by Barry Lyga
“What do you mean?” he asked again. A cold feeling clamped around his heart. “What. Do. You. Mean?”
Citizen Hefa spread her hands helplessly and searched for the right words. “When you return to your era, it will be at a point at which all the time you spent in your future has passed. Otherwise, you would be out of harmony with the rest of the universe.”
“What?” That didn’t sound good. The cold intensified.
She gnawed at her lower lip, again searching for words. “Imagine that you travel to the future and spend twenty-four hours there. If you returned to your present at the moment at which you left, you would be twenty-four hours older than everything else in the entire universe. Your atoms and molecules would be out of sync with the rest of reality. The internal vibrations you’ve maintained thanks to the Cosmic Treadmill act as a sort of clock, keeping you in pace with your own time period. When you relax them, you return to the appropriate moment in time.”
“But . . .” Barry stammered, “I’ve traveled to the past before and returned almost at the same moment, and nothing bad happened.”
“How long were you in the past?”
He thought about the times he’d time-traveled before. Each time, he’d only been in the past a short time before returning to his own relative present.
Not like now. He’d been in the thirtieth century for several hours, then in the sixty-fourth century for even more time . . . He hadn’t been keeping track. Because he didn’t think it was necessary. But a lot of time had passed for him in the future! Which meant that he’d been missing for the same amount of time in his era.
Iris. Iris must be terrified. And Cisco and the others . . . They would probably be trying to find him, trying to figure out what had happened. So soon after being lost on Earth 27, to do this to them again . . .
The cold feeling around his heart became painful. He had to leave. Right now. He couldn’t make them wait a second longer.
“I have to go,” he told Citizen Hefa. “Right now.”
She nodded gravely in understanding, raising a hand in farewell. “I look forward to our next meeting, Flash,” she said, and before he could ask what she meant by that, he’d already begun slipping away, fading into the time stream . . .
. . . and then fading back in almost before he realized it.
The S.T.A.R. Labs Cortex materialized around him, swimming into view like a mirage in the desert. Disoriented, he stumbled a few steps to his left, colliding with a chair. He steadied himself, then sank into the chair. Whew!
He was home.
The Cortex was empty and quiet. But on the floor was a large scorch mark that looked as if it had been somehow cut in half. Something had happened here while he was gone.
Barry wondered what time it was. For that matter, what day was it?
He scooted the chair over to one of the computers. Yikes! It was midday of the day after he’d left for the future! Which meant . . .
Which meant his hearing at CCPD was going on right now!
He had to change clothes and get to the hearing immediately. Maybe there was still time to save his job.
Before he could do anything, an alert sounded, and the computer screen lit up: PROCESS COMPLETE.
Barry scanned the screen quickly. Someone—Cisco, no doubt—had been running a lengthy process on the system, and it was now over. As best he could tell, it was identifying several spots in the Central City sewers.
Earthworm? he wondered.
There was a thick file nearby. Barry read through it at superspeed, going so fast that one sheet of paper actually burst into flame. He blew it out and kept reading. A whole five seconds passed.
In his absence, Team Flash had figured out the who, what, why, how, and when of Earthworm. And now the computer had just spit out six possibilities for the where.
Barry had a choice: Go to the hearing or confront Earthworm before he could kill again.
Actually, he had no choice at all. The answer was obvious. At top speed, he raced away from the Cortex and S.T.A.R. Labs.
38
Caitlin sighed. This hearing was so . . . boring. She couldn’t imagine being a lawyer, listening to people drone on and on, wondering whom to believe. She worked in facts, science, something she could see in front of her. She took a deep breath. She was just going to have to give the facts now, give them something to believe in—and they could believe in Barry.
“I’m not just Barry Allen’s personal physician and coworker; I’m also honored to call him a friend.
“Honored because I have never in my life met a man who so embodies the principles of justice, ethical behavior, and personal sacrifice. I have never once seen Barry put his own needs or wants ahead of someone else’s. Has he been tempted? Sure. We’re all tempted. But he makes the right choice, every single time.
“I know that Barry can be . . . I was going to say ‘unreliable,’ but that’s just not true. Barry is steadfast and utterly reliable. He gets the job done. He may disappear for a while. He may be unreachable. This is a part of his process. His mind works in ways we can’t totally understand.
“Maybe this will help: I once had a patient with chronic back pain that was spreading into both legs. Horrible, horrible pain. She couldn’t stand for more than thirty seconds at a time. Sitting or lying down only dulled the pain. It was always there.
“By the time she came to me, she’d been to a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, and a physical therapist. I sent her in for an MRI and prescribed some meds. She asked me if she should keep seeing the other doctors who were working on her.
“I told her, ‘Absolutely. Keep doing all of it. Between the four of us, one of us is going to fix this. We may never even know which one of us fixed you, but does it really matter? All that matters is, you won’t be in pain anymore.’
“Barry’s process is his process. Does it really matter how he gets the job done, as long as it’s done?”
39
The computer told him that there were six potential hideout locations for Earthworm in the sewers, based on a slew of data the team had gathered during Barry’s absence. Fortunately, it also ranked those locations by likelihood: Two of them had a matching 32 percent chance of being Earthworm’s lair, with the other four descending from a likelihood of 20 percent down to a measly 1 percent chance for the last one.
It made sense to tackle the high-probability targets first. Barry chose the closest one, raced to the access cover nearest that location, vibrated through, and dropped into the darkness.
He reached out and snagged the maintenance ladder before he could plunge into the depths of the sewer. Hand over hand, he climbed down until his feet touched water.
With a penlight he’d grabbed on his way out of the Cortex, he checked the pages he’d brought with him. Cisco had thoughtfully had his program include a schematic of each area of the sewer that could be Earthworm’s lair. Details counted. Good job, Cisco.
Barry made his way through the sewer carefully, fully aware that Earthworm could be lurking in any shadow or even on the ceiling. He swept his light over the dripping pipes, the sweating walls, down into the murky, debris-filled water.
At last, he made it to the spot indicated by the program.
And there was nothing there. Just an old electrical junction box that had been disconnected decades ago but that hung open, its hinges rusted and cracked with age.
OK, he thought, and he crossed off the location on his list. One down.
Wally could hardly sit still. His legs bounced up and down. He wanted to race around the room. He decided he’d better get this over with as quickly as possible. “I don’t have much to say. I only met Barry recently. Turns out we’re brothers, in a way. At first—I’ll be honest—I didn’t think much of him. But then I really got to know him. And I realized that, other than my dad, he’s the best, most solid, most caring and giving man I’ve ever met. Just knowing him has made me want to be better, to improve myself, to do more for the world.
�
��I don’t know what else to say, but I also kinda think that says it all.”
Barry raced across the city to the second location on his list. He was aware that his disciplinary hearing was going on right at that moment. But it didn’t really matter. Without him there, it had probably ended as soon as it began.
I’m not a cop anymore, he thought. And then he shook the thought away. He had something more important to focus on.
H.R. drained his coffee. He smiled as the caffeine took effect.
“As President Gore once said—”
“What?
“Oh, yes, of course I meant Vice President Gore.
“Anyway, I’ve lost my train of thought now. Barry Allen is an excellent compadre and a—what’s the term?—a solid dude. Your Honors, I rest my case.”
At the intersection of Kanigher and Waid, Barry zipped into traffic at invisible speed, then vibrated straight down through another access cover in the street. Grabbed another ladder. Climbed down again.
Once he had his feet under him on solid—though damp, dank, and smelly—ground, he consulted the printout for his directions. With his trusty flashlight leading the way, he maneuvered through the sewers until the map indicated that he was almost at the location in question. It was just a right turn, ducking under some pipes, then scrabbling through a partly concealed pipe.
Barry dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through the pipe. The filth around him turned his stomach, but he clamped down hard on his nausea. He had work to do.
Emerging from the pipe after a ten-yard crawl, Barry stood, vibrated for a moment to shake off the disgusting water like a dog shaking itself dry, then headed through a low arch into a larger chamber.
Bingo.
The chamber was twelve feet to a side and maybe twice as tall, its ceiling vanishing into darkness. A hospital bed, one leg broken and propped up with a cinder block, rested at one end of the room, with a makeshift IV stand nearby, along with an old, broken-down dresser on which lay a series of medical instruments. There were trash bags spilling out old clothing, some waterlogged boxes containing rags and more medical instruments, as well as bottles of rubbing alcohol and cotton pads. A makeshift surgery, if you didn’t mind the bacteria and the filth of the sewers getting into your body.
And there, at the opposite end of the room, was Earthworm himself, hunched over one of the crates, rummaging through it with his back to Barry.
He was tall—six-three or -four to Barry’s trained eye—but painfully thin. Maybe a hundred-thirty pounds at the most. Wasting away. His organs perpetually in a state of rot. His skin, sallow and the color of bad cheese. His every movement pained.
He was dying. According to what Team Flash had sussed out, the man had been dying ever since the particle accelerator explosion had turned Barry into the Flash.
Flip a coin. Roll the dice. Fly your kite in a lightning storm. Sometimes you’re Ben Franklin. Sometimes you’re Georg Wilhelm Richmann.
He felt sorry for the villain. He hadn’t asked for this. Hadn’t asked to find his only hope for survival in the reeking confines of the Central City sewers, clad in a threadbare black duster and a dull red scarf that was almost completely frayed apart.
He hadn’t asked for this at all, and yet here they were. Hero and villain. A man who was living and a man who was dying.
Sensing something, Earthworm spun around. He hissed at Barry in outrage, clenching the hands at the ends of his spindly arms into fists.
“Go!” he shrieked in offended anger, and then he doubled over as a great coughing fit racked his body. His deterioration was accelerating. He was in terrible, terrible shape. “Go back to Upworld!”
“I can’t do that,” Barry told him. “I can’t let you kill anyone else. It’s over.”
Barry sensed movement in the water around him, tiny currents eddying and colliding. Rats. Lots of them. Massing near him.
He stayed perfectly still and then raised one hand, holding it out palm up. Offering it as though in supplication.
“Dr. Hynde, I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve harmed a great many people—killed some, even—but I know you did it out of desperation. Please, come with me, and let’s put an end to this. Let’s stop the killing. I can’t promise to cure you, but I can promise you the very best minds will be working on your—”
Earthworm howled and launched himself at Barry. Barry sidestepped and rabbit-punched him at superspeed. Earthworm collapsed, unconscious, at his feet.
Barry sighed, dejected. “Or I could just punch you out. Why does it always have to be that way?”
Joe held his hands out at his sides and gave a slight shrug.
“You all know me. You know I don’t mess around.
“I was more than the cop on the scene when Nora Allen was murdered. I took Barry in. Raised him like my own son. And, to my shame, I was one of the people Iris was talking about before. I was an adult, someone in a position of respect and authority, and I spent years telling Barry that his father had murdered his mother.
“I’ve never been happier to be wrong about something. Or more ashamed at having taken so long to believe in someone.
“I believe in Barry Allen. In his goodness. In his mind. In his commitment. I’ve been a cop my whole adult life. I’ve taken down a door or two with some of you on this panel. We’ve seen some things together, haven’t we? I’ve put my faith and trust in you, and you’ve done the same with me.
“Believe me now: Barry Allen is a good cop. He’s an essential cop.
“Is he often late? Does he forget to call? Does he space out and disappear for hours on end? Hell, I’m not gonna pretend none of that’s true! I’m not even gonna pretend it doesn’t drive me up a wall—it does! The kid can be a ghost sometimes.
“But he’s a ghost who produces results. A ghost who has solved innumerable cases that any other CSI would’ve given up on. I’m sure they would have punched the clock on time and picked up the lab phone on the first ring, but does any of that matter if they don’t get the job done?
“Barry Allen gets the job done. Every time. All the time. And we’d be damn fools to kick him out of this department.
“That’s all I’ve got.”
40
The members of the disciplinary board switched off their microphones and murmured among themselves. Iris and the others had taken seats near Darrel Frye, but Iris was closest.
“What do you think?” she asked Frye.
He arched a bushy eyebrow. “I don’t. Makes life easier.”
Before she could retort, there was a tapping sound. Captain Singh was testing his microphone, which he’d just switched on.
“We’re ready to give our verdict,” he said, to nods from the others.
No, Iris thought. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. Someone is supposed to save the day, and it was supposed to be us this time.
“We are—”
Captain Singh broke off and stared straight ahead, right over Iris’s shoulder. After a few seconds, it got uncomfortable. Everyone turned. Even Frye.
There, in the doorway, stood Barry Allen. He held a folder in his hand, and he seemed just slightly out of breath. Iris had to bite down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming in joy and relief and love.
“Am I late for something?” Barry joked.
41
“Not funny, Mr. Allen,” Captain Singh said in a very serious tone of voice.
Barry nodded. “Yeah, I know. Just trying to lighten the mood on my last day on the job. You were about to fire me, right?”
Singh said nothing. He seemed shocked by Barry’s actual presence, and there was pain etched into his features. Barry knew Captain Singh liked him, that he had not trodden this path lightly. This wasn’t a vendetta or a pleasure to Captain Singh; it was a sad necessity.
“I just wanted to take a moment to turn in my last case,” Barry said. He approached the board and placed the folder in front of Captain Singh. “This is the complete forensic case file fo
r the murders of Mitchell MacDonald and Herb Shawn, as well as over a dozen others we can now conclusively connect to the same killer. With the help of the CCPD’s contractors at S.T.A.R. Labs, I was able to put together enough evidence for the D.A.’s office to convict Dr. Herbert Hynde, a metahuman.”
Singh flipped open the file and thumbed through its pages without looking at them. His eyes never left Barry.
“I was lucky and happened to see the Flash running a patrol out on the street,” Barry went on. “I flagged him down and gave him the information I had. Right now, Dr. Hynde is in a special cryogenic cell at Iron Heights to stabilize him while he awaits trial.” Barry licked his lips. The next bit came out shaky at first:
“Captain. Members of the disciplinary board. It’s been my honor and my privilege to serve with you. I am ready to accept your ruling.”
With that, he stepped back and stood next to Darrel Frye, who looked as though someone had just hit him on the head with a rubber mallet.
“Come on!” It was Joe, rising to his feet behind Barry. “Captain Singh! David. Are you really gonna do this? Look at what you’ve got in front of you. You put Barry on suspension a week ago, but he kept working the case. And he closed it! He took a killer off the streets after being sent to his room. No one else would have done that. And no one else would have solved it but Barry Allen. Are you really going to throw that away?”
The other two members of the disciplinary board looked over at Captain Singh, who was still staring at Barry, his jaw locked and jutting out. He strummed his fingers on the folder before him.
It seemed as though agonizing hours passed, but it was only a few seconds before Singh leaned into his microphone, cleared his throat, and said, “If it pleases the members of the board, I am going to revoke my complaint against Mr. Allen.”
Barry couldn’t believe it. It took a moment for everyone else to realize what had just happened. Iris reached out and took Barry’s hand and squeezed it. Hard. H.R. hooted in joy, jumping up from his seat and slamming his drumsticks on the seat back before him. Cisco grabbed H.R. and shoved him back into his seat, shushing him at the same time. Barry thought he heard Joe whisper, “Yes!” Wally fist-pumped.