Barry has passed frantic and has arrived at endless desperation. He is unable to eat, to sleep, or to work. Four days. His best friend has been missing for four days and despite lead after lead, they have found nothing.
Nothing!
How could Pandemonia hide this well? Villains in Central are never this sneaky; the only one he could think of with such complex plans was Captain Cold. But even he simply went after what he wanted and moved on.
What did Pandemonia want?
Barry doesn't know and it is killing him. Cisco, Caitlin, and him have been searching almost non-stop for Iris for days. Joe got Captain Singh to issue a statewide BOLO for not only Pandemonia but Chaos and Dystopia as well. However, this had not been any help. Most people, even those in Gotham, didn't know what any of them looked like.
And Barry had tried to help. But for some reason, every time he tried to describe them to anyone, the pictures in his head blurred. He didn't understand and it scared him almost as much as Iris still being missing.
Barry swings by Star Labs to pick up some food and finds Cisco snoring on his desk, again. Barry nudges him awake to ask where Caitlin is and Cisco tells him, blinking sleep out of his eyes, that she went to the store for more food.
"Fine. But I'm going out again," Barry sighs.
"No, Barry. You need to sleep! It's been what, thirty-six hours since you had some real sleep? That's not good and you know it." Cisco's worrying tone cracks with sleepiness. He yawns widely. "Just lay down and sleep and then you can get back to searching."
Barry yawns in reply, shaking his head. "I don't need sleep. I need answers. Did you find any more abandoned warehouses for me to search?"
"Not any that we haven't already searched about fifty times. I keep telling you: I don't think she is using an abandoned warehouse." Cisco stands and then walks with Barry over to the other desk. "From what I can tell, it's not her style; I think the abandoned warehouse we found earlier was just her drop point."
"Drop point? What does that mean?" Barry snaps at Cisco, but Cisco is too tired to be bothered by this.
"It's a sort of storing place. It's obviously not their main base and now that we know about it, they aren't likely to go back to it."
"But everyone always goes back. They need places they know and they always use them as a base of sorts." Barry shakes his head unsteadily.
"Let's break this down Barry. I know you would normally understand, but we are all running on significantly less sleep than normal. Pandemonia is not like anyone else we have ever faced! She does not have any of the same codes, habits, or morals. She is a wild card. We need to stop trying to think about her like our normal Metas. She's crazy new. Emphasis on the crazy." Cisco is pacing the room, running his hands through his hair and frowning.
"Did you finally figure out whether she was Meta or not?" Barry sits down at the desk and watches Cisco pace.
"No, but honestly, I don't know anyone else who can muddle your memory. Since the Particle Accelerator explosion, you've been in perfect health. Perfect recall like no other, especially. But you struggling to describe what she looks like? That's not like you Barry!" He looks at Barry, who has somehow found a mug and is drinking deeply from it.
"Barry! No more caffeine!" Cisco stomps over to Barry and goes to take the cup from him.
"It's not coffee; it's herbal tea." Barry says, dancing out of Cisco's reach.
"Wait. Tea? Since when do you drink tea? You have never-." Cisco stops mid sentence, and turns back to face Barry slowly, realization dawning on his face.
