Hi friends! Today I'm thrilled to bring you an excerpt from the upcoming short story collection His Hideous Heart, edited by Dahlia Adler. This is a collection of 13 stories inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe, reimagined by modern authors. The new stories are just as eerie and artful as the originals with modern flavor and sensibilities.
The following is an excerpt from A Drop of Stolen Ink by Emily Lloyd-Jones. It's a sort of cyber-punk reimagining of The Purloined Letter (one of my favorite Poe stories!).
There are three things you need to know about identity theft.
First, anyone can be a victim.
A few decades ago, there were toddlers with mortgage debt. Elderly grandmothers with drained bank accounts. Even the recently deceased were resurrected for their social security numbers. In the age of the internet, we uploaded our identities and hoped corporate firewalls would protect us. Spoiler alert: they didn't. All of our information was ripe for the taking.
After several years of rampant identity crime, a solution was finally devised.
The only way to protect personal information was to put it somewhere safer: beneath our very skin. Written in government-issued electron-ink, tucked underneath layers of epidermis and powered by the body's tiny electrical impulses.
It was a simple, elegant solution. The identity tattoos could not be duplicated and they could not be stolen-at least, not without removing a limb. And without the warmth and breath of a life, an applied tattoo went dark, and all of its information vanished.
But here's the second thing you need to know: criminals are smart. Human ingenuity knows few boundaries. There are still ways to steal one's identity.
But before you despair, here's the third thing.
Criminals may be smart.
But I'm smarter.
Good, right?
If you'd like to read more, His Hideous Heart releases September 10.
