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02 - The Uninvited Guest
The cacophony woke her up.
Karen slapped a hand to one ear. Instead of disappearing, the buzzing seemed to worsen, bringing with it an echo that could be described as 'nails scratching a chalkboard'. Then it was joined by clashing chains and a sharp whistling, the blare twisting into a monstrous symphony. It seemed impossible, but it exacerbated as the clatter cleared into distinguishable sounds: voices of every kind whispered dirty things in her ears; machines hummed and beeped at intervals; footsteps came and went all over, thundering their way into her head.
She fought to raise her other hand. A faint prickling (the rush of blood) told her it hadn't moved in a while, and she moaned at the thought.
Her eyelids refused to budge too. That didn't mean she couldn't speculate about her surroundings.
Judging from the familiar jargon the voices threw at each other, it was likely she was in a hospital. And though she often refrained from making hasty guesses, it was affirmative the service was somewhat lacking—the scratchy bed linens attested to that. The pillow was soft at least, but it smelt.
A different sound entered her small circle. Soft and heavy. Flat but precise. Then it repeated in a beat, and off it went again.
Shoe soles.
The door opened with a screech so loud Karen now could move her right hand. Unfortunately, it landed nowhere near her ear.
"Who's there?" she croaked.
A pause.
"Remember your acting days?" said a male voice after a deep breath. Tired. "I used to think you should play Disney princesses instead of those depressing characters. What I would've given to have you doing an encore of Ophelia instead of Sleeping Beauty."
Karen smiled. She sought blindly with her good hand until she found callused fingers. The hand squeezed hers reassuringly.
"I don't feel beautiful at all," she whispered. "And you know how terrible I am at sleeping." She cleared her throat.
"Here." Something small poked her lips, and she greedily inhaled from the straw. "Well, I'd say you probably won't have trouble with that anymore. Three months certainly beats four hours a day, wouldn't you agree?"
Everything came to a standstill. Like flipping a switch, every single sound was cut off.
Her eyes sprung open. Blue and yellow and white surrounded her, a single dark shape standing out.
"What? No. I was... I—Allen." The lightning bolt. The laboratory completely ruined. Barry buried underneath the shelves, surrounded by liquid colors. All of that came back to her in a rush. "What happened to Allen? Is he—?"
"He's alive. But no better than you; he's in a coma. Joe's having him transferred to STAR Labs as we speak." The figure leaned closer to her bedside, the chair in which he sat creaking dangerously.
David Singh looked like hell. His suit was wrinkled everywhere and his usual five o'clock shadow had grown into a full beard, lumberjack style. She could only imagine the fit Rob must have thrown, out of his mind because his boyfriend refused to look civilized.
"What happened to me?"
Singh sighed. "After Allen was taken care of, you fainted. Since then, your body has been fighting a fever non-stop. You're awake now, but your temperature still hasn't come down." He gestured above her head, and she had to slide down a little just so she could glimpse the setup of screens littering the wall. More advanced than a heart monitor but less of a tablet, the monitors (three in total) showed thorough scans of her whole body with charts and numbers surrounding the human-shaped graph.
David was right. Those stats were impossible, but not enough to say she was a walking miracle. Or lying miracle in her case.
"The doctors can't tell what's wrong with you but considering just how many cases they have been handling, they aren't surprised anymore." He looked at her sternly, and though he lowered his voice, Karen heard it as if he were shouting in her ear. "That doesn't mean I don't know what's happening—I was a detective. What they did to you, the procedure… it worked, didn't it?"
She wasn't looking at him, too busy analyzing the rise of her heartbeat.
"It has always worked," she mumbled.
"Not like this. This goes beyond a simple heart transplant, Karen."
Karen pursued her lips. "How did you get this equipment?" It looked too expensive, like the computer of a sci-fi movie.
Loftily, David said, "S.T.A.R. Labs has been considerably benevolent in lending their toys." He snorted. "It's the least they could do after almost blowing up the city."
If you asked Karen, Starling's Undertaking was more severe than a wave of energy causing a power outage. But not liking the grim expression on his face, she kept quiet. As captain of the city's police department, it was a given David would see gruesome things, images that would be forever burned in his mind and ready to make a comeback in dreams. While Karen had known him for years and he'd tried so hard to not show weakness, she could count three times where this expression overtook him entirely.
It was worse this time because there was no telling how long it would last, how long had it been there before she woke up.
Something ugly twisted in her stomach. The Particle Accelerator failed then. And she was like this because of it, with David trying to dig up old corpses and Barry in a coma. What would happen to her now? She'd been so sure she was safe, that nothing was wrong with her. Years of nothing and now this.
Karen looked at her skin. No tint of blue. Certainly not the ugly green glow she'd expected to follow. She would take her small mercies and not count them. It was the least she could do.
David's chair squeaked as he stood. "Rest. You're still in no condition to keep talking."
"But what will I do then, if I haven't got anything to gossip about?" she teased.
Still, she closed her eyes and willed her heart to slow down… for the noise to end…
000•000
It was difficult to remain conscious. Most of the time Karen only lasted a few minutes (fifteen was her highest record) before she was thrown back into the darkness of her mind. Sometimes she dreamt, sometimes she didn't: if she did, it usually involved a reprise of the lightning that struck Barry. She feared it as much as she was fascinated by it—Karen chalked it to the contusion she'd suffered, even if the bump had long ago faded.
Sleeping, however, proved to be better than being awake. There was always a person by her bedside—David, Mattie, or Rob— and each of them she'd called by different names. When that happened, they panicked and fetched the nearest nurse.
She hated it. She hated to have brought the old ghosts back with her. David's anxiety was always a constant worry but seeing it worsen just because she opened her mouth was terrible. So, whenever Karen saw Dr. Spears next to him, she simply stared and forced herself to remember the woman was on the other side of the world, six feet underground.
Before she realized it, six weeks flew by. On the first day of the fifth month of her stay, she woke to merciful silence. And her limbs didn't ache when she stretched, nor was there a sign of fever.
It was too good to be true. She carefully sat on the bed, then stood, maneuvering the cannula around her legs. She rolled the balls of her feet gently, then lifted each leg into a slow march.
It was like this that David found her. Done with stretching and twisting, Karen dropped to the floor and began to do push-ups, much to the consternation of the captain. He closed the door behind him quickly—but not before ensuring the hallway was empty.
"What are you doing?" he hissed. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"
"Didn't feel like it," said Karen, now tentatively pushing up with one hand. Once she saw no problem, she sped up. "I feel more than fine." She inhaled sharply. "Did you eat a Big Belly Burger? Rob's not going to be happy about that…"
Drier than ever, he said, "I think he'd be more worried about you wanting to train for a marathon in these circumstances."
Sighing, she sat on the floor. David squatted in front of her, grunting as both heard his back complain.
"I'm not lying." Karen looked him in the eye. "I was feeling horrible yesterday, but today… it's like all of it was a bad dream. I don't ache. My head doesn't hurt. And I can't hear beyond the rumbling of my stomach." She smiled slightly. "I'm okay… It's over."
She wasn't surprised that he lunged at her to pull her into his arms. She melted in his warm embrace, deciding to not tease him about his ugly crying. That was for emergencies.
000•000
When Karen was a teenager, she believed it was normal that people moved from city to city as constantly as she did. It wasn't until her last year of high school, when she was in the process of moving to Gotham City with David, that she comprehended nothing about her was normal. Her memories in Midvale were often bittersweet because of that—because the people, as much as they tried, couldn't stop pitying her. And when they weren't bestowing her pity, the closed-minded citizens liked to remind her how strange the circumstances around her were. "She may as well come from another planet," had been their favorite explanation.
They'd been happy to see the back of her as she left. Karen had felt the same.
One person, however…
"And then I told Vicky, 'no, not until you get your ass to the Gotham Gazette.' I mean, you and I know she worked it off to get where she is at the Daily Planet, but she's never going to get places there, not when it is so boring."
Mattie Harcourt was Karen's complete opposite in every sense. From their coloring to their personalities, and their choice of careers (and opinions, never forget that), it was a wonder their friendship had lasted so long and was still as strong. ("We're steel, Karen, never forget that.") She stopped questioning it, but it still surprised Karen how one-sided Mattie let their relationship be. She didn't have much to offer to the medical student (never has, truly); until recently, Karen had thought she wouldn't be able to finish her BA until that scholarship from Wayne Enterprises came her way. She also could not offer the emotional support Mattie herself dearly desired—and yet, almost fifteen years had passed since they met, and not a single time did the woman bring that subject up.
Looking at Mattie now, busying herself with Karen's clothes, she wondered if it was okay to ask how she'd been. How she'd coped with the silence, the loneliness. Karen had struggled those first years letting people in—wouldn't the other way, losing people (in a manner of speaking), work the same? Was it too pretentious to think Mattie had grieved a little?
But Karen was too afraid to ask; wary that if she expressed this worry, Mattie wouldn't help her out today. So she simply let her friend's voice fill the room, finding comfort in the noise. As long there was something to focus on, the other sounds in her head didn't stand out.
"And then I told Vicky, 'no, not until you get your ass to the Gotham Gazette.' I mean, you and I know she worked it off to get where she is at the Daily Planet, but she's never going to get places there, not when it is so boring."
Karen chuckled. "Nice of you to call the biggest crime organization worldwide boring."
"You know what I mean. And you know that an offer from Vesper Fairchild is like the offer of a lifetime!" She turned to the door and clicked it closed. "Okay, your old man just left. Now, what is this thing about sneaking into STAR Labs, huh?" She gave the blonde an overly irritated expression.
"You heard about that?" said Karen breathily, struggling to slide into the jeans Mattie handed her. She couldn't remember the last time she wore a pair; she wore dresses and skirts in every season, even winter. The cold had never bothered her.
"Honey, I think the whole city did," said Mattie dryly. It had taken everything in David to not shake her with her state, but that didn't mean he had held back in his shouting. "And Cap's got a point. That place gotta be radioactive or something."
"You just don't want me near Barry."
Mattie didn't deny it. She'd hated him ever since Karen's last visit to the hospital... which now that she thought about it, both situations were eerily similar.
"Karen, it's been only four hours since you stood from that bed. And now you want to see Barry Allen, of all people!"
"You weren't there, Mattie," Karen snapped. "You didn't see the lightning strike him. I did. And he was—he had this weird scar going all over him..."
"Lichtenberg figure. It looked like a branch, right? They appear on the person's skin when struck by lightning. But it must be gone by now, they usually don't last more than twenty-four hours."
"I just want to know if he's okay." As Mattie opened her mouth, Karen corrected herself, "I want to see that with my own eyes. Now, how do I look?" She gave a little twirl, grimacing a little as the denim tightened around her tights. She put on the gray hoodie to add some laziness to the whole ensemble.
"Told you the shoes would fit you." Mattie pulled out a black cap and firmly placed it on Karen's head, tucking her hair behind her ears. She stopped to admire Karen, her artistic eye analyzing her from head to toes. "I don't know why it still surprises me how much make up changes your face, but... wow."
Karen looked over Mattie's shoulder, straight into the bathroom's mirror. A soft-looking woman with wild curls and green-blue eyes stared back. When she smiled, laughter lines appeared around her mouth.
"That's the point."
She would never admit it, but Karen tried to not linger much on her appearance. When she put on the makeup, it was with a picture in mind—the person she was aiming to play. But she didn't know much about the person behind the mask. Fear was an abstract concept for her, but if she had to give the feeling a name, it would be exactly that.
000•000
S.T.A.R. Labs had had a new decorative addition while Karen had been sleeping. The fence, she calculated, was as high as a semi-truck trailer, and covered not only the building's block but also the adjacent one plus a parking lot. It would be bigger, she guessed, if it weren't for the fact that the laboratories were next to the ocean.
"You think the fence is electrified?" she asked Mattie.
"I wouldn't put it past Harrison Wells." The woman lowered her cap to hide her face. She'd followed Karen's advice, putting up her hair into a Dutch crown braid and wearing loose clothes. Mattie had argued against it but relented when Karen insisted, threatening to come alone. The former still simmered from that argument but had been mostly quiet during the journey.
Now that they stood in front of S.T.A.R. Labs, they could see what the news hadn't been able to. The building's white paint had faded to the point that it was grey now; every window had exploded but the ones from the offices at the top had yet to be replaced. From their spot, they could see that all the towers were charred, with one missing a huge chunk of material.
That the building was still standing tall at all was a miracle itself.
Karen looked around them and counted. One. Two. Three cameras at the top of the fence, all sharing long distance. If one moved to the left, the other was moving to the right.
"Don't tell me you're thinking about trespassing," said Mattie flatly. When Karen didn't answer, she continued, snidely, "So, you are leaving me here. In the open. Where anyone can see me and potentially kidnap me."
"We're in plain view of at least eight cameras," said Karen calmly, gesturing around her. "No one is that stupid."
Mattie snorted. "They are—or they started to be since this" —she pointed violently at S.T.A.R. Labs— "nearly blew us all up. How are you getting in, anyway? Karen?" She turned around in her spot, freezing when she found Karen backing away from her and the fence, the blonde's eyes fixed on the next rotation of the cameras.
"How strong would you say your arms are?"
"Karen, no."
"I'm still jumping whether you help me or not."
Mattie sighed exasperatedly. "Well, unlike some, I still go to my Zumba classes."
Karen ignored the thinly veiled accusation. "Strong enough to give me a boost, would you say?"
"You do remember that's a two-person job, right?" Mattie dropped to her knees, hands put together under her chest.
"Sorry about the dirt," Karen apologized.
Then, as both cameras turned to face the street, she ran at Mattie. The moment her foot touched Mattie's back, the dark-skinned woman pushed up; Karen used her other foot to kick forward, and then she was landing almost near the top of the fence.
Not electrified and lacking spikes. The owner was seriously begging to be robbed or was conceited enough to believe no one would dare to break into his fortress.
When Karen landed on the other side, Mattie was patting her clothes with a scowl.
"I could've just lifted you, you know."
Karen didn't answer to that. Where she was 1. 67 m tall, Mattie was 1.59 m; regardless of weight or strength, Mattie wouldn't have accomplished such feat. It just wasn't possible.
"You got your phone?"
Mattie raised her cell mockingly.
"I'll call you when I'm in."
Karen began to trot, but even with the distance between them, she could hear her friend call, "In the building or a holding cell?"
000•000
Inside S.T.A.R Labs, a dark room lit up, revealing walls covered in Braille writing. The light came from a pillar at the end of the room, where a picture unlike any other came alive. A feminine shape briefly flickered, before being replaced by a holographic screen.
On that screen, Karen's approach was documented. Bubbles of data cropped up around her figure: her height, her weight, her hair color, and possible race, as well as her clothes' origins. But the one square that kept trying to focus on her face couldn't keep still; when it did, all that showed up was a red ERROR message.
Blue eyes studied the girl intently.
"Should I activate the facility's alarms, Dr. Wells?"
Fingers tapped against the chair's arm.
"No, Gideon. Let's see what our... uninvited guest plans to do next."
000•000
Before the Particle Accelerator exploded, Harrison Wells used to give tours of his facilities. He was very picky about (he was known for complaining they gave the CCU board hopes of him finally giving in to their offer), so they happened sporadically. Karen had jumped at the opportunity, wasting three months' worth her salary and leaving a thin amount of savings in her bank account, but she hadn't regretted it—the experience alone had been worth it. She chalked this as the reason behind her decision to make Computer Science her BA instead of Business Management, and to this day she had yet to regret that either.
What she did regret was not deciding to come a second time. Though it'd been less than a year, the facility looked vastly different, as if they'd started remodeling the very next day of that tour. Perhaps it was part of the marketing for the accelerator, perhaps not. She just hoped the layout was the same.
Very hesitant, she took the elevator. Once in there, it occurred to her that people might stop her on her way to Barry. How many, she couldn't guess. From what Mattie remembered, the day Barry was transferred the hospital had lent a hand with a couple of paramedics; only Wells and a woman, a doctor by the looks of it, had come to oversee the move. After that, Mattie had not seen hide nor hair of the Wests.
So, she could either meet Iris, an unknown woman, or Dr. Wells. Funnily enough, Karen had the feeling she could take all of them out if she tried.
It wasn't so much of a wild guess that the doors opened to a circular room that had one way forward. The Cortex, if she recalled correctly, was the floor in which all scientists mainly operated. Specific laboratories started from the floor above and so on. But Karen was banking on the hunch that all workers had quit because of the city's backlash, so the only operational room had to be the one where most of the important equipment was.
And she was right. She had to walk a few meters before a gap on the metal walls appeared to her left. The room was wide and circular, with medical stations on either end. Screens hung on the walls, each one displaying different statistics. The setup was like the one she had in her hospital room, though here it was impressive to the point of overwhelming.
Amidst all that equipment, Barry Allen lay on a narrow hospital bed. If he weren't half-naked, Karen would've thought him dead. Although the heart monitor set next to him displayed alarming activity, it took twice the time for Barry's chest to rise.
She approached slowly, mindful that she could trigger a possible alarm. She was also scared of waking him up.
She shook her head at that. Barry wouldn't wake up anytime soon. He was in a coma, for Rao's sake. No voice would wake him—not even that of his beloved Iris.
There was no chart at hand to check. The monitors told everything a doctor would need, but it told Karen nothing of Barry's condition. Why were his breathing patterns so strange? Did he react to stimuli at all? What about brain scans? Was there damage in tissue; had there been hemorrhage?
What about the scar? She ran a finger from his neck and down his clavicle, stopping at his thorax. That was as far as she could remember seeing the Lichtenberg figure. But it was gone now. Like it had never been there at all.
"I'm afraid I will have to ask you to step back, miss."
Her first instinct was to turn tail and run. But the man in the wheeling chair was cocking a gun at her, smiling pleasantly. Her second instinct, she would reflect later with distaste, was to turn her body so that it hid Barry from the stranger's eyes.
Steeped in darkness, the man gave her an ominous feeling. The little hairs on her arms rose as if a current of electricity was running through her. But then he wheeled closer, revealing a handsome face framed by square glasses.
Karen narrowed her eyes. "Dr. Wells?"
She scrutinized him from head to toe. The last time she had seen him—both if she also counted his appearance on TV—he'd been wearing a suit. Now, he wore slacks and a black long-sleeve t-shirt and paired with the wheelchair, it should have softened his appearance, but he was tensed up to the point that he reminded her of a wild animal waiting to attack.
No, not wild. A smart one, if his eyes were to be judged.
He followed her gaze. Wells chuckled, lowering the weapon slightly but still pointing in her direction.
"A precaution, I'm afraid. One of my facilities was recently raided by—according to my employees—a man with super strength." He laughed to himself. "A rather ludicrous tale, but still. It never hurts to be prepared."
There was laughter in his eyes, but she was not fooled. She shifted minutely to her right, and the muzzle followed her. And Wells was still smiling.
"Now, why don't you tell me who you are—why you are here—and save us from what could be an unfortunate tragedy."
It wasn't a question. Karen did not take her cap off, but she did lift it slightly, giving Wells a view of her eyes. She knew what he would see, anyway—unruly blonde hair, a round face with a strong jaw and a celestial nose (not her words), dark and round blue eyes—
Eyes that, when hit by light, seemed to be green-and-blue.
"My name is Kristin Wells, and I'm a friend of Barry," she said with the slightest hint of Southern accent. "I heard what happened to him, but Joe said I couldn't see him." She shrugged. "I just wanna know if you people weren't experimenting on him or something. This place gotta be radioactive after the explosion."
Wells laughed. It wasn't airy like his former chuckles. He burst into laughter that made him clutch his stomach with one hand and lower the gun as he tried to get a hold of himself. Karen considered feeling offended on her fake persona's behalf, if only because Wells seemed to find her reasoning amusing.
It was and it wasn't. She had not lied in saying Barry could be injured in some way while he slept in this building. Who knew what Wells' intentions were? A man like him couldn't simply be moved by a slight fancy in altruism. And the more she looked at him, the less she believed he felt guilty about what happened.
"I assure you, Miss Wells," —oh, it was this detail that delighted him— "Mr. Allen is in good hands. My team and I are doing everything within our power to give him the best treatment possible. Unfortunately, S.T.A.R. Labs has yet to discover a cure for coma."
He was mocking her now. Wells knew she was lying. But she was confident—lies treaded with truth often worked the best.
"Better get working on that—the city would forgive you if you did."
Wells stopped laughing, though his placid smile was back in place. As was the gun.
"I think you should leave. Don't worry—I won't tell Detective West of your little break-in."
Karen tried to come up with an excuse—anything that would allow her to kidnap Allen and avoid West's disapproval, as well as the entire power of the police force—but Wells moved the safety switch, his finger on the trigger pressing lightly. Resigned, she threw Barry one last look—cursed him for sleeping through this embarrassing moment— and moved around the computer set towards the exit.
She did not jump the gate this time. It slid open upon her nearness, and while Mattie leaped in fear, Karen walked out of Wells' property with her head held high. She smoothly slid her arm in Mattie's, whispering, "Don't talk, we're going to Bobbie's."
Mattie understood. She allowed Karen to drive her all around the city. She complained about a few pedestrians but did not dare to say a word about Wells—not until they finally found themselves returning their small car to Jax.
The boy—he was nineteen, but still a boy to them—took back the keys and made a show of looking over the Honda Civic, even though he knew he wouldn't find any damage. Karen never damaged any of Bobbie's babies, not since that time he blackmailed her into buying him three meals at three different restaurants. The blow to her wallet had traumatized her. Bobbie, on the other hand, remained as cordial as ever, and still lent her a ride from time to time. He'd even been kind to not question her when she left a bag with hers and Mattie's clothes in his office, asking only for a monthly meal (free, of course) as a fee at popular restaurants.
It was Karen's turn now to wait for Mattie to change.
"It's been a long time since we pulled this stunt," said her friend on the other side of the door. "What gives?"
It came out of her in a violent burst. "I don't trust Wells. I don't know what's wrong with him, but he gives me the creeps."
The door creaked open. Mattie was still in her underwear, but she was gazing at Karen with wide eyes.
"Say that again," she said softly.
The blonde willed herself to not snap. "I don't trust Harrison Wells. He—I don't understand why, but I don't feel like he's up to any good."
She didn't try to explain herself. Mattie was still looking at her, and Mattie knew her better than anyone ever would—even Karen herself.
"And we both know what happened the last time you had a hunch like this," said the dark-skinned beauty grimly.
Karen's hands fluttered, settling over her stomach. Yes. She remembered too.
000•000
Leaning back in his chair, Harrison Wells stared at the feed of the security cameras. In this time, very few things could surprise him—history tended to be viewed that way and people had grown to be predictable to him after years of watching. He did not want to admit it, but the girl—Kristin Wells—had thrown him off his game. He'd known there would be variables in the plan, elements that were distinct to this timeline, but she had never popped in any of his possible scenarios.
When he began his fifteen-years-long journey, he'd made a list of people to keep an eye on—Hal Jordan, for example, had been a stone Wells had calculated to destroy but the boy never crossed paths with Barry Allen this time around. Ralph Dibny had briefly become a worry, but Barry himself disposed of that problem. Frank Curtis and Julio Mendez took different paths to those they had in the original timeline and, save for the Green Arrow and Black Canary, not a single member of the Justice League had made a public appearance.
And then there was Gideon. In the early days, Harrison had doubted his hacking of the A.I. would work, but it followed every instruction he gave her, answered to any whim of his. The fact that she could not identify this girl, that her systems threatened to become damaged the more he ordered her to analyze… it worried him.
Not much. But the abrupt—the unexpected occurrence—jarred him.
"Gideon, analyze her companion."
The screen blurred as information traveled through her systems, but a photograph soon popped up.
"Dr. Matilda Harcourt, born September 15th, 1987, in Metropolis, New York, to Peter Harcourt and Griselda Frank. Has one brother, Paul Harcourt, born 1992, deceased 2012. Harcourt married reporter Wendell 'Cutter' Sharpe in 2024. Both died in the attack instigated by Xenon in 2033. Neither left children behind."
A picture popped up next to the Sharpes. It was of a creature with the appearance of a demon, wearing golden armour and a long, red cape.
Harrison whistled. "That must've hurt. What about our current girl?"
"In 1999, Matilda Harcourt lost her parents in a car accident. She and Paul Johnson Harcourt were placed in foster care, but Matilda's problematic behavior had her stay in the system until she was of age. Matilda Harcourt went through many jobs before moving to Central City and applying to Central City University's School of Medicine in 2008, graduating in 2012 with honors. She is currently doing her residency at Central City Hospital."
"Do any of her known associates match with our uninvited guest?"
"None, Dr. Wells. Should I monitor Dr. Harcourt?"
He sighed. "Yes, Gideon. And thank you."
The A.I.'s physical form disappeared, leaving him in darkness.
"Well, this just complicates matters," he muttered, wheeling himself out of the room.