"The Science and Technology Advanced Research Laboratories," Dr. Wells muttered as he led Barry through a sea of people. Barry's shoes skidded against the polished marble—the floor was so clean, he felt like he was walking on top of a mirror. "Not quite as flashy as S.T.A.R. Labs, wouldn't you say, Mr. Allen?"
"Honestly, I thought S.T.A.R. Labs was going to stand for something cooler." Barry's phone buzzed in his pocket. Dr. Wells raised his eyebrows, and Barry felt his stomach take a plunge. "Well, I mean, not that the name isn't cool. Science is cool. What they do here is awesome, it's just—"
Dr. Wells gave a small chuckle, and Barry felt some tension drain from his shoulders. "No need to worry, Mr. Allen—I quite agree. The name is rather pedestrian, given the scope of what's accomplished here. That being said, it's an impressive network of facilities, nonetheless. I assume you're at least somewhat familiar with them?"
"Yes, professor," Barry replied, trying his best to keep up with Dr. Wells. More vibrations jittered through his pocket, frantic and clustered, like bees caught in a jar.
Dr. Wells continued knifing through the crowd—not that it was particularly difficult. Many of the onlookers instinctively gave the tall man a wide berth. "It was founded by one of my college associates—a theoretical physicist named Garrison Slate. He wanted a nationwide chain of research laboratories unconnected to the government or external business interests."
Barry nearly ran into a waiter carrying a plate full of glasses that shimmered with sparkling liquid as he checked his phone—the litany of messages had just been a string of pictures from his parents' misguided attempt to cook authentic Italian food.
After apologizing profusely, he caught back up with Dr. Wells, who, thankfully, didn't seem to notice Barry's mishap. "That's what lets S.T.A.R. Labs be so cutting edge, right? They do stuff because they want to. Not because they have to."
Dr. Wells turned briefly, his cold blue eyes sweeping the crowd before resting on Barry. "Half-credit, Mr. Allen. Not being directly affiliated with a government and business entities does indeed allow for the freedom to research without any holds barred, but it isn't the main positive. Try again."
"Well…" Barry trailed off. He glanced around the room, where booths of scientists were showing onlookers technology—the lobby had everything from hoverboards to a model car that was powered by a headband.
One lady in particular nearly crashed her model car into a scaled-up diorama of something called GreenDole—S.T.A.R. Labs' answer to the worldwide starvation epidemic. "It also means there are no restrictions on who they can or can't share their technology with. If they got their funding from a business or government, they'd have to keep it—or even sell it to them. Working here means they can continue improving things at their own pace, right?"
Dr. Wells adjusted his glasses, and a small smile curled at the corner of his mouth like ivy finding a crack in weathered stone. "Precisely. A slight addendum to those excellent points: it also gives the scientists themselves an unprecedented level of ownership over their work. The board provides the funding, and, of course, demands proof of continued development, but the main objective is always the betterment of our world through technology."
"You said you knew the founder, professor?"
"I did, in another life," Dr. Wells nodded, placing his hands in the pockets of his jacket. His jaw flexed. "Even as a freshman, he had lofty goals—and, to give credit where it's due, he succeeded not only on a national scale, but an international one as well. S.T.A.R. Labs maintains facilities in Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan, as well as in the United States, with the total number of facilities numbering at thirty in the last recorded count."
"Do you still talk to Mr. Slate?"
"Garrison and I have…differing viewpoints on certain matters," Dr. Wells said slowly. He shook his head. "But I've consulted for the lab on numerous occasions. Personal relationships should never interfere with the pursuit and subsequent dissemination of knowledge, Mr. Allen. You'd do well to remember that as you progress in your career."
"Sure, Dr. Wells," Barry returned just as they stopped in front of a massive observation window.
Beyond the glass, the room stretched wide and cold, like the inside of a spaceship hangar. At the center stood a towering ring of metal, maybe two stories tall, its surface lined with panels, coils, and spidery cables that clung to it like vines. Thick support arms jutted from the walls, holding it in place like it might try to float off if they let go.
Then, with a low thrum, the thing came alive.
Light sparked to life inside the ring—just a flicker at first, then a steady pulse, deep blue and blinding at the edges. It chased itself along the inner rim, slow and steady, like it was testing its own heartbeat.
The metal groaned softly like it didn't like being awake.
"Tonight's main event," Dr. Wells whispered, his face glowing as the blue light spilled out of the window. He held his hand up to the window, like a priest standing at the altar of a forgotten god. "The particle accelerator."
"This is the particle accelerator?"
In his mind, it had always been underground. Hidden. Maybe a clean, white tunnel, lined with lights and warning signs. Something clinical. Maybe even boring. A place for equations and magnets. For math, not awe.
But this…this looked like something out of science fiction. If Jaime were here, he would've been excitedly smushed up against the glass, rambling about how the particle accelerator could've easily been a map on Overwatch or something.
The massive coil pulsed with slow, deliberate waves of blue light like it was breathing. Like it was thinking.
It didn't feel like a tool. It didn't feel like something humans used—it felt more like something humans had woken up by accident.
"Ah, Dr. Wells!" A man called from behind them.
Barry turned, and his heart jumped into his throat.
The voice belonged to a man who looked like a homeless guy who had jumped a scientist in a back alley, stolen his uniform, and somehow made it work better than the original owner ever could. His lab coat was high-collared and cut like it was meant for a military officer, but it had definitely seen things—it was slightly crumpled, with faint scorch marks near the cuffs, and a grease smudge or two that said he didn't just pose next to the tech in the lab, he wrestled with it.
His hair was dark and messy, and his beard walked the line between unkempt and curated—like he trimmed it with a soldering iron and too much confidence.
Muscle showed beneath the coat sleeves. Silver-brushed gauntlets sat snug around his wrists—elegant, precise, humming faintly with restrained power. Not weapons. Instruments.
And then his eyes—cold, brilliant, and locked onto something ten steps ahead. Barry didn't think he looked crazy. That would've been the understatement of the century. He looked like he'd already argued with crazy, won, and labeled it obsolete.
"Dr. Woodward!" Dr. Wells didn't share any of Barry's discomfort, if his wide smile was any indication. Barry tried to calm the thundering in his chest. "What a welcome surprise."
The two men shook hands and exchanged a few more pleasantries. Woodward's eyes eventually flicked to Barry, and a spike of anxiety lanced through his ribs. "A colleague of yours? I swear, Harrison, scientists are getting younger and younger these days."
"Not a scientist just yet—a student," Dr. Wells corrected with a smile. He beckoned Barry forward like he was a lost puppy. "Dr. Woodward, meet Barry Allen, my star student. This is the one I mentioned to you a few weeks ago. Barry, this is Dr. Tony Woodward, one of the key players behind the Accelerator Project. I daresay it wouldn't have gained much momentum without his relentless—perhaps too relentless—"
Both men shared another laugh.
"—insistence."
Star student? Barry barely had time to reflect on that as Woodward crushed his hand in a vice grip of a handshake. He tried not to wince—could the man not have removed his overclocked oven mitts when he was doing introductions?
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Barry. Dr. Wells speaks very highly of you. It's great to finally put a name to the face," Woodward smacked himself in the forehead with one of his gauntlets—hard. A red mark bloomed instantly, and the early signs of a bruise were already forming, purple and yellow spreading across his skin like a mushroom blooming in fast-forward. "Face to the name. Apologies! Running these last-minute schematics has scrambled my brain. Well, scrambled it more than it's already been scrambled. Spend a few more weeks with the good doctor here, and you'll be the same way!"
Woodward let out a booming laugh.
Wells indulged him with a chuckle of his own, and Barry let out an awkward laugh—too quick, too loud.
It got swallowed by the sound of the other two men already laughing at something else. He wasn't entirely sure what was so funny, but he didn't want to be the only one not laughing, so he mentally replayed a Family Guy compilation Linda had sent him the night before.
It helped. Sort of.
Woodward clapped his gauntleted hands together with a metallic ring. "Well then—no sense in admiring it from afar. You two should see where the real magic happens." He scanned the crowd, then raised a hand. "Fuller!"
A woman broke away from a cluster of engineers near a glowing console. She wore a sleek black blazer over a fitted grey S.T.A.R. Labs uniform. Her dark hair was twisted into a bun so tight it looked like it could hold up a suspension bridge, and her brown eyes glowed like coffee beans in the sunlight.
Barry tried to keep his expression neutral. He failed. She was stunning, not in a flashy way, but in an intimidatingly competent way that made his brain slow down for a second.
"Ms. Sondra Fuller," Woodward said as an introduction. A bit of madness seeped into his eyes. "Lead systems analyst. She's the one who's actually keeping the machine from eating itself alive and killing all of us in a fiery death. Ha!"
"That's flattering," Sondra said flatly, her tanned face unchanging, like a vat of clay. Her gaze flicked to Barry for half a second. "Hello."
"Hey," Barry said, way too quickly. Then—because his brain was still buffering—he added, "Uh, hi. Again."
Dr. Wells gave Barry a quick sideways glance before turning back to the woman. "A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Fuller."
"The pleasure's mine, Dr. Wells." Sondra offered a quick, professional smile—polished but amiable, like she'd practiced it in a mirror just enough to make it look natural. "Your paper on modular magnetic containment was basically my weekend reading for a year."
Dr. Wells smiled, his eyes crinkling. "Thank you. I'm glad to see someone besides my wife finds that particular piece illuminating, as it were."
Barry made a noise that was supposed to be a laugh but came out as a light wheeze. He hoped no one noticed. Sondra sure didn't.
"Control Room C is prepped," She said crisply after a polite laugh. "Telemetry's stable, and all readings are clean. I was just about to run the diagnostic suite one more time, just to make sure we're still holding."
"Perfect," Woodward said. His mouth opened and closed a few times, stumbling through a series of noises before he said, "Show them the setup—I'll be along after I finalize the coil calibration. Harrison, before you go, do you have a moment to spare?"
Dr. Wells turned. There was a tightness around his mouth—it was the same look he got when he caught people talking during his lectures. He was annoyed. "For what?"
"Final sweep on the core's containment sync. I could use your eyes—it's a messy data pull, and I'm running short on patience." Woodward gave Barry a brief, polite nod. "Barry will be fine, Harrison. Sondra is capable."
Wells hesitated. He ran his fingers over his watch. "You're sure everything's stable?"
"Perfectly. Just want a second opinion from someone whose ego won't explode if they find an error. This wouldn't be your first time consulting on the project, so I trust you a bit more than I would anyone else."
Wells glanced at Barry. "I'll be just a moment. Sondra, if you don't mind."
"Not at all," she said, already turning. "Come on, Barry. Let's get you to the good part."
Wells gave him an unreadable look. Then, he turned and followed Woodward through a side hallway.
Sondra led Barry to a pair of sliding glass doors without breaking stride. They were near the entrance again. The security guard from before gave Barry another nasty look.
"This is Control Room C," Sondra said, stepping through the sliding doors like she'd built the place herself. "Most of the observation and runtime management is handled remotely, but tonight we're monitoring everything from here. First run means quadruple-checks, fail-safes on top of fail-safes, and zero surprises. Hopefully."
The control room hummed with quiet purpose—screens glowing softly, lights dimmed to a low, sterile blue. Barry trailed behind, trying to look like he belonged in a place where the keyboards probably cost more than his car.
On the far wall, a row of monitors tracked the ring's pulse—the glowing coil they'd seen from the observation window now rendered as shifting wavelengths and rotating diagrams.
The heartbeat of the beast.
Right under the main monitor—wedged between a coil of neatly bundled wires and a very expensive-looking data port—sat a Play-Doh flowerpot. At least, Barry was pretty sure it was a flowerpot. It had the vague shape of one, plus a crooked green stem poking out the top like a sad antenna.
The front was decorated with a lopsided face: two googly eyes clinging for dear life, a nose that looked suspiciously like a thumbprint, and a mouth stretched into a warped smile that gave off mildly cursed energy.
It looked like something a toddler made…or maybe something a toddler made and then immediately disowned.
"So this is just…a diagnostic?" Barry asked, stopping beside her at the console. He tried to push the creepy flower pot out of his head.
"It is. The particle accelerator runs a low-yield energy cycle first—just enough to spin up the cryo-stabilizers and establish harmonic resonance across the primary coil array. No particles in the chamber yet."
She tapped a few keys, and one of the displays shifted to a simplified cross-section of the accelerator ring.
"Tonight's test is still technically a dry run, but we're taking it one step further. We'll be introducing a single proton into the chamber for acceleration."
Barry blinked. "Just one?"
"It's more common than you'd think," Sondra said, not looking up. Her lips glistened in the light of the monitor, and Barry found himself fidgeting with the collar on his dress shirt. "One particle lets us track the beam path without risking a full cascade. It gives us a baseline for field uniformity, timing drift, and whether the magnetic lenses are actually shaping the beam the way they're supposed to."
She pointed to a blinking indicator that read Injection Chamber: Idle.
"We've calibrated everything digitally, but this is the first time we'll validate the beamline physically. If the path holds stable and the energy curve doesn't spike, we'll know the system's ready for multi-particle sequences."
Barry nodded slowly, half-listening now. His eyes drifted across the sea of displays—each panel showing a different aspect of the machine's anatomy: magnetic field stability, cryo-chamber temps, vacuum containment, energy harmonics, and one blinking status at the very edge of the display labeled simply: Biometric Sync: Passive.
Then, one monitor caught his eye.
A waveform—faint blue, looping like a lazy heartbeat—was flashing a little too perfectly. No variance. No jitter. Just clean, repeating symmetry. It almost looked fake.
He leaned closer. "Uh…is that normal?"
Sondra followed his gaze. Her brow furrowed, and she leaned in with him. She typed in a few commands and ran the suite again.
The waveform kept pulsing. Too smooth. Too still.
"Huh."
Sondra tapped the screen once, then again. The display expanded with a soft whoosh, unfolding into a three-dimensional frequency graph. Lines of light twisted upward in delicate arcs, like glass filaments caught in a breeze.
Barry squinted. He didn't recognize the field pattern—definitely not standard telemetry. With all the time he and Patty spent looking at research monitors for ACS, he'd seen what real-world data was supposed to look like.
And it certainly wasn't like this.
The frequency shimmered a soft, iridescent blue at first, pulsing steadily. But as it looped, the color deepened—flickering into purple, then red at the peaks, like heat bleeding through sound. The waveform wasn't static. It swayed. Adjusted. Reacted.
It looked less like data and more like something alive pretending to be data.
"That's...odd," she murmured.
Barry tilted his head. "Do you think it's someone else's process?"
Sondra didn't answer immediately. Her hands moved fast, isolating the frequency, filtering it through a different lens. Then another, and another.
"No, our processes don't sync this tightly," she said finally. "This looks like a live signal. Embedded." Her tone sharpened. "It's not coming from the diagnostics panel."
Barry glanced at her. "So…what's it coming from?"
She didn't respond. Not right away. She traced the origin line back through the network tree. A connection node blinked softly in a dead sector of the system—something that wasn't supposed to be active.
"There," she said. "That subroutine wasn't in this morning's prep list."
The waveform pulsed again—just as smoothly.
Like it was listening.
"Maybe if I…" She tapped a few commands. The waveform hiccuped, then disappeared.
"Feedback loop in the coil filter," Sondra bit the end of a pen. Some ink spilled out, staining her teeth. "Probably a telemetry ghost—false echo from an earlier cycle."
Barry squinted. "It looked like it was syncing to the power input."
Sondra hesitated just a second too long. "It shouldn't be. But it's gone. Might've been a software hiccup. Either way, that isn't the kind of thing we can stop the show for."
He nodded, but the unease sent a shiver down his spine nonetheless. She stepped away from the console and crossed her arms, watching the ring's pulse stabilize on the big screen.
"Good catch, though. Are you always this observant?" She asked after a few moments.
Barry shrugged. "It's a curse."
That earned the faintest smile. Sondra tapped her fingers against the sleeve of her blazer, "That'll take you far. Keep it up, and I'm sure you'll have a spot over here if the way Woodward was looking at you was any indication. It's no NASA, but there's its own charm in working for a lab like this. It's one of the better labs I've worked at."
"You've worked somewhere else?" Barry's throat closed up as Sondra looked at him. "Not in a bad way. You just, um, look really young."
"Thanks," Sondra laughed once, quiet and short. "And yeah. I used to do defense tech. Spent four years optimizing drone guidance systems. Got tired of building better ways to blow things up." She looked back at the monitor. "This place tries to be different. Not always good. But different."
Barry glanced over at her, studying the way the light traced the sharp edge of her jawline, the way her eyes scanned everything like she was cataloging the world.
"You seem like you keep it from falling apart," he said.
"Only on good days."
They watched the screen in silence again. The accelerator's internal pulse glowed deep blue, steady.
"You'll be here for the full launch?" she asked.
Barry nodded. "Wouldn't miss it. You guys have been awesome hosts, so—"
"Wait. That's it!" Sondra interrupted, running over to the main monitor. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, bringing up a buried system window. Lines of code filled the screen, densely packed, tucked behind a process that hadn't been running a moment ago.
Barry stepped closer. "What is it?"
"The script that was running earlier," She said, her voice low. "I tracked it to a host. Huh. It's not part of the diagnostic suite."
She highlighted a specific process tag near the top: 3x2(9yz)4a
Barry leaned in, eyes narrowing at the odd formula embedded in the name.
"That's... weird formatting. Like someone used a math expression as a label."
Sondra nodded slowly. "Yeah. It looks vaguely physics-based, but it's random. Like something you'd see in theoretical modeling. Maybe quantum mechanics?"
Barry didn't respond. He couldn't stop staring at the string. There was something about the structure—how deliberately it had been written. It didn't feel random.
Sondra leaned in, eyes locked on the strange block of code still looping at the edge of her screen. She scrolled fast, fingers dancing across the keyboard, pulling up backend logs that Barry could barely follow.
"No user ID. No terminal source," she said, half to herself. "Looks like it was injected remotely—tucked under a heartbeat-monitoring module."
She straightened a little, focused now. "Barry, can you do me a favor? Wake up that monitor—left side. Just tap it. It should already be running the frequency tracker."
Barry nodded and stepped toward the auxiliary display. He squinted at it like it might quiz him, then brushed his fingers across the screen. It blinked to life, revealing a tangle of softly glowing waveforms.
Most of them pulsed in slow, looping rhythms—but one was different.
It spiked irregularly. Then again. Then again—each pulse a little stronger than the last.
"Uh…" Barry frowned. "That one's definitely doing something."
Sondra was already beside him. "Can you trace it?"
Barry hesitated. "Maybe…?"
He reached for the touchscreen, awkwardly navigating menus. "I think I'm in the tracker window. It's—it's moving. Still spiking."
Sondra leaned in closer, brushing his hand aside and taking over. "It's active, alright," she muttered, tapping through layers of nested data. "But not connected to any lab equipment."
Barry rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at the waveform again. It had shifted slightly—cleaner now, smoother. Like it had…found a rhythm.
"It's…kind of matching something," he said quietly.
Sondra's eyes flicked to the display, then back to him. "Matching what?"
"I don't know. It just—" He paused. "It's kinda beating like…a heart?"
Sondra's eyebrows lifted.
Barry chuckled nervously. "I mean, maybe? I don't know. It looks like a pulse, right?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she pressed two fingers to her neck, watching the display out of the corner of her eye. "Nope. Not mine. I'm at about sixty."
Then, without warning, she turned and gently took Barry's wrist in her hand. Her nails scraped his ski.
He jumped slightly. "Whoa—hey, what are you—?"
"Relax," she said calmly, her fingers already finding his pulse. "I'm checking yours."
Barry went very still. His brain short-circuited just a bit. Her hand was warm. Her skin soft. His heart, very helpfully, chose that exact moment to skyrocket.
On the screen, the signal spiked.
Sondra blinked. "There it is. Seventy-nine…eighty-two…eighty-eight," she muttered. "And climbing."
"I—it's fine," Barry said quickly, trying to casually pull his wrist back. "It's probably just—you know, lab stress. Bright lights. Tech drama. Science stuff."
She gave him a flat look, then let go. The second she did, the signal dipped again—right with his heart rate.
Sondra stepped back slowly. Her expression had changed.
"That signal isn't just ambient noise," she said. "It's locked onto you. Not a general body—you."
Barry blinked. "Wait, what does that mean?"
She didn't answer right away. On the screen, the waveform blinked again—just once—before slipping back into its regular rhythm.
In the corner, that strange string of code flashed and disappeared.
3x2(9yz)4a
She stepped back to the console and began typing faster, trying to isolate the process. The more she worked, the more the system resisted. The script branched, echoing itself into redundant nodes. Every time she tried to kill it, it rerouted.
"This shouldn't be running," she muttered. "And it sure as hell shouldn't be targeting individuals."
Barry took another step back. As he moved away from the console, the signal weakened—slightly, but noticeably.
"Whatever it is," he said, "it reacts when I'm close."
Sondra finally yanked the terminal off the system, cutting power to that segment of the control room's network. The screen went dark.
They stood in silence, the air between them heavier now.
Sondra turned to him, face unreadable.
"Don't mention this to anyone. Not yet."
Barry nodded, his heart still hammering against his ribs.
"Whatever that was," he said, "it felt like it knew I was here."
Sondra didn't disagree.
Shortly after, a man came into the room, saying Woodward needed Sondra for something super important. They left Barry in the wing, with Sondra promising that Dr. Wells was coming back any minute.
Barry stood near a narrow stretch of windows overlooking one of the lab's secondary testing bays, trying to shake the static feeling buzzing beneath his skin. It hadn't gone away since he stepped out of Control Room C. If anything, it was stronger now. Like the air was watching him.
His hands tingled. Not numb, not sore. Just…charged.
He flexed his fingers and exhaled slowly, trying not to let the weirdness spiral. Maybe it was nerves. Maybe adrenaline. Maybe whatever he and Sondra had found was just enough to throw him off.
Then, Barry heard the soft, deliberate tap-tap of shoes echoing off the corridor walls.
"Mr. Allen."
He turned to see Dr. Wells approaching from the far end of the hall, his silhouette half-lit by the low lab lights. His glasses caught the glow like twin sparks. His voice, as usual, was measured—even calm—but there was something under it tonight. A coiled tension. Like the end of a fuse still smoldering.
"It's time," Wells said.
Barry blinked. "Already?"
"We've done enough dry runs. The board's watching, the investors are twitchy, and Woodward insists everything's a go. The systems are holding."
He adjusted his glasses, then added, almost as an afterthought, "His math was a little off earlier—half a percent drift in the magnetic containment fields. But still within acceptable margins."
Barry arched an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"
Wells hesitated. Not long—but just long enough for it to register.
"I double-checked it myself," he said. "A drift that small wouldn't even register on the primary coils. Still…I don't like variables showing up this late."
Barry's stomach twisted. He nodded anyway, trying to ignore the thrum of nervous energy crawling under his skin.
They started down the corridor together. As they passed a thick power conduit running along the wall, a sharp snap of static jumped from the casing to Barry's wrist.
He jerked back. "Ow—"
His security badge sparked faintly. The hairs on his arms stood up. He looked down to see a thin, singed line across his shirt sleeve, like a wire had brushed him.
Wells turned immediately. "You alright?"
Barry flexed his fingers, heart thudding. "Yeah. Just static, I think."
But it didn't feel like static.
It felt aimed.
Wells frowned, looking him over, then the conduit. He didn't say anything more, but his hand briefly hovered near Barry's shoulder, like he was debating whether to guide him forward or pull him back.
Instead, he gestured ahead. "Come on."
They walked in silence, the hum of the accelerator getting louder with every step.
Barry's pulse didn't slow. Every screen they passed flickered—barely noticeable, just a second longer than they should. Like the tech was reacting to him.
An overhead monitor flashed—first a system status bar, then a brief flicker of something else.
3x2(9yz)4a
It blinked back to normal before Barry could say anything.
He stopped for half a second.
Wells turned again. "Something wrong?"
Barry forced a smile, too fast. "Just pre-show jitters."
Wells gave a small, unreadable nod, then turned to open the final door.
It slid open with a whisper. Inside, the hum was louder now—steady, rhythmic, like a heartbeat trying to remember itself. The lights over the accelerator chamber pulsed a soft blue, casting the whole room in a glow that made Barry feel like he was standing inside a storm cloud.
And the storm was breathing.
No one else felt any of that trepidation. No, the observation deck was buzzing—low voices, soft clinks of glassware, the constant undercurrent of machinery humming just beneath the floor.
Glass walls stretched from floor to ceiling, giving the room a panoramic view of the accelerator chamber below. The particle ring gleamed in the distance like a chrome leviathan coiled in its nest, faint blue light rippling across its surface in rhythmic pulses.
Clusters of scientists in S.T.A.R. Labs uniforms gathered around control panels and diagnostics tables, speaking in clipped technical bursts. Their eyes stayed mostly on the monitors—focused, anxious, hopeful.
But they weren't alone.
Scattered across the room were people who absolutely didn't belong. Men and women in designer suits sipped champagne from fluted glasses. A sharp-looking guy in an expensive blazer leaned casually on a console he probably couldn't identify if you labeled it. A tech gave him a dirty look and moved him off with a polite cough.
Barry spotted a local news team filming from the far corner—bright lights, camera crew, a reporter rehearsing sound bites while someone powdered their forehead. Behind them, a couple of bored-looking security personnel stood with hands folded, eyes scanning the room like they were waiting for a problem they wouldn't know how to handle if it showed up.
Woodward was holding court at the front of the room, mid-sentence with a group of donors—he gestured toward the accelerator with theatrical flair.
"You're not just witnessing an experiment tonight," he said, voice confident and loud enough to be overheard. "You're witnessing the future of energy, transportation, even biology. And you all get to say you were here when it began."
Laughter. Toasts. Camera flashes.
Wells barely looked at them as he stepped inside, his smile fading the moment his back was turned to the crowd. He moved with purpose, ushering Barry toward the upper railing, where a smaller, quieter terminal fed real-time data into a thin vertical screen.
"You'll want to stay close," he said, lowering his voice. "You'll feel it when it starts."
I already feel it, Barry wanted to reply.
Through the tall observation glass, the particle accelerator loomed in the chamber below—glowing with quiet promise, lit like a crown of thunder about to wake up.
Dr. Wells stood beside Barry at the front of the room, surrounded by engineers, technicians, and interns. A few sipped from paper coffee cups. Some checked tablets. No one looked especially worried.
Woodward paced near the control panel, his gauntlets gleaming as he made last-minute adjustments.
Sondra stood by one of the secondary terminals, lips pressed tight, eyes flicking between the system diagnostics and Barry. She hadn't said anything, but something in her face made him uneasy.
Woodward stepped forward.
"Years of work," he said, voice calm, collected, but edged with something deeper. "Countless hours, sleepless nights, late funding, and very patient families…all lead to this moment. Thank you for being part of it."
Polite applause. Woodward raised one hand like a conductor.
"Systems green," A tech confirmed. "Power stable."
"Mag containment—optimal."
"Begin sequence," Woodward said. "Introduce our proton, please."
A soft chime echoed, followed by a hiss of power winding up in the bones of the facility.
The lights dimmed.
Then the hum began—low and deep, like a living thing clearing its throat. It crawled up Barry's spine before he could process it. The floor vibrated in a steady rhythm. Not random. A pulse.
The accelerator lit up, veins of bluish-white energy chasing one another through the ring. The light bent and jumped like it couldn't decide where to go. Lightning—barely contained.
Barry stepped closer to the glass. His breath caught.
It didn't look like energy. It looked like intent.
Sondra looked up from her console. "That pulse pattern… it's not stable."
Barry didn't hear the rest. The hum spiked—high, sharp, electric.
A burst of pressure hit him square in the chest. Not wind. Not sound. Just force. Like something unseen had gripped his ribs and squeezed.
The room twisted sideways for a second.
He staggered, grabbing the edge of a console. Monitors flickered. People started shouting.
Wells turned. "Barry?"
"I—I'm fine, I just—"
He never finished the sentence.
The blast hit.
There was no warning. No dramatic countdown. Just detonation.
A blinding explosion of light erupted from the ring, roaring across the room like a tidal wave made of pure current. It wasn't fire. It wasn't heat. It was lightning incarnate—chaotic, divine, furious.
It didn't shatter the glass.
It didn't even slow down.
It passed through everything.
And when it touched Barry—SKREEEEE!
His scream never left his throat. The world fractured. His limbs snapped back in space. His thoughts melted and scattered. The lightning tore into him, through him, around him, wrapping him in threads of raw electricity.
And in the center of it, he saw eyes.
Two glowing red points of light drifting inside the lightning. Huge. Distant. Watching him. Not part of the blast—inside it.
They blinked once. Just once.
And Barry knew—whatever it was, it saw him.
It saw only him.
And then—everything was gone.
[AN]
Hey everyone, how's it going? I know progress on this one has been a bit slow, for which I apologize. I've recently gone back to the drawing board, so to speak, and created a plan for one "season" of this. I recently rewatched some of the CW's Flash and it pissed me off, so here we were. This is one of my less popular stories, so if you want to advocate for it or get better vibe checks on the update schedule, join my Discord and ask away! Just take the spaces out of this: Linktr . ee /maroooon
As always, thank you!
- Maroon