Flash Page 17

  Oliver’s jaw tightened. “We need to take her out first.”

  “That’s what I thought, too!” Barry said, and he grinned. Oliver remained stoic, so he cleared his throat. “Anyway, we also have Mark Mardon.”

  “Weather Wizard,” Cisco added.

  Felicity smiled at him. “Let me guess. He controls the weather.”

  “Yeah, usually he does it on a micro-climate scale,” Barry said. “He channels lightning or creates baseball-sized hail. But recently he’s been affecting larger areas with heavy rain, tornados, lightning strikes. Big stuff. Lots of damage. Next we have Kyle Nimbus.”

  “The Mist,” Cisco intoned.

  “Creepy.” Felicity recoiled from the snakelike bald head and sunken eyes.

  “Creepy is right,” Barry added. “In the annals of bad guys, he’s a bad guy. He was a mass murderer who gained the ability to transform himself into a cloud of hydrogen cyanide.”

  “You mean a real cloud?” Felicity looked over the top of her glasses. “He turns himself into a cloud?”

  “Oh, no way.” John glared in disbelief. “Even in Central City, no way a man changes himself into gas.”

  “Yeah,” Barry said. “He physically transmutes his molecules into a cloud of poison gas. He’s a nightmare. And finally, Hartley Rathaway.”

  “Pied Piper,” Cisco said.

  Felicity studied Rathaway’s picture. “Does he play a little flute?”

  “No,” Cisco answered.

  “Does he control rats?”

  “No. And eww.”

  Barry sat on the edge of a table. “He’s a master of sound and vibrational tech. He’s really brilliant. Used to work for Harrison Wells here at S.T.A.R. Labs. He wears special gloves that emit high-energy sound waves. We have an old pair we took off him.” He pointed at the high-tech gauntlets sitting on a table. Felicity’s eyes lit up and she scurried over to examine them. “I’ve been blasted by those several times, and I can tell you that you don’t want any part of it. The only reason my organs weren’t turned to jelly was my metahuman healing factor.” Caitlin looked away, which caught Oliver’s attention. Barry kept on without comment, “Rathaway’s the leader of the gang. He’s a skilled tactician. Without him, the other four would’ve screwed up by now, and we would’ve gotten them already.”

  Oliver nodded. “Any idea about their base of operations?”

  “No,” Cisco said angrily. “I’ve used every pattern recognition matrix and all of the tracking software we have. There’s no discernible repetition that lets us predict where they’re going to strike, or estimate where their lair is.” When they all stared, he added, “Oh, they have a lair. I’m sure of it.”

  “Maybe I can help with that,” Felicity said. “Do you mind if I go over your data?”

  “Music to my ears.” Cisco waved a hand over his keyboard. “You’re welcome to everything we have. Just say when.”

  Oliver continued to watch the footage of Rathaway on the monitor. “I’ll want full dossiers on all of them, but here are a few ideas. First, Bivolo’s powers are in his eyes, right?”

  “Yes, he triggers an emotional reaction through the color receptors in the optic nerve.”

  “So, two options,” he said. “Either we don’t look at him, or we make it so he can’t look at us.”

  “How?”

  Oliver gave Barry a deadpan stare. “I could shoot his eyes out.”

  “What! No, Oliver, we don’t do that in Central City.”

  “Relax, Barry. I’m joking. We don’t do that in Star City either.”

  “Any more,” John muttered.

  Oliver shot him a quick glance. “Have you thought about running in and putting a bag over his head?”

  “A bag over his head?” Barry laughed, but he realized Oliver was serious. He started to argue, then paused. “Hmm. A bag over his head. That’s a really good idea. It’s just hard to get to him.”

  “Right, Peekaboo,” Oliver said, and Felicity giggled. “She’s a problem. If she requires visual targeting, however, I could hit her in the eyes with some sort of foam to block her vision.”

  “That could work. Might even work on Bivolo.”

  “You know, I was thinking,” Felicity interjected enthusiastically, “with the Weather Man—”

  “Wizard,” Cisco corrected.

  “Oh, sorry. Wizard. With him, does his power involve exploiting charged atmospheric particles, because if it does—”

  Barry spun around and pointed to Cisco, who held up the weather wand.

  “You are correct,” Cisco announced. “I designed this little baby the last time, to interrupt his connection with atmospheric electrons. And it worked. And it would work this time, too—”

  “If you can catch him,” Oliver finished the thought.

  “Right.” Cisco waved the cylinder like a lightsaber.

  “Can you arrange an early warning system to ping you when he starts to use his powers?” Felicity asked.

  “Yes,” Cisco answered. “Can and did. We can detect spikes in atmospheric energy, as well as extreme changes in pressure. By the time Barry gets there, however, Mardon is always gone.”

  “Again thanks to Peekaboo,” Oliver said, and Felicity giggled again. He stared at her and she shrugged. “Now, the Mist—”

  Felicity raised a finger. “Oh, I was thinking about creepy gas cloud guy. Hydrogen cyanide is extremely flammable.” She looked at Cisco and Caitlin apologetically. “Of course you know that. I’m sure there’s some reason you haven’t done anything with it.”

  “Holy flame arrows!” Cisco suddenly leapt to his feet and pointed at Oliver. “You’re going to use your flame arrows, aren’t you!”

  Oliver nodded approvingly. He bent close to Felicity.

  “Get some flame arrows,” he whispered.

  Barry winced. “That’s great and all, but we don’t want to blow him up. I mean, I want to, but we shouldn’t.”

  John leveled the practical look of a soldier at him. “If he’s as bad as you say, Barry, we need to take him down before he hurts anyone else.”

  “I know, but let’s look for a middle ground. Stop him from killing without incinerating him. I had good luck dissipating him with water, and forcing him back to his human form.”

  “Right.” Felicity nodded in approval. “Water is heavier than vapor. That would work. We don’t have any water arrows, but we can work with the concept.”

  Oliver took the sonic gauntlets from her and studied them. “And this Rathaway, what does he have without his gloves? A gun? Anything?”

  “No weapons, no,” Barry said. “He’s very persuasive, but on a strictly human level. There’s no psychic power. We’ve taken his gloves away, and that works, until he gets them back or builds new ones. He’s smart… but so are we.” Barry reached into his belt and pulled out two little capsules. “We came up with our own earplugs that limit the damage his gloves can do. We can give a pair to you, and one to John, too.”

  “Good,” Oliver said. “Anything else?”

  “Oh, he’s also a giant jerk.” Cisco swung his feet off the table. “To prove it, he stole a meteorite. Well, his goons actually stole it, and they killed the museum director.”

  “He killed someone to steal a meteorite?” Oliver frowned.

  “Yeah, the Singing Meteorite,” Cisco began.

  Felicity beamed. “The Singing Meteorite?” It almost sounded lyrical, the way she said it.

  Oliver stared at her. “You’ve heard of it?”

  “Oh sure, it’s only the most famous meteorite since… well, it’s the most famous meteorite ever.”

  “And it sings?” John asked.

  Cisco quickly explained the history of the meteorite, and of Dr. Coolidge. Felicity huffed, jealous that he and Barry had met the astronomer, and started asking questions about exactly how misanthropic he really was. Oliver interrupted her.

  “So what was the reason for stealing this meteor?”

  “We’re not sure,” Barry sai
d. “We know it has unique vibrational properties, so Rathaway must be searching for a way to weaponize it.”

  “Maybe this guy just collects sound-related items,” John offered. “Don’t super-villains do that sort of thing?”

  Barry looked doubtful. “Not that I know of. That seems sort of weird.”

  “That seems weird?” John raised his eyebrows higher than a human should be able.

  “Okay, let’s get the teams on the same page.” Oliver tossed John the gauntlets to examine. “I’ll want to hit the streets tonight, and wrap up these metas as soon as possible.”

  “Great,” Barry said. “I can’t wait to take these guys down. They’ve hurt too many people already. It’s time to give a little back.”

  “That’s what Oliver does,” Felicity said proudly. “He figures out the best way to hurt people. Bad people I mean. People who need to be hurt. Not just people in general. That would be wrong.” Oliver put his arm around her waist and she went silent.

  “And while you guys are planning,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee. Barry, you have the time?”

  Barry grew unexpectedly nervous under the archer’s gaze.

  “Sure. Yeah. Let’s talk.”

  26

  Another storm seemed to be gathering as Barry and Oliver went downtown to police headquarters. Despite the deluge of duties piled on the Flash, Barry Allen had to show up at the office, as well. In fact, his workload had tripled with all the recent events. Some of it was related to the metahuman assaults, but most was common criminals taking advantage of the chaos.

  CCPD headquarters was built during the art deco period. It boasted hard edges, geometrical designs, and rich embellishments. Barry found the mathematical symmetry soothing. The gleaming bas-relief in the lobby depicted the Greek gods and proclaimed “Truth, Liberty, Justice.” He felt strangely a part of the golden age to which it harkened.

  This late at night, the building hummed with activity, but not many civilians were present. Barry waved to familiar faces, all looking exhausted, as he hurried to the elevator and rode to the top floor.

  Barry entered his empty laboratory and flipped on the lights, then weaved around columns to stand under the large skylight. He took hold of the dangling chain and pulled, hand over hand. It clanked through pulleys, the skylight parted high overhead, and a dark figure dropped softly to the tile floor. Barry hung onto the chain as Green Arrow looked around.

  “It has a Dr. Frankenstein feel,” he said.

  “Does it?” Barry replied with a grin. “Never thought about it. Kind of fitting though, because this is the exact spot where the Flash was born. It was a dark and stormy night then, too. The lightning struck me right here, just as I was covered by the wave of dark matter from the particle accelerator explosion.” He hauled on the chain to reverse it and shut the skylight.

  “That’s not completely true,” he said when he’d finished. “I think the Flash was actually born the night my mom died. That’s what made me. The weather was better that night, though.”

  Green Arrow walked over to the broad windows overlooking Central City, peering out toward the river and S.T.A.R. Labs. The bright lights of the tall buildings around them made the city look serene. Lightning sparking the distant sky spoke otherwise.

  Shelves filled with oddly colored chemicals lined the walls. In the middle of the space stood a large rollaway corkboard covered with a map of Central City. All around it sat tables stacked high with paperwork, anchored by large paperweights.

  Barry zipped around the room, collating the pages from several different piles. He created a soft windstorm as he ran about, setting a few loose papers fluttering. If anyone saw him from outside, he would appear as a streak of light flickering about the room.

  “Didn’t we come here to talk?” Oliver remarked, leaning against the window, pushing his hood back. “It’s disconcerting, trying to conduct a conversation with a red streak.”

  “Sorry.” Barry stopped, forced to wait for a clunky machine as it whirred before spitting out some paper strips of data. “I’m just in a hurry to get all this finished, before the next crisis.” He grabbed a vial from the centrifuge, finding the process too slow. He spun the liquid with his hand, darted over to a workstation, extracted some of the sample, and placed it under a high-powered microscope. “Working keeps my mind off other things, too.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” the archer pointed out. “But you did ask for my help.”

  Barry stopped again. “You’re right.” He couldn’t prevent a low slump, even though he consciously tried to adjust his body language in front of Oliver. All he really wanted to do was sleep, yet there was too much to do. He went to the coffee maker in the corner, and poured two large cups.

  “It’s not as good as Jitters,” he said apologetically, “but it’ll do.” Barry yawned as he handed one over. The archer took it, but didn’t drink.

  “Earlier tonight, on the street,” Oliver said, “you acted as if I wasn’t real. What was happening there? Is that what you mentioned on the phone?”

  “Part of it,” Barry confessed, “or I thought it was. Turns out you were real.”

  “You’ve been hallucinating?”

  “Yeah.” Despite the hot cup of coffee in his hands, Barry felt suddenly cold.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Oliver’s firm voice and attention gave Barry the resolve to relate the story. All of it—from the Future Flash to the cavalcade of villains. Giant talking gorillas and murderous ghosts, it sounded crazy even to him, when he said it out loud.

  “What do you think it means?” Oliver asked. He didn’t act as if it was crazy.

  “I wish I knew. I don’t know if it means anything,” Barry admitted. “I don’t know where the hallucinations are coming from. If they’re coming from inside my head, then I guess I’m telling myself to run faster, because that’s all my future self ever says. ‘Run faster.’ Maybe since Harrison Wells isn’t here to tell me, I have to do it myself.”

  “Is it working?”

  “I don’t think so.” Barry sat in a rolling chair. “It seems like strange advice, since the plasma inside me is feeding off my speed force, but it’s always worked in the past. So maybe I just haven’t broken through the barrier I need to overcome.”

  Green Arrow hadn’t moved a muscle since Barry started talking. It was unnerving speaking to a hooded specter. Oliver’s eyes shone in the half-light of the laboratory.

  “What about the others?” he asked. “The other hallucinations—what do they tell you?”

  “What you might expect villains to say. To stop running. That I can’t do it—whatever ‘it’ is. I’m not fast enough. I can’t save everyone.” Barry shrugged.

  “Not all are villains, though. Firestorm was a hero. He gave his life to save the city. What did he say?”

  Barry thought about that incident. The image of Ronnie, burning to death before his eyes, played out again. He stood up to derail the memory.

  “The same thing. That I couldn’t save him. Never could.” He returned to organizing the files, but at human speed. “I’m telling myself one thing, and others are saying something else.” He stopped and peered at the archer. “Strange things can happen when the mind is under stress, right?”

  “Absolutely.” Oliver turned his head to study the map of Central City. “What does it feel like, this blurring effect? Is there pain?”

  Barry struggled to put it into words. “It feels like I’m… disconnecting from this reality. Like a sudden glitch, and then I’m speeding up while at a dead stop.”

  “Like a car engine, revving in neutral?”

  “Yeah, but with the wheels off the ground, just trying to make contact, to get some traction.”

  “Do you know why it’s happening?”

  “We think we do. Back when I fought Harrison Wells—um, Eobard Thawne, um Reverse Flash. It’s complicated—well, months ago we opened a temporal anomaly, a wormhole. While trying to shut it down, apparently I
got some of it inside me.”

  “You have a temporal anomaly inside you.” Oliver regarded Barry. The speedster could tell he was struggling to process information that was clearly outside his normal expertise. So he tried to clarify.

  “The anomaly was at least partially made up of plasma, and I now have that plasma inside me. Since that day, it’s been growing slowly, but recently it reached some sort of critical mass where I began to present symptoms—primarily what I call blurring. Apparently when my system floods with cortisol, it activates the plasma.

  “When the plasma is active, I vibrate out of phase with this world. The plasma then feeds off the speed force until I’m drained. And it’s draining me faster than I can replenish.” He lifted the coffee cup and took a giant gulp.

  Oliver rubbed the rough stubble on his chin. He set aside his untouched coffee, and focused on Barry.

  “So knowing you, you’re handling this by running yourself ragged, trying to fight five meta criminals and keep Central City afloat while rescuing every wet kitten from every tree.”

  Barry tried to come up with a witty reply.

  When he couldn’t, he returned to filing papers.

  “So what happens if you become totally depleted?” Oliver asked.

  “Don’t know,” Barry said, “but it probably isn’t good.”

  Oliver remained silent for a moment. “Are you dying, Barry?”

  At first the only response was the sound of papers, and the squeaking of sneakers on the old wood floor. Barry felt the masked gaze boring into his back, and realized he couldn’t file the question into a folder and make it go away. He leaned on a table and took a deep breath.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We don’t know how this thing will progress, because no one has ever seen it before.” He turned around to face Oliver, seeking some agreement or comfort from the dark face. “No matter what, I think we’ll find a solution. We always have. Why wouldn’t we this time?”

  Oliver shook his head.

  “I know,” Barry said. “I let it get away from me.”

  “No.” Oliver looked Barry straight in the eyes. “You’ve saved a lot of lives, even while you’re barely on your feet. What you’ve done is amazing.”