Veil

by Aaron Overfield

  When the judge completed her questioning, the guards transferred The Witness of the Accused back over to his vPort and set it to upload in realtime, while also setting it to amplify the vAtoner’s emotional signals. Markers to indicate the beginning and end of the Veil Atonement would also be embedded in the Accused’s brain to allow his vPort to recall that particular memory automatically every day, per his sentencing.

  Before initiating the upload process, Judge Jacobsen gave the vAtoner the option to leave the courtroom or to remain and observe as the Accused was subjected to the Veil Atonement. With a broad smile, the vAtoner elected to remain and observe as the Accused suffered through his vAtonement. The vAtoner informed the judge she very much so preferred to witness each agonizing moment that was about to unfold.

  While in jail awaiting trial, Lundy heard all the rumors about every step he’d go through in a Surveil Court. He knew sitting in the Accused’s chair meant someone was already found guilty and the formalities of court proceedings in the New Veil World were designed to get someone’s crime on record and quench the public’s sadistic, voyeuristic thirst. Anyone sitting in the Accused’s chair in a Surveil Court wasn’t awaiting a verdict so much as they were simply awaiting their sentencing.

  One of the worst sentences someone could receive was recurrent Veil Atonement. Receiving it daily for life was practically unheard of—it was considered worse than life imprisonment. Yearly vAtonement, usually repeated on the anniversary of the crime or verdict, was a pretty common sentence those days, but daily vAtonement? For life? Lundy knew the one and only reason for him receiving such a harsh sentence was The Great Cunt herself: the Widow Fucking Tsay.

  Being forced to experience firsthand the pain, grief, and suffering of a victim’s family and loved ones every single day was one thing. Having to experience it firsthand daily with their pain, grief, and suffering amplified ten times was torture. Cruel and unusual, as far as Lundy was concerned. Hell, unusual and unnatural. Forced-empathy through Veil was the punishment du jour, and Lundy could barely imagine what kind of PreVeil progressive nut job wet-dreamed-up Veil Atonement. Given the choice, he would’ve preferred the death penalty over the bullshit, liberal agenda of Veil Atonement. Being coerced into experiencing someone else’s pain—pain you might’ve kinda possibly maybe happened to accidentally cause someone else to feel—was fucking bullshit. Unnatural, hippy, socialist, weak, pussy-ass-faggot bullshit. Fuck their pain. No matter what he might’ve done, someone else’s feelings were still their own fault. Fuck them if they were so weak that they couldn’t control how they felt.

  Fuck their feelings.

  With every ounce of resentment and anger he could exude, Lundy glared right into the woman’s eyes.

  “Fuck you,” he snarled. “Fuck you and your dead husband you stupid, ugly cunt. I hope he went to hell, and I hope you do, too. You fucking cow. You should suck my fat dick, you motherless daughter of a whore.”

  The vAtoner smiled in Lundy’s face during his little tirade. As spittle flew at her from his disgusting mouth, she elegantly crossed her legs. She let one high-heel shoe slide off her foot just enough for her to dangle it playfully from her first three toes. Still smiling, she gracefully placed both hands on her knee and sat with impeccable posture.

  She stared at Lundy. She scrutinized him. She smiled in his face. She noticed Lundy had a long hair that grew from one side of his neck. It was at least three inches long, and the bastard hair didn’t even have the decency to curl. It simply stuck straight out. It was disgusting. Which, she grinned, suited Lundy quite nicely.

  One of the guards nodded at her, and she nodded back. Yes, she was ready. She was damn ready; she waited for that moment. Taking the vAtoner’s cue, the guard pressed the button on Lundy’s vPort and started the upload of his Witness back onto him, in order to deliver the Veil Atonement.

  Lundy’s hateful expression dropped and all the emotion in his eyes immediately shifted. His look of anger and resentment transformed into one of utter horror and grief; his eyes filled with tears. His mind was flooded by the thoughts and amplified emotions of the woman facing him.

  He screamed, his entire body tensed, and he clinched his eyes as tightly as he could. He screeched out shrieks and cries until his exhausted muscles went limp, his head fell backwards, and his high-pitched outbursts dissolved into throaty howls and wails—which continued to erupt out of him with a rhythm not unlike that of hiccups.

  The woman leaned forward and punched Lundy in the groin as hard as she could.

  “You open your eyes and look at me, you son of a bitch,” she snarled.

  One of the guards put up a hand. “Please, no touching the Accused. Sorry ma’am.”

  She smiled and leaned back in her chair as she watched the contorted grimace on Lundy’s face. His eyes flew open, uncontrolled.

  All Lundy could do was scream and cry as he was filled with more grief and pain than he experienced in his forty-plus years combined. It was unbearable, and it all belonged to the woman who was staring directly in his eyes, grinning at him. The woman whose husband he murdered. He couldn’t take it anymore. Snot bubbled and poured from his nose, and he could taste the saltiness of it in his mouth. When he thought the pain might cause his heart to seize up, he heard Judge Jacobsen’s voice in his mind as she completed the questioning she delivered to the vAtoner some moments earlier.

  Lundy lowered his head and sobbed.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he repeated over and over, although the upload was finished.

  The woman stood up and strolled out of the courtroom while Lundy sobbed pitifully and pathetically. As she sauntered by him, she bent her knees slightly and whispered, “You’ll feel that every single day, you nasty piece of shit.”

  “How many of those does he have to go through?” Hunter asked.

  “Ninety-six,” Ken groaned.

  “And she wants him to go through all of them before he’s tried for Jin’s murder?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “Does she have any idea how long that will take?”

  “Come on, you know she does. She probably did the math in her head before the police told her. Surveil court doctors won’t let an Accused face more than five Veil Atonements in one day. And if it’s their very first time, the court can only impose one that day. So Suren knows it’s going to be at least twenty days before she gets her turn.”

  “That’s not counting any additional murders that get uncovered in the process.”

  “Nope, sure isn’t.”

  Hunter rolled onto his side, rested his head on Ken’s chest, and sighed. He inhaled deeply through his nose and all the cells in his body engorged themselves on Ken’s scent.

  He exhaled and opined. “I don’t get her sometimes. She’s waited so long. They could skip to Jin’s murder, and she’d be done with all this. You know they would do it for her. They’d put him on trial right now. Like, this very fucking second. That dyke judge would get out of bed for it.”

  “I know, but she wants him to Atone for all the others and suffer for them before he has to answer for what he did to Jin. Surveil Enforcement already know for certain Lundy’s the one. They’re absolutely certain. That’s enough for her.”

  “For now.”

  “Right, for now.”

  “Ninety-six. Damn.”

  “I know,” Ken kissed the top of Hunter’s head. “Imagine having to live through ninety-six Veil Atonements and experience all the suffering he’s caused in all those families. And I heard the first sentencing was for lifetime daily vAtonements. The rest will probably be the same.”

  “By the time Suren gets to him—by the time they get to Jin’s case, he’s going to be one great big pile of mess. He’ll be a Swiss cheese, rape-hole basket case.”

  “I’m going to ignore the fact that you just said ‘rape-hole’. Besides, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what she wants. If I had to guess, she wants him to suffer and squirm until the real pa
in begins.”

  “If he doesn’t die of a heart attack first,” Hunter added.

  “Heck, if Lundy dies before Suren gets her turn with him, she’ll make them revive him long enough to get her turn.”

  Hunter lifted his head and looked up at Ken. “Do you know her plan?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not. I don’t know. She hasn’t told me.”

  “Ok.” He lowered his head back onto Ken’s chest. “But after everything you’ve hidden from me for that woman, you best not be lying. If you know her plan for Lundy you better tell me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Ok.”

  “Sex?” Ken asked.

  “For five dollars,” Hunter shrugged, smirked, and wiggled his butt.

  “You’d make the worst prostitute ever.”

  “Don’t judge me. Besides, it’s all about quantity over quality.”

  “You are gross,” Ken smiled and bent over to kiss Hunter.

  With only Jackson Page’s case out of the way, Lundy was already begging to strike a deal. He asked the guards to inform Judge Jacobsen he’d confess to three additional murders if she combined his remaining cases into one case and a single Veil Atonement. He asked the guards to tell the judge he couldn’t go through all those trials and would rather suffer the vAtonements all at once, without having to face the remaining families and jurors.

  Instead of receiving a response from the judge, two Surveillors arrived at Lundy’s cell and proceeded to Veil him and question him about the three additional murders. Without at least cursory knowledge of a crime, Surveillors were unable to compel a suspect to involuntarily remember enough detail to make Surveillance productive. However, armed with the knowledge that Lundy committed three additional murders, which his mind recently recalled, all they needed to do was refer to the crimes he mentioned to the guards, and Lundy’s brain would do the rest. When the Surveillors left Lundy’s cell, his total murder count, not including that of the Great Jin Tsay, was ninety-nine.

  When they escorted him into the courtroom for the ninety-sixth time, the guards found Lundy was either unable or unwilling to walk, so they were forced to drag him to the Accused’s chair. After nineteen days of trials and ninety-five Veil Atonements, Lundy was barely able to speak. The judge agreed to hold off on the delivery of Lundy’s recurring, daily Veil Atonements—to which he was sentenced in all ninety-five cases—until his remaining trials were carried out. Even so, after undergoing ninety-five initial Veil Atonements, Lundy was left a blubbering, pathetic shell of his former self.

  As they dragged him, Lundy recognized the woman and teenager sitting in the front row of the victim’s side of the courtroom. They were Scot Helmke’s wife and son. Helmke had been Lundy’s plastic surgeon for years and was one of the only people with whom Lundy had more than fleeting contact and who therefore knew Lundy’s name and identity. Helmke was a loose end Lundy simply couldn’t leave untied.

  Just as it did in all his previous trials, the questioning of the Surveillors stimulated and led Lundy’s mind effectively enough to recall his memory of committing Helmke’s murder. Through the pointed questions, the jurors shadowing Lundy witnessed as he used the vFlatline memory, which was purchased through Black Market Memories, to kill Scot Helmke. They lived out the planning of the murder and experienced the preparations as Lundy spoke with the owner of the memory store and used Helmke’s VSN to schedule the delivery of the memory.

  The jurors witnessed as Lundy arranged a meeting with Helmke by claiming to need a surgery consultation. The meeting with Helmke was set for the same time as the Veil he scheduled with the memory store. During their meeting, Lundy overpowered Helmke and restrained him. As the jurors witnessed in horror, Lundy forcibly cabled Helmke into the vNet, whereby Helmke received the memory as scheduled from the Vault. The jurors watched through Lundy’s eyes as Helmke received the vFlatline memory and then witnessed as Helmke was slowly traumatized to death by it. Lundy was, of course, found guilty.

  The victim’s family chose the victim’s widow, Ashley Helmke, and their son, Scot Jr., to be the vAtoners for the case. After watching Lundy go through the Veil Atonement delivered by Scot Jr., Ashley Helmke decided to forego her vAtonement. Seeing how Lundy was already driven to the point of insanity and barely able to hold himself up in the chair, she felt it was pointless.

  Lundy was put through the ringer so much he looked to her to be nothing more than a drooling, numb pile of worthless flesh. Ashley informed the judge that she didn’t think it was worth going through the process only to watch him sit there lifeless and limp, barely able to respond. Judge Jacobsen told the victim’s widow she understood, dismissed the courtroom, and instructed the guards to drag Lundy back to his jail cell.

  “No! Absolutely motherfucking not! Under no uncertain terms, no. Fucking no.”

  “It was his idea.”

  “Bitch, I don’t care if it was sweet Mahatma Gandhi’s idea. I don’t care if the idea came straight from the mouth of little baby Jesus way up in motherfucking heaven above. The idea is shit and the idea is not happening. Period.”

  Suren stood and headed for the office door. As she opened it and made her way through, she turned her head and crowed over her shoulder, “Well, it’s his idea, and it’s his decision. It’s up to him. Deal with it.”

  Hunter stormed after her. “Oh, no, no bitch, you don’t get to walk out. I don’t give a shit if you are the Great Widow Tsay or not. I remember when you were just plain little old boring ass—Suren. So don’t think for a second you’re going to pull that stunt on me.”

  Still stomping down the hallway, she quickly glared over her shoulder, and then resumed looking ahead.

  “Why don’t we wait until he’s here, and we can all talk about it? I’m going to fix myself a drink,” she snapped back.

  “Well then, I’ll just have a drink with you, won’t I? Because I’m not letting you out of my sight. Any time I do the two of you end up with some secret fucking master plan that no one else gets to hear about, and I’m fucking sick of it. He should never listen to you. Yousa crazy bitch.”

  Hearing that, Suren whipped around and pointed an index finger at Hunter, who was still charging toward her.

  “Do you have any idea how long I’ve known that man?” she yelled.

  “First of all, drop that finger now because you know I’ll break it, and then I’ll slap you shitless, woman. You know I will.”

  Suren lowered her arm.

  “Second, I don’t give a shit how long you’ve known him. I don’t give two shits. The man is my husband, and you have no right. You have no fucking right!”

  Hunter finally caught up, and his face was barely inches from hers.

  “I should slap you anyway. I really should,” he growled through his teeth.

  Suren stood her ground, not flinching or blinking.

  After it was clear neither of them was going to back down, Hunter huffed and rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s go make some drinks. Crazy bitch.”

  “No.”

  “Hunter—”

  “No.”

  “Hear me out.”

  “Fucking no.”

  Ken slammed his fists down. The three glasses sitting on the counter shook and the ice clinked loudly. “Hunter!”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere, Ken,” Suren interrupted. She was annoyed and already knew how the situation was going to play out, so she didn’t think they should have to suffer through the theatrics.

  “You shut up, Wong Foo!” Hunter pointed at Suren and then at Ken. “And you fucking lied to me. We were naked, and you lied to me. I asked you straight up if you knew what her plan was. You lied.”

  “I didn’t lie; I didn’t know at the time. And if you really want to know, it was my plan. She was right; it was my idea.”

  “What is wrong with the two of you? Why would either of you think this is a good idea? It’s a bad idea, and it’s not necessary. At al
l.”

  “You know no one can Veil her,” Ken tried to reason with him.

  “So what?”

  “So, if no one can Veil with Suren, then someone has to make sure he Atones for Jin’s murder.”

  “One, the man isn’t there anymore. His brain is cat litter. Two, it doesn’t have to be you. Just because Suren can’t make him Atone for Jin’s murder doesn’t mean you have to be the one. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean it has to be this way—using that.”

  “Think about it Hunt. Think about how—” Ken started to say.

  “No!”

  That time it was Suren who brought her fist down on the counter. “Let him finish, Priscilla Queen of the Vodka!”

  Hunter raised his eyebrows at Suren for a moment but relented.

  Ok, ok … Miss Saigon been doin’ her homework. Whatever.

  “Fine, finish,” he puffed and waved his hand with a flick of his wrist. “I’m making another drink.”

  “Hunter, I have the one thing that could finish this. The one thing that could finish Lundy. Think about how poetic it is—executing him with Jin’s very own memory. And the court would have no idea. I could go in there, deliver Jin’s memory to Lundy, and walk out. Before the court doctor had a chance to intervene, it would be too late. Besides, they’ll probably think he died naturally. He’s already gone through almost ten times more Veil Atonements than anyone else—ever. They’ll think his brain or his heart couldn’t take any more so he dropped dead.”