Persona - Chapter 4
Chapter 4 – An
Invitation
The next day, I
woke up and found myself going out to the library to try and clear my head and
focus on finding anything that would help make my personal investigation go by
quicker. At least heading out to the
library seemed to get me out of that house and helped me to clear my head a
bit. Being away from that house and
being elsewhere seemed to be just what I needed at the time to help make things
in my head fall into place. I went
looking for relevant books on serial killers that would help me look for patterns
that might make it easier to identify their killing pattern and happened to
find a couple that were useful. I read
through them for a bit at the library but felt like things were just falling
short. I couldn’t seem to get anything
other than what I already was covering in my crime courses in college. I needed something more concrete, something
that would indicate to me a clear pattern that I could track these killers
through. A registry, a series of posts
on social media, something, anything to help point me in the direction of these
people would be helpful. I just needed
something more.
I went home with
one of the books that documented some of America’s most notorious serial
killers and their motives for killing. I
wanted to know why these people were killing and why they wanted to kill off my
brother. He had to have been close to
something, I know it. I just don’t know
what he was so close to. I kept feeling
like I was at the tip of something truly incredible or truly terrifying. I just didn’t know how to reach it. As I sat at home that night, I went about
pacing through my room, trying to make sense of all the headlines that I had
seen and the symbol on the letter.
Phrases stuck out in my mind from that letter. “We are many…we are unconquerable…no one will
stand in our way”.
“Stand in their
way of what” I wondered to myself. An
organization like this had to be after something big. They seemed ambitious. They weren’t killing just average
people. They were killing big-name
people too. There was the murder of a
wall street banker in New York, the murder of a hedge fund owner out of
California, and the murder of an oil company CEO out of Texas. They weren’t going for just small
targets. It was clear that they were
after something. The problem was that
nobody knew what that was. They seemed
to be after something big, but it just seemed to be out of scope for me to
understand. Having foresight into their
plan might have been enough to ward me off.
It’s too bad that I was too ignorant of the scale of Invictus Persona
and too stubborn to let go of my quest to provide my brother justice.
I’m a relentless
person when I need to be and seeing how my brother’s body hadn’t even been laid
to rest, I needed to start acting. They
weren’t going to put my brother’s body to rest until they had all that they
could and that just wasn’t good enough for me.
I started thinking of ways to be able to get more information about the
organization and had a horrifying thought cross my mind. What if I infiltrated Invictus Persona myself
and went after the person who killed my brother? I mean, it seemed like the people that some
of these killers were going after were awful people. Getting closer to this killer might give me
answers and help me to bring them to justice.
Investigators and officers infiltrate operations all the time. Doing this would be an infiltration like
other ones. The main things that worried
me about doing such a thing were weighing on my mind, though. What if the cops found out that I infiltrated
this organization to go after my brother’s killer? What if they found out? What if my mom got caught up in all of
this? What if I ended up dead trying to
find this killer? What if I had to kill
to get close enough?
All these
questions started to sink in fast into my mind and began to overwhelm me. I felt my heart race and my mind begin to
panic. How could I think of doing
something like that? It wasn’t just
dangerous, it was stupid. I’d end up
killing myself and other people in the process.
I’m sure of it. People would end
up dead. Bodies would pile up if I tried
to join Invictus Persona. As I was
thinking this stuff over, I got a call from an unknown caller. I answered the phone call. It was Agent Nelson on the other line.
“Hello? Is this Derrick Boseman?”
“Yes, Agent
Nelson. This is him.”
“Oh good. We wanted to give you a call to let you know
that it’s going to probably be some time before we can release your brother’s
body over to your family for burial.
There are some details surrounding his death that we want to investigate
further. We will let you know as soon as
possible when we can release his items and his body back to you. Is this the best number to call you back on?”
“Yes, this is the
best number to call me back on.”
“Great! We hope to have more information for you
soon. Take care!” She hung up the phone right after. I wasn’t sure what it was about that call,
but something about the way she spoke to me seemed very ingenuine. She knew something that would have been useful
to me and was withholding it from me, along with my brother’s body and
belongings. My mind started to rush and
so did my fingers on my keyboard. I
started looking for a secure line to encrypt my messages and found a virtual
private network service that seemed reputable and a couple of apps for sending
encrypted messages. This was the sort of
thing we discussed in college. We used
apps that were already encrypted, so it was only a matter of finding ones that
you could encrypt the coding on yourself.
I wasn’t the best with code, but I knew how to choose stronger
encryption for these apps to make sure that my messages wouldn’t be traceable
for a while. Once everything was set up,
I looked around online to see if I could find any lines of communication with
Invictus Persona. After a while, I
happened to find a line that would let me connect to them directly. So, I sent a simple letter to make my
intentions to join clear.
To Whom It May
Concern,
My name is not
important. What is important is that I
have seen your work across the country.
You are not only ruthless, but you are also intelligent, cunning, and
effective at what you do. I know that
there isn’t just one of you. I know that
you are many. Your very name is
indicative of intelligent minds, intelligent hunters coming together for something
greater than yourselves. Invictus
Persona marks the name of a group that cannot be stopped, for there are many
and the power of many beats the power of the few. I see your cause worthwhile, noble even. I would like to join your ranks, but I know
that I will have to prove myself. Please
send me details as to what is the first task that you would like for me to
perform in order to prove my worth. I
await your response.
Thank you for
your time,
An admirer.
I hesitated for a
moment before I sent my message over the secure line, but I knew what I wanted
and knew that it had to be done. I
eventually pressed the “send” key. I
didn’t expect a reply so soon, but in a matter of minutes, I had a reply.
Greetings,
Thank you for
your enthusiasm and inquiry into our operations. Unfortunately, we are not open to new members
outright. Those who wish to be a part of
Invictus Persona must prove themselves. You
will receive future correspondences regarding your first hunt. We hunt as a pack and coordinate our members,
even our own initiates. You will need to
prove yourself worthy of bearing our symbol and of brandishing our targets with
our mark. Once you have proven yourself
worthy of such honors will you be granted entry to Invictus Persona.
We
will send you something soon.
~IP
That last sentence made me start to freak out. I needed to try and think of a place that I could go and prepare for something like this. In my panic of trying to pack my phone and some clothes, something dawned on me. I could head over to my uncle’s place near Austin. He never had anyone around and was always looking for someone to look after the place, since he was always so busy with work as a doctor. His place would be the perfect base of operations for me to start doing something like this. The plan started to come together right then and there for what I needed to do. I’d call him in the morning to let him know that I would probably be staying at his place over the summer and needed some time away from my house, given the circumstances. It wouldn’t be a lie, as I did need to clear my head and get out of this house but being in his house would double as a safer location for me to work from. Everything was coming together. It wouldn’t be until a few days later thought that everything truly sank in, and my first hunt would begin. At least in that moment, I had a plan and, as nervous as I was, I felt like I could sleep that night, knowing that the next day would likely bring me a lot of excitement and bring me a little bit closer to bringing my brother justice.
Comments