Chapter Two: Velocity 9
A suicide. Barry Allen's death had been labeled as a suicide by Central City police. Iris Allen had arrived home late from work, and found her husband lying dead on the floor, a bullet hole in his head, a gun in his hand. He had purchased the gun only a month before. Iris was able to verify that her husband had been acting strange during his last days, but refused to talk to her about it.
All of it felt wrong to Wally. Completely, utterly wrong. He'd listened to his aunt Iris and his mom cry all night, while his father remained bitterly silent. This trend carried on into the morning, by which the West home was filled with a dismal atmosphere that could not be shaken. Wally sat at the kitchen table, tapping his foot aggressively. He had ADHD, and it made sitting still for any substantial amount of time difficult.
The repetitious tapping of his foot was Wally's only refuge from the excruciating silence that had enveloped the house. He wishfully anticipated the first spoken word of the morning to break the ominous trend, but no one seemed willing to speak up. Wally certainly wouldn't be the one to do it; he had a tendency to always say the wrong thing in any given situation.
After the sound of his own foot tapping became unbearable to him, Wally stood up and walked over to the loaf of bread on the counter. He stared at the toaster, but for some reason, it felt forbidden. He felt as if simply using the toaster would be too much of a normality on a day that was anything but normal. Realistically, he knew that partaking in a normal daily activity as simple as toasting a slice of bread could not offset whatever strange balance had befallen his family. But still, he decided not to risk it, and simply ate the bread plain.
"Wally," His mother finally spoke, and immediately the atmosphere changed. Someone had spoken, and in doing so completely shifted the balance. "At least make a sandwich of that." She continued in a tired voice.
"Why?" He asked without really thinking.
"Because eating plain bread for breakfast is just weird. Usually a person would make a sandwich, or make toast, or something."
"So all of the sudden it's socially unacceptable to eat a plain slice of bread? That sounds a lot like discrimination to me." Wally raised an eyebrow.
"Don't argue with your mother." His father barked without even looking up from the newspaper. Rudolph West was the only man in America who still read the newspaper every morning.
Wally made no response to his father, opting instead to simply lather some peanut butter and jelly onto his bread. As he did so, his gaze drifted to his aunt Iris. She looked tired, which made sense considering she had been up crying all through the night. There were heavy bags under her perpetually saddened eyes. She looked as if she had aged forty years in one day. She appeared to be completely absent, almost unaware of her surroundings. She was too caught up in her own sorrowful abyss to notice anything else.
"Aunt Iris," Wally said softly, managing to evoke a bit of her attention. He knew that he was about to venture into dangerous territory, but he chose to risk it. "Do you think Uncle Barry really killed himself?"
At that very instant, his father's hands slammed violently against the dining room table. "Wallace West!"
"Wally, consider you aunt's feelings for a moment." His mother told him in a raspy, hushed whisper as if she actually believed no one else in the room could hear her.
"It's okay." Iris said calmly, waving her hand at Wally's parents dismissively.
Wally sat down across from her and said, "So do you?" Which earned a disapproving glare from his father, but Wally ignored it.
"I don't want to believe it Wally." Iris said slowly. "But it's the only thing that makes any sense."
"But Uncle Barry hated guns," Wally recalled. "Why did he buy one? I mean, do you really think he was contemplating suicide that long, and he just didn't say anything?"
"That's enough Wally." His father instructed calmly, but his voice carried a threatening edge.
"I don't know what Barry's reasons were for what he did, Wally. I wish I did know." Iris said sadly, and then began crying again. She buried her face in her hands and said between sobs, "Up until about a month ago, he always seemed so happy. I don't know what happened."
"I'm going to go to school." Wally mumbled just loudly enough to be heard by his parents, and then slung his backpack over his shoulder.
"Are you sure Wally?" His mother asked.
"Yeah, Uncle Barry wouldn't have wanted me to let my grades slip on his behalf." Wally reasoned.
"Slip?" Wally's dad looked up from the paper.
"Ok, slip even more." Wally rolled his eyes, and headed out the front door, vaguely hearing a goodbye from his mom and a grunt from his dad. The moment Wally stepped out onto the front porch, he was startled by the presence of a tall man in a black suit, wearing dark sunglasses and carrying a black briefcase. He was about 6'4", with broad shoulders and elegantly combed blond hair.
"Um… hi?" Wally stammered.
"Hello." The man said automatically. Wally peered around the man's imposing physique to see a second one, not quite as large but equally intimidating, standing in front of a black SUV.
"Are you guys like… salesmen?" Wally frowned. He was thinking something more like 'assassins,' but figured 'salesmen' would be a more polite question.
"We need to speak with Iris Allen. Is she in the home?" The man questioned.
"That depends. Why do you want to talk to her?" Wally tried to sound confident, but knew that his voice had cracked.
"Step aside young man." The guy pushed easily passed Wally and walked straight into the house, followed by his smaller accomplice. Wally quickly pulled out his cell phone and texted Eddy Thawne, saying: Holy shit, Men in Black just showed up at my house.
Almost immediately, Eddy replied with: Damn, they must finally be on to you.Wally rolled his eyes and returned the phone to his pocket. He then looked back in through the window of his home to see that the men had taken Iris into the living room. Wally ran quietly back into the house, stood just out of sight and listened in.
Iris said, "I already spoke to the Central City police about Barry."
And one of the Men in Black said, "We just have a few more questions ma'am."
"Ok." Iris replied.
"Did Barry ever talk to you about his work at S.T.A.R. Labs?"
"Not his current projects, no. He wasn't allowed to, it was classified information." Iris answered truthfully.
"Did he ever bring his work home with him? Perhaps bring any foreign objects into the house, such as a test tube or a syringe?"
"No, never that I'm aware of. Barry carried his laptop back and forth between home and work, but other than that, everything stayed in his lab."
"Did Barry ever work on any experiments within your household that you are aware of?"
"No."
"Thank you for your time ma'am." The man gave her a nod, and then both of the suited men left the room. Walking out into the hallway, the one man shot Wally a glare that showed he was keenly aware Wally had been eavesdropping. The two men left the house without another word, got into their black SUV, and drove away.
"What was that all about?" Wally looked to his aunt.
"I don't have a clue." Iris shook her head. "That was all very strange."
"You have no idea who those guys were?"
"They just said that they needed to question me about Barry," Iris frowned. Even the mention of her husband's name was enough to break her heart all over again.
"Weird," Wally muttered. The ginger-haired teenager then walked back out the doorway to watch them drive off, looking for identifying marks on the SUV, and realized that there were none. Not even a license plate. "Okay, even weirder."
…..
Mr. Crandall was a bizarre teacher. He had earned the nickname "Mr. Zen" from his students, because of his constantly chilled-out demeanor. Mr. Crandall was once a S.T.A.R. Labs scientist, but had retired several years ago to become a teacher at Keystone City High School. He was well into his sixties, but was still remarkably upbeat and had a very youthful energy about him. His classroom was adorned with various plants, dream catchers, clay statues, and posters with cheesy motivational sayings on them. These items surrounded the large lab stations filling the class, with which Mr. Crandall taught chemistry.
It was the only class that Wally actually enjoyed, but that didn't prevent him falling asleep on almost a daily basis. He blamed the classroom's ridiculously calm atmosphere for that.
"Mr. West." Mr. Crandall tried politely, earning no response from the unconscious teenager. Mr. Crandall smiled, and grabbed the thickest book within his reach. He walked calmly over to Wally's desk, raised the book, and slammed it down with as much force as he could muster. The crash jolted Wally into consciousness with a confused scream. The classroom erupted into laughter.
"So glad you could finally join us, Mr. West." Mr. Crandall said with his usual energetic smile. "By the way, could you please explain cellular respiration to the class?"
There were snickers from several of Wally's classmates. "Sure." Wally shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "Cellular respiration refers to the biochemical pathway by which cells release energy from chemical bonds of food molecules and provide that energy for the essential process of life. Glucose is the initial fuel source. The first stage is glycolysis, which happens in the cytosol. Glycolysis literally means "splitting sugars." It splits the glucose, a six-carbon sugar, into two molecules of three-carbon sugars. Glycolysis yields two molecules of ATP, which is basically free energy for cells, two pyruvic acid and two electron-carrying NADH molecules. Then we move into the second stage, the TCA cycle, which is basically a cycle of chemical reactions that would take forever to explain, and then there's the Electron Transport Chain, which is the final stage. The ETC ends with oxygen, which attracts electrons and pulls them along the chain. The end result is a crapload of ATP, which energizes the cells, which allows life to continue living."
Now students were staring at Wally, silent. Mr. Crandall smiled and said, "On a test, I would have marked you down for failing to point out the difference between aerobic and anaerobic cellular respiration. But good answer, nonetheless." Mr. Crandall moved back toward the front of the room, and then glanced back at Wally and said, "I'd like to see you after class, by the way."
Shit, Wally thought. But aloud he said, "Ok." Then he looked over, and his worry was momentarily alleviated when he saw the new girl, Linda Park, on the other side of the room smiling at him. He smiled back.
A while later, class ended and students frenzied out the door, talking loudly and pouring into the already crowded hallway. Wally remained stationary, waiting for the last of the students to leave the room before Mr. Crandall closed the door. He sat down on a desk in front of Wally's and said, "I heard about your uncle."
Wally's eyes bulged with surprise, and he stuttered, "You did?"
"I used to work with him at S.T.A.R. labs. He was a friend of mine." Mr. Crandall nodded, a sad look adorning his face. "He was a good man, your uncle Barry."
"I know." Wally nodded uncomfortably.
Mr. Crandall pursed his lips, and Wally could tell he was trying to find a way to say something carefully. "So…" he finally spoke, "They're saying he committed suicide?"
"Yeah." Wally nodded again, unsure of what else to do.
"Does your aunt believe it?"
"I guess so." Wally said, uncertain himself. "I think Aunt Iris believes it right now because she's really shaken up, and she doesn't want to question anything. Does that make sense?"
"Absolutely," Agreed Mr. Crandall. "Do you believe it Wally?"
"It's what the police said."
"I didn't ask what the police said. I asked what you believe."
After a moment of thick tension, Wally breathed a very pronounced "No." Then he continued, "I don't believe it. I didn't get to see my uncle Barry very much over the last couple of years, but I knew him well enough. And he wasn't the type to kill himself, no matter what happened to him."
"I agree." Mr. Crandall said. "I want you to read something." He reached into his pocket and withdrew a neatly folded sheet of paper. "This was a letter that Barry sent to me about a month ago." Wally unfolded the paper and read over it carefully.
Hello Max,
I know how you old coots prefer snail mail, so I'm handwriting this despite the fact that my email is open on a laptop literally a foot away from me. Max, I've stumbled onto something incredible. Dr. Clariss and I continued Jay's research. I know he begged me not to, and I was going to listen. But Clariss convinced me otherwise. He showed me what he and Jay had been working on… Max, it's remarkable. I've made advances into the study myself. But Max, I feel terrible about the whole business with Jay… that's why I'm writing you this letter.
You know Jay better than anyone. I trust that you're probably the only man who knows where he is. I've tried to contact him, but I haven't had any luck. He's gone completely off the radar. Max, if you know where he is, please tell him that I'm continuing his work. And tell him that I've made incredible discoveries as far as how it works. I wish I could be more specific, old friend, but I don't want any word of this project to be leaked until I know how to control it. If not stabilized, it could be dangerous. Tell Jay I'm being careful… and tell him that I am literally about to change the world.
Sincerely,
Barry Allen
Wally handed the note back to Mr. Crandall. "What was he researching?"
"I wish I knew." Mr. Crandall frowned. "All I know is that the project was started by Jay Garrick, a brilliant scientist who we worked with… but one day, he just vanished. No one knows where he went. Before his disappearance, he begged Barry and I not to continue his research. But… it looks like Barry didn't listen."
"So you don't know where Jay is then?" Wally frowned.
"I don't have a clue."
"What about Dr. Clariss? Who's he?"
"Dr. Edward Clariss was Jay's protégé. He's a brilliant man, but also arrogant. It doesn't surprise me that he convinced your uncle to continue Jay's work."
"Wow," Wally shook his head.
"I think we can both agree that in this letter, your uncle didn't sound depressed. He was excited if anything."
"Yeah." Wally agreed. The bell sounded, and students began filling into the classroom.
"I'll write you a late pass." Mr. Crandall said.
Soon Wally was back into the hallway, headed toward his locker. His mind was now buzzing with thoughts. The conversation with Mr. Crandall had raised more questions than answers, but Wally was now almost certain of one thing; Barry Allen had not taken his own life.
As Wally neared his locker, he wasn't surprised to find Eddy Thawne waiting to greet him. "Dude, this is the second day in a row you've made me tardy." He grunted.
"I never asked you to wait around for me." Wally shrugged.
"Well, I'm curious."
"About what?"
"What do you think, ginger?" Eddy grinned. "This whole thing with your uncle. What's the deal?"
"That's what I intend to find out." Wally stated.
"Meaning…?" Eddy frowned.
"You have a computer class next, right?"
"Um… yeah. Why?"
"Do me a favor and map quest my uncle's house. Here's his address." Wally scribbled the address down on a piece of paper and handed it to his friend. "I need to know how to get there."
"Wally… why are you going to your uncle's house?" Eddy asked, very confused.
"My uncle Barry didn't kill himself. I'm sure of it. So I'm going to prove it."
…
After school ended, Wally began his routine walk home from school. Today, however, he had no intention of staying home.
"Wally, this is insane." Eddy tried to reason with his friend, but the look in Wally's eyes proved that his effort was in vain. "Ok…" Eddy sighed, "Do you really think you're going to find something that the police missed?"
"I don't know," Wally admitted, "I just have to try."
"So you're going to take your dad's car without asking, even though you don't have a license, drive all the way to Central City, break into your dead uncle's house, and look for evidence that probably isn't even there?"
"That about sums it up." Wally nodded, speeding up so that he was walking ahead of Eddy.
"Wally, do you remember in kindergarten when you were convinced that there was a secret door hidden in your house, and that the electrical outlet was the keyhole? So you stole your mom's house key and stuck it into the outlet, and it shocked the hell out of you? This is even stupider than that."
"Hey, my mom must have been hiding the Christmas presents somewhere, and that outlet seemed to have no business being there." Wally defended himself.
"Are you hearing me?" Eddy stepped in front of his friend. "I know you're convinced that your uncle didn't commit suicide, but that doesn't automatically mean you're right. And if you try to prove yourself right like this, you're going to wind up in a really bad situation."
"Barry did not kill himself."
"How do you know Wally? How can you say that with absolute certainty?"
"None of it makes sense, alright? He wasn't depressed, or at least he didn't seem like it in that letter. He didn't like guns, and he wouldn't have bought one unless he had a damn good reason. And more than anything, he loved my aunt Iris. He wouldn't do that to her."
"All assumptions, no facts." Eddy frowned. "Wally, let's take a look at my father for a moment. When I was eleven years old, my dad got drunk, which was nothing new. Then he got in a fight with my mom, also not unusual. But then he got in his car and left, still ridiculously intoxicated. Not long after, we got a call that he had been in an accident. He was killed, along with a family of four who he collided with." A look of pain overtook Eddy's face. "Don't you think I tried to find some other explanation for what happened? I tried to deny it, and looked for a truth that I would like better?"
"This is different." Wally muttered.
"How?"
Wally froze, and looked his friend in the eye. "Just drop it, Eddy. Please."
After a very tense moment, Eddy sighed and said, "I really can't stop you from doing this, can I?"
"No."
"Alright then. I'm going."
"What? No, Eddy-"
"Dude, you're already doing something hopelessly stupid. I might as well tag along and make sure you don't wind up hurting yourself."
"Ok then." Wally grinned, "In that case, let's take your mom's car."
"What?"
"It's better on gas than my dad's car, and since your mom is usually napping when you get home, it'll be easier to steal."
"Fine," Eddy sighed. "But you owe me big time, West."
Over the next twenty minutes, Wally called his parents and told them that he was staying at Eddy's house for the night. Eddy left a note telling his mom that he would be at Wally's house.
Central City was located in Missouri, directly on the Missouri/Kansas border. Keystone City, Kansas was almost perfectly adjacent to it. By car, it was about a two hour drive with traffic. They did the math and figured that they would wind up in Central at around 5:00 p.m., add another half hour to get to Barry's house, spend an hour there, and then drive back to Keystone, and they came to the conclusion that they would be back around 9:30.
"We will be in so much trouble if we get caught." Eddy breathed.
"That's why we won't."
"What if we get pulled over? Neither of us have driver's licenses."
"Don't get pulled over." Wally then turned up his iPod to drown out his friend's worry, and the rest of the car ride was spent in silence.
They reached Central City at 5:20, slightly behind schedule because of Eddy's excruciatingly slow driving. His father's fatal accident had shaken Eddy to his core, and since then he was extremely careful whenever he sat behind the wheel.
Forty five minutes later, they were in the suburb in which Barry and Iris Allen had lived. Iris was still staying at the West home, and obviously Barry wouldn't be around, so Wally expected the place to be uninhabited. His expectations proved false, however, when they approached the driveway and saw a black SUV parked in front of the house. Wally recognized the vehicle instantly… the same vehicle driven by the men who had come to his house that morning to interrogate Iris.
"Cops…?" Eddy asked when he noticed the SUV.
"Nope. Men in Black." Wally frowned, "Don't pull into the driveway. I don't want to draw their attention."
"Got it." Eddy slowed his mother's car and came to a stop several feet away from the drive. The two teenagers exited the vehicle and moved quickly toward the house. Wally peered carefully in the window, and was surprised by what he saw. The home had been ransacked. Furniture was overturned, picture frames had been torn off the walls, the carpet had been pulled up, even the TV had been disassembled.
"Robbers?" Eddy guessed.
"If they were robbers, they would have stolen something." Wally whispered. "It looks like they just tore everything apart."
The front door began to creak open, and the teens quickly hid around the corner of the house, staying out of sight. Wally craned his neck to peek over at the man who had stepped out onto the porch. It was the tall blond guy from earlier, still wearing a black suit and sunglasses despite it being a relatively cloudy day. He was on his cellphone.
Wally was able to pick up parts of what the man was saying; "No, we haven't found it." Then there was a pause, followed by, "We've torn the house apart, Mr. Clariss. There's no sign of the formula." Another pause. "Yes, we questioned Iris Allen. She didn't know anything useful."
Wally moved away from the corner slowly, being careful not to make a sound. His mind was buzzing with questions, two in particular; Who are these guys? What are they looking for?
Wally edged further along the side of the house and peered cautiously into the back yard. The other Man in Black was there, pacing around the lawn carefully with a metal detector. Wally looked down at his feet and saw a rectangular basement window.
He knelt down and withdrew a screw driver from his back pocket. He had brought a few items that he thought might help him get into the house. Wally quickly began to remove the screws holding the frame of the window in place.
"What the hell are you doing?" Eddy whispered, and Wally held up a hand to shut him up. Soon the frame was off, and Wally was able to carefully push the basement window loose. Once he'd removed it, leaving a small rectangular hole, he turned and began to shimmy in through it. He motioned for Eddy to follow, and reluctantly, his friend did.
With minimal effort, the two soon drifted into the dark basement. Wally pushed a random button on his phone to make the screen light up, illuminating a fraction of the cluttered basement, stuffed with boxes that would likely never be opened.
"Why the hell are we down here?" Eddy rasped.
"Both the Men in Black are outside. That buys us a little bit of time to look around in here."
"Wally, you are officially a lunatic. Are you trying to get us killed?"
"That guy on the phone… he called the person he was talking to Mr. Clariss…"
"So what?"
"Mr. Crandall said that Barry was working with a guy named Edward Clariss on something top secret. How much do want to bet the guy on the phone was Edward Clariss?"
"Wally, I really don't understand the significance of that."
"Think about it a minute Eddy. The Men in Black showed up at my house this morning to question my aunt Iris about Barry's work. Later, I learned from Mr. Crandall that Barry was working on something top secret, started by a guy named Jay Garrick. Jay disappeared, but his apprentice Edward Clariss convinced my uncle Barry to continue the research… now Barry is dead, and the Men in Black are pillaging Barry's house, looking for something, and one of them was on the phone with Mr. Clariss. That really doesn't seem suspicious to you?"
"Yes Wally, it does. What I don't understand is why we are currently hiding in your dead uncle's basement instead of, you know, informing the police that may have stumbled onto a freaking murder conspiracy!"
"Just let me figure this out, ok?" Wally pleaded, pressing another button on his phone to re-illuminate the screen. Looking around, Wally frowned with the realization that he had absolutely no idea where to look, or even what to look for. "Damn it," He breathed a defeated sigh, and leaned against the wall. That was when Wally noticed something strange.
The basement was cold and damp. The concrete block walls should have absorbed the room's bitter chill, and became cold themselves. But the particular area of wall that Wally had fallen against radiated peculiar warmth. "What the…?" He turned and pressed his hands against the cement bricks.
"You're feeling up the wall now?" Eddy frowned. "Wally, I think you may be in need of urgent psychiatric treatment."
"Come check this out." Wally motioned for Eddy to approach him, and reluctantly, he did. "Why is this wall so warm?"
"Ok, that is a bit weird." Eddy admitted after feeling for himself.
Wally leaned into the wall with all his might, and with surprising ease, a door-sized rectangular section of the brick slid forward. The wall depressed itself several inches deep before providing a signatory click to show that it would move no further in that direction.
Moving his hands to the left, Wally found that the section of wall now slid easily, opening a doorway into a secret room. Looking into the room, Wally was able to immediately identify the source of heat; a mid-sized heater that had been left on. Barry was big on saving energy… if he left the heater on, he must have been in a hurry to get out of here.
The teen's energetic blue eyes surveyed the room quickly and efficiently, noting everything that seemed to carry the potential for importance. The room was small, dimly lit by a single bulb. Its flickering orange glow illuminated the pale white walls. Against the far wall was a medium-sized wooden desk, filled with piles upon piles of papers. Stepping carefully into the room, Wally noted that each sheet of paper was covered in complex scientific formulas. There were also markings on the wooden frame of the desk, showing that Barry had apparently run out of paper at some point. A laptop sat open on the left side of the desk, but its battery had died out, leaving nothing but a black screen.
Wally picked up the laptop, closed it, and handed it to Eddie. "Put that in your backpack, there might be something on it we can use."
"What is this place…?" Eddy stammered in bewilderment.
"Apparently my uncle had a man cave." Wally said, at the same time wondering if his aunt had even been aware of this room's existence. He kind of doubted it.
"Dude, we have to get out of here right now." Eddy pleaded, "Things are hidden for a reason you know."
"Just give me a minute." Wally insisted, noticing a black book near the corner of the desk. The cover read; Barry's Journal. Wally remembered the Christmas several years before, when he had given his uncle that journal. An eerie chill enraptured him as he thought about his uncle sitting in his secret little room every night, recording his deepest thoughts in the journal. It occurred to Wally that the seemingly innocuous book could in fact hold the truth about what happened to Barry.
A part of Wally wanted to open it, but something deep inside screamed at him not to, begged him to turn and leave, to accept that Barry Allen had taken his own life just like everyone accepted it. As Wally turned away from the journal, something else caught his eye. A glass beaker, corked at the top, tipped over behind the journal.
The beaker contained an odd, scarlet colored liquid. Wally's first thought was mercury, but it seemed unlikely that his uncle would have a vile of mercury lying around. His curiosity getting the best of him, Wally lifted the beaker off the desk and rolled it in his hand, studying the liquid it contained carefully. The label on the beaker read; Velocity 9.
Velocity 9? Wally repeated it in his mind. What the hell is that…?
His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, penetrating squeal from Eddy, followed by a very pronounced, masculine voice that Wally vaguely recognized. "Well, well, well." It said tauntingly. Wally instinctively slid the beaker into his pocket and turned around slowly, to see the Men in Black standing in the door way. The shorter of the two was holding Eddy in an arm lock that he had no chance of escaping. "What do you think you're doing here?" The taller one demanded.
"Whoa, um… I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere." Wally feigned a smile, "I'm supposed to be visiting my grandma, she's ill and-"
"Shut up." The man ordered blatantly.
"Isn't he the kid from this morning?" The shorter one asked.
"Yeah, I remember the Strawberry Shortcake hair."
"I'm sorry, what was that Blondie?" Wally retorted.
"Smartass punk." The tall, blond man grunted. "What's that?" He looked past Wally at Barry's journal. The man shoved Wally out of the way and grabbed the journal, grinning as he read the cover. "Well now, how much you want to bet he wrote about the formula in here?"
"Oh, you mean the formula that Edward Clariss hired you to find?" Wally chided. The Men in Black both glared at Wally with surprised looks on their faces.
"Yeah, I doubt he's going to be too happy with you when he learns two teenagers found this room in twenty minutes, and you idiots have been trying all day." Wally grinned, "Of course, you could just let me and my friend go, with the journal, and we won't speak a word."
"Kid, you just did the stupidest thing ever." The tall man growled. Then, to Wally's horror, he reached into his jacket and withdrew a gun!
"You aren't going to shoot the kid, are you?" The shorter man questioned.
"No, we can't clue the cops in that foul play was involved. That'd screw everything up. This has to look like an accident." The man turned toward the heater in the corner. It was a kerosene heater, and looked to be quite old. The man aimed the gun at the kerosene tank on the heater and fired, penetrating it. The flammable liquid began to spill onto the floor.
He then withdrew a lighter from his pocket, and prepared to ignite it. In a desperate attempt, Wally tackled the man, but was easily overpowered. The man threw Wally against the edge of the desk, sending a sharp pain up the teenager's spine.
The shorter man threw a screaming Eddy onto the floor. In a breathless second, the lighter hit the leaking kerosene, and it erupted into a fiery blaze, immediately spreading onto the wooden walls of the room.
The fire engulfed the doorframe as the two men left, trapping Wally and Eddy inside. Intense heat washed over the teenagers as the fire grew and expanded, swallowing everything within its reach. Eddy was huddled against the far wall, hyperventilating and sobbing into his knees. Wally attempted to maintain some semblance to composure, but his fortitude was quickly being burned to cinders… along with everything else. He looked around frantically, hoping for something to present an opportunity for escape, but all he could think was, I'm going to die! Oh my God, I'm going to die!
The smoke was now invading Wally's lungs, robbing him of his ability to breath. He dropped to the floor, knowing that smoke rises. The fire closed in, and Eddy's muffled screams were barely audible over the roar of the flame. A burst of fire caught Wally's lower body, and amidst the sudden searing pain, his frantic mind trailed back to the beaker he had hidden in his pocket, and the strange scarlet liquid it contained. And at that moment, the fire ignited the liquid, reacting with the unknown chemical. And suddenly, Wally was enveloped in a brilliantly colored explosion.
He expected a great, immeasurable agony, followed by the cold embrace of death. But instead he felt… energized. Every molecule of his body began to tingle, fueled by an incredible wave of energy. Suddenly, the world around Wally began to slow.
Every aspect of the environment fell into a slow motion sequence, and Wally analyzed every single detail with increasing speed. His mind began to process at a rate that just a moment before, Wally would have been unable to comprehend. There's an opening… fire's lower in the middle of the room, no walls to burn up. Safest bet is straight down the line.
Wally moved, and suddenly the world blurred by. There was a tingling in Wally's mind, as if his brain were speeding up to compensate. Wally grabbed Eddy. Eddy's reaction seemed incredibly slow. Wally heaved him upward and bolted forward, leaping just above the fire's lowest point. His shoes caught the blaze and began to burn. As soon he touched down outside the door, he kicked them off.
The fire was spreading into the basement beyond the doorway, but hadn't completely consumed it yet. If they moved quickly, they could escape. Again, the world slowed to a crawl as Wally analyzed his surroundings. Stairs are blocked. It's a risky shot to the window, but safer than the stairs. Wally bolted forward, and noticed that Eddy didn't even seem to see him. Wally stopped in his tracks and called to his friend. "Dude, what are you doing?"
Suddenly, a support beam from the ceiling burned off from the rest and began to fall. Time fell into slow motion again, and Wally reacted quickly, racing over and tackling Eddy out of the way. The blazing wooden beam crashed down against the wall, blocking their path to the window.
"We're going to die!" Eddy shrieked.
Wally closed his eyes and thought, feeling his mind speed up more and more each second. The smoke filled his lungs again. Can't breathe… I need air. Air? Oxygen! Fire needs oxygen to burn. No oxygen, no fire. Ok… I wonder if… no that's crazy… who am I kidding? This whole thing is crazy. Worth a shot…
Despite his every instinct to drop to the floor and avoid smoke inhalation, Wally stood up and began to rotate. He could feel himself gaining speed, his rate of motion practically doubling by every nanosecond. His mind continued to accelerate as well, bridging the gap, allowing him to keep up. Wally was suffocating now, his lungs drowned in smoke. Come on! Faster!
As his mind caught up with his speed yet again, he could see that his plan was beginning to take effect. Wisps of flame reached out toward him, clawing at the oxygen being sapped away by the vortex. Faster! Faster!
Wally could feel the air thickening around him as his vortex sucked in the oxygen in the room, and finally, all at once, the fire around him fizzled into nothing but cinders. There were still small remnants of the fire scattered around, but nothing near the scale of the blaze that had previously surrounded them.
Wally fell to his knees, coughing hard, his vision blurred. His clothing had been torn to shreds, and his depth perception seemed horridly out of balance. After a few moments, he felt Eddy's hand on his shoulder. Breathing with equal heaviness Eddy asked, "How the hell did you do that?"
Wally pondered the question for a moment, digging into every recess of his mind for some logical answer. Finally, he turned to Eddy and said, "I have absolutely no idea."
Teaser: In the next chapter we'll see Wally experiment with his new abilities, and seek out a familiar face… so be sure to keep reading!