The Step Forward

[fast_thrower]

(Three days after this)

Owen returned to the meeting place. He'd dug up a few personal effects from his old man's caches. A hair-brush with strands that didn't match Digger's, a piece of ribbon, a greeting card written in some weird language he couldn't place. Everything else had been the normal stuff. Cash, ID packets, weapons, clothes, and the

Comments

[flash_fact]

"Well you should decide if you want us to use any samples we find on the card, because I'll have to lance out a small portion of it and it will damage it... though realistically no more than it is being kept in your wallet

[flash_fact]

Barry smiled. "We might not be able to tell her level of fitness, but there are markers we can identify. And I should mention that from a strictly scientific perspective, I can say with a high percentage of certainty based on testing alone that these genetic markers are from family members. Technically this could be a sister or aunt with the same close genetic background, however again, based on what we know about the origin of the samples, we can make a solid guess."

He pointed to another marker.

"Probably pretty hot though," he quipped.

Barry was thoughtful for a moment.

"You know, something just occured to me. We do have a mass spectrometer here. I might be able to tell the age of one of her personal items, the brush perhaps, with a correct reading of the variable isotopes contained within the molded plastic. Like carbon dating for hairbrushes. It could tell us when the brush was manufactured, give us a range of years, and if it matches within the span of your age, that would confirm that at least."

[fast_thrower]

Owen chuckles, then nods. "Sure thing, doc. Let's shake the tree and see what falls out." He shrugs. "Nothing against it."

All this science stuff is kind of cool. It's not explosives, electricity, and acid-spewers, but it's something.

[flash_fact]

Barry nodded and took the hairbrush from the plastic bin he'd been storing it in, then removed the remainder of the hair within the brush carefully and stored it in it's own plastic bag in case they should need it later.

"You can keep the readout by the way," Barry said as he moved the brush onto the mass spec tray and punched in some numerical sequences. Before long the mass spetrometer began humming away. "Consider it a free family protrait," ha said warmly.

[fast_thrower]

"Cool, thanks doc." Owen looks over the readout again, letting Flash go to work. "Probably make a good conversation piece if I frame it."

[flash_fact]

While the mass spec hummed and trundled along, and Barry removed his lead vest, and collected the same from Owen.

The goggles remained, and he looked quite at home in them.

Finally, after a few minutes of whirring and clicking, another readout occured on a nearby computer screen.

"What the heck?" Barry stared at the readout and scratched his head.

"That can't be right... I mean, it shouldn't."

[fast_thrower]

Now Owen gets a little concerned. "What's going on? Please tell me it's not diseased or something." He twitches a little.

[flash_fact]

"No, nothing like that. This signature is not biological, it's... it's cosmic."

Barry printed out a colorful graph.

"You see these spikes here here and here?" he said, pushing his goggles back onto his head.

"These are evidence of nutrino collisions - maybe even tachyon abbrasions. I can't be sure because the mass spec isn't CERN..."

He tossed the goggles down on the table.

[fast_thrower]

Owen just blinks, several times.

"I think I have a better chance of understanding feminine hygiene products than what you just said."

[flash_fact]

Barry allen pulled the tray from the mass-spectrometer, picked up the hairbrush and held it in his hand.

"Owen Harkness," he said, mind racing with scientific methods of inquiry and explaination. Finally, he explained it as simply as he could.

"Your mother's hairbrush is from the future!"

[fast_thrower]

"--Mercer--" He tries to correct him, before he gets hit with the rest of the details.

"....well there's something you don't hear every day.

I... I think I need to sit down." Owen stumbles his way to a stool.