It is a well-known truth of reality that there are differences among us.
Most people believe that our differences are what makes us human.
That's a nice sentiment, and it would be true if all of us actually were human.
Walter O'Brien found out when he was young that he was not quite as human as he had hoped. He was considered superhuman to some and subhuman to others.
Walter O'Brien is a vampire with an IQ of 197 and practically no emotions.
Startled at first by his changing nature, he turned to science and searched for answers.
Science led him to believe that he was allergic to garlic and that his low body temperature and low heart rate were just differences that made him human, simply an outlier on a graph of data.
Then he got his first taste of blood and he knew deep inside that he was not an outlier, he didn't even belong in the same test group.
He was helping his father on their farm in springtime when he had turned eleven and he was shearing sheep when the frightened animal jerked suddenly and got clipped with the trimmer, causing it to bleed. Walter stopped the flow of blood with his hand as his father yelled at him to be more careful. He could feel the pulsing of the blood just below his hand and had a deep, confusing, urge to just bite down on the animal.
When Walter's father relieved him of the injured sheep, Walter left the barn with the wet blood still on his hand, all of a sudden he felt the overwhelming urge to taste the blood. Walter licked it and he felt something unexplainable change in him.
From that day on, he craved blood. He would trap small animals and drain them before tossing the bloodless carcasses into the trash or burying them. He could still eat normal food, but it didn't satisfy him unless he had sucked the blood of an animal and quenched his bloodthirst.
He still took an interest in things like rockets, so when he got his own room, he wanted to put a blueprint for NASA's space shuttle on the wall. So he hacked their files and when he finally discovered it, after hours of hacking, he heard the pounding of feet on the stairs and the screams of his mother and sister.
Then a bunch of men wielding guns and wearing FBI vests burst into his room and arrested him.
As Walter was led out of the house, an agent in about his late twenties approached him.
"I'm Agent Cabe Gallo... I just want to take you in for questioning..."
Walter nodded and went with the agents.
When they got to the prison, they went right to the interrogation room and Agent Gallo began asking him question after question. The attending agent flipped through pages in a folder and jotted notes down.
All of a sudden, the attending agent jerked.
"Shit!", he swore and Walter heard the slice of skin and smelled the metallic bite of blood.
Papercut.
Walter gripped the bottom of his chair and forced himself to stay put, but it was hard to not race over there and just get a taste.
Agent Gallo sent the agent out to collect himself and as soon as the door shut, the agent turned to Walter.
"I saw that...", He said.
"Saw what?", Walter asked, considerably calmer now that the source of fresh blood had left the room.
"The way you reacted to the blood..."
"I don't follow."
"Don't play dumb with me... I'm a lot smarter than you give me credit for and I know what you are.", The agent replied.
"I'm a boy...", Walter replied.
"You're more than that... You're most likely a full blooded, born fledgling vampire..."
"That's preposterous...", Walter replied, "Vampires don't exist."
Just then, Cabe Gallo's eyes flashed red and his canines elongated, forming perfectly sharp fangs.
Walter was taken aback at the sight of the agent becoming something other than human before changing back just as quickly.
"So they are real...", he breathed.
"Yes, we are quite real...", Cabe stated, "I'm only half vampire, but I can control my tendencies. I age much slower than normals but much faster than born and changed full vampires...I'll stop physically aging when I'm in my late forties... That's how it is."
"When will I stop aging?"
"I'll give you about age thirty to thirty five..."
"When do I start getting fangs?"
"Well, most born fledgling vampires don't start changing until they're about thirteen, but you look like an early bloomer. I'll give you until you're fifteen...", Cabe replied.
"Will I still be able to eat normally?", Walter asked.
"Certainly, just as long as you supplement your foods with blood...Some vampires choose not to consume anything but blood...It's a personal choice, but garlic is a no-go..."
"I'm allergic to garlic.", Walter said.
"How do you do in the sun?"
"Perfectly fine."
"Good, sometimes vampires from Europe and the British Isles have a slight sensitivity to sunlight... I've come across many vampires in my work and not one of them had ever heard of anyone dying due to sun exposure..."
The rest of the interrogation was more or less a questions and answers session. Walter had an infinite number of questions about his state of being and Cabe answered those questions as best as he could.
"Listen, I'll let you go but I'll be checking in every now and then..."
Walter nodded.
As the years passed, Walter gradually found himself developing.
His transformations made puberty seem like a daydream because on the day when his fangs first made an appearance, he went hunting and killed one of his father's sheep.
Well, Cabe had said that the fangs started a period that he referred to as a 'straight up blood feeding frenzy that lasts for a week'.
It was unfortunate that Walter's father saw him slay the sheep.
That sparked a load of anger from his father and questioning from his mother. Walter learned that his great grandfather on his mother's side had been a vampire.
His whole 'coming out' was something that wasn't made any easier with Megan's diagnosis.
The doctors told them that Megan had the early signs of Multiple Sclerosis, a disease that had no cure, but would manifest itself slowly. The good news was that Megan would probably have an average lifespan if there were no complications.
When Walter heard this, he immediately called Cabe up on the phone to ask him if he would be able to turn Megan and save her life.
"The problem with being only half a vampire is that my venom isn't as functional as a full vampire's is. I would change her, but it'd be about a week of straight pain on her part. If you were mature, you'd be able to change her in a few hours, but you'd still have to drink quite a bit of her blood so that there was enough of your venom in her to make a difference...most vampires can't stop and end up accidentally killing the person they wanted to change."
"I'm not mature yet... I'm almost there... I'm sure I could stop drinking before it'd be too late..."
"How close are you to the final stage?"
"I just realized that I can smell other vampires and tell whether their diet is supplemented by blood or all blood, and even what blood they prefer..."
"Then your venom would have about as much effect as mine would.", Cabe sighed, "I'm sorry kid, but you still have to go through some more changes before you can do anything for your sister."
"But when I'm mature, I'll still be able to change her and heal her?", Walter asked.
"Yeah, when someone gets turned they immediately get healed, whether what they had was cancer or just acne. By the way, I'll need that technology for the care packages soon."
"Yeah, it's no problem."
Walter didn't talk to Cabe too much after that because Homeland misused the technology that Walter had given them for care packages and weaponized it to drop payloads of bombs on innocent people.
Walter spoke to Megan a lot instead. He explained to her about his vampire skill set and she listened with rapt attention.
"I can change you when I'm fully mature and you'll be fine...", Walter paused, "Do you want me to change you into a fully functional vampire?", he asked, "Some of us even have special abilities... maybe you'll be gifted..."
Megan smiled sadly and patted her little brother's hand.
"No. I'm sorry Walter, what you're offering me is too much... MS is my fight... I can take this on my own. I don't really want to become something else just to escape reality... does that make sense?", she replied.
Walter nodded and respected her wishes to remain normal, choosing instead to try and formulate a cure using other, scientific means. If he could find a cure, more people would benefit from it.
A few years later, when Walter was fully mature, he took Megan and moved to the United States. He was going to get her the best care in the country while they were in Ireland, but Megan said that she'd always wanted to go to Los Angeles and their mother suggested that Megan would have a better chance of finding far superior care in the United States, so they went and settled in L.A.
When Megan went to live on the hospital's campus (per her doctor's requests), Walter took a bunch of IT jobs and put his high IQ to work. In his spare time (aside from the regular feeding trips into the woods), Walter would travel the country, talking to doctors and scientists that had done research on MS before, and on the way, he got an idea.
He would start his own IT/computer repair business, name it after his old hacker name (Scorpion), and only employ the best and brightest people.
But he had to find the best and brightest people first.
In his travels, he came across many scientists and doctors who were vampires, both born and turned. Although many of them couldn't help him with the MS research, they could point him in the right direction to help him find geniuses to employ.
His first encounter was in upstate New York. A vampire scientist had mentioned that there must have been a very smart vampire who had been stealing from blood banks in the area, but that they were very good at covering their tracks, so, being naturally curious, Walter decided to investigate.
He found enough information, both digital and physical, at the blood banks to follow the footprints and scent markers back to a motel where the scent of purified and refrigerated human blood was the strongest.
Walter knocked on the door and a young man answered the door.
Walter explained to the man that he wasn't with the cops or anything but that he could smell the blood and wanted to come in.
The man let him in and Walter noticed quite a few discarded blood bags in the garbage.
"I'm Sylvester Dodd by the way...", the man said.
"I'm Walter O'Brien..."
"I'm not in your territory, am I?", Sylvester asked, "I'd hate to cause trouble with another vampire... oh God, you're not a messenger from the Ithaca coven are you?"
"No I'm not a messenger... I'm pretty much a nomad. I'm originally from Ireland but I'm out in L.A. now."
"How did you find me?", Sylvester asked.
"I saw the blood banks and the computers...I followed the evidence back to you."
"How did you find my encryption?", Sylvester asked in surprise, "Nobody has ever found that before..."
"I'm like you. I'm a genius vampire.", Walter explained, "You're on the run and I have a feeling you're running out of options... Lucky for you, I have a proposition..."
"Go on."
"I'm forming a business of geniuses that will help solve high-end IT/computer problems. You're a genius and your focus is in math and computer science... I could use you on my side."
"I'll go, anywhere is better than here...", Sylvester agreed. "But I'm a germaphobe, so all my blood will have to be purified before consumption..."
"That's fine..."
Walter was traveling with Sylvester in Atlantic City when they had to spend the night at a hotel after speaking to another vampire scientist that had lost his money to another vampire named Tobias M Curtis, who was supposedly a mind reader.
Although he was intrigued by the prospect of having a mind reader on his team, Walter temporarily put the thought out of his head and went out to go find something to feed off of, hoping to prey off a seagull or a rat.
Instead he walked past a shady alley and was instantly overcome with the smell of fresh blood. There was a lot of people down there and one vampire who was fearing for their life.
Walter turned the corner and followed the scent before finding a young man with his back against a wall, surrounded by a pit boss and about six men, all of them wielding guns, which Walter knew couldn't kill vampires but could hurt them.
The man with his back to the wall was the vampire, Walter could tell by the scent. There was a fresh corpse in the way, a young woman, and Walter could tell that the vampire was next to die.
Walter's foot nudged a beer bottle and the whole mob spun around.
The next thing Walter knew, the cornered vampire had broken most of the men's necks and had his fangs in the side of the pit boss's neck, draining the man of his blood quickly.
It was the first time that Walter had ever seen a vampire feed off a human and kill them.
When the vampire released the dry corpse, he wiped his mouth, stepped over the pile of bodies and picked up a hat.
"I'm sorry you had to see that... I know you're more intrigued but I can still sense your astonishment.", the vampire said, "I can read people like a book...but you my friend could sense my fear, so you're a vampire,", the young man inhaled, "And you're a hungry one too..."
"Hang on, are you by any chance Tobias M Curtis, the mind reader?", Walter asked.
"It's Doctor Tobias M Curtis, and I'm no more a mind reader than you. I'm a genius who happens to be a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who happens to be a vampire who also happens to be gifted with the ability to read body language.", he explained, "But please, call me Toby..."
"Well, Toby, you're just the person I'm looking for. My name is Walter O'Brien and I'm assembling a team of geniuses who would be willing to work with me on high-end computer and IT cases."
"IT isn't my thing..."
"Well...Here's my information if you want to get in touch with me...", Walter said, handing off a piece of paper to the other vampire, "Thank you for your time..."
Just as Walter turned to leave the alley, Toby called out to him.
"Wait. I need to get clean and learn how to be responsible... I can't keep killing pit bosses who want to kill me..."
Walter turned to him.
"Well I can help with that."
"Thanks, oh, you might as well help yourself to a corpse while you're here... just not them,", he gestured to a few men, "They're heroin addicts..."
Walter had fed off of human blood before, but not often and never when they were dead, but he had gone for a few days without feeding, so he approached one of the clean corpses and drained it quickly.
The blood was smokey and tasted like cigarettes and Walter wanted to gag, but he was too hungry to pass up a full feeding that would support him for about a week.
Toby joined Scorpion that night.
As they drove back to L.A. in Walter's car, they shared stories about how they found out about their abilities and how it felt the first time they ever drank blood.
The car broke down in a small town in southern Oregon right after they spoke to another vampire doctor about MS and as the trio walked into town, they asked the owner of the general store if there was a mechanic in town.
"Sorry, Lewis is out of town, but there's a girl from Napa who's an old friend of Lewis's and she's watching his house for him while he's away. She's really good with cars... I think her name is Quinn... she's got a pretty hot temper though, so you're going to want to tread carefully..."
They got the address to Lewis's house and Walter decided to go ask the woman for help while Toby and Sylvester stayed in the town for lunch, which included rare steaks for both of them (Sylvester said that the meat was prepared at a hot enough temperature so that 95% of the germs were killed, so he should be okay).
Walter walked down a dirt road for a quarter mile with dense pine forests on both sides until he came to a house.
The garage was opened up and heavy metal blared from inside, Walter had to ignore the overwhelming smell of motor oil and automotive fluids and yell, "EXCUSE ME!" to whomever was in the garage.
"AROUND BACK!", came a feminine voice and Walter came across a young woman who was slicing the neck of a deer open and letting it bleed into a large funnel and into a mason jar.
"Um are you Quinn?", Walter asked as he picked out the scent of a hungry vampire who rarely fed on anything but animals.
"My name is Happy Quinn, yeah, and I checked, I'm not on anyone's territory... If you're here to tell me to leave, I'll be out of your hair when Lewis gets back...", the young female vampire turned and stared right into his eyes, fixing him with an almost painful gaze.
"I'm not here to start trouble, I just need someone who can fix my car so my friends and I can be on our way.", Walter explained and the stabbing feeling subsided.
"Sure.", she said before pausing and draining the mason jar and sucking the rest of the deer dry, "You smell hungry... I have another jar inside if you want a pick-me-up...", she offered.
Walter accepted and then they got into Happy's truck and rode to the place where the car sat.
"So where are you headed with your two other vampire friends?", she asked as she looked under the hood.
"Back to L.A... they wanted a job so I gave them jobs on my team..."
"You starting a coven? You might want to find more muscle that someone who smells like a dirty casino floor and someone who never drinks fresh blood..."
"Yeah... It's not a coven... we're genius vampires who work in computer repair and IT."
Walter watched as Happy's hands flew over the engine and fixed it.
She was another genius.
"You're a genius too, aren't you?", Walter asked.
"Well yeah... I'm mentally enabled... that's my ability along with being able to sense energies and inflict pain to a very small degree."
"Are you looking for a steady job?", Walter asked, "We could use a mechanical prodigy like you on the team."
Happy seemed to consider this and she nodded.
"I'll leave Lewis an note, he'll understand...".
Walter went with Happy into town and collected Toby and Sylvester.
Walter didn't miss the way Toby looked at Happy when they were introduced.
They went back to L.A. and bought a garage that they turned into their base of operations.
Walter found one more member of their team, a vampire named Mark Collins who had the ability to control minds, but not many at a time at full strength.
He sent Walter into a dangerous downward spiral known as the Rabbit Hole, where Happy had to force blood down his throat just to keep him alive until she found a way to break Mark Collins' charm and the whole team had to force him out of the garage with bared fangs.
That night, the team sat down to discuss things.
"I think we have to become a coven... that way we can rip Mark Collins apart and burning him if he should threaten us again...", Happy said.
"I agree. Collins has a 78% chance of coming back, we want to have legal protection under international coven laws if he does.", Sylvester stated.
"And if we do have to kill him, we'll need to have a legal reason...he's gifted and he's a descendant of one of the members of the Vecchio Ordine... so if we killed him for no reason, we could all end up dead...", Toby added, "Those Old World vampires don't play around..."
Walter nodded.
"Fine, I'll send a letter to the Vecchio Ordine and request the coven application forms.", Walter said.
"So we're the Scorpion coven now and Walter is the head of it?", Sylvester asked.
"Yeah we're a coven...", Walter said.
Four years later, Walter O'Brien watched as a young boy played with sugar packets and jam containers at the counter of a diner where he was installing WiFi.
The owner of the diner scolded the boy for playing and then told the boy's mother, a waitress, to control her son.
The mother, a pretty young normal, had been working nearby and she came over to her son, murmuring something to the boy and stroking his hair before returning to work.
Walter approached the boy and moved a salt shaker and the boy began playing chess with the condiments. Walter quickly won the game but was impressed with the boy's processing speed.
When Walter inhaled, he could smell a fledgling and he knew that the boy was going to end up just like him, a genius, gifted vampire with a mother who didn't know what to do.
"Excuse me? Can I help you?", the mother asked, approaching her son.
Walter noticed her name badge and that her scent was purely defensive.
"No thanks... Paige...But you should help him...", he said and nodded to her son.
"The wireless is up,", he told the owner as he opened the door, "And don't yell at that boy...", he added with a note of finality.
As he drove back to the garage, something told him that his interaction with Paige and her son was not going to be a one time thing.
When he arrived back at the garage, he returned to his work, when all of a sudden, the door opened and a man that Walter hadn't seen in years walked in.
"Walter O'Brien... I see you have a coven of your own..."
"Agent Gallo... you should know better than to venture into the heart of another coven without permission...", Walter said, forcing his eyes to turn scarlet in warning as he faced the older half vampire.
"Well this oversteps any coven laws. We have a lot of people that are going to die unless you and your coven save the day, so let's go."
And just like that, the Scorpion coven was in motion, all of them with a specific job to do, but with traffic at a standstill, they had to go to the diner where Walter had just installed WiFi to get a reliable connection.
When they reached the diner, Paige and her son remained and Paige told the whole coven off for being rude in her place of work, so Walter decided to give her a telling off of his own, one which he got completely wrong.
Paige told him why he was wrong, only to make two things clear to Walter: first, that Paige had no clue that Ralph, her son, was a fledgling, and second, that Ralph wanted to be with his mother but didn't know how.
"And about Ralph, he's challenged, so have some empathy...", She said.
Walter sighed.
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your son is a genius and a vampire."
All Paige did was gasp.