A Hero's Legacy

Chapter Four

A single look was all Ryder would need in order to understand that there was no uprooting his brother's presence in his private space unless he were to give in to this free-spirited drivel, if even for a second. He leaned slightly against the wood of his cupboard, looking haphazardly over the dreadful and worn item of merchandise that his elder seemed to hold so dearly, and sealed the agreement with a brief raise of his shoulders.

"Drop it," he sighed, "And go."

Scott's satisfaction was palpable; the coat was left hanging on Ryder's desk chair before he took his leave, closing the door behind him, and prompting the younger male to card both hands through his raven locks, sliding down the surface of the door as he contemplated his next actions. His father's briefcase had been shoved to one side, and Ryder reached out to withdraw the aged leather from the tight space between his table and the bed, slowly, cautiously. He ran the words he'd read on the page with the hourglass drawing again and again through his mind, trying to find anything that would make even the slightest bit of sense, but emptiness was all he could draw upon in the face of this undecipherable enigma.

Subliminal change-rate mechanism.

Naturally, he assumed, the next step was continuing an inspection of the folder; Ryder turned the page after opening it up, deep, honey-flecked irises glossing over the worn texts. It didn't come as much of a surprise to him that these papers were completely and utterly devoid of any writing, but still frustration shot through him like an exploding bullet, and his fist met the floor of his room as he rose to his full height. He didn't know what he was expecting from this old valise, really, he didn't. When it came to his father, there were only half-truths, unanswered questions, and dead ends, just like this one - and the shame fell upon his shoulders for ever believing otherwise.

"Really, dad?" he said to no-one in particular, "That's all you've got, a torch, empty pages?"

Ryder kicked the dreadful thing across his room, but recoiled at what would happen next; the briefcase collided with the aforementioned torch and flipped it's switch, while the discarded papers scattered themselves along the grounds of the space he was in. A particularly vivid stream of neon light spilled from the focusing lens of the torch and across parchment pages the teen had previously considered barren, but the subsequent illumination exposed the well-concealed secrets hidden in shadow and carved in invisible ink. He was quick to seize the torch and impress the paper, searching through more lines of complicated biological jargon until one name captured his attention and locked his concentration in place.

"Levi Carmichael," he whispered, "Who's Levi Carmichael?"

The name felt old-timey, and foreign on his lips; and it was a title he could put to use in regards to the next object of interest, which was a miniature colorless photograph of two very important-looking men in specially designed lab coats. One was surely Ryder's father, with his stone-faced expression and meticulously kept beard, and the other, he presumed, was Carmichael - the man was visually equal with his counterpart in age but had a subtle fluidity to his expression, as dark and as well put-together as Matthew but lacking the weariness of his eyes, the depression of his stance.

In an act of sudden decisiveness, Ryder closed the file, placed each paper back in the position in which it was uncovered, slotted the torch in it's own little space, and fastened the buckle of the briefcase before taking it in hand. He was trying to understand this all on his own, and yet, it wasn't as though the object had grown arm or leg and had simply walked into the undercroft of his house; someone had put it there, someone knew, and that someone could only have been his mother. He trailed somewhat slowly down the stairwell and crossed the kitchen's threshold, greeted by a fleeting and cautious smile from Iris, who was at work tending to the cooker, and the very comfortable silence begotten by Scott's temporary absence.