The Schedule of Víhaan

John Clark Smith

A Novel in Verse by John Clark Smith

6 Nemeses

Wherein we hear about the methods of Hydra and Dvorak,
the calculations of Selma, 
the code sent to Carina,
and whether Hután got off the island

 

The presence of so many of the enemy might imply, 

Hután believed, much more of a threat than the actual truth, 

even if one assumed that the enemy not only knew 

the plan of Hután but also knew the Remnant agents 

involved; yet no one should make such an absurd assumption, 

as Hután well knew, for in assessing the major strengths 

of the two main adversaries of the Remnant—Hydra 

and the Dvorak (nation-states were rarely relevant)—

he would say that Hydra succeeded in only two ways, 

either by a very thorough and almost paranoid 

quest to leave no stone unturned or unobserved, the bloodhounds, 

Hután called them, or by affixing themselves to one spot 

and letting the world move around them, in line with their brain,

the strategist Selma, who followed the Daoist advice, 

“better not to move but let things be,”  because they could gather 

great numbers and seek the outliers, which meant when Hydra 

was in Assisi where the Remnant team was residing 

prior to visiting Pitworthy—his island castle 

was only a helicopter journey from Assisi—

Hydra stood still, watched, and waited for one or more members 

of the nation-states, the Dvorak, or the Remnant group

to do suspicious actions, which one or more among them 

invariably did, and when they did, Hydra observed,

meticulously monitored, but rarely interfered, 

preferring the action and the major figures of these 

groups come to them. Hydra was confident that no person 

or group ultimately could stop them based on statistics 

alone, since they were a varied group composed of billions 

of ordinary civilians who lived throughout the world

—no group needs to move or interfere if it’s everywhere—

Hután called it a volatile deOrganization

because it was constantly morphing into another

organized grouping. Unlike the Remnant and Dvorak, 

which had fixed structures, approach, and staff of professionals. 

Hydra wasn’t a group of secret agents but people 

with regular jobs with the mandate to stop or cripple 

any force that would threaten their anti-authority 

stance. So even the rare members of Hydra who did the work 

of “professionals” were in fact ordinary people 

with normal jobs who might not possess the mind to create 

a complicated strategy but could blow up a big 

building or bridge or act the soldier to stop one event. 

Of course, Ms. Selma Whitmani was the rare exception, 

once a professional secret agent with Dvorak 

and the CIA, a strategic, analytical,

and observant mind who entered the hunt when The Schedule 

went missing at a masked ball in Krakow from the suitcoat 

of Prince Andres—Selma would discover that masked robber 

was Carina—noted on security cameras 

at the location where Carina looted Prince Andres 

and where Selma saw Hután with Carina inspecting 

the object, then found the cracked floor piece, and unleashed hundreds 

of Hydra’s bloodhounds in Assisi and everywhere, 

a process that compliments Hydra’s thoroughness to win 

even when they more often shot in the dark and might miss. 

But for them, it was, as Selma said, like the enigmas 

in the Zhuangzi; no Right or Wrong, and no Good or Bad,

only be in sync with the Dao. The deOrganization 

itself may have seemed like bloodhounds because of their numbers 

but few were active in the day-by-day ongoing way 

the agents of the Dvorak or the Remnant were. 

Hydra members were like blank faces watching a parade 

or like a regiment of uniformed soldiers marching, 

blocking everything yet acting in balanced harmony

until one event emits a smell, and even that act 

might do no more than raise suspicions but no real response, 

because neither Hydra nor Selma knew or cared the reason 

the Remnant or Dvorak wanted to take The Schedule. 

The Schedule for Hydra was potential interference 

and interference meant authority and dominance, 

and Hydra knew that if any member of the Remnant 

or Dvorak went to the trouble of robbing someone, 

then it was in Selma’s and Hydra’s interest to stop them 

not for itself but to stop the others so that Hydra would have 

one less irritant. Selma pursued and tracked The Schedule 

and went to work on discovering who had it through her 

peculiar method of being at one, in harmony 

with all. For the woman, as she would say it, “who is 

in harmony is absolutely the same as other 

things and no thing succeeds in harming or obstructing” her.  

Her quiescent doggedness emerged not only from will

and her interpretation of Daoism but also 

from a method that relied not on reports or data 

but on in-person “interviews”—assuming Selma had 

several to interview, which, in this case, with Víhaan 

and Prince Andres, she did—from whom she learned about Rohan, 

who was dead already before Selma could talk to him. 

Yet Hydra’s interest in Rohan intrigued Dvorak, 

which kept its attention on The Schedule and on Víhaan 

after examining the security cameras 

of the theft of The Schedule from the Prince, and the hotel 

meeting with Carina in Krakow. Dvorak surmised 

that either Hydra or the Remnant owned The Schedule now, 

and Dvorak hoped to eliminate both their agents

at the castle through the green juice, gas, and the counter film,

but Dvorak failed because Selma came into the hall

after Carina had quickly returned to Assisi

and swept everyone away into the room and closet 

while Hután dodged Gillian’s deadly traps—doubtful someone 

else in the Remnant could have survived them without Hután’s mind 

and George’s tools—whereas Selma knew Hután or Carina 

had The Schedule and had more fun scaring by the blood game 

with Pitworthy than in killing Hután—for Pitworthy 

and the rest were unimportant to her—but nonetheless 

Hydra’s methods, with the blood and sending the helicopter 

and helmets to capture Hután, were risky and futile, 

even if relentless and detailed. Failure now to Selma 

was neither good nor bad, success for her was clarity 

and exactness, and no one with any sense would want Hydra 

suspicious of them, whereas Dvorak, who had so-called 

masterminds in their employ and had initially bought 

The Schedule from Rohan without knowing it wouldn’t work 

without Víhaan—Rohan himself didn’t know—Dvorak 

thinking at first Hután was the one with The Schedule 

because Carina had convinced the Prince she belonged to Hydra; 

these judgments might seem to point to a flaw in Dvorak’s 

processes, but such verdicts would be hasty if one recalls 

that Dvorak quickly saw how The Schedule was able

to sell its conservative social and political 

philosophy and assist all of the aristocrats 

(as they called their favorites) in taking office or power. 

The Schedule could expose secret political decisions, 

strategies, economic pressure points, shifts of power 

and many arenas that Dvorak tried to control,

the when, where, how, and if these kinds of activities happened 

—such as stock markets, elections, takeovers, real estate,

international organizations, and resources, 

including the names of spies and covert operations 

of interest to nation-states, the Remnant or Hydra—

Dvorak hungered to possess it by any method.

While Hydra, an organization that envisioned 

the quest for The Schedule a battle to prevent information 

rather than a sure method to obtain information—

because Hydra had no interest in the agents’ names 

or the strategies, structure, and goals of competitors, 

or a curiosity about the future holders 

of power. Hydra pursued The Schedule to protect it 

from others who might use it to interfere and control, 

since Hydra believed, once they learned of Víhaan’ invention 

and genius, that the others would lose more if The Schedule 

became Hydra’s property; and for that reason they had 

hopes that Víhaan would choose to be a member of Hydra, 

an unlikely possibility, Udaki believed, 

since he claimed at the first presentation—Udaki was

there—that he had no intention of joining any group 

or of selling his device. He invented The Schedule, 

he stated, to predict disasters, environmental 

crises, and catastrophes, with the ability 

to find political and economic solutions 

to cope with them. It seemed to her his sole interest then

was altruistic, creating for Hután a dilemma 

beyond the knot of two determined foes interested 

in the same object or person: how to rescue Víhaan 

and leave Pitworthy’s island with the Schedule and reach home

when cornered by representatives of both Dvorak 

and Hydra—though they didn’t copy each other’s methods—

knowing he couldn’t defeat them through subterfuge, weapons, 

or manpower—that Hydra had ships at both docks on the west 

and east shores and could, if Hydra chose, release a missile 

that would extirpate the castle or most of the island, 

thus preventing any martial victory for the Remnant; 

a dilemma with one solution—rarely a good sign 

for Hután but sometimes more in line with reality—

the shoot-an-arrow-at-the-evil-star tactic.  It was

clearly a more extreme and thus unlikely strategy 

but one which Hután always kept in the emergency 

closets of his mind long before he came to the island,

one of six options he had originally mapped out, 

though he knew that for this option Carina, the soldier 

comfortable in battles, would need to prepare, so he 

sent a coded text message to her immediately 

when Víhaan was set upon the ground in front of the door, 

a message that when read seemed on first thought to offer 

the Remnant no advantage. Yet Carina, who had long cracked

the sometimes-inscrutable code of Hután, realized 

that he had carefully considered the options and made 

this decision—and like her many escapades with him 

she would once again be ready for whatever the code 

said, released in a specific order, because he knew 

that both nemeses were intercepting his message, 

the translation being that Mustfarris would not remain 

behind to battle, though no battle would likely happen

because the prize—Víhaan—and The Schedule, would be absent. 

Carina, Hután, Mustfarris, and Aaron would all flee

together. He had a duplicate Schedule not yet hacked. 

But the difficult part to execute was delaying 

Hydra and Dvorak at the castle long enough 

so the group and Víhaan would take the tunnel to the shore

and be picked up alive and captured by a Hydra ship,

a seemingly peculiar if not impossible scheme 

except Hután had already conferred with Udaki 

about what the request from Pitworthy to visit meant

and her opinion of the events since he had arrived. 

Such out of the ordinary events or even those 

too easily explicable were classed as enigmas. 

Enigmas could be traps and require alternative plans, 

and a trap this seemed to be, so he eliminated 

all options from his mind but the one with the Hydra ship, 

whose destination Udaki and he agreed must be 

near or at the docks of Italy, Greece, Crete, or Sicily. 

Each had a large Hydra functioning site known to Remnant, 

making it crucial that Remnant agents be at each port.

But before that, they must make it to the island docks 

and be captured too, and the only possible tactic 

was that Carina, Mustfarris, and Víhaan reach the chute 

in front of the gateway—a chute Pitworthy had installed 

to capture troublemakers or save his own family 

instead of waiting for them to escape down the pathway 

that curved up to the front door—assuming Víhaan could reach 

the chute’s drop-pad since, when it happened, when Hydra lowered 

him, Víhaan was about fifty feet away, and Hután 

was hoping Carina remembered her Turkish when he 

texted in Turkish “Grab Víhaan and stand up directly 

at the gate,” expecting neither Dvorak nor Hydra 

could translate the Turkish message quickly enough and be 

surprised by the quick drop of Carina and Mustfarris 

from the trees and their frantic rush to grab Víhaan, thereby 

overcoming the four guards around him, using Vihaan 

to protect them, knowing Dvorak and Hydra would shoot 

them, not Vihaan, wrapping their arms around him and starting 

to run, Mustfarris picking Vihaan up and speeding off; 

but both Dvorak and Hydra agents were even more 

amazed when the three disappeared at once into the chute 

and the lid quickly clapped shut as soon as the five of them 

fell through, leading to a tunnel which took the five of them 

to the docks where Selma as expected awaited them,

took the chip everyone assumed held The Schedule, covered 

their heads with what looked like a metal bucket to prevent 

the tracers in their brains, and brought them aboard Hydra’s ship

—Hután had left behind his precious George and his dog Wink 

to be cared for by Pitworthy until Hután returned—

all as Hután had planned using the surrender tactic

to escape from the island, substituting a fixed cage, 

the castle, for a moving cage, the ship, which he hoped took 

them closer to Udaki, knowing that Hydra’s attempts 

to block tracking would be of little use against Hután, 

since Carina, on Udaki’s advice, had set up special trackers 

on the ship, on the helicopters to watch Dvorak, 

on Selma, and on Hután that he could turn on and off 

with the word “Atir,” Hután hoping that fate sailed with him.

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Setu, August 2025