Message in a bottle

Chapter 6 - I killed him

23 minutes and 30 seconds, that's the amount of time in which the whole lab had been plunged into complete darkness while the system was rebooting and clearing itself of all anomalies. Every second and every aspect of the process had been closely supervised and assisted by Cisco. What was, in reality, mere minutes felt like a lifetime for the engineer who didn't want anything to pass him, not with his best friend's life hanging in the balance. No stone had been left unturned.

When it was all done, he just let himself slump into his chair; it was finally over and now that this problem had been taking care of, they could concentrate all their energy toward helping Barry. Fingers were crossed for whatever the future had in store for the speedster. There just had to be a way out of this, Cisco was refusing to believe anything else.

It's already been many hours since their last attempt at cleaning the mess and so far, so good. There wasn't a single sign suggesting that things weren't back to normal as all the analyses of the computers and the systems were coming back completely clean of all viruses or anomalies, but still Cisco remained in his lab. As the sun was now at its highest point of the day, the engineer was still sitting in his lab, on his own, busy rechecking the same parameter over and over again. In fact, Cisco hadn't gone to be by his best friend, his brother's, bedside for hours now, burying himself in his work. He had been acting like he was afraid that walking into that medical room would break the comatose hero like porcelain. Most people would call it hiding his head in the sand from what was happening out there, but the hero preferred calling it being scrupulous. Anything to keep his mind occupy was good.

Footsteps approaching and entering the room stole his attention away from his computer as he looked straight at the newcomer, Caitlin.

"Anything new?" He inquired, desperately trying to keep his hopes alive.

Caitlin exhaled loudly as she let herself fall on the closest chair, her tensed fingers clenching her knees, "I effectuated every test I could think of and I'm waiting for the results right now, but every one of his vitals are the same."

Alright, but what's the plan? Thought Cisco, keeping that reflection inside 'til his friend was done talking.

It hadn't sunk in into Cisco's mind that Barry might probably not come back from this. After all, Caitlin was a good, hell, an amazing doctor who knew what she was doing and who had always managed to find a solution to their medical problem. Cisco's brain just couldn't wrap itself around the idea that he would never get to laugh again with Barry or save the world side by side with his best friend. Maybe if he was denying it long enough, it was going to make it real and it would miraculously heal Barry.

"We have to tell them, we have to tell everyone," finally concluded Caitlin, just like that. No plan, no reassurance...nothing.

"What? What about our next step?" Stuttered Cisco in complete denial.

"You should get back in there, Cisco," sadly said Caitlin, understanding way too well how he was feeling. She probably would've done the same if she had the luxury of not being needed in the med bay, "you've been on your computer all day, you can take a break now."

"I just wanna make sure the anomaly is gone," protested Cisco, gluing his eyes back on the screen.

What was the doctor supposed to do to change his mind? Well, could she do other than physically drag him all the way up to the cortex? Yielding on that fight for an instant, the doctor approached herself to take a look at the computer's screen showcasing video surveillance from the cortex.

"What are you even looking at?" She inquired curiously.

"I've been thinking..." what else was there to do? "...with the exceptions of Barry's last seizure and when he first got shocked in the breach room, the only other equipment that had malfunctioned in the building were the lights, nothing else," thoughtfully said Cisco.

"Okay..."

Caitlin frowned and moved a bit closer, unsure what her companion was looking for. The footage currently showing was the one with both of them talking in the cortex, after she shared her findings about Barry's medical condition, an event they were already both there to witness.

"Something feels weird. Why the lights? If this anomaly was trying to hurt Barry, or us for all we know, why not use the computers? Why not cut the ventilation system? Or lock us in?"

All good questions, but none that would really help them right now in their current situation.

"I've been looking back at the footages when we've been having power troubles and it seemed random at first, but this..." he pointed at the screen, "...just look at the way the lights are flashing. It's almost like there's a pattern in there, it's almost like-"

Suddenly, Cisco became ghostly pale and his hands froze over the keyboard, "oh.... God!" He cried with his bottom lips shaking badly.

"Cisco?" Caitlin nervously asked, gently pushing her friend's shoulder as she was attempting, in vain, to get him out of his trance. What was so important about flashing lights? Reporting her attention to the screen and carefully looking for a pattern, that's when she started noticing it too, that's when she started seeing what Cisco was talking about. Caitlin squinted her eyes as she observed the way the period of time between the lights going on and off was short at first, barely a second, for a couple of times, before that time pretty much doubled a few times.

Three times short, three times long, six times short, three times long, six times short... and it kept on going on like that. Finally connecting the dots and putting together the pieces of the puzzle, she paled too and witnessed the screen whirling in front of her eye as realization hit her like a runaway train. Everything was finally making sense.

"You don't think that-" she started, spluttering, and grabbing a hold on the desk to stay upright.

She was no linguist and certainly no expert in codes, but she knew what three short, three long and three short meant in Morse code.

S.O.S.

Something, someone, had been screaming for help. The anomaly in the system; it wasn't a virus. Their whole problem had been caused by a ghost in the machine, a desperate ghost they destroyed hours earlier. If Caitlin was right about the name of the entity they just killed, she was going to be sick.

"You... it can't... you don't think... that... please... tell me... it wasn't B-" she stuttered again, her knees feeling weak, forcing her to tighten her grip on the desk so strongly that her knuckles turned white.

Unable to speak and visibly swallowing, Cisco just nodded slowly. He was thinking the exact same thing than his friend. The electrical exit wound on Barry's head in the breach room, it had to be their friend's consciousness leaving his body and getting trapped inside the lab's computers. Barry was their ghost, Barry had frantically tried to communicate with his friends... and they all ignored him.

"Barry was trying to send us a message," Caitlin added, blinking at the screen while slowly pronouncing every word, unable to take her glance away from it.

"And... I killed him," Cisco completed in the same detached tone, unable to look at the person next to him, "I killed my best friend."

Cisco couldn't move, he couldn't think and could barely breathe at the realisation. All he wanted to do was help and he was just so desperate to rescue his friend by taking down the source of their problems as fast as possible. But, by doing so, he never took the time to really sit and think about how everything started. Why hasn't he made the connection sooner? He instinctively knew people needed to stay in contact when vibing with him, how come he didn't put two and two together in this situation? Instead of thinking, instead of using that big brain of his, he just charged in with his gun blazing, or more like computer blazing, and destroyed the unknown factor without a single thought.

He would have stayed frozen on that spot forever if it wasn't for the voice calling out from the entry of his lab.

"Guys?"

Right there, standing a couple of feet away, stood Iris West. Uh oh, she needed to know.I killed him