CATCHING UP

By D. Golightly

“As the mayor of Central City, I am honored to officially re-dedicate a keystone monument to this city’s most cherished hero. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Flash Museum!”

The roar of the crowd was stifling as Wally West, the fastest man alive, stood politely with his hands clasped behind his back. Garbed in his scarlet uniform, which he wore as a testament to the man that wore is before him, the Flash couldn’t help but smile as he surveyed the city’s residents clapping and cheering in his honor.

It had been a year since he began publicly working with the Central City police to track and apprehend the more bizarre and colorful criminals that were popping up more and more. While originally he had decided to take the mantle of the Flash from his mentor, Barry Allen, as a point of honor and responsibility, he had to admit to himself that he no longer felt like he was beneath Barry’s shadow.

Even if the sun were positioned differently, the large shadow of the looming statue of Barry Allen would literally shade him . . .

Beside the statue of Barry a new one had been erected. As the mayor dramatically ripped the covering blanket off of the statue, the crowd cheered once more. Taking his place beside Barry Allen in history was the posed statue of Wally, now forever running alongside his mentor. The statue was a genuine work of art, transcribing the minor alterations to the costume that Wally had incorporated to make himself distinct from Barry.

It was a little weird seeing himself larger than life, but he allowed himself to bask in the moment. He had worked hard over the last year to earn the trust of both the Central City and Keystone enforcement agencies. The mayor of Central City, who would be more than happy to tell people at cocktail parties that he was a close personal friend of the Flash, motioned for Wally to come closer for photo opportunities.

Wally grinned and shook hands with the mayor, even though he couldn’t recall the politician’s first name. Lights flashed and questions were thrown up onto the small stage.

“We know that the legacy of the Flash is in good hands,” the mayor proclaimed, firmly holding Wally’s hand in place.

The flashes of light were becoming more and more intense, so much so that Wally had to squint to try and still make out most of the crowd. He was astonished at the city’s response to this re-dedication, and the mayor’s office officially recognizing him as their hometown hero.

More camera flashes. They were growing in intensity and frequency, and now the drone of the crowd was becoming muted by the snapping of camera shutters. Wally blinked several times until suddenly everything went completely silent.

He glanced to his side and found that the mayor had become encased inside a shimmering plane, framed by a metallic border. The mayor looked confused and his image began pounding at the flat surface he was trapped behind, screaming inaudibly for help.

The Flash turned his attention to the crowd and saw that they had suffered the same fate – thousands of people were trapped behind their own individual surfaces, which reflected the light of the sun back into the Flash’s face. All of them looked to be in different states of confusion and anger, most of them pounding and silently crying out for help from behind the glass.

But they weren’t just trapped behind flat shards of glass . . . they had been forced inside mirrors.

Another snap, click, and whir caught the Flash’s attention, and he looked back to the Flash Museum behind him to see a familiar green and orange figure. Standing atop the Museum’s entrance was Evan McCullough, the Mirror Master.

In his hands was an old-timey camera, the kind that the operator had to look down into from the top, using a single mirror to reflect the lens’ view up. The lens itself was extended out from an accordion case and pointed directly at the Flash.

“Hey, Flasher!” Mirror Master called down, his Scottish accent thick and heavy. “Get your attention, did I?”

“McCullough,” Flash muttered, then he spoke louder to cover the distance between them. “Let these people go! They haven’t done—”

Mirror Master pursed his lips and waved dismissively. “Don’t start on with the ‘free the hostages’ bit, okay? It’s a little insulting. You know I’m not going to release them, just like I know you will do anything to free them yourself. Right? That’s how this whole song and dance goes, innit? So, save yourself the trouble, quit wasting my time, and let’s move the game along, shall we?”

The Flash ground his teeth. Out of all the Rogues he had faced over the last year, Evan McCullough got on his nerves the most. The man had access to technology that could change the world, and instead of doing something really progressive with it, he robbed banks and annoyed superheroes. If anything it was a waste of true potential. Unfortunately, Mirror Master had alluded capture thanks to his ability to slip away into what he called the Mirror Dimension whenever he saw fit.

Wally glanced at the crowd fleetingly before deciding that today would be different.

“What did you have in mind?” the Flash called out.

Mirror Master nodded with appreciation. “A little contest of endurance,” he replied. “We’ve gone a few rounds, yeah? Let’s wrap up what we started. Inside your masturbatory shrine you’ll find that I’ve rearranged things more to my liking. Find me inside and these people are free to go.”

“Simple as that?”

“Simple as that,” Mirror Master responded with a sneer.

With a rush of wind the Flash punched inside the Museum entryway, passing beneath McCullough. Even if he just charged Mirror Master and took him to prison right then and there, he had no way of coercing the villain to release the crowd from their individual mirror prisons. Even the fastest man alive would have to play catch-up and be led by the nose by a costumed crackpot.

The first thing he noticed once inside the Museum was that the entire interior had been plated with mirrors. Every flat surface cast back his own reflection. Gone were the trinkets collected from past adversaries and the displays of the Flash’s adventures. The exhibits and hallways both had all been replaced by mirrors of various sizes, creating an eternal funhouse of bent light and misleading passages.

“Alright then, Flasher,” Mirror Master said. His voice reverberated throughout the Museum’s interior, making it impossible for the Flash to pinpoint his location. “I’ve made it easy for you today: get to the end of the maze where I’m waiting for you.”

Mirror Master’s ability to teleport using his Mirror Dimension had made it easy enough for him to exchange the standard Flash Museum for this imitation version, however he didn’t have the speed to actually rearrange everything like he was implying. The Flash had been inside the Museum mere moments ago, and despite Mirror Master’s bravado, it was just that: illusion.

The Flash hypothesized that Mirror Master had merely swapped out the Flash Museum for this mirrored copy, but before he could further explore the notion several of the mirrors started glowing.

His own image was being reflected throughout the museum like some kind of macabre funhouse trick. Every other mirror was now encapsulated by an orange glow, and the reflection of the Flash was replaced with Mirror Master.

“Problem, Flasher?” McCullough inquired, his voice reverberating between the thousands of mirrors that held his image. “You’re usually faster than this.”

The Flash took off, his pace nowhere near his top speed since he wanted to be careful while navigating the Museum maze. He had made the mistake of running flat out around McCullough’s mirrors before, and he still had a few scars to prove it after shattering several of them via a need for speed instead of practicing safety and precision. The mirrors could be razor sharp and he needed to be careful instead of rushing to a conclusion.

The maze grew more and more complicated as he raced through, deftly navigating the familiar turns. The layout was mostly the same and McCullough had obviously gone to great effort to replicate the general structure of the Flash Museum.

As he rounded another corner he slammed through a mirror that had been placed directly in his path, passing right through the reflective surface. He skidded to a halt reflexively, quickly assessing any change or damage done to his body. Mirror Master’s tricks could have deadly consequences.

“?emit siht em ot od eh did tahW” the Flash muttered, and then was stunned to hear the gibberish spill out of his mouth.

Looking back at the mirror he had raced through he saw the corridor behind him turn in the opposite direction he remembered. Smirking, he realized that McCullough had shifted him into some sort of backwards mirror pocket dimension. He had been through this before, so he wasn’t overly concerned.

. . . until he tried to race back through the mirror again. When he commanded his feet to carry him forward, he found himself running in reverse. Losing control, he slammed into a mirrored wall at super speed, shattering several of the glass surfaces.

He sat up from where he was now sprawled out on the floor to hear laughter, Mirror Master’s laughter, echoing around the Museum. He shook his head to try and clear the cobwebs, hoping he didn’t have a concussion. He raised his right up to try and rub away the pain, only to find that it was his left hand that had arisen instead.

He looked down and wasn’t surprised to see that his emblem had been flipped, as was standard when he had ventured into these mirror worlds before. He was surprised, however, when he realized that even his motor functions seemed to be flipped, too.

“!srorrim etah yllaer I” the Flash blurted out.

Struggling to stand, and failing several times, the Flash finally managed to get back up. He had several cuts on his arms from smashing into the other mirrors, but the bleeding was minimal and had mostly stopped already. He tried to look around the room, but had to catch himself from looking the wrong way.

After several false starts, the Flash finally managed to jog down one of the corridors in search of Mirror Master, all the while ignoring the verbal barbs tossed out by the villain. Embarrassed from his lack of speed, and feeling like a dimwit for allowing such a typical Rogue get the better of him, the Flash tried to focus his concentration as he searched.

Every movement had to be second-guessed and his irritation quickly turned into frustration and then anger.

“Problem, Flasher?” McCullough quipped. “Trouble thinking on my terms?”

Why was he able to hear Mirror Master correctly, but he couldn’t speak or move normally? There was something there, some kind of clue about how he could get out of this.

Wherever Mirror Master was, he wasn’t being affected the same way as the Flash, which meant he wasn’t in the pocket mirror world. He was either on top of the real Museum still, or he was monitoring the situation from elsewhere and piping in his audio so he could mock the Flash and keep him distracted.

Distracted from what? The Rogues were devils, but rarely messed with the Flash unless they had a specific reason. Even if it was as simple as robbing a bank, the Rogues always had some job in the works and wouldn’t waste his time unless it was to keep him occupied and out of the way.

He pulled up a mental image of the Flash Museum in his mind. He had visited it often enough as a teenager to know it better than anyone save for the curator. While Mirror Master had only mimicked the layout, it was a good enough impression to stand against the comparison.

He tossed the mental image over, changing everything from left to right, trying to map out the new corridors and hallways. With a little effort, he was able to pick up the pace a bit, and started to expand his search through the Mirror Museum.

When he finally found how Mirror Master was doing it all, he ground his teeth for not realizing it earlier. The Flash Museum was filled with mementoes from past adventures, including the original Rogues Gallery that Barry Allen had pitted his wits against. There were two Mirror Master Exhibits: one for McCullough, and one for his predecessor, Sam Scudder.

Between where the exhibits normally were sat a projector, which was humming loudly and was pilfering two large mirrors with a green and orange ray. The beams of light bounced off of the large mirrors and were dispersed throughout the Museum, seemingly the source of this pocket dimension’s stability.

The Flash stopped just beside the projector, raised his right hand, which turned out to be his left, and smashed the device.

The world went white.

Everything in her world had been muted. She pounded against the glass as hard as she could, but to no avail. The surface in front of her, locking her away from the real world, was totally transparent but it might as well have been a brick wall.

She could see the rest of the crowd, all individually locked away in their glass shard prisons. She had come to see the Flash and hopefully get his attention, only to get pulled into the middle of some ridiculous vendetta. She was now a victim, and a helpless one at that, which would have driven her father insane.

Not that he was around to see her now.

She tied her blonde hair back into a pony tail and took survey of her cell. Behind her was a void of nothing, all completely white and empty. So much for finding something entertaining to kill the time.

Suddenly, a vivid humming filled her ears. What started as a low-level distraction quickly grew to encapsulate her entire mind as the buzzing gradually increased. Just when she thought she couldn’t stand it any longer the humming stopped, and the mirror burst.

She was catapulted out of her dimensional prison and tossed onto the grass in front of the Flash Museum, exactly where she had once stood prior to the altercation. She glanced around and saw that everyone else in the crowd had likewise been freed, and they were started to muster their collective curiosity as to what exactly was going on.

The one thing she didn’t see was the Flash. She expected him to come blazing through the crowd, whisking away those who needed it to the hospital but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere from what she could tell.

After picking herself up and dusting herself off she realized that something was wrong. It wasn’t like the Flash not to check on the victims, or even to gloat a little bit. From what her dad had told her Barry Allen wasn’t really a grandstander, but Wally West enjoyed a little ego boost.

No, this wasn’t right at all. The Flash had to still be in trouble. A few bursts of light coming from inside the Flash Museum confirmed it for her, and she took off as fast as she could run for the building.

. . . which turned out to be just under 700 miles per hour.

The Museum doors were flung back and she slipped inside, smashing against the walls from the force of her entry. She scoured the main floor of the Museum within seconds, not seeing any trace of the Flash. Rushing through the exhibits, she finally saw the captured Scarlet Speedster trapped behind a glass prison of his own, resting between the twin Mirror Master displays.

Standing in front of him was Mirror Master himself, laughing.

“Didn’t it occur to you that the projector would be booby-trapped?” Mirror Master blurted out. “Amateur hour, Flasher! You freed the crowd and teleported the Mirror Museum away, but you get yourself caught in the process. Classic! Why—”

The blonde woman clobbered Mirror Master over the head with the butt of Captain Cold’s freeze gun, which she had borrowed from another nearby display. The hefty instrument of destruction was bulky enough to deliver a crushing blow to the villain’s skull, and despite his helmet, Mirror Master was knocked out from the strike.

Without missing a beat, the woman picked up Mirror Master’s mirror gun, adjusted from of the dials, and pointed it at the bewildered Flash. His eyes went wide as she pressed the trigger and orange light poured over the glass shard that he was now trapped behind.

Within an instant the Flash was spat out of the mirror frame and deposited onto the Museum floor, kneeling at the blonde woman’s feet. He looked up at her, confused, but smiling and grateful.

“My name’s Jesse Chambers,” she said as she dropped the freeze gun to the floor beside the Flash. “I’m the fastest woman alive. We have a lot to talk about.”

Iron Heights

“Lights out, McCullough!”

The prison guard wrapped his nightstick against the bars as she stalked passed McCullough’s cell. Since his capture by that mystery woman at the Flash Museum he had barely had a moment’s piece to himself. Justice in Central City moved swiftly and he had been issued an orange jumpsuit and thrown into Iron Heights faster than he could comprehend.

He sneered at the guard, but couldn’t really hate the man. He was just doing his job. An honest job that disgusted him, but it was still a job nonetheless, and he couldn’t blame the guy. Besides, he had work to do.

He turned to the sink in his single bunk cell and still couldn’t believe that the powers-that-be were stupid enough to actually put a mirror in here with him. Seriously, he was the freakin’ Mirror Master and the warden couldn’t even be troubled to remove the honest to goodness mirror from over the sink?

Their stupidity would be their downfall, of course. Once the guards were out of sight and the lights were out, he would just duck into his mirror bolt hole and curl up until the heat died down.

The nights flickered out throughout the prison and he heard the guards’ footsteps causally saunter away into the darkness. Almost gleefully he slipped over to the slink and looked into his own reflection.

Only it wasn’t his reflection. It was a much older man staring back at him, and for a moment he was confused. Then terror set in as he recognized the face.

A pair of hands shot out from the mirror, grasping McCullough around the throat. The older man in the mirror remained firm in his grip and his features remained cool and collected, as if murdering another man was just part of his average day.

A few choked gasps later and a few minor outbursts by McCullough against the glass, and it was over. The older man relaxed his grip and McCullough bashed his forehead off of the stainless steel sink before hitting the floor with a thud.

The older man in the mirror stared at his fresh kill for a moment before his image evaporated away, leaving nothing but the scuffed mirror in his wake. He didn’t want to linger here. He had plans to formulate.

Like ending the legacy of the Flash once and for all.

NEXT ISSUE: Jesse Chambers tells all to Wally West!