Veil (74 page)

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 pain 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.”