A/N: Thanks RedQ, CrimsonComet and starfire25 for the comments! I'm a bit nicer to him there, but promising more hurt next !
Hope the rest of you guys are still here, you're making me nervous with the big silence in the comments sections, hope this chapter will be better than the last one
Present time:
Sun was slowly getting higher in the sky as Joe made his way to the bar where his new partner Patty was already waiting for him. 56 hours, that's how long Barry has been missing, since Cisco decided to go home and leave Barry alone. Not that Joe, or anyone for that matter, blamed him. The only person who could possibly blame the engineer was the man himself, but at this moment the detective had no time to make sure Cisco was guilt free. What kind of a father, especially one that was a detective, was letting 56 hours goes by before starting a search for their son? According to Cisco's story and intuition, Barry was alive. Or at least, the woman who took him kept him that way to get information. That was a long time ago, was he still alive? Any minutes were counting now, not a single second needed to be wasted.
He already told the department that Barry's been missing and his disappearance was linked to the body they found in the water almost two days ago.
When Joe got out of his car, he found Patty hurrying her way to him, worry all over her face.
''I'm so sorry this is happening, we'll find him, Joe''
''I know we will'' he said, putting a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. Not sure if he was trying to convince her or himself. ''What do we have here? Any evidences? Security cameras caught anything?''
''We still have uniforms talking to the owner and taking a look at the security footages at the time you said Barry was here with his friend.''
As if the universe heard them, Officer Smith came out of the bar, looked around for a second and walked straight to Joe and Patty once he noticed them.
''Detectives West, Spivot, you should come see this. We spotted Allen and our suspect on the security footages.''
No need to say more, both Joe and Patty were already starting to walk toward the bar fast enough that the officer almost had to jog to keep it up. One camera was at the right angle to catch a view of most of the table the boys took that night while they were playing darts. It wasn't a perfect view, but it was good enough to confirm Cisco's story and Joe's hunch. Their suspect with the snake tattoo on his arm poured something in Cisco's drink while nobody was looking, while the young engineer was too busy throwing darts with Barry encouraging and cheering for him. It didn't take too long after that for Cisco to come back and take a couple of sips in his drink before going back to the game, but not for long. It took less than ten minutes, just enough time for the game to end, to witness Cisco leave the bar on his own.
Moments later, Barry and the man with the tattoo reappeared in front of the camera and exchanged a couple of words before they both got up and left the bar together. And, that was it. Once they were outside, they disappeared from the view, staying away from the parking camera. Joe cursed under his breath. It would've been too easy for them to stay at the right place to see what happened. Joe closed his fists tight in frustration, they were so close to finally getting somewhere, too close to go back to square one. Barely keeping control of his voice to avoid unfairly slashing out his frustrations at the officer and his partner, he spoke up:
''I need you to find every single camera in the area, traffic cameras, surveillance from the other shops. I don't care how long it take, find them!''
''Yes sir!''
Officer Smith was on the case. Patty advanced her hand toward her partner, but stopped in her movement, not sure how personal she could get with Joe and yet wanting to reassure him in any way she could.
''It's going to be ok, Joe. The whole department is working on it, the captain made it first priority.''
The detective wanted so badly to believe her, but there was a voice in his head who kept on telling him Barry was probably with Zoom on Earth 2.0 or dead in a ditch, or at the bottom of the lake where they found their first body. It's been too long already. He made sure to keep his back turned on Patty so she wouldn't see the tears in his eyes.
*FLASHFLASHFLASH*
Barry was shaking in the room. Shivering out of cold and fear, his body was feeling weaker and weaker. His mouth was dry, every muscle in his body was aching. Staying awake was more and more a challenge. He was starting to wonder if he let himself sleep, if he was ever going to wake up again. To be fair, if his life was destined to end there, might as well go to sleep and stop fighting, stop the pain once and for all. Before allowing himself to go under, he needed to know. Gathering some of his last strength, he was able to whisper a word, one single word.
''Why?''
''It's not personal speedster, got to do what you got to do to take down Zoom.''
The cruel smile was the last thing he saw before finally surrendering to the darkness once again. He couldn't find the strength to ask for more information. His last thoughts were about his friends, wanting so badly to tell them he was sorry for abandoning him like that.
***FLASHFLASHFLASH***
Joe was about to drive himself and everyone at S.T.A.R. Labs crazy, walking around, lost in his thoughts to try putting all the pieces together. Cisco was about to comment when Joe's cell started to ring and he left the room. Patty. Good news maybe? Unless it was bad. Either way, it was news. He came back merely moments later, typing on his phone.
''Patty send me a traffic cam video, apparently they found a hit from a new camera that was installed last week. I guess our Meta didn't know about this one. Cisco, I'm transferring it to you.''
On cue, Joe's message pop-up in the mails and Cisco didn't waste any second to open it on the screen. The camera was set right on the other side of the road with a view on the bar's parking lot. With the dark and the distance, it wasn't easy to see much. But Joe could discern his adoptive son's figure everywhere and in any circumstance.
Barry and that Sean guy met a woman with dark hair who was standing with an arm on the electric pole. As soon as the boys were close to her, the other boy quickly took a couple of steps away from Barry, causing Flash to quickly look back to figure out what was happening. He must've felt something was wrong at the moment, but not fast enough to realize his life was in danger and he needed his speed. While Barry was looking back, a wave of electricity was sent in the speedster's way, shaking him all over, all the voltage coming from that woman. After the shock, the boy fell on his knees, just before Sean took him out with a quick hit on the head. Barry collapsed on the ground where he remained there, unmoving.
Aright, so definitely a metahuman, one who could control electricity. They barely finished watching the footage when the second computer popped an alert. Staying seated on his chair, Cisco slide in front of it.
''We have a match people!'' he exclaimed.
Retrieving the streaming they received of 'Barry' dying, they started a search with their facial recognition software. Her name was Amelia Wandel, a brilliant medical biologist in Keystone who was in vacation in Europe at the time the explosion happened. That was going to be hard explaining to the police how she could be Meta and yet not be there at the time of the explosion. With such a bad view, the police force might never find the identity of the woman, which would probably be best for the Earth 1 Amelia Wandel. Because there was no doubt about it now, the one who kidnapped Barry was from Earth 2.0. Only explanation.
But now that they knew her name and her power, they could track her down, right? That was what they were doing in S.T.A.R. Labs right? They never failed at this, why would they this time around? They just needed to understand their enemy well enough to figure a way to track her down and stop her. Joe didn't realize he stepped away from the computers while thinking about the new piece they just added to the whole mystery. He stopped himself and turned around to face the whole gang again:
''There's still something I don't get. We're still assuming Mrs Wandel is working for Zoom and took Barry because he's the Flash, right? How did she even know Barry is the Flash to begin with? Not like he was flashing around in that bar. How did she even know he was gonna be at the bar?''
Iris was the first one to come forward with an idea:
''Just a wild guess, but her power is electricity and she was touching the electric pole. Is it possible she could actually connect herself to the phone line and listen to the conversations?''
Iris took a pause after that sentence.
''But that's probably nut.''
''Not, it's not actually.'' Stated Cisco while starting to tap quickly on his keyboard. Only listening to the rest of the conversation with one ear.
''Seriously? A metahuman who can hack phone calls, Is it possible?'' asked Joe, looking at his scientists friends hoping one day they would actually speak English. Which was probably a wishful thinking with all the Metas around.
''Well'' started Cisco, pausing his searches for a moment. ''phone call are just our phones transforming our voices into electric impulses. So technically, it is possible. She could've been listening the lines for days or even longer just to figure out what was what and who was who. And if she was listening to my or Barry's phone on that night, she would've known where we would be.''
Pausing, Cisco went back into typing frantically at his workstation. Jay moved closer to Cisco, leaning to see what the young man was doing.
''What are you searching for, Cisco?''
''What Iris said about Wandel using the electricity made me think of when we confronted Blackout last year. He needed to recharge his battery, to feed. If she's anything like he was, she's probably staying close to an electric grid, syphoning the energy out of it.''
''That's smart Cisco'' started Jay ''but how is that going to help us find her and Barry?''
''Well, if she's feeding on electricity, I should be able to detect power surges on the electric grid of the city to track her down. Just give me time to hack into it.''
Hope. That was the feeling in the room at this moment. It seems that witch each passing moment, they were getting closer to Barry. To a rescue mission. Every eye were turned to Cisco who was trying to ignore the target, the pressure, on his back. Everyone was counting on him. His best friend was counting on him. He couldn't and he wouldn't let him down.
By the time Cisco managed to hack into the system, his body just wanted to cheer, but he didn't even had time to celebrate before his face fell and he shook his head in defeat. It took a couple of seconds for everyone in the room to catch on to his expression change.
''...nothing?'' asked Jay, in a rhetorical question.
No, nothing out of the ordinary, no big power surge in the grid, except for the one time at the bar when she took Barry.
''Sorry for the false hope…'' was all Cisco could manage to say. There was no words for his disappointment, everything made sense for just one moment. He was so sure he was seconds away from getting his best friend location. Looks like he's been wrong, again.
***FLASHFLASHFLASH***
64 hours and 17 minutes since Barry was taken and waiting for the rescue. Because yes, he was still waiting, still alive. They all had to believe it. None of them had much sleep since everything started and after another defeat, another disappointment, exhaustion hit them all hard, even the girls who had a couple of hours sleep earlier. Everyone was sleeping on a chair somewhere in the vortex, except for Caitlin who fell asleep in the medical bed and Joe who was back in the streets, searching for any clues he could find. Cisco who was the last man standing. He couldn't stop and sleep or stop thinking about what they talked earlier. They were so close to cracking this case, they were missing something obvious. He could feel it, there was as close as they've ever been.
Maybe all they needed was to just take a few steps back and think all of it under a new angle. No sleep allowed until Barry's location was in their hands. That's it! Cisco jumped on his feet, pushing his chair hard enough to knock it on the ground, causing everyone in the room to jump awake. All tensed and ready to react to any threat.
''We've been looking at the problem the wrong way. We've been looking at it like she needed electricity and was using it to trace our calls…but what if it was the opposite. What if she just wants to catch the calls and electricity is just a treat?''
'Where are you going with that?'' asked Caitlin, getting out of bed and joining them in the cortex.
''I think I know where Barry is.''
A/N: Good news is that the next chapter's draft is going along well...the bad news is that the next couple of weeks will be crazy (in a good way!) for me and I'll barely have any time at all to even be on my computer. Don't expect the next chapter until at least the 10 to the 15th of May, I'm sorry guys.
As soon as I'm free again, I'll need your comments to fuel me on my writing marathon , so don't be shy! Let me know what you thought and if you think they'll finally found Barry or if the team is up for another deception.