Tran Ngyuen 

Background: War leads to incredible atrocities, mostly exacted against civilians.  Americans have a myth about themselves, that American GIs don't rape women, burn villages or kill children.

Wrong.

Vietnam brought a lot of painful truths home to middle America, watching the war at home on TV every night. But what happened to Tran's family wasn't ever broadcast on the evening news; every intelligence agency would have denied that the program which created Tran ever existed. The brainchild of Francis Erhardt, a CIA commander interested in paranormals -- and the application of paranormals to the business of the Cold War -- Project: Redwing was a grand experiment, which Erhardt believed would lift the stalemate of the Cold War in favor of the USA. It was, however, performed on the Vietnamese people.

The Vietnam War meant there were thousands of displaced people, most of them poor, illiterate villagers who'd had to flee napalmed homes or who happened to find themselves in the middle of the fighting.. Tran's mother was one of them; she was offered aid, food, and shelter at a camp run by Americans. What she found was Erdhard's camp.

Project:Redwing utilized mutagens recently discovered by researchers working on various "super soldier" formulas. Though Korean War veteran Robert Kaufman became "the Avenger" in 1964, the prototype agent for fledgeling PRIMUS, it had not stopped the staff working on the "super soldier" formula to continue to perfect the system. (So much so, in fact, that the process the Silver Avengers would be given in the early 80s would be something entirely different). What the researchers believed they had discovered was a method for inducing favorable mutations -- which would lead to paranormal abilities -- in fetuses, about 1/1000 of the time. (The other 999 would be spontaneously aborted.)  The process worked, remarkably enough, in experiments performed on lab animals -- there was a telepathic dog, for example, and the litter of levitating rats. But they needed to test it on humans.

Enter Francis Erhardt, who had just retured from Vietnam.  It did not take long for Erhardt to acquire funding through the CIA to begin testing on human subjects -- those refugees fleeing, among other things, American attacks.  The refugees were segregated by sex, those meeting the criteria of the experiment were returned to health, and then impregnated.  The shame the women felt at their pregancies was usually enough to keep them at the research compound. Most pregancies aborted, and of the women impreganted with Tran's mother, she was the only one to carry to term, giving birth to a white haired, white skinned, blue-eyed albino baby in 1971.

The researchers were ecstatic. Tran was coddled and cooed at by some of the most incredible minds working in genetics at the time -- unscrupulous men who'd thought nothing of the rights of the women or the aborted babies they'd had to go through in order to get Tran. For her part, Tran's mother couldn't understand all the fuss these Americans were making over one small girl, even if she was pale.

Both mother and daughter were taken to the United States, while Project:Redwing proceeded to exact a gruesome toll on the women who'd come to the disguised camp for aid, in operation until the very end of American involvement in Vietnam.

Tran, for her part, was treated like a princess. Her mother was her guardian by night, singing songs to her and speaking to her in Vietnamese, but daily, Tran was taken by a nice lady to a playroom.  The nice lady -- Annemarie, as she prefered to be called -- spoke to Tran in English and played with her all day.  They watched television (educational shows and Disney cartoons), and, when Tran was six, they discovered she could shapeshift. After watching Cinderella, the young girl shifted her shape -- in front of a stunned Annemarie -- into that of the cartoon princess. Her other abilities remained undiscovered for several years -- only telepathic prodding by Annemarie revealed Tran's own, weaker, telepathy, and it was not until, at the age of twelve, she had a series of bad headaches and prophetic dreams that Annemarie made the Clairsentience connection. Only the shapeshifting was regarded as practical enough for practical use, though Tran continued to train with her telepathy as well.

Tran's education continued, despite a great sadness when her mother suddenly died when she was ten.  Annemarie taught her Russian and Arabic, as well as English, and all sorts of other practical skills. Tran was fed a steady diet of how great America was, and how lucky and special she was to be part of such a great country, "ask not what your country can do for you," and the young girl believed every word of it.  As she got older, she was taught other things -- how to defend herself from evil Communists if they attacked her, how to bug a room to record the plotting of those evil Communists, how to seduce evil Communists and get them to tell you everything, and if they wouldn't talk, how to rip that information from their minds...in short, she was a highly proficient spy, seductress, and assassin by the age of seventeen, dedicated completely to the US Government, fully believing every last bit of propagandist nonsense they'd stuffed into her head, her loyalty further sealed by the expertise of Annemarie's mental tinkering.

For ten years, she was a very loyal and dutiful servant of the United States Government. After the fall of the Soviet Union, her skills were put into use in Iraq, as well as in various other Middle Eastern countries. Tran's "debriefings" by Annemarie, following each mission, insured that she did not have time to reflect upon her actions or even remember them.

It all fell apart in 1996, when Tran was sent into Egypt, in order to seduce a known terrorist and conspirator against the US. The mark, a wealthy man, had a strong telepathic bodyguard, who saw through Tran's act and mentally blasted her.  Tran's "education" at the hands of Annemarie had left her vulnerable to other telepaths, and with one fell swoop, her programming unravelled.  Tran could remember every killing, every seduction, and every time Annemarie had tinkered with her mind. She went berserk.

Ironically, though she could remember with crystal clarity everthing which had happened before, to this day Tran cannot recall how she fought her way out of Egypt, or how she made her way to the pick up location.  She does remember killing Annemarie with grim satisfaction, after ripping the information about her own "education" from the dying woman's mind, making it appear as though both women were killed by a terrorist's bomb.

Tran made her way back to the United States disguised as a flight attendent, unsure of how to proceed. She had fantasies of returning and killing all of the scientists she'd learned about from Annemarie, but upon her return to the US, she found that every trace of her background was gone. She'd learned from Annemarie that her mother had not died, but had been dismissed by the program.

Morally bankrupt and adrift, Tran decided the only thing she really excelled at was killing people, and she hired herself out as an assassin, while continuing to search for her mother. Her first assignment was to kill Ralph Armitage.

The assignment didn't go as planned, though it had certainly seemed easy enough -- the old man was bedridden, and all Tran had to do was replace the home health nurse who visited him and shoot something into his IV bag.  She didn't exactly understand why anyone would want to kill an old man who would die soon enough anyway, but the money was good and she was broke.

She'd made her way through the massive Mill Valley home, through books piled against the wall and Dutch masters hanging at odd angles, finally up to the master suite. The old man she'd been hired to kill was a tiny, withered thing, lying under piles of blankets in a massive oak bed. The old man had taken one look at his "nurse," and, with a horrified look and a raspy voice said, "My God, child, what have they done to you?"  He'd lifted one dry hand, placed it on Tran's own, and wept.

This was not what she had expected, not at all.  Tran began to cry as well, and before long had told Ralph the whole story.  He'd nodded and listened, and when she was done, he patted her hand.  "Well, you're not going to have to worry about any of that anymore," he'd said. "David will take care of everything."

David arrived an hour later, and, if he'd thought anything was strange about his father ordering him to hire the woman who'd just come to kill him, he didn't let on.  Over time, he let Tran tell her his story, though Ralph had told him everything as soon as Tran had left (her assassin's identity disappeared, and she emerged with her current identify.)  Armitage, who had served his country with honor and pride since he began the Naval Academy at the age of seventeen, was deeply affected by the young woman's story, and has made it a point of honor to uncover proof of this project.

David Armitage, understanding Tran's reluctance to use her powers, told her that she would never have to use them again.  She is AI Inc's office manager, for one of the most common covers Tran had used in her days as an intelligence operative was that of secretary. She has everything -- and everyone -- running like clockwork, with paperwork always filed on time.  Some of the secretarial staff are slightly frightened of the woman, but she has vowed to never kill again (which, she has thought on occasion, is very lucky for some of the slower typists).

Tactics/Powers: Tran has several unique abilities. She has flashes of the future, which come to her unbidden (and usually in the most inconvienent of times.) She often doesn't know what she's seeing, or whom she is seeing, but the visions are enough to bring pounding headaches. Tran can also alter her form, to resemble any female. This is a painful process, as her body reworks itself into the shape she desires, and it takes five minutes for her to complete the transformation. Tran is immune to disease, because of her body's ability to alter form at will (this is an unconscious process).

Personality: Tran is pretty screwed up from her years of service to the government. She has a strong sense of right and wrong, and knows very well that what she spent her early life doing was very wrong. Her way of handling this is to be outrageous and loud and to hide behind her facade, never to let them close. Tran doesn't let many people close to her, and other than Armitage, no one knows the truth of what she's been through. Anna was the first investigator hired by Armitage, and the former lawyer had proven to be the perfect foil for Tran. Despite the friendship, Tran would never dream of telling anyone about her past, fearing they would reject her.

Lifestyle:  Though she can afford better, Tran lives about a Vietnamese grocery store in the city. She uses public transportation, and doesn't own a car. Tran works out at a martial arts studio near her house, and has become friends with some of the men there. She is flirtatious, but doesn't date, being sickened with the prospect of sex.

Appearance: While it varies, Tran is usually five feet tall, with pale blue eyes and white hair.  She often dyes her hair an outrageous color or wears colored contacts. She wears daring clothing and makeup, but at home and around her neighbors dresses casually. Her appearance now is only slightly different from her natural one.

Please note: this is fiction.  I certainly am not implying our government's involvement in any clandestine or inhumane experiments in Vietnam or anywhere else.