FLASH
Issue #7
"Feel the Burn"
My name is John Fox and I'm bored out of my skull.
Understanding something as complex as the Speed Force really takes a keen mind. It's not just a magical realm where dreams can become reality, and it's not a mysterious entity hiding behind a curtain. In fact, I would say that the bulk of the people who have been entrusted with the Force's power really have no clue as to what it's all about. I know I don't.
Listen to me. "The Force." Sounds like a bad science-fiction movie.
That's why, after taking advice from a guy named Highfather (thinks a lot of himself, doesn't he?), I'm trying to commune with the Speed Force. According to him, the Force is merely a fragment of other things in the universe. There are several different factions of the same extradimensional field out there that exist on various planes of reality. The Speed Force is just one of those.
(Check out issue #5 for that story. – D)
So, I'm sitting in the Garrick's living room with my legs crossed, concentrating on mentally contacting something I'm not sure is able to communicate.
Why am I doing this? For the sake of one man: Wally West. The last time I spoke with him we were floating in the ethereal dead zone that the Speed Force had once occupied. Thanks largely to some problems on a scale even I can't understand, the Speed Force had now been housed completely within his frail body. It had changed him, evolved him. The problem? We weren't sure he could survive being a living battery pack.
I'm sort of his avatar now, the only person on Earth empowered by the Speed Force, which means that I'm his only shot at getting home. Oh, not to mention find out what happened to his wife and kids. The thing is ever since I was sent back to the mortal plane I haven't been able to talk up a game plan with Wally. This isn't my native time and I don't have the complete trust of everyone here, especially since my future self is going to go back in time to a few years ago and really screw with people. Ain't time travel fun?
I'm trying to focus on contacting Wally, the Speed Force, anything really, to try and get some help. Highfather didn't tell me it wasn't going to be easy.
Do you have any idea how hard it is for a speedster to sit completely still?
"Any luck?" Bart asked as he entered the living room (which is still decorated like it's the 50's, by the way).
I cracked open one eye and saw a tray full of chocolate chip cookies balanced in his hand. "None," I answered. "Am I supposed to be, like, having some kind of psychic epiphany here?"
"Nothing so dramatic." He plopped himself down on the vinyl couch and wolfed down three cookies before I blinked. Never try to match super speed with the ordinary hunger of a growing teenager. "Max used to commune with the Speed Force all the time when we were in Manchester. His eyes would get all fuzzy. Your eyes aren't fuzzy yet. I'd say you have to keep trying."
I hopped back up from the floor, frustrated with my inability to tackle the problem. You have to understand, I'm a tachyon scientist. I handle hard science, stuff that's been proven over and over and over by guys in lab coats that have hobbies like stamp collecting. This metaphysical thinking has never been my forte.
"Did Max have a trick?" I asked as I smoothed out the wrinkles in my pullover that Joan had given me. "Something like focusing on a specific object or maybe counting backwards from a thousand?"
"I dunno. He just kind of did it, ya know? I had a hard time concentrating on stuff like that back then. Never tried to do what he did. Not on that level anyway."
"Where's Max now? I could just ask him and—" I regretted opening my mouth a split second after I had. The look on Bart's face was one of utter confusion mixed with a tinge of worry.
"You mean you don't know?" he blurted out.
"Um…no?"
"Max has been missing ever since the Rival took over his body and vanished. No one knows where he is. I kind of thought you would give me the inside scoop on that."
Max Mercury, the Zen Master of Speed. He had time-jumped almost more than me, and that's really saying something. Even though my knowledge of the past was mostly limited to the really large events, I still remembered enough about Max to know that he had been the cornerstone to the speedster's understanding of how the Speed Force worked.
My continuous blank expression must have tipped Bart off that I had no idea on how to answer him.
"Oh, man," Bart said as he set the tray of cookies down on the coffee table and placed his hands on his head. "This is bad. This is very, very bad. I hadn't brought it up because I…well, I guess I didn't want to know the answer. When we grappled with Superboy Prime I brushed up against the Speed Force, and I could have sworn I saw Max there. But…"
I walked over and placed a hand on Bart's shoulder, attempting to console him. I'm horrible at stuff like this. "If that's where he truly is then it's for the best. We'll know once I finally get through to Wally."
"What's that about Wally?" a rugged voice chimed in. I looked over to see Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash and mentor to just about any speedster that ever lived. I had almost forgotten we were camped out in his living room. "Any word yet?"
"Sorry, Jay," I answered. "Not a thing. This extrasensory concentration isn't my deposit of prisbiss."
The two shared a confused glance before Jay shot me a questioning look. "Oh, right, I keep forgetting," I said. "You're not from the present. I mean future. See, prisbiss is sort of like—"
An echoing feminine voice broke my pitiful explanation of futuristic slang, yelling, "Jay!" It was Jay's wife, Joan. She was a strong woman that had dealt with everything from the possession of the Spectre to tea with Wonder Woman. Jay's original metagene that granted him superspeed that capped off at about the sound barrier was still functioning since his recent heart attack. The thing about living with a speedster is a yell never goes unanswered. No sooner had the call for her husband left her lips than both Jay and I were standing in front of her in the kitchen. Bart quickly brought up the rear.
(Jay suffered a heart attack at the end of the first issue. – D)
"What's wrong, sweety?" Jay asked. Pushing the better part of sixty and he still uses terms of endearment. Cute.
Joan had the majority of her arms shoved into a mound of dough and flour was spread all over the counter. She pointed with her chin to the television set on the kitchen counter, alerting us to what was being shown on the screen.
"The news just switched on over my soap," Joan explained. "A fire broke out in downtown Keystone and there's people trapped on the top floor."
A rush of wind roared through the kitchen and in the blink of an eye the plainclothes Jay Garrick had been replaced by the red and blue costume he had made famous. He rubbed his elbow along the side of his circular silver helmet, polishing it. Jay glanced over at me and smiled. "Think you can keep up, young man?"
I returned his smile and focused my will. With a thought and a bit of practiced concentration, my clothes were instantly replaced by a sheath of energy made corporeal. The Speed Force, channeled directly through me and into physical material, blazed a bright red as was the Flash tradition, providing me with a costume of my own. A vibrating string of yellow energy crossed over my chest, and my full facemask and goggles slipped into place, guided by my will.
Jay leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek before rocketing out his back door. I waved at Joan and Bart over my shoulder and raced off after him, feeling the inertia kick in instantly. Images blurred but I kept my bearings as my velocity increased, catching up to Jay easily.
He cocked his head sideways as he ran, smiled again, and then really pumped it up a notch. He doubled his speed and lanced out ahead of me. If getting old means it's okay to show off, then I can't wait to gain some more years.
The vacuum of space swallowed up all sounds that attempted to puncture its eerie silence, but if they were able then the roar of the gigantic engines that powered the satellite would easily deafen all who approached. Inside the enigmatic ship, in a round room constructed of materials that had been synthesized on various other worlds, a collection of the universes most powerful figures sat in conference. Their dazzling costumes had become iconic to the denizens of the universe, as countless lives and civilizations had been saved by their number.
"Are you sure there's a need to involve the entire Legion's primary defense?" their chairman, a powerful figure with broad shoulders, asked inquisitively.
A cloaked member across the table stood as he answered, "I would not have summoned you otherwise. Time as we know it is in grave peril. Due to recent machinations by a dark god of the past, the worlogog has alerted me to grave repercussions in our own time. We must act now before the ripple moving through the timestream reaches us."
(Dark god of the past? I wonder if that's a reference to the JUSTICE WAR event. Go read it and find out! – D)
"What is the risk of vacating our posts?" another member asked, this one bearing a set of wide shoulders, one of which supported a hefty and ancient metal anchor that rarely left his side. "Neptune was recently targeted by the Psion Death Squad, and even though the threat has been vanquished I do not wish to allow my protective planet to fend for itself."
A chalk-white female stood in answer to the comment. "None of us wish that," she said. Her voice sounded slightly distant, as if it were echoing off a stone wall. "But if Hourman says this matter deserves our attention, then we must freely give it. All of us."
"Agreed," the chairman said as he stood. The rest of their membership, powerful entities all in their own right, regarded his command of their attention as he had been deemed the strongest of their number. His place as leader had not been acquired by force, but rather respect. "Make the arrangements. I'll consult with Solaris and the Resurrection Man, making them aware of our actions. If the solution rests in the past then the Justice Legion Alpha will find it."
Here's the thing about being the fastest man alive: you just can't save everyone. It's true, no matter how quickly you move. With something like a raging inferno you do your best but you must understand that no matter how fast you are sometimes Mother Nature is faster.
When we arrived on the scene we saw a blazing inferno that was turning the six floors of the building into instant charcoal. The gray cement that coated the building's exterior was quickly turning to a dark black and I saw a few cracks start to run up the building's face. What astounded me was that the surrounding buildings hadn't yet caught fire.
Fire trucks were pulling up and getting ready to hose the place down. With as much respect as I have for the kind of men and women who willingly throw themselves in danger like that, there was just no way they were going to be able to get this blaze under control in time. I could hear the screams coming from inside.
Jay, having more experience in this kind of situation, shot ahead of me and vibrated his hand through the top of a fire hydrant that sat a few yards down from the edge of the building. Water spouted out instantly, reaching into the sky and dispersing like a sprinkler. Moving quickly, but carefully and precisely, Jay continued to vibrate his hands and cup them around the water spout, forcing it to douse the front of the building. He looked at me and nodded, signaling me to move in.
Now that the front surface was wet enough to keep the flames from scorching my feet, I eagerly rushed straight toward the building and planted my foot against it, pushing down with my toes and creating enough friction to get my other foot up into the air. It looks weird if you slow it down, but it works. Moving too fast for gravity to take a hold of me, I ran straight up the building's face and headed for the roof. I figured if I worked from the top down I might have a chance of saving some people inside.
"Careful your slipstream doesn't bring trouble along with you!"
Jay's words caught me off guard, but he was right. As I ran up the side of the burning structure, defying gravity and various other laws of physics, I tossed a glance over my shoulder to see that the wind tunnel that usually spiraled behind me had slurped up a few licks of flame. The fire was feeding off of the swirling oxygen in my slipstream, moving almost as fast as I was.
Sort of brings a new meaning to the term "hot feet."
I reached the top of the building and somersaulted forward, quickly ducking while the wind trailing behind me blew over. I felt the superheated air rush over me and thanked my lucky stars that I had a suit made of condensed Speed Force energy to keep me from really feeling the heat.
I stood up and collected my bearings, checking out the roof to make my next move. Surprisingly, the rooftop was barely touched by the fire. In fact it looked like I expect any rooftop might. Reasoning that the fire just hadn't made its way up this high yet, I ran to the nearest stairwell entrance and yanked it open. I leapt down the steps three at a time, eager to search the top floor for signs of survivors.
I wasn't prepared for what I saw upon exiting the stairwell, however. Plush carpeting, air conditioned hallways, and soft adult contemporary music playing over the intercom. I paused, looking left and right and wondered if I had somehow gone through the wrong door.
A quick search of the entire floor revealed no one thrashing around for their lives. I was alone. The next floor down was the same, as well as the one below that. The entire complex was empty, devoid of all life except for the decorative plants in the lobby. When I looked out the window, however, I saw the flames still happily lapping away at the firemen's attempts to extinguish it. I saw Jay run by carrying a fire hose. Something wasn't making any sense.
"Don't worry," someone said from behind me. The accent was a thick Australian one but I didn't recognize it."My fight isn't with them. I could care less about their safety, but I won't be bothering with hostages or distractions."
I ripped my attention away from the lobby window and looked behind me to see a ghastly man standing on the other side of the expansive room. He was wearing a white suit that seemed to hang off of him, like he was too thin to fill it out completely. The yellow pair of goggles around his eyes were held tightly in pace by the strap, almost too tightly. I could see the skin around them puff out slightly. And the skin… dear, lord. Chunks of it hung off of his face, the only exposed part of his body, and I couldn't believe that this man was actually alive.
Then again, maybe he wasn't. Stranger things have happened in this world. Talking zombies with tight headgear might be commonplace.
"Sorry," I replied. "Have we met?"
"Don't be a fool!" he shouted back. When his mouth opened from screaming his bottom lip split open. He winced from the pain but ignored it. "I'm not here to play games. Not anymore. Things have changed. It used to be that if you were a Rogue that you could count on some lively banter with the Flash before he put you in jail. Well, I'm not interested in that. I just want to see you dead for what you did to me. Plain and simple."
As crackpots go, he was pretty terrifying. Just looking at him made me want to run away like a little girl, but that's not what I signed up for. Even though he was somehow manipulating the fire outside and keeping it from reaching the inside, he just plain looked nasty. I needed to put this guy down fast and figure things out, and since I'm the fastest man alive, that shouldn't have been a problem.
So imagine my surprise when I tried to clothesline him and my arm passed straight through the whacko.
I skidded to a stop, dumbfounded by what had just happened. I looked him over and wondered what I had gotten myself into. Intangible zombie freaks – check. Explanation – annoyingly absent.
"Okay, that was a fun trick," I said. "Mind telling me what's going on since you're so deadest on killing me?"
"No, I don't think so. Like I said, I'm not interested in anything but your death. Goodbye, Flash."
For the fastest man alive sometimes I really don't have a clue about what's happening as quickly as I should. The thin man in white outstretched an arm like he was pressing an invisible button in front of him, and before I knew it the entire lobby had exploded in waves of fire. It was like napalm had been ignited from under the floor tiles. I watched in horror as the first pillars of flame raced across the floor and headed directly for me. Once the initial shock wore off I figured out what was going on.
He wasn't really there, as was obvious from my inability to lay a finger on him. Since he was apparently touching invisible objects that left one explanation – hologram. This guy was projecting his image some how into the lobby and just as he had pressed that invisible button the entire lobby had been turned into a fire hazard. So, wherever he really was, that was where he was controlling things. It also explained why the fire outside didn't seem to be torching the inside. It was fake.
The heat I felt coming at me wasn't fake, however. It only took me a picosecond to realize the hologram thing, but if I wanted to find this guy and shut him down then the first thing I had to do was escape this trap alive. Without blisters if at all possible.
I hopped onto one foot and I started to spin in place, kicking my other foot every few revolutions to keep the spin going. Again, it looks weird if you slow it down, but then again most things at high speed do. Within the blink of an eye I had created a vortex of wind around me, which had collected enough oxygen to attract the pillars of flame headed for me.
Since this was real fire that meant it had to adhere to real laws of reality, meaning fire feeds on oxygen, especially when its collected and pumped directly at it in an enclosed room. I held my breath as I pulled in the air around me and in turn pulled all of the flames, too. The inferno began to swirl around me, desperately biting at the winds. It's amazing how speedsters never get dizzy, isn't it?
When I felt I had a good amount of control over the wrapping blaze, I kicked out of my spin at just the right moment and ducked. The roaring flames shot over me and hurled themselves at the side wall like an industrial strength flame thrower. The flames splashed against the wall and dissipated, mostly from having no more oxygen to eat up, but not before burning me an exit.
I stumbled into the alley where Jay caught sight of me. He raced over and placed a hand on my shoulder to steady me. "Are you okay, son?" he asked.
"Peachy." I shook my head to keep my eyes from spinning then glanced at Jay. "Some nut in a white jumpsuit is behind this. Said he was a Rogue. The fire outside isn't real, though. Holograms. Don't waste your time with them."
"A Rogue in a white jump suit who likes to play with fire," Jay said mechanically. "There's just one guy who fits that description. Mick Rory; Heat Wave. He's been out of the game for a little while. Not sure what's become of him."
"Well, apparently he's gone totally sadistic. He just projected a hologram of himself in front of me to say that I'm a dead man. Then he turns the place into a furnace. This was all a set up to get me here for some reason."
"Fire is Heat Wave's forte but this hologram business isn't. That sounds more like Mirror Master to me. He's getting help." Jay took off his shiny hat, something that would look comical on just about anyone else, and scratched his head. "Why is he after you? You've never even met him, have you?"
"Don't think so. Not sure he realized who I am, though. Look, can you handle things here?"
Jay nodded. "Sure. You got a lead?"
"Maybe," I replied. I wanted to track this Heat Wave guy down fast but I didn't want Jay to get in the line of fire, no pun intended. "Not sure if it will pan out but I'll let you know."
"Good luck, son. Keep me posted."
I raced away in a blur, leaving Jay behind to coordinate the rest of the firemen and authorities. Jay knew his stuff, and it made me feel a little better to know that he placed some confidence in my abilities. After all, the guy was a legend, and not just to this era. Even where I came from Jay Garrick was known all over as a hero of myth.
A lot of the Flashes throughout history have relied heavily on proven information to pull off some amazing stunts. I think it was Barry Allen who coined the term "Flash Facts" years ago, during a time when concepts like that could be used in the same way afterschool specials were. While it sounded cheesy, there was a lot of hard science being proven by the way a Flash could do something that appeared miraculous to the untrained eye. Just like Mark Twain stated in that book about King Arthur's Court, advanced science can seem like magic to those unfamiliar with it.
I'm a tachyon physicist, so for me simple astrophysics isn't anything to write home about. Learning something in a holo-lab and putting it to good use in real life, however, are two drastically different things. Due to the constancy of the speed of light, the motion of the observer is relative to the emitter. The apparent change in position of a light-emitting object is called an aberration, and unless I miss my guess, I might be able to visibly track it.
It's called the Blue Shift Effect. All I need are basic Newtonian mechanics, and the assumption that I won't tear a hole in the fabric of reality. Cross your fingers, kids.
I left Jay behind and shot through the city, racing toward a nearby graveyard I had spotted from the street. Resting high on a hill, it was the perfect vantage to see the entire "burning building" from. For this little trick I was going to need a panoramic view of the city.
About a mile before I reached the hill I put on a burst of speed, easily accelerating to the speed of light. As long as I did this just right, I should be able to trace the hologram projection back to its source, hence where the concept of an emitter is useful. Holograms are cool toys, but in the end all they are is bent light, meaning they move at the same speed as all other light particles. Once I matched that velocity I pulled up short and spun around.
All of the colors in the visible spectrum downshifted once I stopped and for a split second everything changed. The yellow of the sun turned orange, the green of the grass turned purple, and the holographic fire around the building changed from a blazing red to a cool blue. Not only that, but for just one moment I could visible trace the aberration across the skyline back to the emitter. The projector being used to broadcast the holographic images overlaying the building had just been pinpointed for me, complete with a trail of light particles to follow, if I was fast enough.
So, wasting no time, I tore off at light speed through the city with my head angled up to follow the soft blue path above me. It led me straight through downtown, uptown, and across the bridge into Central City. Honestly, I was just glad I didn't punch a hole in time with that maneuver.
I abruptly came to a stop outside of the Central City Waste Management station. Once I dropped down in speed the colors all reverted back to normal and I was looking at a typical three-floor building covered in stucco. This was where the holograms were being projected from, and this was where I would find Heat Wave. Unless he had bailed.
I crashed through the front door. No need to be sneaky when I can move to intercept anything known to man. I searched the first floor and found nothing, but the second floor, in the control room for the station, I found my guy. His real body was just as gross looking as his fake one.
"Hi," I said once I burst into the room. Who says I can't banter?
Heat Wave jumped back in surprise from where he sat at the console, almost falling over. "You!" he exclaimed with wide eyes. "How… Where…"
"Speak now or forever hold your peace," I said. "Let's start with why you felt it necessary to endanger people just to try and burn me to a crisp. We've never even met before and you're trying to fillet me. What gives? And while we're at it, how about telling me why you look like you walked out of a George Romero holo."
Heat Wave hesitated before reaching behind his back and grabbing some type of handgun. I shot across the room and grabbed his wrist, deflecting his aim to the ceiling. A bout of flame roared out of the gun, slamming into the ceiling and melting the covering to a florescent light.
"Enough!" I yelled. I was loosing my patience for this freak. "You're going straight to Iron Heights. I'm done with you."
"Just like you were done with me when you dumped me in the ocean?"
I blinked. "Huh? Did you not hear me when I said I had never met you before?"
"Lies don't become you, Flash. You rocketed me out into the middle of the ocean and left me for dead in a sea of burning oil! My asbestos suit nearly drowned me while the water burned away my skin. If it wasn't for the crew on the oil tanker I would have died, and I almost wish I would have. You stole my passion away from me. Because of you I have no love for the beast anymore! You've taken everything from me!"
(That's more or less how it happened in issue #2 – D)
That's when I figured out what was going on. Hunter Zolomon, the second Zoom, had taken the Flash identity for himself before I came on the scene. He must have been the one who dropped Heat Wave into a baptism of fire before I took the Flash mantle back for myself. That explained why Heat Wave was gunning for me so passionately. All he saw was the costume. It didn't matter to him who was under the mask.
"And the holograms?" I asked. "From what I understand it's not really your thing."
"I… I can't go near the fire anymore. I used to look at it for hours and feel truly alive, but now… now I can barely fire my own weapon without hesitating. I got the technology to project holograms from a comrade, someone who hates you even more than I do."
"You Rogues really do stick together." I pitied him. Sure, he was a reckless criminal who had probably murdered tons of people, but to look at him now… He was a broken man and I felt guilty over having an indirect part in that. Maybe if I had been faster, shown up sooner to stop Zoom, I could have prevented this from happening to him.
"Aye, mate," he replied. "To the end."
"Are you sure putting him in Iron Heights was the best thing to do?"
I looked Jay over skeptically. We were back in his home and he was king of the house, but I took a slight offense to him questioning where I had deposited Heat Wave after taking him in. "It's where supervillains from the twin cities go, right? That's what it was built for."
"Sure. But Wally had some reservations about how it was run. That warden isn't to be trusted. I'm not convinced that—"
KRA-DOOM!
A roaring sonic boom rattled the dishes in the china cabinet, cutting off Jay. We both instantly jumped into action and raced into the front yard where we might be able to see what was going on. We were both in plain clothes again but that didn't mean our speed had left us. What we saw there both confused and shocked us.
Seven people wearing shiny costumes lined up in the yard as the portal they had just stepped through closed shut. Each of them looked like that had been chiseled out of the stuff gods are made of. Strangely enough, they all looked a little familiar.
"We apologize for the rather loud entrance," the man in the center said. His black hair had a slight curl in the front and his red cape flowed behind him like in the movies. "My name is Superman and we've come for the one you call John Fox."
FLASH FACTS
Okay, it's been a while since I released an issue of this series. I lost some of the attraction to the characters and I apologize for dropping the ball here. Totally my fault. Uh-huh. Writing a speedster is one of the most challenging things I've ever done. Couple that with the fact that the Flash is my favorite character and my stories just didn't really come out as all that pleasing to me.
Say wha?
Let me try and explain that reasoning: the Flash is my favorite character of all time. I have a level of creativity and originality I want to live up to when I write fanfic and I put a lot of pressure on myself to do it right. I put that pressure on myself and my editors have been very forgiving in regards to my tardiness ('preciate it, Mike!). So… am I still pleased? Not totally, but I think I'm doing something pretty cool here.
Next issue: expect to see the Justice Legion Alpha jump into action!
