Veil (91 page)

Roy knew what Hunter would be concerned about
the most, so he was preemptive
.
He assured
Hunter there was an office on that floor that could accommodate
everything in Ken’s office. In fact, Hunter could arrange it almost
identically. He also assured Hunter that, of course, he would never
see Suren. The house was huge. And finally—yes, he could still have
all his alcohol delivered straight to the house. Roy was pretty
sure those assurances would cover all of Hunter’s bases.

Yes, we’ll keep the Febreze stocked. Plenty
of it.

Roy missed one.

“You’re packing?”

“Yes. I’m moving in with Roy.”

“You mean into Suren’s house?”

“No, Pollyanna. I’m moving in with Roy.”

“Ok. Ok.”

“I hear he gave you the Old Tsay House.”

“Yeah, my parents couldn’t handle me living
with them any more. Not after everything that’s happened and all
the … the attention. It’s too much.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“The house is nice, it just needs a lot of
work. It doesn’t look like anyone has been inside it for like a
decade.”

“I doubt anyone has. He moved back in with
her
about that long ago.”

“Yeah it was nice of him, though.”

“Anyway. Pray tell, why oh why has Raggedy
Ann come to call on me?”

“What?”

“Oh Mary, how is it that a pygmy like you can
be so smart yet still have no clue about anything?”

“Hunter, I have no idea what you’re talking
about like eighty percent of the time. I assumed when I first met
you that you had Tourette’s or at some point you must’ve had a
stroke, and I moved on.”

“Anyway.”

“Right, anyway. So here it is.” She pulled
out a small, shiny black box. Inscribed with gold lettering, it
read: “KEN/HUNTER.”

“Oh yeah—
that
.”

“What do you mean, ‘oh yeah—
that’
?
It’s what you asked me for, remember?”

“I know, I know … I just … things have just …
it’s complicated.”

“Then your bitter old ass needs to
uncomplicate them, because I worked on this for like…”—she paused
to do some math—“over seven months. Do you have any idea what else
I could’ve been doing?”

“You know I don’t give a fuck. I don’t know
why you bother asking.”

“Right—so, you don’t want this?” Peyton
jutted the box at him. Her other hand was on her hip.

Hunter stopped pretending like he was focused
on packing Ken’s old books. He told himself to remember that he
decided Suren was right: it wasn’t what Ken would’ve wanted. Not
like that, not for that price. Ken would’ve wanted things to play
out to their logical conclusions. They weren’t supposed to
interfere; Veil was supposed to be given its full chance.

That was supposed to be like their Prime
Directive or some shit: don’t interfere with the lives of the lowly
natives. The whole existence of the Ken Clause indicated Ken’s
wishes. Hunter decided he couldn’t go against Ken like that. He
decided he shouldn’t go against Ken like that. Hunter rose, walked
to Peyton, and snatched the box out of her hand.

Oh god, the weight of it. The cold, smooth
plastic. The feeling of it in his hand. The texture of the letters
she inscribed on its surface
,
and the
feeling of it as his finger pads slid across them when he grabbed
the box from her. He missed his box but what he missed more was
what Peyton stored inside the one he was holding.

Still, all he had to do was take that thing
and throw it against the wall behind Peyton. The smashing and
crashing of it would get his point across. He couldn’t take it; he
didn’t want it. All Hunter had to do was be his usual dickhead self
and tell Peyton he didn’t really give a shit how long or hard she
worked on it. He simply changed his mind; there was nothing she
could do about it; she would have to accept it.

“Leave it.”

“How do I know you’ll live up to your end of
the deal?”

“I will. I’m not a liar. Just leave it.”

“Ok, but … well, the price has gone up.”

“Don’t test me, you muppet. I can see me
killing someone.”

“No—no. I mean … all I want is the program
you used. The rewriting you did of my program. The algorithm. I’d
like to have it. That’s all I want. As a favor really.”

Hunter shook his head and held out the box.
Confused, she grabbed it. He took out his cellphone, opened the
battery compartment, and removed its internal flash drive. He
exchanged the box in Peyton’s hand for the small drive he removed
from his phone.

“It’s on there. It’s named
Final
Cut
.”

“
Final Cut
?”

“Yes, Princess Toadstool. Like the movie. We
were huge movie buffs.”

Her expression was blank.

“Whatever. There’s probably a lot of gay porn
on there too, so you’ll want to skip over all that. Unless you like
gay porn. You look like you like gay porn.”

She groaned and winced at the drive between
her fingers with disgust, as if upon hearing that she imagined the
drive was caked with his semen.

“Goodbye now, Powerpuff Girl,” Hunter barked
and dismissed Peyton with a wave of his hand.

She exited the office and headed down the
long hallway, as he trailed close behind. He clutched the box
against his chest.

“So, when can I expect you to live up to your
end?”

“Soon, I’ll let you know,” he snarled. “Just
keep it between us.”

Peyton smirked over her shoulder and
antagonized him. “Oh, Suren doesn’t know about it?”

“The bitch isn’t my fucking mother!” Hunter
shrieked at the back of her head.

“Ok—ok. Geesh,” she scoffed. What a grumpy
old dude.

When she arrived at the door, he lunged to
reach around he, and he opened it for her. It wasn’t a chivalrous
gesture; he wanted to make sure she made her way through it
quickly. If she appeared to be dawdling, he could ever so gently
nudge her out. Or kick her in the back of her knees, so she tumbled
down the stairs and off the porch. Either-or, really. Hunter wasn’t
picky and tried to be a pretty easygoing guy when it came to
decisions like that.

He put his hand on Peyton’s shoulder, and as
he shoved her out the door, he assured her he’d live up to his part
of the deal.

“Like I said, I’ll let you know. It will take
a bit of time to push through, but when it does I’ll be in touch.
Then the little Gremlin and all her Ewok friends in the Lollipop
Guild can get their grubby little fingers on the streaming
technology. Don’t call me. I’ll call you. Ok thanks, buh-bye
now.”

She opened her mouth to speak but didn’t have
a chance. Hunter released her shoulder and slammed the door behind
her. She heard him lock all the locks.

I swear to Jin, there is something seriously
wrong with that weird, little man.

Hunter squinted through the peephole to
verify the leprechaun of a girl was actually leaving him to enjoy
his wee pot of gold. Tourette’s? Stroke? She must’ve thought she
was pretty damn funny.

Brock would’ve really loved wiseass
Peyton
,
the smart-mouthed little
Pikachu
.

Hunter turned and instinctually started down
the hallway back to Ken’s office. He stopped when he remembered his
vCollar and artificial brain were in the bedroom. He turned and
headed for the grand staircase in the entryway. With Ken cradled in
his arms and pulled tightly against his chest, Hunter ascended the
stairs and started to speed walk as much as he was able.

His chin quivered, and tears blurred his
vision. He couldn’t wait to hold him again. The anticipation was so
great he damn near screamed as he rushed toward the euphoria that
awaited him in the bedroom:
his
Ken
.

“T
his is a special
broadcast, and I want to say at the outset what a privilege it is
to be able to report for this station and deliver our interview to
viewers and Veilers alike all over the world. Tonight I will try to
be the world’s eyes and ears for the story that has begged to be
told for five and a half years. I am Christiane Amanpour, and I’m
honored to have as my guest tonight, Dr. Kenneth Lee Wise. Welcome,
Dr. Wise.”

“Thank you Christiane, and please, you should
call me Ken.”

“Ken it is. Let’s get down to it shall we?
The world has been waiting to hear you speak again since that
fateful night when, from this same studio, you and Dr. Hunter
Kennerly presented Veil to the world. With what limited time you’ve
allowed us, I don’t want to squander any.”

“I understand and thank you for inviting me
here for this conversation.”

“Thank you for accepting, it’s truly an
honor. Ken, my first question to you would have to be, almost six
years into what has since been dubbed the New Veil World, what
would you say we have learned? What has been the biggest lesson
you’ve seen in our PostVeil world?”

“Well Christiane, let me first say that I
will try to avoid the most obvious answers. I’ll try to answer your
questions from a distinctly personal place. I have to admit my own
perspectives of Veil and the New Veil World will be quite different
than the rest of the world’s. Not only for the most obvious reason,
but also because I have very, very limited experience with Veil
itself.”

“Now Ken, this is something many of us have
heard rumored. Personally, I find it extremely intriguing.
Extensive research has been unable to come up with instances of
Veil encounters with any of the Tsay Trustees, other than Dr.
Kennerly’s Veil during the trial of General Eugene Coffman. It was
during the course of that trial that Dr. Kennerly allowed himself
to be Veiled by Surveillors, because General Coffman disclosed his
involvement in the murder of Dr. Jin Tsay by directly admitting it
to Dr. Kennerly. However, other than that particular instance, no
evidence of participation in Veil has been traced back to any of
the four Tsay Trustees.”

“As a habit, I don’t like to speak for the
other three Trustees, but I will say that is correct, we all have
extraordinarily limited experience with Veil.”

“Extraordinarily is quite the understatement.
I can’t help but draw a parallel to the early days of
social-networking cloudsites—back then called websites—when it
became obvious that the most popular social-networking platforms
were ironically designed and developed by some incredibly unsocial
personalities. In that regard, Veil seems to share in that same
irony.”

“I can’t argue with that. Perhaps for
different reasons, perhaps not. It’s hard to say for sure. However,
I am pretty certain that, were Jin still alive and had the New Veil
World still developed somehow, Jin would’ve been very reluctant to
Veil. Jin was very, very private. Not secretive really, just
private. Guarded.”

“That’s not surprising, as the world knows so
very little about the Great Dr. Jin Tsay, the Father of Veil.”

“That’s true as well and I think that’s
something that unfortunately will not change. If it does change, it
certainly will not be something forthcoming from the Tsay Trustees.
Those of us who knew Jin are extremely protective of him, although
he is no longer with us. We’re probably more protective of Jin
because
he is no longer with us. But, to answer your
original question, Christiane…”

“Oh yes, the question. Look at you, doing my
job for me. I apologize. So Ken, the main lesson of Veil as you see
it, PostVeil and halfway through our Sixth Veil Year? Hard to
believe it’s already 6 V.Y., isn’t it?”

“It certainly is, and that’s a very
interesting question. If I were to choose one thing, it would have
to be how the world has learned, and is still learning, that
everyone one has a distinct ability. Every single one of us seems
to have a primary, definitive, and identifiable ability.”