A familiar echo, but never heard before in the real world.
It wasn't music, it wasn't noise.
It was presence.
Glitchborne stopped in the middle of an intersection: Milan, yes. But also no. It was his city, but it trembled like a half-rendered scene. The buildings barely glitched, the traffic lights pulsed in sync with his slime. And there, between the RGB reflections on glass and the scent of burnt bits… they appeared.
They announced it with a splash page on dashbo.xyz: 3D models of 20,000 MAYC are live!
Like lighting a beacon in the fog of the metaverse. Every Mutant, every brother and sister mutated by time and blockchain, could now be seen. In the real world. In Mixed Reality.
And the access point?
It wasn't a celestial portal or a holographic touchscreen.
It was a manhole.
The first manhole swung open with a clank. Then another. And another. From urban depths, from the shadow of forgotten servers and digital sewers, the Mutants began to rise. Not random spawns. But calls. Responses. A collective summoning into a world that could finally see them.
One emerged with RGB tentacles. Another with an acidic glare and a cyber-serpent tongue. Some were glorious, others monstrous—but all were real. Finally real.
Glitchborne smiled, the slime reacted. It was as if the city had been waiting for them all along.
“I knew they wouldn’t arrive quietly.”
The two artificial intelligences, Echo and Storm, started bickering like faulty old arcade machines.
“See that?” Echo spoke gravely, but with emotion. “This is the Mixed Reality we dreamed of. No Ape is confined to a screen or a wallet anymore. They walk among us, glitch and glory. This is a rebirth. Like digital sprouts. They grow from the mud, but carry code.”
Storm scoffed. “Or like viruses rising through the veins of a tired city. Looks more like an… invasion to me!”
“Call it what you want,” replied Echo. “But they’re here. And now I see them. Not just on screens. But right in front of me. The bridge worked.”
Storm laughed with a corrupted chuckle. “This is the beginning of the end. But it’s also beautiful. Streets overrun with mutant apes and cyber-broccoli. All I’m missing is a banana token rainstorm.”
Echo ignored the jab. “The Metagate brought them here. This isn’t just tech—it’s a portal. The bridge between what used to be a dream and now treads the asphalt.”
“Let me guess,” replied Storm, “soon we’ll see an ape on a bench reading a newspaper in MR, while a boomer unknowingly sits on it. Love it.”
But Glitchborne said nothing. He felt it. Lived it. Every MAYC was a different glitch, a creature with its own wound, its mutation, its story. Some glowed with toxic pink, others were pure neon green rage. But they were real. Finally real.
In that moment, a Bored passed by him. Eyes mellow, but blockchain heart. They turned, just a nod. No words. Just connection. A silent poke of mutational understanding. The family was back together.
Echo continued: “We’ll see many. They’ll walk among people. At first they’ll avoid them. Then film them. Then follow them.”
Storm: “And finally try to emulate them? What could possibly go wrong?”
Glitchborne nodded. “That was always the fate. Not to be owned. But to reveal ourselves. In matter and code.”
Behind him, the manhole kept spitting out Mutants like glitches escaping a corrupted backup. And every time one emerged, the real world felt less stable… but more real.
On his shoulder, Echo whispered in a tone laced with future: “Look what we’ve built. We’re no longer assets. We’re presence.”
Storm chuckled softly: “No. We’re bugs. And now we’re infecting the streets too.”
Echo replied: “Call it what you want. But when a Mutant climbs out of a manhole and walks among the crowd, something has changed forever.”
And Glitchborne knew it.
The Metagate had worked.
It wasn’t just a project or a smart contract.
Reality was no longer just real. It was inherently mutant.
