001 - Arrival

[fasterthan]

[Action - 1665 Nelson - Morning] [When Wally wakes up, the world is molasses.

No... that's not right. The world is still the world, it's just he's moving through it like it's molasses.

Okay that's kind of overstating it. But still. It's obvious from the moment he wakes up and tries to look around the room that he can't move even a tenth of the speed he's used to. In fact, he falls rather spectacularly out of bed when he tries to zip around the room and ends up flailing, tripping, and landing quite gracefully (and loudly) on the floor.

He's stuck at normal speed.

How...

He's kind of freaking out. The room is weird, there are weird pictures with him in them and the clothes are all wrong... and everything he does is so slow. True, he wasn't The Flash his whole life, he was normal once, too, but just like he had to get used to suddenly having super speed, now he's suddenly without it and he has no idea what's going on. Time to start talking himself through it.]

Okay. So I have no idea where I am, my suit's nowhere to be seen, and my powers are completely gone.

[He scratches his head.]

Guess this calls for some investigating.

Crap. Never was really good at that.

[He sighs.]

Guess I should start by getting dressed. Don't want to start an investigation in my PJs.

[He'll do so and start poking around the house.]

[Phone - Later that morning] So hey, Wally West here. Sorry for interrupting your beautiful morning but I'm randomly dialing and you're the lucky winner! I seem to be new here... uh... I think I got the basics down... mind helping me out with some specifics?

Comments

[fasterthan]

Oh. Yeah, that'd be interesting. But you're saying the place loops? What do you mean by that?

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

Think of it as a very tiny globe. Imagine you could move at a supersonic speed and wanted to get to California by crossing the Atlantic. Now, just shorten the distance traveled to a scale of a couple of miles.

[fasterthan]

[If the situation weren't so serious and it weren't so important to find out everything he can, he'd laugh at the illustration. He doesn't have to imagine he could move at a supersonic speed, he's done it before. But there's also the whole secret identity thing so even if it weren't serious... yeah. Anyway.]

...yeah okay, I get it. So you're just saying no matter where you go you just end up walking all the way around back to where you started.

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I've been testing the barrier for about 6 months now with no real breaks in it found.

[fasterthan]

Huh. That's... really disturbing.

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

Yes it is. But its better than doing nothing.

[fasterthan]

Well yeah, doing nothing would be unhelpful and boring.

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'm helping, but I'm at least trying to keep busy.

[fasterthan]

You're helping me right now. That counts.

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

I try to help where I can, but that's how I grew up. That and I'd rather have someone give good advice instead of have everyone go to the Legion of Doom or something for data.

[fasterthan]

...okay now you're gonna have to explain the Legion of Doom, because that does not sound good.

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

Its one of the resistance groups. There are 3 or 4 of them. I loose track. I do computer work for any of the ones that ask, but that one was founded by a fellow named Edward Nigma and another named Lex Luthor. They tend to go for more socially unacceptable escape methods.

[fasterthan]

[That sound you hear is Wally facepalming. Hard. It'd be just his luck that those guys would be here. And setting up a "Legion of Doom" while they were at it. Seriously.

But... that also means it's possible other people Wally knows might be here...]

Have they hurt anyone?

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

That depends on if you consider the drones here to be people. They generally leave those of us who were taken from other places alone.

[fasterthan]

[He's... not really sure what to think of that.]

The drones, though. Aren't they people, too?

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

I um... I'd like to think so, but.. I'm not sure. They are what happens when the town erodes someone's personality. Sometimes its only temporary but, its permanent a lot of the time.

[fasterthan]

So what, it's like mind control?

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I'm a physicist and computer specialist, this is out of my area of study.

[fasterthan]

...out of curiosity how old are you?

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

I just turned 16.

[fasterthan]

Oh wow. That's... really impressive, Ruri.

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

It is less impressive when you consider the genetic engineering.

[fasterthan]

Not really. It's still really great, and it's even better that you're using your talents to try to figure out a way out and help other people out.

[hontobakabaka.livejournal.com]

What else would I do? Take over the world? Only an idiot would want to run it.

[fasterthan]

...there's a lot of really smart idiots out there.