The Schedule of Víhaan

John Clark Smith

9. Deception

Wherein we discover what happened to Víhaan,
how and why Víhaan developed The Schedule,
the events of the copy shop,
the secret patron,
the fate of Aaron,
the secret missions of Vihaan,
why Víhaan cannot trust anyone,
and the origin of Hydra.

While Selma was considering ways to stop Gillian

both for professional and for strong personal motives,

while the Remnant was searching for how to rescue Aaron,

and Hután calculated how he would find Carina,

when a large number of Hydra’s own militia pointed

their weapons at Dvorak’s group, and Remnant agents were

waiting for Fisha to arrive, an event occurred that

none of these strategists—Hután, Selma, or Gillian—

anticipated, though, in hindsight, they could have if they

had asked themselves a few questions, such as: How did a man

such as Víhaan, an apparently hermit-type techie

with a love of art, who seemingly had no connections

to any covert service or confidential records,

create a system like The Schedule that could find, collate,

and understand so much information, and not only

display it in many ways, but also masterfully

use it to forecast with a high degree of success what

might happen if a certain person or event was dropped

into a mishmash of possibilities? How did this

quiet and introspective fellow create a worldly,

insightful, intuitive, and powerful program linked

with the Internet, other world networks, and numerous

secret communication programs, as well as every

media and data source in the world, without someone

noticing him doing it or bothering to question

or research his background? And equally important, where

did this unassuming fellow obtain the funds for such

an expensive enterprise, one that would require such top

secret links as well as access to so many records?

And the simple albeit vague implication of these

and other questions, without knowing the how, why, and when,

would be that Víhaan and The Schedule were not what they seemed.

Dvorak and the Remnant were understandably more

interested in the consequences of The Schedule

than its origins or its inventor and could be duped

more easily, which also leads one to ask: How did they

know The Schedule even worked? To answer them we must turn

to the first unknown, untested, and experimental

release of The Schedule at a small Mumbai hotel room

with a few groups, including Udaki for the Remnant,

Gillian with MI6, Leonard for Dvorak, Selma for

the CIA, and several others from various

agencies. Yet according to Udaki there was no

one from Hydra; and her observation was accurate,

there was no representative from Hydra, because

at that point the focus and thrall weren’t on the inventor

but on The Schedule and the show explaining The Schedule.

Yet Víhaan Rickteshvara wasn’t just an inventor

working by himself in a lonely lab without support.

He was a young and poor inventor funded by Hydra,

though he couldn’t admit to such backing. He had to seem

independent of any group or nation, creating

a program that he claimed had the much more limited use

of predicting hurricanes, catastrophes, and the like,

a lie that Hydra required him to voice by contract—when he,

of course, invented a program far greater—and agreed

to offer, also by contract, selected insights

to Hydra from The Schedule—insights verified only

by Víhaan, since no one at Hydra, or anyone else

in the world, understood how the Schedule operated

or how to interpret its unique code—so that Hydra

could capture, interrogate, or find the location of key

agents of Dvorak, the Remnant, and the nation-states.

Some of these deductions or at least a few suspicions

about him might have arisen if anyone researched

Hydra and its history and not only its present

activities. Yet, to be fair, it’s a forgivable

oversight of the Remnant and Dvorak—weathering

a storm must come first before analyzing how the storm

arose—and Udaki, Hután and Carina had been

in the midst of a storm long before the Schedule became

their target. That indeed, in a way, was the hope or more

the expectation of Víhaan when he used the Schedule—

keeping Dvorak and Remnant busy with locating

The Schedule and protecting Víhaan—while he was busy

with three missions: First, finishing his contract with Hydra,

which he now had done by identifying the motives

and movements of crucial Dvorak and Remnant agents.

Second, finishing a mission he wanted to handle

without interference involving a terrorist group

anxious to cause a disaster in Kolkata and make

a crisis The Schedule had picked up needing attention

immediately and which he could only trust himself

to prevent because he couldn’t trust the nation-states lack

of efficiency or the bumbling NGO groups

or their lack of useful expertise about India—

The Schedule had watched them botch so many operations—

and the electronic signs of the terrorist group’s activity were

such that only The Schedule could notice them. But Víhaan worried

that their agents might see something on the ground unless they

were distracted, so he hoped the Remnant and Dvorak

would pursue him and The Schedule to keep their attention

away from any signs of a no-name terrorist group

that was planning on bombing Kolkata if a certain

person wasn’t elected in India, an event

that not only meant disaster for India but could

be used as a tactic in other vulnerable states;

and Third, the objective closest to his heart and the most

important reason he created The Schedule, unknown

to all, was to locate his missing sister Anika.

All three missions making one point clear: his undertakings

were lone wolf operations based on the analysis

from The Schedule to divert the notice of nation-states,

the Remnant, and Dvorak because, in choosing partners

who wouldn’t interfere, Víhaan avoided nation-states—

too massive a bureaucracy—had little faith in those

disliked by The Schedule, like Dvorak, because people

like Nicholas made choices by impulse, ego, revenge

or through an ideology, choices sometimes valid,

sometimes not, but overall, too uncertain for Víhaan.

The Schedule said the Remnant eschewed extreme approaches,

as well as violence, with a bias for democracies,

yet hating popularism, dictatorship and fascism

and wouldn’t make the harsh choices quickly enough for him.

Yet about Hydra’s method there were also question marks:

its decentralized approach he had seen first-hand and thought

it couldn’t work in this kind of crisis, plus its special

self-serving attitude might hesitate too long if it

couldn’t see how it would profit. Hydra’s ways had one point

in its favor and the main reason he selected it

as his first patron: its abhorrence of terrorism—

even though its many victims called Hydra terrorists—

but Hydra had fought terrorism from its beginning,

battling to make a world safe for the individual

and small entrepreneur, not a world of frightened people

or gangs preying on or threatening each other with bombs

or weapons, because in that world each citizen must join

a gang to survive, a world where Hydra would not exist.

Hydra would say: Is there crime if judges are criminals?

So terrorism didn’t benefit the little guy

or his enterprise; and if a terrorist party grew

too powerful or threatening, Hydra itself would have

to morph into a terrorist group or covert body

like Dvorak, the Remnant, or an international

cartel, with professional soldiers, spies, a government,

or a bureaucracy to fight them, like a nation-state,

though The Schedule believed a nation-state would lose fighting

terrorism and Víhaan too hated the consequences

of terrorism because then the individualism

that Hydra so much prized, despite a few questionable

practices, would disappear and they would have much less time

for Víhaan’s inventions and advanced scientific work.

Hydra promised him he would have time for his work and full

control of The Schedule, raising two salient points:

the Remnant and Dvorak didn’t realize: Víhaan

had a key beyond the key they knew, and no one, no group,

could fully acquire it without Víhaan being alive.

The other point: Who else would have ever signed up Víhaan

with such limited qualifications? A fair question

with a simple answer. Hydra was a decentralized

operation, million random changing pieces of one

puzzle (as Hután once phrased it), each piece of the puzzle

important to the whole, each with its own power, each piece

able to function on its own or in a harmony

with the whole. Yet how does Hydra find each of its pieces?

Selma certainly didn’t go to some central office

to be interviewed; she received an unsolicited

“invitation” from a “member” unknown to her living

in Turkey. Someone in India invited Víhaan.

Neither called themselves by or ever used the name “Hydra.”

No one in Hydra or other groups knew its origin

because there was no person, headquarters, town, tradition,

or thing named “Hydra.” It wasn’t an acronym Hydra

gave itself, according to The Schedule, but a title

its enemies labeled it after the creature in Greek

mythology. The Schedule alone uncovered the first

time someone gave it the name Hydra, an isolated event

by someone in the service of a nation-state

to describe an organization he wasn’t very

sure but suspected existed, a thing with so many

heads that no one could possibly control or defeat it,

its name soon so polysemous to its adversaries

that no secret service, government, police, or any

other authority could pinpoint a single mission

or leader, which explains Udaki’s comment to Aaron

that the Remnant never expected to eliminate

Hydra, only to anticipate its path; for Hydra

was constantly shifting, randomly acting and thinking,

all of which perhaps indicates why other groups ignored

the origins of Hydra and the background of Víhaan

and instead preferred to focus only on The Schedule,

because the great effort to decipher the beginnings

or the processes of Hydra Udaki had shelved long

ago, concluding it was like capturing mercury,

identical pieces splaying everywhere, each deadly,

its processes too slippery, random, and anarchic

for anyone to grasp; but if something could grasp Hydra,

it would be The Schedule, which had tracked Hydra long before

Víhaan agreed to help them and claimed—though even he knew

it seemed impossible—that it had mapped every movement

of every organized group and had tapped into the files

of every decision and process on earth, allowing

it to know the origin of Hydra; and due to this

knowledge Hydra became his patron and because he knew

Hydra he built respect within Hydra and even some

independence, though by no means general leadership

or authority, and just one small piece of the riddle

but enough to execute his own rogue operations

and particularly keep his independence—he had

learned the hard way in the cardboard slums of Mumbai, where he

would read Goethe, who wrote independence is the greatest

of blessings.[1] But if someone would have asked him—which no one

ever did—how the organization, not the title,

Hydra arose, he knew the answer: the farmer Rogish

Fenterara and his farm. But before that tale is told,

let us think about the effort of Víhaan to exclude

the nation-states, the Remnant, and Dvorak from knowing

about this serious terrorist threat on India,

how he delayed, deceived, and distracted them from learning

about the threat until there were no noticeable signs.

How could no one but Víhaan and his Schedule have knowledge

of this terrorist threat? In asking such a key question

clarifies why The Schedule had such value. To others,

such as nation-states, the terrorists behind this crisis

were new and unknown—like the garage businesses that no

one knew before they became Silicon Valley—unknown

to nation-states, Dvorak, and the Remnant, not unknown

to The Schedule, which had an ever-watchful eye that feasts

on minutia and lives to extract, compile, analyze,

and conclude from information exchanged across diverse

electronic, electrical, and digital lines plus

many other sources, and offer answers long before

others could detect it, if they could detect it at all,

then make from the analysis of that information

reasonably accurate predictions, a simple tool

with sophistication far beyond any information-

gathering tools of others, making it impossible

for any known person, organization, or machine

to give this information and its interpretations

more quickly, if at all. But an additional motive

for Víhaan in deceiving the Remnant and Dvorak

concerning The Schedule—he knew that, even without his

tactics, it was unlikely that any of them would have

seen the signs—was his conviction, due to the fiascos

caused so often by the nation-states and Dvorak when

crises arose, that if others found out about this threat,

they might handle it poorly—he had seen this happen

in several crises and he didn’t want his homeland,

India, to suffer from their incompetence—whereas

he knew precisely what to do because The Schedule would

guide him. It knew about the terrorist plan and because

he had done several minor operations and each

case was successful and, as Hydra asked, anonymous

with no loss to Hydra or its resources, like many

rogue operations of Hydra members—a reason why

Víhaan preferred Hydra, at least in the short term—Hydra

supported him with materials, a lab, and money.

Víhaan also knew Hydra’s origins from The Schedule,

which also influenced his decision to work with them.

Hydra began with Rogish Fenterara and his farm,

a farm engulfed by conglomerates and monopolies

that sabotaged his crops and their delivery, threatened

his daughter, isolated his family and gave Rogish

a huge, thick, and deep scar on his back from an “accident.”

To The Schedule Rogish’s story was a “phenomenon,”

an incident in which a solo event involving

individuals or small groups wouldn’t be swallowed by

a larger event or body—like a corporation,

a government, or an institution—phenomena

appearing as a red blip, and The Schedule knew throughout

the earth where these blips happened. These individuals

and small groups, often private groups of farmers and single

entrepreneurs, not so coincidentally became

acquainted with each other through the efforts of Rogish

on a web page—a link that the Schedule’s eye couldn’t miss—

and decided to meet one time in a conference called

“Spanking”—an intentionally misleading name to make

others believe the conference was about something else

to hide attendees harassed for years by monopolies

and conglomerates—where they sat down and tried to find

a solution with help from a rabble rouser, Janak

Waverly, a pseudonym (his real name was Josiah

Jeffries) so that his enemies, of which he had many,

couldn’t follow him or know about his presence, a man

whose speeches and activities The Schedule had unearthed

and categorized as inflammatory and wild as

a Robin Hood con man, even when he helped those oppressed

and forgotten by illegally cheating or robbing

the big corporations and others. Yet soon, according

to The Schedule, from this group of law-abiding, religious

and moral but desperate, frustrated, angry and quite

revengeful farmers, a group one day to be named Hydra

was born, whose purpose at first was to use tactics—many

of them from the hired provocateur Janak Waverly—

to attack the monopolies and the conglomerates

by threatening and deceiving their leaders, employees,

and their families, one at a time; and they did this kind

of harassment for a while—just ordinary people

working from their homes all over the globe—many others

soon joining the group who had the same problems, until this

international group ballooned into a massive list

inside every organization, including major

corporations, governments, and police forces who would

contribute if needed, most of them because they approved

the basic principle of Hydra—to protect the small

entrepreneurs and the independent businesses,

as well as the individual—and a few because

they were frightened that Hydra would harm or threaten their lives

and families. But in time its tactics changed, expanded

into activities that the original group would

perhaps never have considered, “perhaps” because the first

members in their quest for retribution were ruthless

to their enemies and had no hesitation using

threats of death, rape, home attacks, and physical beatings—no

threats or actions exceeding what conglomerates had done

to their own family members for many years prior

to Hydra’s founding—the difference being that the Hydra

of today, after many battles, had more jaded views

and a hatred of authority added to their old

founding principles. Fearing no person, no tradition,

and no institution, regardless how large, the Hydra

of today had grown beyond the simple family farmer

and entrepreneur to include anyone or any

group that was threatened by an unwieldy authority,

though rarely did it stray from individualistic

and paranoid attitudes, maintaining its amorphous

and decentralized core yet spreading its substantial wealth

and resources so broadly throughout the world that even

nation-states and powerful corporations such as banks

couldn’t debilitate it once it disseminated

its wealth among many small and local financial sites—

Hydra wouldn’t invest in any large institutions

and corporations, a sign of its early beginnings

with anonymous little people and small businesses—

yet any “member” could hire or extend a membership

to someone to work for Hydra, though the need or reason

was always obvious to more than one member, such as

the case of Víhaan and Selma, both of whom were noticed

by Hydra members and were “patronized,” and in this way

Hydra acquired several benefits of The Schedule

without total control, as already mentioned before,

a situation that never irked Hydra since a piece

of the pie was good enough for now, as long as they knew

the rest of the pie still existed and no one had it.

Betraying Hydra, members all knew well, was suicide,

working under its umbrella was a life-long sentence;

which returns us to the confrontation outside the print

shop, an event similar for Hután to the breaking

of the vase by Prince Myshkin,[2] an event where the forces

of Dvorak and Hydra were at a stalemate, Hután

was waiting for them to produce Fisha and free Aaron.

Víhaan at this moment, with his own agenda and time

frame and his need to know in person the people involved,

decided the deceit had to end, The Schedule bringing

out of the fog people from Dvorak and the Remnant

Hydra had to know better, Víhaan very confident

there was no way now either Dvorak or the Remnant,

and certainly not any of the nation-states on their

own, if ever—their opportunity had passed, based on

The Schedule—would obtain the sensitive information

about the terrorists without him or The Schedule there,

thus allowing him—having fulfilled the Hydra contract

and able to proceed on his own to prevent the scheme

of the terrorists—to turn around and quickly walk back

into the print shop, an action that of course did startle

and confuse Gillian, Selma, Hután, and Mustfarris,

who would have stopped him but were cautious from the reaction

of those with guns, notably from Hydra or Dvorak.

Dvorak’s forces momentarily froze, waiting on

a clear command from Gillian, while Selma’s militia—

who knew Víhaan was with Hydra—stopped, leaving Gillian,

Mustfarris, and Hután facing each other, then rushing

together into the print shop. They discovered Víhaan

wasn’t there, the first assumptions being somehow he had

escaped out the back or hidden away by Hydra

again; and that impression might have remained if Hután,

dubious as ever about either events that he

didn’t anticipate, events akin to The Schedule’s

“phenomena,” or events he didn’t grasp their causes,

because doubt implied he had missed some event in the past

that would explain it. Only one recent event seemed out

of line—Víhaan’s suicide attempt—so Hután, using

George, examined the pill that Víhaan had tried to swallow

and upon examination noted that the pill was

not deadly, at which point Hután demanded the return

of Fisha and as he did, a door suddenly opened

from another shop and Fisha was wheeled out, seemingly

in good health and spirits, leading to several evident

but sobering conclusions: the chase after The Schedule

and the need to abduct Víhaan to obtain the key

were not only wild goose chases, but Víhaan and Hydra

seemed to induce them to rescue Víhaan on the island,

a clever, albeit dangerous ruse and way to waste

time for Víhaan. But for Hydra the thought that Hután had

The Schedule—Víhaan did deceive Hydra—when he did not,

because it appeared now that Hydra had the chance to use

The Schedule within Víhaan’ restrictions, and that this fact

explained why to some extent Hydra was always one step

ahead of the Remnant and why Dvorak was anxious

to steal it, the whole series of events disappointing

for Dvorak and Gillian, who turned and left the shop

with their squadron, calculating how they would justify

to Nicholas why this opportunity to obtain

The Schedule or Víhaan had passed, since Víhaan clearly was

connected to Hydra, forcing Gillian to suggest

to Nicholas that they continue on the same path

they had taken for the last years. For not even Hydra’s

connection to Víhaan and The Schedule had as yet stopped

Dvorak’s world operations, and more often than not

Dvorak still succeeded, because more often than not

Hydra had little interest in what Dvorak was

doing. Nonetheless this failure of Dvorak did please

Hután despite his own miscalculations as he walked

away from the copy shop and set in motion the next scheme,

wherein Mustfarris was watching Gillian’s group depart

the copy shop for their cars and had positioned a van

near to her car so that when she appeared, his team

fought the bodyguards around her, shot her with a taser

and abducted her in the van, a large sticker placed on

her window, “Aaron for Gillian,” and within an hour

Dvorak released Aaron, who joined his compatriots

on the boat back to home base on the Andaman Islands

where they met with Udaki and this narrative began.

But the imminent actions of Aaron and Víhaan nagged

at Hután’s mind, First, Aaron, whom he was certain wouldn’t rest

until he confronted Hydra for abducting Fisha;

Second, Víhaan, who planned for that one moment to vanish—

though, as master of The Schedule, The Schedule must have helped

him plan the deceit so that others’ timeline would close now.

And who knew why he would choose to play his game of delay

with the Remnant and Dvorak as well as trick Hydra?

Aaron and Víhaan in his mind urged Hután to begin

strategizing and calculating because he knew that

Aaron would be impatient for his own form of revenge

and Víhaan would have had a serious reason to play

such a game with the forces of Dvorak and Hydra,

even if deceit can have at times an end quite worthy,

a text ringing in his head from a favorite poet:

“Although deceit is mostly disapproved,

seeming to show a mind malevolent,

many a time it brings, as has been proved,

advantages that are self-evident,

and mortal threats and dangers has removed.”[3]

---

[1] In Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan (1819).

[2] In Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), The Idiot (1869), Part Four, Chapter 7.

[3] From Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533), Orlando Furioso, Canto IV, trans. Barbara Reynolds.

---

Setu, November 2025