"What is the quality of your intent?"
—Thurgood Marshall

: INQUIRIES AND MORE
  INQUIRIES

     "You're Joe West, right?"

     Sebastián strode across the space between them. This was definitely the man that he'd seen in the picture, he was unmistakable. Confidence flowed through Sebastian's features, he held out a hand to Joe with intent on introducing himself. Normally he wouldn't act so bold but this man was someone he'd have to spend a lot of time around; it was only natural for them to act casual around one another.

Confusion descended on Joe's face, a thin veil covering his surprise at hearing his name. "That's me," his voice was deep and calm as he nodded. Joe took Sebastián's hand in his own, his grip a little too strong for Sebastián's taste. "Who are you?"

"Sebastián Belmonte," Sebastián smiled, hoping he looked friendly enough. "Your new partner."

Joe's brown eyes widened. If he was shocked at the news of a new partner, he didn't comment on it. His eyes drifted over to Sebastián's piercing, he didn't comment on that either. "Nice to meet you, Sebastián." They pulled their hands away and Joe began walking to a desk where papers were stacked high and folders were overflowing. His partner followed behind like a lost puppy, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"You too, Mr. West," he nodded to the desk. "This one's yours?"

"Yes it is, and the one across from me is yours now. Also," the older detective stared at Sebastián until he felt as if he'd done something wrong. It made his skin crawl uncomfortably. "Just call me Joe, got it?"

Sebastián nodded. He peered over at his new desk. It was clean, tidy, and the computer didn't take up more than the corner of the desk. "So," he began. "The Captain was thinking you could show me around C.C.P.D.? I had a hard time even finding his office." Sebastián laughed to himself and scratched the back of his neck when Joe's gaze fell on him. "I nearly squashed some guy on my way in. He's the only way I got to the meeting on time."

     "Yeah," Joe nodded and grabbed his grey jacket from the back of his chair. "Sure. Follow me and I'll show you where everything is."

     A smile slipped onto Sebastián's face easily. He tried his best to keep the excitement from bleeding into his voice. "Great, let's do it!"

     Joe led the way, showing Sebastián the small and only slightly-messy break room where a battered coffee machine sat on a pedestal while its exhausted worshippers, who waited eagerly around it, sat around and waited for its blessing. They moved on and Sebastián learned where the cold and unforgiving interview rooms were. One-sided glass doubled over as a mirror and one of the detectives watching from the outside glared at them until they moved away.

     After finding the lockers where the patrol units kept their belongings and changed, Sebastián found the bathrooms before they were suddenly heading up the stairs.

     "Up here is where our forensics expert works," Joe said over his shoulder. They passed a couple cops on the stairs but kept going. "He's my son." Joe said, a tone of pride taking over his voice. The smile he wore was undeniably bright. He turned and suddenly they were standing in the doorway of a lab.

     All over the room, Sebastián could see things from his high school science classrooms: a centrifuge, beakers and pipettes, a vortex, stirring rods, water baths, and more. There were lots of papers scattered all over the floor and on top of the desk near the back of the room. "Your son?" Sebastián asked, glancing at Joe.

     Joe nodded. "Yeah," after a cursory glance around the lab, his smile dimmed a little. "He's not here right now but I'm sure you'll meet him later."

     Sebastián smiled again, catching Joe's eye. "I'd be glad to."

     They turned and left, heading back down the stairs into the hub. Reaching the bottom, Joe turned to Sebastián as his phone buzzed against his hip, signaling a text. Sebastián held up a hand in apology to Joe, taking his phone out of his pocket. It was Holden.

┌─────────────────────────┐
*New Message Received!
From: Holden
I accidentally broke something...
└─────────────────────────┘

     "Oh god," he breathed quietly, shaking his head after reading the text.

     Joe peered over at Sebastián, taking notice of the change in his demeanor. "Everything okay?" He questioned lightly, trying not to sound like he was prodding Sebastián for information.

     Sebastián only nodded, typing a reply to Holden. "Yeah, everything's fine. My kid — he texted me because he broke something in the house."

┌─────────────────────────┐
To: Holden
What happened?
└─────────────────────────┘

     "You have a kid too?" Joe asked, a smile settling on his face. It was the kind of smile only a father can wear, something they both shared and something they both knew how to recognize.

     "Yeah, yeah." Sebastián nodded and laughed a little. "He's seventeen. Name's Holden."

     Joe put his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels. An easy smile came over his features. "Good name. My kid is—"

     Another buzz from Sebastián's phone had Joe pausing as he looked down to read the newest text message, immediately followed by a barrage of others. Holden typed very fast.

┌─────────────────────────┐
*New Message Received!
From: Holden
Well you see...

          I saw something outside the window
          and it scared me so I bumped into
          the lamp by my bed

          And it fell but

          I couldn't catch it in time so now it's
          broken.
└─────────────────────────┘

     Sebastián rubbed a hand over his jaw, sighing softly. Another buzz and a new message appeared on the screen. This one caught Sebastián's attention. He rose the screen closer to his face, waiting impatiently for Holden to finish texting.

┌─────────────────────────┐
*New Message Received!
From: Holden
There were broken shards from the
          lightbulb on the ground but I picked
          it up. That's not what worries me.

          Dad, I saw something.

          It was moving too fast to see what it
          was but... that's the point.

          It was moving too fast.
└─────────────────────────┘

     "Hey Joe," Sebastián tried to catch his partner's attention quietly. "Come read this. I'm — I'm confused. Is there anything going on in Central City that he could've seen?" Sebastián turned his eyes away from the screen, handing his phone to Joe with a look of concern.

     Joe read the messages in silence.

     "Joe?"

     He looked up at Sebastián now, returning his phone to the concerned father in front of him. "Yeah," Joe confirmed. "He probably saw the Flash."

     Sebastián instantly let out a laugh. When he saw Joe wasn't laughing with him, the noise died in his throat and the air between them became quiet. "I'm sorry," he coughed a little. "Are you being serious? What's 'the Flash'?"

     "It's not a 'what'," Joe explained. "It's a 'who' and the Flash is Central City's hero. Haven't you read the local news?"

     Sebastián shook his head. "No, Holden and I, we — we just got here, Joe." It became silent again until an unanswered question rose from the grave in Sebastián's mind. "Why's he called the Flash?"

     Joe smiled now. "Cuz he runs really fast."

     "How fast are we talking here?"

     "How fast do you think?"

     "Well I don't know, Joe, that's why I'm asking you how fast he runs."

     Joe took his hands from his pockets and held them up in-between them as a sign of surrender. He leaned his face closer to Sebastián's, causing his partner to lean in too. "Think of the fastest man to ever live—"

     "Usain Bolt." Sebastián answered. "Everyone knows that."

     "Multiply that," Joe's smile grew wider and his eyes began to sparkle as if he knew something, "by the biggest number you can think of."

     "Okay," Sebastián frowned. "Um... one thousand?"

     Joe's smile quickly disappeared and was replaced with a frown. He leaned back on his heels. "Boy, the biggest number you can think of is a thousand?" He asked skeptically.

     Sebastián held up a hand, biting the inside of his cheek. "Okay, fine. Uh... it's not the biggest number but sixty billion?"

     "Well that's better than one thousand," Joe mused. His smile returned and Sebastián decided he liked how that looked on Joe much better than a frown. "But that's not even near how fast the Flash is. You'll probably see him sometime soon, he's been working with CCPD to help bring in meta-humans."

     Sebastián ran a hand through his hair, settling the other on his hip. "I'm sorry, I know I'm new here, but what the hell is a meta-human?"

     Joe stared dead-on at Sebastián, unblinking. "Oh boy," he murmured, more to himself. "You have so much catching up to do. Starting tomorrow." Joe turned away from his partner, heading back into the central hub towards his desk. Sebastián had no choice but to follow.

     "Joe? Joe I don't know anything about this city, what do I have to figure out here?"

     "Well," Joe picked up his keys from his desk and turned to face Sebastián. "Why not do a little reading tonight? Check the local news, my daughter Iris writes for C.C.P.N. Reading her articles could catch you up. Also... look up the particle accelerator explosion that happened at S.T.A.R. Labs."

Sebastián stared at Joe. "That all?"

Joe's gaze wandered as he scoured his mind for anything else. He shook his head after a moment. "Nope," he said, brushing past Sebastián with a pat on the shoulder. "Have fun, partner."

Sebastián watched Joe leave, his jaw slightly ajar. That was it? 'Have fun and see you later'? What? Sighing heavily, Sebastián made his way past Joe's empty desk to his own. He sat down in the chair, finding it surprisingly comfortable.

He hadn't been lying to Barry when he'd said that Central City was far different from Greenville. Greenville was a small-town, high-crime area up by Nebraska where everyone knew everyone and nobody particularly cared about law and order. Half the cops belonged to the drug business and the other half of the cops were running the dogfights across town.

Sebastián had grown up in Greenville, unfortunately born to a mother who happened to be an heroin addict and a father who was never present after he'd turned five years old. Sebastián himself had never participated in the drug rings or the dogfights; he saw how horribly the drugs affected his mother and he swore to stay away from them. As for the dogfights; he'd had a few friends who tried to convince him to go watch and place bets on the dogs, but he'd never been the child to think that dead animals, blood, and gore were 'cool' things.

So he'd stayed in Greenville and became a cop. Looking back on it now as Sebastián stared up at the ceiling in C.C.P.D., he realized how naïve he was to believe he, of all people, could clean up Greenville from the inside.

Sometimes, the whole tree has to be cut down. You can't always trim the leaves or cut a few branches. Everything has to fall and if it makes a sound within the forest, then so be it.

     Sebastián pulled out his phone again to text Holden back. He didn't want his son to worry due to his lack of a response.

┌─────────────────────────┐
To: Holden
I'll be home soon and we can talk
         about what you saw.

         How does pizza sound for dinner?

         I'll get some with extra onions for
         you, just the way you like it.
└─────────────────────────┘

     It only took a few seconds for Holden to reply.

┌─────────────────────────┐
*New Message Received!
From: Holden
Sure, that sounds pretty good.

          You're not gonna believe what I saw,
          dad, I don't even think I believe it.
└─────────────────────────┘

     Sebastián shook his head to himself, smiling a little. "Oh, we'll see about that," he muttered to himself as he turned to the computer on his desk.

     Typing 'the Flash' into the search bar seemed like a pretty sound idea so Sebastián hit enter and waited impatiently while the page loaded results for him to examine. It took an eternity but as soon as it was loaded, Sebastián wasn't disappointed.

     The first result to pop up was a popular blog written by an anonymous writer called 'The Daily Anonymous.' Their most recent post, from a few hours ago, was titled:

     THE FLASH: HERO OR VILLAIN?

     Scrolling down, Sebastián bit his lower lip and rested his chin in the palm of his hand as he skimmed through the titles with a quick eye. He leaned closer to the computer screen, squinting his eyes to read the text.

     ANOTHER DAY FOR THE FLASH—
     HIJACK IS BEHIND BARS!

     WHERE DOES THE FLASH TAKE HIS
     META-HUMAN PRISONERS?

     PYROMANCER VS. THE FLASH

     ACCOUNT FROM SAANA RAINS;
     LITTLE GIRL RESCUED FROM THE
     FIRE BY FLASH

     ANOTHER SPEEDSTER IN CENTRAL
     CITY?

     THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE FLASH'S
     SUPERHUMAN SPEED.

     Sebastián's eyes caught on the last title. He moved the cursor over to it and clicked. When the page loaded, he was met with an image of a golden, almost-red streak within a picture at the top of the blog. He frowned, eyebrows drawing down.

     "Qué demonios?" Sebastián murmured softly to himself. "What is that? Photoshop?"

Scanning the edges of the picture for any signs of badly-photoshopped light, Sebastián found none. Everything was... perfect. He could only conclude that the picture was real. It had to be, didn't it?

He began reading the blog:

If you're reading this blog, then you know
exactly what I'm posting about every day:
The Flash. After the S.T.A.R. Labs explosion
(remember that Harrison Wells, CEO, admitted
to having prior notice that there was a chance
his particle accelerator could explode) Central
City began to change.

I don't know what it was at first. The people?
The city itself? It's open to any and all
interpretations. Maybe it all changed at the
same time.

We came face-to-face with things — and
people — that shouldn't, by the laws of physics
and everything humanity knows today, exist.
But yet they do. The only way we can keep from
fearing these things, these META-HUMANS*
as they're being dubbed by the C.C.P.D., is to
understand them. Perhaps the most powerful
meta-human we know, and adore, is the Flash.

Sebastián's sharp eyes didn't miss the side-note on the side of the screen. He read the explanation of what a meta-human was for those 'first time readers.'

*Meta-human: for those of you who are just
tuning in, a meta-human is a human whose
genetic makeup is enhanced, giving them
abilities and powers to do things we can't
even begin to imagine. Some would call
these 'superpowers.'
——Please Note: the only 'metas' that
we currently know of have come from
the events surrounding the S.T.A.R. Labs
explosion.

"Oh," Sebastián shifted in his chair. "But how did this lab explode? If the CEO knew it was likely to happen, then why would he continue with launching it?"

There was no explanation offered on the blog. At least, not on the page Sebastián was currently on. This blogger seemed to know what he was talking about. Sebastián put the page into his bookmarks and kept reading:

So we must understand the Flash.

Who is he? Why is he helping us? What does
he want? How did he become the Flash?
Where did he get that really cool supersuit?

You might be asking all of those questions,
and more, but I'm here to answer only one
question today: how is the Flash the fastest
man alive?

I'll tell you.

The Flash — whoever he was before he took up
his cowl — was altered the night of the particle
accelerator explosion. Maybe he got shocked
while touching an electrical appliance? Maybe
he was struck by lightning, who knows?
Something changed his genetic makeup into
something entirely different. And no, we're not
talking about Danny Phantom anymore.

Sebastián chuckled to himself but kept reading, he found that he greatly enjoyed this blogger:

Have any theories about what happened? No?
Well I've got one for you. The Flash received
such an immensely powerful amount of energy
that caused his very cells to speed up in place,
     thus allowing him to be our Scarlet Speedster.

'Cells?' You ask. YES! Every human being, no
matter how big or small, vibrates at a certain
speed. We're all relatively the same, but some
of us, like Jesse Owens (1913) or Usain Bolt
     (1986), probably vibrate at higher speeds
     than the rest of us. It's unnoticeable for some
     people, but for others it's fairly obvious, like
     Usain Bolt.

     I have no doubt that the Flash is any different.
     He's merely a man; a normal man who was
     granted powers he didn't ask for. He was
     affected alongside each and every one of us
     in Central City. I imagine he wasn't entirely
     pleased when he woke up one day and found
     he could run faster than the speed of sound!

     The only difference between Flash and Usain
     Bolt is that the Flash, obviously, vibrates at a
     much faster pace and can achieve higher
     speeds. I would go on to assume that, because
     he can now run at superspeed, the Flash's
     stamina and endurance were immensely
     enhanced as well. Otherwise, he wouldn't be
     able to run all day and night, nor would he be
     able to breathe while running — it would
     suffocate him. And since he's clearly not
     suffocating, it's safe to assume that that theory
     is correct as well.

Sebastián leaned back from the computer screen. Everything was making sense now, even if he still hadn't actually seen the Flash. His eyes were burning now, but he wanted to keep going so he rubbed his eyes and continued:

Given how much of him is already changed
and affected by his speed, one could also
question how much the Flash has to eat in a
single day to keep powering his cells and
continue running.

A laugh escaped Sebastián's lips. He covered his mouth quickly, making sure no other detectives were looking his way. That would be awkward to explain:

I know, I know. You probably laughed, didn't
you? Even so, it's a viable question. Does he
somehow enhance the food he eats? Is he on
a special diet? Carbs and protein only? Does
he have a nutritionist or biochemist helping
him prepare his food?

Just HOW much has the Flash's life changed
since his transformation from zero to hero?

One thing is for certain — the Flash is here to
help Central City. We may not know or
understand why, but he came to Flash Day
and I, like most of you, was there to see him
race up onto that stage next to the mayor.
He was reluctant, citizens, but he accepted
the key to our city; he promised to help us
when we need it. We should be thankful that
we have the Flash on our side. He's arguably
one of the most powerful metas in Central
City.

Sebastián looked down at his phone to check what the time was.

7:32 p.m.

Had he really been gone that long? Sebastián frowned and shutdown the computer, telling himself he could finish reading the blog later. He still had to get dinner and check on Holden. Even after that, there was still some unpacking and moving things around that Sebastián had to do before the movers came the next day.

Sebastián sighed and got up from his desk, sending a quick text to Holden to let him know he would be on his way after he got their pizza.