Chapter 5
I'm watching Dora the Explorer on Netflix as I try to calm myself down enough for sleep. Caitlyn hooked me up to a heart and brain wave monitor - both of which will alert the local hospital if anything flatlines.
"We're just a phone call away," she said as she left for the night. That wasn't too much comfort - other than Barry, none of them could get here soon enough to help me if something or someone tries to hurt me.
There's a noise coming from the hallway, and I sit up, staring at the doorway, my heart pounding. When it opens, I can't help but scream before I see it's just Wells.
"Ms. Mika, I didn't mean to startle you," he says. I am sitting up, my hand pressed to my chest as I take deep breaths.
"Not your fault," I manage to choke out. "It's your lab, after all, you're welcome to do as you please. I didn't realize anyone was still here."
"There were a couple things I still wanted to finish up. One of which was that I would like to talk to you. I had some time to analyze the results of your prediction test, and I found some interesting results." I move off the cot to pull myself a seat next to Wells, painfully aware of the fact that I'm not wearing a bra. That makes me sweat almost as much as being alone with Dr. Wells does. After my lustful longing for him earlier, I'm worried I won't be able to control myself if those feelings arise again.
"You made your errors when the same shape/color combination appeared in a set more than three times in a row. Now, this is just a hypothesis, but I think that might be because your conscious was interfering with what your subconscious was telling you." I nod along, but I am only somewhat following. "Essentially, your subconscious told you one thing, but your consciousness overruled it because the answer seemed unlikely." I think about today's events - how I ignored some intuitions and warnings I received because they didn't fit with the reality I thought I knew - like where Farooq would be in the building, or dismissing that I thought of Wells as the person who released Tony.
"That makes sense. Thank you for looking for answers."
"If you're going to improve, I would work on developing your relationship with your subconsciousness. Try not to overthink things and just listen to yourself." I nod, absorbing his words."For example, you're afraid right now." It's a statement, not a question. I nod.
"I am."
"Are you feeling like there's any reason to be? Right now, in this moment - not because of things that happened earlier." I concentrate for a moment, trying to tap into any specific warning I'm getting. To my surprise, instead, I just feel calmer.
"No, I don't think there's any reason to be." He nods.
"Focus on your subconscious. For you, that's where the answers are." He looks around the cortex, his bright blue eyes almost shining in the darkened room. "Hard night to be here alone," he says. For a heart-stopping second, I think he's going to offer to stay with me. "There's a security door I can lock with my keycard - only I have access to it. Would you like me to put it down?" I nod immediately. "Alright, you won't be able to leave the room until I'm back tomorrow morning - around 6:30 AM."
"The extra security is worth it."
"Alright. And remember your dream journal," he says.
"Yes, thank you. Goodnight, Doctor. Take care."
"I will. Thank you for your help today," he replies. A few seconds after he leaves, a massive steel door descends from the ceiling. It's better than nothing - might give me a fighting chance against any intruder. I shake such thoughts from my head and try to settle to sleep, but Wells' statement keeps me up. I alternatively beam with pride and furrow my brow in confusion. He thought I helped today? After his scolding, I assumed he saw me as nothing more than an egotistical child. I'm very glad that wasn't the case. But what exactly did I do to help other than warn them of things that still happened? Other than clutch at him like a scared child, I think ruefully, remembering the weakness I showed. And I doubt I endeared myself by encroaching his personal space.
Once back at my mansion, I'm finally able to walk around again. It's such a simple joy that I used to take for granted. Kind of like my speed. Damn this ruse and my need for the energy source. I pour myself a whiskey and reflect on the day, staring up at the stars through the skylight. It really is a beautiful home. I bet Mika would like it. I catch that thought before it can go farther. I don't know what is the matter with me lately.
The more time I spend with her, the more I've been thinking about her. Her eyes, her smile, her lips, the curvature of her waist...I take a deep breath, running a hand through my hair. If I could just pin her up against a wall and fuck her brains out until her body was wrapped around mine, quaking with ecstasy, I know that would kick this ridiculous fixation on her. But, due to the wheelchair ruse, that's out of the question for now. It has been for a long time - too long. Maybe that's the problem. She's the first woman I've spent any significant time with since the "accident" who I didn't know before the accident. Without having the baseline to compare to, the wheelchair probably doesn't seem so obvious, and she can still see me a sexual prospect. For she certainly does want me, sexually. I was surprised at first, given our age difference.
I catch my reflection in the window - the reflection of the man whose DNA I stole. I run a hand over my jaw - the features so different from my own. Apparently Mika likes them - many women have - though I am not sure if it is the physical features or the air of mystery I have cultivated or the power and knowledge I hold.
It will be time, soon, for me to launch the next part of my plan, raise the stakes. The Man in Yellow. I wonder how Mika would feel if she was visited by him...the thought of sneaking into her apartment to ravish her makes my blood rush. But it's too risky - her gift is too unwieldy, unpredictable. I've been studying her for my own good as much as hers to try to determine the mechanisms of her gift - and how I can prevent triggering it. So long as she's around, she poses a risk. She could see the Reverse Flash and immediately sense his - my - identity.
And yet, despite the risk she poses, I've been encouraging her to spend time at the lab. Moreover, I'm training her - helping her refine her gift. I shake my head. With Barry, it makes sense. I need his ability to return to my time. But Mika...if she had shown up a few months ago, I would have disposed of her without a second thought. The idea is abhorrent to me now. I need to be completely focused - undistracted - to pull this next part of my plan off. But...Mika has proved to be distracting.
Cisco and Caitlyn have been so busy running around helping on Flash cases, I haven't seen either of them lately, especially since I can only come to STAR labs after work, and there have been a lot of late nights at the PR firm these past two weeks.
To my surprise and pleasure, Dr. Wells has been putting in very long hours to help me, and we are making serious progress. He's been helping me figure out the mechanics behind my gift and be more receptive to the signals my subconscious sends me so that I'm more aware when my gift is speaking versus when it's fear or some other part of my brain. His voice seems to get even deeper at night...it certainly seems more sensual.
"Focus on the feeling, the inner sensation of your knowledge. What makes it unique? What stands out?"
"There's this...pull inside me, in my gut, when it's my gift. It's like a weight or a presence. It's the resolution of just knowing." I open my eyes, almost startled by how handsome he is. It's times like these I worry if my attraction to him is somehow showing up in the feed showing my brain activity.
"Good. Focus on that - look for that feeling as we do the next exercise."
"Dr. Wells, as much as I appreciate all you've been doing so far - and it has been very helpful, there's no doubt - are you going to be able to help me turn it off?" He takes off his glasses and moves a little closer to me.
"You've asked us that question a couple times now. I must admit, I'm curious as to why you'd want to turn off something that's so helpful."
"Sometimes there's things you just don't want to know." I answer, hoping to leave it at that, but he's silent, so I elaborate. "Like if a coworker compliments you on your outfit, but you know she actually hates it. Or if some guy you caught checking you out at a bar didn't approach you because he thought you were too fat." He raises his eyebrows at that. "There's just some opinions that people have about you that you don't want to know."
"I don't know, I'd like to know whenever someone wasn't being honest with me or if they were a blind jerk," he says with a small smile, making me smile and blush a little. "But, if you want to be able to turn it off, that's your prerogative. We can try to cook up a serum or something. But I don't see how you could turn off part of your brain temporarily." My shoulders sag. To my surprise, his hand reaches out to cover mine. "But I will look," he says seriously, his eyes sparking.
"Thank you," I say, squeezing his hand once. He wants to kiss you that knowing part of my brain says. I gasp, starting, inadvertently jerking my hand from his.
"Are you alright?" he asks seriously. I take a deep breath, shaking my head to clear it.
"Yes, I'm fine," I say, smiling shyly.
"Did you have a sensation?" That's what we're calling these little bursts of knowledge. I nod. "About me?" he asks softly, looking beautifully vulnerable. Slowly, I nod.
"I think so. But it wasn't - it wasn't anything important." I tell him. To my surprise, he accepts the explanation. Maybe he suspects what I sensed and thus doesn't want to push it. Someone can want to kiss someone and know that they shouldn't - we do essentially work together.
"Well, it seems like you're already in the right mindset for the next exercise." Wells runs me through a series of prediction and intuition exercises where I have to predict the next image on the screen and sense as much information about the pictures as I can. They're pictures of generic cityscapes, close up of objects, stock photos, paintings, that sort of thing.
The idea is to show me images of things I couldn't possibly know or readily identify, and I sense for information about the photographer, artist, subject, date of photograph - basically as much as I can. Wells designed this test to establish if my gift is truly a subconscious connection or if there is some external source of information I am connected to. The evidence indicates external, but the implications of that are so psychedelic, we both want more proof. In the middle of guessing the location of a rainforest picture when I get a shot of pain through my head. My hand shoots to my temple, and Wells shuts the computer screen off immediately.
"Headache?" he asks. I nod, wordless until the pain subsides, and I can breathe easily again.
"Yeah, bad one." He checks his watch.
"You made a new record, at the very least." Each night we train, I have been able to do so for longer until pain makes me stop. We've been very careful not to trigger another seizure, and to avoid one, we stop as soon as I have head pain. So I stand up and get ready to leave.
"Cisco has been working on a codename for you," he says as I'm gathering my things.
"Oh, really? What horrors does he have in store for me?" I ask with a laugh.
"Lots of variations of instinct and subconscious, mainly. Wavy is also currently in the running." I wrinkle my nose.
"Dear God, no," I say with mock-seriousness.
"Personally, I think Weathervane may be more appropriate - especially since there's indications you're connecting to something outside of yourself to get these sensations."
"Weathervane," I say, feeling the way it rolls of my tongue. "I kind of like that. I'm like a barometer for when shit's about to hit the fan." That earns me a chuckle.
"I saw it more as you are in tune with your surroundings and predict future events." I laugh at our different perspectives.
"I like your explanation better. Weathervane," I repeat. "I think that's a winner."
"I'll let Cisco know he can stop brainstorming," he says with a heart-melting smile.
"Brainstorm, that's not half-bad," I joke. He laughs.
"I'd leave the naming to us professionals," he teases.
"That's probably for the best. Thank you, Doctor, for your help tonight. Have a good night," I say with a parting wave. Like every time I leave, I'm tired - mentally and physically - but there's this underlying excitement that comes just from being in Wells' presence. I'm crushing hard. And tonight, I learned that my feelings aren't totally unrequited.
As I watch her leave, I let myself be captivated by the sway of her hips. Once she's out of my field of vision, I lean back and heave a sigh. The fact that she wants to turn the gift off is a lifesaver. If I can find a drug that disrupts her gift - with her consent and help - that will be a useful tool for when the Reverse Flash makes appearances, especially since the mechanism of her gift has proved to be more elusive than I expected.
Sometimes she draws upon it consciously, sometimes subconsciously. I think about how she reacted when I touched her tonight - that was an example of a subconscious alert. What she divined is beyond me, but she's either an incredible actress or it was not anything too revealing about my identity. She acted more...flustered afterwards. She must have sensed my attraction to her. That's no matter - I haven't been trying too hard to conceal it. If she likes me enough, I can hope her consciousness will ignore any negative information or warnings her subconscious tries to give her. But tonight, it's time to work on that drug.
1x09
"Hey guys," I greet the team as I enter the Cortex. There's someone I haven't seen before - an African American man in a suit.
"Oh, Joe, this is Mika. Mika, this is Detective Joe West," Barry introduces me. There's a tension in the room I wasn't expecting.
"Nice to meet you, Joe," I say while shaking his hand. Barry's adoptive father, I note. "What's going on with you all? We have today off since Christmas is this Monday, so I wanted to see what y'all are up to." Joe exchanges glances with the rest of the team.
"It's okay, Joe, Mika is a metahuman too," Barry says. "She can sense things, predict things." He nods but doesn't seem to comprehend. "It's actually great you came, Mika. We need help on this case," he begins to explain, but I hold up a hand as I receive a rush of images - a swirl of red and yellow lighting, a young boy, a crime scene, a trial, Barry.
"There's another speedster, he killed your mom, and now he's back?" I ask. Joe looks both a little freaked out and impressed.
"That's the gist, yeah," Barry says. I can immediately sense that he's in a bad mood - no mystery as to why. I nod, pulling up a seat while they discuss the recent development - that this man broke into Mercury Labs. As Wells pulls up the photo of Dr. McGee, I know immediately that she and him have a history. I steal a glance at Wells from the corner of my eye, curious what that story is. The others begin to devise a plan to trap the man using this Tachyonic prototype.
"Mercury Labs is one of our clients," I say, trying to contribute something useful. "They're very private about what goes on inside their labs. I doubt they're going to want the police involved with this - especially if it's about such promising research."
"Might be difficult to get them to hand the prototype over to us in order to set this trap," Detective West says.
"We can talk to her. If she doesn't want to budge, I think we can come up with a way to convince her," Wells says with a wink at Barry. "Cisco, Caitlyn, we need to start engineering a trap." They both nod, setting off with a decided purpose. Barry and Joe get up to head back to the station.
"Anything I can do to help?" I ask Wells once we're alone.
"Not that I can think of, but I will let you know if that changes."
"I could try to sense any information about this mysterious speedster," I offer. He shakes his head.
"We don't know anything about this man or his abilities, and I don't want him to come after you. Frankly, I'd rather you stayed as far away from this as possible." I'm surprised by his concern.
"That's not what you told Cisco or Caitlyn," I say, pointing out the double standard.
"They both work for me - and they are able to quit at anytime. Unless they do, I'll expect them to do what their jobs require. But you don't work for me, so I don't want you exposing yourself to the danger this person poses." I nod, accepting his explanation, though I had hoped that it was more motivated by feelings for me, in particular.
"And I can't volunteer to take on that danger?" I ask, a teasing smile at the corner of my lips.
"I suppose I can't stop you, but I don't think the benefits outweigh the risks."
"Very well." Though I'm glad to avoid the danger, part of me wishes that Wells considered my ability to be more helpful.
"I am very glad you came by though - I have something for you." For a heart-stopping second, I think he got me a Christmas present. I follow him into the laboratory section of the cortex. "Remember what we talked about during our previous session?" I nod. "I've been working on a little potion." He holds up a vial of a clear liquid.
"What is it?"
"It's an enzyme - totally natural - that should dampen the connection between your neurotransmitters."
"That sounds dangerous," I say suspiciously.
"It's not - I ran plenty of tests. On a normal person, it could provoke complications, but for you, it would have a similar impact as a couple alcoholic drinks, but in a much more precise way. This should moderate the connection between your subconscious and consciousness and consciousness and amygdala."
"How is it delivered - injection?" I ask with some hesitation.
"Yes." He peers at me closely. "Does the prospect of turning off this gift now that it is a possibility no longer seem quite so attractive?" I shrug.
"Maybe. It is pretty useful. Especially with a dangerous criminal on the loose."
"There's never going to be a great time to try this. But you have a break from work now...on the off chance that there are complications with this, you have time to recover." I can appreciate his logic.
"Alright. Might as well try." I sit in the nearest chair while Wells readies the injection. "How long is this going to last?"
"I'm not totally sure - there's going to be an element of trial and error here. Calculating for metabolism, I think about two hours. Can you roll up your sleeve?" he asks, and I do so, exposing the veins in my arm. When his fingers touch my arm, I'm shocked by how warm they feel - how my skin is practically on fire where he's touching me. "Ready?" he asks, his bright blue eyes close to mine, filling me with enough confidence that I am able to nod. I take a deep breath as I feel the pinch of the needle in my skin.
"All done," he says a few seconds later, and I open my eyes to see he's applying a bandaid to my arm.
"Thank you."
"How are you feeling? You look a little pale."
"That's nothing new for me when it comes to shots," I explain. Suddenly, I rush to the nearest garbage can, losing the contents of my stomach.
"Is that also normal?" There's a clear concern in his voice. I hold up my hand as a gather my breath.
"No, that's not."
"It must be a side effect from the enzyme - I'm sorry, I should have designed it to set in more gradually," he says in a rush.
"I'm alright," I insist, getting to my feet. I don't know what's making me more embarrassed - throwing up in front of Wells or having him apologize to me. "I'm feeling fine now," I note.
"Do you...feel any different?" he asks. I look around the room, looking for something to test my powers on. I decide to test what Wells thinks of me - something I've been too chicken to do thus far. I get nothing. I try again, closing my eyes and trying to connect with my power. I open my eyes, coming up empty.
"I think so!" I can't believe that worked. Holy hell is this man smart. "Thank you!" On impulse, I rush over to him, wrapping him in a tight hug for a few seconds that he hesitantly returns. "The timing of this couldn't be better, too. I'll be visiting family for the holiday, and to put it simply, somethings are better left unsaid," I explain. "Is there any other delivery system besides injection? I'm not sure I could inject myself regularly."
"Let me see what I can do. The enzyme would have to be protected from your stomach acid until it could be absorbed into your blood stream - maybe in some sort of casing…" he thinks outloud. "I'll let you know what I come up with. I'll shoot for before Christmas day," he says with a wink.
"Much appreciated." I squeeze his hand as I head out.
"Mika, please try to keep track of any other symptoms you are experiencing. It's possible this could impact your judgement, mood, even hormone production, if the dosage was too large. I'm still trying to figure out dosage."
"I understand, Dr. Wells," I say, but I'm too excited by the prospect of shutting off my power to pay much attention to his warning.
For two hours and seventeen minutes, I finally get some peace and quiet. No alarms, no sudden jolts of knowledge of strangers' personal lives. It's blissful. But it's shockingly empty.
As the serum wears off, I realize that it effected more than my power - it brought about a rush of endorphins, like a never ending sugar high. It crosses my mind that whatever Wells made could be addictive due to that side effect. My vision was different also - reds and greens were subdued, but blue was intensified.
I shoot off a text to Wells describing the side effects before I feel overwhelmingly tired. Packing for my trip to my mom's is going to have to wait another day. The clock reads 5:30 PM, but I decide it's bedtime.
As I close my eyes and head to sleep, I wonder why Wells is spending so much time helping me despite everything else going on right now. He wants you and he's using you sound through my head as I drift off to sleep.