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Zoom had taken her dad. He’d attacked S.T.A.R. Labs and taken her dad.
It was a demonstration, they said. Zoom had brought enough of his metas to make it one. Revenge for the meta detectors.
He was dead, they tried to convince her. Zoom didn’t take prisoners. He murdered and slaughtered and terrified people, and he didn’t leave anyone alive for long. Not even the Flash had listened when Jesse had tracked him down and begged him for his help.
Her dad was dead, and she was an orphan. The new owner of a building no one was brave enough to return to, a building half destroyed by Black Siren and Reverb.
And Jesse refused to believe them.
He was still alive. He had to be; she’d have felt it if he died. Zoom would have showed him off if he’d died.
What Zoom wanted with her dad; she didn’t know. The Flash had interrupted the launch of the meta detectors to reveal the particle accelerator had created the metahumans, and Zoom controlled them. Her dad was the smartest person she knew, Zoom could have wanted anything with him.
The last thing she’d done is fight with him.
He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t have left her. He wouldn’t.
She couldn’t be all on her own.
The Flash had disappeared a week after her dad, when that thing had opened in the sky. That had taken all the news. The city’s last defender against Zoom.
Much more important than the man he’d accused of creating Zoom.
And Jesse had got to work. If they needed a Flash to stop Zoom- one who actually would, not one who failed over and over like their Flash- then she’d find a way to make one.
Someone else was in S.T.A.R. Labs.
Jesse had been entirely alone here for months. Sitting in her dad’s office working on the equation that was still missing something. What, she wasn’t sure, though the papers she’d found in her dad’s stuff by Doctor Jonathon Chambers were helpful. Just incomplete.
Zoom kept disappearing. He’d never been predictable about when he would attack, but now he’d be gone for a few weeks at a time. No attack, no threats, nothing from him.
Just his lackeys left behind.
But now someone was in S.T.A.R. Labs.
Jesse grabbed the gun her dad had started keeping in a safe in his office when Zoom had first shown up. If it was Zoom, there was nothing she could do to stop him.
If it was Zoom, maybe she’d finally get to know where her dad was.
She made her way to the Pipeline. She’d been getting readings from something down there- readings she hoped would lead her to the answer to the Speed Equation- but she’d never seen anything before.
Now a blue storm was swirling in the air, a black hole at its centre.
It looked like the Singularity that had appeared over the city.
“It’s a portal to another world.”
Jesse raised her gun and aimed it at the shadows.
Reverb looked amused.
“Where’s my dad?” Jesse demanded.
“He’ll kill you before you can blink, Jesse Quick,” Reverb said. “But he says there’s another Flash on that side. If you can bring him to Zoom, you’ll get to see your dad again.”
“Prove it,” Jesse said.
She flinched as Reverb reached for her, but he just grabbed her shoulder.
The world tinted blue as Jesse found herself somewhere dark that she didn’t recognise.
Her dad was at a desk, working on something, his eye bruised, and a man in a metal mask in a cage opposite.
Zoom appeared in the centre of the room.
He looked straight at them.
“Hello, Jesse,” he said, and her dad immediately got to his feet, immediately started trying to yell, and Zoom knocked him down, dazed him against the table.
“How do I know this is real?” Jesse said.
“Reverb has so many more gifts than even he knows,” Zoom said. “He’ll be the one sending you through. On the other world, you’ll find the other Flash at S.T.A.R. Labs, along with that coward who refused to help you. Bring me the Flash, and I’ll bring you your father.”
“Jesse, don’t,” her dad said, clutching his head.
“Why should I believe you?” Jesse challenged
“I’ve left you unharmed, just as I promised your father I would,” Zoom said. “Giving me what I want is the only way you will be able to come back through the breach.”
“Don’t come-” her dad started and the blue faded before he could finish.
Reverb let her go.
“He’s lying,” Jesse said.
“Of course he is,” Reverb said.
He sent a small blue pulse and Jesse dropped the gun as it burned and shattered in her grip.
“But do you have a choice, little Jesse Quick?” Reverb said.
Jesse shook her head.
“I’ll go through,” Jesse said. “But I’m going to find a way to stop him once and for all.”