Veil

by Aaron Overfield

  Or, would they be one of those couples who were eventually torn apart? Those couples who couldn’t bear to see themselves through each other’s eyes; the ones who couldn’t stand hearing what they really thought of each other. Definitely the former, she knew. If Veil turned them into a Selfers couple, they definitely would’ve been the former. She would have Veiled her Jin every single day, and vice-versa. No doubt about it.

  Suren pulled herself back; she forced herself to stop thinking. Since that was her first time, they were prepared with some tricks to get her used to how Veil worked. First, they all sat quietly in the room, after her Witness was uploaded onto Roy. They knew during Suren’s first few minutes inside the Veil she’d be so distracted that her own mind would be racing, and she wouldn’t immediately let herself be Roy. Years of practicing Veil also taught people a very important tool: smell.

  Veilers learned there was something about smell. Something about it could help Veilers anchor into the Veil experience rather than getting lost in their own thoughts, like how Suren was lost in hers. Smell triggered something. It could bring focus. So, right before Suren shadowed Roy, Ken lit some incense in the office. Although the odor faded considerably from the room by the time Suren’s Witness was uploaded back onto her, when she reminded herself of it, she could suddenly smell it precisely as Roy smelled it, those forty minutes ago.

  She could smell it that strongly; she could smell it through Roy, and the smell helped her sink into Roy and anchor herself into Roy’s experience. It helped Suren become Roy, by smelling what Roy smelled, so clearly and strongly. There was another trick Veilers used in those situations: taste. Sometimes the person being shadowed would suck on a mint or Red Hot. Something for the Veiler to focus on later. In Suren’s case, the smell of the incense worked wonders.

  “Roy,” she heard herself tell him inside the Veil, “close your eyes.”

  She usually absolutely, positively hated the sound of her own voice but, through Roy’s ears, she sounded beautiful. She sounded majestic. In the room, as everyone watched, Suren gasped and covered her mouth when she heard her voice through Roy. She sounded like royalty. The feeling her voice gave Roy was not unlike the impression she got whenever she heard someone with a British accent. It was remarkable.

  As Roy closed his eyes inside the Veil, everything went dark.

  “Ok Roy, good,” she continued earlier as she read from a piece of paper that contained the questions and instructions Ken prepared. “Now I want you to remember yourself sitting at your security station at the hospital.”

  Roy’s mind was filled with a hazy image of what she immediately recognized as the hospital. It was quite blurry and had she not known what the hospital looked like, she wouldn’t have recognized what she was supposed to be seeing.

  Suren heard herself continue. “Sitting in front of you is a can of soda. Diet Pepsi, your favorite.” Giving people something specific to focus on, especially when accessing a general memory rather than a particular one, helped people’s brains manifest a sharper image from their memory banks, Ken explained.

  Inside the Veil, Roy kept his eyes closed and followed her instructions. Suren experienced as Roy’s mind very clearly remembered sitting at his station in the hospital. She could see his memory. Although a little hazier than the field of vision she saw through Roy’s eyes when they were open, she could still witness his memory rather clearly. Suren could see what Roy remembered and saw the image materialize in his mind. She suddenly understood Vaulting; she could definitely understand what Mariano, the memory storeowner, meant when he said that only second-generation memories could be sold to someone.

  If Roy’s memory were amplified through the Vaulting process, Suren could see how she could serve as a Vault for the memory and then pass it onto a customer if they shadowed her. However, there was no way the customer could then turn around and pass it on to yet another person. The memory was barely enough for Suren to hold on to. Just enough, but barely.

  She focused on the incense again and instinctually took a deep breath through her nose. Although she experienced the odor in Roy’s mind, it didn’t matter; she still tried to breathe it in through her nose. Regardless, she smelled the incense. She smelled it quite strongly.

  “Now,” Roy heard her continue earlier, “I want you to remember, from where you’re sitting at your station, a time you saw Jin Tsay.”

  The field of vision in Roy’s mind shifted to the right, toward the hospital entrance, and Suren watched his memory paint a scene in his mind. It was a generic scene, but formed from the sum of all Roy’s memories. Hazy at first but gradually focusing, she witnessed the hospital doors slide open. A figure appeared. Suren knew immediately it was Jin, and not because she expected it to be Jin but because she knew her Jin on sight. She knew her Jin from miles away. Suren witnessed Jin walk through the hospital door. Jin turned his head and looked directly at Roy.

  Suren’s eyes flew open and she gasped. Ken anxiously waited for that moment. He knew it was going to be a shock for her, but there was no way he could prepare her for it. Although it was merely a memory of Jin, it was someone else’s memory of him so, to Suren, it was going to be new. Her mind was going to perceive it as a new experience. It wasn’t going to feel like seeing Jin in a video; it was going to feel like actually seeing Jin. Actually seeing him alive and well. Experiencing him. Ken predicted it would initially shock and hurt her.

  Suren stood with such force it threw her chair tumbling backwards. Her eyes were still open.

  “Suren. Suren. Listen to my voice, Suren,” Ken instructed.

  She stood there, afraid to close her eyes.

  “Suren, if you don’t relax, you’re going to miss him. Roy’s memory hasn’t stopped. It’s still being uploaded onto you. If you don’t close your eyes and focus, you’re going to miss Jin. Keep your eyes closed.”

  She immediately shut her eyes and saw Ken was right. Jin was already passing through the corner of Roy’s field of vision in the memory, headed toward the elevator as he did every morning.

  “No!” Suren called out to Jin, although she knew it was pointless. Despite what her brain knew, her thoughts couldn’t override her instinct, and her instinct was to call out to her Jin.

  “Shhh,” Ken whispered as he bent down to pick up the chair behind her. “Keep your eyes closed, Suren, it’s important.” When the chair was back in position, he gently grabbed her shoulders and pulled her backwards a little to help her sit, while whispering again, “Keep your eyes closed.”

  “Roy,” she heard herself address him forty minutes prior, “I want you to recall another time you saw Jin. Wearing something different this time. Another time you saw him from your station.”

  Ken expected Suren’s reaction to seeing Jin inside the Veil for the first time, so he knew they would need to give it a second go-round. He knew the first reaction would be of shock. He predicted Suren’s brain would struggle to process the new experience of her dead husband. Considering her brain also experienced the emotional trauma of her husband’s death, he realized her brain would hiccup at the impossibility of it. Ken knew all that going into the Veil, so he predicted Suren would need another chance at it. Unfortunately, he also predicted what the next Jin sighting would likely do to her.

  “Smell, Suren. Smell,” Ken whispered in her ear and let go of her shoulders. He snapped his fingers at Hunter and pointed at the chair he’d been sitting on before he leapt up to help her. Hunter pushed the chair over to within Ken’s grasp, and Ken positioned it next to Suren’s.

  She caught her breath and focused on the incense Roy smelled. She found herself back inside Roy’s memory. She experienced Roy recall another instance of Jin walking through the doors of the hospital. Still a generic memory, it was nothing specific. It was pieced together from how Roy’s mind remembered Jin Tsay.

  Over her initial shock, it sunk in. Suren saw her Jin. She could see him. He stepped through the sliding doors with his briefcase in his left hand and he looked a
t Roy. He looked directly at Roy, smiled, and nodded; Jin looked at Suren, smiled, and nodded.

  Suren gasped. Her right hand covered her mouth as her left arm reached out and grasped at the air. She let out what sounded like a half-cough and loudly called out through a sob, “Jin!” She kept her eyes closed tightly, so as not to lose the vision of him, but they still filled with tears. She sobbed again, softer that time, “Jin.”

  Her hand dropped from her mouth, and she wailed loudly three times. With her eyes still clinched tightly, she tilted her head back, tears streaming down her cheeks. Suren’s arms fell to her sides, and she cried as she clinched her eyes as tightly as she could. She watched her Jin stroll his way through Roy’s memory toward the elevator, until he was completely out of Roy’s sight.

  Suren could no longer see him. With her head tilted back and her eyes closed, she cried out repeatedly, loudly at first and then fading, “Jin!! Jin! Jin. Jin. Jin…” When she couldn’t say his name anymore, she clenched both fists as tightly as she could—as tightly as she clinched her eyes—raised them above her head and shrieked. She defiantly shook her fists in the air and hollered out all of her frustration and anguish and longing.

  She ripped the Veil from the back of her neck, dropped it, and stood up. The collar beeped and the silicone retracted into the base. Everyone else in the room, except Brock, reflexively stood as well.

  Although her body was prepared to lash out with throws and fits of anger and rage, the sudden ripping away of her Witness, which was mid-upload, left her dizzy and disoriented. Lightheaded, she fell backwards into the chair.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Roy blurted out. “I don’t know what’s happening, what I did.”

  “No, no, Roy,” Ken reassured him. “I was expecting this. You didn’t do anything wrong. Something like this it … it’s not going to be easy on anyone. This is normal.”

  “Oh … oh ok,” Roy frowned.

  Ken sat at Suren’s side and put his hand on top of her forearm.

  “Hunt, can you go get her some water? We should have thought of that before.”

  “Sure, of course. Of course.” Hunter was already rushing out of the office.

  Suren was slumped forward in the chair; her head was bowed, her arms hung at her sides, and she was completely quiet and motionless. Hunter came back in the room and handed Ken the water.

  “Here … drink, lady.” He squeezed her forearm.

  She took a deep breath and sat up. She grabbed the glass of water, took a sip, and handed it back to Ken.

  “Did … did I ruin it?” she asked, looking down at her collar. “Did I break the Veil?” She picked it up and examined it.

  “No, babe. No. Once you took it off it stopped transmitting. That’s how the old collars are programmed. Once you put it back on and initiate it, the Veil will start right back up where it left off. Take your time.”

  She scanned the room. “I’m sorry you guys … I’m … I’m—”

  “Don’t you dare, Ms. Suren Tsay,” Roy scolded her and wagged his finger.

  She sighed and followed it with a chuckle. “This is … this is,” she mumbled and held up her collar.

  “Something else, huh?” Hunter finished.

  “My God. My God,” was all she could muster.

  From the corner of the room came the voice of Brock’s computer. “You should have seen mine. I bet yours doesn’t have tits in it.”

  Suren gave a huge smile, let out a screech, and covered her mouth. When the laughter subsided, she peered over Ken’s shoulder at Hunter, raised her eyebrows, and replied, “I don’t think I wanna know.”

  “Snitch!” Hunter barked toward Brock, who was still grinning, as pleased with himself as ever.

  After everyone calmed down, Ken put his hand on Suren’s knee.

  “We still have a lot to go through. The day you came to the hospital with Jin. The day of the … of Jin’s murder. The day he came back with the pizzas to … to, you know. And the day Roy … the day he helped Jin leave, the day Jin let go.”

  “I was meaning to ask,” Hunter interrupted. “How come you didn’t have Roy recall the day he got Jin’s memory? And the day he sent the message out?”

  “I didn’t find it important,” Ken turned his upper body and answered Hunter. “There’s not going to be anything useable in those memories, nothing pertinent. And, well,” he turned back to Suren, “the last memory is going to be trau … uhhh … hard enough as it is.”

  Suren nodded in acknowledgement.

  “Ok, I’m ready,” she softly spoke as she lifted the vCollar above her head and repositioned it.

  Ken quietly spoke as well, mirroring Suren’s volume, “Now for this next part, I want you to be prepared. It’s going to be hard, too. This next part will be you. You and Jin. The day of your Veil. From Roy’s perspective.”

  “I understand,” she replied. “I think I’m over the shock of it. It’s just hard. Seeing him. It’s not like the videos from the elevator. It’s like I’m really … I’m really—”

  “Seeing him,” Roy finished.

  “Yes, seeing him,” she whispered. “And thank you. For giving me this.”

  “Of course. Of course.”

  When her Veil resumed the uploading of her Witness, she was instantly struck by the smell. The smell of incense, which completely dissipated from the room she was sitting in. In Roy’s perception that she began to experience again, the smell was still as strong as ever, and it helped her slip right back into being Roy.

  “Dang,” she announced to the room, “that incense trick really works.”

  Suren heard herself direct Roy to remember a time he might’ve seen her before. Seen her with Jin. With Jin at the hospital. A time when she went with Jin all the way to the elevator, not just in the lobby. A time that Suren came into the hospital with Jin. She referenced the specific date of the incident, which Ken believed would trigger Roy’s memory as well, even if unconsciously.

  Roy remembered with some vagueness a time when he saw Ms. Tsay before. He had trouble remembering, but he knew he saw her before, coming into the hospital with Jin. It didn’t stick out really, really well in his memory because he didn’t interact with them, but he remembered it in the sense that it was out of the ordinary, so it acted as a kind of marker in his unconscious. As Suren spoke, directing his brain to recall that day, it took shape in his mind.

  Through Roy, Suren saw herself and Jin enter the hospital. She braced herself, like Ken suggested. However, the way it played out for her, seeing a memory of herself in a situation she couldn’t remember, was kind of creepily surreal. It gave an impression of watching a movie, with actors portraying her and Jin. It made her giggle.

  Then it passed. She and Jin left Roy’s sight and presumably rode the elevators to Jin’s lab. She heard herself instruct Roy to try to remember, later in that same day, when Ms. Tsay left the hospital, noting that she would’ve left not too long later and would’ve been alone. She again referenced the specific date to trigger his mind.

  Suren immediately noticed Roy’s memory of that situation seemed clearer. The hospital was suddenly brighter and became more detailed and defined than when she and Jin walked in together. Roy recalled that incident specifically and with greater clarity, because he seemed to find himself more personally involved in that moment. Since he was personally involved, his brain absorbed and retained more of the information, more of the detail.

  Roy’s brain responded to Suren’s directions. As his memory recalled that day, the scene filled up Suren’s mind. An image began to take shape. Hazy at first, then taking the form of a person—a face. A person stood in front of Roy, face-to-face with him. Roy was at his station talking with that person. The more Roy’s brain responded to Suren’s directions, the more the face took shape.

  With her eyes closed, Suren bolted upright and put her hands on either side of her vCollar. She grabbed onto it tightly. She stood. Her eyes were still closed and she was still holding onto her collar. S
he let out increasingly loud groans. They were groans of disbelief and disgust.

  Her “ehhhh … ehhhhh … ehhhhhh…” sounds turned into “nooo … nooo…” and then a final, “NO!”

  With that last word, her eyes flew open; she ripped off her collar and flung it across the room. It hit the wall, slid down, and landed on the floor.

  Suren shouted, “No! No! No!” She shook her headed and covered her ears.

  Ken jumped up and stood in front of her. He grabbed her by the wrists.

  “What?” he yelled. “What? What did you see?”

  Her eyes widened and she took a step back, which forced Ken to let go of her wrists. Her arms fell down to her sides.

  Suren’s eyes remained wide, but all emotion fell from her and she appeared entranced and disconnected.

  “I saw him.”

  “Him?” Ken replied, followed quickly by, “HIM?”

  “Yes. Him!”

  “Ok, you saw him.”

  She pointed at Roy. “Roy was talking to him, I don’t know about what, but as I walked by, he turned and saw me. He left Roy’s station and walked over to me.”

  “He walked over to you? What do you mean he walked over to you?”

  “Exactly what I said! Let me finish!”

  “Ok, ok lady.”