Thank you bunches for the positive response to the first chapter! I love you all.
This should give a feel for what the rest of the fic is like-we'll be jumping POV between the four members of Team Flash. Hopefully it's not too jarring, given that I haven't written outside of a single POV for almost a year now. Oops.
Enjoy!
When Barry stepped into his crime lab, Cisco was chewing innocently on a Red Vine from the pack he kept in Barry's desk drawer, his feet kicked up onto the desk itself.
"Dude," Barry said. "You know that desk is where I process evidence, right?"
"Come on, come on," Cisco said, heeding Barry's disapproving gaze and lowering his feet. He stood from the chair, opening his arms wide. "The ponies are waiting, man." As Barry circled around the desk to drop off some papers, Cisco shadowed him, singing lightly, "I've got the horse right here, the name is Paul Revere. And here's a guy that…" When Barry ignored the goading, he pouted. "What, no love for classic musicals?"
"Plenty of love," Barry said distractedly. Cisco looked around.
"Come on, we got the guys. Where are the dolls?"
"The dolls are too busy working," Barry said, perching on the desk to face Cisco.
Cisco looked appalled. "This is bad. This is terrible. You've got to call them up quick. Tell them I'm dying and it's my last request to socialize with them at the horserace."
"It's no use," Barry said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. "They won't come. Not even for that compelling last request. I guess I'm the only one who will honor your dying wishes."
"Unbelievable." Cisco fished around in his pocket and drew out his phone. "I can convince Caitlin that I'm dying, right? She'll be over here in a flash—no pun intended—and once she's out of the lab she'll have to come with us. And Iris won't want to be alone in STAR. You know much it spooks her."
"Spooks all of us," Barry corrected, who vividly remembered the time he'd answered Cisco's distress call only to find him pacing the empty halls with a sword, certain he'd heard a noise in the deserted building.
"This plan will work, just watch." Cisco hit the first number on his speed dial and held the phone to his ear. After only a second, he frowned, then hung up.
"Straight to voicemail," he said. "That's weird. She doesn't usually turn her phone off unless she's in a movie."
The words planted a seed of doubt in Barry's gut. He hated that feeling, the nagging, uncertain prickle; he'd been getting it more and more often as his friends put themselves in more and more danger. This—this was probably nothing. He pulled out his phone and dialed Iris.
"You've reached the voicemail of Iris West. Sorry I can't come to the phone right now, but—"
"Voicemail for Iris, too," Barry said, unnecessarily. Cisco was already dialing again. "Who are you calling now?"
"STAR Labs main phone line," Cisco said, pressing the phone to his ear. "We hardly ever use it, but…" His mouth clamped shut as he listened to the message on the other end. He'd always been like an open book. The change was immediate: the paling of his face, the tightening of his eyebrows.
"What is it?" Barry asked.
Wordlessly, Cisco took the phone away from his ear and hit speakerphone.
"…security lockdown. All phone lines are inoperable. STAR Labs is currently in security lockdown. All phone lines…"
"What does that mean?" Barry said, feeling his mouth go dry. "I was just there. What…"
"Some kind of emergency at STAR," Cisco supplied. He hung up, and the phone dropped limply to his side. "Run, Barry."
"Are we going where I think we're going?" Iris said breathlessly, following Caitlin down the dark hallway, deep into the building. All common sense said they should be heading the other way, toward the edges of the lab, toward the exits, but here they were, digging themselves six feet deep.
"If you think that we're going to the pipeline, then yes," Caitlin said. Crisis tended to put an edge to the other woman, Iris had come to learn. Caitlin was rarely so sharp, so focused, as when she was in emergency mode. Iris had seen that when Barry had nearly bled out from Zoom's stab wound, and she'd seen it again when Caitlin had fended off a rampaging Geomancer. "Whatever caused the lockdown seemed to also act as an EMP. I'm afraid it may have affected the pipeline cells."
"You think the meta from the other day might be loose," Iris said. "And again I ask, why are we running toward the pipeline?"
"Cisco keeps a Boot stashed down there," Caitlin said. "If the meta is loose, we can subdue him before he causes any more damage."
Iris still found the logic of this plan questionable at best, but she followed without protest. The Boot in question was tucked away on the landing in the stairwell just above the pipeline, in a glass case like a fire extinguisher. Appropriate, Iris thought. The Flash could put out fires in less than ten seconds. Metahumans on the loose—that was a more dire problem.
Iris pulled open the case and, with a nod to Caitlin, shrugged the Boot onto her shoulder. Instinctively, Caitlin dropped behind her and let her lead the rest of the way.
This is what her dad must have felt like, moving stealthily into volatile situations. She used what he had taught her: deliberate breaths, deliberate steps.
She peered around the corner before entering the pipeline, but there was no movement to signal danger. Cautiously, she rounded the corner, jerking her head sideways to let Caitlin know that it was safe.
When they stepped into the pipeline entrance, they saw that, indeed, the cell doors had been triggered by the power outages, and that the cell that the snake meta had once occupied was wide open. However, the snake meta himself was still in the pipeline. He was lying on the floor of the hallway, arms and legs splayed out awkwardly, eyes staring vacantly upward. There was no sign of blood or injury, but the man was unmistakably dead.
"Oh my god," Iris said, the weapon dropping to her side as she made a move toward the body. Before she could take a step, though, Caitlin threw out her arm.
"Don't touch him," she warned in a high, terrified, but still controlled voice. "Whatever contaminated the lab must have killed him." Her hand closed around Iris' wrist, tugging her backward. "Come on, let's get out of here."
Iris could not tear her eyes away from the dead meta, but finally Caitlin dragged her backward. Just before she turned, she caught sight of something lying beside the man—a disc case, shattered plastic, heavy sharpied words reading "Project Pandora." But there was no time to look closer. Dread compounded in her stomach, made her sick.
Whatever contaminated the lab must have killed him. And here they were. Locked inside of the lab.
Well, they got their night in, Barry thought as he skidded to a halt outside the main doors to STAR. Even through the doors, he could see the flashing lights, could hear the alarms. Cisco hadn't been kidding when he said he'd upped the security—although it was unclear how much of this was simply recycled protocol from when STAR had been a fully-functional lab. The robotic voice that greeted Barry on the doorstep sounded antiquated.
"This is STAR Labs security," it blared. "The lab is currently under emergency lockdown. No access should be attempted at this time. Please stand away from the door. Please stand away from the door. Please stand away from the door."
Barry ignored the warning and sidled forward. If there was a threat somewhere inside the facility, the no access command didn't apply. What if someone had broken into the lab? Or worse, what if someone had broken out? Barry's gut twisted as he remembered how tough the fight had been against the snake meta—what had Cisco called him?—and pictured the meta loose in the lab.
Most likely, Caitlin and Iris had triggered the lockdown themselves in an attempt to keep the meta contained. A stupid, stupid self-sacrifice. And one that Barry completely understood.
"Please stand away from the door."
"Make me," Barry growled, and he reached for the handle.
The door did make him. Forcefully. With a zap of electricity so powerful it sent Barry flying backward ten feet.
He landed on the concrete with a groan, fingers stinging from the jolt and elbow throbbing from impact with the pavement. An electrified door. That, he thought darkly, had to have been Cisco's doing.
"Please stand away from the door."
"Alright already," he mumbled, picking himself up off of the ground in annoyance. Sirens heralded the arrival of the police, so he shot one more disapproving glance toward the door before ducking into one of the STAR vans that were always parked close to the building. In an instant he had changed back into the civvies they always kept handy. By the time he opened up the van door again and stepped out, Barry Allen once more, the two police cars had come to a stop in front of the building.
It was Joe, of all people, to emerge from the first police car. Barry didn't know why he was surprised—an alarm at STAR, especially when Iris was supposedly inside, was the flame to Joe's moth.
"Barry," he said, as Barry inconspicuously hopped out of the van. "What's going on?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Barry said. "We haven't been able to get a hold of Caitlin or Iris."
"They're both in there?" Joe said, frowning. "And you can't…you know?" He made a rapid motion with his finger that Barry assumed was supposed to invoke speed-running.
"Security system has rigged all of the locks," Barry said. "Stand away from the doors. Trust me." His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out. "Cisco," he said, holding up the flashing device. "I've got to take this. Cross your fingers that he has good news."
He clapped Joe on the shoulder, faux-reassuring. If he was being honest, he wasn't sure it helped.
Caitlin, ever-busy in the face of crisis, beelined toward the main computer bank in the cortex. Despite the circumstances, her head was clear, her steps purposeful, her heartbeat elevated but steady.
"What are you doing?" Iris asked.
"Accessing the security footage from the pipeline," said Caitlin. "It may give us some answers. There's a dead man in there. Whatever killed him could kill us, too."
"Good idea." Iris leaned against the chair that Caitlin was sitting in, peering over her shoulder at the screen. "And how are you going to do that? The power's out." As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she snapped her fingers. "Cisco's backup power generator."
"You read my mind," said Caitlin, with a smile that Iris couldn't see. "You know how to set it up?"
"Give me a second," Iris said. She ducked down beneath the desk while Caitlin fiddled with the wires on the computers themselves. Within seconds, the machines hummed to life. "Cisco's a good teacher."
"Maybe the best," Caitlin said. "Well, unless you're trying to learn about Lord of the Rings. His method of 'teaching' then is to sit you down in front of all three extended editions without comment."
"Is there any other way to watch them?" Iris said idly, reassuming her position at Caitlin's back. She leaned forward again over Caitlin's shoulder. "How long does this thing take to boot up?"
Caitlin frowned. "Not usually this long. It's…" Her mouth snapped closed. What she'd originally taken to be the normal start-up procedure was transforming into something else—a flashing of blue and black on screen, a flickering in the image. Bursts of static.
If she'd learned anything from years of being threatened virtually by criminals, it was that a flickering, staticky screen was a terrible omen. Instinctively, Caitlin braced herself for what was going to come next.
The scenarios flashed in quick progression. This person that had contaminated the lab would make threats or demands on-screen. He would broadcast his message across town, gloating about how he had effortlessly taken over STAR. He would use Caitlin and Iris to get to the Flash.
But it wasn't a nebulous, masked face that popped up on the computer after a minute of grainy feedback. It was Barry.
Sometimes I give positive cliffhangers. With the promise of good things to come.
Thanks for reading! I look forward to hearing your thoughts (and feel free to chat about the Flash midseason premiere also, if you'd like).
Till next time,
Penn