08. Unmasking the Consortium (1)

"Are you guys ready?" Barry asked for the third time.

"Sure, Yeaaaah" Cisco said, pacing along the room, eyeing Barry from time to time in apprehension.

"Y'know what? Let's just get this over with, we already moved the equipments. It'll be quick." Barry said and grinned before wrapping one arm around each of them and zipping through the city, towards the hidden facility where The Consortium were hatching their devious plans.

They arrived at the building closest to the facility in a few seconds. It was an abandoned facility, probably used by a corporation who fell out of business or bankrupted.

Barry dropped them, Cisco stood still for a while, then immediately bent over, spilling his guts out his mouth.

"Yeah, let's never do that again." He managed to say before bending over again.

"It's not like it was that much of a big deal." Caitlin said, holding her head up high...a second before joining Cisco in his 'misery.'

After they had recovered, Barry spoke up. "So, I'm going to conduct a perimeter wide search of the facility. You guys can try gaining access to surveillance cameras, anything that would give us an idea of the amount of people they've got in there."

"Right on it." Cisco and Caitlin brought out a couple of equipment, smart computers and a mini satellite.

Barry quickly scanned the perimeter of the facility and returned to the building.

"So, there are only about a dozen guards here. 6 on the main entrance, 4 at the back and 2 on the roof, probably equipped with some sort of high-tech ranged weapon."

"Just at the right time too." Cisco said, turning his screen towards Barry. "I've silently gotten access to their surveillance feeds. They have quite the number of personnel patrolling the entire place. So, this is definitely the right place."

He turned the computer back towards himself and started tapping away, mapping out specific areas of the facility, using them to layout a sort of map for Barry to follow.

"If you go in through the main entrance, you should encounter some guards at the front, there are a couple of them again scattered along the hallway, all armed with metahuman tech-modified weapons, they will do a lot of damage to you. So, try to avoid being seen as much and as long as you can." He took a brief pause before he continued, "If you can avoid them for long enough to get to their command room, they won't be able to react fast enough. That's where their leader presumably is and the equipments they are planning to use to tap into the speed force."

"We'll remain here and try to gain access to and shut down that machine. You just focus on the Metahumans. And... keep in touch." Caitlin added.

"Sure!" Barry sped off towards the building, sighting the guards by the entrance. He went along the side of the building, phasing through the wall.

Immediately he got inside the facility, he looked around, finding no one along the corridor, he relaxed and resorted to using quick bursts of speed to inch towards the main command room while avoiding detection.

As he rested his back on the wall and tried to peek, he heard some voices coming from behind him. Immediately, he vibrated and moved backwards entering the room behind him. He quickly looked back, but instead of meeting guards as he had expected, he found a room filled with couple dozens of metahuman equipments and weapons.

He kept looking around as he told the others about what he's found.

'With the kind of equipments these guys are preparing, I doubt they want to maintain peace if they eventually get to wrap their hands around reality. Gotta put these guys out. The earlier, the better.'

Eventually, after carefully navigating through hordes of guards, he eventually got to the command room. Phasing through the door, he entered the room, a lot of activity was going on in the room, people in lab coats fluttered up and down the room. Some working on a big machine, others were working on computers and different sorts of machines.

He tried moving forward towards the machine to destroy it before they were alerted of his presence. But when he threw a speed-charged punch, his fist went right through the machine, distorting the image of the machine.

'An hologram?'

"Fuck! Cisco, it's a trap!" he said before trying to rapidly exit the room, as he neared the wall, he noticed they were freezing cold. At the same time, the holographs went out as gases was being released in the room. Immediately the gas was released into the room, the room's temperature dropped by a few degrees and continued decreasing steadily.

From his memories, he immediately identified the gas, 'Liquid Nitrogen.'

A couple notification popped up on his system.

—Temperature Dropping: 25°C—

—All stats reduced by 30%—

....

—All stats reduced by 50%—

"Finally, we have the last catalyst needed for our plan. I have to thank you for bringing it to me, Flash." A voice from the intercom reverberated across the room with hints of ridicule.

That was the last thing Barry heard before passing out...