Veil

by Aaron Overfield

  “Only you could’ve done anything … anything,” she waved her finger at the device, “to that. And you know what you did.”

  “And the only reason you know what I did,” he leaned forward, lowered his voice, and pointed at her, “is because of what you were doing with it.”

  She scowled with her hands on her hips. There wasn’t much she could say to that.

  Damn him.

  “You know better than anyone—that is not why we made the four of those keys,” he added.

  She huffed, groaned, and plopped herself onto the couch in front of Ken’s desk. Ken decided early on he might as well leave the couch in his office, considering how many impromptu Tsay Trustee meetings they tended to have in there.

  “I know. I know,” she shook her head, unable to defend herself.

  “I didn’t say anything when you gave that one to Roy. Since it was in honor of Jin, it was technically yours to do whatever you wished,” he scolded her. “But this, Suren,” he lowered his voice again. “What you’ve been up to for the last three months, it is unfuckingacceptable. I honestly couldn’t believe it at first. I couldn’t bring myself to tell any of the others what you were doing. Not even Hunter.”

  “Ken—” she tried to protest, but he pointed at her again and interrupted, his voice nearing a shout.

  “And! I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t working on the network to make this whole Roy thing possible for you. It’s sick, Suren. What you did is sick. And it’s a complete violation of your own law. You broke Suren’s Law! For the past—what? three months?—you’ve been breaking your own law.”

  Suren lowered her head, shook it, and fidgeted with her hands while she whispered, “I know. I know.”

  “I—I’m not quite sure what you’re asking of me,” his voice shook.

  “I thought I was quite clear, Dr. Mulligan,” she spoke firmly and flatly. “I want you to train me how to use Veil. How to use it—effectively.”

  “No, no, I understood that ma’am, Ms … Widow Tsay,” the doctor responded. “I guess I simply find myself confused. You are, to be blunt, the Great Widow Tsay, the renowned ‘Mother of Veil.’ And yet you’re here now directing me to tell you how to use Veil.”

  She laughed at the absurdity of it all. He was right.

  “I see your point. I can’t argue with it except to say that although I’m well versed in the technical aspects of Veil, the nuances are completely lost on me. I’ve barely used it.”

  “Barely?”

  “Yes, and barely is an understatement. So what I’m asking you is to give me a crash course in Veil. While on the outside this might seem to be completely preposterous—I’ll give you that—it is precisely what I’m asking of you. You are purported to be the foremost Veilologist and Veilosopher, are you not?”

  “Ye—yes, ma’am. It would seem that way.”

  “That is why I summoned you here. All I’m asking for is a crash course in some of the intricacies of Veil and explanations of its basic methodologies for my purposes. If you can’t fulfill that simple request, I’m sure I can find someone who would be more amenable to assisting the Great Widow Tsay.”

  “I—I am completely willing to help in any way … any way.”

  “Good, then I shall allow you to continue living,” she said matter-of-factly as she stood up and pushed in her chair.

  He stood as well, in reverence, but remained completely silent and dumbstruck.

  After a few uncomfortable moments of staring at each other in silence, Suren threw her head back and cackled.

  “Oh, good lord, I was kidding. And please, Dr. Mulligan, call me Suren.”

  “Uhhh … I’ll try, Ms—Muh … Suren. But it will take me a while to get used to that.”

  “Well hopefully not too long. Anyway, I’d like to meet all this week, if you’re available. Starting tomorrow morning. Every day for several hours.”

  “First thing, I’ll be available first thing, Muh … uhhh, Suren. And, please, ca—call me Auggie.”

  The next morning, Suren found Dr. Augustus Mulligan to be much more relaxed and informal.

  “Where would you like me to begin?”

  “Where ever you need to begin so I can understand not only how to use Veil but how to tap into it. I want to know how to really get into a Veil.”

  “Ok but,” the doctor pressed, “do you have any beginning questions? Anything that could give me a starting point?

  “I guess if I had to pick a main one it would be—how do you think, as a Veilologist and Veilosopher, Veil changed the world? Changed people.”

  The doctor balked at the irony of the so-called Mother of Veil asking him to explain how Veil changed everyone in the world. He had to force himself to ignore an irony he knew no one would believe.

  “I guess, being primarily a Veilologist, a field that started as a handful of Veil psychologists, I’d have to say the most drastic change at first was what it did for people. What it allowed them to see.”

  “You mean, being able to experience other people? The ability to actually be someone else.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. That was the first and the most obvious change. But it soon grew into something greater than that. Imagine human consciousness as an iceberg. One huge, gigantic iceberg.”

  “Ok,” Suren nodded. Easy enough.

  “Well before Veil, all anyone had access to was the very tip of that iceberg. Their own icebergs, other people’s icebergs. Always just the tip. Even psychologists, PreVeil, we could only theorize about what happened behind the scenes, below the surface. Not only unconsciously, but also consciously. It was all theory. Theory we were barely able to accurately test.”

  “I see,” Suren nodded again. Easy enough, but wasn’t really of any help to her.

  “What Veil gave people was the entire iceberg. Not at first though, not when Veil first hit the world. In the beginning, everyone was simply marveling at the novelty. Slowly, after some time, people like me began to really, really get into it. Get into the meat of it. We wanted to see what kind of power it held. Which, if I had to guess, is why you’re here. You want to harness the power of Veil.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes,” she agreed. Now he was talking her language.

  “I will say this much—if someone told me about the theory of Veil, before I’d ever come into contact with it, I would’ve guessed that the great equalizing nature of it, psychologically speaking, would’ve been showing people how we’re all the same. All our fears, hopes, dreams, needs, wants—all of that. They might each manifest differently but deep down, we’re all the same.”

  “That wasn’t it? We’re not all the same?”

  “Oh heavens no, not even close. And that’s what we learned. Psychology was, for all intents and purposes, put in its place. It wasn’t our fault, really. PreVeil, we could only work with what we had access to. But in the end, we knew so little. As Veilologists, we essentially had to start from scratch. But, man, did we suddenly have one heck of an iceberg to work with.”

  “Ok, rewind for a second. What was it then? What was the—what did you call it?—Veil’s great equalizing nature?”

  “Oddly enough, or well oddly enough to me, it was all the stuff we didn’t know about ourselves. All the stuff we couldn’t know. The stuff we didn’t want to know. Our unconscious, the sub-unconscious, the sub-sub-unconscious. And so on.”

  “Explain, please,” she requested. She couldn’t see where he was going, and how the direction would help her at all, but at least it was interesting.

  “Well, I could bore you by explaining what all is there, what all is in the mind, but I won’t. You’ll eventually find out for yourself anyway, and besides it wouldn’t make sense until you do experience it for yourself. What I can tell you is Veil tied us all together. It ushered in what Veilologists, and now Veilosophers, call the Great Reveilation.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s the revelation people can arrive at through Veil, but only through each
other. It takes another person Veiling you, delving into your mind, telling you what all is there. The thoughts you hide from yourself. The feelings you deny yourself. The things about yourself that you’re so afraid to face and have been afraid of for so long that you can’t remember ever having been afraid of them. The rest of the iceberg.”

  “I see. And those things are?”

  “It’s different for everyone, and those things are exactly what make us all so unique. Ironically, it makes us all humiliatingly equal. None of us know ourselves, and all of us need each other to reveal ourselves. Not only that, there is nothing we fear greater than ourselves. There are things about ourselves we fear more than death. The only way we can access those things, in a way we never have been able to before, is through Veil. Through giving that part of ourselves to someone else, and then having him or her reflect it back to us. Having them tell us what they found. With Veil, we’re finally able to find ourselves, but the only way is through someone else.”

  “Isn’t that what Buddhists do? Through meditation and self-realization, all that stuff?”

  “Eh, in a manner of speaking, yes. But not entirely. Buddhists, to put it crudely, seek to empty their minds. They detach from their ego—from their self. It’s a lofty goal, and it’s a commendable goal. However, not everyone is at the point where they can reach that level of enlightenment. Actually, few people are. Buddhists who do achieve it required years and years of discipline and training. What Veil does is help to level the egotistical playing ground for everyone. Everyone winds up in the same place. Although we’re all different, it helps us find that common ground.”

  He paused and took a drink of water.

  “If people then want to go the Buddhist route and take it a step further, that’s wonderful, and I think Veil helps people prepare for that leap. To use an analogy, Veil holds a mirror up to people. Buddhism goes a step further and shows us how we’re each a mirror of the entire universe. Enlightenment is when the mirror is shattered and the two become one. I think the former can be a stepping-stone to the latter. To me, as a Veilologist, the best part about the former is that it can only happen through another person. Only another person can reflect those parts of yourself that you’re unwilling or unable to see.”

  “Like how Ken gave me my memory. He told it to me, even though I couldn’t remember it myself,” Suren thought out loud.

  “Excuse me? I don’t follow.”

  Suren laughed at herself and told the doctor to disregard what she said. She added that she definitely understood, and it made sense.

  “Use him?” Hunter laughed.

  “Use Roy?” Ken repeated Hunter, asking more pointedly. He was as confused by the request as he was Suren’s apparent nonchalance about the roads to find Jin’s murderer all but drying up. He assumed that the fact she brought up Roy meant they were done discussing Ken’s Veil of her.

  “Yes, use Roy. Let me explain,” Suren kept smiling.

  “Please do,” Hunter chuckled and folded his arms across his chest. Usually it was he who would tread so heavily on such thin ice of inappropriateness.

  “For years now, they’ve been after us for a piece of my Jin. All of us. Each one of us in this room, they’ve been after us. And you,” she emphasized, pointing at Hunter, “didn’t even know him. Never met him. But that doesn’t stop them. They’re all after us. They all want something of Jin. They want a memory, an experience. Something they can hold onto as a way to experience the Great Jin Tsay.”

  “Yes,” Ken agreed. Old news.

  It became one of the biggest and most daunting demands since Veil ushered in the New Veil World. He didn’t begrudge people for wanting to get closer to Jin. None of the Tsay Trustees begrudged them. They simply couldn’t play a part in it. None of them felt right handing over their experiences of Jin—their memories of him—to the public, no matter how well intentioned the public’s need and demand. The Tsay Trustees were as protective of their memories of Jin as they were of each other.

  Suren elaborated, “I went back to Mariano’s store and looked through the memories of Jin he had for sale. Not only were they scarce, they were weak and they were irrelevant. They were from people who barely remembered Jin and even then he was only a passing ghost in their memory. But everyone is so desperate for a piece of him that they eat these sad excuses for memories up. It breaks my heart. It truly does. I’m not willing to give up the Jin I carry with me, and I know you’re not either,” she looked at Ken, “and I love that. Of course I do. I appreciate it. But if there is going to be a demand for him, a demand for Jin, I want to give them a Jin we all approve of and one we can all be proud of.”

  “So how does Roy come into this?” Ken asked, still not following her. Or not wanting to follow her.

  “I figured you of all people would already predict what I was thinking,” she smiled at Ken. “It’s pretty simple. Roy saw Jin almost every single day. For years. Other than me, he probably saw Jin more than anyone else for nearly—what?—six or seven years?”

  “Around there, yeah,” Ken estimated. He started to see where Suren was headed.

  “And not only did he see Jin every morning, he saw Jin in a very unique way. Obviously, Roy had a fondness for Jin, which shows in everything he did for him in the end. For Jin. But, beyond that, he saw Jin simply being Jin. Walking through the doors of the hospital every day, not really happy or sad, on his way to do what he did and do what made him Jin. On his way, fittingly enough for this purpose, to develop Veil. And that’s what I want to give to people. That’s the Jin I want to give the world. They apparently are not going to stop demanding—stop begging. So I want to give them the Jin that Roy got to see every day.”

  “And how do you suppose we go about doing this?” Ken asked, his voice lowered. He already had somewhat of an idea as to what Suren was thinking, and he was increasingly displeased. He wanted to hear her say it, though.

  “Well, what I was thinking was we should develop some sort of technology that could store a memory of Roy’s or something. A small memory of Jin, which people can access through the vNet whenever they want. I know there are limitations to Veil, but I was hoping you two could come up with something, so at least a memory could be stored and delivered to people to give them what they all want. Give people my Jin, but a version of him with the official Tsay Trustees’ seal of approval.”

  Ken immediately stood up from the couch and circled the desk to his chair. He didn’t respond until he was seated in his chair, facing both Suren and Hunter.

  “Absolutely not. Never. If we allow it—if we ever allow that—it will be the undoing of Veil. You have no idea what that would eventually do to people.”

  “As remarkable as all that sounds, and please don’t take me the wrong way, it is truly fascinating, how does that help me? How can I use that?” Suren asked the doctor.

  “Well I guess if anything, it gives you an understanding as to the power of Veil and what becomes available to anyone who uses it. Anyone who shadows someone. I’m guessing you’ve at least shadowed someone before? Correct?” Dr. Mulligan tried to find his way back to the point.

  “Yes. I have. Once.”

  Again, he had to ignore the absurdity of the Great Widow Tsay’s response.

  “And did you upload back onto yourself in Veiltime or in realtime?” he asked.

  “In realtime. It was important to do it that way for our purposes in that situation.”

  “Oh, good, good. That’s actually good for these purposes as well. Because I’d venture to guess you struggled to keep focused on the subject. You likely struggled to stay inside the experience and within the Veil for the entire duration.”

  “Actually, yes I did. We were prepared for that, so we used incense as an anchor. The smell of the incense helped anchor me into the experience of Roy—of the subject.”

  “Perfect!” The doctor slapped his knee. “That’s perfect! Then you’ll understand where I’m coming from. You see, because you were so new to Veil
, you were likely overwhelmed by the very wonder of Veil itself. That’s why the incense was used. To snap you back into the process. To let you become this—this Roy again.”

  “Yes, and it worked quite well.”

  “Good! Good! It’s supposed to. However, as time goes on, as the newness of Veil wears off, you will begin to see the layers available to you through the Veil process. Layers upon layers upon layers.”

  “Layers?”

  “Yes, layers. As you probably know, we don’t have access to all of a person’s memories through Veil. We can’t scan their memories from beginning to end. We only have access to what they remember during the time they are being shadowed.”

  “Right, I understand that. That’s what the questions and instructions were for. The things I read to Roy as I was shadowing him. To trigger the specific memories we were trying to uncover.”

  Without knowing anything about Suren’s Veil, the doctor could still use the information to make his point. “Precisely, the memories have to be triggered in order to access them. However, and this is what I can and will teach you, in quite the opposite way, we do have access to every fiber of thought and feeling the subject experiences while they are being shadowed. Thoughts and feelings from the deepest recesses of their mind. Thoughts and feelings they are unaware of, or that they unconsciously deny themselves.”

  “I see,” Suren nodded, still letting what the doctor said sink into her mind. After a moment, she began to comprehend the gravity of what he was saying. “I see!”

  He continued, “Since the shadower’s mind isn’t trained to ignore those thoughts and feelings; since they are foreign to the shadower; since they can be objective, the shadower—with the right training—can access them. They can access parts of the subject that the subject themselves can’t access.”