Chapter 3: Pieces of a Puzzle

Weird. My key didn't work. I tried to open it a little more forcefully until it finally gave way. The door swung wide open to reveal... nothing. "Ah crap." All my stuff, gone. It was an empty apartment. Realization hit me. "Six months..." I said defeated. Annoyed, I stepped out of the apartment and shut the door. Somberly, I trotted down the steps not knowing what else to do. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs I decided to call Cisco.

After a brief conversation, he was more than stoked to offer me a place to crash. Which I greatly appreciated. Crashing at each other's place wasn't foreign to us. When we were making our way through college we'd often be a little tight on money. Once I got to his place I ordered some pizzas as a thank you. While waiting I had to ask, "So, did you ever recover the Wyrm drone? Or was it destroyed."

"Mm," Cisco started, "I did find it. It was wrecked, man. But, uh, I have it stored in the storage locker. Haven't had a chance to look it over yet." Right. The locker. All our equipment and gear was there along with some laundry... "Truthfully, after what happened, it didn't feel right to try and fix it. It nearly killed you, Barry."

I nodded, completely understanding. I don't think we should give up on the project but I knew we both needed a siesta from it. Remembering the storm made me tense up slightly. I hope Cisco didn't notice. A knocking at the door reeled back my wandering mind. I went ahead and answered it, it was just the pizza guy. "Dude, three pizzas?" Cisco questioned. "What, you run a marathon today?" he said jokingly.

When he said marathon I couldn't help but to cough nervously. "No, I'm just starving. Six months without real food..." I let the question answer itself.

Cisco raised his hands in mock surrender and flipped on the TV. The news came on and immediately a news anchor spoke, "—was saved by an unknown individual. Witnesses say he was so fast that he dodged a bullet." The anchor turned to his co-anchor smiling like there was no way any of this could be true. "In other news—".

"Man, all these kinds of stories have been popping up lately," Cisco trailed off eating a slice of pizza.

"What kind of stories?" I asked curious.

"Yeah you've been out a while. Sorry. So, ever since the Stark Expo became a battleground between Iron Man and a wannabe Iron Man, so glad we didn't end up going by the way, all these rumors of other crime fighting vigilantes have been springing up. Some dude in New Mexico fought a giant robot. This lady was seen leaping over whole buildings. All these leaked videos of a big green dude wrecking tanks. It goes on."

"Uh huh..." I muttered in deep thought. I turned to Cisco, my serious expression drawing his attention. "And um. What would you do if you found out these people were real?"

"I don't know," he said at first, "To meet a real life superhero would be... pretty dope."

I thought carefully about what I was about to tell Cisco. But really, there wasn't anyone else I could tell. Cisco was there when I was hit by that weird lightning. The very thing that radically changed my biology. If anything, Cisco could help me figure out what my newfound abilities could do. I took a deep breath and steeled my nerves. "Okay, listen. I'm the guy who saved that bus. I was the one who dodged that bullet."

"Aight hold up," Cisco said stifling a chuckle. "You're telling me, that you're the guy who moved so fast he caught up to a bus going highway speeds, who dodged a bullet?"

I let out a held breath, standing up from the couch thinking how best to explain. "Okay, I'll uh... I'll prove it!" I looked around and grabbed a mug. I gave it to Cisco. "Okay, stand in the kitchen and drop the mug. I'll catch it from here." If only to entertain me he got up and walked to his kitchen. Cisco's apartment was open concept so the kitchen didn't have any walls separating it from the living room. In total, there was a couch, two stools, and a Roomba that separated us. I took a deep breath, "Okay when you're ready—".

The mug dropped and shattered on the floor. Cisco gave me an unimpressed look. "I liked that mug," he said, callous.

"I wasn't ready that time!" I defended. "Get another one." Cisco sauntered over the fragmented porcelain and grabbed a hard plastic cup. "Alright, this ti—".

He let go. The cup dropped two inches before freezing in the air. In a swift motion I vaulted over the couch! Dodged the stool by veering right then left! Damn near tripped over the Roomba but managed to recover and stretched out my hand. I caught it! When I stood, Cisco had his mouth agape and his eyes disbelieving. "Nooo," He said with a leading voice. "You have mother-freaking superpowers!?"

I nodded, grinning like a child. "Yup!"

"Superpowers!" Cisco said giddy. We both grinned stupidly and Cisco asked, "Since when did you have superpowers?" I recounted the moment I discovered them when I saved that bus, how time slowed down, and how sharp my mind became. Suddenly Cisco stopped and said seriously, "You need a name. I mean... you're gonna do the hero-thing, right?"

I stopped too and pondered it. It felt like I had already decided. In my core I had always wanted to help people. I always wanted to be a police officer and eventually a detective. I only ended up being a CSI because I wanted to solve my fathers case with DNA evidence, build a case surrounding an indisputable fact. I hadn't ever had the power to do good before. To save lives. And now I did. It might've been foolhardy but the proud look on my dad's face when I told him how I saved Cisco made the decision for me. I nodded, determined and said, "Yes."

Cisco pumped a fist in the air, excited. "Oh man this is the greatest thing to ever happen to me!" Excited and full of energy, Cisco rushed to a cabinet and brought a notepad and pen. He wrote "Name Ideas" and started writing a list right off the bat. He looked back at me in thought, "Wait, what do you think gave you your powers?" he asked.

"The storm," I said. "It had to be that. I was hit by lightning and it put me in a coma. As soon as I was admitted into the hospital my body started to change."

Cisco went into deep thought and said, "We should check the Wyrm."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, the Wyrm's programmed to record all data. It's bound to have information on the storm, it may be able to explain why it gave you powers. I mean, you said it yourself, that was one strange-ass storm."

I hadn't thought about the Wyrm. I kicked myself for not thinking about it sooner. It could very well have all the answers. Or at least a part of the answer. "You're right. It had the weirdest lightning colors. And its movement? Made no sense."

"Okay, let's head there now. No way am I waiting till morning for this. It'll keep me up," Cisco said grinning. I didn't argue with him and in the next minute we were in the van driving there. Cisco kept the notepad and was calling out potential names for me to write down as he drove. "How 'bout, Bolt?" he said.

"That has a ring to it," I said, writing it down.

"Ooh, variation of that name. Volt."

I nodded, liking it. "The Volt, Volt Man."

Cisco chuckled at that. We arrived at the storage locker facility and upon driving up to its entrance we noticed the gate was wide open. Which was definitely not the norm. Usually, the gate was closed and locked until you entered the code into a keypad. "Probably broke," Cisco said. "Do you think we should call the owners or something?"

"Yeah probably. But let's get the drone first." We started driving through the lot. The majority of the lockers were small in space but were insulated and temperature-controlled. However, we opted for the outside garage locker units. It was more spacious and a little cheaper.

When we arrived at our locker, Cisco pointed out, concerned, "Dude our lock is broken!" We both stepped out of the van in a hurry. Inspecting it closer, it looked like a pair of pliers busted it open. A sinking feeling hit my heart. Who the hell broke into our storage locker?

"Someone broke in," I said, reaching for the handle. I took a deep breath and pulled open the locker door. For the second time today I was greeted to an empty space where my stuff should have been.

"No, no, no," Cisco muttered, distressed. "I was just here two days ago!" he exclaimed.

"Years of work," I said to myself. "Why would someone steal all our research? No one knew we kept our equipment here. Nobody!"

"Dammit!" Cisco said suddenly.

"What, what?" I asked, worried.

My friend looked utterly devastated, "They took my guitar, man! I loved that guitar."

I looked at him, deadpanned. Then I remembered I kept spare clothes here and now I needed to go buy some shirts later. It was salt on an open wound. Whoever stole our stuff was wicked to the core. What the hell did they want with some dirty laundry and a guitar? The Wyrm tech, I at least understood. It was valuable equipment. The Stark drone was easily worth a couple thousand on its own. "Who knows we were working on this project?" I asked.

"Every one of our professors back at Stanford. Rick and Danny who helped design the framework for the drone integration. And well... you know," he said.

I nodded. Originally our duo was a trio. But our esteemed partner was a little bit too money hungry and wanted to sell out to Hammer Tech. I shook my head, "He wouldn't try to steal from us though, he'd more likely try to one-up us. He's too proud to do all this," I said, gesturing to the empty storage room.

Cisco agreed, saying, "You're right but I wouldn't put it past him to tell someone else what we were working on." I couldn't argue with him on that point. This was turning into some kind of conspiracy. Were there people we couldn't trust? Who stole our research and why? I let out a tired breath and scratched at the itchy t-shirt the hospital had given me. I asked Cisco if he had any spare clothes in the van. Walking back toward the vehicle he said, "I think one of your old hoodies..."

I found it in an old box. "You should really clean up this van, Cisco," I trailed off. I smoothed out the wrinkles of my old hoodie. It was a red long sleeve zip up. I brushed off the dust and replaced my itchy shirt for the hoodie, zipping it up all the way. I stepped out of the van and tossed the shirt in a trashcan. The shirt made a small dink sound. I looked at the trashcan confused. Any other day I wouldn't have bothered but... I walked back to the trashcan and pulled out the shirt. I felt around it for a minute or two. Cisco asked what I was doing but I told him to hold on. There! At the hem of the shirt, there was a bead or something. Whatever it was it was the same color as the shirt but was plastic or metal. "Do you know what this is?" I asked Cisco.

"Bring it here," he said. Cisco grabbed it and palmed it. He placed it on the ground and stomped on it! He squatted down and poked through debris. He looked back up at me with worry in his eyes. He held a finger to his lips and then said aloud, "Probably a rock or something." He then jabbed a finger toward the car. Getting in the driver's seat, he immediately started driving off. When we exited the storage locker facility he said, "Barry that was a bug. Like a CIA surveillance bug. Holy crap Barry, why was that on you?"

"A bug?!" I said. "You mean the CIA was listening in on me?"

"No, no, no. I said it was like a CIA bug. Who put it on you is impossible to know."

My life really was becoming a conspiracy story. Bugs being planted on my person, our research being stolen... Maybe it wasn't a conspiracy but a spy thriller. Another piece of this big confusing puzzle came together, "We said out loud that the Wyrm with all the storm data was in a storage locker."

"Damn, Barry." Cisco was still driving, "How'd they find my storage locker though..." he wondered.

I had a theory but it was vastly incomplete. I told Cisco what I thought, "The doctor who treated me, asked to study me. She didn't seem...evil per se, she just was super adamant about doing a medical study on me. She was the one who gave me the spare clothes. I'm thinking maybe she planted the bug." I placed my hands on my temples and closed my eyes, trying to think. "You don't think they know where the apartment is, do they? They found the storage locker after all."

Cisco laughed, "Ha, no. The bug wasn't capable of tracking us. Just listening within a twenty mile radius. Also, the storage locker is under both of our names, so that's probably how they found it. But my apartment is— isn't under my name."

"Oh," I said, relieved. "Who's name is it under?"

Cisco looked sheepish, "My mom's." I laughed but not teasingly. I understood how hard it was to get an apartment, especially because I had lost mine so easily. The laughing was a nice reprieve from this stressful day. Eventually we made it back to Cisco's place. Walking up the stairs to the top floor we were a little more than paranoid. Once inside, Cisco made sure to close every curtain and put scotch tape over every laptop camera. After feeling somewhat safe, we both crashed in our respective beds. Mine being the fold out couch. The events of today played through my mind on repeat and as the embrace of sleep overcame me, my thoughts turned to the storm.