Cisco Ramon's mouth moved before his brain caught up.
"You could use a ceramic composite—" He stopped mid-sentence, blinked, and took a step back. "Wait. No. Why would I help you? You stole these from Mercury Labs."
Jack Kadere smiled at him and shook his head slowly. "Cisco, Cisco. You already know how this ends. You're going to help me."
"If you do, I'll consider us even for that little trap you set last time."
"You—you—" Cisco stumbled backward, his sneakers squeaking against the floor.
"Cisco?" Caitlin Snow and Barry Allen looked at him, both confused. "What's wrong with you?"
Cisco whipped his head around. "Didn't you hear what he just said?"
Barry and Caitlin exchanged a glance. Jack hadn't opened his mouth. He'd been standing there with his arms folded, perfectly still, faintly amused.
The color drained out of Cisco's face. "You're... you're talking inside my head."
Jack's expression didn't change. His lips didn't move. But the voice was there—clear, calm, and intimate in a way that made Cisco's skin crawl.
"I can do more than talk. I can steer your thoughts, direct your body—same as Gorilla Grodd, except better. Grodd's intelligence hasn't matured enough for subtlety. When it controls someone, there's a glaze to them—movements are stiff, reactions are off. People notice. But when I do it, you'd look completely normal. No one in this building would be able to tell." A beat. "I don't think you want me making you do things against your will. And I really don't think you want to spend the rest of your life wondering whether the people around you are still themselves—or mine."
"Okay! Okay—I'll help." Cisco's hands went up. "I'll help."
Barry and Caitlin watched the entire exchange with growing bewilderment. From their perspective, Jack Kadere hadn't said a word. Cisco had simply stared at him, gone pale, argued with the air, and capitulated.
Barry cleared his throat. "Jack... what do you want the tachyon particles for?"
"Armor," Jack said—out loud this time, casual as commenting on the weather.
"The suit you wore last time?" Barry's brow creased. "I don't get it. With your abilities, you shouldn't need something like that. It's showy. Impractical."
A battle suit built from tachyon particles wouldn't meaningfully add to what Jack Kadere could already do. Barry couldn't see the point.
"Is it because you can fly?" Caitlin asked.
"Flight?" Jack shook his head. Flight was trivial—he could copy that ability off a dozen sources, and the Speed Force itself could manage it with enough development. "There are plenty of showy, impractical things in the world. But even if it's just a toy, it should be a magnificent one. That's reason enough."
"But Mercury Labs has already filed a police report," Barry pressed. "There's a warrant out for you. I know you're not worried about getting arrested, but it'll still make your life harder. What if you returned the tachyon particles and we helped you find an alternative energy source instead?"
"Not interested." Jack didn't hesitate. "Tachyon particles are expensive, sure—but if one can be manufactured, a second can follow. A human life doesn't work that way. Tell Tina McGee to drop the charges. Otherwise she dies."
Caitlin stiffened. "You're not going to kill her—"
"I won't touch her." Jack's smile widened a fraction. "But I won't stop the person who will. And neither will any of you—because I won't let you."
Brie Larvan. Bug-Eyed Bandit. Her remote-controlled mechanical bees were originally developed at Mercury Labs for agricultural applications—pollination, crop monitoring—until she started redesigning them as weapons. Tina McGee fired her for it. Larvan didn't take that well. In the show, she'd graduated to bee-venom assassinations before The Flash and The Atom shut her down. Without Ray Palmer's help, McGee would've been a corpse.
Come to think of it, Palmer probably hasn't cracked his nano-shrinking tech yet. Easier to go to Earth-Two and get Harrison Wells for what I actually need.
Which I have to do anyway.
"Someone wants to kill her?" Barry's voice sharpened. "Who? Why?"
Jack ignored the question. He turned to Cisco. "Here's my number. Call me when it's done."
Cisco blinked, took the slip of paper, and pocketed it on reflex. Jack turned and walked toward the corridor without looking back.
"I—" Caitlin pointed at his retreating figure, mouth half-open, then went after him.
She rounded the corner expecting to chase him down a hallway—and nearly ran into his back. He'd gone maybe fifteen feet, and was running his palm along the corridor wall, pressing at intervals, knocking softly with his knuckles.
The urgency she'd built up deflated into awkwardness. She stood there for a moment, arms at her sides.
Jack glanced over his shoulder. "Something on your mind?"
He thought: Panel should be around here. Thawne would've hidden the seam somewhere inconspicuous—where the overhead light doesn't quite reach.
"Are you..." Caitlin started, stopped, then pushed through it. "Are you still angry with me? Is that why you gave your number to Cisco instead?"
Jack looked genuinely puzzled. "What does one have to do with the other?"
Everything, Caitlin thought. I was always your point of contact. I was the one you called, the one who relayed messages, the one you trusted with your number. And now you hand it to Cisco like it's nothing—like cutting me out doesn't even register as a decision you made.
She didn't say any of it. The words stacked up behind her teeth and stayed there. Instead, watching him feel methodically along the wall, she asked: "What are you looking for?"
"A hidden room." Jack pressed another section of wall. "The Reverse-Flash built one somewhere in this corridor. Inside, there's a backup suit, a surveillance network monitoring Barry—his house, the precinct, everywhere he goes regularly—and an AI from the future called Gideon. Gideon isn't my endgame, but it'll serve for now."
Caitlin stared at him. "That's impossible. If there were a secret room, we would've—"
A seam of blue-white light traced itself down the center of the wall panel. The halves slid apart with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a dark opening that breathed out stale, climate-controlled air.
"—found it," Caitlin finished, barely above a whisper.
Jack stepped through without hesitation. Caitlin followed, close enough that her shoulder brushed the doorframe.
The space was compact—maybe a hundred and fifty square feet, sealed tight. Overhead strips buzzed to life the moment they crossed the threshold, flooding the room in cold fluorescent white.
The Reverse-Flash suit stood in the center, mounted on a featureless mannequin form. Yellow. Pristine. The cowl's eye lenses caught the light like two dark coins. Around it, screens lined every wall from waist height to ceiling—dozens of them, all active, all showing live feeds. Barry's apartment. The CCPD bullpen. Joe West's living room. Jitters. The S.T.A.R. Labs cortex they'd been standing in sixty seconds ago, Cisco still holding the slip of paper with Jack's number on it.
Caitlin's stomach turned.
Jack walked past the suit without giving it a second look and faced the far wall.
"Gideon."
The air in front of the wall shimmered. A humanoid face materialized—translucent, composed of pale gold light, features smooth and androgynous. It hovered there like a death mask made of electricity.
"Hello, Mr. Kadere."
Jack wasn't surprised. Gideon was built in the future. If a future AI didn't know his name, then his future self hadn't made much of an impression—and that wasn't a possibility he entertained.
"How would you feel," Jack said, tilting his head at the projection, "about relocating?"
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