Day fourteen, Cisco's monitor said Barry had topped out at Mach 3.4.
He'd hit Mach 2.8 in November before the Powell Boulevard fight.
He'd hit Mach 3.2 the first time he'd ever broken the speed cap, three weeks before that, on the ring track Wells had built him in a different life of Wells.
Mach 3.4 was the new ceiling. He'd hit it three days running. Two more increments per session, and the increments were now in the second decimal place.
Zoom had been measured at Mach 7 the night he broke Barry's spine.
Zoom was now training to be faster.
The math had been the math for a week and a half. Cisco kept running new test protocols in case the math was wrong about how the math worked. The math kept being the math.
On the morning of day fourteen Barry sat on the cortex floor with his back against the wall and his head between his knees.
"I'm done."
Caitlin was at her station. She did not turn around.
Cisco was at his. He did.
"Barry."
"I'm done, Cisco. Sixteen hours yesterday. Twelve the day before. I'm not recovering between sessions anymore. I haven't slept more than three hours since New Year's. I am not getting faster. I am getting more tired."
I set the coffee down at his elbow. He didn't pick it up.
I sat on the floor next to him.
I let the room be quiet for a minute.
Then I said, "Don't take Velocity."
Barry's head came up.
"I didn't say I was —"
"You're going to. In the next twenty-four hours, somebody is going to put it in front of you and you're going to be tired enough to take it. So I'm saying it before that conversation: don't take Velocity."
"Then what, Harry?"
"Let me try something."
Cisco's chair turned.
Caitlin's, finally, did too.
I looked at Barry.
"I can fuse powers. You know that. I've shown you that. The way I've explained it to Cisco — the way the System frames it — is that two compatible powers can be combined into a single stronger ability with new properties. I haven't tested whether one of those new properties can be speed. Not Speed Force speed. Just — augmented kinetic capacity. Fast enough to close a gap. Maybe fast enough to land a hit on someone going Mach 5."
"What are you talking about."
"I'm talking about taking the Velocity Rush I have in storage — the unstable one I refuse to use — and fusing it with one of my other abilities. I don't know what comes out of it. It might be nothing. It might be something. Whatever it is, it would be on me, not on you. You would not have to take a drug. You would have backup."
Cisco was leaning forward.
"You'd fuse Velocity with what."
"I don't know. I haven't run the matrix. I came up here when I knew the answer was not Velocity for Barry and I'd worked out the rest of the proposal as I came up the stairs."
Barry said, "It would be on you."
"Yes."
"And the cellular damage on the Velocity ability — that would be on you."
"Yes."
"Harry —"
"I'm not asking you to make the choice for me, Barry. I'm telling you what's available so that not Velocity has a thing on the other end of it instead of just nothing."
Caitlin spoke. Quietly.
"What's the failure mode."
I looked at her.
"Worst case, the fusion takes and produces something unstable that I can't use without further damage. Best case, the fusion takes and produces something I can use to be in the room with Barry the night Zoom comes."
"And the in-between."
"The in-between is a fusion that almost takes. Those leave fragment memories and physical strain. I've done two unsuccessful fusions before. I survived both. I'd survive a third."
She nodded slowly.
"You're not telling me the worst case."
I held her look.
"The actual worst case is that the fusion takes and the new ability is structurally bonded to my own genetic substrate the way Velocity is, and the cellular damage gets worse — fast. Fast enough that I have weeks instead of months."
The room held very still.
Cisco said, "Harry."
"That's the actual worst case. The probability of the actual worst case is — by my read — small. But not zero."
Caitlin closed her notebook.
Crossed the room.
Stood in front of me.
"You should have led with that."
"I know."
"Don't do that to me again."
"I know."
She nodded.
Looked at Barry.
"Your call, Barry."
Barry was looking at the floor between his knees.
He didn't answer for a long time.
When he did, he didn't lift his head.
"Try the matrix," he said. "Don't run any fusion. Just see what's possible. Then we decide."
"Copy."
"Don't decide before we decide together."
"Copy."
He nodded.
He picked up the coffee.
Drank it.
I went to my workstation.
---
That night I sat at my kitchen counter with the System fusion matrix open in the back of my eye and a pad of paper and a pen on the counter in front of me.
I ran every compatible pair the matrix could find for Velocity Rush.
There were three.
Velocity Rush × Phasing — Compatibility 78%. Output: theoretical. Designation: Speed-phase. Description: Movement at sub-Mach speeds while in a phased state. Estimated effect: ability to traverse solid matter at speed.
Velocity Rush × Force Mastery — Compatibility 64%. Output: theoretical. Designation: Kinetic Vector. Description: Telekinetic acceleration applied to self-mass. Estimated effect: brief bursts of high-velocity propulsion at controllable angles.
Velocity Rush × Reflection Manipulation — Compatibility 41%. Output: theoretical. Designation: Mirror Walk. Description: Translation between reflective surfaces at speed. Estimated effect: instantaneous traversal between any two visible reflections.
I read all three twice.
The first one would give me a thing I'd want for the rest of my life.
The second one would give me a thing that might let me stand next to Barry in a fight against Zoom and survive nine seconds instead of three.
The third one was a getaway tool. A run-from-the-fight tool. A don't die tool.
The cellular cost of all three was the same: every use degraded my Cellular Integrity by an amount the matrix did not specify and could not predict, because Velocity Rush in fusion form behaved unpredictably in transfer to a host whose baseline cell integrity was already at 97%.
I sat with all three for an hour.
I did not run any of them.
I'd told Barry I wouldn't.
Around midnight my phone buzzed.
Cisco.
you sleeping
No.
can i come over
Yes.
He came over. Brought beer he didn't drink and a laptop he opened on my coffee table. We sat on either side of the table and looked at the fusion matrix output together for two hours, and we ran calculations on the cellular degradation curves Caitlin had built from Eliza Harmon's hospital records, and we built three projections: one where I tried Speed-phase, one where I tried Kinetic Vector, one where I tried Mirror Walk.
The projection for Speed-phase put my cellular integrity at 78% after one use.
The projection for Kinetic Vector put it at 84%.
The projection for Mirror Walk put it at 91%.
Cisco closed the laptop.
"Mirror Walk."
"Mirror Walk gets me out. Doesn't get Barry through."
"Kinetic Vector."
"Kinetic Vector gets me to him. Doesn't keep me there."
"Speed-phase."
"Speed-phase keeps me there. Costs the most."
He looked at me.
"Don't decide yet," he said. "But it's Speed-phase."
"Yeah."
"Tomorrow morning we tell the team."
"Tomorrow morning."
"The team includes Barry."
"Yes."
"Barry's going to say no."
"Probably."
"Are you going to do it anyway."
I looked at him.
"That depends on what Barry says."
He nodded.
He left the beer.
He left at 2:14 AM.
I sat with the matrix open for another hour and did not run anything.
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