Barry turned the name over in his head.
"Thousand-Day Intoxication," he said slowly. "I always assumed that was just branding. Marketing hyperbole. You're telling me the name is literally accurate? He's going to be unconscious for a thousand days?"
"When have I ever misrepresented a product?" Jude said, with the dignity of a man who considers this question deeply offensive. "Honest dealing is a professional standard."
"That's—" Barry did the math. "That's almost three years."
"Two years and nine months, to be precise. And he doesn't need IV fluids. Someone under Thousand-Day Intoxication doesn't experience hunger or thirst — his body just runs at minimal maintenance levels until it wears off." He paused thoughtfully. "I am genuinely curious what Snart does with him. Hospital stay would be the responsible choice, but three years of inpatient care at Central City rates will make a serious dent in whatever he pulls from the painting job. He might end up spending half a year's criminal proceeds on medical bills."
"That's a little vicious."
"That's called consequences."
Headlights came around the corner.
Cisco got out of the car at speed, scanning the street with the expression of someone who had been listening to a fight over a phone speaker for twenty minutes and needed to visually confirm that the people he cared about had the correct number of limbs.
"Barry! Jude! Barry, how are you, are you hurt, how bad is it—" He stopped. "Who are you? Why are you dressed like a serial killer?"
Jude pulled the white mask off his face.
"...You're right, Cisco. Let's never speak of it again."
"I'm fine," Barry said, before Cisco could spiral further. "I'm okay. I just need to get back to the lab and run some numbers. My speed is — not currently what it was. But I'm standing up, I'm functional."
Cisco exhaled in stages. "Okay. Okay, good." Then his brain caught up. "Wait — was it Blackout? Did Farooq drain your Speed Force? I heard Jude ramming something and then the call dropped—" He looked around. "Where is Farooq?"
"You gave him a nickname already?"
"Blackout. Yes. It fits." Cisco looked between them. "Where is he?"
Barry and Jude exchanged the look of two people about to deliver a summary that is going to require some follow-up questions.
"Farooq was taken down. He's currently... asleep. We were going to bring him in, but Snart showed up and took him."
"Snart." Cisco stared. "Leonard Snart. Was just here."
"He's been watching for about ten minutes, apparently."
"And he just — took the unconscious metahuman."
"In a car. With Mick."
Wells's voice came through the phone, cutting across what would have been several more minutes of Cisco processing: "We can debrief properly when you're back. Barry — you're a crime scene analyst. Use the kit in the car. Farooq's blood, tissue, hair samples. We need to map his ability set accurately."
"What about the damage to the substation?" Barry asked. "The truck, the wall—"
"There's nothing to be done about it." Wells's voice had gone flat and precise, the way it did when he was managing something that was costing him something. "Every employee got out safely. We stopped a metahuman from killing people and from draining the city's power grid. We did everything we could, and we did it at your expense." A pause. "If S.T.A.R. Labs starts writing checks to the substation for no disclosed reason, Eiling is an idiot but even he can follow that thread back to the lab and to the Flash. Leave it."
Neither Barry nor Cisco pushed back. Wells's tone had a quality to it tonight that suggested he was holding himself together through structure and forward momentum, and questioning the structure wasn't going to help anyone.
Barry worked the scene methodically, bagged the samples, and the three of them got in the car.
S.T.A.R. Labs at two in the morning had the particular quiet of a place running on obligation rather than energy. Wells was already there when they arrived — had been since Caitlin called ahead — and his expression made it clear he intended to stay until the tests were done regardless of the hour.
"Results," he said, when Barry stepped onto the treadmill.
"You can see the results without looking at the data," Cisco said, watching the monitor. The number on the screen was not a speed that required a particle physicist to process. "That's a normal human pace. Below normal, actually."
"Show me the data anyway."
Caitlin pulled it up, studied it, and the medical professional part of her brain rejected what it was seeing before the rest of her had finished reading.
"This shouldn't be possible," she said, and her voice had an edge to it that wasn't quite alarm but was adjacent. "The particle accelerator rebuilt your DNA from the ground up. Farooq can absorb and redirect electrical energy — he doesn't have any mechanism to reverse cellular reconstruction. The Speed Force is structural. It shouldn't be something you can simply drain."
"He didn't reverse it." Barry stepped off the treadmill. "He drained the energy. The connection to the Speed Force — the current that runs through it. I'm still what the accelerator made me. The pipe is still there. It's just empty right now." He sat down. "I'm ordinary until it refills. If it refills."
Wells had been quiet throughout this. He waited until the room settled, then looked at Jude.
"You're certain Farooq won't be a factor for the next three years."
"Downtown people don't lie to downtown people," Jude said.
Wells absorbed this without comment. He turned to Barry, and when he spoke, the careful, controlled quality of his voice made it clear that whatever he was feeling had been specifically set aside for the duration of this sentence.
"We will get your speed back, Barry. I promise you."
"Thank you, Dr. Wells."
He turned to Caitlin and Cisco. "Continue the secondary diagnostics. I need to be somewhere quiet. Don't come looking for me."
The wheelchair moved toward the corridor before anyone could respond. The three of them watched him go, then looked at each other, and then did what people do when there's nothing useful to say — they got back to work.
Jude gathered his mask and robe into a bundle, tucking them under his arm.
"I need to head out. I left Peek-a-boo unsupervised and I don't know when she's going to surface, so I'd rather be there when she does."
"You're just going to use Caitlin's nickname?" Cisco said, affronted. "That's — Peek-a-Boo is not a cool name. Her ability is teleportation."
"Peek-a-Boo is a perfectly good name for a young woman," Caitlin said. "It's cute."
"Cute isn't—"
"Barry." Jude paused at the door.
Barry looked up from the secondary diagnostic equipment.
"Thank you," Barry said. "For tonight."
Jude opened his mouth, closed it, looked briefly like he was going to say something deflecting and then decided against it.
"That's what I'm here for."
He went out.
The street outside S.T.A.R. Labs was empty and dark — the power still hadn't fully restored to this district. Satsuki rolled out from the adjacent block, quiet and unhurried. Yomogi was perched on the front fairing, watching Jude emerge with alert, interested eyes.
"How's Shawna?" Jude asked.
"Still out," Satsuki said. "Vitals are stable. She won't be waking up for a while."
"Good. What about Snart and Mick — did you track them?"
"Tracked. They're not nearby, but we have the location."
"Then we go." Jude swung himself up. "Doesn't matter how far."