Dina Ladner sat on the bed in her room, her packed suitcase beside her. She was leaving the Evergreen mental facility where she had lived for the past two years. Her time there had helped her to resolve issues around a great tragedy in her life, the massacre of her family. Three men had broken into the house one night. Dina heard them and hidden in her closet. She heard the men ordering her parents and her two brothers to the downstairs part of the house, then gunshots. The police had arrived and found her in her hiding spot in shock. As they walked her out of the house she was confronted by the bloody scene of her family’s murder and by their corpses lying in pools of blood, which had caused her total collapse. She had awakened two days later in a state mental ward surrounded by dirty gray walls echoing with the blabbering and screams of the mentally deranged. They had medicated her heavily and left her to sleep on a bed. Day after day passed and after she had been there a week, men came with a stretcher and took her to Evergreen where she had received top flight care and eventually reached her current state. She took no medication now except for a mild tranquilizer when she experienced undue anxiety.
There was a knock on her door and a tall, handsome man dressed in a tweed jacket, flannel dress pants and silk shirt strode in. He walked across and extended his hand to her.
“Dina? Hello, my name is Wynn Finch.” he said, shaking her hand
“Hello Mr. Finch it is nice to meet you.” she replied
Finch pulled up a chair and sat facing her and smiled. She could not really tell how old he was. He had the bearing of an older, experienced man, but had a young face with sharp features and clear blue eyes. They had been corresponding for several weeks now and Dina understood that Finch was her benefactor and had paid for her treatment at Evergreen. It was he who had saved her from the state hospital that she had initially been sent to. She didn’t know why. Finch had not really explained any of it in his letters so she wondered as he sat smiling at her, what the situation was.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions Dina. You are probably wondering who I am and why I am here. I did not go into any of it in my letters for two reasons. The first is that the doctors asked me, if I wrote to you, to keep our correspondence light with nothing in them that might upset you. Secondly, I wanted to talk to you face to face and give us the chance to get to know each other.”
“I understand Mr. Finch. What is going to happen now?” she asked
“Well first of all, from now on it is Wynn my dear, not Mr. Finch, okay?” he asked, smiling at her gregariously “Now. I have a proposal for you. I live on an old estate near a small town in Virginia. It is a large mansion with a staff of about 15 people who help me manage my property and affairs. It is a small farm and we raise horses, some livestock, and grow some organic produce. The town is a quaint little village that I’m sure you will feel at home in. I would like for you to come and stay with us at the farm. If you are not comfortable with that arrangement, then I would like you to come to our town and I will put you up in a suite at a great hotel there. It is your choice, but I must say that I think some time at the farm would suit you best. What is your answer?”
A middle aged woman entered the room and approached them, bent down and whispered into Finch’s ear.
“Ah! Dina this is Ms. Brown my assistant she came to help us get you back to the farm and to provide anything you might need on the way. She tells me that our jet is on the runway and ready to leave when we are. What do you say?”
Dina considered Finch’s proposal silently. He seemed on the up and up and his assistant Ms. Brown was there too. Did she feel safe? Yes...she sensed no danger or malice from these two. Had she anywhere else to go? No. She was now alone in the world without resources.
“Allright Wynn. I will go with you to the farm. Can we leave now? It is time for me to leave this place.” she said
And with that the three of them left the building and were met by a large limousine which took them to a small airport where they boarded a Gulfstream jet and took off. A few hours later they landed in Virginia and by ten that night Dina was ensconced in a large, nicely furnished bedroom on the second floor of a huge mansion where she soon fell fast asleep.
The next morning she was awakened by a light knock at the door. The door opened and a small woman with dark hair and features entered.
“Good morning miss, I’m Lorna the head housekeeper.” she said as she walked to windows and opened the drapes. Sun streamed into the room and birdsong rang out.
“Good morning Lorna, my name is Dina. Thank you for waking me.”
The small woman moved to a door across the room and flung it open.
“This is your bathroom. We have put plenty of towels, soap, shampoo, and such out for you. If there’s anything you need please ask. Also, we unpacked your suitcase and put your things in the closet there and in the chest against the wall there. Breakfast is being served soon. Please come down when you are ready.”
“Thank you, I will.” said Dina
As she descended the stairs, she would later learn there was also an elevator, a young maid directed her to the dining room where she found Wynn and a sideboard of food.
“Ah, Dina. Come in. Please, I want you to feel right at home here. There’s a spread over there, please help yourself. I’ll introduce you to chef.” he said and started bellowing for the chef
Presently a young woman in a chef’s jacket entered the dining room and stood beside Finch.
“Dina, this is Diane Arbuster, chef of my estate. If you want anything in particular to eat or just a sandwich or a snack, this is the woman to see.” he exclaimed
“Hello Dina” Diane said “It is nice to meet you. I hope you like the food and as Wynn says, please let me know if there is anything special I can get you. Come by the kitchen sometime and I’ll give you a tour so you’ll know where to sneak to in the middle of the night when you need a sandwich or a glass of milk!”
“It’s nice to meet you Diane and thank you. I will come see you when I get my bearings.” she said
Diane sauntered out of the room and the two of them proceeded with their breakfast.
“Dina, I know I promised you some answers and I do want to talk to you, but I think it would be best for you to take a little time first and get some rest and get to know your new surroundings. Do you agree?”
“That sounds reasonable Wynn. I think we could talk in a day or two.” Dina said
“Good. Now, after breakfast I’ll give you a general tour and show you who to talk to if you want to take a horse ride, or an ATV ride, or use a car. We have about fifty thousand acres here so there is plenty of nice country to walk through. I want you to relax and enjoy yourself.”
Dina spent the next two days adjusting to the rhythm of the household, visiting the horses, swimming in the pool, using the gym and sauna, and revitalizing her body after being hospital bound for a couple of years.
After dinner a couple of days later Wynn asked Dina to accompany him outside. It was early evening and the sun had just left the sky. Dina followed Wynn out past the stables and across a small field to an old, weathered out building.
“When you have a place like this, you get so that you never throw anything away because you never know when you are going to need it for something. I use this old shed to keep all of the junk that I don’t want to throw away. Keeps the place from looking like a white trash trailer park.”
He signalled her to wait and entered the shed. She could hear him rustling around and a few minutes later he emerged carrying what looked like a length of pipe. He pointed at two wooden stools against the wall of the shed and motioned for her to sit down.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked, handing the pipe to her
“It looks like a pipe of some kind.” she replied
“Yep. That’s a hunk of two inch iron water pipe. Not copper or brass, iron.” he ssid
“Okay, it is an iron water pipe. I am following so far.”
“Good, Now I want you to try to bend it in half.” he said
“Wynn, this is a really strong piece of pipe. You said iron right? I don’t think I can, but I’ll try.”
Dina placed her hands apart on the pipe and applied all of her strength, but could not move the pipe a bit. It remained as straight as when he had handed it to her. He gestured for her to hand it back to him.
“Before I can give you answers, I have to show you who I am.” he said “So for the next little while I’m going to do some things that might cause you some distress. Please just stay calm, okay?” he asked
She wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at, but responded “Sure Wynn. Okay.”
With that, Finch grabbed the pipe at both ends and without seeming to exert himself one little bit, bent it in half. Dina was amazed. He would have to be very strong to do that. Next, he help up one end of the pipe and placed his thumb on one side and his forefinger on the other and with one quick snap, pinched the end of the pipe closed.
“Wow Wynn, you are strong! I’ve never seen anything like that before. Is there a trick or something?” she asked
He gazed at her and discarded the pipe. He then reached into his pocket and took out a knife and opened it. It was a modern folding knife with an evil looking blade that locked. It looked very sharp. Wynn raised his left hand and without warning thrust the knife clear through the middle of his hand. Dina, caught totally by surprise, let out a little scream of horror and stared at the knife hanging out of the bloody wound, not sure what to do.
‘Relax Dina. Everything is alright. I am not hurt. Please observe.”
Slowly he pulled the knife from his hand, leaving a gaping bloody wound. Finch gazed at Dina, then at his hand, drawing her gaze to it. The bleeding had stopped and as she watched, the wound began to heal itself. In about thirty seconds there was no wound or blood.
Dina couldn’t speak. She sat for a minute and considered what she had just seen with both the pipe and the knife. She did not know what to make of these events.
“Dina, please I want you to try and stay calm, alright? I can explain what you have just seen and why I showed you. Would that be okay with you?” he asked
Dina calmed herself with the breathing exercises that they had taught her at Evergreen and after regaining her composure she nodded to him.
“I am not human. I have many similarities to a human, but I am something else. As you have seen, I am very strong. I am hundreds of times strong than even you have seen with this water pipe. I also cannot be permanently injured. My body is resistant to damage and self regenerating. I have survived trauma much greater than my little knife trick and recovered just as quickly. I have other abilities as well. I am very old. I can remember living and hunting with neanderthals. I have been here for at least fifteen thousand years. I don’t remember where I was before that, but I suspect it was on another planet. I can and have procreated with humans many times through the years.
Dina took this all in and began to wonder if this charming man was crazy. She had seen some evidence here but had it just been a dog and pony show for her benefit. She was not sure what to think, but decided to just keep listening to him.
“Do you remember when we first met a few days ago? I shook your hand?” he asked
She nodded.
“I have the ability to gather and process genetic information from others. When we shook hands, very delicate, sensitive organs entered your body through the pores of your skin and gathered this information from you. I’ve been internally processing this information for the past couple of days and I’ve learned about your genetic history and coding.
Dina was appalled at what he was saying. ‘Entered her body through the pores of her skin’?!? She did not know if she was more disgusted or afraid of what he was telling her.
“I see that you are angry and are not sure whether to believe me. Please let me explain. As I said, I am very old. I have amassed great fortunes over the years. I have money in banks and investments all over the world. Literally untold riches. One of the things that I have occupied myself with for the past couple of hundred years has been genealogical research on the families that I have sired over the eons. It is a large undertaking and I have several teams around the world working on the research. We have built large, sophisticated databases with the information and it is quite telling. I used the information in our databases to find any relatives that might be living and I found only one. You Dina. I did thorough background checks and surveilled you and your family for a year before your family was killed. I had planned to visit you three days after the murders. You are, I’m not sure how to say it, my forty eighth generation granddaughter! When I sampled your genetic information I was able to absolutely verify it. You are my only living relative.”
She avoided him for the next few days and sensing this, he gave her her space. Dina went over what she had seen and what he had told her, trying to figure out if and why he might have tricked her. She came up with nothing. Why would somebody do those things, tell such an outlandish story, and take responsibility for her well being if they didn’t at least believe it? She could find no evil motive at play.
Several nights later, after dinner, she approached him in his study.
“I cannot think of any reason why you would lie about these things.” she said, settling into a chair opposite his desk “so if you are not lying, what is it you want of me?”
“Want of you? Oh, you misunderstand Dina. I don’t want anything from you, I want to give you things. I’ve already made you my legal heir and set up your own accounts for you. You are officially one of the richest people in the world. But those are just the trappings. I have far more interesting, valuable gifts to bestow on you if you want them.”
Dina was intrigued. What could be more interesting that the gift of perpetual wealth?
“I’m listening Wynn.” she said
He leaned back in his chair, folded his hands in front of him and looked at her evenly.
“You remember the demonstrations with the pipe and the knife. And my age. I believe that the same abilities that I have lie dormant in your genetic chemistry. As I’ve told you, my kind are able to gather and process genetic material. I think that I can turn on these abilities in you. Longevity, strength, regeneration, maybe more. I cannot be one hundred percent certain, but I can be ninety percent certain.”
“What? How? I am not going to pretend to understand this. How would we proceed?” she asked
“I think we would work to enable a single ability first. I think two sessions of about a half hour each should suffice.” he said
“And what would these sessions entail?” she asked
“We would simply sit facing each and holding hands for a while. All you would do is relax and breathe evenly.” Wynn replied
“And what would you enable first?” Dina asked
“I see you wear rather strong lenses. I think enhanced eyesight would be a good start. Are you up for it?” he asked
“Yes, let’s do it.” said Dina
…
They completed the second session and Wynn said “Okay now, just give it a day or so and let me know if you notice any changes.”
The next morning Dina rose and headed down to breakfast with a strange vertigo like feeling. She almost tripped on the stairs and had to stop on the staircase. It was then that she realized that her vision was blurred. She removed her glasses and everything sharpened into focus. She didn’t seem to need the glasses anymore. After breakfast Wynn took her out for a hike. After a couple of hours walk he led her up a trail to the top of a small foothill. She looked out over the valley taking in the spectacular view and pointed at a group of squirrels playing in a tree, laughing at their antics.
“Do you realize what you just did?” Wynn asked her
“What do you mean. I did not do anything.” she replied
“Those squirrels? They were at least seven miles away!”
“What? Nobody can see for seven miles!”
“You can. And you can see even farther, just wait. It looks like things are progressing nicely.”
“Should we turn something else on?” she asked
“Not yet. I think there might be a few more developments with your eyes. Keep me posted.”
Nothing out of the ordinary happened over the next few days and Wynn finally inquired whether she had noticed any other changes. Learning that there had not, he asked her to meet him on the front porch after dinner that evening. When they met he asked her to follow him and head out into the field behind the main house. It was a dark, moonless night.
“Okay, I had hoped that a few new abilities might show up, but it looks like if they have, you need to learn to access them. So tonight I’m going to try to teach you how. I want you to look out at the edge of the woods there and tell me what you see.”
“Well, not much. I can see the darkness of the trees and their outline against the stars, but that’s about it.”
“Okay. Now, what we want to do is not easy because it’s more instinctual than anything else. That makes it hard to learn to do because you have no idea what it feels like yet. So, I want you to look at the trees again and try to see their individual trunks in as much detail as possible. Just concentrate.”
Dina wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, but she did her best to do as he asked. She looked at the trees and concentrated. For ten minutes. Nothing. After a minute’s break she concentrated again. Soon, she realized that she was seeing the trees in finer detail. She could make out the individual trunks, the ridges of the bark, the undergrowth around them. It was like looking through a night vision scope.
“Hey, I can see stuff!” she yelled “I see the bark and the brush around the trunks. It is like looking at them in the daytime.”
“You’ve got it! You have learned how to access your infrared vision. Good. Now. Same exercise, but I want you to look back toward the stables. I want you to see the horses inside.” he said
“What? How can I see them inside the building?” she asked
“Just concentrate.”
Dina looked at the stable. She stared for several minutes. Suddenly, she saw an orange blob on the side of the stable move in a sideways motion. Soon she was seeing different colors the length of the stable wall.
“I see colors and they are moving! What are they?: she asked
“You are accessing your heat sensing vision now. Those colors are the horses in the stable, or rather the heat that is coming off of their bodies. Yellow and oranges are hotter. Blues are cooler.”
For the next few months Wynn turned on Dina’s various abilities and she practiced using them until they were second nature. She now knew what he had meant when he had referred to far more interesting and valuable gifts. She wasn’t sure she was human anymore, but she thought she was superhuman and it felt pretty good.
One night, after dinner, Wynn asked to see her in the study. As she sat opposite him at the desk, he passed a large manila envelope toward her on the desktop.
“Don’t open it yet.” he said
“Allright.” she replied, and waited for him to continue
“I have given you just about everything that I have to give you and you have taken it in a most gracious and humble way. I am very impressed with your abilities and how much work you have done to learn to use them. I have this last gift for you. I’m not sure it is really a gift, but it is offered in the spirit of one. You have two choices, give that envelope back and I’ll destroy it, or open it after I tell you what it contains. I’ll warn you that opening that envelope may offer great satisfaction or may result in great despair. I honestly do not know which. So take your time and then choose.”
Dina could not imagine what was in the envelope. Wynn’s mysterious warning had gotten her attention. His words and thoughts carried great weight with her now. In the end she decided that despite the danger, Wynn obviously thought there was a good chance this was something she should pursue.
“Fuck it Wynn. What is it?” she asked
“Since you went into the hospital, I have dedicated considerable resources to finding the men who killed your family. I have found them. I have discussed the possibility of prosecuting these men with my lawyer, but they tell me that there is no way to make a strong enough case based on my information and that they are sure we would lose in court.
Your father was working with a group that opposed oil projects in Africa. I won’t go into great detail, simply to say that the men who killed your family were sent by men who work for the oil companies whose projects were being thwarted by your father’s work. That envelope contains dossiers on each man, from the team members that hit your house, up to the oil executives that paid them. I’ve had a strike team training for a year. I propose that we accompany them and systematically assassinate every man in that envelope.”
Dina was totally surprised by the information and by Wynn’s proposal. After considering it for a moment she said “Thank you Wynn. I’ll never forget your generosity. I vote yes.”
“Excellent. One more thing. Call me grandpa, would you?” he asked and bellowed for the mercenary waiting outside the study to come in.
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