Veil (29 page)

“Morning, sir,” Hunter announced as he opened
the General’s door without so much as a knock.

“There’s my boy!” the General exclaimed and
threw down his pen. “Where’s ol’ Chairholio?” he asked
lovingly.

“Oh, he’s probably in bed. It’s still pretty
early. For him at least. I’m sure he’s got some stuff planned for
himself while I’m at the lab. There’s a lot to see here. My being
in town was a great excuse for him to come. Well, that and to see
his parents. But you know how that is.”

“You know, there’s no way I would’ve let him
stay with his parents if you told me he was coming, he’s your best
friend and all. Could’ve gotten him a five-star suite somewhere.
Hell, you two act like brothers. Lynn loved him. Adored him. Gotta
have him over again before he leaves, she says.”

“Brock thinks your wife is a hoot, General.
That’s for sure. Will definitely come over again.”

“Well next time,” the General commanded as he
picked up his pen and pointed it at Hunter, “you let me know when
your damned best friend is coming to visit and we’ll make sure he
gets the royal treatment.”

“No offense, General, but I doubt I’ll be
here long enough for there to be a next time.”

The two men laughed at that the absurdity of
what the General implied. He got up from his desk, walked around
it
,
and leaned on the front edge. He faced
Hunter, crossed his arms
,
and huffed.

“You know, I guess I’ve gotten used to having
you around. These buffoons couldn’t have done this without you.
Don’t think for a second that’s lost on me.”

“Eh, they’re alright. That’s actually one of
the things I came to talk to you about, but first,” he went on a
spontaneous tangent and almost kicked himself for having not come
up with the idea before that very moment, “I came to make a kind of
personal request, sir.”

The General’s back straightened, and he
placed his hands on his hips. Probably a reflex to hearing the word
“sir,” Hunter figured.

“Anything. Just ask,” the General nodded.

“Well, I’ll probably stay the next two nights
with Brock, if that’s ok with you, clearance-wise and all. His
parents are going out of town for the weekend
,
so I don’t want him to have to stay out there by
himself.”

“Hell, no problem, you got it; I’ll clear
that, of course son. That’s it?”

“Actually, what I was really wondering is if
I could go ahead and take the day off on Monday. You know, spend
the whole day with my buddy. Show him around and give him the
one-on-one time. Since I’ll be working through the weekend and
everything. Would start back up first thing Tuesday morning of
course, sir.”

“Absolutely, wouldn’t have it any other way.
Maybe Monday night, Lynn can do a dinner again and ol’ boy can
leave his trip on a high note,” the General offered.

Yeah, that ain’t gunna happen, fucker
,
was Hunter’s initial reaction but instead his mouth graciously
accepted. “Hell boss, I’m sure he’d be delighted.”

“Hot damn! I’ll let her know,” he hollered
and clapped once as he headed back to his chair.

“Now about the two buffoons, sir. Considering
the intense work they are going to be doing Saturday and Sunday, I
was thinking maybe they could take Monday off as well. Give them a
little time to decompress a bit.”

“Intense work?”

Hunter spent the next fifteen minutes
explaining the reason he’d come to the General’s office that
morning. He let the General know that in two days the Veil
prototype should be ready for testing. He explained with passion
how he believed Schaffer and Pollock should be the ones to not
simply test it, but test it on each other. Hunter played the
General like a skin flute, which of course Hunter considered
himself to play quite well,
thank you very much
.

By the time Hunter left General Coffman’s
office, he obtained the General’s blessing to stay with Brock for
the next two nights (to study Ken’s
Encyclopedia Veil
), get
Schaffer and Pollock out of the lab (so he could perfect the coding
of the additional features), and be away from the facility for an
entire day on Monday (without rousing any suspicion). That last bit
would provide them more time than Hunter originally estimated.
Hell, it would be Tuesday afternoon before anyone was looking for
Hunter. The timespan between a Sunday night and a Tuesday afternoon
suddenly seemed like an eternity.

“I’m going to hate to see you go, son,” the
General lamented as Hunter headed to the door.

“Maybe I don’t have to. Who knows?”

“Don’t tease boy, don’t tease!”

When Hunter walked away from the General’s
office toward the long corridor that led to the research building,
he knew it was probably for the last time. He reveled in the sound
as his shoes left plush carpet, hit linoleum
,
and started their usual sharp, rhythmic clicking.
That time, his shoes sounded as airy and happy to him as Mary
fucking Poppins herself.

You assclowns in uniforms are so damn
easy
.

“The design is pretty brilliant. I’ll admit
that,” Ken shouted from the dining room. He sat at the table and
stared at the computer screen for over four hours, at what looked
to her like gibberish and gobbledygook.

“That’s nice,” Suren sighed and glided around
the kitchen. She tried to stay busy by cooking an unnecessary
amount of food
,
ignoring how it was only
the two of them. She didn’t love to cook, but she liked it enough
for it to be a good distraction when necessary. She was playing
some Nina Simone in the background. She loved that woman’s voice.
So much passion. So much rawness. So much power and realness. Jin
always said Nina sounded like a man. What the hell did Jin know? He
didn’t have any soul, Suren bristled. Nina Simone’s music was the
only music Suren ever listened to anymore.

“I mean, to condense everything down to a
mobile device and in such a short amount of time. The guy must be a
genius. And looking through this makes me trust him more; it makes
me trust all of this more. I don’t care what their ultimate plan
was, if they were up to something malicious
,
they wouldn’t have handed this over to us.
Everything you need to make Veil is right here.”

“That’s nice,” she sighed again. She hadn’t
made Gorgonzola pasta since Jin was alive
,
and the smell of the cheese struck her memory a lot stronger than
she would’ve liked. She thought maybe some wine would go good with
the meal. Red wine always went so well with a strong blue cheese.
And with Nina too, who started singing again.

Trouble in mind, it’s true, I have almost
lost my mind…never had so much trouble in my life before.

Sing it, Nina
, she thought. God that
woman sang an appropriate song for every single one of life’s
moments. She checked the angel-hair pasta again; that stuff was so
easy to overcook.

“The programming is beautiful. And the way
everything is processed within the unit, you could totally add
functionality rather easily. It would be simple not only to upgrade
but also completely overhaul the technology without changing one
part of the circuitry or one piece of material. The device itself
only has a few mechanical functions; it’s the processor and
programming that really do most of the work. For him to design and
write the code for this intricate yet simple of a device can only
mean one thing.”

“That’s good,” she replied reflexively. The
timing of her replies was based entirely on the pauses in Ken’s
speech, which indicated when he was probably waiting for a
response. Her angel-hair pasta was done and sitting to the side,
ready to be dished, but she needed to wait for the Gorgonzola sauce
to thin a bit more. If it were too thick when served, the sauce
wouldn’t penetrate the noodles enough and would clump on top. If it
were too thin, it would all sink to the bottom and form a watery
pool. She wasn’t about to serve runny pasta. Wasn’t that right,
Nina?

“It can only mean this Hunter guy is an
alien,” Ken tested.

“Interesting. Wow,” Suren raised her eyebrows
and nodded her head.

Damn her. She didn’t even try to pretend like
she was paying attention. Ken turned around and saw she was still
fooling with whatever was in the pots on the stove. It was the same
thing she did for probably the last two hours, except an open
bottle of wine had since made an appearance on the counter next to
her.

Oh, wine? Well surprise, surprise,
surprise.

“Ummm hello—little lady?” Ken addressed her
directly.

Suren looked up from her pots and attempted
to hide how she was a bit startled. She didn’t fully realize she
wasn’t paying Ken any attention, although she knew it well enough
to offer up her feigned responses.

“Oh … yeah. Hello what?” she asked.

“What do you mean ‘hello what’? You haven’t
been listening to anything I’ve been saying. For like the last ten
minutes.”

“Yes I have, silly. I’m standing right
here.”

“Ok, then what was I talking about? Just
now?” he quizzed.

“Really Ken? You were talking about how …
ummm, see stuff like this is hard for me to explain, I don’t
understand it like you and Jin, but you were talking about how the
design will work. The design thingy. You said it’s pretty or
whatever. Like it will be easy for you to make, I’m sure.”

“I said all that
,
huh? What was the last thing I said?”

“I dunno, you made me forget.”

“I said the Hunter guy must be an alien.”

“Oh, well, I mean … I guess. Ok, I wasn’t
paying attention. So sue me.” She rolled her eyes.

“So sue me? Sue me?” he laughed. He got up
from his seat, walked over
,
and pressed
‘pause’ on the iPod. “What are we in fifth grade?”

“Hey! Turn her back on!”

“That was a woman?” he joked. An appreciation
for Nina Simone was one of the things he picked up from Suren many
years ago.

He entered the kitchen, got himself a
glass
,
and poured some wine; he first
topped off her half-empty glass
,
and then
poured his own.

“Thanks for offering me any of this,” he said
in the most guilt-laden way he could as he poured his glass.

“Oh shut it. So what were you over there
blabbering on and on about?”

“Blabbering about? Blab … ugh. I’m not even
going to justify that. What I was trying to tell you was how the
design is brilliant and the guy, this Hunter fellow, must’ve really
understood Jin’s work. I’m actually excited to meet him. More
importantly though, what the hell is up with you?”

He stood next to her and leaned his back
against the counter. She didn’t turn away from the stove and
continued to piddle with the pots.

“What do you mean?” she asked
,
without turning to look at him.

“You know what I mean. How are you not
vibrating with uncontrollable excitement right now? Everything
we’ve been working for is about to happen. Five days. Five days,
Suren, and Veil will be in our hands.”

She stood silent and mindlessly stirred the
sauce. She’d already turned off the burner.

“I don’t know. I mean, of course I’m happy
this is all happening. But … I don’t know. I guess I’m scared. For
a few reasons.”

“Scared? You mean in the ‘scared of the
military’ kind of way?” he asked.

“That’s part of it, sure. I think we’re all
scared of that. We all know what they’re capable of. I don’t know.
I mean, once this happens, then what? It’s been everything I’ve
focused on since I lost Jin. Now it’s about to happen. So it
happens and then what? And I’m not trying to sound selfish or like
some pathetic, lost woman. But really, then what? You go back to
your life. I have nothing to go back to. I’m just here,” she
pointed at the living room with the wooden spoon in her hand and
made small, circular motions in the air.

“Suren—”

“Oh God, just saying it I hear how horrible
it sounds. Of course you go back to your life; that’s not what I
meant. You should go back to your life. It’s your life. I’m not
trying to guilt you or fish for your pity. I … I don’t know. I
guess I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I really don’t
know.”

He did have some fleeting thoughts about what
might happen once all the work was done, no matter which way it all
went. It’s not like the thought never occurred to him. He was
pretty sure that wasn’t the first time it occurred to her, either.
It was the first time they were so close; they literally almost had
Veil in their hands. They could taste it and damn did it ever taste
like some sweet ass revenge.

“Suren, I don’t think you understand. There
is no going back. After this, there’s no going back—ever.”