Well, last night was a doozy, wasn't it! I come to you in a vague haze of confusion and mixed emotions, but nonetheless ready for this chapter. I hope you are as well.
Additional warnings for this chapter: more needles/forced injections, incredibly dubious science/plans.
Enjoy!
"Anytime," Joe said. "Any minute."
Caitlin never would've pinned Joe as the restless one, yet here he was, pacing so fervently he was in danger of carving a trench in the floor. Barry, usually the one to move impatiently, had assumed a tightly-wound stance behind a chair, knuckles white and muscles tensed like a bowstring. Iris was the only one who radiated calm, though her eyes betrayed her. They were the only part of her that ever did.
"Everything's in place," Caitlin said. "I have the knockout gas. Cisco may not be in a condition to help out, so Iris, you will have to activate it remotely on my signal."
The plan was simple—well, not simple, but simple enough given that they had only a few hours to come up with it. A powerful sleeping gas, one that they'd been working on for a few months as a possible non-dangerous way to stop out-of-control metahumans, contained in a canister the size of a lipstick tube. The contraption, for lack of a better hiding place, was tucked inside her bra.
If her assumptions were correct, she and Barry would be split up immediately upon reaching the facility: Barry for whatever experiments they wanted him for, Caitlin presumably for questioning regarding the anti-meta serum. Jason wouldn't have been able to describe the serum in full detail, given that Caitlin had given instructions to Canton.
Investigations into Eiling's old facility had revealed isolated rooms, much like prison cells, where Eiling's prisoners would be left during interim periods. With any luck, Caitlin would be kept in one of these, where she could safely release the sleeping gas before anyone was the wiser. All she needed to do was get the object into an air vent, where it could disperse to the rest of the facility. A button on the outside would send out a signal, simultaneously alerting the STAR Labs team to her location and allowing them to release the gas remotely, once the canister was safely within the air vents.
She had injected herself and Barry with an antidote to the gas, of course, but it would only last a few hours—and it was better not to release high concentrations of knockout gas at close range, anyway.
"Stay alert," Iris said. When she saw Caitlin chewing her lip, she reached forward and grabbed her arm. "Hey. I trust you. You'll be alright."
"Not gonna lie, there's a lot that can go wrong," Caitlin said. "And what if we can't find Canton?"
"Anything goes wrong, we'll get you out," Iris said, though it was unclear if you included Canton. "We won't leave you there. I hope you know that."
"Of course," Caitlin said. However, the prospect of sitting alone in an isolated, cement cell with no way to mark the time—well, it wasn't reassuring. She thought of Cisco, sitting there, unsure if anyone knew he was gone or if anyone was coming. Sure, they'd all experienced that to some extent in the warehouse. But this was different. She had the feeling that if something went wrong and Eiling managed to keep her there for interrogation, it wouldn't just be days of captivity, but months.
Above all, Caitlin couldn't shake the feeling that she was somehow responsible for all of this, that she had unfairly coerced members of her makeshift family to subject themselves to something none of them could quite anticipate. She had been the one to let Canton go. Hell, she'd been indecisive when Eiling had offered the choice between Canton and Cisco.
What had she become to allow that kind of thinking to fester inside of her? And what would she become if this mission failed and she sentenced Barry to a lifetime of Eiling's brand of horror?
In this burst of regret, she pulled Barry aside. He looked at her questioningly.
"You don't have to do this, Barry," she said in a lowered voice. He looked as though he might turn away, distracted, but she circled her fingers around his wrist. "I'm serious. We both know what they're going to do to you in there."
A hint of a smile ghosted over Barry's face. "I guess you'll just have to get me quick, then."
He extracted his wrist from her hand with a nod of understanding, of comfort. Then he turned back to the doorway. With her attention back on the immediate situation, she understood what his hyper-sensitivity had already catalogued: the military had arrived.
They certainly weren't trying to mask their entrance—Caitlin could hear them tramping through the building even from the cortex. The STAR Labs group readied themselves, Joe and Iris pulling out guns in case Eiling decided to make things difficult, Barry and Caitlin placing themselves slightly in front of the desk.
"It's go-time," Joe said unnecessarily. "We'll get through this. Just stay calm."
Caitlin swallowed. Even after everything they'd been through, the tension of an impending storm still made her throat close up. She felt the tips of her fingers go numb with anxiety.
Eiling was the first through the doorway, his stride confident, his stupid grin plastered across his face.
"Evenin'," he said, taking stock of each one of them in turn. He nodded up at Joe and Iris, who both had their guns trained on him. "I can see where she got her hospitality from."
"A deal's a deal," Joe said. "And we're making sure you hold up your end of it. Where's Cisco?"
"Oh, they're on their way," Eiling said. "Wanted to make a dramatic entrance, I suppose. The little engineer is dragging his feet a bit."
Caitlin could hear it now, though, the same rhythmic, cataclysmic march of boots. The fear surrounding the sound was so great, she couldn't determine how many people there actually were. It could have been two; it could have been a hundred.
The answer lay somewhere in between, though much closer to her first estimate. The group that rounded the corner was much the same as the one that had cornered her in STAR Labs before, three men—in fact, she wouldn't have been surprised if they were the same soldiers. In between two of them, practically dragged by the arms, Cisco lifted his head. Oily strands of hair stuck to the sides of his face, framing his tired, hollowed eyes.
Alarmingly, he looked almost a mixture of when he had been rescued from the warehouse and when he'd returned to STAR following his kidnapping by Snart. Physically, he looked to be in much better shape than after the warehouse, but the apparent exhaustion, limpness, inability to keep his feet was reminiscent of his condition then. More troubling was the resemblance to the Snart incident, which manifested itself mostly in the eyes—a reluctance to meet anyone's gazes, a beaten-down guilt that clouded his entire expression.
"Here," Eiling said, motioning for the soldiers to release Cisco. "A gift."
A hard shove to his back sent Cisco stumbling forward. Iris leapt forward to catch him, propping him up so he didn't collapse to the ground.
Temporarily forgetting the bargain that had been struck, Caitlin rushed over. Just making contact with Cisco lifted a huge weight from her chest; it had been so long since she'd seen him, felt the lifeblood warmth of his skin, confirmed that he was still breathing.
Then, as soon as it had been forgotten, the reality of their current situation rushed back. As much as she wanted to pull on her labcoat, take care of Cisco, make Cisco better, she was aware that her time was limited.
"Okay, Iris," she said, reaching absently for Cisco's pulse. "First things first, you're going to want to get him fed and hydrated. We keep a shock blanket in the bottom drawer of my desk. Look at me, Cisco."
She placed a hand on the man's forehead to try and tilt his head up, with the intention of checking his pupils. Instead when his gaze met hers, the sorrow in it gave her pause.
"They were hurting her," he croaked. "Cait, I'm sorry—I didn't—didn't know what to do, I'm sorry—"
"Shh, it's alright," Caitlin said. "You're safe. You don't have to apologize for anything." But, secretly, a thought unsettled her: What do you have to be sorry for?
"There, I held up my end of the bargain," Eiling said, and yes, there was a bargain, and no, we don't have time for any of this.
"Fine," Caitlin said. With one last nod, an attempt at reassurance, she let go of Cisco and lifted her hands in surrender. On the other side of the room, Barry did the same. "We'll come with you."
Eiling nodded, but she realized, too late, that it wasn't directed at her. She took a step forward. One of the soldiers, at Eiling's order, raised an industrial-looking gun. Before Caitlin's foot fully touched the ground, before she could hardly breathe, the muzzle flashed.
With his hands still raised in surrender, Barry was flung backward.
Caitlin's heel skidded on the floor in her haste to cross the room. Her elbow banged against the cortex table in time with Barry colliding with the wall. Joe's gun fired. A gun was fired in return. Screaming: Iris. Wailing: Barry.
"And here I thought we could do this without fuss." Eiling's words came through a tunnel, easily brushed off, easily ignored. It was in Caitlin's nature to have multiple points of focus, but also to set her mind to the most urgent: in this case, it was Barry, thrashing on the ground, tangled in a net of razor wire.
She hadn't seen the net itself when Barry had last encountered it, but she'd seen the damage it had caused. She dropped to her knees, reaching out her hands while maintaining her distance from the knife-sharp barbs.
"Barry, slow down," Caitlin said. "Moving is only going to make it worse. Try to stay still."
Almost entirely obscured by the tangle of wire, Barry continued twitching, then gradually stilled. It was hard to see much of him, but hard also to miss the spatters of blood now decorating the once-pristine white floor.
"Why?" was all Caitlin could manage, her voice crackling with a sudden hoarseness.
"Couldn't have you trying any funny business," Eiling responded. Barry shuddered, and the razor wire drew more blood. Aside from his moans, the man was unresponsive, unable to run, unable to phase through without risking more serious injury. "Speedsters are slippery little creatures."
"It's unnecessary," Caitlin said, quieter.
"We don't see it that way." Eiling snapped his fingers. The two men who had dragged in Cisco marched over. One shoved Caitlin, hard, to the floor. Then they reached forward with protective gloves and dragged Barry, net and all, backward. The sound that was wrenched from his throat was far from human.
Disoriented, Caitlin dragged herself back up to her elbows and looked over at Joe and Iris and Cisco. All of them were on the floor now. Crimson decorated the computer table. Joe and Cisco supported Iris, who clutched at her arm. Blood oozed between her fingers.
"Iris," Caitlin said.
"It's fine," Iris said with a barely-contained hiss of pain. "It's just a graze." The pieces fell together. Joe's gunshot. The returning gunshot. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she kept saying, swatting away Joe's hands, trying desperately to lean toward Caitlin, toward Barry, to help.
But they were beyond help. A third set of hands, ungloved hands, hands that had shot Iris, grabbed Caitlin by the hair and heaved upward. Blinded by pain, heart beating too fast to contain, she was lifted to a standing position. Her arms were pinioned to her sides as she was pulled, stumbling, from the cortex.
The fresh air of the outside world stung her cheeks. A heavy door slammed behind her, a certain ominous finality to her departure from STAR. Two unmarked vans idled in the lot, shadowy in the failing light. When she realized that she was being separated from Barry, it was too late. The two soldiers dragging Barry tossed him bodily into one van. Eiling followed, but not before turning to Caitlin with a smirk.
"See you soon, Dr. Snow," he said, then stepped into the van. "Let's begin."
The doors slammed behind him and the engine revved. Before she could watch it take off, she was shoved into the second van by the remaining soldier.
She hit the floor of the van hard, and almost instantly after the doors closed, the ground moved beneath her. The soldier who had apprehended her took a seat on one of the hard benches, gun resting on his knees. For the first time, Caitlin noticed the dark red patch staining his shoulder. It appeared Joe's shot had made contact after all.
"You're bleeding," she said venomously, darkly satisfied by the phrase.
The soldier shifted, gave a stiff smile. As if unconsciously, his finger traced the barrel of his gun.
"Yeah," he said. "But I don't think I'll be the only one by the time this is all done."
The bumpy ride in the van was bad, but nothing could have prepared Caitlin for the cold slap of terror upon entering the facility itself. The fear in the van she was used to; she was used to the lengthening minutes of worry for her friends, the latent helplessness, the scenarios playing on repeat in her brain.
What she wasn't quite so accustomed to was the immediacy of metal doors clanging shut behind her, the stench of copper and mildew and somewhere, perhaps, the sour notes of antiseptic.
At somewhat of a distance, she saw Barry, finally free from the wire net but looking bloodied and limp, dragged in the opposite direction. She made note of the general direction—the facility didn't look big, not like the one Stein had been taken to a year ago, but it would help if she knew where to start looking when she and Barry made their escape.
Shortly after catching sight of Barry, hands gripped her arms again, leading her up a flight of stairs, down a hallway. They stopped in front of a heavy door, and another soldier appeared just in time to unlock it. The key grated, squealed in the lock. In the back of her mind, Caitlin thought she should wonder about how low-tech all of this was; then again, none of this seemed like a military base at all, but rather something abandoned, reconfigured. Perhaps Eiling had been taken down a few notches after the Firestorm incident after all.
If she thought the hallway was dim, the room she found herself in next felt pitch-dark. She blinked to clear her vision, but before she could make out anything, she was pushed down into a metal seat. Thick straps tightened around her wrists and forearms, and it was then that the thought registered: Bad. Restraints. Bad.
But it was over too fast—in the time it took to realize what was going on, she was immobilized.
In the midst of the sudden, shadowy mob of people now in front of her, she caught sight of Eiling, standing remarkably still, watching.
"This isn't necessary," she said. "Like you said, a deal is a deal. I'll answer your questions about the serum willingly. The restraints are pointless."
And what happened to the isolated prison cells?
Eiling smirked. "We have all of the answers we need about your little serum. Helped us, too, developing that paralyzing poison for Mr. Allen."
Someone in a white coat shuffled by. Caitlin frowned. "I don't understand. If you don't need information, what do you need me for?"
Instead of answering, Eiling nodded at the man in the white coat. He pulled something out of his pocket—a syringe, it was a syringe—and moved toward her. Another person out of Caitlin's field of vision swabbed something cold and damp against the crook of her arm.
The world pressed in around her, and she was suddenly claustrophobic, suffocated, the stench of the warehouse in her nostrils, bodies pressing in. She tried to scream, but her world was silent and dark and confusing. She didn't even feel the prick of the needle, just the tingling as its contents were released into her bloodstream.
It was all the same, Caitlin thought, all the same and it wasn't fair and god she wasn't used to déjà vu this painful, this invasive, this demanding—
She opened eyes that had squeezed shut of their own accord just in time to see the last of the soldiers retreating from the room. The door closed, leaving her reeling, alone and restrained in a dim room with the unknown zinging through her bloodstream.
Back in true solitude, she winced and tried to let her muscles relax. She panted heavily, though there was no use in trying to hide it or any other signs of weakness. It was a windowless room, but there were surely cameras positioned somewhere. The screaming had tipped them off to the fact that she wasn't prepared for this turn of events; no point in trying to pretend that she was in any way in control of the situation or her emotions.
Okay, Caitlin, think. Shakily, she drew in breath. Funnily enough, it was hard to think when yet another mystery substance was slipping through her body. Focus. You can still salvage this plan if you just focus.
"You never screamed like that for me," came a voice. "Then again, you're too good for me, aren't you?"
Caitlin's heart contracted so hard it hurt. Her head swiveled at whiplash-speed and her eyes went wide to try and adjust to the low light. At the other end of the long room, another chair came into focus. The figure in it was more shadow than anything in this light—but she would know the sound of Jason's voice anywhere.
Thanks as always for reading, and please leave a comment on your way out (even if just to yell at me/chat about the episode)!
Till next time,
Penn