So my original version of this story I didn't like. I'm still keeping in step with what I wanna cover, but I feel like I was doing it wrong. I dunno how to explain it, I just wasn't happy with it.
I'm also struggling with writing this story in limited third person perspective. Part of me just wants to write it through the first person perspective of Cole (with the possibility of switching perspectives of certain characters every so often) simply because the story of inFAMOUS was largely narrated by Cole. Having his specific view of the events in the SCP mythos with his lack of understanding I feel would be a great narrative choice. I'll repeat the same notion as before that I haven't done extensive dives into the extended lore outside of SCP documents on SCP's themselves. I've read some tales, I'm familiar with certain aspects like Dr. Wondertainment story lines and themes surrounding certain humanoid SCP's and I know very little about named researchers, agents, etc. So many many liberties will be taken. I will do research as I write, but I'm not going to worry to much about "canon" considering it almost doesn't exist.
Also, a character that I think could easily fit into SCP and it's largely unknown universe, given his own unknown origins and motivations, is going to make an appearance. Since this is the case, I will clarify, I barely ever appreciate crossovers, and I especially don't like ones that mash a fuck ton of different Franchises together. Just know that isn't happening here.
Enjoy
New York was a wasteland. The attempts at rebuilding were apparent all around. New Yorkers always prided themselves on their resilience. Being the toughest bastards around. Truth be told it was as human a trait as any to wish to survive. Everywhere else was starting to rebuild to. It was going to take one hell of a long time to do so, but people are persistent.
Almost everywhere you went looked the same, more or less. The devastation that was done in the name of curing a disease was nothing short of catastrophic. The countless lives taken, for the sake of the Common Good. That was Kessler's goal to begin with. Making me capable of making impossible decisions all for the common good. Lesser of two evils be damned, the ends justify the means. God I still hate him.
Who's Kessler? A bastard, rotting in hell. He deserves worse. I'll cover him a little later, for right now, just know he took the most important thing in my life away from me. I'd kill him again if I could.
I shook my head in an attempt to clear it, not wanting to head down that train of thought in particular. It had been a few years since I activated that damned Ray Sphere, sending the world down an unavoidable path that ended in genocide. What started in Empire City should have ended in New Marais. Of course, nothing is that simple. After all, I was the only one with the power to make the choice that would decide the fate of humanity, and both ways, I was taking countless lives against their will to save countless others. In the end, there was no right or wrong answer, there was no Greater Good or Lesser Evil. Kessler, as always, was full of shit. All I had at the end was an impossible decision, and the soul destroying consequences that followed.
Not all the buildings had completely collapsed in Uptown New York, and those that had been destroyed had some pillars standing among the rubble, stubborn, like the cities population I suppose. I was running through the city, not from anything or with a particular goal in mind, just trying to clear my head. Putting my urban exploration to use I was traversing the remains of Brooklyn, and in the distance, I saw the flattened landscape that used to be a concrete jungle known as Manhattan. I would have liked to explore that city with my powers. They had taller sky scrapers then Empire City, I could imagine the free fall from the Empire State Building. The view would have been spectacular.
My exploration was giving me a decent view of the state the rebuild was in. Very few buildings had been resurrected, but most of the city was still construction sites, and refugee camps were established in the parks and areas where rubble and debris were cleared. A lot of people were displaced, but most refused to leave the city that was their home.
I kept jumping from and climbing buildings along my path, I had no real direction. I was just checking things out, and would eventually leave in the direction of my home. That was the plan at least.
Then I felt something strange.
I was mid flight, using my static thrusters to make a gap between a pillar of rubble and a lower building that was a good distance from me, when I decided to drop to the street level. I couldn't really describe it at first. My senses had developed quite a bit since I got my powers. What started as sensing sources of electricity, like power lines, cars, lights, generators, etc etc, evolved into being able to sense other sources of energy. I could sense people, through their bio-electrical charge. Think about it like this, your brain cells communicate through electrical impulses and are active all the time, even when you're asleep. These impulses are communicated through your entire body at what I guess you would call meeting points, called synapses. With my particular abilities, I can sense living creatures and other electrical sources, through walls and from quite a ways off. I don't have an exact measurement of how far I can sense such things, the more energy stored the further way and easier it is for me to sense. I never stopped to actually record the distance. Let's just say my range has increased dramatically over the past years.
With that being said, as long as I've been able to do this I'd never felt something like this. The sensation was... strange. I've felt all kinds of things, as I've mentioned before, even the energy of people like me, which feels greatly different from your average human, but this felt unnatural. There wasn't a sense of dread or malice, just something wasn't quite right. Looking around, I noticed what I was feeling was coming from the train station near by. I scanned my environment, nobody else was around, given the ruins in this part of town that wasn't surprising. Spotting a street sign I noticed I was on 59th St and 8th Ave. Seeing nothing of note on the surface I decided to make my way over and down to the station.
The closer I got, the stronger the odd feeling became. I wasn't sure what to make of it, my instincts weren't telling me to run, but I definitely didn't feel comfortable. When I made it to the bottom I scanned the station. It hadn't been looked after, definitely abandoned. No transit staff of any kind were around, why would they be, the transit system wasn't operational for the time being. Glancing over at the monitor on the ceiling, I noticed the time was 11:58pm. Looking further over my eyes fell on what I had been sensing.
An old train.
At the very least it looked old, looked to be in good condition but it definitely didn't look modern. I'm not train expert, so I didn't know anything about what kind it was or when it was made. The train looked unremarkable, and nobody was on board. Not a single sign of life.
Except the train.
I was understandably confused. The electrical wattage for a train on a system like this was consistent with every other train I've seen, but there was a secondary source of energy, that was foreign to me, encompassing the whole thing. I stepped closer, gingerly placing my hand on the side of it... nothing. Nothing happened. No change in it's sense of weirdness or anything. Though I felt I wasn't in danger, when I considered draining the train a icy chill ran up my spine. Promptly deciding against that, I pondered how the hell this thing got here. There was rubble at the end of the tunnel where it supposedly came from.
And I didn't sense it approach the station either.
Did it just appear here? Was there some kind of new power in the world I was unaware of now, or was this some weird alien train? Maybe I had finally lost my mind like the others. After meeting Sasha, I had always wondered how long it would take before my powers plagued my mind like hers. Then their was that raving lunatic Alden, of which I hadn't seen or heard from since he took a dive off that bridge. In fact, nearly everybody I had met since I activated the Ray Sphere has been mentally deranged in one way or another.
Not important, the trains warning that it was about to depart the station around midnight brought me back to focus. This thing was strange, and I didn't want to leave it unchecked. So of course I did the stupid thing and got on board.
Upon entering I looked around, nothing further to the naked eye seemed out of place for a train. Then I felt something near the front of the train move, and I turned to face it. I caught a glimpse of someone, or something, as I heard the doors close and my vision went dark.
You would think that would have been a lead up to a cliche 'I blacked out and then woke up in a strange place' line right? Well this story isn't quite normal. I mean nothing about me is normal anymore.
I'm a conduit, think mutants from X-Men in the same regard that we evolved and were born with a gene. Instead of the 'X-Gene' we were born with the 'Conduit-Gene'. Yeah I'm aware, not very clever. Sasha, Alden, that old bastard Kessler, all had the Conduit-Gene. It gave us the ability to awaken powers. The problem was the method in which the majority of us had gained our powers. Let's just say, if you aren't a Conduit you don't want to be caught up in that process. Hell, being a Conduit, I still hear the screams.
Anyway, I'm a Conduit, and my ability involves electricity as I briefly explained before. I have ridiculous versatility in my control over electricity. I'd seen and experienced a lot of different things, but this was beyond strange or anything I could really comprehend.
If I had to put words to it, it was an out of body experience, but I wasn't sure if I was actually out of my body. Actually, it was a mix of out of body and sleep paralysis. Couldn't move, speak, hear, see, feel, or smell anything. I couldn't even taste that dank air of a dirty subway station mixed with the dust from the rubble. The only thing I could do was sense that same presence of the train, and whatever the hell that thing was on board. Which gave me the notion that I wasn't dead. Really it was hard to think. I had read before there were tests done where people were put in isolation, blind folded and had sound cancelling earmuffs put on, all the while being strapped to a bed. The sensory deprivation and lack of control over their body made them grow exponentially uncomfortable and reaching extreme duress in a manner of seconds or minutes. I can't remember. I wonder if this is what they were feeling because my mind was basically in shambles.
I had the idea to try and use my powers, hoping it would help break whatever this grip on my state of being was. Grip wasn't really the right word, but I could feel that same strange energy I had felt coming from the train wrapped around me. As I was trying to break free, it spoke to me.
"Cole MacGrath, in the flessh. Well... huuuu not sso much at the moment. " The disembodied, voice set off alarm bells. Seeing as I had no physical senses to perceive this thing, I was assuming it was in my head, but I wasn't entirely sure.
"I took the liberty of hu hu... relaxing. Youu assss to avoid unnecessary damage due to unavoidable hostility this effect will not lasthuu forever." Whatever it was, it speaks in a slow, raspy yet commanding manner, with a certain accentuated low-key moroseness to its tone, sometimes placing unusual stress on syllables, stressing the wrong parts of words, making unneeded pauses, inhaling sharply and audibly throughout its speech, and awkwardly changing the pitch of its voice, sometimes in the middle of a word. Sometimes it would abandon punctuation all together. The thing paused for a moment before a flash of green light appeared.
When it dissipated, I found myself standing on top of a ruined multistory car park. I recognized the area in front of me immediately. Being unable to move, all I could see below me was the area where I had activated the Ray Sphere in Empire City. A massive crater where I had been standing. The crater was a conglomerate of cars, concrete, street lights, re-bar, chunks of destroyed buildings, and various other objects and structural parts that were fused together. The buildings in the surrounding area were mostly rubble or broken husks, and in the centre of the crater was an elevated piece of concrete, like a pedestal or shrine. The centre of the blast that was caused by the Ray Sphere.
Where I was standing when I activated it, and where I had woken up post blast. There was somebody standing there. I couldn't crane my head in his direction, but it looked like he was wearing a blue suit, and he was holding a... briefcase? Suddenly, I could see a transparent face floating... no, it was more like when you stare directly into a light or the sun and you have those floating orbs in your vision, only it was a 'man's' head.
"You've managed to survive a... harrowing that would break lesser men in fact most Conduits as you have called yourselves, would not have survived huuuuaaah the trials you have endured." Images of the events that transpired after I had obtained my powers flashed before my eyes. It was as if though everything had been recorded and played on a movie screen for all to see. "It is no small feat to destroy the opposition as you have." Another flash, and now I was floating in the middle of the crater, a few feet off the ground. I was behind the man standing on the centre pedestal of the crater, facing away from me, yet what had to have been his transparent face was still visible, though it was more clear.
He had black-grey hair styled in a military flat top style from the 1960's. His face was some what wrinkled, and gaunt, appearing to be in his late 40's early 50's. His eyes made me unease, they were a silvery-blue that seemed to glow. He looked like he was staring into my very being. The fact that he knew my name and was showing me my past wasn't doing anything to help alleviate my new found terror. What the hell was this thing?
"Especially considering who they really were." His statement made me switch focus from his face to what I was actually seeing in front of me. Looking past his form on the elevated concrete, I saw the image of myself standing over the broken body of Kessler, right in front of me, locked in stasis. Another flash, and we were in New Marais, standing on a rooftop. In front of me, towering over all the buildings was a titan, made of molten rock and magma. It's body had gaps in the rock where the magma would glow, looking a lot like scarring. The eyes... those damned redish-orange eyes. They looked as if they were looking right at me.
The man in the blue suit slowly stepped into my field of view, while studying the monster in front of us. I noticed that he wasn't actually standing on anything, but was actually walking across air. I still couldn't move or say anything, so I waited. He then turned to me with a small unnerving smile, and began to speak again.
"Nasssty piece of work you managed with this one. You had accomplished so much in a small time not to mention your choice to board the train I wasn't sure that you were going to but I'm glad you did. That's why I'm here Mr. MacGrath. In light of your exploits I have recommended your services to my e-e-e-e-employers Huu and they have authorized me to offer you a job They agree with me that you have limitlesssssss potential." He stopped again and another flash appeared.
Now I was back in the void, only I could hear a train running next to me. Streaks of light were whipping past me on the edges of... my vision? I wasn't sure how any of this was happening and it was getting to be more and more disorienting with all the jumps we had done. My vision then shifted to my right.
I could see my body on the train. I was just standing there, facing away from where my current perception was. My brown backpack, carrying my amp weapon, along with my yellow and black jacket, black fingerless gloves, black cargo pants, and my dark grey runners. I took a moment to realize how long I had let my hair grow, my beard probably looking just as haggard and greasy.
I was standing fully upright, facing the doors. I tried yelling, and I could hear my body let out a weak noise. I tried drawing on my powers again, a yellow spark here and there could be seen, but it was almost like I was being suppressed. I was going to try again but then the man, if he could even really be called that, came through one of the doors connecting to another train car. His gaze was almost immediately on me as he approached my body. He walked right up to it, or me, and placed his hand on my shoulder. My consciousness propelled forward and slammed into my body.
I felt heavy at first, falling to my knees as I felt my body sort of turn back on. The heaviness was like I was covered head to toe in concrete. I was desperately sucking in air, as if I hadn't been breathing this entire time and my body was about to asphyxiate. The feeling was fading quickly however, and my powers had returned to me. I tested it out and the continuous crackling of yellowish-gold electricity around the length of my arms and hands was a relief. The man standing in front of me, smiling the whole time. I readied myself to fight him, my flight or fight was in overdrive and I had no where to go. In truth this thing terrified me, but I was ready to fight if necessary.
"I don't think you are quite capable of that Mr. MacGrath I will however give you a choice in the matter if you'd like to exorcisssse some free will." He gestured with his hand to the door next to me, and they slid open to reveal the abyss. I turned back to my abductor, and waited to see what his next move was.
"If you are interested in working with us, then step through the doors and I'll take that as a yesss. Otherwise, well..." he swallowed heavily, sounding like he was holding down something that wanted out. "...I can offer you a battle you have no chance of winning. Rather an anti-climax after what you've survived." He seemed almost menacing when he delivered that last line. I knew, by the way he had controlled this entire interaction with ease, and just his alien nature, that he was not bluffing. "You have proven yourself a decissssive man sso I doubt you'll have any trouble deciding."
Without a second thought, wanting to get away from this thing, I walked out into that abyss and all sound and sense left me again.
"Wisely done, Mr. MacGrath. I will see you up ahead."
I don't know how long I was in that senseless state for after stepping off that train, maybe a second, an hour, it could have been years and I wouldn't have known. No sense of time in that state, no senses at all. Just as I thought that I may never leave that place, I came to, and I was falling out of the train.
I unceremoniously landed on my ass, despite having the reflexes and athleticism to do otherwise. Whatever was on that train I could no longer sense, but the train itself still had that strange feeling of not belonging it had before I boarded it. Looking back at it however, I saw nothing. It was the same as it was when I had first saw it. Nobody and nothing on board, just the old train. I briefly was lost in thought, trying to calm my nerves after flying into a panic over not knowing what the hell I had just experienced, what even was expected of me. Despite being able to think more clearly my thoughts were scattered, and I was so focused on trying to gather them that I didn't notice the only other person in the station approach me.
"Excuse me sir. Are you alright?" I nearly jumped out of my skin. The guys British accent, and smoother voice startled me. I turned to my left and saw an East Indian man, looked to be in his mid 30's, standing there in a transit security outfit. I took a deep breath, making more of an effort in calming my nerves, and stood up. I kept an eye on the man as I did so. He looked perplexed, and wary. He had his hand on a walkie-talkie that was on his belt, and I noticed a taser. Now as far as I remember, they aren't allowed to carry weapons like that. Maybe pepper spray, but a taser or a gun?
I struggled to find the words to use. I was damn sure he wouldn't believe what just happened. Not to mention, I didn't want to draw any unwanted attention to myself. I mean, any more then I could with what I had strapped to my back.
"Yeah, I just... wait." I had caught a glimpse in the corner of my eye that the time on the monitor in the station read 11:58pm. My heart stopped briefly and my breath hitched. I looked around, noticing that the station I was in wasn't destroyed or otherwise damaged. It was just a typical New York subway station. I looked over at the sign depicting what station I was currently standing in.
59th St and 8th Avenue.
I quickly moved back towards the train. The man behind me nearly yelling at me not to get back on. I didn't really want to anyways. I stopped when I noticed there wasn't any rubble at the end of the track where the train had come from, unlike when I had first come into the station and wondered how the train got there. I turned my head back towards the mysterious metal box. My hands balled up into fists, frustrated at the implications of what had just happened. If I got back on, would I go back? Or would I just go somewhere else in time and space. Would that thing kill just kill me?
Not that I knew for sure the true nature of my predicament or the nature of what this train does, but this was all starting to urge me back on when suddenly the other occupant of the station put his hand on my shoulder.
"Sir please, you need to come with me. This train isn't safe to board at the moment. Maintenance was-" I cut the man off as I shrugged off his hand.
"Will you shut up. I'm trying to figure out how this thing got me here." There was no need to play dumb. I could tell by the way he had warned me not to get back on and the fact that he was carrying a weapon that wasn't legal for somebody of his occupation to carry, that he knew something about this damned train.
The man sighed, removing his one hand from the taser and lifting the radio with his other. The device crackled on and he spoke into it.
"We have another passenger. Requesting pick up for debrief." Another passenger? Debrief? I paused in my ruminating of the train, seeing that it was midnight once more and the warning that it was leaving the station had sounded again. I briefly considered hopping back on, despite the anxiety of being at the mercy of some inter-dimensional time lord with the power to probably murder me with a snap of his fingers.
I watched as the doors slid shut, and the low hum of the train picked up as it began to accelerate down the tunnel. Almost immediately after the back end of the train disappeared beyond the wall at the end of the platform, it's presence disappeared.
"What the fuck was that?" I was more speaking to myself then the guy next to me. He responded regardless.
"I can't say much, but you've just disembarked the time travelling train my friend." The man gave a small smile. He was trying to comfort me, but nothing about that experience was comfortable. Not to mention I hated the idea that I had just time travelled. Which way did I go, forward or back?
I was going to ask, but my eyes fell on a poster for a local band playing at some venue near by. The date for the event said March 15th. Of course it didn't tell me what year it was, but it gave me a clue that I was in the wrong season. I boarded that train in June.
It was strange, considering I didn't recognize the group, although they could have just been locals. Either way, I started making my way up towards the stairs. The other guy wasn't too keen on that course of action.
"Hold a minute there sir. We have to assess your particular situation. I don't think I need to explain what can happen if you have travelled back in time rather then forward." The guy tried to move in front of me, but I placed my hand firmly against his shoulder and twisted the collar of his jacket to push him aside. He tried to resist, looked like he was going to imply some kind of hold, but my superior strength won that particular encounter. Something that he didn't let go unnoticed. "What the hell. God damn-"
"I don't think you quite understand, I need to see the state of the city. If I've travelled backwards I'll be careful." I was inches from his face. He reached for his weapon and walkie-talkie, but I gave him a swift head-butt that knocked him out cold. Gently, I placed him against the wall, deciding I had no time to make him any more secure considering he had radioed in that a passenger had arrived. Clearly there was a protocol to be followed.
Which probably means more clandestine government agents or organizations running around causing more problems than they fix.
I climbed the station staircase and when I hit the top I was greeted by the sight of a lively city that only moments ago, for me anyway, was a rotted corpse. When I had decided to head to the surface I had already known I'd see the city a live and well. It still wasn't easy to digest. Not to many people by here this late at night, but still, you could see no sign of the destruction that reached out to the horizon. I decided to get a better vantage point when I noticed the 'unassuming' group of 4 guys approaching from an SUV across the street.
I turned my back to them and hastily made my way down an alley. When I was out of sight I started ducking in and out of alleys in no particular pattern, as I put a considerable distance between me and that station. After a good few blocks I was certain that I'd have the time to climb a taller building to survey the city without being noticed. About half way up, I noticed probably 4 different guys from before, were actually not far from me. I briefly wondered how many sleeper agents they had roaming around for situations like this. Could be a problem, but one I had decided to deal with later. First things first. What's the landscape looking like, and what year is it?
It didn't take long for me to reach the top. Dragging my time travelling ass up onto that roof, I dusted myself off as I walked across to the other side facing the city. Staring out over the landscape, I could see that absolutely nothing had been touched by the Beast. It was like somebody had hit a reset button and undid all of the devastation. The building I was on was high enough for me to look over the water towards the Island of Manhattan.
There it stood, untouched and unblemished. The city that never sleeps. There was this dark feeling deep within that I refused to acknowledge as I stared at what moments ago for me was essentially ruins.
When I had fill of gawking at the resurrected world, I started to jump from building to building, keeping as high up and as out of sight as possible. I continued my traversal of Brooklyn rooftops until I was sure I was clear of any unwanted stalkers and landed quietly on the streets below. I only planned to look for any sign of what year it was near the local business in the area, trying to find a news paper vending machine.
I came across one in front of a coffee shop and thankfully it had a display paper at the front of it. I didn't find anything particularly interesting about the headline or any side column that was visible, and looked for the date. When I found it, my blood ran ice cold, and a damned jagged piece of glass felt like it was lodged in my throat. I had activated the Ray Sphere in August of 2011, my powers were activated and I fought through Empire City, taking down The Reapers, Trash Men and The First Sons, along with their leaders, for a few months to get it back under control. Two weeks later I ended up in New Marais and I was there for maybe another 2 weeks before I finally had to decide the fate of the world. When I boarded that train, it was 2014. Years had gone by and the world was still rebuilding. Needless to say I couldn't believe it. This shouldn't have been possible.
I took off into a run and got up as high as possible to stay out of sight while making my way North West towards Empire City.
The paper read February 19th 2012.