Message in a bottle

Chapter 7 - Help Me

"Let me verify if I got everything right; when Barry got disconnected while he was vibing with you, his consciousness got lost and accidentally jumped into the computers instead of going back in his body. Does this sound about right?" Joe questioned, who was standing and facing the back of the cortex where Cisco and Caitlin just finished exposing the whole ordeal while leaning against the back of a chair.

"Pretty much," confirmed the engineer, avoiding eye contact.

"I don't get it," admitted Joe, still trying to make sense of what they had told him, "if Barry was the anomaly in the system, why did he try to electrocute himself to death? Twice?" His comment received nods of approval from his son and H.R. who was standing close to him.

"I don't think Barry was trying to harm himself. Quite the contrary, he probably was trying to avoid being destroyed by our attempts," explained Caitlin.

"When he saw that I was coming up with a plan to destroy him and realised he was still unable to communicate with us, Barry probably tried to jump back into his body on his own," added Cisco to help clarify the whole situation.

"So, what you said about Barry being-" Wally made a quick side glance to his family, not sure what word he could use; deceased, brain dead, dead-dead? He turned his attention back toward Caitlin, "What you said about Barry being gone, it's because what's making Barry...well, what's making him Barry was in a computer?''

"Exactly," nodded Caitlin, causing Wally to smile enthusiastically. So, hope wasn't all lost... right?

"So, we can bring him back in his body and wake him up?" Joyfully asked the young speedster.

Cisco looked down while her doctor friend gently laid down a soothing hand on his back, "theoretically it could be possible. Except, since we rebooted everything, we can't find any trace of him."

Getting up from the chair he had been slumped in during the whole exposé, H.R. straightened himself up and banged on the main computer desk with his drumsticks to draw the attention on himself.

"I might not understand much of anything about what you're talking about, but how can you detect if a person's soul, or whatever you want to call it, is gone from your computers? Couldn't B.A. just be hidden in some dark corner of your facility? Could've he have jumped into something else without the need of a cable?"

"Is that possible?" Inquired Iris, her eyes shining with renewed hope. Her mind was desperate enough at the moment to jump on anything, even H.R.'s words.

"I... I don't know, Iris," stated Caitlin, "I really, really wish that I was able to tell you all that there is a way out of this and that Barry is going to be fine, but it's been hours since the reboot and we can't find a single sign of him."

"I killed him," Cisco mumbled sadly, barely above a whisper. His voice was barely loud enough for anyone to understand before he threw his black marker on the ground and stormed out of the room, brushing against Joe's side on his way out.

Nobody said a thing, what was there to add? Barry was gone. The hero had been desperately calling them out for help, as he knew he was about to see his consciousness get destroyed and what did they do? They simply decided it wasn't worth considering it. What did Iris do? She preferred spending time writing her article. Why didn't she spend more time looking out for solutions or for signs he was still out there?

Wait...Her article.

Iris' eyes widened suddenly as she gasped, "I was writing an article."

Confused faces turned in her direction.