Second Chances: Flash

Chapter 27

"Okay, this place is dope." Chester P. Runk said as Cisco showed his new intern around his lab.

"Thank you. I've been trying to convince the bosses to make that Mercury Labs slogan for months." Cisco said with a grin, since he was right about him and Chester working well together. Especially since Chester was showing the same genius he had in the old reality, even though right now, like Allegra, Chester had aged down a bit. And that was fine with him, since that meant that Cisco could be more of a mentor to Chester to help him avoid creating black holes in random places again.

"Trust me Cisco, if it were just up to me, that would be our slogan." Barry said with a grin as he showed up in the doorway of Cisco's lab.

"The board still won't approve it?" Cisco asked.

"Nope." Barry said and Cisco grinned.

"Chester, please meet the man in charge, my boss and close friend, Barry Allen. Barry, this is our new intern, Chester P Runk." Cisco said, making the introduction.

"Nice to meet you Chester." Barry said, holding out his hand to Chester, who shook it.

"You too Mr. Allen." Chester said in awe at meeting a man who was a legend in the science world.

"Please, call me Barry, everyone else does and as you can tell by the way we dress here, we're a very casual work environment." Barry said, since they were all wearing casual clothes.

"Yeah, I noticed, that's nice." Chester said.

"Anyways, Barry, I'm guessing you didn't just pop in to meet our new intern?" Cisco asked.

"No it isn't, but I'm glad that he's here, though he'll need to keep quiet about this." Barry said.

"What is it?" Cisco asked.

"How would you feel if I told you that I was thinking about having Mercury Labs break into the video game industry?" Barry asked.

"That if I'm not put in charge I'm quitting." Cisco said immediately and Barry chuckled.

"Exactly why I came here. Do you think that in addition to your responsibilities as a member of our R&D development team, you can also handle running our new gaming division. Especially since Mercury Labs just bought the rights to all of Central City's resident heroes, meaning only we can make video games about the Flash and his team." Barry said and Cisco laughed, since that meant that in a way, they'd be making money off their superhero alter egos.

"Are you kidding, I've been dreaming of an opportunity like this since I was a kid. But I still want to be able to work on serious science. Including this." Cisco said as he walked over to his computer and after disabling numerous security systems, he pulled up a file on his computer.

"Project Vogel?" Barry asked, since this was news to him.

"Something your stepmom had me working on before she stepped down." Cisco said.

"Cisco, this looks like." Barry said.

"The plans for an actual, working cold fusion reactor? That's because it is. It's based on the research of an old german scientist Bernhart Vogel who may have been on the verge of cracking cold fusion before he died. I came across his work while going for my masters in engineering. I brought it to Tina's attention and she agreed that it was worth pursuing and I think that soon we may be able to start building it." Cisco said.

"And we'll continue funding that research, since cracking this could solve a lot of problems. You sure you can balance this with running the video game division?" Barry asked.

"I might need to take a step back from video games once we actually start building this thing, but right now, it's still in the early development stages, so I think I can balance it. Especially since I'll have people to help run the video games division, but I want to work on both. Besides, it could still take a while to finish developing this tech and while I have other projects going on, I can balance them with the new responsibilities." Cisco said.

"And I can help." Chester said.

"I'm sure you can." Barry said.

"I'm not just talking about video games. I think I see a few errors in Cisco's calculations on the cold fusion reactor." Chester said as he showed them.

"Damn, he's right. This kid's even smarter than I thought." Cisco said as Chester's work had just saved him tons of time.

"Yeah, I think we may need to promote him from intern to part time employee." Barry agreed and Cisco nodded.

"Anyways, considering how busy you'd be with this promotion, I think you should at least run this by Cindy before you accept, since I think she'd appreciate knowing before you accept it." Barry said and Cisco nodded.

Speaking of Cindy, she was currently standing in Captain Singh's office, arguing with the captain about the Flash.

"No Reynolds. I am not going to authorize a police investigation into the Flash. Not when the city is already calling him their hero. I heard Mayor Bellows mention that he was thinking about changing the sign of the city to Welcome to Central City, home of the Flash. I'm not explaining to him why we're launching an investigation into someone the city views as a hero." Singh said.

"Captain, this is exactly why we need to investigate him. We can't let the people of this city put their faith in some freak who runs around in a mask with no accountability." Cindy argued.

"No, this is about your vendetta against all metahumans because of what happened to your father and I can understand that to a point, but the rule is, innocent until proven guilty." Singh said.

"Captain, we cannot allow these freaks to run around with powers they waste." Cindy said.

"And the Flash and his team are likely the only people qualified to deal with them. As far as I'm concerned, metahumans are just like regular humans. There are good ones and bad ones. And I for one am glad that the Flash exists to help deal with them. Otherwise a lot of people could get hurt or worse. Drop this or you'll find yourself back in a uniform. Officer Reynolds." Singh said, making it clear that he would demote her if she didn't drop it and Cindy knew that he was serious.

"Fine, but can you at least give my request for a specialized metahuman task force some consideration for the metas who aren't the Flash?" Cindy asked, trying to salvage some kind of victory from this.

"I'll think about it, but for now, tread carefully and Joe is in charge of all your cases. Until you drop this vendetta, I don't want you leading any more operations. Consider yourself on probation until further notice." Singh said, though he mentally made a note to reach out to Cindy's parents to see if they could help reign her in. It might seem childish, but in his opinion, Cindy was acting like a child, so he was going to treat her like one. Especially since she was only getting worse with her vendetta.