Author's note: My version of KF's origins is from my earlier story Here's a Good One

4 May 2008

Transcript of first evaluation session with Subject #6

(notes in italics added by Silberman, M.D.)

(I arrived for my first session with (Subject #6 the day after interviewing his wife. I made it to the boat launch a few minutes early and stared across the bay at Titans Tower thinking, again, that if someone's intention had been to fool onlookers about the size of the building by putting it on that little rock island in the middle of the bay, they had achieved their goal. I considered issues of isolation, again. With their home disconnected from the populace they served, what feelings did that create in these super powered teens?

At last, the boat arrived and I was ferried across to the island. I marched up the same stone path to the concrete walk at what passed for the Titans' front door. Not more than a second after I buzzed, a red and yellow blur came straight for the glass then suddenly stopped and (Subject #6) was standing before me. He pressed a button unlocking the door and led me in toward the elevators with only a mumbled "Come on." I was ready to engage him in conversation should the opportunity arise but he didn't even glance at me riding up in the elevator or walking through the hallways to that same 6th floor room. I stepped in but just before he did, (Subject #5) floated by, casually levitating along and asked (Subject #6) which he would prefer for dinner, a "casserole of the wertgrops" or something that sounded like "grobziel". (Subject #6) quickly chose "grobziel". (Subject #5) seemed delighted at this and floated happily away.

(Subject #6) closed the door and we sat down on opposite sides of the room. In the interest of full disclosure to any parties who should, somehow read this in the future, my 13 year old daughter, Sarah, has a poster on her wall of (Subject #6) and his wife kissing with a caption in large letters reading

FLINX!

She's been quite taken with (Subject #6) for a few years now so I was familiar with what he looked like from seeing her collection of pictures as well as news reports. Nevertheless, I think I stared at him a few moments. He's not the strongest of superheroes but, seeing him close up, one cannot help but be amazed at his physical condition. He is eighteen years old and stands six foot one and a quarter and weighs 164 pounds (information courtesy of S.T.A.R. Labs). He doesn't seem to have an ounce of fat on him. Square shoulders taper to an impossibly narrow waist and hips, while his legs, though not thick, are nothing but muscle. Even without knowing that he's Kid Flash, anyone would guess that this boy is incredibly fast. His red and yellow suit is skin tight without any shine to its surface and shows every muscle of his body with, thankfully, a little ambiguity at the bulge of his crotch and no seam in back. I'm secure enough to note that he's very handsome, a fact which I'm not sure whether his orange hair adds to or detracts from. (My daughter definitely believes the former). Interestingly, he never showed any conceit about his appearance, quite unusual in men with such looks.

Finally, he stopped eyeing me warily and nodded. I turned on the recorder.

DS: This session takes place at . . 3:30 P.M on May Fourth with Doctor David Silberman and . . .

#6: (Subject #6) And, here's the dollar that (Subject #1) says I'm supposed to give you.

(Subject #6 removes one red glove and pulls a dollar bill from under the skin tight yellow sleeve of his uniform before handing it to me and quickly replacing his glove.)

DS: Good afternoon.

#6: Good afternoon to you as well. I-I have to tell you that I come into this . . session, this interview, whatever it should be called in something less than an impartial frame of mind. (Subject #7) was pretty worked up both before and after your session with her yesterday. And, like I said to you yesterday, I think this whole thing is totally unfair to all of us. (Subject #2) wouldn't hurt a fly. Why isn't there someone at the City with the balls to stand up to a relative of a City Council member and tell him that his little girl's fantasies don't require legal action?

DS: I'm . . I'm just doing my job. I'm not endorsing the City Council's vote to require these evaluations. I'm just the guy who has to do this job afterward.

#6: . . . sorry. I guess that wasn't being fair to you. I just . . don't understand why Jump City is so different than Keystone City where (Subject #6's mentor) is based.

DS: What are things like in Keystone City?

#6: Well, they built a museum there as a tribute to (Subject #6's mentor). That should give you some idea about how people there think about (Subject#6's mentor). And the police there don't have any of this paranoid skepticism about heroes that the police in Jump City have.

DS: Should there be some skepticism?

#6: Well, sure, I guess. We're very powerful. But we don't do anything but try to help. And we've all made tremendous sacrifices in our lives to do this. We all risk our lives without much of a thought about it. That Captain Doyle has an ax to grind against anyone metahuman, hero or villain; she's nuts.

DS: Well, try to think of me as just being the instrument of the City's reasonable skepticism.

#6: Only it's not reasonable! I-I ruined my life for a few years there, to do this, to-to be a hero and the thanks I get is to have to prove that I'm not a danger to people?! How do I prove a negative, anyway? How is that reasonable? No one can prove with absolute certainty that they're not dangerous. You couldn't either, doc.

DS: Well, that's true but the standard isn't one of absolute proof. It's more of . . beyond a reasonable doubt.

#6: But I've never hurt anyone. In 6 plus years of doing this, I've never hurt anyone, including myself. Never. Isn't that the best guide to what I'll do? Doesn't that get you beyond the point of reasonable doubt as far as the idea that I could be a danger? I mean, you . . . you understand why this is so frustrating to me, right?

DS: I can . . sympathize.

#6: Well, what am I supposed to do in this session, anyway? How do I show that I'm not a danger to myself or others if a long record of using my powers doesn't show that?

DS: Well, we can just talk. But, you know, you don't have to see this as something imposed on you unfairly. I'm a psychiatrist. You paid me a dollar. You're my client now. Is there anything you'd like to get off your chest. Sometimes just talking can help.

(There was a long pause as (Subject #6) regarded me warily before finally speaking.)

#6: You know . . . I can already say pretty much anything to my wife (Subject #7) and (Subject #1). I don't need to-to unburden myself to you.

DS: (Subject #1)? Really?

#6: He's my best friend.

DS: Hmmph. Your . . images are very different.

#6: We believed those images, too, before we met. I didn't like him and he didn't like me. Right from the start, like some kind of feud or vendetta or something, speedsters against bats. But a funny thing happened after we started talking. We realized that we aren't so different after all and became good friends.

DS: But he's like you-

#6: No one's like me except (Justice League mentor) and even he's not exactly the same as me.

DS: What I was going to say is that he's a hero like you. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. I'm outside the forest. You and he are in the middle of it.

#6: So, you're saying that you may have insights we couldn't give each other?

DS: Something like that, yes.

#6: I suppose. . . . . I just . . . I can't cause my friends to be hurt. I can't.

DS: Of course. I understand. Let me emphasize that I'm a professional. People confide in me every day. And I always maintain my professional code of ethics.

#6: But, this isn't just gossip. People's lives are on the line. Nothing can ever go anywhere. Nothing. Ever.

DS: The transcripts are staying here in the Tower.

#6: But you're not.

DS: Look, I've been doing this for 16 years without ever divulging anyone's secrets.

#6: They'll offer you money. Lots of money. Has anyone ever offered you lots of money to tell secrets about your clients?

DS: Who would offer money?

#6: The tabloids. The gossip pages of the regular papers. Certain internet sites. You wouldn't believe the interest in us. For instance, there's a standing offer of a million dollars from one gossip magazine for nude pictures of any Titan.

DS: Well, I'm not doing physicals and I'm not taking pictures of any of you.

#6: But that's the kind of interest that there is.

DS: Hmmph. Well, I . . I can't tell you anything more than a broad outline, but I was offered money once. It was a divorce case. The husband wanted to prove that the wife had been unfaithful and . . . . but, no, not a million dollars. But I refused! And I reported the offer to the judge in the divorce case.

(There was another long pause as Subject #6 eyed me warily)

DS: You don't have to go beyond a certain point if you don't want to.

#6: . . . . there were times . . four or five years ago when I thought I might need a shrink, dealing with the whole secret identity thing.

DS: That was a particular problem for you?

#6: Yeah. That's another thing that (Subject #1) has in common with me. The other Titans don't really have secret identities. He and I do. It's a real pain in the ass to deal with, all the acting and pretending . . . feeling one way about yourself part of the time and a different way at another time and other people doing the same thing. One minute they're dumping on you; the next, they're trying to kiss your speedster ass.

DS: This is fascinating to me, because the topic of secret identities is very much in vogue in the psychiatric community. Heller and Burnham just published a piece in American Shrink about this called "Shattered Personnae and Trait Repositories".

#6: You guys write articles about us?

DS: Well, not just the Teen Titans, but heroes in general. Metahuman activity is so prominent in our society these days it was inevitable that you received the academic community's attention. There are even evolutionary biologists of the Stephen Jay Gould sort, I mean, he was a jackass and a fool on a lot of things but his theory that evolution sometimes jumps ahead, it's not one steady conveyor belt, well, some of his devotees see people like you as the first examples of a jump that human evolution is about to take. Why are you smiling?

#6: It's nothing. Of course, without any understanding of the underlying factors predicating such a jump, it's all speculative, isn't it, doc?

DS: Well . . . right . . . sure. Sure, but, anyway, the-the field of psychiatry is very interested in people like you. There are multiple theories about how keeping a secret identity affects someone like you.

#6: Really?

DS: Oh yeah. I wouldn't be surprised to see a MacArthur grant go to someone studying metahuman psychology.

#6: Those so-called "genius" grants?

DS: Right. Those are the ones. Say, you really are pretty sharp. Where'd you hear about those things?

#6 I read a lot. I'm not the dumb jock that CNN seems bent on making me seem to be. But, did any actual genius ever get one of those grants?

DS: Well, it's such a vague term, but no, not really. They end up going to people who already did flashy, pardon the pun, work and who had the right connections. But work regarding people like you and your teammates as well as the Justice League would certainly be high enough profile.

#6: And, Heller and Burnham . . .

DS: Right, right. Well, their theory is one of three general positions about metahumans with secret identities. See, they think that when you pretend to be two completely separate people, one of whom is super powered, and the other normal, that you'll suppress ego in the supposedly normal identity and expand it in the metahuman identity to the point that you become a thrill seeking adrenaline junkie in the latter.

#6: Hmmph.

DS: You don't agree?

#6: I don't see any adrenaline junkie behavior among my teammates or our mentors in the League.

DS: Well, it's just a theory. And it did sort of answer the question put forth by the earlier Schiller monograph asking why metahumans don't act as though they're beyond good and evil like Nietzsche's Zorathustra.

#6: Zarathustra.

DS: Right. Zarathustra. Why they don't consider themselves beyond good and evil, like the title of the book.

#6: So, if I get you right, their theory is that we just go along with the whole catch the crooks thing as a way to act out our need for adventure rather than as an expression of power?

DS: Well, that's kind of crude but, yeah, that's about it. But that's only one theory about secret identities. Simkiewicz had an article in Brainwash that said the split would be along different lines, not a sort of bipolar split where one identity is manic and the other depressive but a full split of characteristics such that the metahuman might be kind as a superhero but sort of a jerk as a supposedly normal person, aloof as a superhero but social as the secret identity, etc. . . . You're rolling your eyes.

#6: I don't know about that one, either. We may pretend to be a different kind of person as a civilian but that seems a bit farfetched. You said there were three theories?

DS: Right. Um, right. There's another one. The third one is mostly attributed to St. Pierre. He sort of sidesteps the whole issue of the split and which traits are expressed by which identity. It's his theory that the metahuman will inevitably gravitate toward the identity in which he gets to express his super power and that the civilian identity, as you call it, will always just become a sort of placeholder identity involving no more expression of the actual person than absolutely necessary to keep up pretenses.

#6: Well, I had a hard time with my secret identity before but I'm superhero me almost 24-7 now. That's what happens when you live at Titans Tower. Hell, regular clothes feel weird to me now, cloth moving against my skin, sometimes touching me, sometimes not. This ridiculous unitard feels completely normal now.

DS: And when you started?

#6: I felt like a ridiculous freak. I mean, I love the way I looked. But the suit . . ! I was 11 and 9 months when I got my powers. And I was wearing a suit like this. Ugh. I had this comic book idea of what doing this hero thing was like and I found out fast that it wasn't all just like the comic books.

DS: For instance . . . ?

#6: Such as, well, start with the suit. It's this stuff that (Justice League mentor) invented. And (Justice League mentor) always looked fine in it, better than fine, in fact. He visited my grade school once and nobody laughed or snickered or anything. It fit him just like mine fits me now. Everyone was in awe of him. He looked like an olympic 400 meter champion only better. But I was just a kid. It was so humiliating to be wearing this skin tight unitard all the time. And I was so small.

DS: Were you a short boy?

#6: No, I don't mean it that way. I was taller than average but very skinny all the time growing up. And then when I got super speed, (Justice League mentor) said it must've sort of interacted with a growth spurt I was starting to have the first time I used it. Overnight I was like 3 inches taller and I suddenly had some muscle to my shoulders and my waist was even more ridiculously narrow and my calves became incredible and my uh . . my uh . . uh . . glutes, too. And every ounce of fat was burned off me. It made me this almost exaggerated sprinter shape. But I was still just barely 5 feet tall.

DS: So?

#6: So, cops didn't like being shown up by a kid a foot shorter than them who didn't weigh half as much as them. Some of 'em were really good guys. But others would make fun of me to my face. Oh, here comes firehair in his ballet tights. A lot of 'em would joke behind my back. There was just none of that same team, all in this together kind of feel I always saw (Justice League mentor) get from them. And the crooks!

DS: How big of a problem was that?

#6: Just a . . let me finish. The-the crooks would hold out to the bitter end because they were too embarassed to surrender to the skinny ass kid in the unitard who didn't weigh a hundred pounds yet. Sometimes in Keystone City, (Justice League mentor) would show up on the scene and hoods would just . .

(Subject #6 gets up from his chair, turns his back toward me and puts his wrists together behind him as if presenting them for handcuffs, then sits back down)

#6: But with me, they'd fight to the end. I'd have to catch all six or nine or however many bullets they had in their gun out of the air because they were too embarrassed to go to jail and have everyone see a picture of skinny little me arresting 'em. It was nuts till I got to be about 14 or 15.

DS: About the police, how big of a problem was their lack of respect?

#6: It was a huge problem. I was dealing with all these pressures, all these hassles, all these things working against me and that should've been a plus. Instead it was this big minus. One more on the heap. I thought my life was gonna be perfect when I became (Subject #6) instead it was this ordeal of pressures from every direction with no help.

DS: Really?

#6: I almost quit once. Well, I sort of did. I went to see my Aunt, (Justice League mentor's) wife and told her I was quitting but she-

DS: Wait. So, (Justice League mentor) is your Uncle?

#6: You can't ever tell anyone.

DS: No! Of course not! I'd never-

#6: Promise!

DS: My-my professional oath is my promise! I-

#6: Promise! You have to promise to me!

DS: Fine. Fine. I give you my word of honor, I won't tell anyone.

#6: . . . . . . yes, he's my uncle. And my aunt was the most wonderful person I ever knew. . . . Did you notice the verb tense?

DS: You, uh, you said 'was'.

#6: That's right! Someone killed her. A-a villain wanted to get back at (Justice League mentor) and somehow figured out who he and she were. And he . . . . he fucking killed her! The most fantastic woman, the only reason half my life was bearable! He killed her. That's why you had to promise. Now, promise again!

DS: But I already promised. I don't think-

#6: Promise again!

DS: Alright, alright. I give you my word-

#6: On the sacred memory of the wonderful life of my Aunt

DS: . . . !

#6: Go ahead. On the sacred memory of . . .

DS: On the . . sacred memory of . .

#6: The wonderful life of my Aunt.

DS: the wonderful life of your Aunt that I-that I won't tell.

#6: . . . .

DS: You were-you were saying about how you quit once but she talked you out of it . .

#6: Oh . . yeah. She was so smart, so wise about things. She knew just how to handle things, what I needed to hear.

DS: And that's why you go to all the trouble with secret identities to try and prevent things like that.

#6: . . . . . . . . yeah

DS: You said she made your life bearable.

#6: Huh?

DS: Your aunt? You said she made your life bearable. Care to explain?

(There was a long pause before Subject #6 finally sighed and then instantaneously disappeared from the room before returning a second later with a small picture in one red gloved hand. He handed it to me.)

#6: That's me and-and my family.

(The photo was one of those posed deals of parents with children you might get at the mall. But something was awry to even the casual onlooker. The mom and dad in this picture had their hands on the shouldes of their smiling daughter in front of them while standing off to the side was a little orange haired boy. They weren't even touching him. And while she looked happy, he looked anxious and unsettled. And, he didn't look like them. Skin and hair and eyes, the shape of his face, were all totally different.)

DS: Oh.

#6: When a father . . suspects, oh hell, when he knows-when he knows that his wife's child isn't his, how often does he . . do right?

DS: What do you mean 'do right'?

#6: Gods doc, don't be obtuse. You know what I mean.

DS: No, tell me.

#6: Do-do I have to spell it out in hugs and kisses and time spent and every way it's shown?! Do I really have to?! How often do fathers love the children their wife has by other men? There. Explicit enough?

DS: I'm not trying to make this difficult for you. I just have to be sure we're talking about the same thing. And the answer is that the data's a bit sketchy.

#6: Sketchy? Thank god you're a trained professional or you might try and put me off with vague b.s.

DS: Look, there are degrees of the attachment that forms between a parent and a child. Sometimes the father accepts the . . uh . . the bastard child as his own and loves it as though the child was. Sometimes the attachment isn't complete. The relationship is strained and the father doesn't spend as much time with-

#6: How often does the father totally ignore a boy, I mean, totally, and essentially refuse to speak to him and make him feel horrible?

DS: . . . . Usually . . . . um . . . . usually when there's a, uh, a complete lack of . . . attachment, the father . . . doesn't . . . doesn't stick around.

#6: What if he did? How would that be for the boy?

DS: . . . um . . . well . . . it could be worse than if the father left. If the man he believes to be his father leaves, the boy can attach blame to the father. He may ascribe some to himself for causing the father's departure but he has a chance to form a loving relationship with the next man his mother sees. A father who sticks around but shows no interest in his son can be devastating to that boy's self image.

#6: I know . . . . . . I didn't understand at the time. I had no idea. I had friends who had different hair color than their parents or who looked a bit different. So what? You'd just think they got it from an uncle or aunt. When I got to be 8 and 9 and 10 I just thought . . . I just thought I had really bad parents. But I never shook the feeling that I was to blame, that there was something wrong with me. My mom complained about me all the time. All the time. Why are you so messy? Why are you so lazy? What a rotten kid you are!

DS: But you weren't?

#6: No! I was-I was a really good kid. I-I wanted so desperately to please them. I thought . . . I thought that if I could just please them, did every single thing they said I was supposed to do, they'd care for me. They'd spend time with me. They'd . . . love me. I didn't realize. It didn't matter what I did. They just moved the goal posts however far they had to move them.

DS: That must have hurt.

(Subject #6 only nodded slightly with closed eyes)

DS: And you saw other kids whose families loved them and you both couldn't stop watching it and hated to watch it.

#6: Yes. Yes, exactly. My friend (name redacted) would complain about something his parents did and I wanted to smack him. They fucking adored (name redacted). He took so much for granted. When he realized how my parents treated me he couldn't believe it.

DS: Did you ever ask them directly? Why?

#6: No. I just . . accepted that that's the way things were. Well, kind of. I kept trying. I got really good grades. I was this incredibly skinny kid but I was a really good athlete. I was one of those really skinny boys that adults with their bellies and flab stared at like I was another species. They wondered how I did it. But my mom and dad never came to a single swim meet or a baseball game. They'd look at my report card then just put it down. I couldn't understand it. They would be all A's. But they would say nothing about it. I did really well in school. I loved learning things. School sucked, all the being made fun of for orange hair and being smart and being poor, but I loved learning things. It was easy. All A's, but it just made no impression on them. I couldn't understand it. It was like they would rather I did badly or just disappeared. Once -haha- once we went to the mall. I don't remember the circumstance but we all got in the car and went to the mall just like a real family. And just inside the doors where we went in there was a book store. And I remember getting so engrossed in reading something that I forgot everything and suddenly, an hour and a half later, I looked up from where I was sitting on the carpet of the book store and realized that my family was gone. I remembered that my father was going to meet my mother, sister and me, at the car at a certain time. I went sprinting out of that store then out the mall to the parking lot. The engine was running and my mom was buckling my sister in. Another 10 seconds and they'd have left without me. And my mom made it all out to be my fault, too. They would have left without me, supposedly their son, but it was all my fault. So, I got the anxiety and the guilt.

DS: Did they ever . . hit or abuse you?

#6: I got hit very infrequently. Not very often at all, really. They just . . didn't want me, didn't . . . love me and made it clear.

DS: It's very rare that it goes quite like that.

#6: Good. Because it sucked. They made me feel like shit for no reason. I made friends at school, good friends, but sometimes it'd be a long time between seeing my aunt and . . . god, it'd be so hard. I'd feel like I was crumbling. Then, after I became (Subject #6), I had this new feeling, this new certainty. I didn't deserve to be treated like shit and ignored. I was a fucking superhero for god's sake! But the whole superhero thing destroyed all my friendships. It was so goddam lonely.

DS: What was your aunt like?

#6: Aunt (name redacted) was incredible. She was famous or at least semi famous for her writing and her reporting. She had this tremendous sense of confidence about her in a way that you usually associate with men. It wasn't just a confidence in dealing with people like some women have. It was a confidence that she could handle anything. She wasn't a-a showoff or a bragger or anything. She just felt that way and you couldn't help but pick up on it. And she was a lot of fun. Even a kid like me could tell she was really smart, but not in a one upping you kind of way or showing you who was boss. She always seemed to be having a good time. And she was interested in me. Out of 20 or 25 people at holiday gatherings she always picked out me. She always had me sit on the arm of her chair and she'd talk to me. And she'd tell me that I was smart or that I was handsome. I-I couldn't believe my famous aunt was saying these things. My parents never did. Me?! Handsome?! Oh come on Aunt (name redacted)! I have orange hair! I'm so skinny! . . . Me?! Really?! And she'd listen to me talk, I mean, really listen, not with preconceived lines to throw back like adults usually do. She paid attention to what you actually said. She made me feel so good about myself. She made it all . . okay. It was. . . things were . . okay because of a . . few hours with her a . . couple times a year.

DS: Are . . are you okay? Do you want to take a minute?

#6: No, I"m . . I'm okay. She even told off my parents a couple times. 'What are you, nuts?! You give six Christmas presents to your daughter and only one to him?! And it's a pencil set, a crappy fricking pencil set?!"

DS: So, someone was an advocate for you.

#6: Yeah. I don't know how I would have gotten through everything without her. I'm just glad she . . lived long enough to see me become a Teen Titan and to meet (Subject #7). She really wanted me to succeed and be happy.

DS: Did she know why things were that way?

#6: I-I'm not sure. She might've known part of it but not the whole thing. I only found out 2 years ago.

(There was a long pause as Subject #6 stared at me while he considered something)

#6: Have you ever heard of a villain called The Reverse Flash, also known as Professor Zoom?

DS: Yes, I've seen some news articles, some stories on TV. He's the one who says he's from the future -

#6: He is.

DS: And with super speed who wears a uniform the opposite of (Subject #6's mentor)'s, yellow where your guy's is red, red where your guy's is yellow, switching black and white, too.

#6: He . . he's from the late 29th century. He came here, to our time, once, just meaning to sort of challenge (Subject #6's mentor) but immediately came off as a villain. So, the next time he came to our era he decided to play a trick on (Subject #6's mentor). He went about 15 years further into the past. His idea was to impregnate (Subject #6's mentor's) wife and have him raise Zoom's child. Pretty funny huh, real barrel of laughs that Zoom. Only he screwed up and hooked up with the wrong woman, not my aunt. My mother.

DS: So! So your father is . . a . . villain?!

#6: Yes . . . the-the same one who, on a later trip to our time, killed my aunt.

DS: Oh my god. So . . genetically, you're half someone from the 29th century and-

#6: More than that. S.T.A.R. Labs told me I'm ninety something percent him. Something about those genes being dominant. I . . I don't have a tail bone or an appendix or . . well, I'm different.

DS: And that was true before you ever got super speed?

#6: Right.

DS: How did that make you feel, finding out that your real father was a villain from the 29th century?

#6: Like a freak, or even more of a freak than I did before and . . and sort of . . guilty.

DS: Because that man killed your aunt?

#6: . . . . . . . . yes

DS: Do you-do you need a minute?

#6: No, I'll be . . fine. I just haven't thought about parts of this in a little while. I loved her so much. I was worried that (Justice League mentor) wouldn't look at me the same way again. I mean, I never thought he'd cut ties with me or anything but I thought it might . . change how he treated me.

DS: Did it?

#6: No. He's a terrific guy. He can be a little insensitive on small things but he always gets the big things right.

DS: Good. But how did you discover this?

#6: (sighs)He came back for me.

DS: Your biological father, the-the villain?

#6: Yes. He-he came back. I guess he felt guilty for abandoning me 5 minutes after conception. He realized he'd gotten the wrong Miss (name redacted) and stormed out of the hotel right after creating me, his intended joke on (Justice League mentor). But just before I turned 16, he came back after like 1 year of his time, and he was all (Subject #6's real first name)! Please! You are a wonderful mercury of a boy! You must return to the 29th century with me! You must!

DS: Professor Zoom? The one who killed your aunt?

#6: Well, he claimed he hadn't . . yet. He had just come from the year 2874. He said he hadn't done it at that time but couldn't deny that he might have come from 2875 and done it.

DS: Wow, time travel issues. That's so bizarre.

#6: Tell me about it.

DS: Did you believe him?

#6: I . . . I guess I sort of did. He . . he seemed to genuinely want to connect with me, to regret being such an asshole. But I wasn't about to go to some place or time, actually, that I'd never been with a guy who was at least part villain. Still, incredible as it may seem, I almost felt . . sorry for him. He . . he wanted to be with his son. He was an asshole for abandoning me and starting all the bullshit of me being crapped on. But he wanted me to be with him. Only, I couldn't.

(Subject #6 sat there pensively for most of a minute and I waited for his mood to change.)

DS: Well, if this Professor Zoom has super speed, why weren't you born with it?

#6: Huh? Oh, he gets his from his suit, somehow. (Justice League mentor) and I get ours naturally, I guess you could say, from our bodies.

DS: I see. And does the nature of your origin cause you any problem with other heroes?

#6: Well, I don't talk about it. My wife and (Subject #1) know. I think she vaguely likes it, that in some obscure way I'm not Mr. Squeaky Clean.

DS: Hmm. Well, let's go back to something you said a few minutes back. You said that (Justice League mentor) was sometimes insensitive about things. Is that true?

#6: Well, yeah. He always wanted me to do stuff to protect my secret identity that made things harder for me. It was hard enough as it was. Put yourself in my shoes, you go through this accident with lightning and chemicals that should've killed you about 10 different ways but somehow, you're not only alive but you've got super speed. And it reshapes your body, makes it better but kind of, um, distinctive. What do you have to do?

DS: Well, I guess I can't let the other kids see how I look now, right?

(Subject #6 nodded then disappeared from the room in a blue or red and yellow then reappeared in a blur of blue and gray a split second later. He was sitting in the same chair only wearing a hugely oversized gray shirt over hugely oversized jeans and had all his orange hair tucked under a blood red knit hat.)

#6: Right. I started wearing this at school. And I did whatever I had to do to never take off my clothes in front of anyone, including in gym class.

DS: But how many boys have orange hair or a face like yours? Why didn't they know anyway?

#6: Well, the mask hides my face a bit and, remember, I told you that when I first became (Subject #6), the speedforce triggered an accelerated growth spurt and I grew 3 or 4 inches almost literally overnight. So, when I first pulled on the uniform, I made sure to visit my school with (Justice League mentor) and between being 3 or 4 inches taller and these boots, it sort of got everyone off the scent. They all thought (Subject #6) was bigger than me.

DS: What did you do afterward, as the civilian you, always slouch?

#6: Yeah, basically. And I wore this hat everywhere to try and diminish the whole association of orange hair with me. And of course there were (Justice League mentor)'s great ideas. 'Hey, if there's a chance that someone will humiliate you, let it happen!' And, 'hey, if bigger kids want to pick on you, let it happen, especially if they chase you down to do it!' People won't associate anything like that happening to a superhero, to someone with powers. All my life, in school, I had people making fun of me for my orange hair or because I'm smart but I could always outrun anything really bad happening. Then I become a superhero and I'm getting stuffed butt down into these high trash cans we have at school so that only my feet and head stick out over the top. I had fat slow kids 'catch' me and give me atomic wedgies. I had two kids stuff me, upside down, in my own locker. At the end of 8th grade, I had a bunch of fat slow seniors to be jump me and paddle my ass off the back of a pickup truck in front of half the fricking school. All that crap and more I put up with, let happen even though I could see it coming from a mile away, just so that people did think of me as that superhero boy.

DS: (Justice League mentor) didn't realize that you didn't like allowing yourself to be humiliated?

#6: He was only thinking of what was good for me the superhero. And he was right. It was good for having kids not think of me as potentially being that boy in the red and yellow suit to be stuffed into trash cans so that my sneakers were pressing against my teeth.

DS: Gee, that's a bit of an extreme position.

(Subject #6 shakes his head, then gets up from his chair, bends forward at the waist and easily presses his palms to the carpet while pressing his lips to his sneakers before standing up straight and then sitting back down.)

#6: It's a speedster thing. We're extremely loose and supple. Just a sec, let me get out of this stuff it feels weird.

(Subject #6 leaves in a blur of blue and gray and returns less than a second later in a blur of red and yellow, in the same skin tight suit as before then sits down opposite me.)

DS: So, you put up with all sorts of humiliation as the civilian you to protect the hero you. You almost have an identity of shame and one of pride.

#6: I don't know about that. I guess that's partly true. But, mostly, I was tremendously bored in school. I was a really smart kid before and school was dull but after I became . . this, well, you've heard the term 'speed reading'? I would read my school books all the way through the first day of school. I'd just sit there in class staring off into space. Why should I care about some easy algebra that I knew cold when I could be thinking about Captain Cold and what his next plan might be or what those reports about Gorilla Grodd might mean. I got a reputation as a total space cadet for the way I ignored teachers. But how the hell could I pay full attention. It was energy conservation too. I had super speed but if I got tired out, I was just a skinny kid in a ridiculous suit who had pissed off whatever crook or villain I was fighting. That was a big weakness. I had no stamina when I was 12 and 13 years old.

DS: And your superhero work seemed a lot more important, too?

#6: Exactly. I-I worked this thing out with the Jump City Police just like (Justice League mentor) has with the Keystone City police. A certain high frequency signal makes my ring buzz on my finger and tells me that the police are calling for me. They called me something like a hundred sixty times over 4 years. It would've been more but I was already patrolling and on the scene a bunch of other times. I answered every single call. Every single one.

DS: It must've been hard to keep the rest of your life together while being on call like that.

#6: Not hard, doc, impossible. I started bailing out on my friends. I'd agree to be somewhere and I'd be on my way when bzzz! Bzzz! My ring would go off and I'd pull on my suit, hide my other clothes and go rescue people from a burning building or end a hostage standoff at a bank. I had a couple good friends and a year after becoming . . this, I had no friends. None. I had dates with two different girls who were nice enough to look past my weird image and each time I had to run off and play hero. You think any girls at our school wanted to have anything to do with me after that?

DS: Probably not.

#6: Of course not! And while I'm destroying what little life as I had, my only attachments, I've got cops making fun of me and snickering at my ass or just resenting me and nothing at all at home, no love. Nothing.

DS: Why'd you keep doing it?

#6: I told you I sort of tried to quit once.

DS: Why didn't you?

#6: Well, for one thing, I . . when I use my speed, there's a sort of chemical process that takes place inside of me that produces endorphins. It-it feels good. For another, the difference I could make was huge. After about a year as a hero, I saw my first dead body. It was probably odd that it took so long. It was this guy in his 20's and he died with his eyes open. You'd have thought he was watching you. It was terrible. And he had this expression on his face like he was saying, 'No! Please let me live more! Please!' And I saw his wife and baby boy show up on the scene. And there was crying and everything incredibly sad that you'd expect. I'd remember that and I'd remember the people I'd saved who were wonderfully grateful to me. All that would be weighed against being at my friend (name redacted)'s house to play a video game when I said I would. How could I be playing video games when I could be using this incredible power and saving someone's life. I wanted to say no a lot of times but I never could.

DS: When did things get better, only when you became a Titan?

#6: No, a bit before that. As I got bigger and it wasn't so ridiculous to be wearing this suit things seemed a little better. And after a couple years some more of the cops were giving me respect. I mean, I did a lot of terrific work helping them. It shouldn't have taken a couple years for them to treat me better, but hey. And then I met (Subject #7).

DS: Ah, your wife. Was it love at first sight between you two?

#6: Not for me.

DS: I see.

#6: For me it was love before first sight. I was watching the city for the Titans and speeding by a museum when I saw some suspicious activity. I snuck up on them and listened from behind a giant oak tree as she was telling her teammates why they were there. And she knew all this historical background and expressed it to them with such enthusiasm, such an obvious love of learning things. I was shocked, not by her being smart, but the way I was feeling. I didn't want that girl to go to jail. Then when I saw what a slender beauty she is . . . !

DS: And . . . shortly after you met her you became a Titan?

#6: That's right. And this is great. It's a bit weird, not having a structure to life like normal people but there's camraderie here, there's frienship and there's life with (Subject #7), too.

(Subject #6 smiles contentedly at me for several moments.)

DS: And much less secret identity effort, right?

#6: Right doc.

DS: Well, this is a good stopping point. This is David Silberman, M.D. End of Session.