Breakfast at "Jitters" was a spectacle in itself. While Marcus quietly sipped his coffee and nibbled on a muffin, Barry Allen was devouring his fourth breakfast burrito of the morning with a speed and enthusiasm that defied physiological laws.
"Sorry," Barry said between mouthfuls, noticing Marcus's amused look. "Hyper-fast metabolism. If I don't eat about 10,000 calories a day, I risk muscle catabolism mid-sprint."
Marcus smiled. "I don't even want to imagine your grocery bill. You could probably win every professional eating contest out there."
It was at that precise moment their phones beeped simultaneously—an alert from the Central City police network. Barry's smile vanished, replaced by instant focus.
"Shall we?" Marcus proposed, already standing.
A yellow flash and a brief gust of wind were the only reply. A few seconds later, Utopian, having changed at an almost imperceptible speed in an alley, was airborne.
Sure enough, an armored truck was speeding through downtown streets, closely pursued by a dozen police cars whose wailing sirens seemed ineffective. Utopian's thermal vision immediately revealed the nature of the cargo: an ominous green glow, the signature of highly radioactive materials.
In an instant, Flash appeared alongside the truck, running beside it to assess the situation. Utopian, meanwhile, landed directly on the vehicle's roof, his hands sinking into the steel like butter as he ripped the rear doors open.
Inside, two men in lab coats, looking panicked, were in the passenger and driver's seats.
"Stop the vehicle! Now!" ordered Utopian, his amplified voice cutting through the engine noise.
The truck screeched to a halt, Flash having already neutralized the tires with surgical precision. In the blink of an eye, the two men were out and handcuffed by the police.
But something was wrong.
"I... I don't understand," stammered one of the scientists, a man in his fifties with graying hair. "Where am I? What happened?"
His colleague, equally disoriented, looked at the radioactive isotopes with horror. "That's the shipment from Lab 4! What is it doing here? We were just finalizing our notes a minute ago!"
Flash and Utopian exchanged a puzzled look. These men didn't seem like dangerous criminals. They were terrified and confused.
Police Inspector David Singh arrived on the scene. "Barry? What are you doing here? And... uh... your friend?"
"We were just in the area," Barry replied quickly. "Inspector, these men... they seem to have memory loss."
The preliminary investigation confirmed their story. The two scientists, Dr. Julian Reid and Dr. Arishem Patel, were respected researchers, specialists in nuclear physics. They had no criminal records, and their colleagues confirmed they were in the lab less than an hour earlier.
"Post-traumatic amnesia?" suggested Inspector Singh.
"Or something more sinister," Utopian murmured, only Flash able to hear him. His heightened senses detected a faint residue of foreign energy around the two men's temples. An energy that was neither radioactive nor natural. An energy that smelled of mental manipulation.
The vacation was officially over. What had started as a simple armed robbery had just turned into a far more disturbing mystery. Who, or what, had forced two honorable scientists to steal radioactive isotopes, and why was their memory erased? Central City, the city so bright and optimistic, clearly hid some very dark secrets.