Veil (64 page)

“Y
ou want to
explain what you did?” she bellowed and threw her vKey onto Ken’s
desk. It bounced and landed directly in Ken’s lap.

“Do I really need to?” he asked with a smug
snicker. He grabbed the device from his lap and smacked it on the
desk in front of him.

“Only you could’ve done anything …
anything
,” she waved her finger at the device, “to that. And
you know what you did.”

“
And
the only reason you know what I
did,” he leaned forward, lowered his voice
,
and pointed at her, “is because of what you were
doing with it.”

She scowled with her hands on her hips. There
wasn’t much she could say to that.

Damn him
.

“You know better than anyone—that is
not
why we made the four of those keys,” he added.

She huffed, groaned, and plopped herself onto
the couch in front of Ken’s desk. Ken decided early on he might as
well leave the couch in his office, considering how many impromptu
Tsay Trustee meetings they tended to have in there.

“I know. I know,” she shook her head, unable
to defend herself.

“I didn’t say anything when you gave that one
to Roy. Since it was in honor of Jin, it was technically yours to
do whatever you wished,” he scolded her. “But this, Suren,” he
lowered his voice again. “What you’ve been up to for the last three
months, it is un
fucking
acceptable. I honestly couldn’t
believe it at first. I couldn’t bring myself to tell any of the
others what you were doing. Not even Hunter.”

“Ken—” she tried to protest, but he pointed
at her again and interrupted, his voice nearing a shout.

“And! I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t
working on the network to make this whole Roy thing possible for
you. It’s sick, Suren. What you did is sick. And it’s a complete
violation of your own law. You broke Suren’s Law! For the
past—what? three months?—you’ve been breaking your own law.”

Suren lowered her head, shook it
,
and fidgeted with her hands while she whispered, “I
know. I know.”

“I—I’m not quite sure what you’re asking of
me,” his voice shook.

“I thought I was quite clear, Dr. Mulligan,”
she spoke firmly and flatly. “I want you to train me how to use
Veil. How to use it—effectively.”

“No, no, I understood that ma’am, Ms … Widow
Tsay,” the doctor responded. “I guess I simply find myself
confused. You are, to be blunt, the Great Widow Tsay, the renowned
‘Mother of Veil
.
’ And yet you’re here now
directing
me
to tell
you
how to use Veil.”

She laughed at the absurdity of it all. He
was right.

“I see your point. I can’t argue with it
except to say that although I’m well versed in the technical
aspects of Veil, the nuances are completely lost on me. I’ve barely
used it.”

“Barely?”

“Yes, and barely is an understatement. So
what I’m asking you is to give me a crash course in Veil. While on
the outside this might seem to be completely preposterous—I’ll give
you that—it is precisely what I’m asking of you. You are purported
to be the foremost Veilologist and Veilosopher, are you not?”

“Ye—yes, ma’am. It would seem that way.”

“That is why I summoned you here. All I’m
asking for is a crash course in some of the intricacies of Veil and
explanations of its basic methodologies for my purposes. If you
can’t fulfill that simple request, I’m sure I can find someone who
would be more amenable to assisting the Great Widow Tsay.”

“I—I am completely willing to help in any way
… any way.”

“Good, then I shall allow you to continue
living,” she said matter-of-factly as she stood up and pushed in
her chair.

He stood as well, in reverence, but remained
completely silent and dumbstruck.

After a few uncomfortable moments of staring
at each other in silence, Suren threw her head back and
cackled.

“Oh, good lord, I was kidding. And please,
Dr. Mulligan, call me Suren.”

“Uhhh … I’ll try, Ms—Muh … Suren. But it will
take me a while to get used to that.”

“Well hopefully not too long. Anyway, I’d
like to meet all this week, if you’re available. Starting tomorrow
morning. Every day for several hours.”

“First thing, I’ll be available first thing,
Muh … uhhh, Suren. And, please, ca—call me Auggie.”

The next morning, Suren found Dr. Augustus
Mulligan to be much more relaxed and informal.

“Where would you like me to begin?”

“Where ever you need to begin so I can
understand not only how to use Veil but how to tap into it. I want
to know how to really get into a Veil.”

“Ok but,” the doctor pressed, “do you have
any beginning questions? Anything that could give me a starting
point?

“I guess if I had to pick a main one it would
be—how do you think, as a Veilologist and Veilosopher, Veil changed
the world? Changed people.”

The doctor balked at the irony of the
so-called Mother of Veil asking him to explain how Veil changed
everyone in the world. He had to force himself to ignore an irony
he knew no one would believe.

“I guess, being primarily a Veilologist, a
field that started as a handful of Veil psychologists, I’d have to
say the most drastic change at first was what it did for people.
What it allowed them to see.”

“You mean, being able to experience other
people? The ability to actually be someone else.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes
.
That was the first and the most obvious change. But
it soon grew into something greater than that. Imagine human
consciousness as an iceberg. One huge, gigantic iceberg.”

“Ok,” Suren nodded. Easy enough.

“Well before Veil, all anyone had access to
was the very tip of that iceberg. Their own icebergs, other
people’s icebergs. Always just the tip. Even psychologists,
PreVeil, we could only theorize about what happened behind the
scenes, below the surface. Not only unconsciously, but also
consciously. It was all theory. Theory we were barely able to
accurately test.”

“I see,” Suren nodded again. Easy enough, but
wasn’t really of any help to her.

“What Veil gave people was the entire
iceberg. Not at first though, not when Veil first hit the world. In
the beginning, everyone was simply marveling at the novelty.
Slowly, after some time, people like me began to really, really get
into it. Get into the meat of it. We wanted to see what kind of
power it held. Which, if I had to guess, is why you’re here. You
want to harness the power of Veil.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” she agreed.
Now he was talking her language.

“I will say this much—if someone told me
about the theory of Veil, before I’d ever come into contact with
it, I would’ve guessed that the great equalizing nature of it,
psychologically speaking, would’ve been showing people how we’re
all the same. All our fears, hopes, dreams, needs, wants—all of
that. They might each manifest differently but deep down, we’re all
the same.”

“That wasn’t it? We’re not all the same?”

“Oh heavens no, not even close. And that’s
what we learned. Psychology was, for all intents and purposes, put
in its place. It wasn’t our fault, really. PreVeil, we could only
work with what we had access to
.
But in
the end, we knew so little. As Veilologists, we essentially had to
start from scratch. But, man, did we suddenly have one heck of an
iceberg to work with.”

“Ok, rewind for a second. What was it then?
What was the—what did you call it?—Veil’s great equalizing
nature?”

“Oddly enough, or well oddly enough to me, it
was all the stuff we didn’t know about ourselves. All the stuff we
couldn’t know. The stuff we didn’t want to know. Our unconscious,
the sub-unconscious, the sub-sub-unconscious. And so on.”

“Explain, please,” she requested. She
couldn’t see where he was going, and how the direction would help
her at all, but at least it was interesting.

“Well, I could bore you by explaining what
all is there, what all is in the mind, but I won’t. You’ll
eventually find out for yourself anyway, and besides it wouldn’t
make sense until you do experience it for yourself. What I can tell
you is Veil tied us all together. It ushered in what Veilologists,
and now Veilosophers, call the Great Reveilation.”

“Which is?”

“It’s the revelation people can arrive at
through Veil, but only through each other. It takes another person
Veiling you, delving into your mind, telling you what all is there.
The thoughts you hide from yourself. The feelings you deny
yourself. The things about yourself that you’re so afraid to face
and have been afraid of for so long that you can’t remember ever
having been afraid of them. The rest of the iceberg.”

“I see. And those things are?”

“It’s different for everyone, and those
things are exactly what make us all so unique. Ironically, it makes
us all humiliatingly equal. None of us know ourselves, and all of
us need each other to reveal ourselves. Not only that, there is
nothing we fear greater than ourselves. There are things about
ourselves we fear more than death. The only way we can access those
things, in a way we never have been able to before, is through
Veil. Through giving that part of ourselves to someone
else
,
and then having him or her reflect
it back to us. Having them tell us what they found. With Veil,
we’re finally able to find ourselves, but the only way is through
someone else.”

“Isn’t that what Buddhists do? Through
meditation and self-realization, all that stuff?”

“Eh, in a manner of speaking, yes. But not
entirely. Buddhists, to put it crudely, seek to empty their minds.
They detach from their ego—from their self. It’s a lofty goal, and
it’s a commendable goal. However, not everyone is at the point
where they can reach that level of enlightenment. Actually, few
people are. Buddhists who do achieve it required years and years of
discipline and training. What Veil does is help to level the
egotistical playing ground for everyone. Everyone winds up in the
same place. Although we’re all different, it helps us find that
common ground.”

He paused and took a drink of water.

“If people then want to go the Buddhist route
and take it a step further, that’s wonderful, and I think Veil
helps people prepare for that leap. To use an analogy, Veil holds a
mirror up to people
.
Buddhism goes a step
further and shows us how we’re each a mirror of the entire
universe. Enlightenment is when the mirror is shattered and the two
become one. I think the former can be a stepping-stone to the
latter. To me, as a Veilologist, the best part about the former is
that it can only happen through another person. Only another person
can reflect those parts of yourself that you’re unwilling or unable
to see.”

“Like how Ken gave me my memory. He told it
to me
,
even though I couldn’t remember it
myself,” Suren thought out loud.

“Excuse me? I don’t follow.”

Suren laughed at herself and told the doctor
to disregard what she said
.
She added that
she definitely understood, and it made sense.

“Use him?” Hunter laughed.

“Use Roy?” Ken repeated Hunter, asking more
pointedly. He was as confused by the request as he was Suren’s
apparent nonchalance about the roads to find Jin’s murderer all but
drying up. He assumed that the fact she brought up Roy meant they
were done discussing Ken’s Veil of her.

“Yes, use Roy. Let me explain,” Suren kept
smiling.

“Please do,” Hunter chuckled and folded his
arms across his chest. Usually it was he who would tread so heavily
on such thin ice of inappropriateness.