F I F T Y - S E V E N:
surprises

"Flash missing vanishes in crisis," Cisco read the headline. It was from a futurist article that freaked Bibiana out.

"After an epic street battle with the Reverse-Flash, our city's very own Scarlet Speedster disappeared in an explosion of light," Barry read the article.

"Barry, look at the date," Caitlin pointed out.

"April 25, 2024," Barry read out loud.

"That's a long time from now," Bibiana commented with a frown. How was any of that possible?

"Guys, when I fought the Reverse-Flash at Christmas he said that we'd be fighting for centuries," Barry confessed.

"Wait, you can't really think that this is from... the future," Caitlin said.

The future was something Bibiana once thought about when she was twenty. She was going to work somewhere, meet a nice person, settle down, have a couple of kids. If her health allowed it, she would've died of old age in her sleep after meeting her grandchildren. That plan seemed to change after the accelerator and becoming Electric Storm. Now she didn't even know if her future kids will have powers. Are metahuman DNA dominant over normal DNA?

"That would mean Dr. Wells, whoever he is, is also--"

"From the future," Barry finished Cisco's sentence.

"This is freaky," Bibiana admitted. Without realizing it, she was biting her lip.

"I have to say, I'm really digging the brighter red suit," Cisco confessed. "And the white on the symbol, that's dope. Wait a second. Suppose we now change color on your suit. Will it be because we got the idea from this picture? That would mean we're living in a causal nexus. Wow, this is so trippy. Like 'Marty and the Polaroid' trippy."

"Not as trippy as the name on the byline and the photo credit," Caitlin said. Bibiana looked at those two things and was shocked.

By Iris West-Solace

The girl wondered if that meant Bibiana was marrying Iris in the future or Kai was. Unless Ross or Chang Jr. got a divorce. Then there were also her cousins on her mom's side. But the girl was leaning towards herself and Kai.

"Does that mean I'm marrying Iris? Or Kai is?" Bibiana asked.

"You didn't look at the photo credit," Caitlin replied. Bibiana looked again and was once again slightly shocked.

Photo credit to Bibiana Solace-Allen

"Iris West-Solace? Bibiana Solace-Allen?" Barry read out loud.

Bibiana felt like she shouldn't have read or heard any of that. Now she'll feel the slight need to play matchmaker. For one, Iris never met Bibiana's twenty-three-year-old brother. Unless she was unaware of them meeting. There was also the fact that Kai had a girlfriend that she never met.

"Mazel tov?" Cisco told the two.

"What does that mean?" Bibiana asked.

"Hebrew, the ancient language of the Jewish people," a female voice over the speaker said. It freaked Bibiana out as she jumped away from the small table to look at the ceiling.

"Uh-uh. What the hell was that?" Cisco asked.

"Is someone here?" Barry asked the pretty empty room. "Hello?"

A giant head appeared where the newspaper once was. That was an adding reason to freak Bibiana out.

"Good evening, Barry Allen," the head replied.

"Uh... Hi. You--?" Barry started off. "You know who I am?"

"Of course," the head replied. "Barry Allen. Director of Central City Police. CSI Division."

"Congratulations, I guess?" Bibiana told her boyfriend. Not her husband. Her boyfriend.

"I guess you got a promotion," Cisco suggested.

"Also known as the Flash. Founding member of--" the head was cut off. It made Bibiana wonder what Barry founded.

"What are you?" Barry asked the head.

"I'm Gideon, an interactive artificial consciousness," Gideon answered.

"AI. Sick," Cisco said. It reminded Bibiana of Jarvis, Tony Stark's AI.

"You know Dr. Wells?" Barry asked.

"Yes," Gideon replied.

"Do you know who he really is?" Barry asked.

"I don't understand the question," Gideon replied.

"Huh." Was all that came out of Bibiana's mouth. Gideon also reminded her of Siri when Bibiana needed to know a simple answer

"I-I mean, what is he doing here?" Barry asked. "Why did he come here?"

Gideon's head was soon put onto a body. Yep, nothing creepy about that hologram.

"To kill you," Gideon answered. That was something Bibiana didn't want to hear. Cisco's phone soon started to buzz.

"Wells is in the building," Cisco informed them.

"How do you know that?" Caitlin asked.

"I put a tracker on his wheelchair," Cisco explained.

"Smart." Was another word that came out of Bibiana's mouth. She wasn't taking the news well. The AI had informed them that her future husband was going to be killed.

"Which, if we're wrong about him and he is paralyzed, I'm going to hell for that one," Cisco added to his previous sentence. "He's in the Cortex. Ask questions fast."

"Why did he killed Nora Allen?" Barry asked.

"Because he was angry," Gideon answered.

"About what?" Barry asked.

"That you escaped," Gideon answered. Bibiana gave up on chewing her lip and started to tap her foot. She was very nervous at that point.

"He's in B level. He's coming this way," Cisco informed them.

"I can zap out of this room? Right?" Bibiana asked.

"Yes," Gideon answered. That was all the questions she needed answers. Sure she could ask about the future and who made Gideon but she was ready to leave.

"What does he want from me?" Barry asked.

"For you to be the Flash," Gideon replied.

"What?" Barry questioned.

"Well, maybe that's why Wells let the particle accelerator explode. So that you could become the Flash," Caitlin explained her theory.

"Why? I mean, for what reasons?" Barry asked.

"Guys, we gotta go. He's almost here," Cisco informed them. Bibiana could feel the electricity in her body ready to become pure. They were ready to go into the electrical system and to get away from the unknown room.

"Hurry," Caitlin told Barry.

"All right," Barry replied. Bibiana was all set to turn into electricity.

"Wait a second. Wait," Cisco said, stopping them. "What if HAL over there tells Wells that we were in here?"

"That would be bad," Caitlin commented.

"I always wanted to hack futurist tech," Bibiana said, slightly excited.

"If you can get into its operating system, maybe you can disable its memory core," Cisco told Bibiana.

"Uh, Gideon, can you show us where your operating system is?" Barry asked Gideon. Bibiana was ready to hack future stuff with Cisco.

"Certainly," Gideon replied. The AI showed them a very complicated operating system.

"Yeah. Nope, that's not gonna happen," Cisco said.

"Uh." That's all that came out of Bibiana's mouth.

"Guys, he's in the corridor," Caitlin informed them.

"Gideon, would you be a doll and not tell anyone?" Bibiana asked with a nervous laugh. The world finally gave her something she couldn't hack into yet.

"Uh, Gideon, could you just, like, do what Bibiana said and not tell him that we were here?" Barry asked.

"Of course," Gideon replied. That surprised Bibiana. "I will accept any command given to me by you or Bibiana Solace-Allen."

"Huh, that sounds nice," Bibiana said. Then it hit her that Wells was almost there.

"Barry."

"We gotta get out of here," Caitlin told Barry and Bibiana.

"Wait, wait. Why would you accept our commands?" Barry quickly asked.

"Because you both created me," Gideon answered. Bibiana didn't waste a second after that to zap her way out of the room. She was even careful to not make the lights flicker on her way out.

⇝⇝⇝

"Really?" Joe asked after they told their story. "For four really smart people, that was really stupid. What if Wells had caught you in that...?" He didn't know what it was called.

"Time vault," Cisco informed Joe.

"Thank you," Joe told Cisco. Bibiana crossed her arms while her mind stayed in the time vault. Gears ticked into her mind before she lightly shook her head.

"Okay, I know we've seen a lot this past year, but time travel?" Eddie asked.

"I did it," Barry said, causing everyone to look at him. "Or I will do it. I mean."

"Excuse me?" Eddie asked.

"One of the two speedsters in Barry's house the night his mother died was Barry," Cisco explained. "I mean, the Flash. He was there. Which means that one day in the future, Barry will travel back in time to that night."

"Okay," Eddie replied.

"It gets easier to think about all of this with time and the more things happen," Bibiana commented.

"Actually, I wasn't talking about that," Barry informed them. That was news to Bibiana. "I kind of already time-traveled. By accident."

"What?" Joe asked.

"When?" Bibiana added.

"I was running to try and stop a tsunami from hitting the city--" Barry was cut off.

"When was that?" Caitlin asked.

"A few weeks ago," Barry answered.

"I don't recall a giant wave of water heading towards the city," Bibiana said, shaking her head.

"Right before you started getting those dreams," Barry told Cisco.

"Oh. You mean the ones where Wells uses his super-speeding hand to shred apart both of our hearts?" Cisco asked, motioning to himself and Bibiana. The girl gave a small nod to acknowledge the fact she died in Cisco's dream. "Those?"

"Yes, right. So... What if they're not dreams?" Barry suggested. The Solace girl's heart tightens at the thought if actually dying.

"What else could they be?" Caitlin asked.

"Memories," Barry answered.

"I'm not following," Joe said.

"What if that day, Cisco and Bibiana found out that Wells is Reverse-Flash, and then Wells killed them but when I ran back a day, I changed the timeline so that never happened?" Barry explained.

"If it never happened, how can Cisco remember it and Bibiana can't?" Joe asked.

Bibiana didn't know what was causing her to want to lie. Maybe it was the fact that she was used to lying or she felt the need to back up Cisco.

"I actually had a dream the day before Cisco told us."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Barry asked.

"I figured since Cisco had shared his dreams, I didn't need to share mine," Bibiana lied again. It pained her to lie to Barry as often as she did.

"Okay, so how do they both remember it happening if it never happened?" Joe asked.

"I don't know. I don't know," Barry repeated. "I think the important part is he does. Guys, I think I've got a really bad idea."

Bibiana rubbed her forehead as she thought about it. If it was a bad idea, should they really do it? They can probably come up with a good idea.

Her chocolate brown eyes looked over at Joe and noticed him staring off into space. She wondered what he was thinking about.

"Joe. Joe, are you listening?" Barry asked his father figure.

"Yeah," Joe replied.

"We... We have to access Cisco's or Bibiana's memories somehow," Barry explained. Oh, Bibiana didn't like the idea so far. "Somewhere in their subconscious is the key."

"The key to what, now?" Joe asked.

"Getting my dad out of prison," Barry replied.

"And how are we going to do that?" Caitlin asked.

"We're gonna get Wells to confess to murdering my mom," Barry replied.

⇝⇝⇝

"Did you really have dreams?" Cisco asked Bibiana. They both sat in Bibiana's car while she drove them towards Cisco's apartment.

"No," Bibiana answered truthfully. Her grip on the steering wheel loosen. It was nice, to tell the truth. "I just want to know why I don't remember these tragic deaths."

"We'll figure it out," Cisco assured the girl. "And thank you for lying."

"No problem," Bibiana replied. Cisco quickly turned to look at Bibiana.

"Okay, what's your favorite color? Caitlin and I have been having another argument," Cisco told Bibiana. "She says it's yellow and I say it's purple. I mean, your suit has a lot of purples."

"It's actually orange. I thought you guys knew?" Bibiana questioned. Her eyebrows furrowed before she realized that she didn't talk a lot about herself. Sure, occasionally a story or two would escape from her.

There were only very few people who knew her well. Her family, Felicity, Michelle, Tobias, and Natasha. It probably didn't help that three of those people were Bibiana's ex from college. They seemed to know more than Caitlin, Cisco, Barry, and Iris.

"No, you don't really talk a lot about your favorite things," Cisco replied. "Like your favorite animal, celebrity, movie, or singer slash band. But we for sure know that your Team Captain America."

"It's a seal, Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happiness, and Bon Jovi. If you are wondering what song, it's Livin' On A Prayer," Bibiana answered all the questions. "And recently, I've become Team Iron Man."

"Really? Livin' On A Prayer? I saw you more as an It's My Life kind of person," Cisco said.

"Hey, it's Bon Jovi. Anything is great from them," Bibiana replied.

•○•
We hit 4K! And we're close to 5K!!! I want to do something special for when we hit 5K. I don't know if it should be a Q&A or having a contest... I don't know! !!

Thank you for reading! If you liked this chapter and want to spend 3 seconds to vote that would be great! Thanks!

JMC