Veil

VEIL

by aaron overfield

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

In other words, I made this shit up so don’t be coming at me for no money.

(Oh, especially Anderson Cooper and Christiane Amanpour - but I swear I read all kindsa stuff bout how you can use a public figure's name and likeness if you do it creatively.

I like you two a lot. I was getting my whole creative on and shit.

Please don't sue me. Thank you.)

Copyright © 2012 Aaron Overfield

COVER ART

Makeup: Megan Wunder

www.makeupwunder.com

Photography: Jenna Thall for Killer Imaging Studios

www.killerimaging.com

Model: Misha Grace

modelmishagrace@gmail.com - @missmishagrace

All rights reserved.

That means there are no more reservations available nor is there a guestlist.

I don't care if you're with the DJ. Do I look like I care? Back of the line.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without my motherfucking permission.

Copywritten, so dont copy me. – Missy Elliot

(see what I did there?)

Please do not be participating in no piracy of copyrighted materials and shit because it be violating my sexy ass rights. You don’t see me all violating up in your rights, do you? Well, maybe if they was sexy I would.

10 9 8 7 6 (wtf are these numbers for? I never understood that.) 5 4 3 2 1

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

NEW VEIL WORLD

STAGE ONE:

VEIL

for austin

at peace forever, for we are one

part one: veiling

JIN

WITNESS

CURRENTS

RECOVER

WOLF

BETRAY

RECIPROCITY

CONVOKE

REVEILLE

ABLUTION

ANIMA

ANIMUS

part two: veiled

PLUNGE

BREACH

CONTIGUITY

ENSUE

WANTON

IMPART

KEY

HARMONIUS

ONE

part three: unveiling

KAIROS

ETHOS

PATHOS

LOGOS

BATHOS

epilogues: unveiled

DOMINIKA

CORL

TINY

INTRODUCTION

by the way my love, we need milk

INTRODUCTION

JIN

Elevator.

Elevator. Elevator. Elevator.

The elevator was Jin’s first concern.

The elevator consumed Jin’s morning. It dominated his thoughts every day before work, even if the word never crossed his mind. The elevator dictated his mood and actions from the moment he opened his eyes until he arrived at it. Even then, Jin couldn’t breathe unless the elevator doors sealed, with him inside—alone.

The elevator wouldn’t let up and allow Jin to relax until its doors met. He learned early on how someone could interrupt those doors at the last second. They could use a hand, a foot, a purse, a briefcase, or pretty much anything they happened to have available and were willing to risk losing. Anything.

A lady used a stroller once, with baby inside.

Jin’s goal was the same every morning: get to the elevator before anyone else. Get to the elevator before most people started their day. Enter it alone.

Alone.

The elevator was Jin Tsay’s greatest source of anxiety and stress—greater than Veil itself.

That day was no different; no day was different.

Jin was mindful of his sleeping wife as he slid from underneath the covers. (After he stole a sneaky kiss from her soft skin, of course.) He grabbed the meticulous pile of clothes that were prepared by his doting Suren, which she left on a chair beside the bedroom door; he entered the bathroom around the corner to begin his daily routine; he was silent as he shut all doors and took each step. Jin did all of those things without once making the slightest detectable sound—any sound that could disturb his Suren’s sleep.

Elevator.

He wasn’t sure how most aspects of their lives achieved such a perfection of organized silence. It wasn’t as if he and Suren ever spoke of such things. That was one of the reasons he loved her. Suren intuited everything Jin required to achieve his goals, although she never knew what his goals were, and never once did she ask about them.

Not once did she ask, she just knew him. They didn’t plan how each morning should unfold or what would be most efficient. There were no discussions about what steps were required to ensure every morning went so smoothly. Suren Tsay sensed precisely what Jin required, so he could be up and out the door, without so much as rousing her, in time to make it to the damned elevator before anyone else could encroach.

Jin never spoke to Suren about the elevator. Never. He never even spoke about Veil itself, except to say the project existed. Still, somehow Suren managed to entwine their lives together in such a way.

That morning—like every morning—Jin would be silently steered out the front door by the intuitive forethought of his sleeping Suren. Everything Jin required was laid out before him, and he followed an unobstructed, sequential path through their house. Jin followed that path in the same manner of silence that Suren used as she plotted it for him.

Elevator.

First, Jin was led from their bedroom into the bathroom, where he quietly groomed and dressed. Next, to the kitchen, where he poured his coffee from the fresh, steaming, programmed pot. He added a bit of sweetener and a splash of soymilk. Jin grabbed the breakfast sandwich Suren prepared the night before, which was wrapped and lovingly placed on the top shelf of the fridge.

While the microwave warmed his food, Jin read the morning greeting Suren left for him before she went to bed. Jin jotted her a tender response. He wished Suren a good morning in return, hoped she had a pleasant day, and expressed his singular love for her. They shared their daily words through a notebook that remained on the kitchen counter for the sole purpose of such exchanges.

He regretfully added a postscript …

By the way, my love, we need milk.

… which wasn’t penned as a reminder or a prompt. Rather, it was offered as a considerate confession and forewarning, should she drift toward the carton when she arose from her slumber; he didn’t want her to open the refrigerator with expectation, only to be faced with disappointment. He wanted her to get the bad news from him first.

Jin made sure to finish his note in time to open the microwave before the timer ran out, to avoid its noisy ding. He carried his breakfast and paper cup of coffee to the foyer, where he snatched up his briefcase. Jin was then out the front door.

Elevator.

Jin trusted the trail his Suren prepared for him. Her path led to the same ending every morning: Jin Tsay left their home meticulously groomed and uniformly dressed, with his coffee, breakfast, and briefcase in hand. Each time, from the moment he opened his eyes, Jin’s routine lasted somewhere between seventeen to twenty minutes.

That day, it took Jin eighteen minutes and sixteen seconds.

That day was no different.

That morning—like every morning—Suren Tsay fell back into a peaceful sleep once she heard her Jin leave and shut the front door. (After she rolled onto Jin’s side of the bed to bask in his lingering warmth and scent, of course.) Although she could never tell him, Jin woke her every morning when he kissed her cheek, or her forehead, or her neck, or whatever patch of skin he hoped he could press a kiss onto without waking her.

After he left their bed and shut the bedroom door without so much as a click, Suren wouldn’t hear another sound from Jin during his morning routine. There was no other sound until Jin shut the front door and locked it, and she could tell he even did that as quietly as he could. He was always so mindful of her.

Suren could never tell Jin how his kiss woke her every morning, nor did she want him to suspect it. So, she pretended to be asleep until she was certain he had left for work. If Jin ever had the slightest inkling he woke her with that kiss, he would stop giving it to her. He never wanted to disturb his Suren’s sleep…

…and Suren never wanted her Jin to stop stealing that kiss.

She was in deep sleep by the time Jin reached the entrance of the Metro station. As he approached the tunnel, Jin was already prepared to gauge the probability of him reaching the elevator before anyone else.

Jin used the echoes of his footsteps in the tunnels of the D.C. Metro to calculate the potential for him to arrive at the elevator first. No matter how long he and Suren lived in the District, those magnificent honeycombed tunnels impressed him every time he arrived. However, what struck Jin more were the echoes of his dress shoes as they clicked against the hexagonal tile floors of an empty station. It wasn’t merely the sight of a vacant station that eased his elevator anxiety but much more so the degree in which those honeycombs resounded his footsteps.

Jin desperately wanted to believe the steps he produced sounded sharp, prestigious, and authoritative, such as those made by a colonel’s high gloss, black Oxfords. To Jin’s dismay, no matter how forcefully he walked or how wide his stride, his echoes distinctly matched those of a woman’s high-heels. He arbitrarily blamed that sound on his short stature and small feet. If not for the fact that the echoes were only so prominent because the station was so empty, their pitch would have embarrassed Jin.

As he stepped off the dizzyingly long and frustratingly slow escalator and onto the Metro platform that day, Jin was somewhat relieved by the emptiness of the station and the echoes of his footsteps.

tsk-chk tsk-chk tsk-chk tsk-chk (… tsk-chk … tsk-chk …)

Just the right echoes. No one in sight.

Relentlessly fastidious, Jin gently dropped his paper coffee cup into a recycle bin, so as to avoid an embarrassing stain caused by the jerky, jolty Metro. He then boarded the waiting train. Its cars were all dark and doors all closed, except for the first car, which remained lit and open as the train idled. Essentially, it was Jin’s own personal train, and although he would never let himself think it, he felt it. As soon as he boarded, the doors closed behind him and the loudspeaker dinged to alert passengers of departure. Or in that case, to alert Jin.

Elevator.

He sat at the front of the car and faced forward. He placed his briefcase on the floor; although the train was empty, it eased Jin’s mind if he could feel that no one walked off with it, so he made certain it touched his calf. He stared straight ahead. He did not read a newspaper, flip through a magazine, review work documents, or listen to music. Just like every other day, he sat motionless and looked straight ahead until the train reached his destination and the voice from the loudspeaker announced the arrival at the station.

He grabbed his briefcase, exited the train, and rode the long, slow escalator up and out of the underground tunnel. As the escalator approached the top, Jin made a mental note to buy flowers for Suren from the vendor who’d be positioned near the Metro’s entrance when he left his lab at the hospital later that evening. He brought home flowers with enough regularity for Suren to appreciate the thought but without it being so common it seemed contrived or a habit. He hoped it didn’t rain that day since, if that were the case, the flower vendor would be replaced by one selling umbrellas.

Jin stepped off the escalator, walked approximately twenty feet from the station, and entered the research hospital. He gave his daily nod and smile to the familiar security guard stationed at his right, and he rushed ahead to the elevators. The emptiness of the lobby didn't go unnoticed but, as he learned long ago, he couldn't relax until the doors shut, with him inside—alone.

The elevator on the right was open and awaited passengers; the elevator on the left was strategically placed on a higher floor, where it also waited for passengers. Neither of those details went unnoticed either, although years ago Jin stopped realizing he ever noticed those details at all. By then, he instinctually knew an open, empty elevator on the right side, plus a lit tenth-floor indicator above the elevator on the left side, meant one thing: he was definitely first. First to arrive for the day.

All those signals slightly alleviated Jin’s anxiety.

Very slightly.

He swiftly entered the open elevator, turned around, and pushed the button for the 14th floor. He then repeatedly pushed the ‘Close Doors’ button. Jin wasn't sure if pushing that button decreased the delay for the doors to close, but the satisfaction he felt as he pushed it outweighed any wasted effort.

The elevator doors slid shut, although they did so torturously slow. After the doors met, Jin released his daily, audible sigh of relief. If anyone else were in the elevator at that moment, it would have sounded like Jin held his breath for quite some time and finally exhaled. The immense relief he experienced wasn't much different than that.

Whooooooooooooooooooouh

The relief wasn’t much different at all.

He inserted a key into the slot above the floor button panel and turned it to the right. All the buttons lit up, and the woman's voice that usually announced the elevator's arrival at each floor instead directed Jin to enter his security code. He entered the code, and all but the 12th and 14th buttons went dark. There was no 13th button and, for all anyone knew, no 13th floor. An unbelievably small number of people knew about the existence of the hospital’s 13th floor.

That was the whole elevator problem: no one knew about the 13th floor. It was hidden, but it was in plain sight and unquestioned. Out of quirky superstition, plenty of buildings around the city labeled the 13th floor as the 14th, so the practice was commonly accepted to the point of being ignored by everyone except those who weren't raised in a city. Even in those people, it only caused mild curiosity, usually quelled by a few moments of common sense.

If anyone inquired as to why, when one rode the elevator or climbed the stairs, the distance seemed greater between the 12th and 14th floors than between other floors, they all received the same lie: the ceilings of the 12th floor were higher than on all other floors. If anyone ever questioned that answer, they never spoke up in doubt. Most people simply shrugged it off and resumed caring about something else.

Instead of some movie set quality, well-lit, heavily guarded and technologically secure lab with opaquely frosted windows and solid steel doors that hissed when they opened, Jin was provided an entire hospital floor. And not just an entire floor but also a lab whose very existence remained remarkably hidden and top secret. As sci-fi, stealthy, and James Bond-ish as that might have made most people feel, for Dr. Jin Tsay it only served to make the first forty minutes of his day nearly unbearable.

When the project started, there were countless times Jin had to ride the elevator up and down, up and down, up and down. He had to continue to ride and wait for the moment when he was the only person inside the elevator and therefore, could covertly use his key to access the 13th floor. Once, he spent nearly an hour waiting for the elevator to empty, and on more than one occasion he was reported to security for seeming suspicious.

For someone of Jin’s disposition, the attention and embarrassment, not to mention the wasted time, were unbearable. After the atrocious attacks of 9/11, when people—especially in the District—became paranoid and suspicious of everyone and everything, Jin decided he’d had enough. Although out of character for him, he submitted an official request for a meeting to resolve the issue.

Jin’s request resulted in no such meeting. What Jin received instead was a written response that the Metro line between his home and the hospital would make one train available an hour prior to the scheduled start time. The notice stated that the early train would not be publicly announced; it would only travel between those two stations; and only Jin’s personal Metro pass would allow early entry into the station near his home.

The plan was practical, since he was barred from commuting to or from the hospital in his own vehicle—or any vehicle, for that matter—in order to remain inconspicuous. For the most part, the new protocol worked. Only twice was Jin faced with another elevator passenger after the Metro started to run early for him. Luckily, those passengers exited before they reached the 10th floor.

While the arrangement did nothing to alleviate Jin’s anxiety, even as he arrived at a Metro station he already knew would be empty, it did come close enough to a resolution for him. Plus, what he learned in the process was more valuable: he was alone in the Veil project. There were to be no face-to-face meetings, no regular communications, no occasional updates or debriefings. Jin was contracted by the military to do a job, and all they were interested in was the end product of his work.

Just as he preferred—Jin was alone.

The elevator moved; Jin relaxed.

His mind, rather than suffocated by anxiety and stress, was free to focus on Veil. He had test data he needed to analyze in order to finalize and submit the one and only development report that was required of him, all before he could proceed to the implementation phase. With one successful, seamless test run of Veil behind him, Jin's brain clocked overtime on the next step. The one that would take Veil all the way from theory to a final device.

While he wasn't yet sure what his role would be since he had developed and perfected the technology, he was certain of one thing: they would need him. No one but Jin could extrapolate the data into usable instructions on how to transform the theory of Veil into a technological reality: a Veil device. That was what tickled Jin most about the upcoming phase. It was the chance to turn all his years of theory, research, development, and design into a device.

His theory. His device. His creation: Veil.

The elevator slowed, which signaled its arrival at the 13th floor.

Jin's anticipation of the day's work caused him to do something he never did in front of another person. He didn’t understand why he did it, and it made him somewhat ashamed. It was also something he couldn’t control and almost didn’t want to control: Jin vibrated all over.

His left hand tightly squeezed onto his briefcase handle; his empty right hand balled into a fist; his butt cheeks clenched; each of his muscles tensed.

Jin trembled all over, in a full-body fit of sheer, absolute giddiness.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuh

Every inch of him vibrated and he couldn’t wait to get inside the lab to start his work.

The elevator stopped; Jin relaxed; the doors opened.

Jin’s gaze and focus were fixed upon the lab door in front of him. He stepped out, tripped, and fell down onto one knee. His right palm flattened against the cold polished concrete as he caught his balance.

Jin raised his head. His eyes didn’t focus on the gun barrel pointed at him but on the figure behind with the outstretched arm.

In that moment, as Jin Tsay’s life was ripped away by a bullet, he had two thoughts.

No.

Suren.

PART I - VEILING

there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: veil.

1

WITNESS

He didn’t want to know details.

Whenever he was hired to do some pussy’s dirty work, he had one stipulation: the less he knew, the better. When he knew all the mucky details, he ended up distracted and conflicted. No one who hired him ever ordered a target eliminated for altruistic reasons. Ever.

So, as far as he was concerned, anyone who hired him naturally deserved the same fate as his target. In fact, as much as—if not more than—the target. Hell, in all likelihood he had to figure they deserved it more, since he never allowed himself to know if or why the target deserved to die.

See, this is why I don’t need to think about this shit.

Although it was a highly lucrative profession, his work wasn't a means to an end. At least, not for him. Not with his flavor of vices. He couldn’t, and didn’t want to, simply stop his career. Instead, he promised himself out of sheer delusional, ironic conscience he would hunt down and eliminate all his past employers, should he ever win the lottery. Or become otherwise independently wealthy. For that purpose, he even maintained a running list of all his jobs and half-heartedly kept tabs on his employers.

He loathed jobs for the government and military for the same reason: there was nobody in particular he could vilify for hiring him. There was no one upon whom he could promise karmic-balancing revenge. However, those jobs paid the best and left him feeling more protected and plugged into something greater, some kind of larger purpose.

Corrupt as the government was, if they wanted someone eliminated, that must have been one damn evil bastard. Like Bin Laden or some shit. If a target got put on Washington’s hit list, they probably really fucking deserved it.

Who knows?

On a scale of one to impossible-to-eliminate, the Tsay job didn’t register a zero. The Tsay dude didn’t make it into the positives. The dossier included a lot of information he didn't need, which was opposite of how things usually unfolded. If anything, he was annoyed by the wait. He hated to wait, and the ease with which he could access and eliminate the target in question was negated by how long he would have to sit and wait for said target to arrive. The only amusing consolation was that he learned of some top-secret 13th floor in a well-known hospital in the District.

He couldn’t help but laugh at that, because he knew most people assumed his line of work was filled with top-secret labs. The kinds replete with high-tech, sci-fi security measures. Goddamn green laser beams and all. Those people probably imagined him rappelling from a rooftop with black rope, so he could shoot some faggot foreign diplomat in the neck with a deadly, poisonous dart. Mission Impossible type shit. However, that was the first top-secret lab he had ever heard about, much less had one’s existence confirmed. And he didn’t do heights. Or poisonous darts. Or faggots, for that matter.

Fucking faggots.

Gaining entry to the target’s lab did prove to be surprisingly impossible, though. The only way to enter through the lab’s door was with two keys that had to be inserted into an oversized deadbolt at the same time. That confused him, because he was informed there was only one target, and the target was alone in the lab every day from approximately 4:20 am until 7:00 pm. He assumed that, with the whole dual key dealio, the lab must have been built for at least two workers. Then again, who knew how long the lab had been in use and how many times it changed hands? Maybe the other dude died or something.

Who knows?

The lab itself was massive and took up the entire floor, although he wasn’t sure what was inside of it or how much space the target utilized. Someone hand-drew the provided blueprints—if anyone could call them that—and labeled things like makeshift hallway, box with wires, and some room we think he doesn’t use. Because of the secrecy of the 13th floor’s existence, there was no way to get to it from above, underneath, or outside; it was completely isolated. There were no windows, and the ductwork was independent of the ducts in the rest of the building. Simply put, there was no way into the damn lab except through the single metal door with the two keyholes. Even that door didn’t have a window.

The only space he could access to complete the elimination was the empty 300 square foot entryway between the elevator doors and the lab’s windowless metal door. He figured someone could call it a lobby if they wanted. After all, that’s what the blueprints called it. Then again, that diagram could have been drawn in crayon and the shit still wouldn’t have looked any more ridiculous.

The only two things in the lobby were a monitor embedded in the wall and a pair of buttons below the monitor. That monitor displayed the interior of the elevators; the buttons were used to call one to the 13th floor, after the target verified it was empty and safe to call. No one was supposed to enter or leave the 13th floor unless they were the only person in the elevator.

Once the target pushed one of those buttons, the corresponding elevator would go straight to the 13th floor without opening at any other floors. As he claustrophobically idled away in the lobby while he waited for the target to arrive, he did wonder how anyone was expected to access the 13th floor covertly unless one of the elevators happened to be empty. Someone could get stuck riding up and down one of the elevators for a long ass time while they waited for everyone to get the hell off.

That’s gotta be fucking annoying.

When the time came, he saw only one sensible way to eliminate the target.

He wasn’t about to trap himself inside such a small space with someone, so his only option was to perform the elimination immediately and swiftly. A bullet was the obvious choice. Guns came with their own obstacles, mainly noise and mess. Getting around the noise was easy enough with the right equipment, which he owned, of course. He decided the mess part didn’t necessarily have to be his problem.

Since no one knew about the existence of the 13th floor, no one could think to trace anything back to the 13th floor. If he could keep the majority of the mess inside the elevator, no one would have any idea where it came from or what happened. Hell, maybe they would decide it was some kind of sick prank. Maybe they had no other choice.

Who knows?

Sure, it would cause quite a fuss and draw more than a little attention to the hospital. However, by the time they simply gave up their hunt for the source of the blood, pieces of brain, and skull bits, he would already be in Baltimore. All he had to do was eliminate the target, send the elevator on its way, and use the target’s keys to open the lab. Then, he could make use of whatever tools and equipment were available inside the lab to address the larger problem of disposing of the target’s body. After that, he would make his way out of the hospital undetected, or at least unnoticed. Easy enough. The only truly frustrating part he could foresee was the goddamn motherfucking wait.

Since he figured he would find enough equipment in the lab to dispose of the body, he brought little along with him. His elimination kit contained only what he needed: Heckler & Koch tactical 9mm, Aimpoint Micro T-1 red dot optical sight, custom Brugger & Thomet sound suppressor, black leather gloves, plastic sheeting, metal wire, and the elevator key to gain access to the 13th floor.

Most targets required varying assortments of job-specific tools, not only to eliminate the target but also to access them. As he assembled his elimination kit for the Tsay job, he noticed he packed less like his usual self and more like Dexter Morgan. That didn’t sit well with him, so he chose to ignore it.

He envisioned himself not as some kind of random serial killer but as some kind of martyr. He gave up his life, morals, and conscience for some kind of greater purpose. Even if he didn’t know the purpose or give a damn about it.

He did a job other people couldn’t stomach and that was why the work, his area of expertise, was profitable. It wasn’t because he was doing things that were so abhorrently, inherently evil other people couldn’t bring themselves to do them. Most people were simply pussy ass faggots and couldn’t do what needed and had to be done.

Sure, the people who hired him might have had their selfish, twisted reasons. Still, if someone in his circles wanted you eliminated, even if that someone was a sick bastard, there was a reason they wanted you dead. And, like with the military, their reason was probably, more often than not, valid. Probably.

Now that he thought about it, Dexter Morgan killed people for much the same reason, in his own way. For a greater purpose or something. Kind of. Maybe packing an elimination kit like Dexter would pack, sans all the knives, wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Who knows?

Getting inside and preparing for the elimination didn’t take long at all. He went as slowly as possible to waste time and shorten his godforsaken wait. He wasn’t too concerned about being noticed when he entered the building, at least not as concerned as he would have been on typical jobs. He parked a reasonable distance from the hospital and walked to the northern side of the building. When he got to the building, he turned and headed east. With one fell swoop, he picked up a rock and tossed it at one of the northern floor-to-ceiling windows that graced the first floor of the hospital.

He continued to walk as he flung the rock and his step didn’t miss a beat between picking it up, throwing it, and continuing on his way. He tossed hard enough to make a loud clank but not hard enough to do any damage. As he continued along the northern side of the building and turned the corner that led to its eastern entrance, he could see the heavyset security guard through the windows. The guard was headed in the opposite direction, toward the source of the noise. He pitied the fat ass security guard. He pitied how easy and predictable people were.

He strolled through the hospital’s eastern entrance and felt superiorly cunning for how effortlessly he took advantage of such predictability. He sauntered across the lobby and entered the open elevator on the right. Recalling the exact instructions provided, he pushed the button for the 14th floor and waited for the doors to close. He inserted the key into the slot and turned it all the way to the right. When instructed to do so, he entered the security code he memorized and was transported directly to the 13th floor.

It was 3:17 am. He had a little over an hour to conduct approximately twenty minutes worth of preparations. Great. An empty room and nothing to look at other than a monitor, which displayed vacant elevators. He never brought any unnecessary items, so he didn’t have an iPod or anything. Something to distract him from thinking. Or at least something he could use to look at porn. Same difference.

The only thing he hated more than waiting was being on a job and getting stuck without a distraction or anything to do other than think. He didn’t like to think anymore, although he used to like thinking, and he used to think all the time. He especially didn’t like to think while he was on a job.

However, outside of work, he never got bored. He couldn’t stand people who got bored. It seemed boredom was rooted in stupidity and a mindless need to be constantly entertained. People who let themselves get bored were pussies. He didn’t identify himself with those kinds of people. He simply saw himself as anxious in work situations.

Anxious to do a job: to get it over with and resume his real life. Anxious to do a line and screw some stupid slut inside out and backwards. He never allowed himself to rail up, line up, or even bump up when he was working or prepping for a job. It was too risky. His mind wouldn’t be clear enough and there were too many mistakes to be made. Besides, if he was tweaked and didn’t have anyone to talk to, he would really start to think.

Anyway, if he thought about himself and/or his career too long—even if he wasn’t coked to the balls—he might start to care about things. Or if he thought about them too long, he risked the realization that he didn’t care about anything at all. There was simply no reason for him to think. Therefore, he didn’t want to know any details; the less he knew, the better.

To perform an efficient elimination, the target would have to be immediately incapacitated. Sure, he could wait for the doors to open and hope he caught the target off guard long enough to shoot him right away. However, he was provided a picture of Tsay, and he wasn’t willing to risk the dude didn’t know Jujutsu or some shit. Or what if the little Asian twat could simply move fast?

Who knows?

What he did know was that it was in his best interest to avoid a struggle. Although he had nowhere to hide in that empty space, he nonetheless needed to get the upper hand. The target needed to be incapacitated. Thus the wire.

He fastened each end of the wire onto opposite sides of the elevator doorframe. He pried back the elevator’s metal framing enough to catch a knot he made on both ends. He did that to each elevator, because he couldn’t be certain which one the target would use. Although, his information and recon indicated it was almost always the elevator that was on the right when one faced them in the lobby. He made sure the wire was taut and figured it would throw the target off his game long enough to gain the upper hand. He took the folded-up plastic sheeting out of his pocket and placed it on the side of the elevator, so it was out of the target’s immediate sight when the doors opened.

The wait wasn’t nearly as bad as he expected. He passed the time by checking and rechecking the wire to ensure it was fastened securely enough, so it wouldn’t snap off when the target’s shin made contact. He pondered what the lab contained; what the lab’s purpose was versus what it might have been when the hospital was built; the organization required to build an entire floor and keep it unknown. That last part was mind-boggling. Not only the fact of the lab’s existence but the idea that the people required for its planning and construction could keep it secret for so long.

That was one thing that always bothered him about major conspiracy theories: people keeping their damn mouths shut. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that all the people necessary to pull off a huge, complicated conspiracy would keep their jaws from flapping. People simply weren’t like that. Someone would have talked. Probably more than one someone. He wondered how many people knew about the lab, living and dead. It made him feel plugged into something greater when he considered how he was part of a number that small.

Shit, it wasn’t that bad to think about.

Go fucking figure.

He intended to observe the target’s arrival. However, since the monitor was embedded in the wall between the two elevators, he would be unable to view the entire approach. The plan was to be on the side of the elevator during the target’s ride up.

After the doors slid open, he would assume his position: he would situate himself approximately ten feet from the elevator, between the target and the lab door, well out of the target’s reach. As he moved into position, the target would step out, trip over the wire, and become disoriented. The target would be precisely where he intended by the time he planted his stance, so he would take his shot to complete the elimination.

At 4:15 am, he closely watched the monitor until he saw the target scurry into the elevator on the right, push the button for the 14th floor, and intently stare at the doors as they closed. The target then seemed to sigh, after which he performed the procedure to access the 13th floor. He continued to watch the target for a few seconds during the approach, and then he positioned himself as planned.

He waited—it was the thrilling kind of wait.

It was the I just did a bump kind of wait.

He detected the vibration and heard the drone as the elevator made its way up from below. He felt his heart rate quicken and the inevitable surge of adrenaline. They were feelings he was familiar with; therefore, he remained undisturbed by them. He simply took notice.

The elevator dinged; its doors opened.

With the same agility and thoughtlessness he used to pick up and toss the rock earlier, he moved in front of the target, who’d just fell and caught himself.

His arm was already outstretched and aimed at the head as he positioned himself to tower over Tsay. With a precision that lacked any effort or hesitation, he pulled the trigger to complete the elimination. The target toppled over and landed on his briefcase. His hand was still latched onto its handle. Brain matter, bone, and blood spattered the inside of the elevator and landed with chunky, meaty splats.

He remained quite undisturbed by them.

He didn’t even take notice.

If nothing else, Jin Tsay would have been relieved that still, in his last moments, no one ever witnessed him in all his sheer, absolute giddiness. From where he was positioned, the gunman could not view the monitor and didn’t witness Jin’s childlike anticipation.

What is this bullshit? the General spat. He threw a heavy, coil-bound book onto the mahogany desk between him and the two visibly nervous men. We commissioned you whitecoats to get this shit up and running so we can start using it, not to write some damned textbook. What am I even looking at?

It’s Veil, sir. That’s what you asked us for. Veil, the braver of the two whitecoats stammered. He and his colleague walked into the General’s office with all the confidence of two major league athletes, but they were immediately reduced to confused schoolboys being reprimanded by their coach.

That, the General pointed at the impressively thick book, "is not Veil. That is a book. Veil is a machine or a piece of electronics or something. Something I can put my hands on. That, you fuckholes, he pointed at the book again, how an angry dog owner would point at an indoor mess, is a fucking book!"

The less brave but more competent of the whitecoats spoke up. Sir, this is only the beginning phase. First we had to extrapolate … uh, uh, figure out … Dr. Tsay’s raw data to piece everything together, so we could start building Veil the way we—the way the military—wants it.

I know what extrapolate means, jackass. I haven’t the slightest clue what anything in that book says or means, and it’s not my job to know formulas and diagrams. I’m not about to sit here and sift through that crap. You’re wasting my time even bringing it to me. I don’t need you to show off. What, you two want congratulations? Do you expect me to be happy you compiled a bunch of junk like my wife’s Reader’s Digest that I read when I’m taking a shit? Well, woopty-goddamn-doo fellas. Jin fucking Tsay would still be working on this project if that’s all we needed.

The two shot glances at each other from the corners of their eyes.

What I need is for you two cockjockeys to tell me exactly what the hell Tsay’s shit is going to do. In terms of what intel we can expect to gain from it. Then I need you to build it, like you were supposed to.

Can we sit down, sir? the more competent whitecoat requested.

The General picked up the book and tossed it across his desk. It made a heavy thud when it landed on the ground between the two men, who were in fact wearing white lab coats.

The General ordered them to sit the fuck down.

I’m not sure how much you know about Veil, sir.

I know it’s a spying technique—I mean technology—that uses the brain. I know it puts someone’s mind into someone else, and we can extract everything the person knows. We can dig out everything in their mind. I know Tsay figured out a way to do it, and it worked. That’s what I know.

Roughly, yes, the increasingly competent-sounding one replied. He cleared his throat to hide his condescension. But it’s a lot more ummm … complicated, yet brilliant than that.

Then explain, the General growled. He hated talking to whitecoats. They were everything the military programmed their soldiers not to be: weak, mousey, and downright effeminate. Their voices always sounded shriller than his wife’s, and he thought Lynn Coffman had a godforsaken voice that was shrill enough to be classified as sonar. To the General, whitecoats were merely a necessary annoyance he had to put up with if he wanted to build a more advanced and capable military than any other military throughout the world.

Although, they already were.

That was, they already were a more advanced and capable military. The General simply wanted them to be even more so, and he wouldn’t mind if it was all because of him.

Imagine a field of electricity… the whitecoat started.

The General was already annoyed by the sound of the man’s voice. He imagined, thanks to that voice, some disoriented and confused little brown cave bats would soon start crashing into the windows of his office.

Goddamn sonofabitch, this better not take long. I already want to take his face and murder your face with it.

…that covers the entire brain and also reaches all the way down inside it. Like a hairnet—or ummm—like a veil, you could say. Yeah, that works. Imagine a veil.

Did this moron really just now make that connection? It’s called Veil for a reason, jacksack.

Imagine the brain being covered by an electrical veil, with electric roots that go down deep inside the brain. That neuroelectrical network is measured in brainwaves, as Dr. Tsay postulated in his thesis, and is responsible for tying together the different functions within the brain and absorbing, combining, and translating it all into what we call awareness.

"Or, more accurately, experience," his colleague interrupted. He didn’t want to be overshadowed by his counterpart.

Yes, or experience. The whitecoat rolled his eyes and didn’t look at his partner. He wanted to avoid having the conversation turn to a friggen roundtable between the three of them. All they needed to accomplish was to get the facts across. "Dr. Tsay called that network of neuroelectrical currents ‘The Witness.’ From what we can ascertain, Dr. Tsay believed its neuroelectrical current stimulates the brain to create everything about a person—what they see, smell, hear, think, feel, taste, remember—everything.

The Witness is how all the different parts within the brain communicate and interact with each other to form one single person. Dr. Tsay discovered this neuroelectrical network retains the … ummm … information it receives and transmits. The information is retained for one entire timespan between sleep-cycles. You see, during a sleep-cycle, the brainwaves decelerate into delta waves, the slowest waves, so The Witness fades away, and the brain kind of resets and prepares for another cycle to begin when the person wakes—

The General put up his hand and interrupted the annoying whitecoat. Are you arriving at a point? I might as well read the damn book.

Yes—yes. Sorry, sir. Sorry. But yes, ok. What Dr. Tsay learned, and it’s the crux of all this, the beauty of it, he continued and leaned in. He raised his hand and pressed his index finger and thumb together, as if to emphasize his point. That neuroelectrical network, that electric veil, can be extracted—it can be downloaded—from one subject’s brain and implanted—or uploaded—onto another subject’s brain. Like putting a veil over a veil. When this happens, when their Witness is uploaded onto someone else, their Witness experiences all the same things the subject does. They essentially are that person. All the information is retained in that neuroelectricity. It’s stored, by the person’s neuroelectrical network, by their Witness, so when that neuroelectricity is returned to their brain, they remember everything—

The General put up his hand again.

Get—to—the—goddamn—point, he snarled.

"Ok … ok … right, sir. So, as I was saying, when they’re uploaded back onto themselves, they remember everything about being that other person. You see, their brain is subjected to all the neuroelectricity retained in their Witness. In essence, when it’s uploaded back onto them, their Witness plays their brain kind of like a piano. It strikes all the synaptic notes it stored up when it was inside the other person, and it strikes them in the same way as the other person’s synapses were struck. You see, their brain gets stimulated the same way the other person’s brain was stimulated and—"

The General slammed a fist onto the desk. Both scientists inhaled, and their blood pressure rose. The General leaned forward and pointed at the other whitecoat, who remained silent up to that point, although by no choice of his own. However, now that it was his turn to talk, he no longer wanted to take it.

I suggest you do a much better, much quicker job of answering my question than your little asshole friend here. All he’s done is use a bunch of pansy-ass words to tell me what I said in the very beginning. Can you answer my question?

Yes sir, I’ll try, sir. Ummm … so what Schaffer was saying—what he was trying to say—after the Veil gets done, that person totally remembers what it was like to be the other person. They remember that person’s thoughts and stuff. Their thoughts and memories and stuff. Like, I mean, even what they saw, smelled, tasted. Everything. It gives a dude the power to literally be another dude and then remember what it was like to be that other dude, sir. Like you said before. We could like spy on the enemy, you know? Cause we could Veil the enemy and be the enemy, to get all their thoughts and stuff, sir. We can—

Schaffer couldn’t help himself. He had to interrupt. He couldn’t stand anything about Pollock, and having to listen to how Pollock talked drove Schaffer absolutely friggen insane. Schaffer thought Pollock sounded like George Bush. The Dubya one. He couldn’t believe he and Pollock had the same job and that they were considered equals.

So, Schaffer simply couldn’t help himself. He interrupted.

"Right! Right! See, as I was saying earlier, using Veil, my neuroelectrical network can be temporarily removed from me, placed over your brain like a veil for an entire day and then when that network was returned to me, I would remember what it was like to be you. My neuroelectricity, my Witness, will play my brain like a piano, using all of your experiences as its sheet music."

Schaffer stopped.

He planned to continue—there was so much he wanted to explain, and he liked the piano analogy; he made that up on the spot—but he noticed the General wasn’t looking at him. The General didn’t look at him during any of what he said, and he was still looking at Pollock. Pollock wasn’t looking at him either. He was looking at the General.

So, Schaffer stopped.

The General ignored Schaffer and his outburst. He directed his next question to Pollock. He also considered Schaffer lucky that he was ignoring his outburst. Quite lucky.

"So, if I had an alive Saddam straight-to-hell Hussein sitting right here next to you, I could use Tsay’s machine and take your mind, put it on top of Hussein’s mind, and you’d know what it was like to be him? You’d have access to everydamnthing Hussein knows and when we put your mind back inside you, you could tell us everything we wanted to know about him?"

Pollock enthusiastically nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, sir. That’s pretty much it. In a manner of speaking, yeah. Totally. There are like these limitations and rules and stuff, but you get the overall idea, sir. You’re good. You’re good. Tsay invented this technology that literally—and I mean literally, man—allows one person to experience what it’s like to be someone else and then remember it. All of it. With Tsay’s technology, we totally have the ability to be someone else for a day. Trust me, sir, I tried it. It’s some badass shit."

Ok, so why not just go inside and take out one thought or one memory? Why can’t we just extract only the crap we need? the General asked. "Why make all this so complicated with two brains and electronic veils and fucking nonsense stupid-ass goddamn … bullshit … … motherfuck!"

Neither of the scientists knew if what the General said ended with an actual question, or if it was a frustrated series of random cuss words that indicated some kind of seizure or something just occurred.

Well?! the General barked.

Right, it was a question. Whew.

Ok, so get this. What Tsay said— Pollock stopped himself.

I said, ‘Tsay said.’ Heh.

Pollock chuckled. Tsay said. That’s funny.

Jesus, Pollock. Really? Schaffer grunted and shook his head.

I could not hate you more, you frakking imbecile.

Pollock chuckled again and then continued.

He ignored Schaffer the same way the General did earlier, without so much as glancing over at him or acknowledging his existence.

"Anyway, so Tsay said we can’t separate one function of the brain from another. Even if we wanna, we can’t just go in and pick and choose what we want, because it’s all tied together. We gotta use the entire brain. And, according to him, because it’s so complicated up in there and all intertwined, you know, the only way we can access and interpret what’s in one dude’s brain is by using another dude’s brain. Or, a chick’s brain. We could even do a chick—Veil a chick, I mean. We could even Veil a chick."

Schaffer thought he would give it one more try. At least he wouldn’t have to listen to Pollock talk for a minute. He would rather hear the General shout than hear Pollock friggen whisper.

And that is Dr. Tsay’s theory of Veil, the mostly silent and annoyed Schaffer interjected. "The neuroelectrical network that I explained is The Witness. It is but one part of Veil. While it is the most crucial part, Dr. Tsay spent years researching the process and developing Veil as a whole. The entire theory, its application, all its rules, and the implications of what this all could mean—that is Veil. It is remarkable, General."

General Coffman had enough. All he asked for was an explanation of the intel they could expect to obtain through Veil. He also wanted to know if the two buffoons sitting in front of him could build it, and if they could build it quickly. Seemed those two questions were too hard for the two assholes-for-mouths to answer.

Son, the General leaned forward and lowered his voice, which made the two whitecoats as nervous as when he yelled invectives at them, I don’t give a shit what you call it. Witness, Veil, or fucking iBrain. All I care about is if it works, and if we can use it.

It works.

You can use it.

"Then get the hell out of my office and make it happen. Build the thing like you were supposed to do in the first damn place. As of today, you’ve had three months to bring me something. That book doesn’t count. Now, get your asses out of my sight," the General dismissed them.

The two men quickly exited the General’s office but left the book behind.

Both glanced at it as they moved past, but both avoided it.

They had their own copies; they didn’t need that one.

Three months to the day since Suren’s husband left for work and never returned, she stared at the computer screen in their home office. It was the same day two whitecoats met with their commanding General to discuss her husband’s technology. Technology the military acquired by ordering his murder, although he developed it for them. For them.

None of it made any sense to her. None of it made any sense the day Jin didn’t return after work, and it didn’t make any sense three months later. The only explanation of what happened to Jin was on their computer, and it wasn’t much of an explanation at all.

The monitor displayed the computer’s desktop, which contained two folders she had positioned in the middle of the screen. One folder was titled VEIL and the other, FEED. As she did nearly every day since Jin’s disappearance—which became a reality Suren was forced to investigate herself—she opened the folder titled FEED and double-clicked the recording she cropped and saved as 11-21.

The video opened and Suren watched a man step inside the elevator. He was tall, muscular, and white. He had short, dark hair and was dressed in jeans, black tennis shoes, and a black coat. She watched him press the button for the 14th floor, insert a key into the panel, and enter the numbers 0-9-0-3-1-2-0-4—a combination of her and Jin’s birthdays. He then exited when he reached his destination, which appeared to be the 13th floor. Suren observed every frame and soaked in every pixelated detail until the man exited the elevator and the doors closed behind him.

Only once had she played the second recording, which she saved as JIN. In it, she saw Jin approach and enter the same elevator, perform the same strange procedure, and exit on what also seemed to be the 13th floor. She checked with the hospital and city records. Both indicated there was no 13th floor in that building. She tried to show the recordings to anyone who would look at them, to prove not only the existence of the 13th floor but also the apparent murder of her husband. No one cared enough to listen. Besides, she must be crazy to believe in some top-secret floor in a widely regarded hospital.

She moved the mouse from the first recording to the third, which she had saved as MURDERER. The cursor momentarily hovered over the second recording. The images of what was contained in that video, what she witnessed happen to her Jin, flashed in her memory each time she moved the cursor over it. Each time, the images were as disturbingly clear as the day she first saw them. She didn’t need to see it again. She couldn’t see it again. Her only job was to keep the evidence safe.

She moved the cursor the rest of the way over and double-clicked on the third video. In that recording, she witnessed the white male enter the other elevator from the 13th floor, approximately three hours after Jin was murdered. The initial elevator was shut down while the hospital and police investigated and cleaned up the remains of her husband, which splattered inside when he was shot.

Suren watched the man ride the elevator to the lobby. The bastard who shot her husband rocked back and forth on his feet and appeared careless and unbothered. She watched the doors open at the lobby and saw him walk out of the elevator. Suren watched until she couldn’t see one more pixel of him in the frame. She restarted the recording and watched him enter the elevator again and again and again. She studied his face with the same burning intensity as she did the day before and the day before that and the day before that.

Every night, after she investigated Jin’s death all day and obsessively scrutinized those video clips all evening, Suren chose one of the notebooks that contained the daily morning greetings she and Jin exchanged. Each night, Suren would choose a different notebook. She had several dozen to choose from and to keep her busy. She would read it and memorize every one of Jin’s tender notes, until she fell asleep with the book on her chest.

That night was different.

Three months to the day, Suren had enough.

If she couldn’t get justice, she would settle for vengeance.

Three months after Jin’s life was ripped from him—and from her—Suren Tsay picked up her purse and went for her cellphone.

2

CURRENTS

"Ken. Hello Ken."

Suren?

Why would Suren be calling me now? Ah crap, did I miss Jin’s birthday?

I need you to come here. Jin’s dead, Ken. They’ve killed my Jin.

What! Who? Who killed Jin? What?

I need you to come here. I need your help. They’ve killed my Jin, and you’re the only one. You’re the only one, Ken.

I’m the only one? I’m the only one what, Suren?

She didn’t respond. He couldn’t hear her on the other end, so he wasn’t sure if the connection was dropped, or if she simply stopped talking.

If I missed his birthday or something and this is a joke … ummm that’s kinda pushin’ it lady.

Ken knew something was wrong, though. Something had to be wrong. Suren was by no means as uptight as her other half—from whose rear-end they might have extracted the Hope Diamond—but she wasn’t the type Ken or anyone else would consider a prankster.

I need your help, Ken.

Suren wasn’t crying. She wasn’t sobbing or screaming. Her tone was lifeless and eerie. She sounded opposite of the Suren that Ken knew.

What do you need? Suren, I don’t understand. Please. I’m starting to worry. This isn’t like you.

I’m sending you a file. Go to a computer.

Send it. I can try to open it with my phone.

Suren opened Jin’s email program, began to type Ken’s name, and chose his address from the selections that appeared. She clicked the paperclip icon, navigated to the recording marked JIN, attached it to the email, and hit send.

Send this message without a subject or text in the body? the program asked.

Yes.

After a few seconds, Suren detected the hum of Ken’s phone vibrating.

He had gotten it.

He’s going to see it. I’m so sorry, Ken. But, you have to see it. You have to see what they did to our Jin.

Oops. Just a second, hold on, he murmured.

In the moments of silence, Suren couldn’t help but recall what Ken was seeing for the first time. She didn’t want to remember it, but she couldn’t