Phoenix (The Flash - Book 1) [RE-UPLOAD]

Chapter 23 - Rogue Air

I walked into Jitters and found Iris sitting alone at a table, staring at something she held in her hands.

"Hey," I greeted her as I sat down

"Hey," Iris smiled.

"What's all this?" I asked, referring to the boxes on the table.

"Return labels for Eddie and me," she told me. "I ordered 200 to start, but this afternoon, 2000 arrived. I guess I ordered wrong. I have so many now.

I looked at her, sympathetically. "Iris, we're gonna find Eddie."

"How?" Iris asked. "You and Barry have searched everywhere. More than once and you haven't found anything."

I looked down.

"I'm sorry," she said and I shook my head. "I'm not mad at you. It's just--"

"You miss him, right?" I asked.

Iris nodded. "Yeah, I do.

I grabbed her hand, comfortingly. "Look. Wells took Barry's mom from him, he's the reason I lost my parents. I won't let him take someone from you too."

Iris looked at me and nodded. My phone started to buzz, I grabbed it out of my pocket and saw Cisco was messaging me.

"It's Cisco. I gotta go," I said.

"Yeah, go," Iris said, understanding.

I gave her a smile and put my phone away, walking out of Jitters.

------>

Cisco had called everyone to meet him at S.T.A.R. Labs. Barry, Caitlin, Joe, Zach and I stood in the Cortex with Cisco and Wells' wheelchair.

"I kept asking myself why would Wells pretend to need a wheelchair?" Cisco told us.

"Sympathy, I suppose," Caitlin said.

"That's what I thought at first, but he's the Man in Yellow, he's the Reverse-Flash," Cisco replied. "He's much smarter than that. Sympathy can't be the only reason."

"Yeah, it was a misdirect," Zach said. "Just like everything else Wells has done. I mean, the last person we'd suspect to be the Man in Yellow is someone who lost the use of their legs."

"That's exactly right, Zach. Which is why I started messing around with the wheelchair," Cisco said, turning it on its side. "And that's when I found this."

He pushed a compartment the bottom of the wheelchair open and inside was some sort of device glowing with amber light.

"Damn," Joe said. "You can't get that at RadioShack."

I knelt down, having a closer look. "It looks like the tech inside Gideon."

"I measured the output and this thing is kicking off some serious juice," Cisco told us. "I mean, we're talking enough to power all of Central City."

"Seriously?" Zach asked.

"Oh, yeah." Cisco answered.

"What do you think Wells was using it for?" Barry asked.

"I think this thing is some kind of battery," Cisco stated.

"Battery?" I asked.

"As in Wells was using it to power himself," Cisco clarified. "To gain more speed and that's why he's so much faster than you, Barry."

I stood and Cisco took a sip of his drink. Suddenly, the computer started to beep. Cisco and Caitlin went to see what was up.

"The accelerator," Cisco said. "It's been reactivated."