Barry ran down the street, bumping into people in an attempt to get to the crime scene. He soon arrived.
"CSI, CSI," he said, walking to the threesome of cops.
"... cannot carry on the investigation without him," Captain Singh was saying.
"Sorry I'm late Captain Singh," Barry said.
"What was it this time, Mr Allen? Did you forget to set your alarm clock? Before you answer I should remind you the excuse you gave last time was car trouble. Wanna know why that was particularly memorable?"
The man in question nodded awkwardly. "I do not own a car."
Joe stepped in. "He was running an errand for me. Barry, did you get me what I asked for?"
Joe nodded to play along.
"Yeah, yeah. I did," Barry searched his pockets, "I have it... right...here," he pulled out a chocolate bar, "I had a few bites of it."
Barry then went to investigate the tracks. "Getaway car is a Mustang Shelby GT500. Shelbys have a rear super wide tyre specific to that model. Twelve inches with an asymmetrical thread," Joe smiled as he wrote that down. Barry noticed something else, "there's something else," he grabbed a pen from Chyre's pocket, getting some of the brown stuff onto it. "Faecal excrement. Animal I'd guess."
"My dad gave me that pen… before he died," Chyre said.
"Sorry," Barry replied awkwardly, putting into an evidence bag. In Barry's lab, there was a man with black hair and blue eyes sitting at a desk, unpacking a box.
"Who're you?" Barry asked. The man smiled.
"I'm Michael Emerson. You must be Barry," the man replied. "I was hired yesterday."
"So, you're the partner Joe was talking about yesterday."
"Yup, that's me. You might want to process that evidence so you can go see the particle accelerator."
Just then Iris walked in. "Hey, I am ready to see this atom smasher... smashing. Who are you?"
"I'm Michael, the one who was hired yesterday."
"There was a shooting today. Your dad needs me to process some evidence, which means that I don't know if we'll be able to make it to S.T.A.R. Labs," Barry said, turning to Iris.
"But seeing this thing turn on is like your dream. Your sad, little nerdy dream," she ate on of Barry's fries, "besides, I cancelled a date for this."
"Hands off my fries! Unbelievable," Barry said, exasperated.
"I am stress-eating over my dissertation. We started selling cronuts at Jitters, I ate two today. If I don't graduate soon, I'm gonna be more muffin-top than woman."
"You look amazing."
Iris rolled her eyes and Barry walked awkwardly to another part of the room. No one noticed, but Michael was looking at the two with a deep sadness on his face.
"What is so important about this particle accelerator anyway?" Iris asked, breaking the silence.
"Harrison Wells work in Quantum Theory is light years ahead of anything they're doing at CERN," Barry said.
"You're doing that thing where you're not speaking English."
"Okay. Imagine…" he drew a dot on the board, "that that dot is everything the human race has ever learned until this moment."
"Does that include twerking?" Iris asked and Michael snorted.
Barry drew a bigger circle on the board, "and that is everything we could learn from the particle accelerator. It's a whole new way of looking at physics. It will literally change the way that we think about everything."
Iris put a hand on his shoulder. "You've got to get yourself a girlfriend."
"Hey, leave him alone. He's working," Joe said, walking in. He noticed Michael, "I see you're settling in nicely."
Michael nodded.
"Hi, dad," Iris said. The computer beeped, and she looked back at it. "Your test thingy is done."
Barry looked at the results. "I think the Mardon brothers are hiding at a farm. The faecal matter I found on the street was cow manure which contains traces of oxytetracycline. It's an antibiotic. There are only four farms in the area that still use it in their feed," he handed Joe a paper. "Bet you find a really sweet Shelby parked at one of them."
"Dad, seeing how Barry solved your poop problem, how about letting him go to S.T.A.R. Labs?"
He relented. "Fine, go."
"Thank you, Joe!" Barry said as he left. Joe turned to Michael.
"Aren't you going too?" he asked.
"Nah, I'm good. I'll just stay here," the man replied, not looking up from the computer. Joe shrugged and went downstairs. Michael, Merlin, rubbed his hands down his face. He suddenly seemed very old, older than he looked.
"Why did I decide to work here?" he mumbled to himself. Time seemed to pass very fast after that, and in no time, Barry and Iris were back at the station. Merlin still hadn't come down from upstairs and Barry headed up there. He turned on his computer to watch the news report.
"I'm Linda Park, we're outside S.T.A.R. Labs despite the weather which only going to get worse. The torrential downpour has in no way affected the particle accelerator which is running smoothly according to S.T.A.R. Labs CEO, Harrison Wells," said the woman on the screen.
"Are you alright Barry?" Merlin asked in concern.
Barry shrugged. "I'm fine."
"Ok," Merlin turned back to his computer screen.
"Wait, we're now being told to evacuate the facility. The storm may have caused a malfunction in the primary cooling system. The officials are now trying to shut down the particle accelerator but so far have been unable to regain control of the-," the computer screen cut out and Barry looked in the direction of S.T.A.R. Labs. An explosion shot into the sky and Barry looked to the skylight. He grabbed the chain to close it before noticing the liquids rising out of their jars. The glass window suddenly shattered, and Merlin was up in a flash, (no pun intended), eyes blazing gold as he muttered a spell, his hand outstretched. The lights went out for Barry as he lost consciousness.