients endured in their lifetime. It is no different for hackers. A well trained hacker can serve no good if he or she doesnt have the treatment or support for whatever the condition. For example, a paranoid hacker won’t be able to deliver mail because he or she is always thinking somebody’s out to get them, or a depressed hacker may not want to go to work because he or she won’t want to feel the shame this societies impose on them. Hackers are here to stay. If we want the society people envision without them, then we better start helping them, such as KMHF is doing.
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i gotta go i been typing this for 3 hours and i’m late for class!