Free Veil by Aaron Overfield Page B

locate and extract it from the
brain; it took every other part and function of the brain working
together through The Witness to form awareness and experience in
the first place. The brain proved to be an all-or-nothing
organ.
    As he read through the notes, Ken only had to
stop a few times in order to process Jin’s ideas. That was one of
those times: a time when hard and soft sciences had to respect each
other and work together in Ken’s mind. Immediately before Ken left
the project, he and Jin made the discovery of how The Witness
retained its information-producing electrical vibrations for a
period of time, like ripples in water. Once the discovery was made,
Jin petitioned the government for funding. So, unlike Jin, Ken
didn’t have the time or leisure to comprehend what all of it meant.
Ken was playing catch-up to Jin’s years of work. Sadly, absorbing
his dead friend’s research made Ken feel closer to Jin than he had
in years.
    There were a few things Ken simply
instinctually understood. The way he looked at it, the brain would
accept the signals from another brain like the heart would pump
blood from another person after a transfusion. It really wasn’t
that hard for him to grasp; Ken simply understood things better
using analogies and metaphors, so he generally took his logic in
that direction. The way Ken saw it, Veil was like surfing.
    The functions of the brain occurred so
quickly and constantly that it looked to an observer like a
perpetual, static buzzing of electricity and chemicals. However,
there was a rhythm in the brain: The Witness pulsated with a
pattern, a beat. The brain worked through brainwaves and Jin Hosato
Tsay, once Ken’s closest colleague and friend, not only figured out
how to surf those waves but, astonishingly, also how to allow one
person to surf another person’s waves.
     
    That was it; Ken got it.
    That was pretty much all there was to
get.
    Now all Ken had to do was explain it to
Suren, organize all the data, and build Veil. Ken figured that
should only take him about six years, tops. Maybe eight. Perhaps
with the help of a team of chimpanzees.
    Oh, and maaaaaaybe there’s-even-a-dead-puppy-involved.
     

     
    Suren was by no means a dumb woman. Quite the
opposite. She and Jin met in grad school where she was working on a
Masters in Education. One of the reasons Jin was attracted to Suren
was her level of intuition. Jin was a man of little patience. Not
because he was intolerant, but because his overworked mind simply
couldn’t afford him patience. Suren accepted that and was never
insulted by how his abilities played out in relationships.
    While most people would have taken him as
insensitive or selfish, Suren never lost sight of what she saw as
Jin’s immense genius. Her female peers often confronted her and
suggested she was being a “good, subordinate Asian
woman , ” a role they believed her too
sophisticated to play.
    Suren understood. She truly, truly did. She
fully understood how their relationship must have looked from the
outside. However, they were wrong. She dated men of lesser genius
and those men expected her to tolerate more than Jin ever did. When
she refused, those relationships unraveled.
    In Jin, Suren found a genius she could admire
and love. An absolute genius. She lived to make him happy. Not
because as a woman that was her job, but because she knew in her
heart Jin lived to make her as happy as she lived to make him. In
love, they were equaled. She didn’t care how the structure of their
relationship or their lives looked from the outside; Jin was as
much her Jin as she was his Suren.
    She didn’t care how it sounded; she belonged
to Jin and Jin belonged to her. People could’ve taken as much issue
with that as they wanted. She didn’t care. If a woman ever
attempted to seduce Jin—not that Jin would ever respond or
notice—Suren wouldn’t have thought twice about hitting the woman in
the back of her throat with a cast iron skillet.
    No, she