Veil (71 page)

“Even me?” Roy joked.

“Yes Roy, even you,” Ken laughed.

“Ok, good,” Roy smiled.

“It’s all about emotional response,” Ken
started, “and the way it affects not only how we remember things
but what we remember and how strongly we remember things. I’m sure
everyone here remembers where they were for the 9/11 attacks. Or
where they were when Nyberg stepped foot onto Mars for the first
time.”

The other four nodded affirmatively.

“That’s because the memories are emotional
ones. Emotions create stronger memories. The stronger the emotion,
the stronger the memory. More importantly, each memory creates its
own pattern, its own frequency if you will. That’s what we learned
when we made
The Jin Experience
. Picture how we use seismic
waves to record earthquakes. It’s kind of like that. The more
emotional the memory, the greater the peak in the wave and
generally speaking the peaks in different people’s memories can be
nearly identical for memories of the same events. The peaks in my
memory for the specific times I witnessed the events of 9/11 are
probably about the same as the peaks in your memory in those
moments,” he pointed at Roy. “And while they aren’t going to be
identical, they’ll at least resonate with each other. If someone is
analyzing them, it will be obvious that our memories correlate to
the same event.”

“And that’s what will help us?” Suren asked.
She could see the direction Ken was headed, but she couldn’t piece
it together herself.

“The peak will help us, definitely. It’s the
peak we’ll use from Jin’s memory, which was created by his own
murder. I have that memory. We can measure that peak and we can use
it.”

“This is where you’ll want to explain to them
how
we can use it,” Hunter smirked.

“Ok, I was getting to it,” Ken rolled his
eyes. “We can use it because the peak created in Jin’s memory of
that event, which I have access to, will closely match the peak in
the memory of Jin’s murderer for that event at that particular
time. If we can measure his emotional memory peak at the exact time
of Jin’s death, the murderer’s will resonate with Jin’s. The two
peaks will be harmonious.”

“How do we do that though?” Suren asked, “How
do we get access to him and measure what you’re talking about? I
understand what you’re saying, I simply don’t know how we could
possibly get access to the killer in order to measure for that …
uhhh, that peak in the first place.”

“
The Jin Experience
,” Hunter smiled
and patted the top of the artificial brain.

Ken explained how he could tweak
The Jin
Experience
to subliminally cause each Veiler’s mind to recall
the precise day and time of Jin’s murder. It would unconsciously
happen to any Veiler who Veiled it. In doing so, he explained, it
would allow him to scan anyone and everyone who accessed
The Jin
Experience
through the vNet to determine whose memory produced
a peak on that specific day and at that specific time. They could
scan the network for the precise neuroelectrical frequency that
resonated with Jin’s memory, which Ken was Vaulting. Once they
found the one person whose memory peaked and resonated on the same
day and at the same time that Jin’s murder occurred, chances were
astronomical that they located Jin’s killer.

“Tell them about the plan,” Hunter prodded
him impatiently.

“Seriously?” Ken eyed him. “Calm the hell
down.”

“Oh you two,” Suren shook her head. She did
share in Hunter’s exuberant impatience, though.

“Ok, so the plan is, rather than constantly
having to track and scan everyone who accesses
The Jin
Experience
until the day we
happen
to find our guy, we
can make an event of it.”

“Make an event of it?” Roy repeated.

“Yes, make a huge event of it. Hell, make it
a national holiday. We can pick a day to make
The Jin
Experience
go live. And on that day, instead of people having
to network-in and Veil the brain, we can use the network to stream
The Jin Experience
to everyone, for that entire day. To
stream it, we have to shut down the network to usual Veil traffic
that day, but I think if we make it a huge event, make it a damn
holiday, the world would be fine with it. Besides, they could still
do direct port-to-port Veils, like in the old days, just not via
the vNet.”

“And then what would we do from there?” Suren
asked, “How does that help us?”

“Well, by streaming it live and looped for
the entire day, we can simply scan the network for the peak we’re
looking for. We can scan the network all day. Chances are really
high, if our guy is still alive, when he networks-in we’ll detect
him almost immediately. Essentially, everyone has to pass through
us—connect to our artificial brain—to get
The Jin
Experience
. All Hunter and I have to do is redesign
The Jin
Experience
in such a way that it will stimulate the brain and
evoke that particular memory enough for us to use the network to
scan for Jin’s killer. To weed him out.”

“Wh—what,” Roy interrupted, “if he doesn’t
Veil, like how I used to be a … uhhh … uhhh Veilgrant? What if he
doesn’t have a vPort or just doesn’t Veil?”

“Good question,” Suren squinted at Roy.

“Yes, that is a good question,” Ken nodded
and smiled as he rubbed his hands together. “And the answer is that
we can still track him all the same.”

“How’s that?” Roy was perplexed.

“Well, Roy,” Hunter took over, “you might’ve
been a Veilgrant, but you Veiled before. You had a Veil and were
assigned a VSN. You simply didn’t use it, am I right?”

“Right.”

“Chances are pretty high this guy also, at
the very least, has a VSN. Especially considering we’ve already
looked into almost every single Veilgrant with or without a VSN,
and determined he wasn’t one of them.”

“That was one of the first places we looked
after the network went live,” Suren added.

“And because we’re pretty certain he has a
VSN, and we’re pretty certain almost everyone in the world with a
VSN will in fact network-in that day at least once, if we don’t
find the peak we’re scanning for, we can start looking at everyone
who didn’t network-in on that day. We can track those people by
their VSNs. Since they’re automatically disabled when someone dies,
if our guy is still alive and doesn’t network-in for
The Jin
Experience
, we’ll still be able to track him down.”

“So, no matter what,” Roy rephrased, “if he
networks-in then we can find him by this peak you’re talking about,
which watching
The Jin Experience
will bring up in him. And
if he doesn’t network-in then we can find him through the list of
all the VSNs that don’t network-in that day?”

“Yep,” Ken smiled and nodded. “Not completely
foolproof but still pretty damn reliable. We can certainly pluck
the fucker out.”

“I’ll say,” Suren stood and paced the office
while she absorbed the possibility of finally finding Jin’s killer.
She smiled at the chance of weeding the bastard out like the
poisonous spurge he was. If Veil were ever to be considered a
garden weeder, Suren believed he was the only weed that deserved to
be cut down by Veil. He was the only weed in all the gardens that
ever existed. Ever.

“And we think” Hunter added, “chances are,
this guy will network-in. It’s been over ten years since Jin was
murdered. We’re pretty sure he doesn’t think he’s going to get
caught. Ever.”

“Then he doesn’t know us,” Suren grinned
devilishly.

“All of this is so perfect,” Suren told Ken
and Hunter after Brock and Roy excused themselves. “And I really
can’t thank you enough. Not only for getting us so close to
catching this bastard but for the memory. For
The Jin
Experience
. It’s beautiful. Oh my sweet lord, it’s
beautiful.”

“Well, you have Hunter to thank for most of
that,” Ken tried to play modest.

“I know for a fact the Nina Simone part came
from you,” Suren rejected his attempt.

“That definitely did,” Hunter laughed. “It
still kills me that a crazy little Asian woman could love Nina so
much.”

Suren cleared her throat and retorted, “You
do not have to be black to appreciate Nina Simone, Hunter. That’s
absurd.”

“Oh, I know,” he replied. “It’s just that
most of my people don’t even know who she is, so it’s surprising
and amusing you do.”

Ken laughed and shook his head.

“Is something funny?” Hunter shot him a
look.

“I guess I found it funny how you said ‘my
people’.” Ken continued shaking his head and looked at Hunter. He
was going to add the fact that Hunter was half white and has never
had any black friends that Ken ever knew of, but the ‘do you really
want to try me?’ look coming from Hunter silenced all that.

“Anyway,” Ken changed the subject, “it was
the most we could come up with without a way to test it as we went
along. We hadn’t developed the streaming technology yet. We really
went at the whole thing backwards.”

“Well, whatever you did, don’t change a
thing. It’s the perfect representation of my Jin to give the
world.”

“We are going to change a little,” Hunter
noted. “Only for the streaming one, though. To add the necessary
subliminal cues to provoke people’s subconscious minds into
recalling the exact time we need them to recall. It won’t change
how it looks or feels, though.”

“Change it to be able to scan for that peak,”
Ken added.

“Oh, I understand,” Suren assured them. “And
let me say, I think it’s the perfect plan. I really couldn’t be
happier. I’ve never felt this close to finding him. Never.”

“Now…” Ken began but hesitated. There were
some things he still hadn’t told Hunter. “You do realize, because
of what I had to do, because of what you were doing—”

Hunter shot Ken another glance.

“—since I had to close the loophole for us
vKey holders to Veil people without their knowledge, which now I
can’t reverse, we’re going to have to turn over whatever we find to
Surveil Enforcement. Once we have a name, there’s nothing we can do
ourselves to covertly investigate him.”

“Oh sweet bastard baby Jesus,” Hunter threw
down his pen and headed to the office doors. “I don’t even want to
know what the
fuck
she did this time.”

“I know,” Suren ignored Hunter’s outburst and
lowered her head. “That—that’s fine. Surveil should deal with him
anyway. It’s only right.”

When she finished, Hunter broke the silence
as he stormed out of the office.

Slamming the doors behind him, he was already
shouting, “Fucking crazy bitch!”

After appearing before Congress and getting
The Jin Experience bill passed in barely two hours, the day was
set. The bill scheduled the occasion for the already established
Jin Tsay Day, the world’s first fully international, globally
recognized holiday, which was only a month and a half away. The
bill also strictly and permanently forbid the use of the technology
created to make
The Jin Experienc
e possible, specifically
the recording, storage, and streaming of any type of
neuroelectrical information.

No one, under The Jin Experience bill, was
allowed to record, store, or stream consciousness in the form of
neuroelectrical patterns. No one was allowed to send any kind of
signal through the Veil Network other than pure, natural
neuroelectricity. To do so in any fashion would be to forfeit one’s
Right To Veil, automatically, immediately, and permanently.
Automated detection methods would be put into place across the
network.

The moment the bill was passed, Suren
scheduled a New Veil World press conference. That was something the
Great Widow Tsay had done only five times in almost eleven years.
The first press conference called by the Great Widow Tsay was not
long after Veil was revealed. She and Ken released images of Jin’s
murderer and pleaded with the public to help find the man. The
second was to introduce the implementation of the Veil Network. The
third, after the suicide of the soldier in front of the Tsay
Temple, to declare that no one other than the man directly
responsible for Jin’s death would be punished in any way. Fourth,
to introduce the development and installation of the first Veil
Port and finally, the fifth, soon after the fourth, to announce the
passage of the Right To Veil bill.