Chapter Text
I knew I couldn’t sit around feeling sorry for myself for very long. There was a world to save, and I was the one supposedly in charge of saving it. So even though my father and his best friend were MIA, my boyfriend wasn’t going to be of much use, and I had nothing remotely resembling a lead, I had to go forward. Somehow.
“Sweetie, what happened?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I stood up. “We have a criminal to stop.”
Mom stood up as well. “You’re not going to be of any use if you keep bottling up what’s going on. If you get it out, you’ll be more effective going forward. I’ve learned that from Oliver.”
“Ha. Like Dad’s the poster child for expressing emotion.”
“Well, I learned what not to do from him. Just talk to me, Ryder.”
“I was keeping a big secret from Don.”
“The location of his sister?”
“No. Something bigger. Pretty much the biggest thing you can keep from someone.”
“And he didn’t take it very well?”
“You couldn’t hear us shouting a block away? He made it pretty clear that we’re done.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“How do you think that makes me feel? I’m devastated, Mom. But I still have the same cause, that hasn’t changed.”
“Do you think it’s changed for Don?”
“No, he understands the mission. He probably just went to STAR Labs. I trust him.”
“If you trusted him, why did you keep this supposedly big secret from him?” Exactly like Don said .
“Because it wasn’t relevant to the mission.” I sighed. “Since the Event, I’ve had to streamline my life. Ignore anything besides the mission. I’ve compartmentalized who knows what in my life, to keep things simple.”
“That doesn’t sound simple. It sounds like a lot of work.”
“You just don’t understand. You haven’t lived in the post-Event world.”
“Maybe the version of me hasn’t, but there’s a version of me that has. What do I, I mean me in the future, think about your secrets?”
That was a more complicated question than she could possibly imagine. How many times had I asked myself if my mom would approve of what I was doing? How much had I wished to talk to her one last time to ask her if I was doing the right thing? And now I had as close of a chance as I was ever going to get, and she was asking me questions like this.
“You don’t know my secrets in the future.”
“Oh.”
“No one does. That’s why they’re secrets.”
“I just think it doesn’t do anyone any good to keep secrets from the people they love. Even if it’s hard. Especially if it’s hard.”
“Does this conclude our emotion sharing time? I want to check CCTV feeds from the surrounding areas of the water treatment plant.”
She gestured to the computers. “Yeah, go ahead.”
Of course, CCTV of the surrounding area was dead before, during, and after the abduction. These guys really had left no trace. Just like our research on Luthor, the trail had gone cold.
Cold.
“Mom, pull up everything you have on NuCorp.”
“The energy company?”
“Yeah.” I started rifling through the papers on patents that LuthorCorp had. The patents for NuCorp weren’t in here. “And get me all of NuCorp’s recent patents.”
Once the patent list was printed out, I scanned it until I found what I was looking for. NuCorp had invented a gadget that went onto sinks. It turned tap water even colder, so that it was practically ice cold. It was a consumer device, and would be the perfect way to change the composition of the drinking supply.
“Here it is! This invention would allow LP to be widespread.”
Mom grabbed the paper from me. “This patent was only filed this year. It could take years before the device is on the market.”
“Well, NuCorp has years. And once the chemical was in the public drinking supply, it wouldn’t be filtered out. The chemical is considered non-hazardous. It would keep being cycled in, until everyone had it in them.”
“But then why even try dumping it into the water supply?”
“As a test run. See what happens, then mass market it with a higher dosage beyond Star and Central City.”
“Okay, so we need to confront NuCorp.”
“No, we need to confront Lionel Luthor.”
“LuthorCorp isn’t related to NuCorp.”
“According to Mrs. West-Allen, they’re a company that lobbied the government for LuthorCorp’s chemical enhancements. They are a LuthorCorp subsidy, but somehow Luthor’s keeping that from being public knowledge. Probably so if this NuCorp thing goes south, he’s far away from the blame.”
“So you’re saying Luthorcorp has a separate branch whose main goal is to poison the water supply?”
“Yes. The Contamination Unit.”
“But why?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“You’re going to confront Lionel?”
“Not until I’m sure we have the neutralizing chemical perfected. I’m not going in unless I know how I’m getting out.”
“But what about Oliver and Dig?”
“Luthor has them. I just know it. I trust them to take care of themselves. I want to run a full chemical analysis on what’s in this coolant to make sure raw LP is in there.”
“I can help with that!”
“I know. Let’s get started.”
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“You can’t be on the track team.”
“Why not?”
“You’re literally the fastest girl alive. That puts 4 billion other women at an unfair disadvantage.”
“But Zach Prescott is on the track team, and this way we’d get to spend more time together!”
“Excuse me?” Frankie was not presenting the best argument to her father.
“I mean, I’d have the opportunity to get to know him and see if he’s worthy of me.”
“Dax Preston or not, you’re not joining the team. If you want to get more running in, the speed lab is always open to you.”
I barely looked up from my magazine. This was a typical day at the Allen household, with two angsty sixteen year olds living in it. Well, one was angsty and one was just kind of...there, staring at me a lot. I had learned to ignore Don by this point, but Frankie’s outbursts could not be ignored.
“I don’t want to run around training all day, I want to impress a boy. Didn’t you do all sorts of stuff when you were in high school to impress Mom?” I had to laugh. Grandpa Joe had told even me those stories: trying out for the football team (and becoming the waterboy), entering the state science fair (and being disqualified for having too advanced a project), and punching a boy for trying to kiss Iris (she wanted the boy to).
“Yes, I might have pulled some stunts to get your mother to notice me, but none of them worked. Moral of the story being if you want someone to notice you, let them notice you for who you are.”
“Oh, so I should tell him my secret identity?”
“No, just let him get to know who you are on the inside.”
“Easy for you to say,” she murmured before Mr. Allen’s watch beeped and he flashed out of there. Frankie turned to me. “You’re good at forging signatures, right?”
“Oh, no. I’m not signing your track permission slip.”
“Why not?” she whined.
“Because your parents are going to notice you’ve joined the team. There’s practices, and meets, and a whole new set of clothes. Plus, your dad is right. It would be unfair for you to join.”
“I could moderate my speed. Just be like, the second-fastest girl. Or maybe the fastest, but only by a little. Please, Ryder?” She tried to hand me the permission slip. I exchanged glances with Don, and he just rolled his eyes.
“No. If you’re looking for something to do, try spending more time at STAR Labs. You know they would love to have you around more.”
“Or at all,” Don offered.
This time it was Frankie’s turn to roll her eyes. “Uncle Cisco always wants to run experiments on me and how fast I run. He can’t accept that the two of us run at different speeds.”
“That’s because you’re never around long enough for him to get a proper measurement.”
Frankie slumped down on the couch. “It’s not fair. I don’t get to do anything fun all because of powers I never asked for.”
Don looked at her in disbelief. “But you love your powers! How many times have you told me how great it is to get up one minute before the tardy bell rings?”
“Well, right now, they’re making my life suck! All the boys at school think I’m a loser because I’m always out with my family, everyone thinks I’m the stupid twin because my brother is bound for medical school, and I don’t have a life!”
I had known Frankie had been feeling this way for a while, but I don’t think Don had. I knew he loved his powers and felt a deep sense of duty, like the rest of us did. Frankie was never like that. She only did what was required of her on the hero front, and tried to live a normal life outside of that. This seemed like it was coming close to the final straw, though.
“Don, could you give us a second?”
“Sure.” He sped out.
“Frankie, the sooner you let go of this idea that our lives are going to be normal, the better.”
“How can you say that? You could’ve had a normal life, and you threw it away. You’re athletic, pretty, and smart. You could’ve had it all. But all you want is to run away from all of that.”
“I’m not running away, I’m running toward. I’m running toward a life that helps people.”
“And I can’t help people if I’m just a normal person?”
“The impact you have as a speedster is leaps and bounds the impact you could have as a normal person.”
“I just want to be a normal high school student first, like John was. He says that it’s not selfish to want that.”
“You’ve been talking to John?”
“What? I can’t talk to your BFF?”
“Not what I meant. I just didn’t know you two talked.”
“Just part of me accepting the inevitable, I guess. In the future, we’ll be on the same team.”
“Yeah. I’m not saying you have to become a hero right this second, but you do have to accept that your life is never going to be normal. But I’m here for you.” I opened my arms up for a hug, which she reciprocated.
“Thanks, Ryder. I’ll be ready someday. Just not now.”
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Oh, Frankie . She was the last one of us to deserve being trapped in the Speed Force. She never wanted any of this. I heard a ping, and looked up.
“Analysis is done.” Mom looked satisfied.
“And?”
“There’s definitely raw LP in the NuCorp coolant system.”
We were this much closer to having them right where we wanted them.