Mindt's eyes jolted open. Around her, passengers on her flight seemed to all sit up straight at once. Were they receiving the message as well?

  The message was just like any other. A subtle chime resonated in her mind as a translucent blue message window materialized in her vision. The text shimmered into existence while a voice spoke the words directly into her thoughts. Jiem's was a playful, slightly synthetic voice that sounds like a game show host, excitable, fast-talking, affable.

  But how had she received this message? The airplane mode icon still showed in her field of vision -- any message attempts would not come through.

  However, the message continued.

  Mindt waved the Wellness app away in her mind. Her brows furrowed and her mouth fell open.

  Somehow, while her Nous shouldn't have any connection at all, an unknown sender was able to A) bypass the unknown sender spam filters and B) send a message to her with airplane mode on.

  Nous has been hacked, she realized.

  And there it was, an opening. A chance. Perhaps the opportunity of a lifetime. Synapto, the company that created the Nous implant, was about to have a bad day. She turned off airplane mode, and it was replaced with a network icon, 4 curved bars fanning out.

  Her trading app, Stonks, sprang to life.

  Mindt snickered. She liked her trading app -- so snarky -- but she was still nervous with that amount of money on the line. She thought about checking her net worth again and calculating how many decades until she had financial independence if she lost the entire amount, but she was interrupted by the hacker again.

  Jiem’s voice took a demonic tone.

  There was a pause and he resumed his normal voice.

  Next to the network icon, an icon showing an eye with a slash through it appeared at the top left of her peripheral vision, indicating the Nous device was overriding the vision from her eyes. The icon was familiar for Mindt, because she used her Nous implant to stream videos or enter VR worlds often. Typically, she liked to have picture-in-picture so she could see where she's going in the real world and watch an information window at the same time, but it seems this Jiem instantiated a full-vision video stream.

  The stream started. A young Asian male about 25 kicking a dog. A username label hovered over the Asian male's head that read "Nishigatana". The dog, eyes clinched shut, was a tan and white shiba inu. Mindt knew this because of all her time studying Japanese culture, but she could have confirmed with Wiki if she wanted.

  Nishigatana looked to be in a city apartment, light beaming in from a glass door overlooking skyscrapers in the background. An overturned instant noodle container, chopsticks laying out, and a microplastic-free bottle of a conbini green tea on top of a large kotatsu. A chunky spill of noodles and broth ran off the table onto the kotatsu cloth. The noodles reminded Mindt of wet hair. Cowered in a corner, the dog whimpered expectantly.

  Mindt thought it was strange to have a dog in a Tokyo apartment because few of them allowed pets. But then she figured that this Nishigatana guy must be on the richer side of things judging from the spacious apartment and good view.

  The stream continued. Nishigatana was cocking back his leg for another kick when he suddenly froze mid-kick. He looked directly into the camera, his apartment's smart drone, confusion spreading on his face. Mindt could see that he was saying something with Nous Telepathy because he had a 'three typing dots' icon next to his username label hovering over his head, but there was no way of knowing who he was messaging.

  Nous Telepathy was the most common way of communicating in the world. It was a way of sending messages to someone else's Nous implant without having to speak or type.

  The typing dots icon was a relic from a time that Mindt never knew when people used their fingers to form messages character by character, but this was the standard icon to show whenever someone was sending messages.

  Mindt didn't like having the typing icon revealing that she was sending messages because she felt exposed a little, so she kept her typing indicator toggled off most of the time. However, during flights and visits to various cities, the typing indicator was required by law to be left on. Tokyo was one such place that required it on at all times, and since Mindt was on a flight, hers was on as well.

  Nishigatana stopped messaging and finally said something in Japanese aloud, "Is someone there?"

  The words autotranslated for Mindt, but she would've understood his words even without the autotranslator. Language was a passion of hers, despite the fact that spoken languages were no longer how the majority communicated. But to her, spoken languages were like the setting sun, fleeting and beautiful.

  In the stream, Nishigatana's hunched, and to Mindt, he looked a bit like the dog he was kicking.

  The stream closed and Mindt's vision returned to normal. She was back to her seat in the plane, and she could see the backs of heads for a moment. Suddenly those heads looked much like Nishigatana's, darting around as if to find an explanation of what just happened to them. Wide eyes nervously flickered back at her, at neighbors, all in complete silence. Typing icons appeared next to all their usernames. It was clear they had all heard Jiem's message, too.

  It was time for her to do a little research.