Humanity had done it. Really done it: invented telepathy. But nobody called it that. Or even noticed, really.
After all, it was just a shade of the mind-reading that had existed for centuries but that had only gone one way. If reading books was not mind reading, what was? Even better, with books you could read the minds of the dead. Reading was necromancy, but no one called it that. In fact most everyone took it for granted.
But the Place Without Space changed everything. Unlike books it allowed an exchange of thoughts. At first this required the physical effort of typing until finally, the need for that went away.
People were constantly thinking at each other, and the thoughts could travel across oceans and geographical boundaries in fractions of a second. With a an electrode-lined headset, you could enter the Ether. Thoughts from many people around the world would appear on the computer screen, and your thoughts would appear to them. The Ether could be confusing, but you could make friends there.
Once you had made a friend, you could open a direct channel to them. Their thoughts would appear directly on the computer screen in image or text form, and yours would appear to them. No typing was necessary, as it had been in the past.
Despite all the wonderful advantages to “thinking out loud,” some people resisted the Place without Space, like the religious enclaves who rejected it and all technology to live simple agricultural lifestyles.
Beth, 15, belonged to one of those families until her parents died. She had no living relatives in the community to care for her. When her secular aunt found out that her sister had died, she removed Beth from the community and took her into her house. Her aunt was “wired,” meaning she had access to the Place Without Space and took it for granted like everyone else.
Not so with Beth. Many of the thoughts she heard or saw in the Place Without Space made her blush. She saw nude images, profane dreams, and seductive ads. Not that Beth had ever been considered a good girl in the commune; quite the opposite.
When she had first learned about sex at age 8, she had told everyone she knew, including a few toddlers. She had been publicly flogged for the offense while being told that the Great Entities had an even worse fate in store for her. Afterward, Beth had learned to be quiet, and too dam her thoughts, but they never went away, not completely.
But even for Beth, the Place without Space was too much. She pulled off her headset and fled the room, imagining that the Great Entities were angry with her for eavesdropping on sex and heresy. But she knew she would go back.
She was lonely, she was still mourning her parents, and she saw in the Place without Space something that no one else seemed to see: ghosts. Ghosts that were not dead, but still more like spirits than real people.
The ghosts chattered about love and fear and morality, but did not always say meaningful things about them. Most Ghost Thoughts were trite and even silly.
Mostly they sold things. They were able to sell things because of censoring devices that blocked out certain thoughts, words, or topics, allowing access to only preselected slices of a mind.
Before long summer came, so there was no school, and Beth was spending more time each day in the Place without Space.
Beth hid her new habit as much as possible. How could she continue to think the thoughts of others without being changed by them? She was already beginning to have doubts about her sheltered religious upbringing. But she was hooked, and she tried to think of a way she could go to the Place Without Space without incurring the wrath of the Great Entities
Finally she thought she had found a solution. She would continue to go to the Place Without Space but add moral thoughts to all the mental chatter. She grew excited. Maybe the Great Entities had even meant her to be there for that purpose.
From then on she tried to think only things she thought the Great Entities would like. She stressed the importance of never being lazy and how idle minds led to bad things and how her country was the greatest in the world.
That was how she met Eva 201. Eva 201 had just began to talk to Beth one day. And Eva was not kind. “All your thoughts are lies. For weeks I have been waiting for you to say something original, but you are only thinking things you believe are expected of you. Who are you? What do you really think?”
Abashed, Beth started to defend her actions, she could not stop thinking about what Eva had said. The words had rung true.
An ache settled in her chest. She had to respond, so she sent what might have been her most honest thought since early childhood: “Thoughts are dangerous and I never seem to have the right ones. If people knew, if my family knew what was really in my head, I would die of shame.”
After Beth had sent her thought, she wanted to grab it back again. She even began to feel mad at her critic for drawing such naked honesty from her. How dare she?
For a couple of days Beth did not hear from Eva 201, and Beth thought her problem was solved. But Eva finally did respond. “In your world it might be unsafe for you to think honestly. But not here, in a place without dimension. A Place without Space is free of consequences. Everything you think and feel will stay here. Here think all the thoughts you want. When you return to your own world, you can go on as usual.”
Beth was intrigued, and the permission triggered a shocking thought: She did not know if her country was the greatest in the world. Although she liked it well enough, she had never been anywhere else.
Another thought followed: What if being idle was not all bad? Sometimes when she sat and did nothing, interesting ideas came to her and she became aware of things she normally paid little attention to. Those were the kinds of thoughts that had gotten her flogged in the past. They were dangerous.
She tried to recover by frantically reciting to herself the rhymes she had been taught: “An idle mind ought to be fined” or “Our country is the best; God says out with all the rest.”
But the rhymes sounded shallow to her. She sent a deliberate thought to Eva: “I am not sure which country I like best because I have only ever been in one of them.”
Afterward, she started to delete the thought, but Eva was too quick to reply: “Finally a true thought. Beautiful. You are making wonderful progress.” Each time Beth sent an honest thought, Eva heaped praise on her, and Beth was filled with shame and wonder and exhilaration.
Beth loved the praise but back in the real world Beth would tell herself: Forget what I said before. My country is the greatest in the world. How could I have ever doubted it?
On her guiltiest days she would reread the holy books to fortify herself against secular exposure. Instead she saw errors and contradictions she had never seen before. Before the Place without Space, she had been able to overlook them. She had been perfectly content with the fuzziness. No more.
Beth could feel the beliefs of her childhood sinking away. Who knew if the Great Entities were even real?
Eva had either lied or been mistaken. Beth had bought the deception that she could think freely, in a safe place, without it changing her. But she had changed. Her questions, which had once been dammed, could not be stopped. How she saw the world had changed, and she could not go back. Had anyone ever told her the truth about anything?
Beth gathered the holy books, all five of them, one for each Great Entity. She could hardly look at them anymore.
She tried to decide what to do with the hardbacks. Although Beth liked books, she thought of feeding them to the fireplace and watching the pages curl beneath the flames.
Instead she buried them in the kitchen garbage can. She tied the plastic bag and took the it to the big metal trash can outside. Afterward, she was restless. To console herself she visited The Place without Space and opened a channel to Eva. Beth told her about tossing out the holy books and thanked Beth for encouraging her to think for herself.
But this time Eva did not respond in her own words. Instead she sent Beth a volley of ads: recommendations for books and cosmetics and furniture all specifically tailored to the tastes Beth had confided during her exercises in honesty. At first, when Beth saw the ads flash at her, she desperately desired everything she saw, especially the many ads for international travel.
Then realization dawned. Eva had not cared about any of the honest thoughts Beth had shared, not for themselves. The whole campaign had been a marketing gimmick, a way to gauge personal tastes for the purpose of advertising.
Beth closed the channel, un-friended her former confidante, and clamped her palms over her throbbing forehead. At the moment Beth hated everything. She hated the ghosts. She hated her sheltered upbringing. She hated The Place without Space.
But unlike the rest of the world, she did not take it for granted. She knew its true power. She knew it for the telepathy that it was. Because of the thoughts of ghosts, she had changed. Because of ghosts, she had just jettisoned the holy books she had been taught contained the meaning of life.
There was a word for that, and it went beyond telepathy. Thoughts from across the world could drive people to act; could move things. The world, it seemed, had invented telekinesis. But no one had ever noticed, and no one ever called it that.
Except for Beth. She understood what others failed to see: As invisible as ghosts, without mass, and too quick to catch, thoughts were more powerful than gale force winds; more shattering than a raging waterfall. No wonder so many sought to control and manipulate them.
Without meaning to, Eva had led Beth back to a mind she had not known was lost. Beth was not grateful. Eva had lied for the shallowest of reasons.
But as a result, Beth had taken the dark art of thinking back from the gods, and she intended to use it every day of her life, as armor against those who had personal motives for muddying the clear depths of truth