Chapter 19 : Breach Protocol
The explosion ripped through the east wall at 9:47 PM.
I was reviewing containment schematics with Cisco when the cortex shook, ceiling tiles raining down like snow. Alarms screamed to life—the perimeter breach protocol I'd helped design three weeks ago, now alerting us to exactly the kind of threat it was meant to detect.
"What the hell?" Cisco dove for his console, pulling up security feeds. "East wing, someone's—"
The second explosion answered his question.
Through the smoke and debris, a figure emerged. Male, mid-thirties, hands crackling with the distinctive energy signature I'd learned to recognize. Metahuman. Something explosive—maybe concussive force projection, maybe actual detonation capability.
He wasn't here by accident. His eyes swept the cortex with the systematic assessment of someone who'd studied the layout beforehand.
"Where's the Flash?" His voice echoed off the damaged walls. "I was told he'd be here."
Told. Someone had sent him. Someone who wanted to test STAR Labs' defenses when the speedster was away.
Barry was across the city—some crisis that had pulled him away an hour ago. The timing wasn't coincidental.
"The Flash isn't here," Cisco said, backing away from his console. His hand reached for something under the desk—probably one of his prototype weapons. "But we can take a message."
The meta laughed. The sound was ugly, hollow, the laugh of someone who'd stopped caring about consequences.
"I'll leave a message alright."
His hands rose, energy building between his palms. The glow intensified, targeting the central console. Targeting the equipment. Targeting—
Caitlin.
She stood frozen near her medical station, directly in the blast path. Her training hadn't prepared her for combat. Her instincts screamed to run, but her body wouldn't cooperate.
I moved without thinking.
The strength enhancement activated on reflex—not full power, but enough. My muscles responded faster than normal human capability should allow, propelling me across the cortex in a burst of motion that probably looked like adrenaline to anyone watching.
I hit the meta mid-charge.
We crashed through a workstation, rolling across debris-covered floor. His concentration shattered, the building energy dissipating harmlessly. I ended up on top, knees pinning his shoulders, hands controlling his wrists before he could aim again.
"Don't."
He tried to pull free. Enhanced strength kept him down.
"I said don't."
His hands started glowing again—trying to charge another blast despite the compromised position. I drove my elbow into his temple. Not hard enough to kill. Hard enough to end the conversation.
He went limp.
The whole exchange had taken less than ten seconds.
I stood slowly, breathing hard, adrenaline still coursing through my system. The cortex was silent except for the blaring alarms and the crackle of damaged electronics.
Caitlin stared at me from across the room. Her face was pale, eyes wide, processing what she'd just witnessed.
Cisco's expression matched hers. The prototype weapon dangled forgotten in his hand.
"What..." He swallowed. "What just happened?"
"He was going to hurt someone." I flexed my hands, checking for damage. My left arm throbbed where I'd landed on debris—bruising, nothing serious. "I stopped him."
"You tackled a metahuman." Cisco's voice climbed an octave. "A guy who shoots explosions from his hands. You just... tackled him."
"Former military." The cover story came automatically. "Instincts."
"That's not instinct. That's—" He stopped, searching for words. "That's something else."
Before I could respond, the cortex doors burst open. Barry skidded to a halt in a blur of red lightning, surveying the destruction with obvious horror.
"I got the alert—what happened? Is everyone okay?"
"Meta attack." I stepped away from the unconscious figure on the floor. "Cisco can explain. You'll want to get him into containment before he wakes up."
Barry's gaze moved from the damaged wall to the restrained attacker to me. The questions forming in his eyes were obvious.
"Harry stopped him," Caitlin said quietly. She'd crossed the room without my noticing, her hand finding my arm, fingers pressing against the bruise. "He saved my life."
"Former military?" Barry's tone carried skepticism wrapped in gratitude. "That was more than basic training."
"Eight years of service teaches you a few things." I met his gaze steadily. "The rest was adrenaline."
He didn't believe me entirely—I could see it in his face. But he also didn't push. Not now, with a meta to contain and damage to assess.
"We'll talk later," he said. "Thank you, Harry. Seriously."
He scooped up the unconscious attacker and disappeared in a streak of lightning. The breach alarms finally fell silent, leaving only the hum of damaged equipment and the sound of my own heartbeat.
Cisco was still staring at me. The protective instinct I'd noticed in him before warred with genuine awe at what he'd witnessed.
"That was insane," he said finally. "Like, legitimately insane."
"Probably." I allowed myself a small smile. "But it worked."
The shaking started twenty minutes later.
I'd retreated to a quiet corner of the cortex while the others assessed damage and interrogated the contained meta. The adrenaline had faded, leaving behind the familiar tremor in my hands—not phasing this time, just ordinary human reaction to extraordinary stress.
I'd nearly killed someone. In front of Caitlin. In front of the team I was supposed to be infiltrating.
The violence had come so easily. Too easily. Harrison Griffin's military training had merged with my own survival instincts into something efficient and brutal. Eight seconds from civilian to combat mode, eight seconds back to apparent normalcy.
You're becoming something, I thought. Something you're not sure you want to be.
"Hey."
Caitlin's voice pulled me from the spiral. She stood at the edge of the alcove, concern evident in every line of her posture.
"You're shaking."
"Adrenaline crash." I held up my trembling hands. "It happens."
She crossed the distance and took them in hers. Her fingers were cool—always cool—and impossibly steady.
"Thank you," she whispered. "For what you did."
"I wasn't going to let him hurt you."
"I know. That's why I'm thanking you." She squeezed my hands until the trembling eased. "You scared me a little. Not the fighting—the way you looked. Like it was nothing. Like you do it every day."
I don't do it every day. Just more often than you know.
"The training takes over." Another half-truth. "You don't think—you just act."
"Is that what it was? Just training?"
The question carried weight. She was asking something deeper than tactics—asking who I really was beneath the consultant mask.
"Mostly," I said. "The rest was wanting to protect something that matters to me."
Her breath caught slightly. The answer satisfied her, at least for now.
We stayed like that until my hands stopped shaking entirely.
Wells arrived after midnight.
His wheelchair rolled into the cortex with the measured pace I'd learned to recognize as deliberate. Every movement calculated for maximum effect, every gesture designed to reinforce the paralyzed genius persona.
"I heard there was excitement," he said, surveying the damaged east wall. "Everyone intact?"
"Thanks to Harry." Barry gestured in my direction. "He took down the attacker before anyone got hurt."
Wells' gaze found mine. The calculation behind his eyes was obvious if you knew what to look for—the predatory assessment of one dangerous creature evaluating another.
"Interesting instincts, Mr. Griffin."
Not a question. An observation. A filing-away of data for future analysis.
"Former military." I returned his gaze steadily. "Old habits."
"Indeed." He held my eyes a moment longer than comfortable, then turned his attention to Cisco's damage report. "Well, let's see what repairs are needed."
The conversation moved on. The team discussed structural damage, security failures, the meta's refusal to identify who hired him. Normal crisis aftermath procedures.
But I felt Wells' attention throughout. A weight at the edge of my awareness, watching, cataloguing, wondering.
Two predators in the same hunting ground. Each aware the other was dangerous. Neither willing to show their teeth first.
The game had new stakes now.
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