With kids and smaller people, sure, he’d grab them up, scoot them away, and take an aspirin later for his sore muscles. But physics was physics, gravity was gravity, and two hundred pounds were two hundred pounds that the Flash’s muscles couldn’t heft. So he ended up doing what he always did in these cases.
He used his momentum, lowered his shoulder, and knocked the guy ten feet away in the blink of an eye. Barry’s shoulder throbbed, and the guy would probably have some light abrasions, but at least he was safe.
Barry always made sure to say, “Sorry!” when he had to knock someone out of the way like that, but since he was moving faster than the speed of sound, no one ever heard him. Oh well—it’s the thought that counts, right?
He zipped around the park, knocking, carrying, and outright shoving where necessary, making sure no one fell into the crevasse that had formed. With a quick look over his shoulder, he noticed that Hocus Pocus was in the process of lowering his wand. So everyone should be safe for now. He had a few hundredths of a second left before the magician finished lowering it—a lifetime, really, in Flash terms—so Barry took that time to kick up some nearby loose dirt and fill in part of the gap in the ground.
“Are you insane?” he demanded, planting his fists on his hips. “You could have hurt someone!”
“ARE YOU NOT AMAZED BY MY POWER?” Hocus Pocus demanded. “DO YOU NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR SUPERIOR, THE MAGNIFICENT HOCUS POCUS?”
Barry had been fed up with Pocus’s ego beforehand. Now that he saw how cavalier Hocus Pocus was with others’ lives, he was more than ready to knock the magician out and drag him off to jail. Barry had given him the benefit of the doubt long enough.
Before he could move, Pocus shouted, “SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION!”
And everyone in the park . . .
. . . began to applaud.
Even the people who were still running from the gash that had been torn into the ground. They stopped. Turned. Clapped their hands enthusiastically. Cheered wildly!
Kids who’d been knocked down. Adults limping away. Everyone stopped what they were doing and applauded the madman in the white tux and cape.
Even the Flash.
At first he didn’t even realize he was doing it. He was so shocked to find the crowd applauding the man who’d endangered them that it took a second or two for him to comprehend that his own hands were slapping together enthusiastically. In a moment of embarrassment and outrage, he heard himself project a high, piercing whistle of appreciation.
What the heck? This is exactly what happened to Caitlin and Cisco. How is he doing this?
Pocus caught the Flash’s eye, smirked, and took a bow. Before the magician could stand upright again, Barry turned to the crowd and shouted, “Everyone! Run! Get out of here now!”
They listened. Of course they did—he was the Flash, the hero of Central City. He felt no gratification at that idea, but rather a flush of gratitude that people trusted him enough to obey, with no mind control (or whatever it was) required. Catching bad guys was one part of his job, and he was good at it. But protecting people was the most important part, and he had to be the best at it.
From behind him came a roar of anger, like that of a wounded and half-starved elephant. The Flash spun around, ready to charge at Hocus Pocus—but before he could move, the magician pointed his wand at a nearby tree.
And to Barry’s complete shock, the tree moved.
Now, Barry could move at velocities that, up to this point, had never been experienced by any other human being. (Well, on this particular Earth, anyway.) But he was still a human being, and like all human beings, he could be shocked into inaction.
Seeing that tree move did exactly that. He was stunned.
The tree outstretched its branches like menacing arms and plucked up a pair of innocent bystanders, lifting them off the ground, clutching them with strong wooden limbs. It should have been impossible. Trees just couldn’t move like that.
“Help!”
That first scream shook the Flash out of his reverie. He zipped over to the tree, but even as he did so, other nearby trees came to life and began snatching people up like kids grabbing marbles or jacks. “Guys!” he shouted into his communicator. “We’ve got a major problem here!”
“We’re watching on the satellite feed,” Caitlin’s voice responded from the earpiece in his suit. “Are those trees actually moving?”
“Uh, yeah.” He ran up one tree’s trunk, deftly dodging its branches as they swiped at him. There was a little girl, maybe six years old, wailing her head off about fifteen feet above the ground, branches wrapped around her midsection and legs.
The tree was too strong for him to pry her loose, and in the cramped confines of the upper branches, his speed was practically useless—he couldn’t move, because there was nowhere to go. Branches swiped at him, buckling and thrusting. One caught him across the chest and nearly sent him toppling out of the tree to the ground below. At the last instant, he snagged a knurl in the trunk and steadied himself even as the tree swayed.
“I don’t know what to tell you, man.” There was real panic in Cisco’s voice. “I deal in tech, not trees. You need a botanist.”
“Or a tree doctor,” Caitlin offered.
“Not helping!” Barry snapped. He was close enough to the girl to witness the panic and terror rolling off her in waves. But try as he might, he couldn’t pry the branch away from her. Pliable as it had impossibly become, it still had the sturdy strength of hefty wood.
The twists and turns of the branch kept him from inching out any farther—he couldn’t get close enough to grab the girl and phase her out of harm’s way. He had to do something to the branch itself.
Hmm . . . Phase her out of harm’s way . . . He phased through solid matter by vibrating his molecules at a different resonance, such that the atoms of his body could slip past the space between the atoms of the thing he was phasing through.
Maybe he could use those vibrations differently. Properly applied, vibrations could shake solid matter to pieces. If he vibrated the branch just right, maybe it would weaken and lose its grip on the girl.
He laid both hands on the branch. He vibrated his right hand at one frequency and his left at another. The tree might be able to adjust to a single vibration, but two opposing vibrations would reinforce each other. They would attack the branch in two different ways at the same time, making it more vulnerable. That should, theoretically, make the branch weak enough to release the girl. Either that or it would shake to pieces. One way or the other, she’d be rescued.
Instead, the girl screamed higher and louder; he glanced over at her. No! The girl could feel the painful vibrations conducted through the tree branch. If he kept this up, he would scramble her insides!
Can’t pull her out. Can’t vibrate her out. Think, Allen! Think!
Whatever he came up with, it would have to be fast even for the Flash. There were at least a dozen people still in the park at this point, all of them in the clutches of suddenly mobile, deadly trees.
And the trees were squeezing.
5
Joe West resisted the urge to tiptoe past Captain Singh’s office.
He had to go from his desk to the copier, and that path took him right past Singh. And these days, every time Singh saw him, the captain would—
“West!” Singh barked from behind his desk, stopping Joe in his tracks. “Get in here!”
Joe sighed heavily, turned on one heel, and stepped into Singh’s office. He leaned casually against the doorjamb. “What can I do for you, Cap?”
“You can tell me where that kid of yours is, for one thing.” Singh was really worked up, shuffling through stacks of paper on his desk as though the secret to eternal youth and calorie-free ice cream had been printed out and then left somewhere in the mess.
“Which kid?” Joe joked. “Iris is at work, and Wally’s at school—”
“I’m in no mood for that thing you call your sense of humor, West.” Singh gave up and dr
opped a stack of papers straight onto his desk. “Allen promised me six different reports first thing this morning. They were supposed to be on my desk, and they’re not, and now he’s off on the world’s longest lunch break. Not answering his phone. Poof. Gone into thin air. I swear, he disappears so often, I’m going to file a missing-person report with my own department.”
Joe pursed his lips and took in the chaos of Singh’s desk. “All due respect, Cap, the reports might be there. Somewhere.”
Singh stood up and planted his fists on the desktop. “Don’t tell me how to keep house, West. Find Allen and tell him I need those reports five minutes ago—”
“Sir!” A uniformed cop burst through the door, almost knocking Joe down. “The 911 switchboard just blew up. There’s something going on at the park!”
“Something?” Singh echoed irritably.
“We’re not sure of the details yet, but the Flash has been sighted at the scene.”
Joe’s heart froze every time he heard of danger and the Flash in the same sentence. Some part of him knew that Barry was fast and powerful and almost ridiculously able to avoid harm. The kid could catch bullets in midair, for crying out loud! There wasn’t much that could hurt him.
But another part of him—a much bigger part, the part that was a dad and a cop—knew that anything was possible, that even the fastest man alive could be caught off guard. Barry wasn’t Joe’s biological son, but he had a claim on Joe’s heart just the same. And right now that heart was beating triple time in fear for what could happen to the Flash.
“Cap,” Joe blurted out, “I should—”
“Get out of here!” Singh told him. “Get a team down to the park now!”
Joe shoved the uniformed cop out of his way and ran for the elevator. As he did so, he heard Singh shout after him, “And when you’re done, get Allen in my office!”
Joe’s phone rang on the way to the park. He was in a car with three other cops, all of whom looked at him with Now? Are you kidding me? expressions when he answered the phone. Here they were, barreling through the streets of Central City with sirens blaring, on their way to a supremely dangerous situation, and Joe was answering the phone like nothing was going on.
With a shrug, he explained, “It’s my kid.”
My kid could have meant any one of three, but in this case, it was Wally. Joe knew it would be Wally before he even looked at caller ID. That kid had a nose for trouble and for opportunities to use his new speed powers.
“Dad!” Wally exclaimed as soon as Joe answered. “There’s something going on at the park! I’ll meet you there!”
“No!” Joe told him. “Stay away from the park!”
“But Dad! I’m fast! I can—”
“We don’t know what’s going on there. Hang back until you hear from me.”
“Dad!”
“This isn’t a negotiation. I’m telling you, you understand?”
Wally said nothing. Which meant, Joe knew, that he was agreeing. And sulking. But agreeing, most important of all.
Joe hung up. One of the cops arched an eyebrow at him. “Your kid wants to go to the park? Now? He got a death wish or something?”
With a snort, Joe glanced at the speedometer. “You heading to church or to a crime in progress?”
“Uh—”
“Gas pedal is on the right,” Joe told him, and he leaned back as they sped off.
6
At the park, Barry thought he’d figured it out. With his mind racing at superspeed, it had taken him only several tenths of a second.
He remembered how he had fought and defeated Tony Woodward a couple of years ago. Cisco had nicknamed Woodward “Girder” because he had the power to turn his body into flexible, nearly indestructible steel. No matter what Barry threw at him, Girder could just shrug it off. Barry had needed superstrength, which he couldn’t acquire.
But he could fake it. With science.
F=ma. It was one of the most basic equations in all of science: Force equals mass times acceleration. Which basically meant that even something small and light can have a big impact if it’s moving fast enough.
And moving fast was what the Flash did better than anyone else.
So he’d backed up about a mile and then run as fast as he could at Girder. The resulting superspeed punch came so fast that Tony never saw it coming, and all that force sent Girder into dreamland faster than a shot of methohexital (which Barry knew was a very popular medicine used to knock patients out for surgery . . . something Tony would never know).
He had to break through the tree branch. Speed alone wouldn’t do the trick, but speed turned into force could.
“Stay calm!” he told the little girl, and then felt foolish. She was being crushed by a tree, and he was telling her to calm down! This was actually the perfect time to panic. “I’ve got this,” he promised her. “Don’t worry.”
This is gonna hurt, he thought, and he raised his hand, then brought it down at superspeed, so blindingly fast that it happened in less time than it takes to even think about blinking.
There was a loud cracking sound, and then the branch split almost entirely through with the force of his chop. It twitched and slackened; the girl’s eyes widened in horror as she realized she would fall, but before she could gasp, the Flash had launched himself at her and whisked her out of the tree. They dropped for a moment, and then he churned his legs, causing a cushion of air to break their fall, landing them safely on the ground.
Barry’s hand throbbed, but it wasn’t broken. He raced up into the other trees, pummeling the branches at super-speed until they released their captives. Pretty soon he had a dozen people safe on the ground.
Before he could even catch his breath, the magician gestured again and shouted, “WITNESS AND BELIEVE YOUR OWN EYES!” as the fountain at the center of the park suddenly shot a ten-foot-wide geyser of water thirty feet straight up.
That was just impossible. There wasn’t enough water in the fountain or in its plumbing for it to shoot a column that wide, that high. For that matter, there wasn’t enough pressure in the pipes, either.
The fountain didn’t seem to care that it was offending both Barry’s sensibilities and the laws of physics; it just geysered away. And then, as though everything going on around Barry wasn’t insane enough, the column of water began to spin like a tornado and hopped out of the fountain, tearing a path across the park and bearing down on the innocent civilians the Flash had just rescued.
“Oh, come on!” Barry complained. He dug in his heels and took off, launching himself toward the oncoming water cyclone. As he closed in, it began throwing off mud and clods of grass, which he dodged easily. Then, juking quickly to his left, the Flash encircled the waterspout, racing counterclockwise against its natural torque. He’d done this trick with a genuine tornado before, setting up a counter-spin that unwound it. It had actually been his very first case as the Flash, fighting his very first metahuman: Clyde Mardon, who’d gained weather-controlling superpowers in the same accident as his brother, Mark. Barry had been terrified and unsure of himself, but he’d run full-tilt into the storm anyway. Mardon floated in the air at the center of the storm, controlling the winds. An average tornado produced something like sixty gigajoules of energy. The idea of being able to shut that down just by running seemed impossible, but Barry had done it anyway, pushing himself to what was his maximum speed at the time.
He’d been exhausted and thrilled at the same time. He’d fought nature . . . and won.
And now he figured the same thing should work with water, right?
Right! In just a few moments—and before the cyclone could get close enough to hurt anyone—the whole thing collapsed, soaking Barry and bringing him to his knees under the sheer weight of it all.
But there was no time to shake it off. He dried off by superspeeding people out of the park entirely. Out on the street, he heard sirens—the police were on their way. Ambulances, too. Good. He didn’t think anyone was badly hurt, but there w
ould probably be some bumps and bruises and a few cases of shock to treat.
He had one more civilian to rescue before the park was empty. And then it would be him and Hocus Pocus, one-on-one.
When Barry got back into the park, he frowned and chided himself. The only remaining civilian was a young boy, maybe five years old, holding the string of a helium balloon that was emblazoned with the Flash’s lightning logo. They sold them all over Central City. Barry had grabbed the kid’s parents but left the kid for last. That wasn’t right. He mentally kicked himself. Come on, Allen. Kids first. Kids always first. It had been a harrowing day, but that was no excuse.
Fortunately, it had taken him only a few seconds to empty the park, so the kid wasn’t even really aware he was alone yet. The parents were probably just now realizing their son was missing, and by the time they could process it, the Flash would have delivered him safe and—
“FLY!” Hocus Pocus yelled, pointing his wand directly at the balloon.
It had been a day of impossibilities, so stuffed full of them that you’d think no more could fit. And yet as the Flash watched, the boy’s balloon rapidly expanded, growing so quickly that Barry didn’t have time to react. In no time at all, it had swollen to the size of a basketball, then a tire, then a . . .
And then it was the size of a car!
The balloon should have burst. It wasn’t designed to handle that sort of stretching. And even if it could, it shouldn’t be floating—it would have been sucking in air, which is too heavy. But it still floated, so somehow there was more helium being generated within, spontaneously!
Another impossibility. Barry was beginning to get tired of them.
The boy screamed as his feet left the ground. He should have let go of the balloon, but Barry realized he’d overlooked something—someone had tied the balloon to the boy’s wrist. Probably his parents, to make sure it didn’t float away. He was tethered to the balloon and flying up into the air.
The Flash looked over at Hocus Pocus, who was grinning maliciously.