Veil (97 page)

The entire vEssential Experience Set would
take him five days to complete. He thought that was going to be a
damn good set. Corl Orin couldn’t wait. His supervisor better not
choose to interrupt that one. Corl really couldn’t wait to get to
the bonus episode. That episode sounded so sick and totally worth
the time and cost.

Within seconds, Jin’s hospital room
crystallized in Suren’s mind. She was immediately struck by her
vision inside the Veil. It was momentarily blinding. The eyesight
was clearer and more detailed than her actual, aged eyes could
manage. That made the Veil so much more powerful. She wasn’t
prepared for the contrast, and she shuddered. Her age sank into
her, and it was tough—but not impossible—to accept.

When her vision fully materialized into
focus, she realized she was looking down at a pair of hands.
Except, they weren’t the hands she was expecting: they weren’t
Roy’s hands; they were her own hands. From their appearance and the
wedding ring, Suren could instantly tell that those hands belonged
to her. They were her hands. Inside the Veil, Suren was herself.
She was
Suren
again.

She gasped and opened her eyes. Roy was
intently staring at her face and gently squeezed her hand. Suren
quickly shut her eyes again. When she did, she found she was still
looking down upon her hands. Her eyes slowly made their way up and
looked across Jin’s bed toward a figure seated on the opposite
side. It was Ken.
Ken!

Ken was there with them. He was looking down
at Jin and crying. He held one of Jin’s hands, lifted it, and
kissed it before he lowered it and let it go. Ken told Jin he loved
him and then looked up and locked eyes with Suren. He didn’t say
anything to her
,
but Ken held Suren’s
gaze, nodded, and stood up. Suren’s heart raced, inside and outside
of the Veil. It was Ken. He was there with her and her Jin.

Ken headed to the foot of Jin’s bed, and as
he did Suren noticed a mirror on the wall opposite her, which Ken
obscured when he was sitting down. She could see Brock in the
reflection. He was behind her, sitting in his chair, looking into
the mirror and straight at her. He smiled and let out a little
laugh
.
A typical Brock laugh.

Ken startled Suren as he walked up behind
her, bent over, and kissed the top of her head. A whisper of Ken’s
voice came to her. It didn’t come from his mouth but rather filled
her entire mind.

We will see you two on the other side, my
friend.

He kissed the top of her head again, and
suddenly she could smell his distinct, familiar, woody fragrance.
She could smell Ken, and the scent tingled through her body in
waves of nutmeg, bergamot, and cardamom that tickled Suren from the
roots of her hair all the way down until it radiated from her
shimmering, gold toenail polish. Ken left her side and walked
behind Brock’s chair. Her eyes met with their faces and they both
smiled through the mirror as Ken pushed Brock out of the room,
leaving Suren alone with her Jin.

Suren released a frail laugh—which sounded to
Roy like a cough—and her eyes opened again. Tears were beginning to
well up in them, but her body was too weak to produce many. She
barely squeezed Roy’s hand, raised her eyebrows, and lovingly
sighed out one final word before closing her tired eyes for the
last time.

“
Hunter
.”

No Veiler knew whose Veil it was anymore. The
Veil was just The Veil. It was just how things were. Literally, no
Veiler knew who it belonged to. No Veiler knew who the guy was or
what his name had been. Tiny worked with a Veiler who used to live
in the Ancient District where one of The Veil servers was stored in
a temple. The Veiler told everyone that the temple was rumored to
contain some statue, which had one word written on it: “Jin.”

So, a lot of Veilers who lived around Tiny in
Veil York City, and ones who he worked with, simply called the guy
“Jin” for fun. He didn’t know what other Veilers across the world
called the guy or if other Veilers bothered to give the guy a name.
The experiences in The Veil didn’t all belong to the guy. Actually,
he wasn’t sure any belonged to the guy at all. He wasn’t sure if
the guy was actually a guy. The guy just so happened to be the
first Veiler who Veiled all the best experiences and happened to be
the first Veiler who Veiled them all the best. The guy was the best
Veiler out of any other Veilers in the history of Veil—so his life
of perfect Veiling became The Veil.

The guy was the best Veiler, and after a
while the Peyton Principle apparently stopped trying to detect
Veilers who outranked him. Besides, what were the chances that
another Veiler’s barometer would ever outrank that guy? Who would
ever outrank anyone else after centuries upon centuries of everyone
experiencing a lifetime of exactly the same experience? It’s not
like any Veiler was going to experience experiencing experiences
better. That was just ridiculous. It had to end somewhere. It just
so happened that it ended with that guy, whoever that guy was.
Whoever the guy was, he was Veil. Maybe that was what they should
call him. Maybe they should call him “Veil.” Maybe Tiny would say
something to Veilers at work about that. If he had the time. Time
was The Veil.

Across the board, Veilers all had the same
amount of time removed from their overall life-expectancy equation
in order to allot for a job and basic non-Veil life functions. All
Veilers were given an equal chance to live out The Veil within
their overall estimated life expectancy. The formula also
calculated for job seniority advancements, provided Veilers worked
satisfactorily enough to advance on schedule. Considering how no
Veilers wanted to miss out on their lives by not living out The
Veil, Tiny figured absolutely every Veiler worked to satisfaction
at all times.

According to Surveil, every Veiler performed
to satisfaction for the last 7,335 days. Also according to Surveil,
90.35% of the population was able to complete The Veil within their
lifetime. The other approximately 10% was comprised mostly of
Veilers who died in accidents or otherwise died prematurely before
living out The Veil. In fact, according to Surveil, 17% of the
population lived out The Veil and started part of The Veil over
again. No Veiler ever lived out The Veil twice. It wasn’t humanly
possible; there simply wasn’t enough time in a human life. Tiny
figured a Veiler would have to live to be like 125 or something to
do that.

There was no way Tiny wasn’t going to live
out The Veil. He worked his job to satisfaction and always advanced
on time. As much as possible, he reduced the time that all his
other non-Veil life functions took up. In addition, like other
Veilers, Tiny always found it more efficient to discuss
reproduction with a Veiler who he worked with or who was in the
same building as him. If he could get his mandated reproduction out
of the way and present his offspring to Surveil Accordance before
his deadline, he could focus solely on living out The Veil.

There was simply no way Tiny wasn’t going to
live out The Veil. He wasn’t about to give up his life for anything
or anyone. The Veil was so amazing. He couldn’t imagine having
actually lived one of the experiences in The Veil, let alone the
entire lifetime’s worth. He couldn’t understand what Veilers did
before The Veil. To think about everything they missed out on made
his brain hurt. It actually made him sad for them. The Veil was the
perfect life.

Younger Veilers didn’t even refer to the guy
in The Veil anymore, nor did they call it The Veil. They all called
it ‘My Veil
.
’ As if it belonged to each
one of them personally.

Give me a break
.

Regardless of The Veil's original owner, it
was now The Veil.

Nothing was ever going to keep Tiny from
living it out to the very end. Time was The Veil; The Veil was
life.

As her eyes left the mirror and her gaze
traveled up the hospital bed in front of her, Suren heard music
fade in from the background. She recognized the voice immediately.
It was her Nina.

Suren’s eyes settled upon Jin’s face.

Nina Simone sang to them.

And now we are one; let my soul rest in
peace.

Suren’s body released a sob, which again
sounded like a cough to Roy. She clinched her eyes, and a single
tear trickled out.

Through her own eyes, Suren stared at her
Jin’s face, while Nina sang away.

At last, it is done; my soul has been
released.

Her eyes slowly shifted to a table next to
the bed. She focused on the picture of herself, which Roy brought
for that occasion. Suren felt her hand reach out. She picked it up
and pressed it against Jin’s chest with her palm.

Suren’s body weakened. Her fingers went limp
and dropped from Roy’s hand. Roy placed his palm on her chest, in
the same manner in which Suren’s was now placed on Jin’s.

She felt her hand press the picture of
herself onto Jin’s chest, firmly and with great love.

For thousands of years, my soul has roamed
the earth
.

She didn’t know how she went on without him
for all those years. It was a miracle. For what seemed like a
hundred years, she wanted to go with him. No, Nina was right, it
was closer to a thousand years. Suren wanted to go home.

Her breathing weakened as she looked down
upon her Jin. She felt his heart beating underneath her hand. She
could sense as Jin’s heartbeat and breathing slowed, at the same
rate as her own. It felt like togetherness; it felt like home.
Suren was going home. Suren and Jin were going home.

In search of you, so that someday I could
give birth, to know joy. Joy, joy, joy.

She was there with him. Her joy. Her Jin. Her
love. The only man ever to fill her heart. The only one ever to
enter it. He was the reason she did everything she did. He was her
Jin, and she, his Suren.

His face. Oh God, how she loved every inch of
his face. His face gave her joy.

Joy and peace are mine, peace divine.

Being there with Jin gave her peace. Being
there almost made up for over twenty-five years of guilt she
inflicted on herself for not being at Jin’s side while he lay there
in the hospital. The idea of Jin lying there—so wounded, so
abandoned, so alone—haunted Suren to no end. She was there with him
now, though. So, she was at peace.

His face. Oh God, his face.

Tears leaked from her eyes, and she didn’t
know if they trickled down her cheeks in the hospital room or her
cheeks in her bedroom … or both.