Flash Page 6

  Grabbing handfuls of yellow suit, he hauled them all the way to the main fire engine. There he searched for Captain Sandoval. But the firemen around the trucks, with their black slickers and yellow fluorescent stripes, were moving in odd jerky motions, made stranger by the flickering light of the inferno. They were flailing wildly, and crashing into one another.

  They were fighting.

  That confirmed it. One of the people the Flash had seen walking into the warehouse must’ve been Roy Bivolo. Yet as quickly as he had appeared, he was nowhere to be found.

  “Flash!” Cisco again. “Status!”

  “I’m good,” Barry reported. “Nothing my rapid healing can’t handle. But Prism is here.”

  Caitlin said, “You mean Rainbow Raider?”

  Cisco snorted into his mic.

  “Listen,” Barry interrupted, “Bivolo’s affected a lot of the firemen down here. Somehow he got to them all without me running into him, but I’ve got to separate them, and quickly. Call the CCFD and get new units down here.”

  “I’m on it,” Cisco said.

  At that moment the north end of the burning warehouse collapsed in a spray of flaming debris. The fire rippled along the structure toward the south end where the chemicals were stored.

  “Flash!”

  Barry whirled around to see Iris running toward him, dashing between fire trucks. She sidestepped two angry men who were choking each other, staring at them in amazement. He ran to her and leaned close.

  “Iris. What are you doing here?” he said. “And why are you wearing pajama bottoms and slippers?”

  “I’m a reporter, and it’s the middle of the night.” Defiant, as usual, but then her eyes widened in horror. “What happened to you?”

  The Flash looked down. He was partially covered in foam, browned like meringue, and his costume was scorched and torn.

  “It’s been a really long night,” he admitted.

  “Right. There are police and new CCFD units on the way.”

  “Good, but they won’t get here in time. Warn them to watch out for Bivolo.” The Flash flexed his hands.

  “What are you going to do?” Iris took pictures while she talked.

  “That warehouse is full of toxic and explosive chemicals. I’m going to move them all out of the way.”

  Then he was gone.

  * * *

  Black smoke filled the interior of the warehouse. Floor to ceiling. The Flash maneuvered by memory, and found the towering pile of foamed containers. An aluminum rack fifteen feet high and twenty feet deep dominated the wall. The shelves held countless blue barrels, each about four feet high and a foot in diameter. Four barrels were shrink-wrapped together in thick plastic, stacked on wooden pallets.

  The Flash tested one of the pallets, but it was too heavy. He vibrated his hand and cut through the wrap. A single barrel weighed about fifty pounds. He lifted one and carried it out, then returned for another. And another. And another.

  A red streak stretched continuously between the warehouse and a spot in the yard as far as possible from any of the flames. As the foam-covered rack inside emptied, a pile of blue barrels outside rose as if by magic.

  Police officers came rushing through the gate, moving to restrain the rage-filled firefighters. Joe took command, directing them where they were needed, while Iris stood fearlessly next to a fire engine, camera in hand, drenched in water. Pajama bottoms were visible below the hem of her overcoat, fur-topped slippers on her sodden feet.

  Each time he returned for another blue barrel, the fire had moved closer. Since he could see its progress, the Flash knew he had to be slowing down as fatigue dragged his steps. But he couldn’t stop. Too many people expected to go home to families after their shifts. None of them deserved to get hurt.

  To say nothing of the many people around them in the city who could be injured by an explosion, or harmed by toxic fumes drifting in the smoky air. Even Joe and Iris were out there, putting themselves in harm’s way. Barry was the only one who could prevent that harm. He was the only one who could save them.

  But he had to run faster.

  As he hefted another barrel, his vision blurred briefly. He staggered and caught himself against the metal rack. The barrel crashed to the floor and he froze, terrified that it might rupture. Nothing seemed to leak, though.

  There was a strange noise, and he looked over his shoulder. A red form appeared through the smoke. It was him again. The same Flash he had seen while running at S.T.A.R. Labs. His older self stopped a few feet away and paused, hands on hips, gasping for breath as if he was unused to running. A thin trickle of blood dribbled from his nose.

  This time he spoke.

  “Barry, they’re all depending on you. They’re going to die if you don’t save them. You’re the Flash. You chose this job.”

  He wanted to race over, to help his doppelganger—the one who looked so much like his father—but he had to get those last few barrels out of the burning warehouse. In the end, there really wasn’t a choice. He tore his eyes off the image of his older self, standing there bleeding, and turned to the rack.

  Then he froze.

  A man sat on the barrel Barry had dropped. The figure leaned forward, relaxed, forearms on knees. Unaffected by the heat of the approaching inferno. Sharp features and dark hair. He smiled.

  “Hi, Flash. How’s it going?” The man looked around. “Not too well, huh?”

  “Danton Black?” Barry said. “Multiplex? You’re dead. Aren’t you?”

  “You should know,” the man replied. “After all, you were there when I plunged to my death. You were there watching me fall.”

  The memory flared.

  “I tried to save you.”

  Black shook his head and vibrated…

  …and there were two of him. He quivered again, and three more copies appeared. They all stared with an accusing smile.

  “You can’t win them all, Flash,” Black said. “I was one of the first metahumans you ever faced, and you beat me. My compliments.”

  “I didn’t want you to die.”

  Black continued to throw off replicas of himself, one after another. Motionless men in featureless black.

  “Have you gotten any better, Flash?” Black said from the middle of the growing mob. “How many people will you have to look at and say, ‘I didn’t want you to die.’ Have you learned anything?”

  The army of stiff cold bodies pressed against the Flash. The countless empty men stretched back into the darkness, filling the warehouse. Barry tried to shift, but he was trapped by the press. He pushed back, straining to shove them away. The bodies imprisoned him, unyielding, a sea of figures crushing him with their very existence.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  “Barry!”

  His throat tightened in the acrid air. He was suffocating.

  “Barry!”

  Hands pressed against the sides of his face and he saw a terrified Iris. His lungs opened and he drew in a deep breath, then coughed it out violently, doubling over.

  He looked toward the barrel where Black had been sitting, but there was no sign of him. The older Flash was gone, as well.

  Iris coughed, fighting to breathe.

  “You were just standing there, like you were frozen. I had to—” She coughed and winced from the heat that Barry suddenly felt.

  He heard the crunching sound of the blaze. Sheets of flames swelled overhead and long streams of fire dripped down around them. Blue barrels still rested on the metal rack surrounded by fiery debris.

  Iris’s knees gave out. He grabbed her, raced outside, and deposited her near the main engine. Then he returned to the warehouse and began to ferry the last barrels out. He felt as if he was barely moving, limbs stiff. He could hardly draw breath. Still, he didn’t think of anything but running.

  No Black. No Mardon or Bivolo.

  Just moving objects from one place to another. Barrel after barrel until finally he was down to two.

  The Flash lifted them b
oth with great effort and lumbered toward the entry. A loud crack ripped the air above him. A large metal beam fell, trailing flames and wreckage. Exhausted as he was, he could only watch as it dropped heavily in front of him. He gagged for air. Smoke and fire surrounded him. He coughed and couldn’t think straight.

  Something cold knocked him back. A geyser of foam settled over the flaming beam, pushing down the fire. Through the smoke, the Flash saw two figures at the warehouse entry. Joe West and Captain Sandoval. They manhandled the heavy hose, swinging it back and forth to create a frothy corridor.

  “Run! This way!” Joe waved his arm.

  The Flash hefted the two barrels and started forward. He slipped in the foam, but kept going. The white stream rained cold droplets around him. He climbed over the smoldering beam. When he reached the two men, they dropped the hose. Captain Sandoval and several others had to wrestle the barrels out of his stiff hands. Joe slid his shoulder under Barry’s arm, and helped him away from the fire.

  The Flash sat hard on the step of a fire truck. Firemen stood around in confusion. Some were in handcuffs, demanding to be released. Sirens wailed closer in the background.

  Joe knelt in front of the Flash and stared into his eyes. Iris crowded close behind. He tried to smile.

  “I’m fine, Detective,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Or I will be. Hurray for accelerated healing.”

  Joe lowered his head in relief, and patted him on the knee.

  “Yeah. Fast. You do everything fast,” he murmured. “Like rushing me to an early grave, son, I swear.” Abruptly Joe’s phone rang, and he pulled it out. “Cisco? Yeah, he’s right here.” He looked at Barry. “Your communications link must be down. Cisco and Caitlin are going nuts.”

  “I’m sure they are. Tell them I’m fine.” Barry laughed, and caught Iris’s stern glare. “Suits can be fixed.”

  Iris still didn’t laugh. He reached to take her hand, and she squeezed his back.

  9

  Shawna Baez stared at the chessboard. Half the pieces were off the board, and the game was moving into the final phase.

  She and Rathaway had played two games already. In the beginning he was glib. When she won the first game, he turned serious and didn’t speak a word during the second one, which he won. Despite the close contest, her mind wandered with growing disinterest, and she knew that unless he made a stupid mistake, he would win this one, as well.

  He knew it too, and he began to relax.

  Rathaway’s glass of wine sat untouched, as it had for all three games, while Shawna had nearly finished the rest of the bottle. No matter how much she tried to study the board, or lubricate herself with wine, she couldn’t stop envisioning the Flash at the fire. She had teleported in, then taken Mardon and Roy Bivolo up to an apartment balcony high above the mayhem.

  Mardon and Bivolo chuckled and gave play-by-play commentary as if they were watching a football game. But Shawna just saw the Flash working his tail off to help people, putting himself on the line to save others. She’d finally tired of it and teleported them out.

  When they made it back to the house, she went to collapse from exhaustion, leaving them to gripe about missing the big finish.

  But there had been no big finish. When she woke, she learned that Flash had prevented the chemical explosion. She was quietly smug about it as both Mardon and Bivolo complained bitterly. Strangely enough, Rathaway didn’t seem to care.

  “What do you think, Shawna?” Rathaway didn’t look up.

  “About what?” she responded, picking up the wine.

  “About the mission,” he said without a hint of emotion in his voice. “How did it go last night? From your point of view.”

  She stiffened with the wine glass at her lips. Without knowing what he was looking for, she was hesitant to answer. Was he asking her to snitch? She wasn’t comfortable with that—even with guys as creepy as Weather Wizard and Prism.

  Rathaway must have sensed her hesitation. “From an operational standpoint,” he said, and he smiled reassuringly. “Did everything go as planned?”

  “Sure.”

  He sat back. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

  Shawna gulped wine. “Why should I?”

  “We’re a team. All of us.”

  “Do you trust any of those other guys?”

  Rathaway laughed. “Oh God, no, but I understand them. Nimbus, for example, seems like a loner, but he’s actually an eager teammate. He used to be an enforcer for the Darbinyan crime family, but they turned on him. That’s why he killed them—because he felt excluded. He’s liable to wander off, due to lack of concentration, but he badly wants to be part of the group.

  “Now Mark Mardon, the Weather Wizard, wants to be in charge,” he continued. “He spent years of his life looking out for his younger brother, Clyde. So he thinks of himself as a benevolent dictator. He wants to be the guy you would thank, for telling you what to do.”

  “So is he in charge?” Shawna shifted her bishop.

  “No, but as long as he thinks he has the chance, he’ll stay.” Rathaway studied the board anew. “Now Bivolo I don’t quite grasp. He may be as simple as wanting money. There doesn’t seem to be much ambition behind those sunglasses. I don’t spare him much attention.”

  “And me?”

  Rathaway paused thoughtfully. “You want money, too, but you want it so you can live better. You want a degree of comfort and elegance in your life. Perhaps you’ve never experienced it before, I don’t know. You also want to believe in people. You want to trust me, and I hope you will—because I trust you.”

  Her eyes flicked up to him. She had visions of her old boyfriend, street thief Clay Parker, with his promises that they’d go off and spend the rest of their lives together. “Just trust me, baby,” he would say, and she had.

  That she was free now had nothing to do with him. When the metahumans broke out of S.T.A.R. Labs, Shawna had looked for Clay, but he had left town. Left her behind again. Now Rathaway was trying to convince her that she could trust him to watch her back.

  She’d heard it before.

  “Why should I believe you?” Shawna set her glass noisily on the table.

  “Because I have no advantage in lying to you,” he replied. “You’re the key to our success. I can admit that without reservation. Without your power, Flash would pick off all of them, one by one.” Rathaway leaned forward. “Besides, you’re the only one here who’s a decent person. Mardon and Bivolo and Nimbus are animals. If I don’t keep them in check, they’ll run wild.”

  “Then why are you working with them?” she pressed. “They don’t seem like your types.”

  “No, they’re not.” He smiled again. “Although Mardon has a savage pretty-boy thing going on.”

  Shawna paused in confusion before laughing with a wicked conspiratorial glee. “That’s not what I meant, but you’re right.”

  Rathaway gave her a sly glance and whispered, “Frankly, they make my skin crawl, but I need them. And if you think about it, in a sad way, they are my type. That’s yet another reason to hate Harrison Wells.”

  “Harrison Wells? Isn’t that guy dead? What’s he got to do with it?”

  “Everything. We are all metahumans. That’s what they call us. Metahuman. You. Me. Those three brutes with whom we work. All of us are tied together by a bond created by Dr. Harrison Wells on the night the particle accelerator exploded. Now I’m forced to live with people I once would’ve crossed the street to avoid.”

  Shawna’s face flushed with anger.

  “Like me, you mean?” she hissed. “People who didn’t have a trust fund so they could go to a good school.”

  Rathaway sat back in his chair and stared at the window across the room. White seagulls rose and fell in the late afternoon sun. Either he hadn’t heard her comment, or didn’t care. He shook his head slowly.

  “Every day I wear special earplugs, because without them, my senses would be bombarded by every vibration in the world. I would be lying on the floor
screaming in agony. Even with them, I am in constant pain. All thanks to Dr. Harrison Wells and his toadies like Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow, both of whom are still living off the corpse of S.T.A.R. Labs.” His voice rising, he tapped the arms of his chair. “I warned him. I told Wells that the particle accelerator would fail. He didn’t listen. In fact, he fired me. He threatened to ruin me if I talked. I was right and he ruined me anyway,” Rathaway shouted. “He ruined me anyway! He ruined everything!”

  Shawna pushed back in alarm. Rathaway was always distant, and mildly disengaged. Never like this. But if he was telling the truth, was truly in constant pain, she could understand his rage.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “None of that matters any longer. The past is the past.” Rathaway drew in a calming breath. “We’re all connected, Shawna. We are all outcasts. You’ve been tossed into that miserable dungeon under S.T.A.R. Labs, just like I have. They can’t handle us in the real world, so they treat us like mad dogs. They’re afraid of us.

  “But eventually they’ll decide the only safe choice is to kill us.” He gazed directly into her eyes with an exciting energy. “They can’t get that chance, Shawna. I won’t let them.”

  “Are you going to kill the Flash?”

  Rathaway twisted his head, surprised by her question. It pleased her to have unsettled him even just a little. When he replied, his voice cracked with emotion.

  “Yes. Probably.”

  Shawna winced.

  “I won’t do it lightly.” Rathaway took a drink of wine, as if to steel himself. “The Flash is just a tool of our persecution. He’s the weapon Harrison Wells built to erase his mistakes—us. Although Dr. Wells is gone now, his Flash will never stop. He’s like a horrible wind-up soldier.” He leaned in again. “Don’t you see? None of us is safe while he’s around. I want you to be safe, Shawna. You deserve it.”

  Abruptly he returned his attention to the chessboard.

  There was a pain in him that she recognized and understood. Her life had been crowded with phonies and operators and poseurs, but for all of his ego, Rathaway felt legit. His eyes shone with the assuredness of intellect. Shawna craved the feeling of someone having her back, someone capable and smart. She wanted to believe him, believe in him.