Short on Time

Chapter 27

"Professor Stein, can you hear me?" Caitlin asked as I absorbed the energy coming off of him.

"Hold him steady!" I said as Barry stood behind me.

"He's dropping out," Caitlin said.

"Come on, come on, come on, come on," Cisco said.

"Cisco, we're losing him!" I said.

"Got it!" Cisco shouted and put the device on Stein. "Oh, Dios Mio. Thank God." 

"He's getting worse," I said as I slumped against Barry. 

"Look, I did what I could to re-engineer Doctor Wells's original stabilizer to quell the reaction, but I don't know what he used as a power source. Best I could find was the one from his wheelchair," Cisco said. 

"And how long will that last?" Barry asked. 

"Well, that's the problem, is we had already used up most of its energy trying to dampen the metas' powers during our little rogue air trip with Weather Wizard and company. I think we got a few days tops," Cisco said.

"And he's stuck in bed?" I asked.

"Yeah, when he wakes up, I'm gonna transfer the stabilizer to this, give him a power cane, get him moving," Cisco said.

"We gotta figure out a way to save him," Barry said.

"I think I might know how to do that," Caitlin said. "When the Particle Accelerator exploded, the dark matter that collided with Professor Stein fused with the Firestorm matrix and altered the normal molecular processes that occur within his body. Those highly reactive molecules needed something to bond with in order to stabilize."

"And that's where Ronnie came in," Barry said.

"Yes, and now that Ronnie is no longer a part of Professor Stein..."

"Those molecules don't have anything to bond to. And the longer he goes without merging, the more unstable he becomes," I said. 

"All right, so, what do we do?" Barry asked.

"We find another participant," Caitlin said.

"Okay, cool, so, how do we do that? Are we just gonna make a Tinder app for potential meta-humans? 'Cause I'm pretty sure merging with Stein and randomly bursting into flames sounds like the biggest 'swipe left' of all time. I mean, even if we could find someone willing, Stein can't just merge with whoever he wants," Cisco said.

"No he can't, but I have done some research, and found two potential candidates that might be compatible with him. They both were affected by the dark matter, and they were both admitted to the hospital showing symptoms of gene rearrangement mutation. And they both share the same blood type as Professor Stein and Ronnie," Caitlin said.

"All right. I mean, this is more than organ donation. We'll need more than tissue typing to see if their bodies are compatible," Barry said.

"If I can isolate the genetic locus of the two candidates and cross-reference it with the mutations in Professor Stein, I might be able to find a match and save his life," Caitlin said.

"What do you need to do that?" Barry asked.  

"All right, blood samples from both potential candidates."

Barry vanished and then he was back. "Damn, that was fast even for you," Cisco said.

"I may have skipped the asking for permission part," Barry said.

"What they don't know won't hurt them," I said.

"Let's see if we can't find a match," Caitlin said as she took the blood and left.