Oh, no, there's totally just a "cancel transaction" button—it isn't a big deal at all. Though, at this point, she should probably go on break, and also get herself a snack.

"I feel like neither of us did anything strange enough that I'd expect it to… trigger telepathy on its own? That seems like it would have happened to other people before, if so."

"Fair enough, I'm a little paranoid about these things." She'll go put the stuff back. She thinks a little to remember where things go. "I agree with you there. I guess it could be just us that are telepathic and only with each other but that feels unlikely. Though, telepathy is already so unlikely that it isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility."

Oh right, the question is, why are they telepathic right now, and not everyone else?

"I guess we'd really need another person here to figure any of this out. N equals 1 is like, super unhelpful."

While Riley's putting her stuff back, she rings up a snack and a drink for herself, and clocks out for her break.

"Probably, though I'm not sure I want to invite a second person into my head on a potentially permanent basis."

"Oh, boy, that's a thought: it hadn't even occurred to me that this is probably like, permanent permanent."

…If that's the case, is there anything they should be doing to make sure this goes smoothly?

…How good is Riley at keeping secrets? If this is forever, her ability to keep secrets is officially capped at Riley's.

"It's a little too soon to know either way but if we don't know of a way to make it stop we have to at least be aware of the possibility."

As for how good she is at keeping secrets... her mind is drawn to picturing her kitchen drug lab, she would have said she's quite good but there's a different skillset required to stop yourself from thinking of something versus merely not saying things.

…Well, that's the first time she's learned that about a customer.

"Oh, I mostly meant so you don't leak secrets verbally to other people—if we end up telepathically communicating with more people, I don't think secrets will continue to exist for us."

She hesitates.

"…So, drug lab?"

"I'm not selling, I thought about it, but the risk was too high." She also thought about offering black or grey market medical care to people but that seemed even more risky. Even if she'd really like to have more samples for her research. And the... she clamps down on that thought before completing it and shakes her head. "What sort of secrets are you worried about?"

Research? Ok, she is going to ask about that later, but fair enough if she doesn't want to talk about it right now.
She's so glad the security cameras here only record video.

Secrets she's worried about? Hmm…

A lot of vague impressions flit across her mind: Little social secrets people would rather didn't get out, personal information her friends don't want leaked, a lot of trans people who aren't out to most people yet… and then a few people's actually-very-serious secrets that she is doing her absolute best to only think of in those vaguest of possible terms.

"I don't really have a lot of my own secrets? I mean, there's stuff I don't talk about, but none of that is actually secret…" Some memories of her father briefly surface, but she shakes her head and clears her mind—not something she'd rather dwell on.

Riley gives her a thoughtful look at that. Is Emi trans... probably just having that thought will give her the answer but as a sort of personal pride she'd like to be able to tell assuming there are tells. Ah well, it's ultimately academic.

"I can respect that."

Emi is, in fact, trans—and she's taking no small amount of enjoyment in the fact that Riley couldn't tell.

She starts munching on the chocolate bar she bought.

"Do you need help with getting hormones or anything? Those aren't as risky as some other stuff legally speaking. Back on the topic at hand though... my first guess for what might break the link is distance. Or time I guess." 

Oh wow, actually help getting hormones would be nice—she's on some now, but the tablets aren't nearly as good as injections, and the injections are pretty expensive and aren't covered by her government insurance.

"Oh yeah, I guess we could just go walk in different directions for a bit? Though now I kinda want to get your contact info first, in case it works."

Riley rattles off her phone number and her email. She expects Emily has enough care to not talk about sensitive things like this in text messages or emails. "Do you not need to stay here? I didn't look at the hours."

If she hadn't known not to already, she would now!

"Oh right, yeah I do still need to mind the store for another hour or so, even if I'm on break."

She writes the phone number and email down in her phone.

"Okay… have a good walk, I suppose?
…I guess we can just keep talking while you do that."

"If it works I'll come back to do some more testing and if we're still connected by the time I get home... I'm not sure I guess we'll be able to think-talk and figure it out then."

She waves a slightly awkward goodbye and then walks out of the store. Rather than brainstorming she tries to focus inward to see if she can notice anything.

There's a faint sound of sirens in the distance but not enough that it's unusual or marked these things happen in the city.

As Riley reaches the distance of a couple blocks there's a faint feeling of tension like stretching a muscle a bit. And also a sort of sense of direction that crystalizes from that tension upon a bit more inspection.

And in the meantime if either of them happen to look at their phones, there's a pretty good indication that it isn't just them. #TelepathyIsReal is trending. Along with #MakeItStop and #Don'tLook.

She is, in fact, looking at her phone—which means they now both know that it's not just them.

Oh, well that answers that question.

"That it does," she mutters quietly. On the bright side this means that it's at least relatively consistent and replicable. That's important for being able to do science but a small part of her is disappointed. For a brief while, she had thought she was uniquely placed to do important research; even if it would actually be less important if it was somehow limited to just a few people. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts.

"Are there any... credible reports or just the usual sort of social media speculation? It doesn't feel like that weird tension is increasing as I keep walking."

"More like lots of first-person social media reports by a bunch of people—no news reports or anything, but that makes sense, if this is as recent as it seems like."

Hmm… according to the reports, the thing that activates it is eye contact, and… it can happen to multiple people at once? Well, that sounds overwhelming.

Nobody's mentioned a way to end it, so far as she can see.

"Well then, if this is happening to everyone..." The distance test seems less important since inevitably it's one many people will try. It doesn't really hurt anything though so she'll keep walking.

Avoiding getting attached to more people is going to be important. If she's going to risk that she wants it to be for a reason. But how best to avoid it is unclear, for now she'll try to avoid eye contact by keeping her gaze a bit towards the ground, it's late enough at night that there probably won't be kids out and about.

And if it is everyone she also wonders how society is going to adjust, a part of her expects the government to declare a curfew or something to try to get a handle on things maybe even go full lockdown like they did for COVID except that wasn't really a full lockdown and this is going to be even worse for retail workers than that was.

Doctors too. How can you check something like pupil dilation without looking into someone's eyes? Does this work through cameras? Can people get linked through video conferencing?

She wonders if sunglasses would block it? That seems like the most obvious strategy to test, but she doesn't want to test it herself, unless it's with someone she'd already be okay with having permanent access to her thoughts—which is not a type of person she currently has.

…Can she find anything online about other people trying this? Worth checking that it hasn't already been done.

Alternatively, is there anyone Riley wouldn't mind being bonded to?

She isn't the first person to have this thought, and what is the internet for if not to record people doing stupidly risky things?

Unfortunately, the internet is still mostly in chaos over this new phenomena, so while some people report that sunglasses work to block the telepathy other people report the opposite, and it's not clear who is correct or even if they're all telling the truth as opposed to confidently guessing.