The Great Escapes

[run_barry]

Since Yamato offered to come to Central City and help with the epidemic crisis, things have been crazy, but handling them has been a whole lot easier now that Barry isn't operating alone.

He even got some rest in, on Yamato's orders, and they've got a bit of down time as far as emergencies in the city go so they're using it to work on other problems.

While Yamato recalibrates the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite to track the new meta they suspect is behind a whole bunch of the crime, and a death-trap or two set for Barry, Barry is getting his science nerd-amateur virologist on, trying to find a cure to the bug that has so much of the City down; including his team.

Sitting at a desk in the Cortex, Barry works away with a microscope taking notes on a tablet. Beside him are several boxes of chicken nuggets which he's working through, with a few empty ones already in the waste bin nearby.

In the middle of the space on the floor GP the porg is munching on shrimp treats while bopping around an inflatable S.T.A.R. Labs beach ball.

Comments

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato's response to this is to reach into the rucksack by his feet, pull out a bottle of digi-juice, and gently toss it towards Barry. "Have some juice, Gramps."

Then he turns towards the console, cocking his head. "Not just yet, but they should be any second now. Want me to check who the duty officers are?"

Barry might well know them, after all.

[run_barry]

Catching the bottle against his chest, Barry sets down his coffee and opens the juice.

"Yeah, let's see who's going to be out there," he nods before taking a drink.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato types for a second or two, before bringing up the list of duty officers on the large monitor, just in the corner of the map.

"Recognise anyone?"

[run_barry]

Barry looks over the names, frowning just a little.

"Huh. Adams and Walters, those two are both rookie cops. They don't usually put two rooks on a detail like this. They must be really strapped for personnel."

The third name sets him a little more at ease.

"They've got officer Doyle with them, though. He'll be running point, so they should be alright."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"You'll be getting them out of there as soon as the attack starts anyway," Yamato says. "Try not to worry too much."

[run_barry]

Nodding to that, Barry sheds his frown and works on the juice.

All there is to do now is wait.

"How is your arm, by the way?" he asks, taking a seat in a chair. "I know we talked about it a bit before, but you must be about ready to head back to the Digital world, right?"

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"Yeah, it's okay. Aches a little sometimes, especially if I tense it up for too long, but it's fine. I'll be heading back to the Digital World pretty soon," he says. "Trying to relax has been hell, I don't know how anyone manages it. I've spent hours training in the flight sims just to have something to do."

[run_barry]

"Relaxing is hell? Clearly you need hobbies, man," Barry teases just a little.

"I get it, though. Hard to take downtime when you know stuff is waiting for you." Under good circumstances Barry is fine to kick back a bit and take time, but in a situation like the one now, or the one waiting for Yamato's return, it's harder not to get anxious about it.

"I am glad you've been taking it easy, though. As disappointing as it will be for Cisco to find out he almost had to build a robotic arm and now doesn't need to, it's probably for the best all around."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"... Maybe," he allows, a little petulantly. "But since I don't have any real hobbies, I just had nothing to do except use the sims, cook, and practice music, and those all get boring after a while."

He makes a quiet grumbling noise. "I told you I would, didn't I? I can't exactly go breaking my word," he says, gruffly. "Ugh, which means I'm still going to have to tell Cisco what happened before this trip is over."

[run_barry]

"I never doubted you," he replies.

"You know he's going to declare he can't leave either of us alone again," Barry notes, because if Cisco doesn't know from Caitlin already Barry still has his own confession to make as well.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato turns a little pink at that first part, ducking his head.

He does chuckle after that, though, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, he is. You're not going to live down the whole glucose-crash thing for a while."

[run_barry]

"Don't I know it," he sighs. "The first time I did it everyone was hitting me with a welfare check all the time. Even people who don't know about my metabolism because I managed to faint in public."

That was all sorts of not fun.

"But hey, at least with your thing your future isn't going to be full of needles." Because Caitlin was definitely going to be doing a lot of tests in the near future to prove to herself that Barry was recovering from all of this okay.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"Just shows that a lot of people care about you. There are worse things," Yamato says, a little fondly. "And besides, you already know that I think you should be jabbed with even more needles. For your own good."

[run_barry]

"Yeah, I guess that's true," he admits, shaking his head at Yamato in bemusement. "Lucky for me you aren't the guy with the needles."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"I bet Bar would give me some if I told her I wanted to stab you with them."

She definitely wouldn't. She wouldn't even give him one (1) delicious fugu fish.

Yamato's distracted from that particular chain of thought by an alert coming up on his console, and he turns towards it. "Looks like our duty officers have checked in. It's nearly go time."

[run_barry]

"Bar happens to really like me, so I doubt it," he returns with a chuckle.

He's on his feet and standing beside Yamato a moment after the alert sounds, looking at the screen.

"Hm. They swapped out Doyle on the detail for Thawne. That... that's Eddie." That wasn't necessarily bad it was just... "Huh."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato's eyes flick over to Barry, then back to the console. "Is that going to be a problem?"

Barry did mention, after all, that the Flash wasn't exactly Eddie's favourite person right now.

[run_barry]

Barry shakes his head.

"No, it's fine," he says, smothering apprehension by denying it.

"I mean, he's not going to be thrilled that we're basically setting it up for the guys in his custody to escape, but as long as we get them all back it'll be alright."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"Sorry about that," Yamato says. "But we will get them all back, and we'll take another dangerous meta-criminal off the streets at the same time. Whether Eddie gets over it or not is up to him."

[run_barry]

Yamato was right, and if it were possible to tell Eddie the plan Barry liked to think that the man would agree.

"Yeah, we will," he says nodding firm. "Let's do this."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato gives Barry a quick grin, and starts bringing up camera feeds from across the city: Ones of the presumed ambush site, and also ones to follow the transport with.

"Barely any traffic on the roads at this time, we're not going to have long before they reach the ambush," he says. "And I don't have any good sightlines into the alleyways around it, so I can't say what kind of numbers we're dealing with."

[run_barry]

Barry watches, scanning over everything as Yamato brings it up.

"Alright," he says. "I guess the good news about that is whoever we're up against won't have any visuals either."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"Yeah, if you need to hide or flank someone, you can just duck into the alleyways and use those. Just be aware that there's cameras on both the road that the transport should be attacked on, and the roads on the other sides of those alleyways. It's a bunch of little blind spots, not one big one."

He flicks his gaze over to one end of the console, bringing up a map of the city and quickly running a scan for radio signals. Nothing shows up, at least not yet.

"We've got a few minutes yet. You ready?"

[run_barry]

Listening to Yamato while studying the maps, Barry files all of the information away.

Straightening up, he reaches back to pull on the mask and then nods.

"Yeah, I'm ready."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato follows the transport on the cameras until it starts heading down that narrow road. "Be ready to move," he says to Barry.

He runs the scan again. Still no detectable signal. Yamato's sure the Camera Commander is watching, but if they are, the signal they're creating isn't strong enough to be seen through the background noise yet.

His eyes narrow a little as the transport starts approaching the junction. Then, all of a sudden, a lorry rushes in to block the road off, and several shapes start emerging from the alleyways.

"Go."