After Shawna left, Jude expected the room to decompress a little. It didn't.
"Okay," he said, looking around at the faces. "You're all still tense. What am I missing?"
"We, uh—" Barry shook his head slowly. "We ran into someone last night. Someone we know."
"Blaze."
"He's not a criminal," Cisco said quickly, and a little defensively. "He has powers, but he hasn't done anything wrong. And his name isn't 'blaze.' It's Firestorm."
How exactly are you sure he hasn't done anything wrong? Jude kept that one behind his teeth.
"It's Ronnie," Barry said. "At least — Caitlin wouldn't mistake her own fiancé. But he doesn't seem to know who he is anymore. He kept insisting he wasn't Ronnie. Pretty firmly."
Jude went quiet for a moment. Then he looked at Caitlin.
She was staring at the nikuman in her hand like it had said something to her, eyes somewhere else entirely.
Wells, standing apart from the group, was also silent. The careful neutrality he usually wore had slipped slightly — something that looked almost like guilt had taken its place. He had built the accelerator. Designed it, led it, set it in motion. Ronnie's fate wasn't directly his fault. But "not directly" left a lot of room.
"Well." Jude put a hand on Cisco's shoulder. "He's not dead. That's not nothing — that's actually pretty good news."
"He doesn't remember us."
"Then the first step is finding out what he does remember." Jude tapped his chest. "I know a thing or two about people who've lost their sense of who they are. You can't push straight at it — you have to come at it sideways. When he says he's not Ronnie, don't argue. Ask him who he thinks he is instead. Follow the thread he gives you."
Cisco blinked. "That's… actually not bad."
"I know." He let Cisco have a moment to feel bad about being surprised, then moved on. "What else?"
Cisco rubbed the back of his neck. "Ronnie's situation had me so turned around I forgot to run the analysis on Farooq's cells from last night."
"Already done," Wells said.
Everyone looked at him.
"I completed it this morning." He folded his hands in his lap. "And I found something instructive when I compared the results to Barry's profile. Barry's cellular structure is entirely intact — the Speed Force didn't change him at a biological level. It's still in there, essentially dormant. What he needs isn't a cure. He needs a reactivation."
Barry straightened. "How?"
"An electrical shock. Twenty million amperes, delivered through the super-treadmill as a controlled carrier."
The silence lasted about half a second before Caitlin surfaced from wherever she'd been.
"Absolutely not." Her voice was flat and immediate. "That's not a plan, that's a death wish. The current from an execution chamber is a fraction of that — this would turn him into ash before his nervous system even registered what was happening."
"You're right that it's dangerous," Wells said, without any particular urgency. "I wouldn't be raising it at all, if not for one variable." He paused. "Jude's chocolate."
"Chocolate is not a medical treatment." Caitlin pressed her fingers to her temple. "It doesn't make someone immune to twenty million amperes of—"
"Did either of you calculate the output of Farooq's electrical discharge last night?"
Neither Caitlin nor Cisco answered. There had been too much happening; the math had slipped through.
"I did," Wells said. "Farooq's ability, at full output, is sufficient to reduce a person to charred remains in under a second. Barry took a direct hit and walked away with minor injuries." He let that sit. "And according to the cell analysis, Farooq was already draining the Speed Force at the same moment he was delivering that current. Barry wasn't protected by his speed — it was already leaving him. He survived because his body can absorb that level of electrical force in a way no ordinary human's can."
The room was quiet.
"We start the shock low and increase it incrementally until we reach the threshold," Wells continued. "If anything goes wrong at any stage, the chocolate is there as a failsafe. I believe this is the most viable path back to Barry's abilities."
"It's still too much." Caitlin's voice had lost its edge, replaced by something more tired. Ronnie's face from last night was still somewhere behind her eyes, clearly. "We don't know enough yet. There are too many variables."
"I trust Barry," Cisco said, more carefully. "But — we just brought Shawna in. Maybe we hold off a little. See if something better turns up."
Everyone looked at Barry.
He was quiet for a long moment. "I want to think about it."
Wells exhaled — barely audible, barely visible. Something moved behind his eyes.
"Of course," he said. "Take the time you need. In the meantime, Barry — head to the precinct. Joe should have the bar fight case files ready by noon. Follow that thread."
Barry nodded and slipped out without much ceremony. Wells watched him go, then turned back to the room with the air of someone shifting to the next item on a list.
"Caitlin — we have a lot of ground to cover with Shawna, and we can't train what we don't understand. Prioritize her cell analysis."
"On it."
"Cisco — find Ronnie. I don't care what it takes. He is my responsibility, and we are bringing him home."
"Yeah." Cisco nodded, jaw set. "I'll figure something out."
"And you—" Wells turned to Jude. "We're running lean on personnel right now, so I want to be direct. You did well getting Shawna on board." A beat. "I also noticed something in the group chat. Snart has a secondary account in there, and he's been active. He appeared to be asking someone for advice on how to communicate better with his younger sister."
Jude kept his expression carefully still.
He hadn't been watching the group chat closely lately. The idea that Leonard Snart was in there, between jobs, asking for family communication tips, was — a lot to process.
"I imagine he's sampled your food cart on more than one occasion," Wells continued. "If that relationship gives you access to better intelligence on which metahumans he's recruiting, and when, our position improves considerably."
Cisco and Caitlin both turned to look at Jude.
"We've already run six transactions," Jude said to Wells. "Six separate intelligence purchases. You still haven't reimbursed me for any of them, by the way."
"You actually bought intel from Snart?" Caitlin looked like she was trying to determine whether to be impressed or alarmed and hadn't landed on either yet. "He didn't just — freeze you on the spot?"
"Jude." Cisco was stroking his chin with the slow deliberateness of someone arriving at a conclusion. "I've said it before and I'll say it again — your negotiation skills are operating at a superhuman level. I mean that literally. That might be the power."
Jude pointed at him.
"Keep talking. I love this."