Rich Man

A young face, aged years beyond its time, stared knowingly at Nathaniel with nothing more than a satisfied smile. Self-concerned lips angled with genteel joy, venomous red coating the tender flesh of her mouth. She stood in silence, passing another exam with an ease the rest of us could hardly fathom. She was one year older than the rest of us, but to me, she was dozens.

I studied her almost as hard as I studied for my exams, for school. Seventeen was an age of infatuation during which, I'll admit, I idolized the others. I studied their methods from a subtle distance in order to formulate the perfect thought process and adopt my own theories.

Somehow Winrey always came out on top, even after our GEDs had long been forgotten and our Bachelors were achieved. Of the nine Wainright children, all pursued psychology. It was the masters programs that varied. All of us were given a two-way road to pursue by the time we were seventeen. She had completed her Masters in psychology only one week before I had completed my own.

Winrey had a knack for quick completion. Though the oldest of us all, she was exceptionally bright, estimated to have an extra ten IQ points higher than my own. But what separated the two of us from one another was very much her beauty and grace, her sense of integrity and her amazing ability to retain information.

While I did have a form of eidetic memory, one in which everything I paid specific attention to, I remembered, she possessed something so much more strong. Her memory was not only photographic, but auditory as well. It was that mix that made her double-major far surpass my singular Masters.

She was intimidating with an angelic beauty, something that would never leave my mind. Her full lips, high cheekbones, round, large eyes were soft with an innocent light, but when one looked closer, when one watched her speak with a voice fervent and clear, her beauty became all the more striking. But it was shallow, her vast knowledge sometimes nothing more than a cloud when I listened to her. I was too busy elapsing into a state of awe at the sight of her soft curls, lustfully gold locks glowing in the room.

Winrey made me feel an envy that I viewed with scorn, but I fought back. And I fought with intelligence.

Trying eyes, icy with arrogance and knowing, rained down on me from only feet away. The lengthy blonde leaned against the bar, red and black dress edgy and clinging to her hourglass. A pair of studded black heels brought her another four inches off the ground. I was lucky to have matched her height at the moment.

Blake loomed between us as clueless as ever, hid dullness almost amusing to me. Well, it would have been, had I not been face to face with the woman I was staring down. Her glowering eyes finally tore from mine and set themselves with feigned innocence upon the boy beside me. She didn't hesitate to move into him, wrap her perfectly shaped arms around his massive frame, and kiss his cheek.

There was not a sense of flaunting their relationship in her actions, but a warning. I was the third party in this endeavor and she knew damn well I wasn't in town to visit a friend. I was "Roark", whom she had probably heard of once or twice, and she knew damn well that I was under alias and for what reason.

"Ray, right?" her silky voice edged my ears like a razor to the soft underbelly of the wrists.

"Tera, right?" I replied coolly, offering my hand as though the action felt as natural as the pounding of my heart in my chest. We shook accordingly and I made a note to force the back of her hand downward, my dominance clear with nothing more than a simple gesture.

She glared coldly, but remain cocky and composed as ever in the face of Blake. "So... This is Ray, who I said might be able to help the situation a bit," Blake began quietly, biting his lip.

Winrey, I mentally hissed, Dammit. I should have known she'd be the idiot to tear this whole situation up. And now this opens up even more vulnerability for me. Shit. "I'll do whatever I can," I commented sharply to specifically Blake.

The woman cleared her throat. "I have to use the restroom. Ray, would you mind accompanying me? We can have some girl time on the walk there, I suppose."

"Oh, there's a bathroom up--"

"No, no, I'll walk with her to the other one on the floor. Gives us some time to make private introductions," I offered up before Blake could protest. He gave us a slightly confused, but otherwise accepting, look before seeing the two of us off. I was sure to take the following lead, opening the door for her as though she were helpless. This was my town, my group, my gang. Every little action counted. And the more I came off like I was the dominant dog of the pack, the more I aimed to make Winrey realize that I was no longer the passive rule-follower I was as a child.

The stakes are much higher here. It's not just pass or fail anymore. We're dealing with peoples' abilities to trust and be trusted. Those thoughts echoed ominously in my mind. I wouldn't forget them. Because the second they were alone, they were shoved to the back-burner to make way for the downpour of information I desperately needed if I was going to win the war about to be waged.

I didn't understand the process back then, but I did understand what we were bred for. It was an odd day and night. The whole afternoon had been void of the usual tests. Instead, all of the Wainright children sat around watching movies and being... Children. And while it was a nice change, my now adult self would have rather read a book or spoken with Nathaniel.

However, it was said man who was one of the group deciding upon our fates and it was he who had ordered me to wait with the rest of the kids. Little had we known that these were our final crucial moments of tutelage, our final minutes of guidance in the face of the real world. Our purpose had arrived and it was about to kick us all hard in the ass; well, those unprepared.

See, that was the day that the Wainright children were to no longer be children at all. The scientists, professors, brilliant minds that had once adopted us for science were deliberating our futures n the next room. Only I had figured out what we were, but Nathaniel explained it anyway.

"Good evening, children," he opened warmly, beaming with pride as we filed into and sat on the floor of a massive library across from he and the other eight minds that had shaped us into who we were. "As you all know, we've referred to you as Wainright Children or Project W-A-I-N-R-I-G-H-T for as long as we've had you under our respective wings. You're all eighteen now and you've accomplished feats of excellence greater than some of the most brilliant minds in present day society. And you haven't simply been under our watchful eyes this whole time, but those of other related projects going on across the world. We have successfully created a generation of Wainright-esc groups in every major country across the world. You, my fellow philosophs and psychologists, are at the very tip top of those groups."

He paused for a short while, looking into all of our eyes as he listed our names off, one by one. "Winrey," he began, nodding toward the blonde who had naturally taken center stage before turning to me, "Amanda," he then glanced around the room, "Ian, Nicolai, Rylan, Isolde, Giovanni, Hahlia, and Tristan. You've all done marvelously and we can't put into words exactly how proud we are of all of you. That being said, we would like to introduce you to exactly what we've trained you for."

Another man stood, this older gentleman we all easily knew as Winrey's father and tutor. The gray man stood and cleared his throat. "We've spent your whole life time as well as a good deal of our own creating a ring of psychologically advanced personalities all over the world. Your jobs are to promote the very things you encapsulate in order to influence a better tomorrow. However, this is not to be done in the same tedious, preaching manner as most take. One of you, within two months, will be dubbed the undisputed leader of the entire Wainright organization, a pool of brilliant minds with the objective to better those around them through involved psychology."

Another man, at this time, stood. "This may sound all too simple, but we have all of the faith in the world that you will put to use your educations for this purpose. You will all be put through one field test. n this test, you will have to learn and adapt to the personalities of someone who must be changed for the betterment of those around him or her. We are going to inject you into a situation that you are going to have to figure out and resolve peacefully using the power of psychology. We know that this may sound simple, but be warned. The human mind is a perilous, powerful thing. One mistake whilst playing god to human emotion and you could severely scar a human being's ability to trust.

"The few who pass will be deliberated between to choose the future head of the entire organization. We are all obviously graying as human beings, aging to the point at which retirement only seems the logical option. We will pass on the responsibilities that go hand in hand to that individual who proves that he or she has the strength, character, and knowledge enough to take on such a weight-bearing position. Those who fail this test--And some of you will fail--will be still rewarded for a lifetime of hard work with a position always open to you directing individual branches of the organization. We can proceed into details after the fact. For now, we'll divide you all and let your final test commence."

That day changed absolutely everything. The position as CEO of the entire operation would have control over who gets what assignment and is stationed where and in what field. He or she would also be the liaison between almost twenty other sets of Wainright projects across the world. They would, obviously, be able to travel the world, paid to hold psych seminars and potentially work in peace operations between governments of local or even country-wide level. To have that kind of opportunity was once my ultimate dream, once met everything, but I realized early on the dangers of what we were to do. I learned that fast with our tests.

I was deployed to the same nearby city as Winrey. She was to help one family with a risky coping process while I was to patch up a now adult male's rocky relationship with a once abusive father. My case was long and hard, but not nearly as taxing as the mess Winrey made. She was all too factual in her approach, all too emotionless as she swooped in to try and handle a group of people that hardly knew her. She had gotten so far with a family of five, so far in trying to help them trust each other again after patching up what could have been a divorce.

I never understood exactly how she messed up or even what happened, but I knew I had to help her, had to fix the damages she seemed to make even more severe and well defined in that family before it was too late. In short, I finished her assignment for her. And I didn't do it to help her; I did it for the sake of the family staying together. I did it because humans deserve second chances, deserve to feel love and trust.

I was the only child to successfully pass her test. Why? Because I acted not always on knowledge, but on the instincts of a human with great compassion. At least, that's how one of the philosophs put it at our final meeting. They were so close to presenting me as the head of the project when I stopped him and did what altered the course of my future forever.

"You're on assignment in my old territory, Amanda, imagine that," the woman sneered, piercing eyes looking me up and down with blunt disgust. Slender arms folded one over the other as she pushed a chair against the door with her foot to give us some privacy.

"Yeah, and you're not too far off from becoming Blake's history," I let easily slip through my lips as I leaned against the granite counter top in front of a sink.

She smirked, blazing eyes of raging ice pouring her obtrusive conceit into my soul like some kind of irritating cough. "Right. I have that boy so wrapped around my finger that his jealous little toy had to hire someone as pathetic as you to try and fix it."

"So says the failed pupil."

"If I failed, then why do I run the show?"

"Don't forget that you only were able to take over because I withdrew from the position." Which was all too true. That night, back when the future head of the entire Wainright organization was to be chosen, I was supposed to take that position as head. Instead of taking it, I opted to do field study and work on my own, apart from the Wainright Organization.

"Right, and for what? To run your own failing project?"

"My record, as far as I know, is spotless compared to your two known failures."

The woman only seemed to glower more, the devilish plot on her lips a daunting, teasing intimidating reality I was assimilating with every passing second more accurately. "Well I'm going to ruin your record. I'm sure a giant black smudge would look fabulous."

"Don't you d--"

"Oh, I will. But not now. That would just be too easy."

"I left because I wanted to fly solo and help people on my own, not so I could give some stupid seminars in France or whatever the hell you do."

"France, Belgium, Sweden, all of Europe, really."

"Well if you're so much larger than life, what do you want with Blake?"

"He's cute, up to my standards... I just want him," she giggled easily, fakely, "But now... Ooh, I get to take so much more!" Her phone vibrated in her palm. She glanced down at the name I had yet to see before kicking the chair out of the way and opening the door. "Look at that, a friend in the world. You should really get a few. They tend to come in handy. And you're probably going to need one. Too bad no one can know. It's a pity, really, the shit I'm going to put you through."

"You're fucking pathetic; a real waste, truly."

An evil, soured expression took hold of her features. True anger, arid fury welled behind her deep eyes as she stared me down with what could only be described as a deep, unfiltered hatred. "You embarrassed me, made acceptance a feat of near impossibility as a leader all because you couldn't keep in your own business and let me finish my own assignment. But that's okay. Because now I'm not going to let you finish your own either. Ciao."