Rocky Raymond //Book Seven//

Chapter 4 - Mother

MacKenzie's POV

We all recover from the ground and Cisco gives us the signal to stay quiet and follow his lead, which we do. We inch closer to where Barry is kneeling over Iris' seizing body

"Barry?" Cisco asks. "Barry?"

Barry looks up with tears in his eyes. "Help her." He pleads. "Help her. Iris. Iris!" She continues to seize and my eyes widen in fear. "Help her." He pleads desperately

***

Iris is hooked up to wires and monitors in the medbay, staring at the ceiling and not responding. Cisco, Barry, and I are watching from the viewing room, Barry with his arms around my shoulders and his head on top of my head

Caitlin walks into the cortex and we meet her there, Barry grabbing my hand and not letting go

"Is she gonna be okay?" Barry asks

"When you pulled Iris out of the Mirrorverse and she resisted, it created a molecular anomaly." Caitlin says, pulling up the scans of Iris' brain. "All her neural pathways are disjointed."

"Looks like her brain's been remapped." Cisco says

"How do we get her back?" Barry asks

"I don't know." Caitlin whispers. "All we can do now is let her rest while I run some more tests." She says, going over to the computer. Barry and I stare at the scans. "You gonna be okay?" Caitlin asks

"I remember everything, hurting my own team...hurting my daughter...forcing Iris through the portal, leaving Kamilla and Singh trapped." Barry whispers through tears. "I'm sorry."

"That wasn't you." Cisco says

"Yeah, it was." Barry says

"Man, no, It wasn't." Cisco says. "You were not yourself. Trust me, we get that. That's why we're gonna to put it behind us, and we're gonna move on, all right? We're a team. We've got each other's backs."

"We're going to figure out a way to save Iris and Kamilla and Singh." Caitlin says. "I promise."

"But Eva's still out there, and I can't stop her 'cause I don't have my speed anymore." Barry says

"But you will." Cisco says. "I'm running a full diagnostics on the artificial Speed Force machine. It worked before. It can work again. All we need to do is just figure out–"

"No. I'm done with that thing." Barry says. "You saw what it turned me into. I'm not Thawne. Connecting with something artificial isn't gonna work for me... and since the real Speed Force is dead..."

***

"So after all that, I'm like, 'Well, at least Grandma Runk is still my grandma, you know?' 'Cause I was at Jitters ordering a vibaccino." Chester tells Barry, Caitlin, and I in the lounge. "Next thing I know, a pair of T2 arms jumps out of the countertop trying to grab me. You know, fortunately, Chester P. Runk knows how to mind his surroundings."

"Yo!" Cisco exclaims, running in and startling Chester. "I just heard back from Joe. Whatever is happening out there, it's spreading."

"Yeah, Eva is getting more powerful." Caitlin says

"I'll say. I analyzed footage from Eva's live interview." Cisco says. "It's not just mirrors that she's manipulating. It's any reflective surface now."

"Well, I guess that makes sense." Chester says. "Light photons are elementary particles that exist everywhere in nature..."

"So as long as there's light around from either natural or artificial source..." I finish for Chester