Veil (73 page)

Isolated in the center of the courtroom and
facing the platform was the chair for the Accused: an ugly, plain,
wooden chair with yellowed leather straps attached to its arms and
two front legs. The chair was bolted to the floor. A few paces
behind that solitary chair stood the traditional court bar, which
separated the rest of the courtroom from the gallery. The court’s
gallery consisted of six rows of polished mahogany benches on
either side of the aisle, meant for the victim’s friends and family
on one side, and those of the Accused on the other. Or for a
curious audience. Whoever wanted to show up.

In Lundy’s case, there was one person seated
on the side intended for the victim’s family. She was the only
person in the courtroom when they entered. She was seated in the
far corner of the back row
.
She was
dressed in all black and wore a large hat
,
which concealed most of her face. She sat motionless, facing
forward, and didn’t turn to look at Lundy as he was dragged down
the aisle. Considering his extensive history and the woman’s age
and demeanor, he assumed she was likely the mother of one of his
supposed victims. Not that he had any victims, since he was
innocent and all.

Eh fuck it
, he figured.

That wasn’t how shit worked anymore. People
didn’t get the chance to plead their innocence or guilt. In a
Veiled court, there was simply no one to hide from and nothing to
hide behind. If someone ended up in that solitary chair in the
center of the courtroom, Surveil already knew they were guilty—case
motherfucking closed.

The guards strapped Lundy into the Accused’s
chair, pulling the leather straps so taut he thought his hands and
feet would quickly lose circulation. One of the guards took Lundy’s
vPort deck-unit out of a small pouch; when Lundy was processed at
the jail
,
his deck-unit was confiscated
and replaced by a thick rubber retainer, as was procedure. The
guard removed the rubber retainer from the vPort mount embedded in
the base of Lundy’s neck, and returned the deck-unit by sliding it
into the mount. Lundy could feel the pressure as the guard pushed
the deck into the mount until it snapped into place. Having someone
slide his deck back into the mount inside of him was the strangest
sensation Lundy could imagine at that moment, and it sent a shiver
up his spine. People cabled into him directly before, but no one
removed or replaced the internal deck unit since his vPort was
installed.

It just felt
so fucking
weird
.

Lundy could then feel as the guard pressed
the buttons on his vPort to initiate it and set it to receive
connections. The guard plugged a cable into Lundy’s vPort; the
cable spooled out of the ground from below the Accused’s chair and
was used to connect the Accused to the court’s Veil Intranet. The
guard intentionally used a great deal more force than was necessary
to insert the cable, which violently pushed Lundy’s head
downward.

After Lundy was strapped down, his deck-unit
was replaced, and he was cabled-in, the guards gave a signal and
the court doctor entered the courtroom. He entered from a door
beside the platform
.
Two Surveillors,
three members of the press, and the twelve jurors followed him.
They took their seats, cabled into the court’s Veil Intranet, and
looked directly at the Accused. Despite his predicament, Lundy
found himself somewhat amused because he knew, unless more changed
than he realized, they would all be obliged to stand back up as
soon as the judge emerged.

Fucking sheep
.

Right on cue, the judge entered the
courtroom, and the guards instructed everyone to rise. Everyone who
could rise at least, Lundy assumed.

“Take your seats,” Judge Mia Jacobsen
directed the court, after she ascended the tall platform and
plopped down into her throne. She cabled into the Veil Intranet and
nodded at the guards.

“Your Surveilship, we present to the court,
the Accused: Lundy,” one of the guards announced.

Lundy wondered how they decided which guard
would be the one to do certain things. Like which one would be the
one to cable-in the Accused and which one would introduce the
Accused. Maybe they took turns. Maybe they played
rock-paper-scissors. Maybe the faggots had a contest to see who
could cum the farthest.

Who knows?

“Thank you,” the judge replied as Lundy
smirked at his own wit. The guards turned and marched to either
side of the courtroom, remaining in line with the Accused’s chair.
They turned again and faced Lundy, their backs against opposite
walls.

“Doctor, your Accused,” the judge
acknowledged and gestured at Lundy.

“Yes, your Surveilship,” the court doctor
responded as he rose from his seat. He descended the rows of court
members, crossed the courtroom, and circled around behind Lundy.
The doctor opened a slot in Lundy’s vPort and plugged in a small,
red diagnostic cable. It had been so long since anyone accessed the
control panel in Lundy’s port that it gave him another shiver. The
doctor switched Lundy’s unit to diagnostic mode and pressed the
button to connect.

After twenty seconds of silence in the
courtroom, a device in the doctor’s hand beeped and the doctor
removed the cable from Lundy’s port.

“Let the record show that the Accused’s
memory is free of alteration markers, and the Accused is deemed fit
to stand trial without the need for memory intervention,” the
doctor declared and closed the control panel after unplugging the
diagnostic cable.

“Noted,” the judge responded as the court
doctor returned to his seat.

The judge directed the two Surveillors to
Veil their testimony to the jurors and show precisely what was
discovered during their Surveillance of the Accused’s involvement
in the crime. After they explained in extensive detail how the
Great Widow Tsay herself led them to the Accused, the judge and the
twelve jurors Veiled the two Surveillors.

While being shadowed, the Surveillors
recalled all the pertinent details from the case to allow the court
members to experience the investigation for themselves
step-by-step. When the shadowing of the Surveillors was complete,
the judge instructed the two of them to take their places on either
side of the Accused. After they did so, the judge then instructed
the jurors to upload their Witnesses onto the Accused, so the jury
could begin shadowing Lundy and witness him committing the crime of
which he was accused.

During the Veiling of the Accused, the two
Surveillors subjected Lundy to a series of questions regarding the
details of his crime. The questions were designed such that if
Lundy refused to answer or tried to block out his thoughts, the
jury could still access those memories through Veil. When they
concluded their questioning, the Surveillors returned to their
seats, and the twelve Witnesses were uploaded back onto their
respective jurors. To avoid inflicting court members with undue
trauma, Veiling of an Accused was always conducted in Veiltime, and
the Accused’s emotional signals were muted. That way, court members
weren’t forced to live out the horror of a crime second-by-second,
nor were they exposed to any corresponding emotional morbidity.

After the jurors finished Veiling the Accused
and experienced Lundy’s crime firsthand, they unanimously declared
him guilty. The press was instructed to Veil the presiding juror as
she reviewed the crime, the verdict, and the sentence. The sentence
in Lundy’s case was Veil Atonement—as was the punishment for nearly
every case inside a Veiled Court—in addition to five years of
incarceration as well as permanent loss of the Right To Veil,
except to undergo Veil Atonement. The jury also determined Lundy
should be subjected to the Veil Atonement for that particular crime
once a day for the rest of his life.

Once Lundy’s sentence was determined, the
judge excused all court members except the doctor, the guards, and
the Veil Atoner—who was always chosen in advance by the victim’s
family. In Lundy’s case, the Veil Atoner would be the victim’s
widow. Through Veil, she would deliver onto him all her grief and
suffering, so he would experience firsthand the pain and damage
caused by his crime. The guards placed the vAtoner’s chair in front
of Lundy, and the woman he saw as he entered the courtroom came
from behind and took her seat, facing him. She had removed her
stupid ass hat and he could finally see her ugly bitch face.

One of the guards provided the vAtoner with a
Universal Court vCollar and instructed her on how to put it on,
because The Witness of the Accused could not be allowed to utilize
her vPort. She initiated the vCollar, set it to accept incoming
connections and placed it on herself. The guard then pressed the
button on Lundy’s vPort to transfer The Witness of the Accused over
to the vAtoner’s collar. After the transfer and as Lundy was then
shadowing the vAtoner, Judge Jacobsen asked her a series of
questions about the victim, their relationship, and the loss
inflicted upon her by the Accused’s crime. The Veil Atoner was
instructed to convey as much of her pain and grief as possible when
responding to the judge’s questions.

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.