The changing of his clothes and the movement of all the colors in the montage blended together seamlessly to create a total picture of Jin that Suren couldn’t put into words.
Nina did it for her.
Breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel…
Oh, it was glorious perfection. The amazing, graceful aura of Jin, the music, the lyrics, the power of Nina’s voice. It was almost too much for Suren to take. It was as if everything was meant to happen. It was as if all those elements inside the memory existed for the sole purpose of coming together in exactly that way.
However, as Suren instantly realized and then rejected, that would’ve meant Jin was supposed to die. It would’ve meant some kind of fate or destiny brought them to that memory. Her heart immediately refused that; she knew Jin was not supposed to die. He was meant to see all of it. He was meant to live on and witness what he created. Instead, Suren had to live with what was left.
She had to live in the world Jin created, but one he was forced to leave behind.
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me…
Nina told her—and she told her again.
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me…and I’m feeling good.
Right as Nina sang the words “feeling good,” Jin turned his head and looked directly at Suren and Roy. Jin smiled and nodded his head. It’s how he greeted Roy every single day. A small, friendly nod with a slight smile. That part caused Roy to grin so wide. That was the Jin he knew.
If he forced himself to think of who Jin was, the image in his mind could be represented by the feeling he got from that nod: the feeling of familiarity and friendliness. That was how he remembered Jin. Roy opened his eyes, looked at Ken and Hunter, smiled at them and nodded. They captured it. They captured his Jin. The two men beamed back, and he closed his eyes.
Suren saw it too and although Roy’s thoughts and feelings were muted inside the memory, she knew Roy felt exactly how she felt about Jin in that moment. That was the Jin she wanted to give the world. That was her Jin. It was Jin being Jin. Still clinching her eyes, she grinned widely and beamed.
While generally it took Jin about twenty seconds or so to walk across the lobby to the elevators and out of Roy’s sight, the montage of Jin created from Roy’s memories was stretched to a span of a little under three minutes, aligning perfectly with the duration of the song. Accompanied by the slow, steady, syrupy rhythm of Nina Simone’s burgundy voice, nearly five years worth of memories of Jin breezed through the doors and trailed across the lobby. The combination of the music and the morphing of each separate image of Jin produced not so much a memory but rather an experience that unfolded into a colorfully radiant, symphonic, kaleidoscopic ballet.
As the power of Nina’s voice reached its culmination, as she belted out the final three words of the song—
I’m feeeeeeling goooooooood…
—the hospital backdrop became brighter and brighter, not entirely unlike how one might imagine the light at the end of the tunnel.
The image of Jin grew larger and larger while slowly breaking up into uneven blocks of increasingly vibrant color. Each of those blocks flew closer and closer into view until they floated by, out of sight, leaving only the glowing white background which then quickly faded into black, reaching total darkness at the last note of Nina’s song.
Suren and Roy stared at the darkness of their own closed eyes for a few moments after the memory finished playing out, although they both heard their Veils beep to indicate their Witnesses were finished uploading.
Without opening his eyes, Roy finally spoke, “I wanna see it again.”
Suren laughed, opened her eyes, and removed her collar.
“Exactly what I was going to say.”
Ken and Hunter were pleased and were smiling.
“We can’t call this a memory,” Suren declared.
“Oh, no, no…” Roy agreed as he removed his collar as well. “That doesn’t begin to describe it.”
“What do you mean?” Ken asked.
“It doesn’t feel like a memory,” Suren tried to explain. “It has a different feeling altogether. It’s like an experience. An entirely new experience that unfolds as you’re watching it.”
“Yes!” Roy agreed again, “An experience. Exactly!”
“Then that’s what we’ll call it,” Hunter smiled as he stood to grab the two vCollars from Suren and Roy. “We’ll call it The Jin Experience,” he finished as he took the collars from their hands. He walked to the artificial brain to start another Veil session so Suren and Roy could take one more ride on The Jin Experience.
“The Jin Experience,” Suren grinned. “I like that. I really like that.”
“The plan was to offer The Jin Experience to the world with the caveat that the technology we’re using to store the memory can never be used for any other purposes,” Hunter announced to the other four Tsay Trustees. “It won’t be explored or developed and if the technology is detected on the vNet it will be disabled immediately as will the vPort and vHost of the person using the technology. Permanently disabled.”
“Was the plan?” Brock asked. “What do you mean that was the plan?”
“Well, that is still the plan, but we’ve had to make a few tweaks to the technology and the plan since Ken came up with a method to use it to track down Jin’s killer. Ken, do you want to explain?”
“Sure, I will try. It’s complicated, but I think it’s also simple enough that everyone in this room will be able to grasp it.”
“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 Experience 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.
Veil Page 45
