*At STAR Labs, in Harrison Wells's private office.*
Wells sat alone, staring at the Forbes article on his tablet. The office was dark except for the pale blue glow of the screen. He hadn't moved in nearly an hour.
The photo showed Barry looking confident. Professional. Brilliant. The kind of photograph that made careers. The kind that ended rivalries before they began.
But Wells saw something else. Something in Barry's eyes. A depth that shouldn't exist in someone so young. Knowledge that went beyond normal experience. Beyond ambition. Beyond even talent. Something almost ancient, buried just beneath the surface of that easy, unguarded smile.
'Who are you really, Barry Allen?' Wells thought.
He'd investigated Barry's background thoroughly. Methodically. With the same precision he applied to every variable that entered his orbit. Everything checked out. Childhood tragedy. Raised by Joe West. College degree in forensic science. Six months at CCPD before quitting to pursue independent research. Clean. Ordinary. Unremarkable on paper.
All consistent. All believable.
Except the results didn't match the timeline. Revolutionary battery technology developed in months, not years. Particle accelerator problems solved in minutes that had stumped Wells's own engineers for weeks. Optimizations that required years of accumulated expertise produced almost instantly, as if the answers were already known before the questions were properly formed.
None of it fit normal genius patterns. None of it fit any pattern Wells recognised.
Wells had known geniuses. Real prodigies. People who operated on different levels than ordinary humans — who saw connections others missed, who arrived at solutions by routes no one else would think to travel. He had studied them, befriended a few, outmanoeuvred most.
Barry was beyond even that. Operating on a level Wells had only seen in...
He stopped that thought. Pushed it away. Firmly.
'Unlikely,' Wells told himself. 'Nearly impossible.'
But not completely impossible. And Harrison Wells had long since learned never to discard the improbable simply because it was uncomfortable.
Wells pulled up another window on his tablet. His private research files. Information he'd gathered quietly, carefully, over years — about dimensional travelers. About people from other Earths who had slipped through the cracks between worlds. About the signs they exhibited when they thought no one was paying close enough attention.
Anachronistic knowledge. Impossible capabilities. Awareness of things they shouldn't know — events not yet happened, technologies not yet invented, names of people they had never formally met.
Barry didn't show the obvious signs. There was no stumbling over dates, no visible disorientation, no careless slips in casual conversation. But subtle patterns existed beneath the surface. Tiny inconsistencies that could be explained individually — fatigue, distraction, the quirks of an unusual mind — but that formed a larger and more troubling picture when examined collectively.
Wells needed more data. More observation. More time with Barry in controlled situations where unusual knowledge might slip through the cracks, unguarded, unfiltered. Where instinct would override caution.
The symposium would help. Watching Barry present publicly, unscripted, in front of an audience that would push and probe. Seeing how he handled unexpected questions from people who had nothing to lose by being difficult. Looking for tells — the half-second pause before an answer, the precise certainty where uncertainty should exist.
And the continued work on the particle accelerator provided daily opportunities that no symposium could replicate. Watching Barry solve problems in real time. Noting his methods. The direction of his thinking. Whether he worked toward answers or merely confirmed what he already knew. Identifying whether he was simply brilliant, or something far more complicated than brilliant.
Wells closed the files and stood. Walked to his window. Looked out at the construction site where the particle accelerator was taking shape against the night sky — steel and concrete and ambition rising floor by floor, week by week.
March 2015. Fourteen months away. Everything needed to be ready by then. Every variable accounted for. Every contingency planned.
His dimensional bridge. His evacuation protocols. His plans to save Earth-2 from what was coming — the catastrophe only he knew was already in motion, already irreversible, already counting down.
And now Barry Allen was part of those plans. Not by accident. Integrated. Essential. Too valuable to sideline, too central to the work to lose at this stage.
But also potentially dangerous if Wells's suspicions proved correct. A wild variable in a system that could tolerate no unexpected deviations.
'Who are you, Barry Allen?' Wells thought again, his breath fogging faintly against the cold glass. 'And what do you really want?'
No answers came. Just questions multiplying in the silence. Suspicions deepening, layering over one another like sediment, slow and relentless and heavy.
Wells would watch. Would gather evidence piece by careful piece. Would eventually discover the truth, as he always did, as he had always done — not by rushing, but by being patient where impatient men made mistakes.
Because Harrison Wells hadn't survived this long by ignoring his instincts.
And his instincts screamed that Barry Allen was hiding something enormous.
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