My name is Barry Allen, and I’m the fastest man alive. A particle accelerator explosion sent a bolt of lightning into my lab one night, shattering a shelf of containers and dousing me in electricity and chemicals. When I woke up from a coma nine months later, I found I was gifted with superspeed.
Since then, I’ve worked to keep Central City and its people safe from those with evil intent. With the help of my friends Caitlin and Cisco at STAR Labs; my girlfriend, Iris; her brother, Wally; and my adoptive father, Joe, I’ve battled time travelers, mutated freaks, and metahumans of every stripe.
I’ve tried to reconcile my past, learned some tough lessons, and-most important of all-never, ever stopped moving forward.
I am . . .
For my father, who bought me my first comic book.
And my second.
And my third.
And . . .
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-2815-0
eISBN: 978-1-68335-198-6
Copyright © 2017 DC Comics.
THE FLASH, SUPERGIRL and all related characters and elements ©
and TM DC Comics.
WB SHIELD: TM & © Warner Bros. Entertainment. (s17)
Cover illustration by César Moreno
Book design by Chad W. Beckerman
Published in 2017 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
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ZOOM WAS DEFEATED . . .
They’d watched the Time Wraiths wither his body and carry him, screaming and terrified, into the Speed Force, to suffer whatever torments were reserved for those who would attempt to destroy the Multiverse.
Now they had gathered at Joe West’s house—Joe, Cisco, Wally, Caitlin, Iris, and Barry—to celebrate their victory. Their teamwork. Their lives.
But Barry didn’t feel like celebrating. Yes, he had outwitted and outrun Zoom. He’d saved not just his friends but also the untold quintillions of lives across the Multiverse. He should have been ecstatic.
Instead, Barry could think only of his father, murdered before his very eyes by Zoom. The Reverse-Flash had killed Barry’s mother, and now Zoom had taken Henry Allen. Two evil speedsters. Two parents gone.
He stepped outside, to be alone. To think. But Iris knew him so well. She noticed and she joined him, sitting on the stoop. He’d loved her his whole life, and now she finally reciprocated. And yet . . .
“We just won,” he told her. “We just beat Zoom. Why does it feel like I just lost?”
“Because you’ve lost a lot in your life, Barry. More than most.” She leaned toward him. “But maybe you and me, seeing where this thing goes . . . Maybe that can give you something for a change.”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear you say,” he told her, struggling for the words. “I wish I was in a place where I could try that with you. But I feel so hollowed out inside right now. I feel more broken than I’ve ever felt in my life. If I’m ever going to be worth anything to you, I need to fix what’s wrong with me. I need to find some . . . some peace.”
Iris swallowed hard, then gazed directly into his eyes. “Barry, listen to me. You waited for me for years. You let me get to a place where this was possible. So I am telling you: I am going to do the same thing for you. Wherever you need to go, whatever you need to do: Do it. And when you get back, I’ll be here.”
Choking back tears, he said only, “OK.”
“I love you, Barry,” Iris said.
With almost infinite slowness, they leaned in to each other and kissed. It was the kiss Barry had spent his life waiting for, and in the warm moment of that kiss, he decided: He was going to go back in time. He was going to change history, the way he had when he made Pied Piper a good guy, the way he had when they fought Vandal Savage, the way he had when he saved the city from a tidal wave.
He would rescue his mother, preventing her death at the hands of the Reverse-Flash.
One small change to the universe. One thread tugged in the vast tapestry of reality. The universe wouldn’t even notice, but for Barry . . . for Barry the change would be monumental. If his mother never died, his father wouldn’t go to jail. The Reverse-Flash wouldn’t sabotage the particle accelerator. No Reverse-Flash, no singularity. No breach to Earth 2. No Zoom. His father would live. Caitlin’s fiancé would live. It was all upside. Everyone would win; no one would lose.
“I love you, too,” he told her. “And I always will.”
Iris touched his hand, then went back into the house. Barry watched through the window as she rejoined their friends.
Now. He would go right now. To the past. He would fix everything and paper over the hole in his heart.
As he turned to go, though, he heard the door open behind him. It was Iris, standing there, framed by the light of the house behind her.
“You’re in pain,” she said slowly. “I get that. So if you’re not ready, you don’t have to be with me. But you can’t be alone. Not now. Not tonight.”
So he went inside with her, into the embrace of the family he’d cobbled together out of friends and coworkers and people he loved. And in the morning, things seemed different and not so bleak, as things in the morning so often do.
He did not go back in time.
Instead, he went forward. One healing step at a time.
1
Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow figured they deserved some time off. When your regular day-to-day job involved crazy murder gods, time-traveling superspeedsters, and other meta humans who could warp the fabric of reality, taking a little time off was crucial.
After a blistering hot summer, it was unseasonably and blessedly cool for September in Central City. So cool, in fact, that Cisco had fired up the metahuman tracker at STAR Labs to make sure that Mark Mardon—the Weather Wizard—wasn’t somehow back in town causing trouble. But no. It was just one of those weirdly cool days at the tail end of summer, the sort of day that reminds you autumn is on its way.
Since it was so nice out, they decided to take a little break and head to the Central City Pier. Central City was land-locked, but the nearby Gardner River gave it the illusion of being a beach town. The pier was a boardwalk stretching close to a mile along the coast of the river, with jetties extending out over the water so that fishermen could cast their lines and waste the day away.
“I could totally be the world’s greatest fisherman,” Cisco pointed out as they walked past an older man slumped in a beach chair, his hat over his eyes. He was napping as his fishing line dangled lifelessly in the water. “Fish are tuned to sound, right? I could channel my Vibe powers into the water along a fiber-optic cable that looks like a normal fishing line. And then—”
“Can we just enjoy the day?” Caitlin teased. “The sun’s in the sky, the temp
erature is actually below the boiling point, we have the world’s most amazing kettle corn, and there hasn’t been a meta attack in three whole days.” Central City tended to get attacked by someone with superpowers—a metahuman—at least once a week. Usually on Tuesdays, for some reason.
Cisco grinned and lowered his sunglasses. “I can’t help it, Caitlin. I see the world as it should be, not as it is.” Cisco himself was a metahuman, with the ability to “vibe.” He could see possible futures, peer into alternate realities, and even open breaches into the Multiverse if he tried hard enough. He was even learning how to produce and project his own vibrations, though that was coming along a little more slowly.
“Such a burden, I’m sure.” She stuffed a handful of kettle corn into his mouth. “That should shut you up.”
Cisco tried to talk around the kettle corn, but all that came out was muffled nonsense. With a happy shrug, he chowed down instead.
They strolled past an old Ferris wheel, then past the entrance to the House of Mirrors. The rides and attractions had already closed down for the season, but some of the food stalls were still open, and the fine weather had enticed a multitude of Central Citizens to come out. They gathered here and there in clusters of families and friends, enjoying a rare day without killer man-sharks or giant sentient gorillas.
“Maybe we should head back,” Caitlin said, gazing at a group of people lounging along the balustrade of the pier.
“But we just got here!” Cisco whined.
“It’s just . . . Seeing all these people, so happy and safe . . . It reminds me that this is why we do what we do. We should be back at STAR Labs.”
“Not enough danger around here for you?” he joked.
“It’s not that . . .”
“Then what would we do back at the lab?”
She shrugged. “Get ready for the next time the city needs to be saved?” She didn’t sound entirely convinced, and Cisco knew it.
“Twenty more minutes,” he told her. “I want to get funnel cakes at the Broome Street kiosk, OK?”
Caitlin pretended to consider it, then nodded enthusiastically. “Funnel cakes. You know I can’t resist.”
“My true superpower,” he said modestly, and then tossed a kernel of kettle corn into his mouth.
They walked farther up the pier, chatting, when Caitlin broke off and pointed. She tugged Cisco’s arm, stopping him in his tracks. “Look! A magician!”
“I almost dropped the kettle corn!” he complained. “And aren’t you the one in a hurry to get back to work?”
“I love magic!” she exclaimed, grabbing Cisco by the elbow. “C’mon!”
She dragged him away from the river, closer to the attractions and buildings. A group of about fifteen people gathered around a man standing atop a park bench. He was tall and rangy, his limbs loose. He wore a white tuxedo with a matching high-collared cape, blindingly bright in the sunshine, as well as an impeccably knotted black string tie. His black hair was slicked back so efficiently that it looked like a molded plastic widow’s peak had been glued to his skull.
“PREPARE! TO BE! AMAZED!” he cried, gesticulating wildly for dramatic effect.
“This dude is way overdressed,” Cisco grumbled. But he joined Caitlin in the small group of onlookers nonetheless.
“I! WILL! SHOW YOU! TRUE!” The man paused his grandstanding for a moment and grinned broadly. He had a hooked nose sharp enough to qualify as a weapon and a mustache and tiny goatee, both waxed to pointed perfection. They twitched when he smiled. “MAGIC!”
The magician finished and paused again, clearly waiting for applause. When none came, he shrugged his bony shoulders and gestured, producing a slender wand as though from thin air.
“Whoopee,” Cisco muttered, rolling his eyes. “The old wand-up-the-sleeve bit.”
Caitlin shushed him, then elbowed him in the ribs for good measure.
“WITNESS! MY! LEGERDEMAIN!” the man bellowed. His voice was much louder than it should have been, but Cisco didn’t notice any sort of microphone or speaker.
With a wave of the wand, the man pointed to his own shoulder. A dove appeared there, twitching its wings in confusion before flying off. The crowd mumbled something appreciative.
The magician scowled. “PREPARE YOURSELVES!”
He tapped the wand against his head, then thrust out his empty hand. A gout of flames spurted forth with a roar.
“Are you kidding me?” Cisco moaned.
“Maybe he’s just warming up,” Caitlin offered.
“These tricks were old when my grandfather was a kid. Look,” he said, waving his arms at the crowd around them, “no one else seems impressed.”
“I bet he’s building up to the big stuff.”
The magician made a circle with his wand and shouted, “PRESTO!” Sparks danced in midair before dying out to the silence of the crowd.
“IT IS CUSTOMARY,” the man boomed, “TO APPLAUD THE ART OF MAGIC!”
“Lame!” someone shouted.
“Go stuff a rabbit back into a hat!” someone else called. Laughter rippled through the crowd.
Fuming, the magician flexed his wand with both hands. “YOU WILL APPRECIATE THIS NEXT TRICK!” he cried, and then jabbed the air with the wand. Flowers popped out of the end of it. Cisco groaned, along with everyone else.
“I would call that old hat, but at least an old hat is useful,” Cisco said.
“APPLAUD!” the magician yelled, puffing out his cheeks.
No one bothered. The crowd started to break up.
“APPLAUD!!!” he screamed again, this time gesticulating wildly with his wand.
And then something amazing happened: Everyone actually started . . . to clap.
It wasn’t a polite little clap, either. People were slamming their palms together, stomping their feet, cheering and hooting and hollering at the top of their lungs. It was like a rock concert had suddenly broken out on the pier.
Much to his shock, Cisco found himself joining in. His palms stung with the repeated slaps against each other, but no matter how badly he wanted to stop, he just couldn’t. It was as though his hands were no longer connected to his brain; they refused to obey his command to stop.
Caitlin, too, couldn’t stop herself from applauding. Her palms were beet red, and even though she cried out in pain, she kept clapping anyway. Then she shouted, “Bravo! Encore! Encore!” No one was more surprised than she was to hear those words come out of her mouth; she hadn’t meant to say anything at all.
Next to her, Cisco shouted, too. “Bravo! Bravo!” And then he let loose with a full-throated howl of delight that tore at his throat.
Even while he couldn’t stop himself from clapping, Cisco turned and looked around. He was shocked to see that it wasn’t just the people in the magician’s immediate vicinity who were applauding.
All up and down the pier, as far as he could see in every direction, people were cheering and clapping, most of them with bewildered looks on their faces.
The magician set his lips into a grim, firm line, his face contorted into something resembling satisfaction. He sketched a complicated design in the air with his wand. Suddenly, there was a crack of thunder, a blinding flash of light, and he was gone.
Everyone stopped clapping. Most of the audience looked around at one another; then the crowd began to thin as people wandered away, embarrassed and confused. Caitlin and Cisco stayed right there, rooted to the spot, silent.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Caitlin finally asked, shaking out her sore arms and hands.
They turned to look at each other. At the same moment, they nodded and said, “Barry.”
2
Right around that time, Barry Allen was staring at a worm.
It was an extremely tiny worm. Almost microscopic. It had been recovered from a man’s body found near the Central City Recycling Plant the previous night. Barry couldn’t help the dead man, but he could help the detective investigating the crime catch whoever killed the man.
“Anything?” asked Joe West.
“Be patient,” Barry told him.
“I’m used to you doing things fast, you know?”
Barry grinned. “I can’t accelerate the dye I injected into this thing. Some things take their own time.”
Joe sighed heavily and rocked back on his heels. The Forensics Lab at the Central City Police Department wasn’t the most exciting place to hang out, although, he reminded himself, some exciting things had happened there. Like Barry being struck by lightning and doused in chemicals and becoming superhumanly fast.
But for all Barry’s speed, he always seemed to take forever to get anything done. Like now.
“See, the thing is, this guy just dropped dead. And I need to figure out if we’re talking some kind of natural thing or if it’s, you know, maybe something a little more than natural,” Joe said, wiggling his eyebrows at Barry. “Catch my drift?”
“You mean a meta?” Barry pulled away from the microscope and sat back.
“Will you be quiet?” Joe shushed, looking around to make sure they were alone. Barry always seemed a little too comfortable discussing metahumans in public for Joe’s taste. “Just saying. Five years ago, weird deaths like this meant a lot of paperwork. These days, it means a guy whose fingernails are poison darts that he shoots whenever he’s ticked off. And even more paperwork.”
Barry frowned. “I don’t remember a meta like that.”
“I’m being inventive.”
Barry opened his mouth to speak, but his phone buzzed. It was a text from Cisco: At the pier. Get here!
“I gotta go, Joe.” Barry jumped up and prepared to speed away, but Joe grabbed him by the arm.
“Hey, you can’t just Flash off in the middle of the day! I still need my report.”
“Guy died of natural causes, Joe. That worm is Toxoplasma gondii. My bet is that once we get the full coroner’s report in, you’ll see that the guy had some sort of organ replacement.”
“What do they have to do with each other?”
“T. gondii is harmless to most people, but if you’re immunosuppressed—like you had an organ replaced—you’re susceptible to the worm multiplying. That’s what killed him. Not a meta with poison nail polish.”