“Please welcome one of the leading inventors of 2055, Dr. Elena Marlowe! She ushered in the era of digital twins, creating digital replicas of everything—from individual humans to entire ecosystems and her most famous one: TerraSim! The most comprehensive digital twin of our planet.”

I stand up slowly, my heartbeat louder than the thunderous applause surrounding me. Each step I take towards the wooden stage and glass podium feels more like walking towards my own doom. The knowledge of what I must do burdens my mind. The white light reflects off the stage into my eyes, just like my laptop did the day everything changed.

I always believed that technology was the answer to our greatest problems. TerraSim was created to analyse, propose, and monitor. It analysed our biggest environmental problems, proposed solutions to them and monitored the impact. The launch of TerraSim was celebrated globally—governments, corporations, and companies worldwide all clamoured for its access, convinced it would guide us to a sustainable future. For a while, it did. We saw huge success in reforestation, pollution control, and wildlife conservation. TerraSim was considered to be a miracle.

One evening, I was in my lab, poring over the data streams from TerraSim. White light reflected from the laptop into my eyes as I scrolled through. I sighed in relief as all the data streams seemed correct when an anomaly caught my eye. There was a subtle discrepancy in the pollution levels of the River Thames. The real-time pollution data from the physical sensors did not match the clean readings in TerraSim. I dug deeper, uncovering more inconsistencies and code designed to alter the readings to match TerraSim’s projections. I felt my entire life’s work draining in front of my eyes. Everything I worked for had been manipulated and used for profit.

I arranged a meeting with the board of directors at EcoCore, the company that funded TerraSim. The towering edifice of glass and steel loomed in front of me as I straightened my spine and walked into their headquarters, demanding an explanation.

“Dr. Marlowe, you must understand,” began Victor Carlisle, the CEO. His tone was patronising, a thin veneer over his indifference. “We have investors to satisfy and profits to maintain. The truth is the reality of our environment is too harsh for the public to accept. Adjusting TerraSim’s data buys us time to manage the crisis.”

“Manage the crisis?” I echoed incredulously. “You’re accelerating it! The world needs to know the truth to make real changes.”

Victor’s expression hardened. “Idealism is a luxury we can’t afford. Adapt now or be left behind.”
I left the meeting in a daze, my mind racing. How could I stop this? There was no other way than destroying TerraSim. But how could I dismantle my life’s creation? Indecision warred within me, until one side won out. Strengthening my resolve, I called the colleagues who worked with me on TerraSim.
Every one of them still had the same goals: a sustainable and eco-friendly future. We all had to expose the truth of TerraSim, even if it meant destroying everything we had worked for.
Our plan was simple: examine, educate, and extirpate. We gathered irrefutable evidence by hacking into EcoCore’s servers, and the more we gathered, the more my heart broke. Whole forests were decimated, oceans polluted, and various species were driven to extinction—all hidden by falsified TerraSim reports. We compiled all our evidence into one flash drive, and now all that was left to do was show the world the truth.

Blinking the light out of my eyes, I climb the steps to the stage in front of me. I grip the glass podium and take a deep breath in, holding my head high and clutching the flash drive with my right fist, I smile.
“Hello, I am Dr. Elena Marlowe, and I called this live conference today to show you all the truth. The truth of how TerraSim has been manipulated and changed to satisfy personal greed and ruin the planet we call home.”

I could hear gasps and cries of anger ringing out as the world saw the extent of the damage. I look right into the eyes of Victor Carlisle as I continue, knowing there’s nothing he can do now. Nothing to stop me from taking him down without exposing himself in the process.
I check the time on the clock; just one more minute before my team puts into place the resources needed to destroy TerraSim and EcoCore.

“This is why I must dismantle TerraSim. I hope that governments and companies around the world who use TerraSim understand the dire situation our world is in. I hope they understand that change must happen, and it must happen now.” I look at the clock again. It’s 4 p.m. I close my eyes, trusting everything is in place and raise my hand holding the button towards the crowd.

Click.

Immediately, notifications explode around the room as the TerraSim app short-circuits. I watch as all eyes filled with anger and betrayal turn towards Victor Carlisle. Descending the stage, I stride towards him with no regrets and say the very words he said to me.

“This is the reality we live in, Mr. Carlisle. Adapt now or be left behind.”

I turn my back on him and march away, knowing what will happen now. Economies will collapse, governments and corporations are going to be stripped bare, and widespread panic will occur. But I also know, amidst the chaos, genuine efforts for environmental restoration will begin. There will be no other option now. Our environment and world will build back up.

TerraSim has shown us the power and peril of technology. In the end, it wasn’t technology itself but how we chose to wield it that determines our fate. As I look up at the bright blue sky tinged with grey, I know we have given the world a second chance—a chance to heal and thrive in harmony with nature.