Veil (93 page)

“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 not 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 in 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.”

“So, Ken, is it fair to say it’s your
assertion that, as Veil continues to spread and shape the New Veil
World, more and more people will have less and less places to hide?
Through Veil, truth and trust will inevitably dominate the world
culture?”

“Yes, I think that’s a pretty fair
summation.”

“Let’s go back, then. Earlier in our
interview you said the biggest lesson Veil taught us might also be
its undoing. What did you mean by that? If truth and trust reign
supreme in our New Veil World, how could that lead to our undoing?
If we reach a World Veilocracy, what could bring us down?”