Eva nodded to herself in acceptance. Whispering a brief goodbye to Indy Vinyar, as she entered the room and knelt down by them both. A family united and strong, without the Vinyars.
✽
Floating twenty or so meters adrift from the Melancholia. The two brothers laid atop of the water unconscious. Indy’s suit camouflaged him almost entirely against the dark waves.
As the choppiness of the tide increased. Frank began to subside as his lifeless body slowly released the air from its lungs. Sinking deeper and deeper until the abyss swallowed him whole.
The sniper’s scope quickly scoured the waves, searching for Indy’s presence. As the tide drove the unconscious hero into the wall of the Melancholia. Indy awakened alarmed and erratic. He floated upright in the water, calling out for Frank, who was now nowhere to be found.
Seeing proof of life, the sniper quickly disassembled his weapon and dispatched.
Descending an endless staircase to the ground level of the building. He pulled out a phone and tapped on a contact labelled: UNDONE, letting it dial out.
On the opposite side of the basin. Indy slowly crawled out of the water and onto man-made terrain. Positioned deep in the ever-isolated Imperial quarter.
Freezing and confused, he heard a phone ring, the source of its sound coming from behind him. Turning to see nothing but the basin, he continued to hear the sound, again behind him. Feeling a slight vibration run along his spine. He felt his back, noticing a slight embossing above his tailbone. He ran his fingers along the lining of the suit, finding a small hidden zip compartment.
Opening it up, he pulled out a small plastic sachet which contained a thin ringing mobile phone and a business card. Believing the caller to be either Felix or John, he ripped the bag open to answer it.
‘Hello? Hello?!’ he asked, hearing only silence. ‘Felix? John... John is that you?’ he asked, hearing a slight breath on the line. Without word or acknowledgement, the caller hung up.
Dumbfounded, he lifted up the card to see the letters J and V printed large on one side. Dr Wilton’s contact details on the other.
Indy looked to the city skyline thunderstruck. Unable to compute or comprehend what was happening.
✽
Twenty minutes shy of clocking off. Dr Wilton sat at her computer playing a game of solitaire. An email notification slid up the bottom-right of her screen. Missing the preview thumbnail that would often pop up. She opened up her inbox to see one unread message with the subject line a single word: UNDONE. Opening it up to find the message itself blank. She nervously turned to the small, cheap safe she had kept secluded in the corner of her office. Almost barricaded under a ton of files.
‘Excuse me!’ A woman called out outside of her door, causing Wilton to look towards it alarmed. Indy entered her office and stood in front of her silent. His stern expression communicating his need for answers. She looked back at him fearful, seeing the black armour that encased him. Her secretary hovered at the door frame, giving a phone gesture with her hand.
‘Er, it’s okay Hayley. He’s a patient.’ She explained factually, ‘go home, I will call you later, it’s okay, trust me.’ she advised.
‘Where is he?’ Indy asked aggressively.
‘You’re hurt!’ She worried, seeing blood slowly drool across his semi-shielded abdomen.
‘Where is he?’
‘Where is who?’ She replied. Causing him to slam the business card down on the desk with John’s initials face up. Wilton bit her lip nervously, looking at her screen and the subject line of the email once more.
‘Did you get a phone call?’ She asked.
‘Yes with no voice, no nothing. Just a phone and your business card. Tell me what is going on. Where is John?’
‘Listen Indy, and please stay calm. I don’t know much, but what I do know is that if you found that card and someone called you, you may not see John anytime soon.’
‘What? I don’t understand. What is going on?’ Indy replied anxious and frustrated. Wilton proceeded to the safe and removed a hefty envelope, handing it to him.
‘John gave this to me when he returned to the city. He told me to give it to you when I received the word, Undone.’
‘Undone? What does that mean?’
‘I thought you would tell me. Your brother was always a bit of a mystery. For all the harsh things he did, I always saw good deep down, even when he had me keep an eye on you when he left.’
‘You kept an eye on me for him?’
‘There are people out there Indy, people that want to hurt your family. John is, or was, trying to keep you safe from it all.’
‘What’s inside this?’ He asked, his brother’s duplicity almost putting him off finding out for himself.
‘I honestly never looked. My only recommendation is that you don’t either. Just leave this city Indy and live a better life, far away. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.’ She said sincerely.
Tired of her ambiguity, he headed for the door. Pausing at the doorframe.
‘What will you do? Now that you know what I am.’ He asked, referring to his attire. She gave him a small smile.
‘The real question now is, what will you do?’ She replied. Understanding her premise, he nodded and smiled.
‘Look after yourself, Doctor.’ he replied, vanishing into the dark hallway.
Alone in the office, she took a seat on her patient’s couch and laid out on it, kicking her heels off to close out the day.
Outside the entrance of the office, with the sun now set. Indy opened the envelope and turned it upside down. Inside it, a pair of keys and another of Wilton’s business cards with a residential address he had never heard of before.
Further down and now peeking out of the envelope was a large stack of cash and a freshly printed passport. Indy opened to find either his or Frank’s face, but with a new name and birthday.
Confused and exhausted with a bullet wound paining him. He slowly hobbled and faded into the darkness. Knowing this night to be his last in the city.
✽
In the early morning, in a place distant from Kingsland. The infamous city a mere outline in the horizon. Several suited men stood awaiting the arrival of a black saloon that was steadily approaching.
The first of them, wearing a long, dark overcoat with a scarf to muffle the cold. Watched as the car arrived and pulled up a few yards shy of him. From the rear passenger door, John with his shoulder now bandaged exited with a look of resentment on his face.
‘You were given allowances John, those allowances came with conditions.’ The man explained. John wasted little time in meeting the man’s position. Standing to him contemptuously with a rivalling posture.
‘I don’t care anymore. You said it would be okay.’
‘I know I did.’
‘She’s dead, old man. You said it would be okay. And now look at me, I’m just like you.’
‘I’m sorry about Grace, John. But this doesn’t change things. You’re still my son, and we still have our purpose.’ James Vinyar, slightly aged with a more weathered, paler face replied. ‘I know this is hard, but we have to stick to the program. Frank was...’
‘Frank was a ticking time bomb. He needed a father, not an investor. And now he’s dead.’ John informed, an already informed James. ‘And I’m done. Find yourself a new guardian.’ he stated, walking away from his father. James looked towards Kingsland’s skyline with both threat and disdain.
‘And Indy? You allowed him to become this... this thing. If he disrupts affairs. I can’t save him. What have you told him, John?’ He probed with an ominous tone.
‘I’ve told him nothing.’ John replied, developing a rare smile. ‘But he’ll know. One day, he’ll know.’ He insisted equally ominous, continuing to walk away.
‘You know you can’t just walk away from this son. Even with Grace, there are still far-reaching consequences.’ James reminded. John halted as the other suits watched on. Louis, his friend from the rugby match amongst
the group.
‘The game has changed, James.’ He warned before wandering off and away from them all.
✽
Dressed in everyday attire. Indy reached the street of the address scribbled on the business card. A picturesque suburbia with flowers blooming. It was a thirty-minute train ride away from Kingsland, another thirty to London.
Indy walked down the street, admiring the vast, family-purposed houses. It was like something out of a dream. That or middle-class America. Lawns were being mowed, others watered. Kids played on their skateboards along the quiet street.
Checking the house number written on the card. He stopped, seeing the number match the large house in front. Traditionally-styled in bright white paint. The house was grand with a double garage. A perfect home for a large family. It’s garden, however, appeared unkempt. As if the homeowners were on holiday somewhere far away.
Indy reviewed the set of keys and proceeded down the long front porch. Reaching the front door, he slid the key in and turned it, hoping not to alarm anyone inside. Feeling a resistance as he pushed the door open. He discovered a collection of letters piled up other side of it.
‘Hello?’ he called out to the house, which appeared dormant.
Inside with the door closed, he picked up some mail resting by his feet and examined the addressee’s name. ‘John Vinyar’ he read out, realising the place to be the somewhat implausible home of his older brother.
As he moved through corridors bewildered. Each room appeared conventional of its purpose to an almost surreal level. Everything expected of a home occupied full-time. The kitchen, though only containing goods with a long shelf-life, was fully stocked. The decor and the furnishing were minimal but expensive with only a few pictures on the walls. One photograph of the three brothers, another of their mother and one of an unawares Grace and George, the shot taken some distance from them.
Indy continued to peruse his surroundings. Arriving at a locked door, its appearance almost that of a panic room. Indy again checked his keys, one for the front door, one for the back and a third unusually shaped. He reckoned it would fit just right.
Correct in this assumption, he opened the thick door. As automatic lights stuttered and switched on, illuminating the room’s contents, Indy’s jaw dropped.
Every wall was filled top to bottom with photographs, clippings, and annotations. A paranoid obsessives mind on paper, some of the photographs were connected with red string pinned at each end.
Indy drifted inward as he reviewed each one of the walls. Quickly noticing his father’s image and then John’s resting underneath it. To his suspicion, a few columns along, Isaac Kane’s face sat horizontally in line with his father’s. Goldmolar positioned underneath him, in line with John.
Indy looked at another wall to see Frank’s mugshot in a collection of pictures of young men and women. Each with a small description of their on-going agenda, all criminal. Indy’s eyes widened as he read the details surrounding his twin. KINGSLAND: NARCOTICS WITH EXPANSION, SPONSOR: JAMES VINYAR.
The name crippled Indy.
He rushed back to his father’s image, looking for the small print. His heart sunk. Anchored down by both hope and fear as the word: ACTIVE appeared at the bottom of his image. Indy looked down further to see a phrase written on the wall. Underneath John, Molar and several other intimidating mugshots, all sharing a single row.
‘Guardians.’ Indy read out aloud.
Needing a moment or perhaps several. He walked into the bathroom next door and splashed water on his face. He looked into the bathroom mirror, reminding himself of his brothers’ frequent warnings. Frank’s signals that there were more to John than Indy understood. And John’s prophecy that something big was coming.
He also, hesitantly pictured Eva’s distraught face. Her confusion and heartbreak at his sudden disappearance and that John was in fact right. The consequences of his actions, the repercussions of becoming Hades. He had become just like his brothers. Exiled, alone, with nothing but a hollow vendetta he himself couldn’t even decipher.
Outside of the suit, an armour that to a degree protected him from reality. He felt the gravity of the real world take hold.
As the evening arrived and his paranoia sunk deeper. He closed the curtains and locked the doors, barricading each with tables and chairs. He saved a single seat and table to tend to his bullet wound which was continuing to aggravate him.
The television on in the background, mainly to fill the eery silence of the house. Reported the recent deaths of two KCPD police officers. The broadcast was full of praise for the valour of Detective Marler and Mann, both executed in cold blood.
Indy stared at Marler’s face, recognising his face from both Grace’s house and from somewhere else very recent. He dashed off his chair and into the panic room. On the smallest wall, where a small contact sheet of faces rested against it. Indy scanned the thumbnails discovering Marler’s face amongst them. The word: PROTECT, written beneath it in John’s scribbled handwriting.
Indy stood up and nodded to himself slightly, sensing a glimmer of purpose amongst the chaos of information he had received this day. ‘Okay.’ He whispered to himself decisively.
✽
The next morning, Indy stepped out of the house, suited and groomed with a file in hand. He looked at the picturesque street. A visual metaphor for what he assumed was his elder brother offering him a second chance.
An opportunity to either move away from everything he had experienced this year, and discovered in these last days or so.
He had achieved what he set out to do. Hades’s premise was diminishing by every passing day Isaac Kane and Goldmolar ceased to haunt his hometown. He was now obligated to experience the world free of his own disillusion. Maybe this was what John wanted for his favourite brother all along.
But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe John sent him here to see the truth and to undo everything he had seen in that room. Perhaps it was time things indeed came undone.
‘Hey, Frank, how’re you doing, been a while.’ A neighbour greeted from Indy’s right-side. Smiling as he filled his car-boot with camping gear. Indy looked back with an absent expression before giving a Frank-inspired, synthetic smile.
‘Hey buddy, good to see you.’ He responded, watching his taxi arrive at the end of his new pathway.
He climbed in and reviewed the house once more, considering the choice in front of him.
‘So where are we heading?’ The taxi driver asked.
Indy having made his choice, smiled back.
Persona Non Grata: A Novel Page 28