Veil

by Aaron Overfield

  The upgrade of her vPort and silicone membrane went exactly as the doctor expected, and the diagnostics indicated everything was operating correctly and optimally. Considering that, Dr. Webster Soulard simply could not account for why Cheyenne’s Witness still failed to deliver her Veil. They resorted to the old-school method of Veil, which didn’t use streaming, but that didn’t work either. Dr. Soulard was at a complete loss. The only thing he could do for Cheyenne was send the data to Surveil and wait for them to report back.

  Sure, he heard rumors of a couple people around the world whose Witnesses permanently stopped delivering Veils, but he knew those were old wives’ tales that were meant to keep people from tampering with their ports. There was no such thing as someone’s Veil no longer working. He consoled Cheyenne by telling her they’d get to the bottom of it. The only consequence, he regretted to inform her, was that the time cost of the tests performed by Surveil and any subsequent procedures would be compensated by demoting her to a position with a longer daily time projection. Dr. Webster didn’t see any way around that.

  At first, Cheyenne’s coworkers were most sympathetic. Her Veil not working? They never heard of such a nightmare. They couldn’t imagine the horror; they almost didn’t want to imagine it. They wondered what in the name of Jin she would do with her time. How would she keep herself busy? They would gasp in disbelief as the gravity of Cheyenne’s condition sunk in. The poor girl couldn’t live her life. What in Jin’s name would become of her?

  The answer was simple: nothing. Cheyenne didn’t do anything. She had nothing to do except sit and wait. There was nothing to keep her busy and no one to talk to. She picked up more shifts at work, in the hopes that it would offset her demotion. Although she was still on target to complete her Veil and live out Dominika’s life, she didn’t want to risk it. Besides, she had nothing better to do. She went from working her required three and a half hours a day to working almost eight hours a day.

  That didn’t last long. It wasn’t that Cheyenne couldn’t handle the work, and it wasn’t that they weren’t making the hours available to her. It wasn’t those things at all. The problem was, Cheyenne had nothing to talk about. When everyone gathered around on breaks or during lunch and discussed what was going on as they lived out their current Veil, Cheyenne had nothing to say.

  Nothing changed: Cheyenne’s Veil still wasn’t working, and everyone already knew it, so there was nothing to tell them. They already knew her doctor was waiting to hear back from Surveil; they already told her how badly they felt for her; they already talked about what she did with her time. With life on pause inside her vPort, Cheyenne had nothing to talk about. She had nothing. Nothing but time, which was going to waste. And she knew what that meant…

  As a last resort, after going back down to the minimum three and a half hours a day at work, Cheyenne started wasting time by reading the synopses provided for all the various lives stored on the vServers. There were over twenty-five thousand lives available to stream to someone’s vHost—or their vPort if they cabled directly into the network, which was rare. Since every vLife was accompanied by an outline of the original owner’s history from beginning to end, it at least provided Cheyenne with something to do. She started with categories she closely identified with and went outward from there. She even ended up reading about some of the lives she heard her coworkers describe as they lived them out. Cheyenne found it unsettling to know what her coworkers would be experiencing in the future, so when she realized she was reading a coworker’s life, she would immediately stop.

  Cheyenne knew exactly what it meant when the call came and her doctor stated at the outset that she didn’t need to bother coming into his office. Her attention to Dr. Webster’s words waned as she started mourning the life of Dominika, which was lost to her forever. She barely heard him say words like “unexplainable” and “permanent” and “phenomenon” and “incurable.” However, her attention immediately snapped back as her ears detected the words “virus” and “plague.”

  “Huh?” she mumbled. “What did you just say?”

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Webster repeated. “They said there is a concern that this could be a virus. There have been reports of a few cases from around the New Veil World, and they’ve decided they must intervene in order to avoid any kind of plague. They must quarantine the phenomenon in case it is contagious. They informed your employer, and you are not to return to work. Surveil will ensure your basic needs are met. They said you are to remain at home, and representatives from Surveil will be arriving there as soon as possible in order to deal with this situation. If you ask me, they are ill equipped to handle this sort of thing, so it will take some time, but they assured me you would be properly handled and taken care of. They said you would receive the best care at a very remote location. They also told me to inform you that, despite the current state of affairs, you should be happy. Surveil decided to push your name choice through. Immediately.”

  A little over three weeks later, four representatives from Surveil trampled tall weeds, which grew over the sidewalk that led up to a one Dominika Alexandrovna’s front door. When they arrived at the bottom of the stairs to her front door, they stopped and tossed a large plastic bag onto the porch. It landed right in front of Dominika’s door. Using a bullhorn, a Surveil representative announced that Dominika Alexandrovna was to step outside, open the plastic bag, and put on the hazmat suit it contained. Upon doing that, the representative announced, she would be provided further instruction.

  Five minutes later, Dominika hadn’t presented herself to Surveil as instructed. Taking a more stern and commanding tone, another representative used the bullhorn to repeat their orders. Five minutes after that, the bullhorn was used to inform Dominika Alexandrovna that because she had not come out of the house, Surveil was going to be entering by force, and she was to keep a distance of ten feet from them.

  Once inside Dominika’s home, Surveil finally made contact with the infected. She was wearing what appeared to be a pinkish ballerina’s tutu, fashioned from scraps of plastic trash bags and paper. On top, she wore a pink fitted shirt that appeared to be sized for a young girl, as it was much too tight for her. On her feet, she wore a fresh pair of white socks that she tried to dye pink, or at least it seemed she attempted to do so. She also attached tiny ribbons to those pitiful excuses for ballerina slippers. She managed to install a swivel bolt into the rafters in the ceiling in her living room. Tied to that bolt was a short rope that Dominika used to hang herself.

  Dominika Alexandrovna hung from the ceiling by her neck, as Surveil representatives wearing riot gear stood in the doorway and stared at her corpse.

  Had they arrived sixteen hours earlier, her lifeless body would have still been spinning—in mock pirouette.

  2

  CORL

  He wouldn’t allow himself to believe it at first. To believe it would be to admit way too much. He knew what happened to the Unveiled, or at least he heard rumors of what happened to them. Actually, he didn’t hear what happened to them, he only heard they disappeared. They simply vanished. Whatever happened to them, and however long they remained alive, the Unveiled lived in vHell: life without Veil. There was no way he was going to believe he was one of them. One of the supposed 2%. (A number he knew was way exaggerated.) But anyway, he sure as shit wasn’t one of those unlucky losers.

  If there was one thing Corl Vaughn Orin knew, it was systems. Not only computer systems but systems in general. Due to the increasing and persistent rumors of the Unveiled and how they mysteriously disappeared, a very small but rapidly growing number of people suddenly became reluctant to see a doctor for any reason, even basic vHost problems. Although vPort malfunctions were rare, vHost issues were much more common.

  Fear alone of being diagnosed as Unveiled kept more and more folks from going to the doctor, and it fostered an underground market of vParts so people could attempt to diagnose and fix problems themselves. That way if, Jin forbid, they did end up being one
of the Unveiled, their doctor wouldn’t discover it and therefore, wouldn’t be forced to report them to Surveil. No doctor would be willing to risk his or her own Right To Veil in order to protect an Unveiled. Heck no.

  Corl tracked down a used, black market vPort and a vHost. While there was no way anyone could completely replace a port on their own, Corl figured he could at least start with his host and troubleshoot his way from there. Without giving a reason, Surveil reinstated the Veil security protocols so every vHost was given a Veil Host Address; each had to be registered and linked to a specific vPort and VSN. That would be tricky to work around, but not impossible.

  Despite Surveil’s reticence, everyone knew the protocols were reinstated due to Unveiling. However, no one knew exactly how the security protocols were being used. Corl suspected they were tracking VHA and VSN numbers to detect if someone stopped using them, which implied they either died or were Unveiled. If that were the case, he would have to hack into the replacement vHost and apply his VHA number to it as soon as possible. Because hosts weren’t known to be as permanent and enduring as their port counterparts, they were somewhat easier to hack into, given the right knowledge. Corl figured he possessed the right knowledge.

  Unveiling was seen as a fate worse than death. Unveiling was a loss of one’s life without actually dying. To be Unveiled was to be left but a shadow of a person: an empty shell without any connection to real life or the real world. Without Veil, one was reduced to going through the motions of living without any of the actual life experiences Veil provided. In short, Corl figured, they were merely there; they were simply basic needs. Without Veil, the Unveiled floundered away in vHell.

  No one could explain Unveiling, and that was precisely the problem. Although Surveil wouldn’t admit Unveiling existed, the rumors spread and consensus was Surveil believed Unveiling was due to some contagion. Unveiling, the rumor went, was a product of some inexplicable virus in the brain. The process of being Unveiled resulted from infected structures in the brain somehow being altered. They weren’t quite sure how it started or how it spread. They had no idea how to stop it, and since they weren’t sure if it was contagious or genetic, they had no choice but to quarantine any Unveiled and their family. What happened to those quarantined Unveiled remained a mystery. They simply vanished. Corl was not going to vanish. vHell no. Fuck a bunch of that.

  People doubted Surveil would soon—if ever—find a cure for the Unveiled or to prevent Unveiling. Progression of science and technology had all but ground to a halt well over a century prior. It left scientists and doctors barely able to make use of the developments that had already taken place up until then. Anything not required to meet the basic needs of the people or help sustain Veil and all its components was lost so many years ago that those things ceased to matter.

  When Unveiling reared its ugly head, there became quite the scramble to figure out how to address the problem. Actually, the scramble had more to do with determining who should be tasked with the undertaking. After all, working on a cure for Unveiling would cut into someone’s Veil time. It would cut their life short. Those possibly intelligent enough to cure Unveiling were also those intelligent enough to avoid being tasked with it. Corl figured a cure would only truly be sought when Unveiling began to infect and affect those in Surveil and/or those who had the skills or knowledge to research it.

  The replacement vHost wasn’t Corl’s cure. He hadn’t been holding his breath, because he knew he wasn’t that lucky. He knew if anything, it was going to be his vPort. He just knew it. Luckily, Corl figured, he also knew where to go to address such a problem. He knew where the ultra-paranoid went when the ultra-paranoid experienced a Veil malfunction.

  A trip to a small colony outside of the Ancient District would severely cut into his Veil time, but he supposed it didn’t matter much since he couldn’t Veil anyway. He figured lost Veil time was better than no Veil time at all. Although trains still ran and provided intercity travel, such travel was practically unheard of and was unnecessary. There was simply no reason for people to travel; it was an outdated artifact of PreVeil life. Corl wondered how much life PreVeil people wasted just by traveling. Then again, he figured, what kind of life could they have had anyway if they were PreVeil? He supposed time hadn’t mattered much to them. Corl couldn’t imagine time not mattering to someone.

  Getting from a city to an outskirt colony proved to be much more challenging than intercity travel, not to mention riskier when one considered the wildlife threat. He would take the train to the Ancient District, which would take about a day. He’d walk to the colony, which would take about two days. Along with his basic needs and his replacement vPort, Corl packed what he hoped would be twice enough provisions for the trip. He paused for a moment as he packed the port and hoped the problem wasn’t with his silicone membrane. He shuddered at the thought of having the silicone replaced by some backwoods hack from the colony on the outskirts of the Ancient District. Having his scalp peeled back and then reattached by some Unveiled vagrant—who he pictured as skinny and living in vHell with clean hair and nice teeth and plenty of time on their hands—was not how Corl hoped his trip would end.

  He planned to leave in the morning. He could possibly return in six or seven days and was pretty sure he could make up that Veil time. That was, if he hadn’t already compensated for it through the automated systems he built for work. He had to sit down and do the math on that one. He was too nervous to do it yet. He’d wait until he got back from the trip and could resume life.

  As he lay in bed, Corl stared up at the ceiling and hoped he’d fall asleep out of sheer boredom. His mind wandered back to that last vEssential Experience Set he finished. It was the one about sick ol’ Alabaster Sneed. Corl lived the set all the way through to the bonus episode, which he also luckily finished living through. It was by far his favorite, although when he lived through it again, he’d probably skip the stupid, sappy, happy ending.

  The bonus episode consisted of incidents when Sneed repeatedly violated a stray mutt he called Shim-Shim, which he dressed up like a human. During his trial, Alabaster claimed he dressed Shimmy up in that manner because he felt too guilty raping a dog. And because Shimmy seemed really nice. Coincidentally, Shim-Shim was Sneed’s downfall.

  During one of the traumatic sessions, having escaped Sneed’s lecherous clutches, Shimmy made a break for it. He bolted through a screen in the backdoor of Sneed’s house and ran down the street. Without considering his current state, Sneed chased after damn disobedient Shim-Shim. Shocked and confused by the sight of a naked man chasing a clothed dog, a patrolling Surveillor intervened. It didn’t take long for the patrolman to detect something was not quite right about the man, and that was the end of Alabaster Sneed’s sick spree.

  The arresting Surveillor took to Shimmy immediately and practically adopted the poor, abused pooch on the spot. Shimmy was renamed “I-Bite,” since Surveillor Leiden figured no one would ever again mess with a dog who had a name like that. Nicked-named Bit, the pooch lived out a long, happy farm life. Surveillor Leiden made sure Bit attended each of Sneed’s trials. The dog reveled in all that attention, and all those belly rubs from all those nice, kind humans in the courthouse.

  Next time, Corl would be sure to stop the bonus episode right before Shim-Shim broke free from his grips. Had all the scenes in the bonus episode before Shimmy’s escape not been so sickly sweet, that stupid sentimental crap would’ve ruined the entire thing. He loved living the whole set from Sneed’s perspective and experiencing firsthand each and every second of the crimes. Corl even amplified the emotional signals so he could lose himself and become engulfed by Sneed’s titillating, macabre existence.

  Corl couldn’t imagine how pissed he would’ve been if every episode in the set ended the same way as the bonus one. Considering how much the bonus episode cost him—not to mention the time-tax imposed by Surveil—Corl believed he should have been able to enjoy the entire thing. He thought about complaining but didn’t know
whom to complain to or how. Still, whoever assembled that vEssential Set screwed up the end, and someone ought to tell that person.

  Aroused by his vivid recollections of the bonus scene, as Corl reached for the lotion on his nightstand, he was startled by a loud crash. It sounded like it came from the bottom of the staircase that led up to his apartment. He rolled over and leveraged himself out of bed, which, due to his morbid obesity, he always found annoyingly difficult. He finally stood and then wobbled as his upper-body bent over when he reached for a shirt from an enormous pile of dirty clothes a few feet from his bed.

  As he struggled to put on the shirt, Corl heard what sounded like his apartment door being busted open. The footsteps of at least twenty men quickly and loudly rushed toward his bedroom door. Before Corl could finish pulling down his shirt, someone dressed in riot gear kicked the door open. He was pointing a rather large gun at Corl, who had never seen a gun in person. Corl had a completely different reaction to the event than he did whenever a gun presented itself inside a Veil: Corl pissed and shat himself. A river of diarrhea, which would’ve given Wonka’s chocolate one a run for its money, poured down his legs and pooled at his feet. Corl’s sea of shit quickly spread far and wide.

  “Stop!” the man with the gun pointed at him yelled, while he gestured behind his back with his free hand to signal the people following him to stop as well. The officer was simultaneously ordering Corl to freeze and to stop shitting himself.