Flash

by Susan Griffith

  34

  Barry dragged himself back to the waking world, though every part of his body begged him not to. Pain and exhaustion battered him before he even opened his eyes.

  The vivid image of Zoom flashed in his thoughts, and he moaned. God, it had been so real. Agony and despair reverberated through him. The thought of all those he held dear, gone in seconds, all because he wasn’t fast enough. His hand lifted in a vain attempt to brush the painful memories aside, but it was grabbed in a firm grip.

  Barry opened his eyes. Oliver stood beside his bed, looking grim. As always.

  “Finally awake. How are you doing?”

  He moved, and immediately regretted it. His body was one massive ache.

  “Terrible,” he groaned.

  “Glad you’re still with us.”

  “Me too… I think.” Barry managed the barest of grins as he shifted carefully. “I’m not used to healing this slow. What time is it?”

  “Late. It’ll be dawn soon. Most everyone is asleep, or should be. John is monitoring… the monitors. Your metas have gone to ground for now. We hit them pretty hard.” Oliver reached for something beside the bed. He looked profoundly apologetic as he held up another of Caitlin’s horrible metabolic shakes. “Here—you’re supposed to drink this if you wake up.”

  Barry grimaced. “I should have stayed unconscious.” But he took it. Oliver settled back in the chair next to the bed.

  “You did a good job out there,” he said. “We took out two of your enemies, and saved a lot of people.” Oliver reminded Barry of a general visiting the injured after a hard-won battle. He couldn’t deny, though, that the words of praise bolstered him somewhat.

  “If it weren’t for you and the others, it could have gone badly out there,” Barry insisted. “You got Bivolo, and your arrow took out Weather Wizard.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself. We did it together.”

  The door opened, and Joe, Iris, Caitlin, Cisco, Felicity, and John all rushed in. Though they all looked exhausted to one degree or another, they beamed with excitement as they gathered around the bed. Barry laughed weakly.

  “I thought it was three in the morning, and everyone was asleep.”

  “It was a slumber party, man,” Cisco replied. “We were out in the Cortex, making s’mores.”

  “I hope there’s some left. I’m starved.”

  Caitlin lifted the metabolic shake from the bedside table where Barry had put it, and helpfully handed it back to him.

  “Felicity has some good news,” she said.

  “I could use some.” Barry gave the shake a sour glare. “Now more than ever.”

  Felicity grinned with excitement, but quickly bit her lip to shut it down.

  “Well, first of all, this is very tentative so don’t get too worked up.” She started grinning again. “Something about your temporal anomaly and plasma infection kept digging at my brain. So I went scouring the Palmer Tech files for research projects using those keywords as my starting point. Palmer experimented with wormhole generation and something they called ‘plasma-based technology.’ I’m trying to get more details. It’s not much—not yet, anyway—but it’s something.”

  “At least it’s a start,” Iris said encouragingly. She leaned in and hugged Barry, which made him wince. Instantly she pulled away. “I’m sorry! Are you in pain?”

  “A little bit.” He wrapped her in his arms as hard as he could. “This helps. And thanks, Felicity. Hopefully something will come of it, but until it does we can’t ignore reality. There’s going to be a risk that I’ll blur at inopportune times. This last one was the worst yet—you guys probably thought I was gone for good.”

  “I knew you’d be back, Barry.” Joe grinned. “Never had a doubt about it.” John shot Joe an approving glance, and Barry wondered what that was about. They all took seats around the room, or found a place to lean.

  “Great work up there,” John said. “Score two for the good guys.”

  “Well, it helped that Shawna turned, and trusted Iris enough to give us a lead,” Barry said, and he went serious. “Now we need Rathaway.”

  “We’ll get him,” Oliver said with an easy confidence that Barry wished he could steal.

  “Not if I keep blurring.”

  Joe handed him a cup of water. “So you saw Zoom this time? That can’t have been pleasant.”

  “No.” Barry’s voice was barely above a whisper. “He…” Barry stopped. Killed all of you, he thought. “… was as nasty as ever,” he said.

  “So you keep seeing people from your past?” Oliver asked.

  “Well, and the future.” Barry straightened in the bed despite the pull of sore muscles.

  “Like your older self?” Cisco asked. “Was he there?”

  “Yeah, he’s always there. Giving me advice.” Barry rolled his eyes with a smile. “I must think I’m Joe in the future.”

  “You’ll never give advice like me.” Joe feigned pride. “Even in the future.”

  Oliver leaned forward. “Maybe I’m not understanding this plasma issue. I know Caitlin suspects it’s making you hallucinate. Tell me what you’re thinking about, just before you blur.”

  It took Barry a few minutes to put his thoughts into words.

  “I feel as if I’m losing.”

  Oliver frowned. “Control?”

  “No. Like… like I won’t make it in time. Like I’m about to fail.”

  “Who do you think you’re failing?”

  “I don’t know.” Barry struggled to put into words all those chaotic moments. “The people I’m trying to save, maybe. So I run faster.”

  “And the blurring is caused by using the speed force?”

  “No,” Caitlin said. “Barry is infected by a plasma from a singularity. The plasma in his body activates due to specific hormonal activity—we think cortisol—in his system. Once the plasma is active, it hijacks the speed force and causes Barry to blur, which appears to be physical effect of his speed force running wild. And then—for lack of a better concept—as the speed force powers the cells in Barry’s body, the plasma feeds off those cells. It’s as if cancer infected a body, forcing it to produce sugars, which then fed the cancer.” She paused, then added quickly, “But this isn’t cancer.”

  Oliver listened and nodded. “What’s the objective of this plasma?”

  Caitlin tilted her head in confusion. “It doesn’t have an objective. It’s not a living thing. It doesn’t have consciousness or a desire except to find a host and survive. It’s a form of energy. It does what it does, and apparently Barry’s speed force is exactly what it needs to sustain itself.”

  “But you don’t blur every time you use your speed,” Oliver said.

  “No, I don’t,” Barry answered. “Though there have been times I’ve felt it about to come on.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “Panic,” he answered blithely.

  Oliver gave him a stern look.

  Barry could only shrug. “I’m not sure really. I didn’t do anything. Most of the time I’m too busy trying to save someone, or stop someone.”

  Oliver’s expression changed. “Caitlin, this plasma only manifests when Barry is flooded with cortisol.”

  “Yes.”

  Oliver rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Barry, who did you see in your hallucination the first time you blurred?”

  “Just me. The older me. That was when I was running the Pipeline here.”

  “And next?”

  “Danton Black. My first real fight as the Flash. He died.”

  “And next?”

  “Grodd.”

  “The talking ape.” John tried to keep the incredulity from his expression. Barry thought he did a reasonably good job.

  “Don’t mock,” Joe said. “He’s scary as hell.”

  “And before all the blurs,” Oliver pressed, “you were using your speed to fight or save people?”

  “The Danton blur was at the chemical fire on the waterfront. I was tryin
g to keep the firefighters safe. And Iris. She showed up to cover the story. In her pajamas, no less.” She glared at him, then gave an embarrassed smile.

  Oliver narrowed his eyes. “And with Grodd?”

  “That happened at our house when the Mist attacked Joe. But there were other blurs that didn’t happen while I was in action. Both here at S.T.A.R. Labs.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  “I was running. Just running, like I do all the time.”

  “Think, Barry,” Oliver pressed. “What was happening in your head?”

  Barry shut his eyes and fought to concentrate, to remember those events. The feelings of racing around the Pipeline.

  “My powers had glitched a little the day before, like I told you in my lab, when I pulled a woman out of her car.”

  “The one who reminded you of your mom, because she was more worried about her son than she was about dying,” Oliver noted.

  “That’s what I was thinking about.” He returned Iris’s sympathetic squeeze of his hand. “My mom and how I couldn’t save her.”

  “And on the treadmill?” Oliver said quietly.

  “Caitlin.” Barry looked up at her. She returned the gaze, her eyes growing hazy with unshed tears. “She was sitting there, and I started thinking about how I let Ronnie die. I lived, but Ronnie died because I wasn’t fast enough, and Caitlin was alone again.”

  “And this last time at the dam,” Oliver said, “the flood placed all of us in danger. Joe and John were down there. If you didn’t stop Mardon, they would die.”

  “It can’t be that,” Barry protested. “I’m stressed now, and I’m not blurring.”

  “It’s obviously not just stress. There’s something else happening inside you. Still, up until now, you’ve been assuming this is something purely physical.”

  “Isn’t it?” Barry asked. “The plasma is inside me, consuming my cells. That’s a scientific fact.”

  “Yes, it is,” Felicity acknowledged, “but that’s not what’s triggering your blurs. It’s your emotions. Emotions have their own biology, their own chemical pathways. The mind-body connection is more profound than Western medical science is willing to admit. Oliver has taught me some of that.”

  “So what are you saying?” Barry scowled.

  “Your brain is giving the plasma a way in,” Oliver said.

  “How? By thinking?”

  “No,” the archer replied. “By feeling.”

  “You’re saying my emotions are eating me alive?”

  “In a way.”

  “I think Oliver is onto something,” Felicity said. “You care about everything and everyone so deeply, particularly those of us in this room. You have this light inside you that few people possess.”

  “So I’m my own worst enemy.”

  “I’m just looking at the evidence.” Oliver folded his arms, holding his ground. “I can’t say anything about the plasma that’s in your system. I don’t understand it—that’s Caitlin’s area of expertise—but it seems reasonable that the blurring incidents are associated with your emotional state, as well.”

  “So what do I do? Stop having emotions?”

  “That’s not what he’s saying, Barry,” Caitlin replied. “We don’t totally understand the biochemistry of emotions, but his idea that it’s your fear, sparking the plasma to life, actually has merit.”

  Barry sank back onto the bed. “Well, I can’t stop running, and I can’t stop how I feel.”

  “There’s no harm in caring for people, Barry,” Oliver said, “but like any soldier in a war, you can’t let it consume you.”

  “I’ve told you before, I’m not a soldier.”

  “You are,” Oliver countered. “You just don’t have the discipline of one.”

  Joe frowned. “He works pretty damn hard at this, you know. He gets the job done. We don’t all have to be the grim avenger of the night.”

  “I wouldn’t want him to be, Detective West,” Oliver said with a calm stare, “but I think I can offer Barry a few things that might help.”

  “Like shooting people’s eyes out?” Joe snapped.

  “Joe!” Barry held up a calming hand. “Take it down a notch.”

  “No,” Oliver said, addressing the detective. “Like taking a tactical breath before acting…” He turned back to Barry. “…and refocusing your mind, so you control your thoughts during a fight. Your mind races like the rest of you. I can help you slow it down, and control your emotions under fire.

  “That’s something I do understand,” he added. “I’m human.”

  “Well, that hasn’t been proven yet,” Barry responded, and he grinned, but secretly he relished the calm intensity Oliver maintained.

  Oliver’s eyebrow rose slowly. “Let’s not forget which of us is the metahuman here.”

  “Point taken.”

  Joe rubbed the back of his neck. “Hey look, I’m sorry, Oliver. I don’t mean any of that stuff. I’m just a little wound up.”

  Oliver offered a smile. “Not a problem, Detective. I respect you standing up for your son.”

  Both Iris and Felicity grunted in agreement.

  Barry regarded Oliver. “So you think this tactical breathing thing will help with the blurring?”

  “Can’t hurt.”

  “Okay.” Barry settled back into the pillow. “And I am a big fan of breathing. I hope to keep doing it for a long time.”

  35

  The motorcycle bounced over the rutted road, and Barry hung onto Oliver for dear life. They had been riding for more than an hour, south out of Central City, roaring between fields of brown cornstalks not yet plowed under for winter.

  Suddenly Oliver swerved across an open meadow of high grass. He braked among a grove of bare-limbed maples surrounded by a beautiful carpet of bright scarlet leaves. One lone red leaf quivered high above in the skeletal branches. Cutting the motor, he looked around.

  “This is good.”

  Barry groaned as he lifted a stiff leg and slid off the bike. He removed the helmet Oliver made him wear, and had to admit, it was a gorgeous spot. The trees. The knee-high grass. The distant cornstalks.

  “What do you hear?” Oliver took the helmet and hung it on the handlebar. Barry snapped to attention, listening for signs of an attack or danger. He spun around, searching for anything odd.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “I said hear. What do you hear?”

  “Oh.” Barry stood quietly. “The wind?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. Listen again.”

  Barry tried once more. “I really think I hear the wind. The branches of the trees, and the corn stalks over there.”

  “So you don’t hear the wind. You hear branches creaking and cornstalks rustling. You can’t hear the wind—only where the wind has been.”

  “Really?” Barry gave him a snide grin. “Is this a one hand clapping thing?”

  Oliver unstrapped his bow from the motorcycle. Barry regarded the weapon.

  “You’re not going to try and shoot me, are you? Cisco tried to suggest that, to test my blurring. Joe nearly shot him instead.”

  “No, I’m not going to shoot you.” Oliver snapped the bow out into form. “Probably.” The weapon went from short staff to high-tech compound bow with a flick of his wrist. He drew an arrow from the quiver on the motorcycle. “Do you breathe when you run?”

  “Of course.” Barry paused, suddenly wondering. “Wait. Do I? Yes, sure I do. I just do it faster than most people. When I’m inside the speed force, physics and biology work a little differently.”

  “But not too differently, because the plasma is linked to hormonal responses. Therefore you need to control your hormones.”

  “You sound like my junior high principal.” Barry laughed.

  Oliver’s eyes flicked to the bow. Barry straightened reverently, and went silent.

  “I’m going to teach you several concepts, and the techniques needed to practice thos
e concepts. Once you master them, I believe this will help with your blurring.”

  “Today?”

  “It’s been more than a day since you came out of the blur. We can assume your Pied Piper will make a move soon. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “How long did it take you to master these techniques?”

  “I’ve been practicing some of them for more than five years and I haven’t come close to mastering them yet.”

  “Well, thanks for the confidence.” Barry crooked his mouth in a disbelieving smile. Oliver kicked through the red leaves and into the high grass.

  “The purpose of these techniques,” he explained, “is to calm your mind when you’re about to blur. You need to gain control of your autonomic nervous system. It will allow you to act, but to act with calm and purpose.”

  “What will it do to the plasma?”

  “Don’t worry about things you can’t control. That’s the whole point of this exercise. You need to be in the moment. There will be a time to deal with the plasma, but I’m trying to teach you how to avoid blurring.”

  “Aren’t they related?”

  “Yes, but when you’re trying to reach the Pied Piper, you can’t concern yourself with the connection. You can’t worry about saving Joe, or saving me, or running fast enough to save anybody.”

  “Isn’t that the point of being the Flash?”

  “Yes, but if you’re always thinking about that, it distracts you from being the Flash. When a soldier is on the battlefield, he has to remain focused on the moment. In that moment when the bullets are flying, he’s only worried about staying alive, and maybe accomplishing his mission. The fact that he’s been trained to do it allows him to serve his buddies, his unit, and ultimately his country.”

  Oliver pointed at himself. “But it starts here. Until you’re present enough to do what you can do, your purpose is pointless. If you blur because you’re panicked about failing someone, you have failed.”

  Easier said than done, Barry thought, but he knew the man was right.