Tidelands: III-Four (42)

Privacy. Blindside. Fun.

Tidelands is a weekly sci-fi & fantasy serial that publishes every Friday, emailed straight to your inbox. Part 1 is free to read, but you can keep up with the story by signing up for exclusive access, or buying ebook or paperback editions of the collected instalments as they appear.

They stroll around the periphery of the square, skirting the fringe of the crowds.

[You’re thinking of this like a thief would,] the man in black tells her, [or a hacker.]

But isn’t that what we’re doing? Squirrel counters. Hacking someone’s mind? Stealing their thoughts?

[Yes – and no. It’s true that a mind is networkable, just like an implant is. And that’s its vulnerability. It’s just a different sort of network, connected in a different way, and therefore accessed with a different set of keys. But most minds have no firewalls or passwords, no locks or bolts, because most people don’t believe in mind reading; they think they already have mental privacy, simply by virtue of its being their mind. But it’s not. And that notion of privacy disappears the moment you realise that the mind is something other than you think.]