“Still, the fact remains. Steve became one of the forefront Velebrities because his ability to feel physically healthy greatly surpasses how most people are accustomed to feeling. He is healthy, he is strong, his physique is the pinnacle of ideal. Steve comfortably, and without judgment, welcomes admiration from people who are attracted to his aesthetic. He then channels that attraction into a way to motivate and educate others and himself. Plus, Steve comfortably gives admiration to people whose aesthetics attract him, without perceiving it as a threat to his masculinity or sexuality, which sadly was quite rare PreVeil. When Veilers—male and female alike—encounter Steve Cook, the experience of being him is magnetic, seductive, and liberating. He breaks boundaries: physical, egotistical, sexual, and even gender lines.
“However, this trend isn’t unique to only him, and it will keep happening: people will become known for their particular abilities when their abilities transcend those of so many others. Abilities we might never have been able to comprehend in the past. If you pay attention to VeilTrackers, the things Veilers say about Steve mirror what is being said about other Velebrities. Velebrities provide exposure to an ability that greatly surpasses that of most others. It simply depends on what ability or abilities a Veiler is drawn to. Heck Christiane, someone might be really good at being loved. Being loved might simply come more naturally and effortlessly to them and Veilers might be drawn to that.”
“Ok, I have to interrupt you again on that one. You’re saying the act of being loved can be seen as an ability?”
“Oh, without a doubt. It’s a little like being able to take a compliment. Some people are much more adept at it than others, for whatever reasons. Allowing oneself to be loved isn’t always easy, quite the opposite a lot of times, in fact. A lot of people, many without realizing it, don’t want to need love. They don’t want to need love at all. This was especially true in a lot of PreVeil males. The need itself for love was, and in some small part still is, seen as a weakness; it is viewed as being somehow impotently vulnerable. The more someone is put off by or makes light of strong emotions being expressed by others, the more difficult it is for them feel or express profound emotions. That translates into a difficulty in allowing oneself to be loved.
“A lot of ideal relationships occur when a person who is really good at loving and one who is really good at being loved collide. There of course are going to be some exchanging of the roles, a reciprocity love requires, but one does tend to be one or the other most of the time. PreVeil, these roles were dichotomized along gender lines, with the male or masculine role seen as more adept at providing the feeling of love and the female or feminine role seen as more adept at receiving the feeling of love. The archetypal and parodied chivalrous man and needy woman.”
“Hmmm, I’m not sure everyone would agree with that, Ken. Speaking for myself, as a woman, and my perception of how things were and still are, it seems women are the ones who are more outwardly loving, more nurturing. Wouldn’t you say it’s women whom generally talk about love, display love, and express love.”
“Well, Christiane, I would respond to that in a few ways, which doesn’t imply either of us are right or wrong. First, loving and nurturing are two completely different aspects, and I would agree that women are better nurturers. For sure, I agree with that. However, I differ from you in my interpretation of what you identify as women expressing love. I tend to interpret that behavior as women desiring love. Like you said, and it goes to the core of what I’m saying, I interpret their behavior as indicative of them seeking love. Undoubtedly, to me, in the typical PreVeil relationship, the masculine role was seen as provider—even the provider of love, while the feminine was seen as the receiver—even the receiver of love. Whether or not that was surface appearance and more complicated behind the scenes is a discussion for another time. While my interpretations might put-off or offend some, it’s simply how I viewed gender dynamics PreVeil and how I view them PostVeil. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, and I think the equalizing, unifying trend Veil has started is characteristic of the fact that our evolution is pushing us beyond such rigid, arbitrary boundaries.”
“It’s funny that you bring up the equalizing, unifying aspect of Veil, Ken. Because, I suspect most of my viewers and Veilers might’ve expected you to identify that aspect of Veil as the biggest lesson of Veil itself.”
“Oh no doubt, it’s an evolution, for sure. But to me that’s an outcome, not a lesson. Besides, it leads my mind straight back to ability. Veil’s outcome—the psychosocial evolution it has caused—actually frees people and allows them to become their ability to a much greater extent. For example, PostVeil, with gender lines and roles blurring tremendously, people seem to feel freer to identify with their abilities more than with their sex or gender. The same is true for race. The New Veil World has seen the content of one’s character, their specific personal abilities, take precedence over arbitrary, rapidly dissolving identities such as race, nationality, religion, class, sex or gender.
“So this lesson, this deeper understanding of, and appreciation for, our individual abilities, that’s what you, Dr. Ken Wise, see as the best thing to come from Veil? That’s what you see as the inherent good in Veil?”
“Oh, I never said it was good. I never once said it was good or bad. I simply said it was the main lesson Veil has taught us. It might very well be Veil’s undoing. It might be our undoing.”
“I think it’s time. She asked to see you.”
“She’s asked to see me before. What, is she going to turn into The Widow Who Cried Wolf every few years up in here?”
“This is serious, Hunter. You haven’t been to her wing of the house or seen her for probably over a year. She’s bad.”
“Jesus,” he groaned, ripped the collar from his neck, and tossed it on his bed. He snapped his fingers a few times and flagged Roy over to help him up. Once Roy helped him stand and make his way over to his walker, Hunter pushed him away.
“I’ve got it now. Fuck. You’re so damn clingy. Go put a chair by her bed and tell her I’ll be there in a bit. If she can hang on that fucking long. If not, oh well. Sayonara, Suren.”
“Wow, you look beat to shit,” was all Hunter could muster as he started his shuffle across her room.
“Hello, Hunter.” The words came from a surprisingly hoarse, gravelly voice.
As he got closer he could detect her developing death rattle. It was enough to make him want to turn and leave. However, he got too close to the chair and reached his point of no return. He was tired and needed to sit down.
“Suren,” he hissed as he let go of his walker and plopped himself onto the chair Roy placed next to her bed.
They sat silently for a moment. Neither of them looked at the other, but both were intently and solely focused on the other’s presence.
“So this is it, huh?” he broke the silence.
“Looks like it,” she wheezed.
“I guess I know why the Great Widow Tsay has summoned me this time.”
“That’s not the only reason, Hunter. But yes, it is part of it.”
“I figured as much. I knew you wouldn’t leave without it.”
“Don’t I have the right—” she started but backtracked when she remembered she was speaking to him. “I would like to know.”
“I know you would. But first, I feel like I should tell you … there’s something you should know. I should have told you a long time ago. Considering it will bother and hurt you, I’m not sure why I never told you before.”
“I already know. I’ve known for a couple years now.”
“Yes, of course you do. I knew you would. Knowing it and me saying it aren’t the same, though.”
“Then say it. If you’re going to say it, then say it.”
“I—I,” he looked up at her and their eyes met for the first time since he sat next to her bed, “gave her streaming. Peyton gave me Ken back, and I gave her streaming.”
“Yes.”
“I’m n
ot strong like he was. We both know that.”
“It really doesn’t matter,” she sighed.
“The hell it doesn’t. He wouldn’t have wanted it, and I couldn’t be strong like he would’ve been. I couldn’t put anyone else before myself. All I wanted was him. One more second with him. One more fuck.”
“I meant the streaming doesn’t matter. We were both right and wrong.” She had to stop herself for a moment and catch her breath before she could finish. “Ken wouldn’t have wanted it but it didn’t matter. Peyton was right, streaming only makes sense for Veillusions.”
“I know. But they’ll overturn the entire bill one day. We both know it. The Vequiem industry is already pushing for it. Veillusionists have been writing elaborate Vequiem Veillusions for memorial services, using people’s memories of the dead to craft entire experiences of the dead. Now that they’ve caught on so widely, the industry is pushing to allow recording and storage of actual neuroelectrical patterns. They don’t see the difference. They figure if Veillusionsts can write a Veillusion of a person’s life using everyone’s memories, what’s the big deal with recording someone’s neuroelectricity? What’s the big deal with just recording someone’s life?”
Suren gestured at the nightstand in front of Hunter. “Look in there.”
He opened the drawer and pulled out a stack of papers that were adorned with the Department of Surveil seal on top. It was a proposed recall for The Jin Experience bill.
“They want us to sign it,” she groaned.
“No … no…” he started to protest, although he wasn’t entirely convinced himself. However, he felt like it was what he should do.
Suren put her hand atop Hunter’s, which held The Jin Experience bill. Her hand was cold and dry. It stunned him.
“It doesn’t matter, Hunter,” she wheezed and coughed once. The cough had an eerie, heavy sound. It was deep and thick. Ominous.
“I know,” Hunter shook his head and stared at the old, withered hand on top of his. He figured it should matter, though. He figured it was supposed to matter. Maybe he was wrong.
“It’s going to happen one day, but they still want me to sign it. I’ll sign it,” she paused to catch her breath. “I’ll sign it and let the end begin. But first…”
She didn’t finish.
He finished for her, “But first you want to know.”
“We’ll have to come back to that last statement, Ken. First, I want to point out that Veil isn’t without its detractors or its own controversy.”
“No, Christiane, definitely not. Not in the least.”
“The first discussion about Veil with one of the Tsay Trustees wouldn’t be complete unless we touched on the disturbing rash of suicides the world witnessed during the First Veil Year and even into the Second Veil Year. The so-called ‘suicide wildfire’ that claimed nearly two million Veilers.”
“Yes, that is certainly something that should be and must be addressed. It was a shocking, gruesome outcome that none of us Trustees would’ve imagined or predicted. If we’d been able to make that prediction, the New Veil World likely would’ve never happened. I know I wouldn’t have taken part in sharing Veil with the world if I had foreseen such a horror.”
“That is certainly understandable, Ken. Do you have any insights or thoughts regarding exactly what characteristics of Veil itself might’ve led to that level of desperation and despair in so many Veilers?”
“Well, that’s a tough one, and it would be impossible to say for sure. Each suicide would need to be understood and analyzed on a case by case basis.”
“Of course. No one could disagree with that.”
“Out of respect for the families of those millions of Veilers who did end their own lives, I will keep my answer succinct and try not to make any sweeping generalizations.”
“I understand.”
“If I had to put myself into the shoes of those Veilers who became so despondent and filled with despair, I think I would place the phenomenon into three different categories. The first category would be those people who couldn’t live with what they learned about themselves through Veil. The second category, and these aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, would be those people who couldn’t live with what others learned or might learn about them through Veil. The third category, and again none are mutually exclusive, would be those people who couldn’t live with how others saw them. How they looked through other people’s eyes. Or what other people truly thought about them. For some, it could’ve been one of those things. For others, it could’ve been a mix of those things, or all of them.
“The power of Veil uncovered a lot of demons, if you will, inside all people, and rather than recognizing how that was true across the board, some Veilers somehow felt their demons were worse than others. So, instead of identifying and unifying with others through Veil, as most people did, they detached and felt isolated, alone, sick, perhaps even evil.
“I can say, without a doubt, that through Veil we’ve learned everyone has demons, everyone has a dark side, everyone has monsters in them. Those things might not all be the same, but we all have them. We all have things about ourselves that we repress, we hide, we fight, we ignore. The more people became Inveiled, the more they discovered those things in each other and the better they felt about their own demons. It became freeing for people to learn how—regardless of someone’s race, religion, nationality, class, sexuality, sex, gender, age, you name it—people have many similar thoughts, urges, and fantasies. However, while some people found freedom and unity in their discovery, others found despair and emptiness. Without making sweeping generalizations, I think it’s safe to say those Veilers who took their lives did so because, as impossible as it sounds, Veil made them feel alone.”
“And I think that is a good summation, Ken. Again, I understand your desire to respect the families of the suicide wildfire’s victims. You paint a clear, reasonable picture. Moving on to another controversy, you just touched on one very significant, undeniable attribute of the New Veil World. Dissolving identities. This has occurred across the board, in every way imaginable.”
“Undeniably, Christiane.”
“Veilgrants—those who refuse to use Veil at all—claim Veil will lead to a total loss of oneself. Veilists—the self-proclaimed Veil purists and religious right—claim Veil will lead to a loss of morals. While their claims might be debatable, one thing that doesn’t seem up in the air is how Veil led to dissolution of boundaries, be they political, religious, racial, psychological, sexual, social, what have you. Veil has led to several once firm and solidified boundaries or identities becoming much less rigid and increasingly more fluid, some dissolving altogether. The rate at which this is occurring is what has stunned most observers and analysts. Do you have any thoughts about that, Ken?”
“I will agree with that, and as you pointed out, I’m sure many of your viewers and Veilers might have expected me to state that pattern to be the main lesson of Veil. But again, I don’t see that as a lesson so much as an acceleration of evolution. It appears that people simply have fewer place to hide, and that leaves us all with more room for trust.”
“Trust. It’s interesting you say that because, as we all know, the Right To Veil bill has just seen one amendment passed. It states no sitting President shall be allowed to participate in Veil, although they are required to Veil during the election process. What’s your take on that, Ken?”
“Well, although us Tsay Trustees were closely involved with writing and ratifying the Right To Veil, we didn’t have anything to do with what they’re calling the National Security Amendment. However, I think us Trustees would be on board with it. Personally, I think it does make sense until a World Veilocracy is established, if it is ever established. To me, it has nothing to do with transparency or secrecy; it has more to do with the lesson of Veilocracy itself.”
“And what would you say that lesson was? What did we learn?”
“Well, Christiane, I think it goes back to trust. Back i
n our day, you’ll remember, two parties, the liberals and the conservatives, dominated our nation. Respectively, the Democrats and the Republicans. While there were vast differences in their ideologies, the then-contemporary versions of the two seemed to have been rooted in completely different modalities of trust and ownership. On the one hand there were the liberals, who were naive with their trust and overly generous with ownership. On the other there were conservatives, who were xenophobic with their trust and overly selfish with ownership.
“Liberals couldn’t seem to understand some people out in the real world would literally, given a chance, lie, cheat and steal to take everything you had, and then they would likely kill you. Liberals refused to see that some people were selfish, and to say people were out for themselves would be an understatement. Liberals wanted to ignore the harsh reality of the world in order to see the good in everyone and in order to make everyone magically social and economic equals. They were too naive and trusting. They wanted everyone to share everything.
“Conservatives understood the malevolent tendencies of human nature, but they went too far in their mistrust and applied it only to those who they considered different from themselves. Conservatives allowed themselves to exercise bigotry regularly by seeing good only in similarity; difference was a threat. Conservatives attacked that threat using morality, religion, and government as weapons. They also believed everyone was, and should have been, out for themselves. They didn’t want to be forced to share anything. They thought that was stealing.
“Through that lens, Veilocracy can be seen as a product of finding the middle ground between those two modalities. It seems the National Security Amendment is a sign that, though we might have more or less unified as a nation, there are still threats out there in the real world from which we have to protect ourselves. The logic of not allowing a sitting President to participate in Veil is pretty obvious, considering. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll see a World Veilocracy. Things like that can be equally exciting and scary. At least, the one thing Veil can provide is trust. Including political trust, which was unheard of.”
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