Chapter 20 : Eyes On You
The pipeline interrogation yielded fragments.
"Dead drop instructions," Barry reported, frustration evident in his voice. "Cash payment, target description, timeline. He never met whoever hired him."
"Professional distance." I studied the containment cell readout from across the cortex. "Whoever organized this knows operational security."
"Which means they're smart enough to be dangerous." Cisco pulled up the meta's file—real name Marcus Webb, no relation to my contact from the shipping company. "Shrapnel. That's what I'm calling him. His powers involve fragmenting matter and projecting it at high velocity."
"Like a living bomb."
"Basically. Low-grade explosive projection with added shrapnel effect." Cisco shook his head. "Not top-tier, but dangerous enough for a test run."
Test run. The phrase kept recurring in my analysis. Someone had probed STAR Labs' defenses, measured response time, catalogued the team's capabilities. The attack wasn't meant to succeed—it was meant to gather information.
"Who would want to test our security?" Caitlin asked the question I'd been avoiding.
Multiple answers existed. The metas I'd depowered might have connections seeking revenge. Criminal organizations disrupted by Flash activity could be scouting vulnerabilities. Or—
Wells.
The thought crystallized slowly. What better way for Thawne to assess an unknown variable than to throw a threat at him and watch the response?
I had no evidence. Just instinct and the memory of those calculating eyes.
"Could be anyone," I said aloud. "Criminal elements, rival metahumans, government agencies. Without more information on the hiring party, we're speculating."
"Harry's right." Barry crossed his arms. "For now, we increase security protocols and hope whoever sent this guy doesn't have a backup plan."
The meeting dispersed. I stayed behind, ostensibly reviewing damage reports, actually watching Wells' reflection in a darkened monitor.
He was watching me too.
The summons came on day sixty-three.
"Mr. Griffin." Wells' voice carried across the cortex as I arrived for my afternoon consultation. "A moment of your time?"
Not a request. An expectation.
I followed his wheelchair into a side lab—smaller than the main cortex, lined with equipment I couldn't identify. He positioned himself near the door, blocking easy exit without appearing to do so.
"How are you adjusting?" His tone was conversational. Friendly, even. "After the incident."
"Fine. Some bruising, nothing serious."
"I meant psychologically." He gestured to a chair I didn't take. "You handled yourself remarkably well under pressure. Most civilians would have frozen."
"I'm not most civilians."
"No." He smiled slightly. "You're not, are you? Eight years of military service, combat deployments, honorable discharge. Quite the resume for a security consultant."
He'd researched me. Thoroughly, from the sound of it.
"Background checks are standard in this industry."
"Of course. But backgrounds rarely tell the whole story." He wheeled closer, crossing into personal space territory. "I find myself curious about the gaps."
"Gaps?"
"Between what the records say and what I observe." His eyes never left my face. "Your reaction time during the attack was exceptional. Your combat technique was precise, efficient—trained responses, not improvisation. And the way you moved..."
He trailed off, waiting for me to fill the silence.
I didn't.
"You're a remarkable man, Mr. Griffin. I suspect more remarkable than you let people see."
"We all have depths we don't advertise."
"True." Something flickered in his expression—acknowledgment, perhaps, of the double meaning. "I simply find it interesting when those depths reveal themselves unexpectedly."
The conversation balanced on a knife's edge. He was probing, searching for cracks in my cover. I was deflecting, maintaining the facade while gathering my own data.
"Was there something specific you needed?" I asked. "Consulting work?"
"Just conversation." He smiled again—the mask reasserting itself. "I like to understand the people in my facility. Professional curiosity."
"Understandable." I moved toward the door. "If you ever want to discuss security protocols, I'm available."
"I'll keep that in mind."
I left the lab feeling his eyes on my back the entire way.
The counter-observation began that evening.
My apartment became an intelligence center. Notes spread across the kitchen table—every inconsistency I'd observed about Wells, every detail that didn't match his paralyzed genius cover.
His legs shift when he thinks no one's watching.
His reflexes are too fast for someone with spinal damage.
He knows things about metahuman physiology that he shouldn't.
Gideon exists somewhere in that facility.
The foreknowledge from my old life provided the framework. Eobard Thawne, Reverse-Flash, trapped in the past after killing Barry's mother. Wearing Harrison Wells' face. Manipulating the timeline to create the Flash so he could eventually steal the Speed Force and return to his own era.
But knowing the broad strokes wasn't enough. I needed evidence. Documentation. Leverage that would protect me if Wells decided Harry Griffin was a threat worth eliminating.
[OBJECTIVE IDENTIFIED: INTELLIGENCE GATHERING] [TARGET: HARRISON WELLS] [PRIORITY: HIGH]
The system's clinical assessment matched my own. Whatever else happened, I needed to stay ahead of Thawne's investigation.
Pizza night felt surreal after the intensity of the past few days.
Cisco had insisted—"team morale," he called it—and somehow we'd all ended up in the cortex with boxes of pizza and debates about toppings that felt absurdly normal.
"Pineapple is an abomination," Barry declared, rescuing a slice from contamination. "It doesn't belong within ten feet of pizza."
"That's because you have no taste." Cisco defended his Hawaiian with theatrical passion. "The sweet-savory combination is a culinary masterpiece."
"It's fruit. On pizza. There's something fundamentally wrong with that."
"Tomatoes are fruit," Caitlin pointed out. "Technically."
"That's different."
"How is it different?"
I watched the argument unfold, pizza slice in hand, cataloguing the moment like I catalogued everything else. Barry's genuine laughter. Cisco's animated gestures. Caitlin's quiet amusement as she stole the last breadstick before anyone else could claim it.
Wells joined in occasionally—a comment here, a chuckle there. His participation was seamless, indistinguishable from genuine friendship.
The predator wears his mask well, I thought. But then, so do I.
The evening ended with plans for a movie marathon that would never happen—schedules were too chaotic, crises too frequent. But the planning itself was enough. The illusion of normalcy.
I drove home thinking about masks. The one Wells wore to hide a killer. The one I wore to hide a hunter. The one we both wore to hide from each other.
At some point, the masks would slip. When they did, only one of us would still be standing.
I intended to make sure it was me.
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