"The Race"
Keystone City. Yesterday.
"You're what?" Karen asked, eyeing the man she'd just spent the night with.
"I'm not Wally West," he mumbled, with a defiant little toss of his red hair. "At least ... I don't think I am. There was an accident of some kind."
She got on her feet, readying fists that could shatter mountains. "Who are you? The Mirror Master? Professor Zoom? The Chameleon? The Penguin?"
He eyed her. "The Penguin?"
"... okay, that was reaching."
"I'm not a supervillain. Listen -- the Flash, Wally West, he, I, we ... the Flash was running near the Speed Force --"
"What's a Speed Force?"
"Oh. Yeah. It's been awhile. I'll explain later. Anyway, the Flash split in half -- there's two of us--"
"TWO of you?" Part of her immediately thought: Good. I'll take one, and Linda can have the other. The other part started smacking the hell out of the first part.
"Yeah." He was dressed in the eyeblink of a heartbeat, with his costume on but the mask pulled off. "We seem to be identical. Completely identical. But --"
She waited, holding the covers over herself. This was Wally, for God's sake -- somehow -- she had let him see her naked? She had -- more than that --
"I think he's Wally West," whoever he was continued. "The boyfriend. The homebody. The civilian."
"What's that make you?"
"I'm --
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The Fastest Man Alive:
"The Race"
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| Flash #3 - March, Year One | by Bill Kte'pi |
Today. Somewhere very far away.
Both of them were the sort who liked to talk while walking -- or running -- or zipping circles around the globe, feeling the slight tension changes under their toes as they moved from ocean to continent to ocean to continent. Wally West and the Flash. The Flash and Wally West. Two Flashes. Two Wallies. Neither of them was quite certain how to phrase it, which was part of their discussion.
Taipei.
"You and Power Girl?"
"Yeah." Phuket.
"Karen."
"Yeah."
"Same old Power Girl from Justice League Europe." Hong Kong.
"That's the one."
"She HATES me!"
"Yeah. Not me, though." Calcutta.
"But you ARE me."
"Maybe not so much."
"Huh." Mozambique.
"Yep. Me and Karen."
"I was gonna say --" Prague.
"I know."
"She does look pretty nice in a --"
"Better out of it." Barcelona.
"Yowch."
"Yeah." The Atlantic.
"So."
"The Race."
"That's what I was --" Greenland.
"I know."
"Do you ever--"
"Nope." Toronto.
"How did you--"
"You were gonna ask if I was afraid we'd forget which one of us is which. No. We won't. You know why?"
"You slept with Karen." Denver.
"I slept with Karen."
"All right, good point."
"And don't." Baja California.
"Don't what?"
"Feel guilty. YOU didn't cheat on Linda. And I'm not engaged to Linda. So we're cool." Tijuana.
"That sounds like a rationalization."
"It is. We're a rational guy."
"Am I talking to myself?" Costa Rica.
"Kinda."
"We cool with that?"
"We cool." Dominica City.
"So the race."
"The race." Lima.
"You don't like it."
"I don't mind it. I don't like the fact that they want to put us back together, though." The Antarctic.
"Why?"
"I like being me."
"But you're me." Ice.
"Or you're me. Except no."
"No?"
"Not really. See, you're Wally West." The Indian Ocean. A whale.
"So are you."
"Listen to me, Twinkie. You're WALLY WEST."
"Okay." The Outback.
"I'm the Flash."
"But the Flash is Wally West."
"Maybe not so much." Sydney.
"No?"
"Not anymore."
"But --" Bangkok.
"Yeah, I know."
"I'm really darn fast." Tokyo.
"Yeah. Me too."
"And I really love Linda."
"Uh-huh." The Pacific.
"What's that mean? Don't you?"
"Not ... as much. I like the rush, man. The thrill. The speed." Maui.
"I like being a guardian. A protector. Keeping people safe."
"You see what I mean now?"
"I'm not sure." The Pacific.
"We're not the same person."
"Neither of us."
"We're not the Flash who split. We're halves of him. We both lose." San Jose.
"Huh. If we merge, anyway."
"If we merge." Seattle.
"So maybe we shouldn't."
"Maybe we shouldn't. But we'll run the race. Gotta make sure we haven't dropped any speed -- or if we have, I gotta know."
"So do I." Salt Lake City.
"Sure you do, Mister Linda."
"Hey!"
Keystone.
The Flash kept Impulse in check while Wally talked to Jay, Max, and Linda.
"So we're okay with this," Wally explained. "Both of us."
Linda looked from Wally to the Flash with trepidation. "Both of you. Wally, you know how freaky that is for me to hear."
Jay nodded. "That's why we're doing this, Linda. It's creeping me out, too. And Wally, I hate to say it son, but it's creeping me out that you AREN'T creeped out. This whole easy acceptance of everything ... I know we're superheroes, but --"
"But some things are odd no matter what your background is," Max finished.
Wally nodded. "Yeah. All right. Like I said, we talked it over, and we'd like to see if our speed has changed. So -- let's go. Flash!"
The Flash was there before the "F" finished forming on Wally's lips. "Ready when you are, Double Dubya."
They were standing on the front lawn outside Wally and Linda's home, Wally in his civvies, Flash in the uniform. "Three," Jay said.
"Two," Linda said with a sigh.
"One," Max said -- and they were off.
Keystone.
"So here we go," Wally said.
"Yeah."
"You and Karen, huh?" Star City.
"Just run."
Metropolis. Neck and neck. Yank.
"Did you just --"
"Yeah."
"You tugged Superman's cape."
"Well yeah."
"Does the song mean NOTHING to you?"
"C'mon, you know you wanted to."
"Maybe a little. When I was Kid Flash."
"That's why I'm the Flash, and you're Wally."
The Atlantic. Neck and neck still.
"Ready to kick it up a notch?"
"Ready when you are."
"All right, then."
"You talk too much, Double Dubya. See you on the other side of the world. Five laps."
"Five laps."
Whoosh.
Siberia.
"Are you EATING?"
"Hot dog. Mustard. Onions. Picked it up in France."
"Did you get me one?"
"No."
"Bastard."
West Africa.
"I can't BELIEVE you slept with Karen."
"I can't believe you won't shut up."
China.
"Was she --"
"Don't go there."
The Pacific.
"..."
"She was fantastic."
"I KNEW it!"
"But I was better."
"..."
Keystone, third lap.
"You pinched Linda's butt!"
"Did not."
"Did too!"
"Did not."
"Did too!"
"Not like she'll know which one of us did it."
"I knew it!"
Keystone, fourth lap.
"Feeling the burn?"
"Not hardly, Double Dubya. This is a walk in the park."
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I hate it when you call me that."
"How about KID Double Dubya?"
"Bastard."
Star City.
"Speed Force barrier."
"Yep, looks like it."
"So do we--"
"Of course."
The Speed Force.
Red.
Fast.
Empty.
Except.
Voices.
Everywhere.
Memories.
Years earlier.
"So Uncle Barry." Wally, Kid Flash, tagged along behind the Flash as they ran their laps back and forth across the Outback. Endurance training.
"Wally, you know how I feel about talking while we're running laps."
"Yeah." Wally shut up, running glumly. Barry was pretty obviously slowing down to keep pace.
"Go ahead. You're just going to stew otherwise."
"How fast can you run? I mean ... just how fast can you GET?"
"I'm ... not sure. Sometimes, when I've really pushed ... sometimes it feels like I've been plateauing most of the time -- that all it would take would be a little more effort, and I'd be ..." Barry stopped, not saying anything for another dozen laps.
"You'd be what?"
"I don't know. I've never done it."
"But --"
"Wally, listen to me. Our speed is a gift, but it's a gift meant to help the world, not satisfy our sense of personal achievement. I've always been as fast as I need to be."
"But if you could be faster -- don't you want to --"
"No. Not really."
"So why do we have to do this training? We're not helping the world right now."
They both came to a stop, and Barry took his mask off, eyeing him for a long time. "Let's go home."
"I didn't mean --"
"C'mon. I'll buy you an ice cream soda."
Linda looked at the stopwatch. Thirty seconds. "They're, uh ..."
"Slower?" Jay asked.
"Yeah."
Max sighed. "That's what I was afraid of. Not two Flashes -- two halves of the Flash."
One minute.
Linda frowned. "A whole minute? Isn't that --"
"A lot slower."
Five minutes.
"Guys --"
Jay and Max exchanged looks. Those looks she hated -- something's wrong, don't let the love interest know.
"Linda," Jay said, patting her shoulder. "We'll go see what's keeping them. You know Wally -- Despero's probably trashing downtown Helsinki or something."
Three hours. Jay and Max returned. Linda was still waiting on the front lawn, watching the stopwatch.
"Linda --" Max said, obviously uncomfortable.
She shook her head. "They're gone, aren't they? I know. They're gone."
Keystone.
Two men entered, and one man emerges, in his uniform.
Wally West looked around him. He was in downtown Keystone, but it looked ... wrong. He couldn't quite put his finger on it right away. It was night, though, for one thing -- he'd left mid-morning.
Okay, he thought. So, you bounced off the Speed Force a little, like Max used to. You jumped into the future by a few hours.
Hopefully only a few hours.
Down the strip, everyone was crowding around a nightclub, one he didn't recognize. Plain door, no decoration, just a simple neon sign in red, white, and blue:
"STUDIO JUSTICE"
Must be new. He walked over to check it out, and everyone outside was dressed up like a superhero. Not any he recognized, just generic spandex-and-capes.
"Hey man, bitchin costume," a guy said who was dressed in sparkling pink tights with a rhinestoned vest and a bright red cape. "Where'd you get it?"
Wally frowned at him. "Uh, I'm the Flash."
"Oh yeah? Cool. Where'd you get the costume? I dig that lightning bolt, man. Radical."
Something was wrong ... Wally zipped over to the newspaper box.
May 24, 1983.
Oh, crap.
***
Next: "Flashback"
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