"Who am I? I'm --"

	The Fastest Man Alive: "Flashback"
Flash #4 - April, Year One	by Bill Kte'pi

Any relation to Funkmaster Flash?"

Wally eyed the man for a long time, but the question seemed sincere. "Who?"

The guy nodded into the club, waltzed passed the bouncer, and started to disappear inside. "Funkmaster Flash. The fastest man alive, man!"

So here Wally was, about to enter Studio Justice, a superhero-themed disco and New Wave club in 1983 -- an era without superheroes of its own, decades after the Golden Age's wave of masked vigilantes, years before Superman's debut, years after even the Justice Experience. A time when the only "heroes" were politicians like President Reagan, sports stars like Reggie Jackson and Larry Bird, pop stars like Pat Benatar.

Wally wouldn't even be Kid Flash for another ten years. Somewhere out there was a little Wally Toddler watching the Smurfs and drinking strawberry Quik.

Wally could go for some strawberry Quik right now. "No," he said, moving past the bouncer, who gave him a once-over and shrugged. "No relation."

"Negative perspiration, man. Look, I'm the Rhinestone Avenger. You need a hand inside, you ask for me, cool?"

"A hand?" Wally got past the winding, too-narrow hallway which led unnecessarily from the entrance to the interior of the club, and made a small "ah" of realization. The place was wall-to-wall superhero wannabe, like the Rhinestone Avenger over here -- some of them dancing, like some bizarre alternate universe where the Justice League was featured on Soul Train, and some of them doing something which was more like what he would have called slam-dancing a few years later.

Like the fights superheroes and supervillains got into -- only more stylized, and set to music. Still, it looked painful.

Man, this was really, really weird. And was that Toto they were playing? No one fought to Toto. Most particularly, no one fought to Toto's "Africa."

The fighting got a little heavy in one corner, and one of the combatants was hurled across the dance floor -- sixty or seventy feet across. There were some shouts from the dancers the thrown guy collided with, and the bouncers had it under control pretty quickly. "Powers," Wally murmured. "They've got powers."

The Rhinestone Avenger snorted. "Those guys? Eh, yeah ... some of em. Hey, we can't all be the real thing, right?" He grinned, and elbowed Wally before shimmying over to the regular dance floor, clearly eyeing a chick in fishnets and go-go boots.

Right, Wally thought. We can't all be the real thing. He watched the Avenger mince away, and pushed his way through dancers to the bar. Someone grabbed his butt on the way there.

"Get you something?" the bartender asked. He was wearing a domino mask with mirrored lenses.

"Strawberry Quik," Wally said, and then stopped himself, shaking his head. "Beer. Whatever's on draft."

So here he was in the past, eighteen years before his time -- hell, had they even invented good music yet? The Pixies' Doolittle didn't come out till '89. Max had probably bounced right over the 80s, judging by the guy's pop cultural awareness. Jay and his whole city were still out of synch, thanks to the Fiddler -- wouldn't be back until Barry found them ... Barry. Barry wasn't even the Flash yet. He was probably still at the academy. Barry Allen, prospective cop.

2001.

She missed Wally. She kept changing her position -- sitting on the couch for awhile, fidgeting, getting up to get a glass of water, sitting at the table for awhile, flipping through mail or catalogues or magazines, moving back to the living room and an armchair, turning on the television, turning it back off, trying the radio, then shifting back to the couch, but laying down this time.

Moving almost constantly.

Like he did.

She sighed, tapping her fingers on her stomach as she twisted her head on the edge of the couch, trying to get comfortable. He'd be back. He would. He was Wally, the Flash, he was always doing things like this. Zipping off to one place or another. Disappearing for awhile. He always came back.

Karen Starr got up again, to make herself a glass of iced tea and try to stop thinking about the Flash.

NOT Wally West: The Flash. At least, that's who he claimed he was. Said he and Wally had been split into two halves ... and something about a race to see which of them was faster. Well, who cared? So there were two of them. Big whoop. For all she knew, she had a double somewhere, too -- maybe her double even had a cat!

Karen hated cats.

So there were two Flashes. Good. She could have one, and the other one could stay with his precious Linda-poo.

Did she really just think that? She didn't want to "have" the Flash, no matter how many of them there were.

They'd always fought, when they were in Justice League Europe together. Like cats and dogs -- geez, cats again, she really DIDN'T like cats. She couldn't stand his womanizing. His ... ease. His carefree...uh...ness? Carefreedom? Carefree...ocity? Whatever. The way he was so loose about everything, so unlike his predecessor -- so unlike her.

So unlike the Flash he'd become. The Flash she'd seen the day before, the Flash she'd spent the night with ... well, he was more confident of himself now. No, it was beyond confidence -- confidence was faith in yourself, faith in your ability to "do it," whatever it might be. What the Flash had wasn't faith -- it was knowledge. He KNEW he was the best at what he did. And it showed. So he didn't have to show off anymore -- he had nothing to prove.

And as Wally? Well...that womanizer had settled down and stuck to one woman for a few years now, and Karen gnawed on the irony that that made him more attractive to her.

It wasn't fair.

She punched a couch cushion to make it cradle her head better, and fidgeted.

2001.

"Zoom," one of the faithful murmured, quickly and breathlessly. "Zoom. Zoom. Zoomzoomzoom."

Fiona Webb looked out over the abandoned warehouse which had been converted into the Temple of Triumphant Velocity. In the center of the main room -- which was clean, and bare but for this -- was the Temple's emblem, a steel sculpture of a lightning bolt, reminiscent of the one emblazoned on the Flash's uniform (sacred be His name, fleet be His feet, let my soul be carried in His wake.)

She'd had a headcount performed this morning. Ninety-eight. Ninety-eight souls proclaimed for the True Flash, the Avatar of Speed (sacred be His name, fleet be His feet, let my soul be carried in His wake.) Their morning prostrations -- all ninety-eight of them were currently laying perfectly still, murmuring their words with as little motion as possible for the conservation of speed -- would be over soon, and then after lunch they'd commence the afternoon exercises.

"Zoom," she found herself whispering, reading the lips of one prostratant who was so still she looked dead. Of course, the words didn't matter -- Fiona knew that, and she sincerely hoped the faithful knew it, too. It was the concentration of thought -- the dedication of one's time to the contemplation of the infinite as revealed by the True Flash (sacred be His name, fleet be His feet, let my soul be carried in His wake) -- that mattered.

"Zoom," she whispered nevertheless. "Zoom. Zoom. Zoomzoomzoomzoomzoomzoom."

In the mornings, unnecessary motion was forbidden. In the afternoons, exercises were performed until late evening -- they needn't be strenuous, as long as everyone was constantly in motion. Hundreds of metronomes and sets of clanging metal balls were set up during that time, as well -- not to provide rhythm but to break it up, break it down, until everything was just...

...motion.

The alternation between motion and rest, between fast and still -- that was the cycle the world followed.

Sacred be His name. Fleet be His feet. Let my soul be carried in His wake.

1983.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the DJ said, over the pulsating electronic beats. "The one -- the only -- the fresh and tasty -- Funkmaster FLASH!"

The house lights went down, the dancers moved to the side, and the music seemed to ... dim. The volume wasn't turned down, but it was muted somehow. The DJ cranked it, and it dimmed again -- even the sound of everyone cheering was dampened --

-- as the so-called Funkmaster Flash appeared. Oh, he was unmistakeable -- he had the loudest clothes in the club, for one thing, yellow spandex shot through with black lightning-like patterns, under an open red leather jacket covered with zippers. Big red leather boots. No mask -- just mirrored sunglasses. Hair dyed -- it had to be dyed -- shocking fire engine red.

Good golly.

Like some of the others -- very few, Wally would estimate less than one percent of the club's patrons had any claim to "powers" -- the Funkmaster was a superhuman. Wally could perceive him in a way he assumed others didn't: as a nexus of the Speed Force.

That's why I ended up here, Wally thought. When I skipped across the Speed Force's surface, that's why I bounced backwards -- he drew me here, probably without realizing it.

Funkmaster Flash was taking in the vibrations of the club -- the high trebles and the low, pumping basses -- and converting them into speed. Through his special relationship with the Speed Force, Wally could see it happening, see waves pass through the Funkmaster and into the Speed Force and back again like an echo.

All the guy did was dance -- but he was FAST, nowhere near as fast as Wally, but faster than human -- fast enough to be pretty damn impressive when he was breakdancing. From fifty feet away, Wally could feel the wind from the guy's backspin.

The crowd loved it. They ate it up. Hell, the guy was showy, but he was a good performer -- he knew how to put on a show.

1995 and never, always and forever.

Barry Allen is running backwards through time, as time itself is folded, spindled, and mutilated, torn apart by the destruction of an infinity. He's in a race against the end of the universe, a race in which he must run faster than the sweeping non-existence which claims, has claimed, and will claim the life of his friends.

Sacred be His name. Fleet be His feet. Let my soul be carried in His wake.

He skips the light fantastic, turns cartwheels 'cross the world -- feels time slipping by, greasy with memory, under his feet. Sometimes he's not sure he can even feel his feet -- or his body. Corporeality keeps falling from his grasp -- he can't tell where he stops and the energy around him begins.

For a brief moment he's a familiar lightning bolt striking chemicals in his laboratory -- he hears Wally's gasp of disbelief, his own sharp intake of breath, and remembers his shock at lightning striking twice.

So. Somehow, he's responsible for Wally becoming the Kid Flash? Maybe that's how it should be. Barry doesn't think ... he doesn't think he's going to survive this final run. Wally will be a good successor. He's both too headstrong and too unsure of himself -- not a good combination, but not at all uncommon in a teenager.

Except Wally isn't a teenager anymore. It's just hard not to think of him that way -- as the fifteen year old nephew of Iris ... but he's a man now. Wally's a man.

Barry wonders if he'll keep the Flash name. It doesn't matter. He's proud of the boy -- proud the way a father would be.

If he's the lightning bolt which turned Wally West into Kid Flash ... is he the lightning bolt which turned Barry Allen into the Flash? Is that even possible? As he runs by that moment in time, he sees that no, he isn't -- in fact, he passes the lightning bolt responsible.

And now he's running through the past, running through times before he'd ever become the Flash.

1983.

I sense a disturbance in the Force, Wally thought, realizing that if he made stupid movie references out loud as often as he did in his head, the Justice League would force him to team with Plastic Man all the time. But it was true, he did sense something wrong with the Speed Force, centering around Funkmaster Flash.

It was hard maneuvering through the crowd, but with Wally's speed, he could zip through the brief openings people left as they shifted position -- even then, it took him most of a minute to get anywhere near the Funkmaster. A minute! FF's absorption of vibrations was apparently sucking off Wally's speed, too -- but that didn't make any sense. The dancers weren't moving any slower.

Was the guy messing with Wally's connection to the Speed Force? That could be a really bad thing -- especially since, with the cosmic treadmill as yet uninvented, the Speed Force was Wally's only feasible route back to 2001.

A quick test, waving his fingers back and forth, showed that he was back to his old speed limit -- just under the speed of sound. That was like ... walking speed!

But it was still fast enough for people to notice. For everyone to notice, including Mssr. Funkmaster himself. Guy didn't look too happy about it, and he moonwalked on over.

"Hey, dude," he said, landing in a full split from a backflip. "Hope you're not trying to cut in on the Funkmaster's moves -- especially not with some bargain basement costume like what you're wearing."

Wally tried not to snort. "Just getting a better look, my man," he said, which was true. This close, Wally could feel the proximity of the Speed Force -- this guy's powers seemed to work by opening up a portal right to it, which as far as Wally could figure was ... dangerous.

And this close, he could see the toll it was taking on the self-proclaimed Funkmaster -- the sweat, the palpitations. Guy looked like he was running a marathon barefoot.

Barry.

The 80s slipped away like bad Mexican food, and Barry wondered how far this race would take him. All the way across time, from the end to the beginning? What would he see there?

He prayed he'd make it there. Too much rode on this. Iris. Wally. Fiona. Diana. Hal. Clark. Dinah. Kara. Ollie.

They were all counting on him. He couldn't let them down.

Ahead of him was a ... a breach ... a pothole in time ...

... he couldn't stop. He stumbled.

1983.

Something was coming out of the Speed Force. That must be how Wally got here -- this guy, this Funkmaster, was carrying around a rip in time accessible through the big S.F. Not a healthy thing -- no wonder he looked so sickly up close.

If it was tied to him closely enough, it'd be like carrying around an extra heartbeat or two --

-- and as the Speed Force rippled open on the dance floor, that toll became more obvious. Funkmaster Flash was having a heart attack, stroke, something --

-- and Wally thought he knew how he could save the poor guy's life and get home, all in one blow. Thinking fast had its advantages. He dove over the guy -- leaping into the air at his current top speed of about 500 miles per hour -- aiming for where he knew the Speed Force rip would be.

Bounced into something on the way. It HURT -- like tackling Orion in a football game. But he made it. He wasn't just in touch with the Speed Force again -- he was inside it.

He had to stop thinking about Funkmaster now. He focused on his anchor ... his tie to home, the woman who brought him back time and time again. Linda.

2001.

"Dammit, Wally," Linda murmured. "Come back. Come home." She knew Max and Jay could hear her, and probably Bart, too, if he wasn't still emptying the cabinet of every snack food Wally had ever stocked it with (the optimistic part of her looked forward to the shopping trip with Wally that this would necessitate).

She didn't care.

She was his anchor. She MATTERED to him. She was the one he came back to, every time something stupid like this happened -- which was once a week, it felt like. She, Linda Park. He loved her, so much that he could defy physics for her.

He'd come home. She knew it. She could almost feel him ... feel the breeze against her cheek as he whizzed into the room ...

Barry.

Something had pushed him -- something big and strong but familiar -- pushed him out of the way of the pothole and back into the path of the race. Whatever it was ... if Barry succeeded in his mission, that thing had helped save the universe.

He wondered if it was something he could thank. Or if he'd get the chance.

2001.

Wally panted. Usually it didn't take that much out of him, but ... he'd run into something else, in the Speed Force. Something which had broken his concentration, and thickened his breath. Something? Someone? He didn't know. Savitar and Johnny Quick were both in the Speed Force somewhere, dead or alive -- others must have been, too.

But he was back. He was home. He'd returned to his anchor.

He wiped sweat from his mouth and looked up into the woman's eyes.

"Hi ... Flash ..." Karen Starr said, uncertainly.

Express Mail

You know, given the norm of superhero costumes, the most difficult thing this issue was coming up with a costume for the Funkmaster which would seem tasteless in comparison.

Bill Kte'pi