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The Gem Cities' Mining Museum was on the Keystone side of the river, backed against a small cliff that if Barry remembered right was actually originally a small quarry, originally intended to just get some rocks for building the towns as they were then.
The last time Barry had been here he'd been thirteen on the worst field trip he'd ever been on. Mostly because Tony Woodward had tried to push him down a mine shaft.
It wasn't busy on a Tuesday at lunch. A few people dotted around, but Barry was going to assume not many people brought their babies and that was why he was getting weird looks at having Jenna on his back in that papoose thing the Legends had produced from somewhere so he wouldn't need to bring the pushchair. He definitely remembered stairs, Angela had joked she should have brought her wheelchair instead of her cane to see what the adults would do.
It had changed since then. For one, they'd installed ramps so Barry would have been fine with the pushchair, but Jenna seemed happy up on her perch.
They had better lights too. When Barry had last been the building had been dark and damp. It still wasn't great, but he felt slightly less claustrophobic.
The air still had that biting chill that made his skin crawl.
The museum itself wasn't that big, not compared to some of the others across the Gem Cities. It had some old pick-axes, helmets, other pieces of equipment that had been left over, and it went along explaining the history of the mines and how they'd turned Central and Keystone from small towns to sprawling cities with the wealth and jobs they'd brought in.
They'd named the two the Gem Cities because they'd found diamonds down there, and there were still influences all over the place, if you knew where to look.
Barry had had to write essays on it.
At the back, what they called "the highlight of the tour" was the main entrance to the mine. The museum wasn't built on the mine, it had solid foundations, despite thirteen year old Barry's visions of the building crumbling around them and them falling into the abyss, but the entrance was there.
When Barry had last been here they had just opened it up. It had been cordoned off then, and Barry remembered a black void. He remembered Tony shoving him over the cordon and crying out in panic, feeling like he was falling forever, but in hindsight, looking at it now, he could only have tripped onto a flat piece of ground, and they had been working in there so there probably were lights. There was probably more than just a rope too, but kid him had been so unsettled by the whole place already, and it had been right when they were telling the story about Fletcher and Sutter, Tony had muttered about leaving Barry- very scared of heights, falling down things, and the dark- down there too, and he'd panicked, which had probably exaggerated everything in his memory.
And then Iris had panicked about Barry panicking and the two of them had to be escorted out, which at least meant Iris hadn't had a chance to punch Tony and gotten yet another detention, but they did both miss the end of the trip while their teacher called Joe to pick them up.
Hanging out with James Forrest, the old C.S.I., at the station waiting for Joe to finish his shift had been way better than the mining museum.
Now, you could fully go into the mine. Just a small cave, not down anywhere, but there was a shaft with what looked like a thick piece of glass over it so people could look down.
Barry was staying as far away from that as possible. The sooner he could leave the better, this place still gave him the creeps.
At least Jenna was enjoying herself.
Nate and Ava seemed to be enjoying the museum too.
"Hey, Barry, it says this was a previously unknown shaft uncovered about a year ago with a skeleton in it," Sara said from where she was reading a sign near another shaft Barry was steering well clear of.
"Yeah, Iris said," Barry said. "They were saying it's Ulysses Sutter, but so many people died down here, who knows."
An icy wind rushed past and all Barry's hair stood on end.
"His name was good for publicity, that's all," Barry said.
"The co-founder of the mine?" Ava asked.
"The story goes that the mine was drying up but Ulysses Sutter was convinced he could dig deeper and find more diamonds," Barry said. "Marshall Fletcher disagreed, felt it wasn't worth what it would cost, but Sutter insisted. One night he disappeared and he was never seen again. Fletcher assumed he'd gone digging himself, and there had been a collapse, but there were claims from the miners of them hearing Sutter's voice calling out for revenge. They did find one last diamond pocket a few days after he disappeared, a pocket Fletcher didn't have to share this time that made him a very rich man, some say Fletcher killed Sutter for the money. Some say for love, he married Sutter's widow not six months later, rekindling a love they'd had when they were children, he claimed. Some say Sutter was a cruel husband and Fletcher was protecting her. Some say they were already having an affair, that her children were Fletcher's, not Sutter's, and he found out. But Fletcher stuck to his story of not knowing the truth, sent parties searching for Sutter, and there was no sign of him. They sealed up the mines and the story spread, claiming Sutter's ghost stalks the old mine shafts, searching for a way out and to begin his revenge."
"You already know about the ghost?" Ray asked.
"There's no ghost."
"Are you sure about that?" Sara asked. "Hollis Holden said Sutter made him do it."
"Ghosts aren't real," Barry said. "It's a story meant to terrify children into staying away from the mine shafts."
"Didn't you spend years searching for the impossible? You don't believe in ghosts?"
"I believe in carbon monoxide poisoning," Barry said. "I spent years searching for ways to explain the impossible, there's a scientific explanation for everything, some things just need more research to find out what it is."
"Magic is real," John said.
"I thought Wally said you have a villain who is a wizard," Nate said.
"Abra Kadabra is a time traveller," Barry said. "He uses technology from the far future to rob banks and makes it look like magic. It's tricks, all magicians use tricks."
"Does this look like a trick?" John said. He snapped his fingers and a flame appeared over his hand.
"I'm sure there's an-"
"You know that ghost you just said doesn't exist," Zari said.
Zari pointed behind him and Barry turned around to see a hulking figure, his face obscured by shadows and a thick, wiry beard, clutching a pick-axe, wearing an old helmet.
Jenna started babbling, and Barry rushed to grab her, to hold her properly before he could run and then-
And then-
He felt thirteen again, except this time he really was falling, the shaft walls crumbling and falling around him, and there was so much pain, so much betrayal, and he was still falling, the rocks so loud as they tumbled around him.
His body was moving, he could feel it, but he felt so disconnected from it, everything was so far away as the black closed in.
Jenna was crying.
There was someone standing at the top of the shaft, a figure, his back to Barry, and Barry leapt up and grabbed him, tossing him across the cave.
"How?" a voice demanded, echoing all around him, filling the cave, determined to force him back down.
The figure started to move and Barry threw him again. He couldn't see anyone, just the door to the mine, and it was locked now.
A locked door couldn't stop him.
He phased through and fell to his knees. That cold was back, the figure next to him looking furious, and Sara and Ray grabbed him and pulled him through a portal, back to the Waverider where Behrad was waiting and Zari was holding Jenna.
"How was the museum?" he asked.
"I hate that place so much," Barry said. He went to run to Jenna.
His speed wasn't working.
"Nanites," Barry guessed.
"They should wear off," Ray said. "Sorry, Barry."
"Got a scientific explanation for that?" John said.
"Give me enough time," Barry said. He shivered, a horrible sticky feeling everywhere, and his skin felt like ice.
Barry took Jenna from Zari and held her close.
"Thanks," he said. "She's okay."
"Zari took her back to the ship before Sutter finished possessing you," Sara said.
"We still don't know-"
"The man who attacked you in Jitters said Sutter too," Sara said. "I think we can assume the ghost of Ulysses Sutter is after you."
"Maybe he heard you saying you don't believe in ghosts and really wanted to prove you wrong," Ray said.
"I don't think that's why, Ray," Ava said. "He attacked Barry in Jitters before we went to the museum. You said people heard the ghost calling out for revenge?"
"Hollis Holden killed people," Behrad said. "If he needs a body to keep killing people, the Flash is probably a good choice, you'd be really hard to stop."
"But he went after Barry as Barry, not the Flash," Ray said.
"You're a forensic scientist," John said.
"For Central, not Keystone," Barry said. "I'm not the only forensic scientist in the Gem Cities."
"Do you know what happened to the remains?" Ava asked.
"No, I think it was while I was in prison, I wasn't really keeping up with the news."
"You were what?" Nate asked.
"I got framed for murder, it's a long story, I'll tell you later."
"Gidget, you must know," Zari said.
"The bones were dated to the 19th century then sent to C.C.U. to the history department," Gideon said. "Mercury Labs assisted in mapping the DNA that could be recovered then the complete skeleton was returned to the Gem Cities Mining Museum to be buried in the mining cemetery that remains on the land. Currently they lay under an unmarked gravestone until a certain identity can be established. Hello, Barry Allen. It's been a long time."
"Hello, Gideon," Barry said. "I doubt they have anything that is confirmed to have Sutter's DNA they could match."
"What about through a descendant?" Nate asked.
"It might be too many generations. If you can find a descendant, and even if the records offices can lead to anyone, there are already questions about the parentage of his children. I don't know anything about his family, I know Sutter came to the Gems from somewhere, he wasn't born here, his birth records, if they exist, won't be here, potentially if he had a sister who then had a long line of daughters they could match mitochondrial DNA to confirm a common maternal ancestor? I think I read something in a journal."
"You don't want to find a descendant," John said. "He hasn't been able to hold a possession for long, but with a descendant it would be much more stable."
"Which means if he does have one, they're in danger," Sara said.
"I can call Tina McGee," Barry said. "She knows I'm the Flash and she might know someone."
Barry shifted Jenna to one arm and pulled out his phone. She grumbled and leaned on him, eyes closing.
"I know, really not what we planned for today," Barry said.
Sara asked Gideon if she knew anything right as Tina answered his call.
"Christina McGee," she said.
"Hi, Tina, it's Barry Allen," Barry said. "Sorry, I'm not disturbing you, am I?"
"No, not at all," Tina said. "I assume this isn't a social call?"
"Unfortunately not," Barry said. "I wish. I was wondering if you knew anything about the remains that were found in the old mine, the ones they assume belong to Sutter?"
"Not much," Tina said. "We only helped with DNA sequencing, I didn't hear back after that. I understand the history department had some troubles last year."
"Yeah, I know about those," Barry said. "You don't know if they were looking for relatives?"
"I believe there was one student, James Ramirez, who was looking," Tina said. "If I remember correctly, he was writing a paper and thought it might be interesting to compare the DNA we managed to extract with a modern day descendant."
"James Ramirez, you're sure that was his name?"
"Quite certain," Tina said. "I presume you know him."
"I met him in Jitters earlier," Barry said. Jenna fussed slightly. "I know, I know, Sara, does this ship have a cot or anything?"
"I'll go fabricate you one," Zari said.
"Barry, is everything all right?" Tina asked.
"I'm babysitting," Barry said. "Do you know if they have a way to confirm they're Sutter's remains?"
"I know dating them matched up, and they did belong to someone of around the age Sutter would have been," Tina said. "Facial recognition software did look close to a painting left of Sutter, and descriptions of both him and his supposed ghost. The shaft also wasn't marked, and it looked like a cave in behind him, rather than him being crushed, and there were marks on the wall that looked as if he'd attempted to find a way out, but some of the bones were quite damaged."
"That would explain why people said they could hear him," Barry said. "If he didn't die immediately, he could have been calling for help, but if no one knew the shaft was there, they wouldn't know where to look for him, and once people started telling ghost stories, they kept growing."
"Barry, you know there's a ghost," Sara said. "The ghost tried to possess you, you know the ghost is real."
"What was that?" Tina asked. Zari and Ray carried a large cot with several blankets in, right as Barry caught Gideon saying a familiar name
"Thanks," Barry said. "Gideon, did you just say Fallville?"
"Barry?" Tina asked.
"Ray, can you take this?" Barry asked. He gave Ray his phone then put Jenna down and tucked her in.
Tina stepped through a portal and Barry blinked.
"What is this?" Tina asked. "Doctor Palmer?"
"Hi, Doctor McGee," Ray said.
"Hey, Tina," Barry said. "These are my weird friends, this is their time machine, that's the future version of the A.I. I'm currently building, this is Jenna, Gideon, I did hear you right."
"Your what?" Tina asked.
"What was that about Gideon?" Ava asked.
"You said Fallville," Barry said.
"It's a little town in Iowa," Nate said.
"I know, I was born there. What's it got to do with Sutter?"
"His oldest daughter moved out the city after he disappeared," Nate said. "Gideon said her children moved around a little which is why they were harder to find but her great-granddaughter settled in Fallville and married a farmer named Malcolm Thompson."
"And the name repeats itself a few times in the family," Barry said.
"Yes," Gideon said.
"You know someone with the same name," Sara said.
"My grandfather," Barry said.
"That's why James Ramirez was looking for you," Behrad said. "He must have found out you're Sutter's descendant, and then he attacked you because Sutter possessed him to find you, that's why he couldn't remember after."
"And it explains the aberration too," Nate said.
"What's an aberration?" Tina asked.
"It's a change in the timeline," Nate said. "Gideon picked up news reports of the Flash killing a lot of people tomorrow and only being stopped by Vibe killing him, so we came to see what's going on. We're actually from a year in the future and Barry was fine last time we saw him so-"
"I'm sorry," Barry said. "Did you not think to tell me that sooner?"
"It's not going to happen," Sara said. "Look, we'll call Joe-"
"You can't call Joe," Barry said. "Sara, Joe is in court right now, he needs to be, he has to give evidence in the Holden case, and Cecile is the D.A. and really can't leave, you said Mick went to find Lisa and rob a bank so I'm pretty sure Cisco and Caitlin are busy, Iris is also in court covering the case for the Citizen, and Nora asked to go with her, so I really don't want to inter- John, fine, I will accept ghosts exist, when he tried to possess me before I was falling and there were rocks falling around me, that was his memory. Can he see mine?"
"The most recent ones first," John said. "He didn't manage to fully possess you, why not?"
"If Barry's his last living descendant, he'll try again," Sara said.
"I'm not," Barry said.
"There are other branches of the Thompson family tree," Gideon said. "I can look for them."
"You don't need to," Barry said. "If he can see my memories he knows about Nora."
"She went with Charlie and Mona to try and find out more about Holden," Behrad said. "They should be back soon."
"I can go and find them," Ray said.
"Not your Nora, my Nora," Barry said. "I can take Jenna to Earth-2, Harry's always happy to watch her, she'll be safe there, she-"
"Barry, who's Nora?" Zari asked.
"My daughter."