Project Domino

more than 70 years earlier, 1994

"I was eleven years old and living on my father's farm in Callan. I hacked into NASA to download the shuttle blueprints for my wall…"

The agents infiltrated the O'Brien home, taking 'Scorpion', who turned out to be eleven-year-old Walter O'Brien, into custody. They waited for the arrival of their superior. Once on the scene, he introduced himself to Walter's parents as Agent Cabe Gallo.

He took charge of Walter immediately, promising the young man's parents that it would only be a few hours, a day at most for processing. "Given his status as a minor and as a foreign national, the processing would be just a formality," Gallo assured the panicked parents. Walter's father relaxed at the man's words as his wife sobbed quietly.

"Sure I'll see you soon," Walter told his family bravely.

His older sister, Megan, watched him stoically before throwing her arms around him and hugging him. "Promise me you'll be back now."

Walter longed to throw his arms around his sister, but his hands were restrained, so he settled for whispering in her ear, "I promise."

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only promise broken that day.

As Gallo's SUV pulled into the government parking facility, it was met by three other SUVs with generic plates and several nondescript agents, their eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses. The agents were flanked by soldiers wearing uniforms that even Gallo didn't recognize. The soldiers were armed with automatic rifles and the air of battle-hardened veterans. Whoever had authorized this, they weren't playing around.

Gallo stepped out of his SUV cautiously. The lead agent didn't speak, he just stepped forward with a satellite phone and handed it to Gallo. He put the phone to his ear, "Cabe Gallo, to whom am I speaking?"

The computer-generated voice ignored his question. "State your clearance credentials."

"Alpha-Romeo-Charlie-three-five-five." he recited automatically.

"Clearance confirmed." the voice spoke again. Gallo could hear the encryption protocols activated as the call was rerouted several times, and finally a crackling noise and a disguised, but very much human voice, spoke to him. It gave him a set of security credentials that Gallo had never thought he would hear after learning them in training. Whoever was on the other end of the call's clearance was so far above his pay grade he doubted that whoever it was could even see his pay grade when they looked down.

"The detainee is no longer your responsibility." the voice explained. "The agents waiting here will take the asset known as Walter O'Brien into custody. You will have no further responsibility for and no further contact with the asset unless informed otherwise."

Gallo opened his mouth to protest, but the line had already gone dead. And he knew it was useless anyway. He knew how it all worked. He was nothing if not a good soldier. He turned and nodded to the agent seated in the back seat of his SUV with young Walter. At the agent's urging, Walter climbed out of the SUV. The boy looked afraid for the first time. He hadn't even seemed scared when the forward tactical team had infiltrated his bedroom, but now the kid just looked petrified.

"I thought… you said…" Walter couldn't even form a coherent sentence as Gallo pushed him forward as gently as he could. Impatiently, one of the soldiers stepped forward, putting a meaty hand on Walter's shackles. He pulled Walter forward roughly, then shoved him toward the nearest SUV. "Agent Gallo, what's happening? You promised!" Walter cried.

Walter reluctantly climbed into the vehicle as the rest of the agents and soldiers entered the waiting SUVs. Walter pounded on the window, his cries of fear and anger still audible even as the doors to the vehicle closed. "You said I would be in your custody. That was a mere formality… a few hours. You promised!" Walter shrieked, breaking Agent Gallo's heart. The boy turned his attention to the agents in the vehicle with him. "Where are you taking me? Who are you? Help!" Walter's voice abruptly stopped.

The vehicles roared past Gallo and out of the parking structure. Gallo just stood there, unable to move for several minutes. What the hell just happened? Who had taken Walter O'Brien, likely one of the brightest minds the US government had ever encountered? What will they do to him? What have I done?

Walter woke in what appeared to be a cell with nothing but a cot, a toilet, and a sink and no memory of how he got there. No memory beyond being shoved into the SUV and taken away from Agent Gallo. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and orange slip-on shoes. Nothing personal, nothing to tell him where he was, or what was going to happen next. Walter felt panic rising in his chest, but he tamped it down, instinctively knowing he couldn't show any signs of weakness. Not here, not until he knew more.

Several hours passed before a man in a lab coat entered the cell. "Welcome to Project Domino," he told Walter in a thick German accent. "I know right now you're likely feeling a little out of sorts, but we'll fix that right up. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Dr. Jonas Altermann. When we had the opportunity to recruit you, the famous, or should I say infamous, Scorpion, we jumped at the chance. Everyone on Project Domino agreed unanimously that we would offer you a position on our research team, even after we learned that you were so young. Now, looking at you, you seem even younger than I had imagined, but your intellect is simply too infinite to ignore." Walter still didn't speak, he barely reacted to Altermann's words, but he carried on as if he didn't even notice Walter's silence. "We are familiar with your work, young Mr. O'Brien, you have many fans among the scientists. And a 197 IQ? We didn't even know it was possible! And in someone so young! Our lead scientist is a 152 and he talks circles around most of us. We are thrilled to have you join us. Are you ready for the tour of the lab or would you like to visit the cafeteria first and get some lunch?"

Walter spoke for the first time. "Lunch, please." He wanted the opportunity to see more of the facility where he most definitely was a prisoner, despite Altermann's assurances. Plus, Walter was weak with hunger. It had to be more than a day since he had last eaten. He needed his strength so he could be ready for any opportunity to escape this place.

Walter followed Altermann to the cafeteria, carefully memorizing the route they took and noting every door that they passed on their way. They encountered several men and women along the way, some wearing military uniforms, but most, like his guide, wore lab coats. A few spoke to Dr. Altermann in voices too low for Walter to overhear, but most simply gawked as Walter passed. He heard a variety of accents in the voices of the people who spoke to his guide, but the most common ones were of Eastern European origin. This might be a US military installation, but he doubted very much he was on US soil.

His arrival at the compound was creating quite a stir. Walter hated the attention. He felt like a zoo animal. He resolved to keep his gaze straight ahead and ignore any reaction from passersby. As they arrived at the crowded cafeteria, his talkative guide offered Walter a sandwich and soup, which Walter stoically accepted. He led Walter to a blessedly empty table, but Walter still heard the whispers as he sat down. He was definitely on display. He knew he was young and he knew he was leaps and bounds more intelligent than most everyone here and they all knew it. Walter refused to touch any of the food in front of him until the Altermann took a bite of each dish first. Walter had already been drugged once today, he had no interest in a second time.

Dr. Altermann was surprised by Walter's suspicious behavior, but he willingly accommodated the young man. "We wouldn't drug you, you're a colleague."

"Prisoner, more like," Walter muttered, he didn't trust the man or anyone in this place. "Sorry, how did I get here?"

Altermann hesitated a bit. "Well, yes, that was the military, they brought you in. But that's not us. That's not what we discussed when we decided to offer you the position. We're so happy you're here and you've joined us."

Walter's fear was gone, now he was angry. "I never consented to any of this!"

"No?" Altermann asked, genuinely confused. "That makes no sense. That's not what we were told. Must be some kind of misunderstanding." Altermann smiled at him as if he were Walter's oldest friend. "You know how the military is, always messing things up." Walter knew that voicing any further concerns would only land on deaf ears, so he decided not to argue with the man any further for now. Instead, he turned his attention to learning everything he could about the facility he was being held in and the projects being worked on within.

After Walter finished his lunch, the pair walked through a maze of corridors that Walter swiftly memorized. Taking turn after turn, until Walter was sure it was meant to be disorienting and confusing to the average human. Fortunately, he was anything but. Finally, they reached the Project Domino lab.

It was kind of dingy and rundown. Not at all what Walter was expecting for a top-secret project that he had just been kidnapped by the US military to work on. The lab furnishings consisted mostly of shabby desks and dilapidated chairs. There were a few old desktops and whiteboards and piles and piles of giant looseleaf binders. A few scientists were seated at a conference table at the back of the lab, having an animated discussion. They stopped speaking abruptly when they noticed Walter and Altermann standing outside the lab.

Noticing Walter's assessment of the facilities, Altermann appeared a bit embarrassed. "We're mostly a theoretical project, hence the lack of state-of-the-art equipment. Our most important assets in this lab are our minds!"

Walter wrinkled his nose. "Sorry, I had better equipment than this at school. This is really the best your government has to offer for my level of intelligence?"

Altermann ignored Walter's sarcastic remark. "We are hopeful that with you on the team we may be able to move into an experimental phase. And with that comes funding, prestige, and better labs."

Walter started to push past him, curious to enter the lab and see what filled those binders as well as move away from the prying eyes of every passerby in the hallway. But Altermann stopped him from walking through the open door into the lab. "From what you've told me, your arrival here may not have been completely voluntary." Walter opened his mouth to argue that it had been completely involuntary. Altermann held up a hand to cut off Walter's argument. "Given those possible circumstances, the one thing that you need to understand, Mr O'Brien, is that once you've seen this, you can't unsee it. You will have information in your brain that every government and any number of private actors on this earth would kill for."

Walter felt the fear creeping back into his mind. What were they doing here?

"Once you know what Project Domino is, you will be a part of it, you can never go back."

"And if I refuse?" Walter challenged.

"I'm not sure," Altermann admitted nervously, surprised by such overt hostility from a child in an unfamiliar environment, "but I don't think you would enjoy the consequence of that choice."

Walter steeled himself. Logic dictated that he leave and never learn anything about Project Domino. The US government couldn't force him to work on this project, could they? He was a citizen of a sovereign nation. He had rights. He knew that his refusal would bring more time in the not-so-tender mercies of the soldiers who had brought him here, but he would have to be returned home to Callan at some point. That seemed like the most prudent course.

But Walter was so curious about what these scientists were studying, what information was so valuable, what the US government was so desperate to develop that they had, for all intents and purposes, kidnapped a child.

His next thought was to wonder how far he could move this project forward with his superior intellect. Walter held no delusions about himself, he was eleven and already an egomaniac. He was vastly more intelligent than every adult he had ever met, including Altermann, and had no doubt that it would be no different with the rest of the scientists on the project. The man he had been speaking to all afternoon had an IQ of 131 at best. Walter knew there was only one choice he was ever going to make, despite his promise to Megan. "I'd like to see Project Domino." Walter told Altermann.

"Perfect," Altermann beamed, "But first let's get you a change of clothes and proper quarters. As long as we are working on Domino we don't leave this compound. I haven't left in two years."

Walter nodded and followed his guide down a hallway he hadn't seen before to a comfortably furnished room. It contained a bed, dresser, shelves, chair, and lamp, and behind a second door were the bathing facilities.

"No outside communication, but other than that all the comforts of home." Altermann gestured toward the dresser, then turned around as Walter slipped into a pair of black pants and socks and a blue button-down shirt that he found in the drawers. Loafers were peeking out from under the bed, and a lab coat hanging on a hook by the door finished his ensemble. Walter was now dressed identically to the man who had been showing him around the facility.

"Every square foot of this facility is monitored 24 hours a day, you can't make a move without being seen." Walter glanced up at an obvious camera near the ceiling. He wondered how many cameras there were that he couldn't easily see. They returned to the Domino lab and Altermann handed Walter a binder from the top of the nearest desk.

Walter opened it and rapidly flipped through a number of the pages, absorbing the information at a phenomenal rate. What he read was unbelievable even to him. Whoever had written the notes had postulated that the ability to penetrate the so-called 'membrane' between alternate realities was possible when two of the realities, for reasons unknown, became linked and developed soft spots between them. The author continued with the hypothesis that this had occurred between our reality and a neighboring one. The two sides were connected and Domino's mandate was to find ways to monitor those living on the Other Side, as well as ways to send people from our side over to the other.

Dr. Altermann watched in amazement at how quickly Walter read and internalized the information in the binder. When Walter looked up, Altermann saw the question in his eyes. It was difficult to remember he was still a child. There was so much intelligence there. "The best defense is a good offense and all that. This entire compound is devoted to preparing for the coming war with the Other Side." Walter still didn't get it, so Altermann continued. "I mean, what other outcome is probable? Humanity, whether from this reality or another, is programmed to attack anyone who is 'other' at the most basic genetic level."

Walter was both disgusted and intrigued. He had never even considered such an idea was even possible. His body was tingling with excitement. He was no longer interested in formulating an escape. He was repelled by the weaponization tactics that the military was undertaking with the information, but who cared? He was going to learn how to move between realities!

Several months passed and Walter and his team moved the research from purely theoretical to actually viewing the Other Side. Young Walter had become the de facto leader of his group of scientists, much to the amazement of the military personnel who oversaw the work. The scientists understood exactly what had happened, Walter O'Brien was a natural leader, in addition to being more intelligent by far than anyone else on the team. The scientists had balked at first, ignoring Walter's suggestions and comments, but they learned quickly enough to pay attention to his formidable intelligence. Whenever Walter spoke, he knew what he was talking about. It had taken some time, but the team had adapted to their prepubescent leader if not with enthusiasm, then with resignation. When they listened to Walter, the team saw results and everyone on the team wanted that. Walter's team had successfully built a working prototype of a device that could see into the alternate universe. They called it PARADOX, Portal Accessing Reality Across Diverse Observational X-Dimension This development pushed the project further forward than anyone had dared to hope before Walter's arrival.

Once PARADOX was functional and the team could view the Other Side, Walter had supervised the hiring of an eminent biochemist, Nadine Nguyen, entirely of her own free will, whose IQ was the closest rival his own of anyone on either team, at 178. Dr. Nguyen was leading her own team in developing a drug to use on the military test subjects who had been recruited to be part of the human trials.

The drug she had developed was a way to alter human consciousness to allow the scientists to send that consciousness to the doppelgänger of the soldier on the Other Side. The hope was to integrate the traveling consciousness with the host consciousness and control them with the soldier on the Other Side being none the wiser.

PARADOX was working and the military staff embedded in Walter's team were starting to be able to monitor the Other Side's government, while the scientists continued their work to understand how the two universes were connected and why they became linked in the first place. The inhabitants of the Other Side seemed to be aware of the soft spots in the universe as well, but their progress in understanding what it meant was much slower. That was very good news for Walter's team.

Much to Walter's consternation, it did not appear that the alternate Walter O'Brien was working on the project on the Other Side. This fact thrilled the military to no end. They were winning the war before it had even begun.

Walter didn't enjoy the time he was required to spend at PARADOX calibrating the display and leveling power spikes so the military officers could watch the movements on the Other Side. All the soldiers cared about was the imminent invasion and finding the 'enemy's' weaknesses. Walter found studying the membrane's soft spots and even hypothesizing why these two particular realities were connected was of much greater interest to him.

The drug trials were moving along a great deal more promisingly. It took the drug from 6-12 weeks from the final course of treatment for the effects to fully develop. The mind-altering chemicals were bringing out latent psychic abilities among some of the soldiers. Pyrokinesis, extrasensory perception, precognition, and telekinesis were among the most commonly developed abilities.

The lab was in an uproar for days when a member of Dr. Nguyen's team injected a soldier who began to see the people from the Other Side who lived in the alternate universe version of their barracks. Both Walter's and Dr. Nguyen's teams jumped in to learn what was different about this man from the others in the trial as quickly as possible.

It was Altermann, of all people, who discovered that the difference was that the soldier had a genius-level IQ. More genius soldiers were recruited into the program. Soon enough, they too were able to see people from the Other Side. At that point, General Kubica, the four-star general overseeing the entire compound decided that Walter should become a test subject as well. "The military doesn't have anyone serving with an IQ anywhere near Walter's. It may take years to find another physically and mentally healthy candidate with an acceptably high IQ. It must be Walter." Kubica decided when speaking to the President's advisors. "It must be now, while our side still has the advantage of the superiority of technology and knowledge."

"Your statistically improbable high IQ may be the next step to finding out the limits of the program." General Kubica explained calmly to Walter.

"Sorry, sir, I don't like this idea one bit. I have projects of my own to oversee. How will I do that from the medical wing?" Walter resisted. He had no interest in being a test subject for this experimental drug. Even his intellectual curiosity had its limits.

"I'm, sorry Mr. O'Brien, but you have no choice in this matter." the general informed him. "Either accept your place in the drug trial or you will be placed into a Black Site military supermax prison. You will never be heard from again. Never see the light of day. Never see your family again."

General Kubica looked at the young man with pity. It was easy to forget that he was only a twelve-year-old child, but a twelve-year-old child with a mind of stunning capacity and intellect, a twelve-year-old child whose mind was filled with government projects so highly classified that he wasn't even sure if a proper designation for this level of secrecy existed before Project Domino was created.

"If you finish the project, you can be honorably discharged from Domino at its conclusion, knowing that you were a hero for the US government and a savior to your world's very existence. Though no one will ever know." His eyes bored into Walter's as if looking directly into his soul, looking for any sign of duplicity.

Walter knew what his choices were. Despite his lack of interest in being a guinea pig for a military invasion force, he reluctantly agreed.

Walter's few possessions were moved from his private dorm room to the military barracks wing of the compound. At least the fellow test subjects around him were fellow geniuses and had been given strict orders not to harass the youngest test subject. Walter lay down on his new cot, put his hands behind his head, and sighed. For the first time in months, he thought of Megan and home and wondered what she had thought of his prolonged absence. Despite Kubica's assurances, he wondered if he would ever be allowed to return to Callan. Who was going to let any of these soldiers with psychic abilities ever see the light of day again? It would be a reckless and highly illogical move.

The next morning, at 6 AM sharp, Walter received his first dose of the experimental drug. His vitals were monitored hourly and his every movement and reaction was carefully recorded by what appeared to be his own personal nurse, her eyes watchful and focused on him for the entire shift. Three nurses in rotating eight-hour shifts became his ever-present shadows for the next few weeks as higher and higher doses of the drugs were administered.

Nothing seemed to be happening to Walter, he was not developing any psychic abilities and Dr. Nguyen was stumped. "We'll just give it more time." She patted him reassuringly on his shoulder before she moved on to read the chart of the soldier in the med bay. As if he wanted to develop some supernatural ability. That really would be the final nail in the coffin of hope that he would ever be allowed to leave the compound.

Walter watched from his bed as the first members of the so-called 'genius squad' were prepared for their missions to the Other Side. Once the consciousnesses of each man crossed over and they infiltrated the target hosts, their bodies fell into a persistent vegetative state, and the men were nearly impossible to keep alive. PARADOX was brought into the medical barracks to monitor their experiences on the Other Side.

The soldiers' consciousnesses didn't integrate with the consciousness of the targets fully or stay in control of the host body. The men split into two personalities that appear to be a mix of the personality traits and memories of the two separate minds. The hosts quickly went insane and if the host body died in the alternate reality, the soldier whose consciousness was sent died almost immediately after.

Nothing about sending the genius soldiers to the Other Side was working out either as hypothesized by the scientists or hoped for by the military. "We just need to keep trying." General Kubica insisted to Dr. Nguyen. Knowing what her fate would be if she failed to follow his orders, she continued sending soldiers to the Other Side, knowing full well it was a death sentence for each one.

After six more failed attempts to cross over, the head of Project Domino in Washington, D.C. stepped in and overrode General Kubica, much to his irritation. "We are not going to continue to send men over to slaughter. We need to pull back, regroup, and start again. Shut it down. Shut it all down now. Project Domino is finished. This kind of failure is too big and too easy a security breach. Imagine the fallout on the current administration if even a hint of this got out."

Kubica knew what a failure of this magnitude would do to his career. He had planned to ride a success like this right into a successful Senate run. Now he was going to be quietly put out to pasture with no further promotions coming his way. Reluctantly he acquiesced and gave the order to decommission Project Domino.

Walter, who had never displayed any psychic abilities even after a full course of the mind-altering drug, was summarily debriefed and dumped on his family's front porch eighteen months after his disappearance.

He never spoke of the experience to anyone, not even to Megan, even though it drove her crazy. And not just because of the NDA he had been forced to sign. Walter just wanted to put the entire nightmare behind him and try to forget it ever happened.

Eventually, his time with Project Domino started to feel like a dream and Walter was able to start moving forward with his life, even to the point of working with Gallo, who had been given permission to contact him once again, on the aid drones in the Baghdad debacle and eventually moving to Los Angeles and starting his own company, Scorpion.

Author's Note:

I know I really made the US military the bad guys here. Kidnapping a child, threatening him with never seeing his family again, experimenting on him. Bad bad stuff. I don't believe this kind of thing would happen, call it artistic license. I also realize that Walter's position on the team and the fact that he becomes the ad hoc leader of the scientists is a bit of a leap of logic. Just stay with me, it's all in good fun!

The alternate universe and drug that allows the mind to expand to move between realities is an homage and reimagining of the alternate universe storyline from Fox TV's Fringe from 2008-2013. If you haven't seen it, I recommend you check it out!