Veil (44 page)

The General balled up his hands into fists
and pounded his desk on either side of the cellphone in front of
him. Despite doing so, he did not raise his voice and tried to
remain calm.

“Lynn honey, I’ve told you a hundred times
baby, these days with DVR you don’t have to push record. The box
starts recording the show as soon as you start watching it. I need
you to rewind it and turn it up so we can hear it.”

As his wife struggled to operate the remote,
the three men could hear her talking to herself, “Who thought of
that? Recording whatever is on
.
Who needs
that? Waste of space. They think they’re so smart. With their
small, little hands…” Finally, “Ok, it rewound all the way to the
beginning.”

“Thank you dear. Press play and turn it all
the way up.”

After some garbled opening music, the three
men heard what General Coffman’s wife began to watch approximately
fifteen minutes earlier.

“Good evening, we’re in Washington tonight,
on the eve of what might prove to be one of the most historic
developments about which I’ve ever had the pleasure of reporting.
Our special guests for this prerecorded segment of tonight’s
broadcast are Dr. Hunter Kennerly, Dr. Ken Wise and CNN’s Science
and Technology Correspondent, Dr. Ivan Goss. First off, let me
start by asking, Dr. Goss, did you expect this? Did you expect to
experience and witness what we’re about to report on tonight?”

“First of all, let me say good evening
Anderson, and thank you to Doctors Kennerly and Wise for allowing
us the first glimpse of this remarkable technology. And, to answer
your question Anderson, unequivocally, no, I did not expect to see
anything like this. Ever in my life. What these two men have
brought to us is not only totally unlike anything I’ve ever seen,
but also unlike anything I’ve ever heard. This technology came from
out of nowhere. No one saw this coming. No one is talking about it.
No one I know of except the few of us sitting in this studio have
seen or used this device. No one. It is remarkable and dare I say
it, it’s going to change the world. Tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen,
is going to be a new dawn and a new day.”

“Well, high praise from one of your peers,
wouldn’t you say doctors?”

“Certainly, Anderson—and we agree. We
wouldn’t be here if we didn’t agree with Dr. Goss. It certainly
wouldn’t have happened without the man sitting next to me, Dr.
Kenneth Wise. And, let me also take this moment to state that this
remarkable, life-changing technology wouldn’t have been possible
without the absolute genius of Dr. Jin Tsay, who cannot be here
with us today because, unfortunately, he was murdered in an attempt
by the United States government to steal this technology from
him.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Dr. Kennerly. Now … now …
ummm … now, Dr. Kennerly, it’s safe to say that you and I share
both a professional and personal relationship. A friendship. And
this is the first I’m hearing about this. Sounds like we don’t have
the whole story. Ummm … sounds like this is deeper.”

“That’s true Anderson, and in time the whole
story will come out. The truth will come out. I don’t say this to
shift focus from the technology we’ve brought here tonight, I
simply wanted to send a clear message to those out there who took
part in Dr. Tsay’s death. They know who they are. They know that
we
know who they are. And our message for them is: We won.
You lost. You—
lost
.”

“That’s correct, Anderson. What Hunter,
uhhh—Dr. Kennerly said is absolutely true and accurate. Jin Tsay
was a close, personal friend of mine. A dear friend. And, in us
coming here tonight to share his technology with the world, well,
that technology comes with a message. Like Dr. Kennerly said. And,
might I add that us being here tonight, us bringing this to you,
well we’re doing it all for Jin Tsay. And for his wife, Suren. This
is for you, Suren. This is for you and your Jin.”

The three men in the General’s office heard
as
,
off-camera, and obviously unscripted,
a woman in the studio squealed with excitement and clapped. The
General’s fists were clenched so tightly that he lost feeling in
them. Until then, he was lost in the words he heard over the
speakerphone, but the squeal of Tsay’s wife broke him.

It was only a brief squeal, but he swore he
could recognize her voice perfectly. That same voice from that same
bitch shrew of a woman who called him so many months ago, after
having the gall to pay him a visit. As if he couldn’t have her ass
killed like he did with her damn husband.

At that point, the General had two distinct
thoughts.

Hunter Kennerly is a fucking dead man
talking
.

We need to stop paying that bitch on Jin
Tsay’s contract. Now.

“Ok, well, like I said, it sounds like we
don’t have the entire story here,” Anderson continued on and paused
for a greater span than one might expect to find during a
television broadcast. He shuffled papers in front of him and stared
off beyond the camera into the studio before he continued, “I guess
that’s a story for another time. Like you two said, tonight is
about the technology you’ve brought here to share with the
world.”

“Yes,” Ken and Hunter agreed at the same
time
.

“And share it with the world is what we
intend to do. Although I consider Dr. Jin Tsay, his widow Suren
Tsay, and Dr. Ken Wise to be the primary owners of this technology,
it is their intention to share it freely with the world. In memory
of Jin Tsay, they simply want the world to have the opportunity to
experience it firsthand.”

“And the only way to understand it is to
experience it. I think Dr. Goss and I can agree on that?”

“Oh yes, Anderson,” Dr. Goss nodded
emphatically and smiled. He appeared genuinely astonished.

“Dr. Goss and I had the opportunity to
experience firsthand the technology that Dr. Wise and Dr. Kennerly
and … Suren, is it? Yes—Suren—brought to the studio with them
tonight. After the break, all you viewers at home will get to see
what transpired in this studio for the last two hours
,
as myself and Dr. Goss took this jaw-dropping
technology for a test drive. Before we leave for our break, Dr.
Wise, can you tell us what this device is called?” Anderson asked
as he lifted the futuristic, shiny, black acrylic
device
,
which was sitting in his lap. He
presented it to the camera and placed it on the table in front of
him and his guests.

Although the General and two whitecoats in
his office could not see the device Anderson Cooper held up, they
knew, for the most part, how it looked. And although they could not
see the look on Hunter Kennerly’s face, they all knew how big of a
shit-eating smile he gave the camera as he spoke his next
words
.

“Certainly, Anderson. The device you’re
holding in your in hand … the technology that each of us in this
studio is certain will completely change life overnight for
everyone after they hear about it on your show—well, it was created
by Dr. Jin Hosato Tsay—and he named it ‘Veil’.”

As the General’s phone flew across the
room—before it crashed into the wall—the three men heard the famous
last words.

“There you have it, ladies and gentlemen:
Veil.”

"veil is a garden weeder."

S
he descended the
damp, narrow staircase, which echoed the loud buzzing of a neon
sign attached to the transient hotel next door. The only other
sound was the sharp but watery tap of her shoes as they struck the
wet concrete. She was dressed in white from head to toe. From her
white wide-brimmed hat to her white high heels. She grew accustomed
to wearing ridiculously oversized hats. They provided one more
barrier between her and the world; they were one more act of
defiance and impenetrability in the face of so much unsought
adoration and publicity.

She took another step down, looked up, and
watched as the visible remainder of tires from the limousine in
which she arrived gradually disappeared above her head. She took
another step down, and the tires disappeared completely. She found
solace in knowledge that her driver would wait for her in the same
spot until she returned. One of the few people she came to trust,
Suren about had to mace her driver to get him to let her go down
there alone. When her first foot hit the landing at the bottom, and
as she reached for the doorknob, she felt a twinge of regret for
not allowing him to escort her.

She stepped inside, removed her oversized
sunglasses
,
and put them in her purse. She
looked up from her purse and found herself nearly blinded by the
huge, glowing white letters emblazoned across the base of the
wall-to-wall, U-shaped counter. The bright letters were contrasted
against the sleek, shiny black material covering the entire surface
of the counter and every other inch of the large room. She
recognized the black acrylic immediately; it was the same material
from which the original millions of Veil Collars were made.

Suren sneered at those three offensive words
stamped across the base of the counter: “BLACK MARKET
MEMORIES.”

Considering all the other memory dealers she
visited in the last two years, Suren was a bit taken aback by the
appearance of the store. She expected to walk into the kind of slum
one assumed they’d find in a basement shop next to a
rent-by-the-hour hotel. What she found instead was the spectral
antithesis of an old Apple Store. The shop was sleek, sharp,
minimal, clean, and completely black except the white letters of
the store’s name. Definitely not at all what one would expect from
a retailer of illegal merchandise. She suspected that she might’ve
finally found the place.

Finally
.

A young girl, probably no older than
nineteen, stepped out of a nearly undetectable, pitch-black
doorway. She wore all black except for large, glowing white letters
that lined the contour of her left shoulder. The letters matched
the style of those on the front of the counter and spelled out what
Suren could only assume was the girl’s name: “ABIGAIL.”

“Oh.” The girl sounded startled as she
stepped out and saw Suren standing in front of the door, looking
all ghostly. “Hi!”

“Hello,” Suren replied timidly
.

The girl stepped forward and pressed a button
on the countertop in front of her. Eight monitors, embedded in the
tops of the U-shape counter, lit up in succession from the ones
closest to the girl to those nearest Suren.

“Sorry about that.” The girl sounded
embarrassed. “I didn’t think anyone else was coming in
tonight.”