The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 11

For someone who didn’t need to sleep, you’d think my ability to patiently wait for things would’ve gotten a nice boost, especially given recent events.

The problem was, it was one thing to wait when you were doing so on your own direction and initiative, it was a different ballgame when you were waiting on someone else.

Using ‘15 to lean on, I stood on the sidewalk of the department store, staring at the still merrily burning car in the distance. It was rather fascinating to watch and way more interesting than trying to talk to Alabaster, still trapped by the grip and weight of my thralls. The villain still occasionally tried to free himself, testing if any of his mastered gang members were losing their grip on him. It was pointless though, as I had reorganized them so that it wouldn’t need near constant exertion of strength on their part.

I had at first given thought to trying to extinguish the flames. A simple misting into the department store would let me find some fire extinguishers, but by that point the car was a complete write-off and there was nothing nearby that would catch fire. So I let go of the notion to try.

The burning car gave off such strange sounds on occasion. Far from the portrayal in countless movies and shows, it did not blow up in a spectacular fireball at any point. The point where the fuel tank was breached, at best delivered a thump and sudden growth in the flames. It was like a fountain of new flame surged out and climbed a few feet higher in the air, but that was it.

Alabaster, seeing that physical force wasn’t working, next tried to use words to attack and distract me, probably thinking that it would perhaps make my control slip on his gang members. Threatening me with the entire roster of E88 coming after me and that I would now be on their ‘shitlist’. Then he began to throw slurs on the level that I felt I needed to ask Henry if he could whip up some Foundation style amnestics for me.

Of course that triggered my thralls and they began to promptly deliver another round of beatings to the villain, to the point where he reset again.

“Enough!” I snarled.

My thralls stopped immediately.

“No, go ahead,” Alabaster argued with a vicious tone. “Be the race traitor, bitch. Bet you even spread those legs for…”

I pulled him into my mind web before he could finish.

He naturally reset after a few seconds and began to laugh.

“Your little trick…”

I mastered him again.

He reset.

“It…”

Mastered.

So I continued, keeping him from uttering more than a word before I shut him up. It ended up becoming a strange sort of battle. He was testing my patience and I endured it, keeping him at one point from even uttering full words.

“Bi-”... “Cu-” … “F-”

By my phone’s clock it was almost a full eleven minutes of this, before I suddenly heard then saw the famous custom motorcycle Armsmaster used to get around town. The hero himself, with his blue power armor looking somehow even more resplendent and powerful in the overhead street lighting, gunned the throttle to surge into the parking lot with a speed that belonged in the racetrack. Yet he stopped a mere ten feet away on a near dime, shedding his velocity and momentum in a way that clearly showed Tinkertech bullshit was going on.

“Greetings Escort, please step away at least five feet from Alabaster,” he half-requested, half-ordered. The reason for this was a cylindrical grenade, that was already in his right hand and he was readying to throw.

I misted to eight feet away and Armsmaster let fly with the grenade using a simple underhand throw.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, I hate this stuff,” grumbled Alabaster.

The grenade burst with a loud thump at the foot of the nearest ganger. The containment foam was a loamy off-white substance that at first had the consistency and viscosity of a liquid, then rapidly just seemed to blossom in a volume that seemed almost impossible. In less than four seconds it had done its job, completely engulfing all the E88 members in the tight clump I was holding them.

I gave it another few seconds just in case, then walked forward again, unable to contain my curiosity.

My finger poked into the foam, which now had a more rubbery feeling, yet it was oddly permeable as well. I could now also see it settling into a multitude of tiny hexagonal shapes, which was only visible because I was so close.

The thumping of heavy armored footsteps drew me out of my examination. Armsmaster’s mouth, visible under his visor, was turned into a friendly, polite smile. “Ah, hello Armsmaster, thanks for coming so quickly.”

“It’s no problem, Escort. Thank you for stepping in. Given what I can see happened here, I’ll make sure the owners are notified that it was your initiative that saved their business.”

“Uh, sure, thanks,” I said slightly awkwardly, feeling my nudity acutely again. Perhaps because of all the cameras and sensors that were festooned within that armor.

“I’ll ask you to please remove any master effects from the perpetrators at this point, so they can be taken in fully understanding of the situation and be read their rights when the PRT van arrives.”

“Oh, of course, that makes sense,” I focused and pushed away all the minds in my web. “Done.”

“Would you feel comfortable answering some questions about the events?”

“Is this for my formal statement?” I asked curiously.

“Correct. After you consent, my armor will record the vocal component of our conversation only, in respect for your privacy.”

Well, given what I had already done in my time as a working girl, embarrassment was something that should’ve been in the past, but all of that had been in my control and on my own terms. I would’ve had no control over the image of my nude body if it went into the Protectorate and PRT database systems.

“Thank you. I consent.”

He nodded, “Recording. Please, in your own words describe the crime and your actions.”

It didn’t take long as there wasn’t much to it.

He did have a few pointed questions about my mastering Alabaster.

“So you were able to affect him?”

“Only for a few seconds at a time, but it was enough to totally disrupt his usual fighting routine. His guns are over there, I had to pick them up though, after I ordered him to disarm.”

“His fingerprints are on file. Do you wish yours to enter our system?”

It wasn’t like I could wear gloves.

“If I said no?”

“Then I would walk over to them and spray the guns with a dissolvent right now,” Armsmaster said instantly.

“I thought law enforcement always loved it when they get freebies like that.”

“You’ll find that the Protectorate is a different beast when it comes to enforcement, Escort. We have to occasionally operate in concert with villains and similar groups during S and A class operations. If it is known that we use any opportunity to break through their masked identities, then we’d see participation in crisis points drop to unacceptable levels. This same courtesy is naturally extended to Independents such as yourself.”

That was somewhat good to know but I didn’t know how much of a difference it’d make in my case anyway. Despite my hair shielding my face, my body wasn’t that much different yet from what I was in the hospital. It was all but certain Armsmaster had only needed one look at me, with no fancy software required, to know who I truly was.

“No fingerprints, please.”

He nodded and walked over to the two pistols lying on the sidewalk. He extended his left hand and from the armored ring finger a small sprayer seemed to mechanically sprout. A hissing heralded a transparent liquid dowsing and misting over the pistols. He turned them around and repeated the process.

“It is known Alabaster has no attachment to his pistols, they’re illegals with no serials or identifying features. It might be that we can link recent murders or shootings to these weapons via their barrel striations, but he is already on the hook for many crimes.”

I nodded in understanding, it was enough then to simply determine Alabaster was responsible for any recent crimes. There was enough proof that would put him away for a long time already.

The revving and clattering of high capacity diesel engines reached my ears and coming into view from the street, an armored PRT van with reinforced, shielded tires turned into the parking lot. Following behind them by a few seconds was a typical red fire truck from the local BBFD.

The truck immediately turned towards the still burning car and parked a safe distance away, before five firemen jumped out and immediately began a well drilled routine of getting their equipment set up and ready to douse the flaming car.

Armsmaster waved over the PRT van, which came to a stop a mere ten feet away.

A squad of six troopers streamed out the back, with a seventh emerging from the passenger side of the forward doors.

PRT troopers had a rather unnerving presence to them. Their helmets combined with a fully opaque face shield completely hid the face of the trooper. Their body armor almost gave them the look of a modern knight, with composite armor and kevlar, overlaid with tactical rigs over their chest and upper legs. Everything was coloured in a midnight black and the only color was the various trooper’s surnames stenciled on their chest and ‘PRT’ on their backs.

PRT troopers main weapon was a rifle version of a containment foam projector, though they did carry pistols on their hips as well. They were also known to carry high power assault rifles using 7.62 caliber, but those would only come out when circumstances required.

“Lieutenant, dissolving agent, bag them all, standard MS evaluation procedure,” Armsmaster ordered.

The PRT trooper in charge of the squad nodded and with a brief salute, turned to direct his men with gestures. I also could vaguely hear that they all had active radios for communication, with little to no residual sound escaping from behind their face masks. From a distance it almost looked like they were all using telepathy.

I had to also give them points for professionalism in that none of them visibly reacted to me whatsoever, but they couldn’t hide their auras. Of the seven, by the time they had set up to begin pulling out the gang members from the foam, five were sporting hidden erections behind the groin shields they were wearing. The two who didn’t were the senior trooper due to his marriage and the last batted for the other team.

They began at one end, using another foam projector, but instead of shooting foam it fired a seemingly clear liquid. My true sight showed it was definitely not water, but an extremely complex material that was embedded in the fluid and basically acted as a molecular key of sorts.

It was no wonder that no villain tinker had yet succeeded in cracking this secret.

The first gang member was completely disoriented and before he could even think of putting up a fight or bolting, he was already in cuffs with a black bag over his head. Two troopers helped the guy to his feet, whilst another began reading the man’s rights to him.

“Is the bag part of MS procedure?” I asked curiously. Armsmaster might’ve tried to hide it via jargon speak, but it was pretty obvious what the acronym stood for.

“Yes, any number of master effects propagate via sight. For safety sake, we wish to evaluate these individuals for any residual effects that your ability might have on them.”

“Yes, I suppose slowly building up a mastered army for myself would be problematic,” I said airly with a shade of sarcasm.

Armsmaster twitched his head to face me in a flash and I spotted his aura becoming very alarmed and paranoid. Just as quickly, the emotion vanished, replaced by relief and… was that a tinge of self-flagellation? It was no coincidence that I also saw his helmet HUD visibly blinking and change at this moment.

“Ah, yes,” he coughed awkwardly. “The Protectorate would prefer you not do that, Escort.”

Did he seriously have some sort of social assistance program running on his local systems?

“Are you sure? Just think, I could have them all marching themselves straight into prison,” I teased. Oh my gosh!… Did I just say that? To Armsmaster? It just… felt nice, and was too good an opportunity to pass up.

“While I appreciate the efficiency of that idea, Escort. I think the local criminal justice system would literally break from the strain.”

When the time came to release Alabaster from the foam, four of the troopers came forward and grabbed each of the villain’s limbs the instant they could. It was just as well, because the bleach white skinned villain immediately began thrashing and making things extra hard for the troopers. They eventually had the E88 villain in a hogtie cuff setup, black bag over his head and bodily carrying him back to the armored van.

The fire department in the meantime had the burning car under control and were steadily throwing petrol burning retardant foam from their hoses.

“Well, this has been interesting to watch, Armsmaster. Do you need anything further from me?” I asked. Mostly because I was starting to see and sense an occasional appreciative glance from the firemen. I didn’t want to distract them from doing their jobs and doing something wrong whilst working with a burning car.

“If you’d be amenable to a meeting at some point, the results of the Master Stranger screenings might interest you.”

It didn’t really, I could see what my power did. It was at this point that I realized Armsmaster would learn a lot by my reaction to his offer.

“I know what I can do, Armsmaster. That being said, I’d be interested if your technology or methods might reveal something new. I’ve recently learned that one must always… keep an open mind.”

“Very well. I will leave you a DM on PHO…”

The Void yawned open.

I tried to contain my flinch with every fiber of my being and was only partially successful.

In the next instant the loudest popping sound I’d ever heard assaulted the ears of everyone in the parking lot. I felt a sudden wind across my skin and even a slight overpressure.

Then I heard the sound of a train.

I whirled my head towards the main street and Armsmaster, thinking we were under attack already had his halberd deployed and in hand, turned towards the characteristic hissing and chugging of a steam locomotive… where none should be.

My eyes blinked extra hard as I witnessed the visage of an actual steam locomotive, with nine cars attached to its rear, slowly coming to a stop with a grinding of steel wheels on track and air breaking.

This naturally should’ve been impossible, as there were no train tracks anywhere near, yet this old train moved as if it was still on tracks.

And this train was indeed old. In fact, it looked as if it shouldn’t be working at all. It bore signs of extreme neglect; rust, flaking paint on its cars, missing and cracked windows in its passenger cars. At first I thought the locomotive was just orange or copper, but it was just a mass of fine rust that perfectly coated the surfaces.

Steam was emerging not only from its exhaust stack but also from multiple gaps and gashes along the main body of the locomotive. It really didn’t look like it should be capable of doing anything but sitting somewhere in a scrapyard and rusting.

The cars attached to the train also didn’t make sense.

Usually trains had defined singular roles, ferrying passengers or cargo, yet this one seemed to be a dizzying collage of purpose. There were two passenger cars, two open cargo haulers for coal, and the rest were enclosed cargo cars, one of which looked completely modern with air conditioners on the roof, clearly designed for perishable storage.

The entire train registered to my senses as a dizzying active Anomaly.

It was also radiating out something over a 650 feet area from itself, that had an odd blue color to it.

Armsmaster flinched and I heard his helmet give an audible warning beep and a sound that no one wanted to hear.

The crackling of a Geiger counter.

“Lieutenant, hazmat condition one, evacuate now!” Armsmaster snapped.

“Sir, there’s still three trapped in the containment foam,” the PRT squad leader pointed out.

“I will take care of that, my armor is rated to survive in this environment, yours isn’t, move.”

Armsmaster rushed towards the stupefied firemen, who were still gaping at the impossible train.

I now had to worry about myself.

I misted and zoomed away from what had to be a new SCP, reappearing at the edge of the affected zone, down the street, so I still had a sightline on the anomalous, radioactive train.

My true sight opened fully and tried to parse everything about it. If I didn’t, Brockton Bay could be losing one of its most effective heroes tonight.

A minute or so later the PRT van came screaming down the road at max speed, the fire engine following a few moments later. I really hoped they knew what to do to decontaminate the people and the equipment.

I tried to next sort out in my head what I was sensing from the anomaly.

It was already giving me a migraine, with the added pressure of a time crunch.

That it only had nine cars was an illusion. It actually had an infinite number of cars. I couldn’t use my true sight on that aspect of it for more than a few seconds before I had to turn away. It was like trying to actually imagine the true scale and size of the universe.

Next, I could tell that this train was also functionally indestructible. You could damage it, but it would always repair itself. Even if you detonated a nuke and vaporized the thing… it would eventually just reappear. It was ‘conceptually stable’, as Henry would say. It was an idea given form through thaumaturgy.

I was startled out of my true sight by my phone ringing.

Who would call now out of all times?

I pulled it out from its pouch on ‘15, and didn’t recognize the number. It didn’t seem like a standard number at all.

My finger tapped the answer button already half-suspecting who would be on the other end.

“Hello?”

“Escort, Armsmaster here. Yes, I hacked your phone. You reacted to the incoming presence of this train before it appeared. Your current location is exactly outside the radiation zone despite not having any technology to detect it. Do you have a Thinker ability that could help here?”

Well, I had to give him credit for cutting so efficiently through every notion of privacy, not to mention deducing that I could help so quickly.

“Yes,” I answered with a wince. There went that potential trump card. “How bad is the radiation? Did you manage to get the gang members out?”

“Yes, they are currently running away with ankle trackers of my own design. BBPD will arrest them later. As for the radiation, it’s bizarre, just like this train is. My armor’s Geiger counter registers it as gamma rays but it just arbitrarily stops at 656 feet. It should have a range far greater at this strength and can only be stopped by thick lead shielding.”

My brain tried to recall the basics of gamma from both high school education and general knowledge.

“Okay, so definitely not coming closer again.”

“That would be advisable,” he confirmed. “What can your ability tell me about this thing?”

My thoughts struggled to get in order. I had to share just enough that would let him survive, but not too much as he would struggle to believe it was even possible.

“Do not attempt to board it. There is no driver. No one to apprehend as being responsible. It can move anywhere at any time, with no predictable pattern. Despite appearances it has a self-repair mechanism. Trying to destroy it will be a bad idea.”

“I can visually confirm you’re correct. There is no one in the locomotive that I can detect. Nor could I spot anyone in the passenger cars from outside. My other scans support no movement aboard the train.”

I squinted and could see the Protectorate hero now standing right next to the train. His halberd’s blade sprouted with blue light before he pressed it against the wood of the passenger car. After a very long twenty seconds, his voice came over the line, “Self-repair mechanism confirmed. We wouldn’t destroy it anyway, given we would be spreading radioactive debris over a very large area, Escort.” No one was around to see me facepalm rather hard, so I indulged myself. Armsmaster knelt next to the wheels of the train, visibly examining it by hand, feeling around. “The wheels have left no mark or damage on the road asphalt. They seem to be maintaining perfect friction even though they are not on tracks. I detect no system or emissions that could be responsible.”

Armsmaster was rather calmly describing something impossible to him, even with his expanded worldview of cape life, crazy powers in the hands of parahumans and Tinkertech. This was good, hopefully he wouldn’t go catatonic, stupefied or lose his sanity as we progressed.

Any further speculation was interrupted when the locomotive let out three distinctive hoots from its main steam whistle.

Armsmaster backed off immediately. “Escort, it’s moving.”

More steam began billowing from the stack of the locomotive and I could see it was indeed beginning to move towards my position. Whether that was because the locomotive of the SCP was pointed towards me already and it was simply following the path of least resistance or it actually had a goal to try to get to me… I didn’t want to find out.

“Armsmaster, it’s coming my way, you’ll probably lose this connection when I teleport.”

“I’ve directly uploaded a number to your phone through which you can reinstate contact. I’m pursuing the train on my motorcycle.”

Damn tinkers. “Okay, call you back.” I hung up and stowed the phone hurriedly as the SCP train gained speed.

I misted and shot up into the sky just as the radiation was about to wash over me again.

My flight halted 900 feet in the air and the awful train passed by underneath me, thankfully not stopping and sped steadily down Old Church Road.

It barely slowed down to turn left onto the larger Church Road and now it really began to speed up.

Traffic was thankfully quite light but the passing cars that had the bad luck to be there did not fare well. The train didn’t even acknowledge that a pickup and sedan crashed into its sides with an awful crunch and just kept going.

Armsmaster was right on its tail and maneuvered through the traffic so perfectly that there had to be some form of computer assist going on.

I willed myself forward and had to immediately accelerate to my top flying speed to keep up. The train was traveling now at 70mph and I kept my eyes locked on it to keep puzzling out what I could perceive from it.

With no warning, the train turned right onto a side road without slowing down at all. It didn’t seem to experience any ill effect in the rapid maneuver. It just turned, ignoring physics that stated it had to flip over, derail, or slow down before attempting this.

It now sped down Oak Street, ramming and pushing a slow car out of its way.

This area was generally a business district with few people in it currently, but that was due to rapidly change if it kept going.

The SCP passed by a plant nursery, a dog day care, and a plumber business before it barreled forward with all the momentum of a train straight across another intersection.

Two cars passing through it desperately tried to brake, but simply crashed straight into the side of the train that to their eyes must’ve literally appeared out of nowhere.

It was now passing through an adjoining suburb and powered straight through into the heart of one of the more affluent bits of Brockton Bay. Here the houses were large and yards quite spacious, with lots of tall green trees lining roads and the area in general.

The train stopped instantly. All its momentum and speed vanished.

My view from above told me the grim news.

I sped forward down Oak Road, landed and demisted.

My phone rang instantly.

“Armsmaster?”

“Yes, what more can you tell me?”

“About thirty homes are now falling within its radiation zone.”

“Emergency services, Protectorate and PRT response are on the way, as are specialist federal nuclear response teams. The problem is Escort, that it's going to take time. Time that these people don’t have.”

My stomach was doing a good job of knotting itself at this point.

“How long?”

“Radiation exposure limits vary from person to person, depending on many factors. At this level of gamma, no more than thirty minutes is the best general limit I can give. After that people are going to show signs of acute radiation sickness, which will eventually kill.”

I groaned in frustration as I stared at the blasted train. My mind wasn’t making more sense of this SCP. I wasn’t seeing a way that the thing could be stopped or contained. It was a mobile nuclear hazard with unclear rules and had some form of guiding intelligence behind it.

“Armsmaster, I need to hang up to consult with… a colleague, call you back,” I babbled and terminated the connection, before tapping the screen to place a call to Henry.

The phone rang and rang.

I paced back and forth on the spot, not caring how ridiculous I must look to anyone in the nearby houses.

Finally, there was a click. “Hello Taylor?”

“Henry, what took you so long?”

The sentient statue took a moment before replying, “Taylor, I’m not constantly in that office. It’s a rather cramped affair and though I don’t have legs that can ache, I do wander about the warehouse and there are a few points outside where I can walk without being observed. Now what’s the problem?”

“Void event,” I said flatly.

“Tell me everything, quickly.”

I rattled through everything the SCP train had done and what I had gleaned using true sight “Do you have any idea on this one?” I asked breathlessly.

“I suppose this was inevitable. I don’t know the specific SCP designation for this one, but I do recall it in general. This is a Euclid class SCP- ” Meaning it was quite complex to contain but achievable. “To contain it will require lead, lots of it, but that comes later. To stop it from going anywhere… and this is an important distinction to keep in mind… we need to put an external wall in front of it. Understand?”

“External wall? Why?”

“Remember I said that concepts are important in SCPs and dealing with them?.”

My mind struggled for a moment, but then it clicked. “So somehow the intelligence of the SCP will consider it an obstacle that it can’t just demolish its way through?”

“There isn’t really an intelligence behind this train, at best it’s a fuzzy logic program. That radiation it’s emitting, is not just your typical ionization. It’s utterly anomalous and has effects that are non-conventional to say the least.”

“Like what?”

“It’ll start mutating local flora and fauna, altering size, shape and behavior. If this train is left there, you might start seeing trees that turn carnivorous, grass changing color and becoming utterly alien. People will also start behaving oddly.”

“In what way? The radiation won’t kill them?”

“No, however, anyone asleep within the radiation zone will begin to sleepwalk out of their homes and attempt to board the train.”

As grim as that sounded, my mind struggled, “Why?”

“Taylor, with many SCPs you’ll find that answering that question is rather pointless. There is no why, it just does what it does, no matter how nonsensical or gruesome we might find it. The only reason I recall was a theory, that it needs the people on board to provide energy or fuel for its second form of transportation.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Yes, because this train will occasionally jump into an alternate dimension, a place where there is nothing but flat earth, featureless static sky and an infinite number of train cars. Once there, anyone on board will be unable to return. Even if the train returns to this dimension.”

“Okay, good to know, Henry, thanks. That means I can at least get close and help without having to immediately worry about the radiation.”

“Don’t spend more than two hours in it. Oh, and brief the PRT that anything debarking from the train must be contained and treated as if it was part of the SCP itself. Normally I’d say that any such being, entity or thing, must be terminated immediately, but I doubt they’d listen to you. They’re just going to have to learn the hard way, unfortunately.”

“Yeah, thanks Henry. See you soon.”

I ended the call and stowed the phone, before misting immediately and heading to the first house within the radiation zone.

Now to Master a significant portion of a neighborhood.

No biggy.

8888888888888888888888888888888888

Collin stood vigilantly near the utterly frustrating, impossible train, waiting.

Every sensor his armor had was active, scanning, recording, yet the readings were baffling. He knew Tinkertech could take many forms, that many would also seem scientifically impossible, but this… train was completely different.

Even were the wheels using a novel form of tinkertech, he should’ve detected something in use. He’d be the first to admit that his armor wasn’t perfect, it couldn’t substitute for the specialized equipment in his lab, but he had enough mobile functionality to at least begin some sort of hypothesis on the method this train was using for its seemingly impossible mobility.

Its ability to reconstruct any damage done to it was even worse to his sensibilities. What sort of self-respecting tinker would ever design this monstrosity to repair itself back into such a dilapidated state? His first notion was that this was the work of Squealer.

It fitted right into her specialty of vehicles, she had ready access to the half-abandoned trainyard in the north of the city. She also paid no attention to the aesthetic appearance of her vehicle creations.

The problem with the theory was that this model of steam locomotive was an antique and not in use in any historical capacity anywhere. His visual analysis had turned up a structural match to a Baldwin 280 Consolidation-type locomotive, that had last been used in 1953. The only ones that existed today were static railway museum pieces, the number of which on display could be counted on one hand and none of these were remotely close to Brockton. Its rusty condition meant that any further database research using signage and numbering on the locomotive was also pointless. Therefore, this didn’t fit Squealer’s MO at all.

She was part of the Archer’s Bridge Merchants and would always be the one driving her creations. This did not promote the small gang’s drug dealings in any way.

That didn’t even address the fact that the level of radiation coming from the train spoke of a massive amount of polonium used throughout its structure.

His HUD flashed a notification.

In the next moment, a call went out through the cell network and two seconds later ringing was heard.

It was only picked up a full twenty seconds later.

“Armsmaster, yes, a bit busy,” said Escort, vocal analysis picked up that the heroine was annoyed, stressed and exasperated. The triangulation of her position indicated that she was now within the radiation zone, inside a property.

“Did you obtain new information from your colleague?”

That she already had a partner, presumably another Thinker, as an independent hero spoke well of her and already increased the odds of her continued survival in the cape scene by a significant degree.

“Yes, sorry. You need to be on the lookout for people… They’ll be soon trying to get on the train, we cannot allow that to happen.”

“Escort, why would anyone want to try?” He asked skeptically.

“The radiation field. Look, I’m currently in the best position to get people moving out of the area quickly. I can’t do that if I’m speaking to you constantly. So I’ll tell you what both me and my friend’s Thinker abilities are telling us. People who were asleep when the field hit, will now start to literally sleepwalk and board the train. If too many people succeed, they will die. The only way to contain this train and keep it from moving when we deprive it of people to gobble up, is to find an external wall and put it in front of its nose. This will exploit a flaw in the train’s programming and keep it stationary, allowing lead shielding to be built around it and to move it to a safer location without the train attempting to escape. Also be aware that the radiation field will begin to have other anomalous effects on plants and animals the longer this train sits here. They won’t just die. Any plants and animals with radiation induced mutations must be contained or killed.”

Collin felt his mind take in the words he was hearing, but it was as if they were made of soap, trying to slip through his mental fingers. She was describing the impossible, the ridiculous, the ludacris, utter nonsense.

The only thing that stopped him from terminating the call was that so far… Escort had been precisely correct in determining the radius of the radiation field with not a single bit of technology that could help her. Yes, her cellphone could’ve potentially held a radiation detector, but even the best ones commercially available were relatively bulky devices and unless he ascribed her a Tinker rating as well… no.

Then his HUD gave a ping of warning, Movement Detected.

He whirled around in the direction indicated and there, not eighty feet away, emerging from a nearby house, was a man in only his underwear and walking blissfully forward with eyes closed.

Movement Detected.

The front door of the next house opened and two naked figures, a man and woman, emerged.

Again eyes closed, with blissful expressions on their faces, steadily walking forward.

Movement Detected. Movement Detected.

“Escort,” Colin let his halberd unfurl, his fingers selecting the non-lethal taser function. “It seems you’re correct. I’ve got multiple people approaching this train.” He opened a compartment on his motorcycle, unfurling his own compact design of foam projector, based on a pistol frame.

“Do not let them board! Get the PRT to bring a wall, fly it here in a chopper, I don’t know. Gotta go!”

Escort’s mobile signal vanished.

His armor went into power assist mode in a moment and with a mere three strides he was in range of the nude couple, firing off two shots from the foam pistol, aiming for their legs.

The compromises in the design to create such a small foam projector meant a reduction in initial volume.

The shots landed true right at their feet, exactly where his aim and computer assist said it would go. The foam expanded and ballooned anchoring the couple in place.

He turned and five sprinting strides had him within arms reach of the man in his shorts. He elected to use a taser and zip tie combination here, as the total ammunition of his foam pistol was an issue.

He jabbed the taser prod end of his halberd into the man’s leg, releasing a modulated discharge that was automatically calibrated to the man’s weight and perceived age. The hapless sleepwalker twitched and writhed, collapsing to the ground.

“Armsmaster!”

He initially ignored the new voice that had seemingly come from nowhere just a few feet behind him, and finished using zip ties to secure the civilian’s hands and feet.

“Velocity, patrol the other side of the train. Prevent any civilian from boarding using non-lethal means,” he stated flatly and quickly.

He turned around and the speedster in his practically skintight red and gold costume took in the order and nodded.

Velocity’s form blurred briefly as he entered his breaker state and vanished.

His fellow Protectorate member was ideal in this situation.

He could literally run around the entirety of the train in a few seconds, but at the cost that he was less able to influence the world the faster he went. He could also as a result not carry much equipment at all and maintain effectiveness. His extremely thin costume and radio was already pushing things, but Velocity made up for it in his training and extremely light zip ties that he carried on his person. He knew techniques to incapacitate safely with just his hands and feet, he could also completely revert to normal from his breaker state since there was no expected opposition.

Movement Detected.

Down the street, 200 feet away, another sleepwalking woman. She was, however, being trailed by her very alert, awake and agitated husband who was rather unsuccessfully trying to wake her up.

That posited a rather alarming question. Could these people, somehow under the influence of this train, be woken up?

The stunned man closest to him wouldn’t be a very good test for this.

He inwardly winced somewhat, the couple would have to do.

He tried his best to put their state of dress out of mind as he approached them. It wasn’t easy because the woman was rather attractive and he noted signs that they had definitely been sexually active before they fell asleep. It was also apparent that they were still trying to walk towards the train, their upper legs straining against the unyielding hold of the foam and their bodies leaning forward.

He triggered a PA system on his armor that would amplify his voice considerably - a system he had imagined using in addressing large numbers of people or heroes during S class events. It had gotten few uses as there were much more personable and inspiring voices at such gatherings.

“Sir, Madam, can you hear me?”

His voice was amplified and projected to just about 96 decibels - the levels you’d expect for music at a pop music concert.

At this close range it was a vocal blast of sound that would wake anyone in even REM pattern sleep.

It didn’t work. The couple just kept on trying to walk with their eyes closed.

The man down the street trying to wake his wife had at this point picked up his wife to carry her back in the house. He was startled by the vocal blast and his eyes widened when he realized just who was standing in his street.

His HUD gave a ping notification. Escort’s signal was back. She was in another house within the zone.

So she was still helping, despite the danger of the radiation. It was admirable as much as it was frustrating from a utilitarian perspective, to see such a promising young parahuman make this sacrifice so early in her career. Every moment she was within the radiation field, she was losing potentially years of her life.

Refocusing, he tapped the controls of his halberd, a sequence that deployed the conceptual opposite of the taser function. Halfway along the pole, a small hatch opened and a small nub of ammonium carbonate emerged.

He held it up to the couple, bringing it into range of their noses.

Both of them instantly recoiled from the offensive smell, which highly irritated the mucous membranes of their noses and lungs.

Yet… while their actions spoke of waking up, their eyes remained firmly closed and their bodies returned to a sleepwalking state.

Armsmaster scoffed and gritted his teeth in anger at the demonstration of yet another impossibility. Somehow this radiation field had also captured the minds of these people, it was keeping them in deep sleep, despite anything that was done to their bodies.

He tapped the controls again, and the smelling salt module retreated from view.

He didn’t like what he had to do next. He stepped away from the couple heading for the center of the street and putting a bit of distance from the train. Then remotely triggered the sound system on his motorcycle to begin emitting a typical police siren that wailed into the night for a full six seconds.

“People of Oak Street. This is Armsmaster of the Protectorate. This is an emergency evacuation order. Gather minimal essentials, your IDs, some spare clothing and emerge from your homes. Evacuation buses will be arriving shortly to take you to the designated shelter area for your district. If any family members are asleep, wake them. If you are unable, carry them. If they begin sleepwalking, leave them to the Protectorate.”

Escort’s signal vanished… then reappeared at another house.

Now he had to think about her other bit of advice on how to contain the train.

An external wall?

His mind struggled to imagine someone who could program a system into this… thing, to behave as it did, to apparently ignore physics as it did, yet failed to account for something as simple as a wall in the way of the train.

Thankfully, he was in a suburb and it had no lack of walls between houses.

He set his armor to replay the evacuation message on repeat through the PA system as he walked, scanning the street, looking for a suitable wall.

He was really not looking forward to the paperwork, explanations and debriefings that were going to come after this mess was sorted out.

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I materialized in house number twelve.

At this point, I had somewhat streamlined the process.

Find the man of the house, pull him into my mind web, order him to take his family and go with the bare essentials.

Armsmaster’s voice blaring across the neighborhood was really helping too. As people were already getting ready to leave by the time I appeared in these latter houses.

The complications arose when I appeared in a house that, for example, held a single mother. It took a bit longer, as I had mental battle each time. Even worse, was when there were children asleep and refusing to wake up due to the SCPs influence. Thankfully, it seemed the SCP had not sent these children into sleepwalking mode, that was only reserved for the adults.

I had tried to pull them into my mind web, to see if I could somehow snap them out of it, only to find myself completely unable to perceive any mind that the SCP had captured.

It was decidedly frustrating being so defeated and stumped.

There was no battle to reclaim or free the mind, it was simply gone.

The next house I misted into had no one inside, but the indications from the bedroom and garage were that these people had by this point already taken the advice to evacuate.

At this point I decided to abandon mastering people and just survey houses to see if people needed help.

My route had followed an ever narrowing circular path of the radiation zone and by now I was almost back to the SCP itself. The last house I checked had featured a guy so paranoid of everything going on, that he absolutely refused to leave the house.

“It’s a conspiracy, we’ll get in those buses and we’ll be carted off to goodness knows where!”

“Dear, you can see that thing out there on the street. You saw the heroes having to stop those mastered people from getting on. We have to go!”

The wife with a wailing baby on her hip pleaded with her husband.

What a mess.

I snagged the husband in my web and materialized behind the wife so she wouldn’t initially see me.

“Enough, sir. You will evacuate. Gather your things and family and go. It’s not safe here.”

The woman let out a startled yelp and whirled around, before gaping at me in astonishment.

“Yes, mistress,” he suddenly turned eager and rushed towards the nearby bags that his wife had already packed.

Her gaze turned icy as she regarded her husband again.

“Sorry ma’am. My name is Escort, I’ve temporarily mastered your husband. You must leave, that train is emitting dangerous levels of radiation. There can be no delay or doubt if you wish to remain unaffected.”

“Then why didn’t Armsmaster say so in his announcement?! People would already be running for the hills. And why are you-”

“A disorderly scramble which could result in more disaster?” I interrupted her.

I misted at this point and shot myself away through their ceiling.

It was a few second flight to get back to the train and the street was now much more packed with emergency services, including a number of buses which people were getting onto. There were also a number of PRT vans and the troopers were now in some type of extra bulky radiation suit, with gas masks replacing their normal face shields.

The bit that surprised me though was that Armsmaster had already managed to place an exterior wall, cut out of some nine feet of solid wooden fencing, to rest on the front of the SCP locomotive. That idea had not occurred to me. Yes, it was technically a wall and it was exterior, the question was whether the SCP would consider it as such. I had no idea if there was some caveat that required the exterior wall to be made of a certain type of material.

The Brockton protectorate leader had been joined by two of his local colleagues and he was briefing them about events.

The first was Assault. He wore a complete armored costume in red, with a helmet and visor that usually only covered the upper half of his face. Now he was wearing a hazmat extension that naturally blended into his costume to cover the lower half. He was a powerful kinetic energy manipulator that extended to himself and anything he touched.

He was joined by his usual partner in the field, Battery. A heroine with a skintight white and gray costume, with artfully arranged cobalt blue circuit lines all over. It was very cool and reminded me of a slightly more busy form of the suits worn in that classic sci-fi movie, Tron. Her power was a combo of a Mover and Striker, which she had to ‘charge’ up to use and ‘discharge’ as she used it. Her costume’s concession for operating in a hazardous area was also to simply ‘mask up’ with a slim gas mask. It made me wonder if all pro heroes had their suits designed to have radioactive shielding of some sort. Considering the Endbringer Behemoth, who had radiation attacks as its bread and butter, that made a lot of sense.

The Internet and PHO was always buzzing about these two. Not only because of the effective team they made, but also the rumor was that they were married. Just looking at their auras I could definitely confirm at least that they were madly in love with each other.

I steeled myself to endure the scrutiny and reappeared a polite six feet away from them.

“Ah, Escort, thank you for your efforts,” Armsmaster nodded at me. “I suspect we’d still be trying to get people on board these buses without you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Escort,” I couldn’t see Assault’s grin, but his aura was tinged with amusement and anticipation.

Battery elbowed him hard and it was fascinating to see their respective powers at work. If anyone normal had been the recipient of that, they’d be flying across the street with the kinetic energy involved. Assault simply absorbed it and chuckled. He probably considered that a love tap from his wife.

“Escort, not that you are unwelcome or we are unappreciative of your efforts,” Battery said, her aura tinged with concern and worry. “Are you sure you want to remain here much longer in proximity to the radiation?”

I waved her concern off, “Despite the Geiger counters going off, this radiation is not your typical DNA destroying stuff.” I turned my mental gaze inward to my own body control. It was early stages and I could revert it with my power, but I saw now what the SCP was doing and it was very worrying. “In fact, I’d say it’s more of an active DNA mutator. Panacea should give everyone here a checkup, if it can be arranged.”

“It is on the list of things to do, Escort,” Armsmaster nodded. “Can you determine whether this containment of the train will hold?”

I gave the thing a lookover with true sight briefly and sniffed before wincing. One of the cars was filled with what smelt like animal corpses…

“It’s such a complex mess at the locomotive, I might as well be looking at a chaotic jumble of wires and components, trying to tell you what the individual functions are. At this point, the only way we could truly tell would be to get all the sleepwalkers out of range and see.”

“Very well.” He turned and gave a gesture to a distant PRT trooper.

The trooper jumped into the lead armored van and it began setting off, leading a convoy of the buses and other vans out of the area.

I planted ‘15 into the sidewalk, my grip flexing on it and glared at the SCP with narrowed eyes, scrutinizing the thing for a reaction as its victims left its radius at 40 miles per hour.

Fifteen seconds later, the convoy was out of the radiation zone and I tensed, waiting.

Then the SCP lit up to my senses… colors of power that I couldn’t begin to make sense of pulsing up and down the train.

Yet… after a further half a minute of waiting nothing happened. “I think it worked, we’re okay.”

That was when we all heard the growl of a dog.

We turned in the direction of the sound.

Emerging into the street lighting from between two houses, was a rather large, black and white terrier of some kind. It stalked forward, its growl a steady cadence and was glaring at us with malevolence.

Then it opened its mouth to reveal its teeth, and opened it again… its lower jaw splitting into two. Revealing a decidedly unnatural circular maw of teeth that looked like it belonged to a shark rather than a canine.

In the next moment, its eyes fixed on me and it lunged at me with a hissing growl.

I did the only thing I could in the time available.

The mutated dog clamped its jaws down on nothing but air as I misted and reappeared ten feet away.

Armsmaster reacted next, his halberd swinging out, glowing blue and decapitated the dog in a smooth fluid strike.

“Shit, mutant dogs… and cats!” Assault called as both he and Battery were back to back in an instant.

More growls and sibilant hisses echoed throughout the street.

A variety of dogs and cats, steadily increasing in actual size, with similarly mutated jaws prowled into the light.

All of their eyes were focused on me.

“Fuck.”

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SCPs used in the chapter:

"SCP-716" by Dr Gears, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-716. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

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