Mardon grew faint. No! Why now? People needed him. He couldn’t fail them. Joe and John were in the path of danger.
“Barry!”
As the red blur whooshed past, Barry fell in beside him. The two Flashes ran together.
“Come on,” the Future Flash urged, and they bore down. Barry roared into the speed force, feeling power rippling off him like a wake. Their surroundings were indistinct—location meant nothing at this speed.
A tantalizing tingle surged through him. He wanted it to be the speed burning the plasma out. Maybe it would happen this time. He would run fast enough. A quick glance at his older self showed him that the older Flash’s suit was smoking from the friction. Barry slowed in alarm.
“Run!” the Future Flash cried. “Don’t worry about me!”
He increased the pace again. The other speedster kept up, even though he was clearly in pain. He looked as if he would seize up at any step, tear muscles from the bone and tumble to a horrible stop. His face grew thinner by the second. His eyes went round as if in a bared skull. Barry grabbed his arm and dug his heels into the ground. He dragged them both to a flaming stop.
“What are you doing?” Future Flash gasped, pulling his arm free.
“You’re going to die,” Barry replied.
“I don’t matter!”
“But—”
“No.” His older self sank to one knee, breathing hard. “You were close there. You felt it, didn’t you? But you stopped.”
They were on a concrete stoop. Barry looked around in surprise, feeling a sense of familiarity. It was the front porch of his old home, the house where he lived until he was eleven years old—the house where his mother died. He could smell freshly cut grass. His red boots were covered in green clippings. The mower sat on the sunny lawn in front of him. It was a warm summer morning. He recognized the feel of the air.
Future Flash stood and put a foot on the porch next to Barry. He pulled back his cowl to reveal his bruised, weathered face. Barry gasped at how much he looked like his father. Just as Henry Allen had appeared at his worst moment, when the jury foreman said the word ‘guilty.’ His father had turned around to look at young Barry, sitting in the courtroom. Despite the pain, his father tried to give Barry an aura of confidence that almost covered the horrible regret deep in his eyes.
This was the same desolate gaze.
“I’m sorry I stopped.” Barry sighed. “I just… you needed help.”
“All right. Forget it.” His older self laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. The gloves were torn. The flesh underneath was scarred. “We’ve got time.”
“So am I time traveling?” Barry asked. “Are you? Do you come from the future or another dimension? Or… what?”
Future Flash smiled, just like Henry Allen, down to the crinkle around the eyes. He stepped up on the porch, offering a hand.
“Come on. Let’s go in.”
“Wait. Somebody else lives here now.”
“We’ll always live here.”
They went through the front door. It made the same sound as he swung it closed behind them. Barry paused with his hand on the doorknob, feeling the familiar shape. The wood floor of the entryway creaked just right, and made him smile. The furniture sat in the correct places, everything orderly and clean. Nothing was broken. There was no fingerprint powder residue.
No outline of his mother’s body on the floor.
Even so, Barry stepped around the spot where she had died. He saw his basketball sitting against the wall, where it shouldn’t have been because “people could trip over it and break their necks.” He picked it up. It was his favorite basketball ever. It had developed just the right feel and grain.
He squeezed it between his hands, feeling its hardness—bounced it several times and created that same rubbery ring that should’ve caused his mother to shout for him to dribble the ball outside. He clutched it to his chest and listened. Nothing.
“That was close,” his future self said as they entered the kitchen. He went to the counter and lifted a steaming coffee pot. “Guess she didn’t hear you. Coffee?”
Barry could smell it, now that he mentioned it. The kind his dad liked.
“I’m too young. I can’t have—” Then he stopped. “Oh yeah. Sure.”
“Take your mask off. You don’t have to worry about secrets here.” When Barry pulled the cowl back, his older self stared with wonder. “Oh, man. Were we ever that young?” He handed over a steaming cup.
Barry set the basketball on the large wicker hamper full of newspapers and magazines, and went to the cabinet. He yelped in triumph and pulled out cookies. Opening the package, he set them on the table and took the cup of coffee. He remembered these cups. Thick and heavy. He loved these cups. Barry crunched into a cookie and sat in a familiar wooden chair. He ran his hand along the edge of the wood.
Future Flash took a cookie. “Chocolate chip? I like oatmeal raisin.”
“I do? Since when?”
“Things change.” Future Flash lowered himself into the chair where his dad used to sit. He settled slowly, as if he was in pain. He leaned on the table, cradling the steaming mug between red fingers. “Feels good to be home, huh?”
“Yeah.” Barry picked up another cookie, and paused. He looked past the sink and out the kitchen window. It was a beautiful sunny day outside. Green leaves fluttered in the breeze. Puffy white clouds slid across the brilliant blue sky. He could smell the house around him. He had forgotten the scent. It filled him with memories and pain. Pictures hung from the refrigerator, and he remembered coloring them as he lay on the floor of his bedroom with a crayon clutched in his careful hand.
His gaze swung to the cookie in his gloved fingers. He studied it as if it was a scientific experiment.
“It’s not real, is it? None of this is real.” He ate it anyway.
“Real?” Future Flash sat back with a groan and looped his arm over the back of the chair. “Superspeed. Time travel. Talking gorillas. What does real mean to us?”
Barry shifted his observation to his older self, looking for faults and glitches. The worn face was so real. The weight on his shoulders. The pain in his eyes.
Future Flash raised an eyebrow. “That wasn’t a trick question, Barry. This isn’t some villain’s clever ploy to keep you trapped in a dream world.”
“So what do you want?” Barry leaned the chair back on two legs, just like he wasn’t supposed to, and snatched the basketball again. He started to spin it on the tip of his right index finger. “What exactly do you want me to do, Barry?”
“It’s simple. The only thing you can do—run faster. You’re the Flash. That’s what you do. That’s what you’ve done since the day you woke up in S.T.A.R. Labs. Run faster.”
“That’s what Harrison Wells used to tell me all the time.” Barry kept slapping at the basketball, spinning it faster on his finger. “But he was just using me to get back to his own time. Why should I listen to you, when you tell me the same thing? Particularly since you’re not real.”
“Harrison Wells might not have been what he seemed, but he was right. If he hadn’t pushed you to run faster, you couldn’t have saved all the people you have. Our family and friends would probably all be dead now.”
“I’ve heard all that before. I’ve said all that before. To Joe. And Iris. And Caitlin and Cisco.” He laughed and took his eyes off the ball. It wobbled on his finger and ricocheted off the wall to skid across the kitchen floor. “Now I’m saying it to myself. I’ve run out of other people to lecture, I guess.”
“Barry, I’m here to help you.”
“But who are you?”
“I’m you. It’s really that simple. I’m you.”
“Where am I? What’s the purpose of this?” Barry picked up the coffee cup but then slammed it down. “I’m sitting here eating cookies and doing Globetrotter tricks while my family and friends could be dying. Why do you keep pulling me into this world?”
“I’m not pulling you anywhere. Don�
�t blame me. I’m here because of you, not the other way around.”
Barry stared directly into his older eyes and saw fear deep inside. Any sense of confidence was pretense. He was terrified of something.
“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m telling you, this is all because of you.”
“Not that. I know this is a hallucination or a dream or something. I don’t think I can trust what you say.” Barry sat back with a shiver. “I can’t trust myself.”
“What else do you have? No one else knows what we go through. Are you going to believe someone else, or are you going to believe the Flash?”
Anger flared, and Barry stood up. “Okay, this is stupid. This isn’t my house. I’m not a little kid anymore. I’ve got to get back to my world. People are dying!”
“No, you are dying.” Future Flash sat forward with those serious eyes his father always used. “Barry, you’re being eaten up with that plasma from the wormhole. You’ve got to get it out of you.”
“Caitlin is working—”
“Caitlin doesn’t understand it. No one can but us.” His older self closed his hands into fists. “If you don’t save yourself, nothing else will matter. If there’s only one thing you’ve learned from Harrison Wells—from Reverse Flash—it’s that you have to run. That’s the only way to solve your problems.”
Barry scrubbed at his hair in frustration. He heard a ticking sound and looked at the window. Blowing leaves tapped against the glass. It was dark outside. The summer morning had faded. He went to the sink and peered out. The clouds piled up like a fantastic bastion across the sky. Lightning winked in the coiled recesses of the clouds, popping yellow and purples across the black.
Future Flash joined him at the window. “You need to leave now.”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“Go, Barry.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
His older self continued to look out at the storm. “I’m not fast enough, but you are. Or you can be. I can hold him here while you run.”
“Who? Run where?” Barry cried. “What’s the point in just running?”
The house creaked in the wind. Branches snapped off trees. Objects tumbled through the yard. Trash cans. Lawn furniture. Then pieces of siding and bricks. The grass itself seemed to ripple and pucker before tearing off the ground. Chunks of sidewalk ripped free and flew into the air. Trees lifted, roots pulling out of the soil.
Suddenly everything went calm. Trees toppled back into their holes. Dirt and rocks cascaded to the ground. Dust clouded the air and coated the window.
A doorknob clicked. Barry spun around to face the door across the kitchen. Through the gauzy curtain, he saw a large shape outside.
Future Flash stepped forward, fear lacing his voice.
“If you don’t run, everyone will die.”
“What’s out there?” Barry asked.
The door smashed open and a hulking gray shape appeared, sparking with blue electricity. He wore a gray, fleshlike mockery of Barry’s Flash costume, his face featureless except for glowing eyes and a strange caul mouth.
“Zoom,” Barry whispered.
“Flash.” Zoom spoke with his sepulchral voice. He then tilted his head slightly. “Flashes.”
Future Flash leapt forward without hesitation, lacing the air with lightning-fast blows. He was a haze of fists, slamming Zoom side to side. Barry watched in amazement as his foe staggered, banging against the doorframe. The monster’s knees buckled and he slumped onto the floor of the kitchen. Clawed hands dug into the tile. Future Flash continued to rain punishment. His older self was beating the most dangerous speedster Barry had ever encountered.
From his place on the floor, Zoom looked up slowly at Barry. Black eyes flared blue. He made a strange noise, a rumbling from deep in his chest.
He was laughing.
“You weren’t fast enough when you were young.” He leapt to his feet, clamping a savage hand around Future Flash’s throat. The older man was driven to his knees. “You have no chance when you are old.”
Barry latched onto Zoom’s powerful arm, trying to free his older self. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“For God’s sake, Barry,” Future Flash rasped. “Just run.”
“No! I won’t leave you.”
Zoom flexed his arm, and Future Flash smashed through the kitchen table, scattering chairs and breaking dishes. Zoom raced past Barry, through the house, heading upstairs. In an instant he was back, a gust of wind sending the basketball into motion.
“There.” Zoom idly tracked the ball bouncing across the floor. Red blood dripped from his fingers onto the kitchen floor. “More proof?”
Barry knelt next to the motionless older Flash. His gaze shifted upward with dread. Upstairs, where his parents’ bedroom was. His blood turned ice cold. This place wasn’t real, he fought to convince himself.
“Do you need a reminder?” Zoom held out his stained hands. “Speed won’t save you or those you love.” Then he was gone.
Barry sprang up and ran after him. He followed the fading trail of blue lightning across town into his other neighborhood. When he arrived at Joe’s house, Zoom waited outside the smashed door. Barry charged him, but came to a stop on an empty porch. Zoom vanished down the street.
Barry followed again, knowing their next destination. The Picture News office, and Iris. This was a dream. It had to be a dream. It wasn’t his world, but it didn’t matter. He was compelled to save those he cared about. Once again he was too slow. When he approached the newspaper building, the front was destroyed, and a blue streak sped away.
Iris had been in there. Was still in there.
Zoom headed for S.T.A.R. Labs. Barry slipped into motion without thinking. Rather than following his enemy’s track, he veered off and raced to the waterfront. He tore up along the river, leaving a wake of fire and spray. The finlike towers loomed closer. He was off the river and on the grounds. Through the doors. Into the Cortex…
“Caitlin! Cisco!”
There was no response. No one was around. Barry ran through all the offices and labs. Up and down the levels. Through the garage and once around the particle accelerator ring. There was no sign of anyone having been here recently. He returned to the empty Cortex. They weren’t here.
“You’re wrong, Flash.”
A creak came from behind, and Barry whirled around to find Zoom sitting in Caitlin’s chair. He hadn’t been there before. Had he?
“They were here,” Zoom growled. “I found them before you arrived.”
“No. You couldn’t have beaten me.”
“While you searched, I went back and brought all the bodies here. Your parents. Your adopted father. The woman you love, and your two friends. All dead.”
“No,” Barry repeated, almost pleading for this to end, his heart hammering in his chest. The room wavered. He had to put a hand against the wall to stay on his feet.
“Yes. They are all in the Pipeline below.” Zoom stretched out his hand, a gnarled finger extended toward the door. “I’ll wait while you go to see for yourself. I laid them out for you. A monument to what your speed can accomplish.”
“But why?” Barry moaned. Tears welled in his eyes. “It’s me you wanted. Why did you have to hurt them?”
Zoom rose and came around the table. He towered over Barry, peering down with his horrible emotionless mask.
“Because unless you see the proof in front of you, you’ll never learn.”
Barry watched helplessly as the dark hand closed over him.
32
“He got both of them.” Kyle Nimbus watched live footage from a news chopper flying high above the Cary Reservoir. A horde of inspectors in yellow helmets scurried over the dam. There was a large tent set up on one end, with police officers surrounding it.
The broadcast went back to the studio. File photos of Mardon and Bivolo filled the screen behind the hosts.
“Mardon even takes a good mug s
hot,” Nimbus grumbled. “Anyway, I knew Flash had some new power.” He shot Shawna an I-told-you-so look. “See? Nobody listens to me, and now we’re done.”
Shawna didn’t say anything. Being alone with Nimbus made her uncomfortable—she missed even the brusque humanity of Mardon as a buffer. Nevertheless, she fought to maintain a bland face. The last thing she wanted was to give off the scent of guilt.
Nimbus hadn’t even hinted that he suspected the mission had been compromised from inside. Rathaway hadn’t been around since the news broke, so she had no idea what he thought.
She wanted to just teleport, and leave this all behind her. Shawna hated the fact that she cared—cared that even more innocent lives might be placed in jeopardy after this. So she had decided to stay, to bluff it out. Surely the group would break up, now that they’d lost Mardon. He had been their powerhouse.
Soon she’d be able to walk away, without having to look over her shoulder the rest of her life. The only people who knew she’d ratted out Mardon and Bivolo were Iris and the Flash’s gang. They wouldn’t talk—they were the good guys.
Nimbus picked up the remote to shut off the television, but before he could the face of Joe West came up on the screen. He nearly choked with rage, and turned up the volume.
“—two metahuman criminals attempted to destroy the Cary Reservoir Dam, which would have caused tremendous property damage and put hundreds of innocents at risk. Residents were fortunate enough to evacuate ahead of time. There would have been massive damage to the city’s power and water supply.
“The perpetrators were apprehended, their plans thwarted, thanks to the efforts of the Flash and the Green Arrow. These two criminals were members of the gang that has been disrupting life in Central City for the past week or two,” he continued. “They are now off the street.” He pointed to a reporter who had his hand raised.
“Are the police close to arresting the other members of the gang?”
“We’ll get them.” West stared into the camera with cold eyes. He thanked the reporter, and hurried off amid more shouted questions.
Flash Page 21