Veil

by Aaron Overfield

  Basically, Schaffer explained, the way Tsay’s machine was originally designed, the military would actually have to kidnap the subject they wanted to Veil. They’d have to kidnap the enemy they wanted to spy on. Then, they’d have to release the subject for a day. Then, the military would have to kidnap the subject once again in order to complete the process. And, the military would have to conduct the second kidnapping before the subject fell asleep. If not, or if the subject happened to take a damn nap, the military would lose everything in the Veil.

  Schaffer consoled the General and said he realized all that stupid ass kidnapping was not what the General, or the military as a whole, had in mind for Veil. At all. Yup, he told the General, he knew it sucked, but there it was, the bad news.

  Call it a moment of overzealousness; call it his ego momentarily winning out. Whatever you called the good news, Schaffer overstepped his own limitations and told the General how, with a little more time, they could solve the bad news. He told the General they could take Dr. Tsay’s research and redesign Veil from the ground up, in order to make it not only portable but also possible to deploy without requiring physical access to the subject.

  Schaffer assured General Coffman that, because all they were dealing with was electricity, there were few obstacles innovation wouldn’t eventually overcome. They could make Veil pocket-sized and remotely deployable, Schaffer claimed. The two science officers would do it together, and they’d design the device in such a way that the military could use it to spy on the enemy, easily and from far, far away.

  Yup, espionage.

  The General excused the two scientists. Politely. He told the pair to inform him of whatever they required to make the device possible. The General politely said to let him know if they needed anything at all and *poof* it would be theirs.

  In his office, Schaffer thought about the big, annoying pink cloud that still hung over their heads: the brain. He bolted upright as his mind honed in on exactly how much could be possible if any of them knew more about the functions—and electricity—of the brain. He then tried to think of people who did know more about those types of things. Smart people, who knew frakking brain crap.

  Schaffer jumped up, ran to his office door, and rushed out of the lab. He moved too quickly for the sliding doors and caught one of them with his shoulder, but it didn’t slow him down. He ran through the research facility, all the way to the administration building, and up to the General’s office.

  Since Schaffer didn’t take the pause he should have taken … he didn’t have time to consider what he was about to do … so he didn’t realize he should stop himself from doing it … and therefore, Schaffer threw open the General’s door … without knocking.

  Schaffer immediately and breathlessly beat the General to the punch before the shocked officer could speak up in reprimand. “You said if we need anything to make Veil happen then we should let you know?” Schaffer made sure to raise his voice at the end of his sentence, to emphasize he meant no disrespect and was asking a question. It wasn’t until he got out his question that Schaffer realized what he’d done. He barged in, and he didn’t even call the General “sir.”

  However, it was too late.

  “Yes?” the General replied as he put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. He decided he’d wait to tear the whitecoat a new one until he heard what he had to say for himself. However, when he did tear the ladyboy a new one, it would be a new one so big that Pollock would be able to fit up inside and wear Schaffer like a skin suit.

  This better be good, boy.

  Since Schaffer knew it was already too late, he went ahead and made his request.

  “I need you to tell me exactly what happened to Dr. Jin Tsay.”

  3

  RECOVER

  Ken reached across the table. A chunk of Suren’s long, straight, unbelievably shiny, black hair obstructed her face, so he tucked it behind her ear. She looked up at him with brown eyes that were still puffy and wet. As cliché as it sounded, Suren really hadn’t aged. Especially around the eyes.

  Some of his other friends who also hadn’t aged much still showed their years around the eyes. Not Suren. She still looked 25, at least fifteen years younger than the two of them really were. Suren still looked new. Young and new but exhausted and despondent.

  Ken suddenly felt guilty. He decided all on his own there was nothing to be done about Jin’s murder and all but told Suren they should give up on trying to find out what happened to her husband. He was fairly certain that was not why he was the one person she felt safe calling and the one person she needed. In fact, when she called that night, she pretty much stated the opposite.

  “You said on the phone that I was the only one. What did you mean by that, Suren?” he asked quietly and with every bit of empathy he could muster. His mind was tired and overwhelmed; it felt heavy and wet.

  Suren sounded grief-stricken when she started to speak, but as the words came out she seemed almost defiant. “You … you’re the only one who can figure anything out. You’re the one who can do something. The only one.”

  “Do something? What do you want me—” He caught himself and rephrased. “What can I do? What can I do, Suren?”

  “It’s clear what they wanted, isn’t it? Jin’s work. This Veil thing. That’s what they wanted, isn’t it?”

  “It appears that way, yes.”

  “Well, if they took him away from me so they could have it, then I want to take it from them. If there’s nothing we can do for my Jin…”

  “I never meant to—”

  “No Ken, you’re right. There is nothing we can do. Nothing we can do without putting ourselves at risk. Jin wouldn’t have wanted that.”

  “He would've never wanted you in danger. You were his everything, Suren. I never saw him more alive than when—”

  Suren put her hand up, as if to say she couldn’t feel that emotion and be able to continue, so Ken stopped and allowed her to answer his question.

  “But he wouldn’t have wanted someone to steal his work and use it for something he would've never used it for himself. His work was everything to him. More important than me, at times.”

  “So—so what are you saying? You want me to steal his work back? From the government? Or the military—whoever.”

  “No, no,” she huffed out and almost chuckled. “Not at all. We have his work. We have all of it. What I want you to do, and what only you can do, is finish it so we can share it with the world.”

  “Share it? With the world?”

  “Yes.” She was adamant. “The world. Whoever is responsible for doing this to him made one thing clear: they want this Veil thing, and they want to keep it all to themselves. I’m not going to let them have it, Ken. And if you won’t help me take it back, I’ll do it myself. It’s all I have of Jin. It’s not like we had any … well, you know. We couldn’t have any kids. So, this Veil thing, it’s all I have of him.”

  “I understand,” he nodded.

  And he did. He really did. He had some major questions. Like why they didn’t come for the copies of Jin’s research he kept at home, if only to check and make sure he didn’t have any copies. Or how they didn’t know about the elevator video feeds streaming from the hospital to the Tsay house. Or why Jin was streaming them in the first place. Still, Suren was right. And what she wanted was right. More than that, it’s what Jin would’ve wanted. Hell, it’s what he would’ve wanted for himself if he were in Jin’s shoes, or if he stayed on the project.

  Suren leaned forward, put her hand on Ken’s knee and looked directly at him. Her eyes were no longer puffy or wet, and she no longer seemed filled with grief or nostalgia. What she said to him was a side of Suren he’d never seen, and he wasn’t sure anyone, not even Jin, saw it. Before then, there was never any reason why anyone would have seen that side of her … ever.

  Unluckily for him, Ken was the first to witness that new side of Suren and the first to hear that tone in her voice.

  “They
took my Jin. He was mine. Do you understand me? Mine. I will get my fucking revenge.”

  Ken never heard Suren swear. Maybe a “damn” once. Maybe. He didn’t know what to say. He thought maybe he was scared.

  To make sure Ken understood, Suren repeated herself. That time, slower and deeper.

  “I will get—my fucking—revenge.”

  Ken hated to leave Suren, but she understood. If he was going to help her, he needed to return home and get things in order before he could dedicate himself to Veil. He couldn’t simply drop everything right then and clean up the mess when he got back, whenever that would be.

  He flew home the next day, met with his boss, and explained the loss of his college friend. He possibly stretched the truth a bit about how Jin’s wife was being threatened with losing everything, being evicted, contemplating suicide, and oh yeah did he mention … oh my God it’s the end of the world so I must go help this poor miserable wretched woman right this very second! … Oh, and maaaaaaybe there’s-even-a-dead-puppy-involved?

  In light of the truth Ken possibly might’ve stretched, his boss was understandably sympathetic. Take all the time you need, Ken was told. All the time. He dealt with his house and dogs; he handed over a lot more control of his personal life to his assistant than he was ever comfortable handing over before. In six days, Ken was back at the Tsay house.

  Ken was happy not only to get his hands on Jin's work, but also to have Suren's blessing. Blessing, heck, he had her collusion. From what little he read as he skimmed over the computer files while he talked to Suren, Ken could tell Jin stumbled onto greatness.

  No, stumbled wasn't the right word. It implied luck, chance, or accident. Jin took their work and created something so beyond the theoretical confines of their partnership that it caused Ken to wonder if Jin would’ve made the same progress had he stuck around.

  The research was microscopically detailed and thorough, which was typical of Jin. In no more than eight hours, Ken fully grasped the principles and potential of Veil. He understood how Jin went from the knowledge that The Witness retained information, to the discovery of how The Witness could be transferred—it could be downloaded and uploaded—between brains, to the epiphany that one brain’s Witness could shadow another brain and store all the signals it obtained.

  Jin’s ultimate discovery was that a brain could replicate the experience of another brain by shadowing it using The Witness. That was the absolute game changer. That was the epiphany of Veil: the shadowing. It didn’t take long for Ken to predict how the ability for one person to shadow another person could change everything. Since he and Suren conspired to give Veil to the world, Ken quickly realized it would change everything.

  Ken also recognized what the wolves wanted with Veil. It wasn’t hard to see at all. He could only imagine the state secrets one could easily uncover if Veil was used against someone without their knowledge. Or if it was used during interrogation. Forget about a truth serum or waterboarding, there was no need. With Veil, what the wolves had instead was full mind access: backstage VIP passes to a person's thoughts, feelings, and memories—all of it.

  However, in terms of memories, they only had access if the subject recalled those specific memories while they were being shadowed, which was one of the several principles outlined by Jin. Some principles were based in practice, but most were purely speculative at that stage, albeit completely logical speculation. It was Jin after all. But, because Jin was only able to conduct one test run of Veil before he was killed, most of his principles remained speculation. Still, Jin’s principle that the person doing the shadowing would only have access to memories the subject actively recalled during the Veil process made perfect sense to Ken.

  The person doing the shadowing would have no physical control over the subject; they would merely act as a witness to the experiences of the subject. To the shadower, it would be like watching a movie, except it would be a full-body, full-person experience. Still, the experience would be limited to events that occurred only during the Veil, during the shadowing. There would be no access by The Witness to anything the subject experienced at any other time; access was limited to experiences that occurred during the time in which The Witness was shadowing the subject.

  That access included memories.

  Although a mind can re-experience an event through recollection, otherwise known as a “memory,” Jin figured the only way The Witness would have access to a memory would be if someone or something brought it up during the Veil. Like a flashback or a flash-forward in a movie. The Witness only had access to the immediate thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, and perceptions that took place during the Veil—which included memories.

  Ken realized The Witness couldn't control the person, nor could it actively scan the subject's brain for every single bit of information it contained, as if the brain were a computer hard drive. That wasn't how The Witness or how Veil worked. Heck, that wasn't even how the brain worked. Ken tried to scan his own brain for every bit of information and all the memories he possessed. After about five seconds, he laughed at himself.

  There were some rules as well, most of which Jin hypothesized but didn’t have the chance to test. There was one about languages. Jin believed if someone shadowed a subject who spoke a language the shadower couldn't understand, a language foreign to the shadower, then the overall Veil experience would be limited. Upon uploading The Witness back onto its owner’s brain, the mind of the shadower wouldn't be able to absorb and process any of the subject's thoughts, as they would be in a completely incomprehensible language.

  They didn’t live inside Star Trek, Ken joked with Suren, and so the brain didn’t contain some built-in universal translator. Jin hypothesized that, in a Veil involving a foreign language, the shadower would be limited to only experiencing what the subject sensed and felt, without understanding what the subject was thinking. Unlike a movie, Veil couldn’t be dubbed or include subtitles. Suren didn’t get the Star Trek reference and gave Ken that blank Jin-esque stare, which pretty much creeped Ken the heck out when she gave it to him, because it was so much like Jin’s. However, she did get the “subtitle” reference and nodded.

  The files contained dozens of rules that Jin speculated. Ken could picture Jin's excitement in mapping out each one and developing the ways in which he would come to test them, until each was proven or refuted. If one were proven, Ken knew Jin would be sure to explain it in full detail; that was simply how Jin worked. Heck, even if Jin disproved a theory, he would still take the time to explain his process in full detail.

  Ken couldn’t imagine Jin wasting precious lab time postulating all those rules and principles, especially because Jin was constricted by the military’s purposes for Veil. Instead, he pictured Jin, in his spare time at home or while at the grocery store or while riding the Metro, pondering those things and then furiously scribbling them down as soon as he completely fleshed out a rule. Jin always carried a small notebook with him for such epiphanies; he always had a place to write down his random thoughts and ideas. Ken would’ve loved to get his hands on some of those and made a mental note to ask Suren if she knew where Jin kept them.

  In addition to the rules Jin proposed were some guiding principles. Many of them answered the questions already starting to form in Ken as his mind began to accept the nature and implications of Veil. One of the first principles addressed the main question that palpably hung in the air up until the day Ken left the project: How can one access and extract the information and experience that’s produced when the neuroelectricity of The Witness stimulates the brain?

  Jin eventually deduced that only a human brain could use the vibrations of The Witness to access, extract and, most importantly, transform the information into experience. According to Jin, only a brain could understand and mirror another brain. Ken was inclined to agree. The complicated structure of the human brain, and the specific form of consciousness it produced, was unlike any structure imaginable. So, it made sense to Ken that only
a brain could access a brain.

  There was a caveat from Jin that stated enormous technological advances over time may one day allow artificial access to the information, but he suggested current technological trends wouldn’t lead to it any time soon. Jin also suggested the technology in question would have to be more advanced than the human brain, as it would be obligated to access, extract, interpret, and communicate data in a way the human brain itself could not. In that sense, so-called artificial intelligence would actually have to be more intelligent—more conscious, more aware—than humans themselves. At least, in order to accomplish what was possible through Veil.

  Jin's principles elaborated on how the information produced by The Witness was too complex and reliant on simultaneous, interconnected functions of the brain for it to be interpreted by anything but another brain. One couldn’t simply single out an aspect of the human experience, like a solitary thought or feeling, and expect to locate and extract it from the brain; it took every other part and function of the brain working together through The Witness to form awareness and experience in the first place. The brain proved to be an all-or-nothing organ.

  As he read through the notes, Ken only had to stop a few times in order to process Jin’s ideas. That was one of those times: a time when hard and soft sciences had to respect each other and work together in Ken’s mind. Immediately before Ken left the project, he and Jin made the discovery of how The Witness retained its information-producing electrical vibrations for a period of time, like ripples in water. Once the discovery was made, Jin petitioned the government for funding. So, unlike Jin, Ken didn’t have the time or leisure to comprehend what all of it meant. Ken was playing catch-up to Jin’s years of work. Sadly, absorbing his dead friend’s research made Ken feel closer to Jin than he had in years.