FLASH OF THE FUTURE

By D. Golightly

Twenty Years Later

{{Reduce your velocity and place your hands over your head!}}

A cobalt streak of fury raced across the bridge that linked Keystone to Central City, ignoring the command of the automaton that was doing its best to track and keep up with it. The order to stand down had been issued a dozen times over the last few minutes, each instance coming from another robotic guard that was part of the same police unit.

Instead of doing as he was told, the blue-hued whirlwind rocketed deeper into Central City, racing through side streets that he had become infinitely familiar with since taking up the lightning. This city has a history of speedsters and he knew that if he didn’t get this mission just right that any further sense of history would likely be obliterated.

As he rounded the corner of Fifth and Wade, three bulky white guardians of so-called peace hovered in wait for him. The torsos of the automatons were twice as wide as their lower appendages, accounting for the anti-gravity tech lacing their backs. Flying was the only way the Rogue Strike Team could keep up with him.

{{Reduce your velocity–}} the central robot started to say.

“Yeah, yeah. Enough already.”

The masked speedster stretched his arms out on both sides and began to vibrate them furiously. He saw the various weapons mounted on the Strike Team’s arms twist and flip into position, charging up to fire a spray of alchemical impossibilities. When he was a hundred feet away a blast of absolute zero particles, comically named a “freeze ray,” was unleashed from one of the automatons.

He zipped to his right and avoided the icy assault with ease.

When he was fifty feet away a roasting lick of flame erupted from another automaton, turning the very asphalt that he ran on into mush and tar. This inverse of the absolute zero particles, this “heat ray,” could incinerate the most stalwart of targets.

He leapt over the molten roadway, trusting that inertia would propel him through the air now that he had lost his footing.

With his vibrating arms outstretched, he used them like blades of unbreakable steel, slashing through the automatons’ molecules. He sliced through the central robot, cutting it in half. Wires lashed out and sparks burped from within, and the robot started chortling in a fit of electronic jargon as it sputtered down to the ground.

In the blink of an eye, and with his feet now planted again, the speedster twisted around and swung his vibrating arms into the legs of the next hovering automaton. Its metal legs blasted out from under it in a torrent of tearing metal and wiring. The speedster followed up the quick assault by bringing his other rapidly gyrating arm down into the torso of the robot, effectively putting it out of commission.

The third and final automaton activated a set of sonic weapons, one mounted on each arm, but to no avail. The speedster ruptured its metal hide easily, slicing his rippling arms through its central circuitry like a knife through butter. The last floating Rogue Strike Team robot fell to the ground in pieces, some of which rolled into the slush that had been a city street only moments ago.

As the governing police force in the twin cities, the Rogue Strike Team had been specifically outfitted by Mayor Turtle to track, capture, and likely kill the Flash. It didn’t matter that his blue and black costume could easily blend into the shadows of the twin cities, or that it was laced with stealth technology. No matter how far he ran, the robots would always find him.

The speedster looked up at a dirigible that was hovering over downtown, no doubt enacting another citywide scan to locate him. If he didn’t move fast then a second wave of assault drones would be hounding him. Luckily for him, moving fast wasn’t a problem.

Typically, time wouldn’t be a problem, either. Punching his way through an obstacle or racing around it at the speed of sound…he usually had a few avenues to explore when he was up against a clock. However, given a recent insight provided to him by a friend, he was quickly learning that he was running out of time. They all were.

The dark runner blasted off once more, sticking to the side alleys and back street of Central City, his feet pounding on pavement that had been patched and repaired a hundred times over. The mayor, in all his infinite wisdom, had laced the main streets with recycled silicon solar roadways. They were a wonder to behold, and had reduced power costs for the citizens, made the roads safer to travel on at night (since they lit up through embedded LED lights), and were programmable for traffic changes. However, what the mayor didn’t tell the populace was that he could track a speedster running along them, which was the real reason they had been installed. The side streets were safe to run on . . . for now.

At times it seemed like all of Central City was against him. That was why he spent most of his time in Keystone. This evening, though, he had an appointment to keep, and he was told it was a matter of life or death. Given the source of the warning, he believed it.

He had to cross a main intersection to get to the bad part of town where his contact was waiting for him. To zip across the main roadway would send an alert to the Rogue Strike Team, and he could then count on a visit from their next wave within moments. Thankfully, gravity was one of nature’s laws that he could skate around when needed.

The speedster raced down the parallel side street to the crossing, choosing to change direction at a specific upcoming intersection. He moved quickly enough to actually run up the outer wall of the building, defying gravity itself. The problem with running perpendicular to nature, however, was that you couldn’t do it forever.

He zipped along the building’s side, angling upward to where it connected with a bridge that crossed over the roadway. The bridge was a walkway between two buildings on a hospital campus, and was one of the only ways that he could get into the slums undetected. As his feet transferred from the building to the outside of the bridge, the speedster smirked when he glanced at the illuminated LEDs below him embedded in the roadway. The mayor wouldn’t be tracking him tonight.

He descended down the side of the adjoining building when the bridge ended, diving once more into the shadowy alleyways of Central City. He knew their pathways by heart, having been forced into hiding once the mayor took office.

Mayor Turtle had built an entire campaign around vigilantes, promising to oust them from the city. It was what the people wanted to hear at the time, having just been through a rough ordeal with a group of masked people that claimed justice through murder. Unfortunately, the citizens of Central City didn’t realize that by electing Mayor Turtle and voting for his propositions that they were creating a police state within their city limits.

Regardless of his current problems, the speedster didn’t want to spend too much time considering the present. He needed to focus. He wouldn’t think himself worthy of the lightning bolt he wore on his chest otherwise.

Within seconds he was behind his contact’s location, standing outside of a dark tenement with cracks in the façade and broken windows throughout. Another look skyward told him that he wasn’t being tracked at the moment. He was sure that would change when the next patrol came through.

Sliding a dumpster aside, he revealed a keypad in the building’s rear doorframe. He typed in the three hundred digit combination in the blink of an eye; the sheer absurdity of which was the idea of his contact. After all, who would sit there attempting to break a combination that long other than a speedster?

The door whooshed open, ushering him inside. Once the door closed behind him the lights finally turned on and he was momentarily blinded. The inside of the building was actually a state-of-the-art research center, manned by a single person: his contact. The inner walls were lined with reinforced titanium, essentially making the entire building one giant metal shell that was coated with urban camouflage. She wasn’t in the lower levels, however. She would likely be in the upstairs labs with her various machines as opposed to down here with her battery cells, power converters, and other rudimentary gizmos.

The speedster whisked his way through familiar territory, blazing up the stairwell toward the upper lab. He passed a floor of caged animals, most of which were sleeping. He didn’t bother looking into the portal room, where he could observe other dimensions through special windows. None of them looked better than where he was anyway, and he couldn’t visit those worlds if he wanted to.

Once he reached the upper lab, he slowed down and walked into the room. Even though he was the only other person alive that knew about this place, and his contact was used to his type of entrances, he didn’t want to spook her. She had sounded spooked enough when they had spoken earlier that day.

“Flash,” she said as he entered. “Thanks for coming.”

“No problem. It sounded urgent, and if what you said is true—”

“It’s true. I’m sure of it.”

She turned to face him and she looked even more tired than normal. Despite the fact that she was backlit by the hologram bank now behind her, he could still make out her worn features. It seemed like every time he came to visit she had another wrinkle across her brow, or new worry lines developing. Her rigid cheekbones were still prevalent, though, and Linda Park was still a beautiful woman. Beautiful, if not exhausted.

“Okay, then let’s start with how I can help, Dr Park.”

Linda rubbed the back of her neck. “Two days ago I witnessed a fluctuation in the time stream,” she said. “At first I thought it was a fluke, but I recorded it and just continued on with what I was doing.”

“Which was?”

“Tracking peregrine falcon mutations through history.” She stood up and walked toward a small kitchenette where there was a pot of coffee, which was nearly empty. “I thought it might give me some insight into how the mayor was . . . well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now. The fluctuation I witnessed was one bird disappearing from the nest I was observing through the time portal window on the second floor.”

“Disappeared? Like, it vanished from history? That’s what you call a fluke?”

Linda sat back down with a full cup of coffee, cradling it in her hands. “Actually, the time stream fluctuates all the time. Little anomalies are corrected automatically when history is changed or something is pushing against the time stream. It’s not anything to be concerned about; most of the time history is adjusting itself to correct an error. The falcon didn’t actually vanish, it was just shifted to another time line. It was . . . shifted out of phase with the time line I was observing. Does that make sense to you?”

“I suppose. It sounds . . . well, it sounds pretty crazy, to be honest with you.”

She nodded. “I know. Usually when I witness a fluctuation like that I just track it via the correct time line. I log the occurrence and then just continue on with whatever it is that I’m researching. The problem, however, is that I couldn’t find the falcon again.”

“Okay, so you’re saying that the bird was placed into an alternate history, and you haven’t been able to track it down yet? How bad is this?”

“Very bad. Not because of the falcon itself, but because of what it’s absence led me to discover. It’s about you. Us. All of us.”

The Flash took a deep breath. She had said as much in their earlier communication. He had limited experience with time travel; really just enough to know that he shouldn’t be doing it. It was too easy to mess up. He could accidentally shut his own present down by altering history. He had time-traveled twice before, both times to capture the Time Keeper, and both times he had barely survived.

“Okay. Can I know what this is about?”

Sometimes knowing too much about past and future events could significantly alter an outcome while traveling through time. He could unconsciously create a self-fulfilling prophecy or tiptoe around what needed done because he would already be worried about the result. Time travel was dangerous stuff.

Linda sighed before responding. “It’s about Barry Allen.”

“Who?”

“Exactly. Let me show you.”

The Flash followed Linda down to the second floor where a series of portals awaited them. Most of them were blank windows, but one toward the center of the room was already attuned to what he needed to see.

He was looking at a structure that he knew well, but only because he had read about it in the history books. The Flash Museum stood immaculate just like the pictures he had studied so closely. Linda just stared at him. He threw her a look of confusion from beneath his mask, but when she gestured to the window again he bit his lower lip and looked again.

“There are . . . two statues out front,” he finally said. “Why are there two?”

“Precisely. While I was tracking the missing falcon, I came across several another anomalies. This one stuck out the most, as I’m sure you can appreciate. Here, I’ll adjust so you can read the name plates beneath the statues.”

The image shimmered and zoomed in on the base of a pair of statues that had been erected outside of the Flash Museum. Both statues depicted men wearing the lightning-encrusted symbols of the Flash, the most famous speedster that had ever lived, and the current speedster’s inspiration for being a hero. Just below the two statue’s feet were brass nameplates bolted into the cement. One read Wally West, and the other read . . .

“Barry Allen? Who is Barry Allen?”

“Right. Who is he? According to this time line, Barry Allen was the first modern Flash. Wally West was the second person to wear that crimson uniform.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I’m afraid it is.” Linda toyed with the controls again, and once more the image shimmered. They were looking through the halls of the Flash Museum. Displays of Barry Allen dressed in the Flash’s uniform littered the interior. “Apparently, Barry Allen was the Flash nearly a decade before Wally West, and was actually his mentor. In fact, per this history, it was because of Barry Allen that Wally even got his powers!”

The Flash took a step back from the window. “That . . . that doesn’t make any sense. How did this happen?”

“There’s more.”

Once more manipulating the controls, Linda reset the viewer to show Wally West in action as the Flash. A crimson blur violently pushed its way around the outskirts of the window as the historical Flash fought against the original Rogues. Weather Wizard, Captain Cold, Heat Wave . . . they were all there, and they were really giving the Flash a hard time. Usually the Rogues were just bank robbers looking for a score, and they would deal with the Flash because they had to. This time it looked like they were out for blood.

“I’m not going to show you,” Linda said in a hushed tone, “but shortly after this Wally is killed.”

“What? You mean he dies when he’s saving—”

“No,” she said abruptly. “Not then. Earlier. Much earlier. Something has significantly altered the time line so that Wally was not the first Flash, and his death arrives much sooner than it should. I don’t know what caused these changes, or how to necessarily correct them. Yet. I’m still researching, but there are so many time lines, and I’m just . . . so tired . . .”

He saw that she looked like a broken woman, a person ready to just call it quits. He had no doubt that she had been exploring hundreds of time lines to try and solve this mystery, and it was taking a toll on her. She had made her peace with Wally West’s death a long time ago, but that didn’t mean seeing historical representations of him didn’t still hurt.

“What do you need me to do?” he asked quietly.

“I want you to save him.”

His mouth dropped open and he was temporarily at a loss for words. She wouldn’t pull her eyes off of the window. Finally, he found his voice. “Linda,” he said. “I . . . I can’t do that.”

“No, not then. Not when we know he was supposed to die. I’m not asking you to change our history. I’m asking you to correct this time line.” She pointed to the Flash running within the confines of the window. “Stop his pre-mature death and maybe that will resolve some of the temporal issues I’m monitoring. I can’t figure out the inclusion of Barry Allen yet, but this we can fix. You can make it right.”

The Flash took in a deep breath. He watched her watching Wally West, and he remembered the first time that he had seen Wally race to save a human life. He remember the awe that Wally had inspired within him, and when it was his turn to take up the mantle, he had done so without hesitation.

It was entirely likely that he would end up doing more harm than good by undertaking this mission.

“Okay,” he finally said. “What do I need to do?”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small data card. He took it and waited for her explanation. After a few more heartbeats she withdrew her attention from the window, leaving behind memories and could-be wishes.

“Put those coordinators into the treadmill,” she replied. “You’ll arrive precisely when he needs you the most. I thought about sending you back further, but you’re already taking a big enough risk as it is. I don’t want to risk changing history too much.”

“I understand.” He slipped the data card into his cobalt-colored gauntlet and looked into her eyes. “Linda. I’ll save him. Don’t worry.”

Without waiting for her to respond, the Flash sped off down the stairs and out through the exit. He hid the keypad again and ran into the darkening city. Flood light from the dirigibles above had turned on now since it was after dusk, eternally searching for him. He thought that he heard a patrol coming down the street, so he left the area through an alternate route instead of retracing his steps back toward the bridge.

He had several ways to get to the ruins of the Flash Museum. It was an important place to him, and despite Mayor Turtle’s efforts to keep it guarded, the underground entrance was still accessible. Perhaps the Turtle just didn’t care enough about a place he had already destroyed to really look harder for the access points.

Through another hidden hatch that led to an underground tunnel, the Flash entered the only remaining portion of the Flash Museum. The sub-basement had survived the shelling that had decimated the above-ground floors, and still housed a few artifacts from the Flash’s adventures. One of the few remaining secrets from Wally’s tenure as the Fastest Man Alive was a bunker built into the sub-basement. It was where the current Flash, like his predecessor, kept some of his most prized possessions.

Once inside the bunker, which now acted more like a vault, was opened the Flash entered and sealed the doorway behind him. He slid several crates aside to reveal a very special piece of equipment: the Time Treadmill. He withdrew the data card that Linda had slipped him and inserted the chip into the Treadmill’s control panel. The machine instantly whirred to life, pulling power from the small generator in the corner. It was just enough to turn the machine on, though. The real power would come from the Flash himself.

He took his place on the track and breathed deeply. This was it. He was really going to do this. He was going to risk his entire time line for one man. He couldn’t help but wonder if Wally was worth this immense chance. Would Wally do this for him, or for anyone else? Would he race against the march of time for Linda?

As soon as the machine was primed, he pushed his feet against the track and started to build up the speed necessary to break through the time barrier. He knew the answers to his questions. He just hoped that he wouldn’t screw this up.

NEXT ISSUE: Back to our present day woes as Wally and Jesse are faced with a deadly challenge from a mysterious foe! Enemies come out of the woodwork and they are all intent on killing the Flash by any means necessary.