Veil (40 page)

“Thr—” the General started to interrupt and
began to lift his third finger.

Despite the General’s
interruption
,
Schaffer continued, “—after
waiting until approximately thirteen-hundred, after Pollock and I
returned from lunch, I sent Hunter a message asking him where he
was and why he hadn’t reported to the lab yet.”

The General stopped and lowered his arm.

“You sent him what message?”

It took almost the entire day Wednesday for
everyone to recover from the Veil. That was, everyone except Suren.
Hunter was awake for over twenty-four hours straight, and that was
on the heels of being wired and barely able to sleep for days upon
days. He knew the remainder of the week would be hell, so he didn’t
mind taking some time to sink into oblivion. Although not
physically tired, Brock found the after-effects of his Veil to be
taxing to say the least.

Hunter and Brock camped out at the lab; Ken
and Suren wound up back at the Tsay house.

Suren craned her neck around and asked, “Was
it really that intense?”

She was lounging in the oversized chair, with
both legs over one of its arms and her back leaning against the
other. She was flipping through the channels, not really interested
in watching anything but not entirely sure what else to do with
herself.

Ken was splayed out on the couch on the other
side of the room
.
“It seemed pretty
earth-shattering for them both,” he replied. “And I’m not
particularly prone to hyperbole. It was unlike anything I’ve ever
seen. I mean, I realize not every Veil is going to be that intense,
unless people choose to experience it in realtime like the two of
them. You know, like time passing minute to minute exactly like it
did for the other person. But still, my view of Veil has definitely
shifted. I think it can be a beautiful thing. An incredibly
beautiful, powerful thing.”

“Meaning you’d do it yourself now?”

“No, no,” he puffed. “Don’t go all crazy. I
simply think it can have some benefits. It really got my mind going
about how this could change things. How it could change people.
Society, even.”

“Hopefully, for the better,” she added.

“Yeah, hopefully for the better,” he
agreed.

“Why didn’t they come stay here? We have more
than enough room.”

“Hunter didn’t want to risk it, and I think
Brock didn’t want to impose. It made sense, though. Coming here
could be risky. What if we’re being watched? What if they’ve been
watching us this entire time? We can’t be sure. If they did notice
Hunter is missing and got suspicious … well, he was right, this is
one of the first places they could come look.”

“True. I’ll take them some food in a little
while. Brock seems really nice. That Hunter character is a bit off,
to be honest. I didn’t spend much time with him and I still
couldn’t believe some of the stuff that came out of his mouth.”

“I know. I think I saw a different side when
he came back to the lab and completed the Veil with Brock. There’s
a lot going on inside him, besides just intelligence,” Ken assured
her.

“How can someone so intelligent and
successful be so … ummm … ummm—” she searched for the right
word.

“Unstable?” Ken finished for her.

“Yes! Exactly! Unstable. How can he be so
unstable?”

“No idea. Apparently he’s one of those
tortured souls or something. And a bit twisted. All in all, I think
I—I think we can trust him, but we should also take a lot of stuff
with a grain of salt.”

“Or with a shaker of salt. And, when in his
presence, suspend any tendency to be offended by anything, ever,”
she added.

“Yeah. That too,” Ken admitted.

Half asleep, the vibration startled Hunter.
It was his cellphone. He was waiting for that moment. He wasn’t
stupid; he knew he could be traced by triangulation of his phone,
so he took some extra steps to make it a lot harder for anyone to
track him. Every little thing would help get them to Saturday. Once
Saturday happened, they were smooth sailing. So, he had to make
sure they made it that long.

He downloaded one of those free
internet-based voicemail and texting applications onto his phone.
With it, he obtained a texting and voicemail phone number and then
contacted his cellphone carrier to have all his calls and messages
forwarded to it. He took an extra step and hacked into his phone;
he set it to use a proxy server when it accessed all data streams
and the internet. He made it look like he accessed voicemails
and/or texts from Russia—if anyone had time to trace things that
far.

The vibration was set off by a text message
from Schaffer:
Why aren’t you in the lab dude?

For Hunter, that was a very good sign: if
they were trying to locate him by using his cellphone
,
they would’ve called first, not simply sent a text.
If they called, even if he hadn’t picked up, they could try to
triangulate his position using the cellphone towers that his phone
accessed to receive the call. Well, he smirked, at least that
would’ve been the case if he hadn’t forwarded his number to an
internet-based service. The fact Schaffer sent a text message meant
he was only checking up on him, probably just wondering where he
was. It probably meant no one talked to the General about him
yet.

Hunter was already prepared with the most
effective reply and used another program on his phone to make his
message look like it came from his original number.

Hunter sent back:
Sick. Already talked to
Coffman.

He knew that was an airtight response because
he actually talked to the General on Sunday so if the General
happened to ask, or if Schaffer went to him, the General would
confirm it. Sure, he didn’t say when he talked to the General, or
if he told the General he’d be off through Wednesday as well. If it
came up
,
the most the General would think
was Hunter might still be sick. Nothing suspicious there.

In less than a minute, Hunter’s phone
vibrated again with a response:
Sorry to hear. Feel better man.
Get your summary report sent in ASAP.

Hunter didn’t bother to reply. Hell, that
probably made him seem sicker. So sick he didn’t have the energy or
courtesy to text back. The brief exchange provided Hunter a basis
to reevaluate their timeframe. Until he received the text from
Schaffer
,
he was working from his gut
alone. His gut and some hopeful optimism, which wasn’t one of his
usual characteristics. After Schaffer’s text, he figured they had
until at least Friday.

Schaffer was probably only somewhat curious
about his whereabouts, or he would’ve said “the General is looking
for you” or something Schafferly ominous like that. So come
Thursday, if the General or anyone else said anything about
Hunter’s absence, the consensus would be that he was sick earlier
in the week so it must’ve been pretty serious and he was probably
still sick. The General would likely make a mental note to talk to
Hunter about proper protocols whenever he was too ill to report for
duty. He’d probably give the kid a break; he was a civvy after
all.

Hunter opened the case for his phone, took
out the battery and removed the SIM card from underneath. He broke
the SIM card in half and threw the phone, battery
,
and broken SIM in the trash. He booted up his
computer and wrote an email. As he closed the laptop, he heard the
familiar
ding
from his email program. He already received a
reply.

“Monday!” the General shouted. “Fucking
Monday! He was sick Monday! Not Tuesday, not Wednesday, not
Thursday and sure as hell not all the way through until today. How
the fuck did we get all the way until today? Without a word?
Explain that! Jesus fucking Christ!”

“Well, sir,” Schaffer continued, “since
Hunter reported he was ill and stated he informed you of it, I
didn’t think it was my position to question him.” He knew ego
stroking would really get him nowhere in the situation, but it also
couldn’t hurt. “I simply told him to get his summary report in as
soon as possible and, come Thursday, Dr. Pollock and I decided to
map out the next test run of Veil. We wanted to mix up the
parameters and variables in order to beef up our overall summary
for you. Since we already finished our individual summary reports
and were waiting on Dr. Kennerly’s, we figured we could conduct
another test run to add into our reports, even if Dr. Kennerly
wasn’t involved. When he didn’t show up on Thursday and didn’t
respond to my message that day, I figured he was still ill. So …
well, Doctor Pollock and I went ahead and started the third test
run that we worked out. We spent Thursday scheduling the subjects
and prepping for Friday. Friday was spent performing the test run
and, well … ummm…”

“And well? And well what?”

“It didn’t work,” Pollock finished for
Schaffer. “The shit didn’t work. The fucking Veil doesn’t
work.”

“Where’s Ken?” Hunter anxiously peered over
Suren’s shoulder to see if Ken was trailing behind.

“He stayed back at the house,” she replied as
she pushed by him. She wondered if he noticed that she was carrying
a large tray while trying to balance two bags on top of it.

“Oh, oh, here, let me help you with those,”
he offered when his attention returned to the present situation. As
Hunter reached for the bags, he was already apologizing. “Really
sorry about that, literally just got done responding to an email
from our production guy, and he said the units are done and ready
to be shipped.” He walked ahead of her, placed the two bags on one
of the lab tables and turned to take the tray from her as a further
gesture of apology. “I was able to talk him into shipping them
immediately and told him I’d follow up with him later for payment.
Was hoping Ken was with you, so we could get that out of the way.
All twenty units should be here first thing tomorrow.”