Rocky Raymond //Book One\\ COMPLETED

Chapter 38- The Nuclear Man

MacKenzie's POV

Caitlin, Cisco, Barry and I were walking up to the balcony in Jitters the morning after Barry's date. I was FINALLY able to get that stupid sling off and now I only have a brace on my wrist.

Anyways...

"Dude. You are a crime-fighting-lady-slaying machine." Cisco tells Barry.

"Oh, God, It was so cool." Barry smiles. "She was so cool. We're going on another date tonight."

"Tonight? Really?" Caitlin asks as we walk up the stairs.

"Aren't you worried about moving too fast?" Cisco asks.

"No. What do you mean?" Barry asks. "It's a second date."

"No, no, no, no. I meant going too fast, hurrying." Cisco explains. "Look, I mean, you're fast, but there's fast and then there's fast. Am I being subtle enough.

"You're really not." Barry says.

"Cisco's right. With your increased blood flow and increased heart rate, theoretically, your speed could cause you to.." Caitlin trails off.

"You're gonna need to think about a lot of dead puppies." Cisco says. "Like, we're talking a whole kennel. And baseball. Cold showers. You know what? Nuns."

"Okay. First of all, we got Mack, so dial that kind of talk down." Barry says, sitting down on one of the chairs and Caitlin sits on the other. I go over to Barry and he puts me on his lap as he continues to talk. "Second, It is just a second date."

"A second date? With who?" Iris asks, coming over to us. I've never actually met Iris before but she seems cool.

"Um, with Linda Park, the sports reporter." Barry says and Cisco's phone rings.

"That's great." Iris says as Cisco answers his call. "Linda seems great and you're great. So.. great."

"Hey, I gotta go. I gotta help out a friend." Cisco says and I grab his arm.

"Ronnie?" I ask him quietly and he shakes his head no so I let him leave.

"Everything okay? We just got here." Barry says as Cisco leaves.

"Yeah. I'll see you guys later." Cisco says and he leaves.

"Quentin Quale was attacked near his lab at Concordance Research last night." The tv says and we all look at it. "There were several unsubstantiated reports of the so-called 'Burning Man' in the area following the attacks."

"Burning Man?" Iris asks. "Caitlin, weren't you asking about him a few weeks ago?"

Caitlin and I look at each other and then I squeeze Barry's hand tightly.

***

"Well, It appears letting Ronnie roam free is no longer an option." Dr. Wells says from the computer in the cortex.

"He's not even Ronnie anymore. He's Martin Stein walking around in Ronnie's body, like a vampire." Caitlin says next to me from a different computer.

"Is there a reason that Stein's brain is in control of Ronnie's body, not the other way around?" Barry asks.

"Simple Darwinism, I suspect." Dr. Wells says. "A brand new organism will select the strongest parts of itself in order to survive. Survival of the fittest. In this case, Ronnie's body, Stein's mind. In any event, he badly hurt an innocent man, and we have hunted metahumans for less. Caitlin, Mack, we need to know that you guys are on board with what needs to be done here."

"No." I say, but Caitlin puts her arm out in front of me.

"How do we find him?" Caitlin asks.

"Quentin Quale, the scientist Ronnie attacked, is a former colleague of Martin Stein." Dr. Wells says. I really wish he would use the word 'attack'. My brother isn't a bad person. "If Martin is indeed in control of Ronnie's body, he may be trying to figure out exactly what's happening to him."

"What do we know about him?" Barry asks. "I don't even know what Stein looks like."

"Martin Stein." Dr. Wells says, pulling a picture up on the tv screen behind us.

"That's Stein?" Barry asks.

"It's." Dr. Wells says.

"I've seen him before." Barry says.

"When?" Caitlin asks.

"On the train, the day the accelerator exploded." Barry says. 

***

Barry had the idea of going to Stein' house to talk with his wife.

"Of course I've heard of STAR labs." Mrs. Stein says. I look around the first room of the house and look at all the pictures. "Martin was always vocal about the competition."

"STAR labs is actually helping the CCPD looking into your husband's disappearance, Mrs. Stein." Barry says, walking around with her and I latch onto Barry's hand and follow them around.

"Oh please, call me Clarissa." Mrs. Stein tells Barry.

"The Conway prize for Scientific Advancement." Dr. Wells reads off one of the trophies.

"Martin was very proud of that one." Mrs. Stein says.

"I'd always hoped to win one of these myself." Dr. Wells says. "Oh, and look at that. He won it three times."

"Takes a special kind of person to make Dr. Wells jealous." Barry says to Mrs. Stein.

"Well, Martin had a talent for making people jealous." Mrs. Stein says. "Even me. I sometimes think Martin loved his theorems and experiments more than he did me."

"I'm sure that's not true." Caitlin says, coming from the other room.

"And you haven't heard from your husband since he disappeared." Barry says.

"No." Mrs. Stein says.

"Mrs. Stein, could I show you a photograph?" Barry asks and he pulls a picture of Ronnie out of his pocket. "Have you seen this person before?"

"Yea. I have." Mrs. Stein says. "Who is he?"

"Um..." Barry starts.

"He's just a person of interest in your husbands case." Dr. Wells says.

"When did you see him?" Caitlin asks.

"I started getting the feeling that someone was watching me, and sometimes I still do." Mrs. Stein says. "And about a month after Martin disappeared, that young man showed up here."

***

"So it appears Martin Stein and Ronnie Raymond have something in common beside sharing a body. They both feel the need to protect the women they love." Dr. Wells says as we walk down the drive way.

"Clarissa said she feels like she's being watched." Barry says.

"Well, then, this has all the makings of a stakeout." Dr. Wells says.

"But Barry's got a date tonight." Caitlin says.

"I'll cancel." Barry shrugs.

"No! No, go." Dr. Wells. "If we need you here, something tells me we can get you back in a hurry."

Barry smiles and then speeds away.

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Hope you guys liked that chapter. Comment and vote. Next chapter up WEDNESDAY.

-MC