Crisis on Infinite Earths

by Marv Wolfman

  "A favor, please. Look in on the baby for me. I'll just be a minute."

  "Of course, Monitor. Whatever you want."

  If I could have I would have grabbed him and shook him until he explained to me why he wasn't stopping her. Perhaps I needed to find a way to do it myself.

  His voice called out to me as I headed out of the room. "We all have our parts to play. Mine will soon be over." He walked in front of me and stared directly into my eyes. "Others," he began again, "have their jobs to do, too. Let them proceed."

  He sat down again. His eyes closed and before I could move, he was asleep.

  So now what, I wondered. If he was talking to me, was I supposed to sit back and let Lyla kill him like she was a jigsaw puzzle and his death was the final piece that would complete the picture?

  But what if he meant that I had to do my job and stop Lyla for him? Lousy bunch of questions.

  Wish I had even a single answer.

  Twenty

  Iknew I could watch the Monitor sleep in his chair, which was my second most favorite thing in the world to do—my first being everything else in the world! Or I could follow Harbinger.

  Drying paint. Potential violence. A super hero's life is filled with these kinds of hard choices.

  She stood in the room and stared at the child. I witnessed this same scene before, from inside the speed force. As before, the boy was half flesh and half anti-matter. If what I saw was really the future and not some manufactured event, the Monitor would enter at any moment. Harbinger reached for the child. He was looking at her, wondering who she was and if she was going to hurt him. He had aged from the newborn they rescued just hours before into a very frightened three year old. I wondered if he had any memories of his home on Earth-3, or the mother and father who saved him as their planet disappeared.

  "I don't know why he brought you here," she said to him. "There are things he still keeps from me. But you must be important." She looked out a portal to the unblemished blackness beyond.

  "Well, whatever he's planned, it won't be allowed to happen. My master will fight him. And we're going to defeat him." Lyla stopped. She shook her head, rocking it from side to side, trying, I'd like to think, to take back control. It was, unfortunately, all too obvious that she couldn't.

  She took the boy's hand and held it between hers. "The Monitor, you know, saved me when I was a baby, about the same age you are now. I don't remember how I got there, but I was alone, lost in the ocean, floating on 84

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  a piece of wreckage. He told me he looked everywhere, but no boats had sunk and no planes had crashed. We never learned how I got there or who I originally was."

  She smiled at him. "We're not unalike, are we? Both of us were lost. Both were found. And both of us were obviously changed from whatever God originally meant for us to be."

  She stopped again and started to cry. "Did you know I'm supposed to kill him? Why doesn't he stop me? Why can't he kill me instead? He doesn't deserve to die."

  I could see the change as the darkness again took hold. The tears were gone and when she turned back to the boy, her eyes were dead. Emotionless.

  "You know he sent his heroes to protect his oh-so important machines. A useless gesture at best, I'm afraid. You see, once I kill him it won't matter what those devices do. All hope for the multiverse will die with him." She leaned in closely to the boy, and his eyes widened in fear.

  "My master will have me bring you to him. But it will be all right," Harbinger whispered. "He won't hurt you."

  "He? Who won't hurt him?" I asked. But of course she didn't hear me. Lyla panicked as the Monitor entered the room.

  Twenty-One

  The Monitor walked past the boy, barely paying him any attention. Instead, he smiled at Lyla as if she was the most important thing in his life. Damn him. "Can't you see she's changed? Protect yourself." I knew he didn't hear me, but yelling at him made me feel better.

  He sat down in front of the boy. "How is he?" the Monitor asked. "Still disoriented from his journey?"

  Lyla gave him a fake smile. "A little afraid. I was telling him about you, promising you wouldn't hurt him."

  It was so damn obvious to me. How could the Monitor not realize she was lying?

  "Look at him, Lyla. He has no idea the role he's about to play." He turned to her and she was surprised at how drawn his face had suddenly become. He looked tired. No problem, old man. You'll have plenty of time for sleep soon.

  "But how are you?" he asked her. "I've been worried. You never separated into so many replicates before."

  She laughed and for just an instant she was Lyla again. "I'm tired. But fine."

  "Anyone give you trouble?"

  Her smile was genuine. "A little. I thought the villains were going to be difficult, but once they understood their lives were at stake they were almost more willing to join us than some of the heroes."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. A few of the heroes were suspicious. They thought we were new villains or someone trying to dupe them into doing I can't imagine what. Firestorm was the worst. He's like a kid, ready to argue about anything." 86

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  The Monitor laughed. "He may inhabit an older body, but he is young. Still, they're now off on their assignments. I think we picked well." He slowly forced himself to his feet and circled the boy, his open palms glowing slightly as if examining him.

  "Matter and antimatter existing together. You know that's supposed to be impossible. In fact, it not only should tear him apart, but us and everything else as well."

  "Then how did it happen?"

  "He's some kind of bridge, a natural stabilizing agent between incompatible energies. I also believe he will turn out to be crucial in our upcoming struggles."

  He turned to her suddenly.

  "You're sure you're all right?"

  He startled her. "I'm fine. Thank you."

  "I sense conflict. Lyla, you should know whatever decisions you make will be right."

  "Don't worry about me." She nervously stepped away from him. "How are you holding up?"

  "I'm waiting. For the inevitable."

  I could feel the mood in the room abruptly change. Lyla was no longer smiling. Before my eyes she had become the Harbinger again.

  "You know I have to do this," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  "I can't help myself."

  He didn't respond.

  "He's controlling me."

  The Monitor kneeled before the boy, his fingers hovered just above the line of demarcation between flesh and antimatter.

  "That's his way, Lyla. You should know that. But it's all right. I don't think anyone could resist him."

  "Don't call me that. Don't call me Lyla. He doesn't like that name. I'm Harbinger. You know I don't want to hurt you." This was the same conversation I heard in the speed force.

  "Stop me, Monitor. Please. Stop me." She was in tears, begging for his help.

  But the Monitor looked in my direction instead. His voice dropped to a whisper. "The enemy is powerful. His plans for destruction need to be understood."

  Once again the blackness swallowed me.

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  I was back in the speed force, running faster than before. But this time I sped up my internal vibrations and ran a path counter to the forces pushing me. I realized I didn't have to be cast wherever the cosmic tides haphazardly sent me. If I concentrated, I could control my journey.

  In the speed force, time and place were one. I could go where and even when I wanted.

  My universe was dying and I knew exactly where I wanted to be. With Iris.

  At her side.

  Twenty-two

  As I sped through the shifting mists, images of my life rushing past, all I thought about was how beautiful she was, how important to me she'd always been and how much I needed her now. I had to know if Iris was still alive. And though I accepted the odds were that even if I found h
er I couldn't talk to her or touch her or even let her know I was just a breath away, I didn't care. Seeing her would be enough. After that, I knew I could concentrate on the task at hand and figure out how a dead man could possibly help the living.

  Iris was so deep in my thoughts even the very end of existence took second place.

  I felt sorry for some of my other friends; Bruce never let anyone close. Diana, Clark, Ray and Hal had people they cared for but never anyone they fully shared their lives with. Of all my friends, only Carter and Shayera, Hawkman and Hawkwoman, could possibly understand how Iris was the only one who kept me sane when all I sometimes wanted to do was explode with frustration.

  I saw the Earth, but which one was I looking at? Earth-2, Earth-29, Earth eleven billion? I had to find Earth-1, my Earth. My home. Then, suddenly, it was there, undetectably different from the other Earths, but I still knew it was my planet. It was my time period. My life was just a step away.

  The Earth was blanketed in a red haze. In the southern Guangshou province of China, just above Hong Kong, I watched a tornado rip through a fairly modern city, crushing it to flesh and stone rubble. I saw England slip Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  quietly into the sea and tidal waves wash across South America, drowning Brazil under a mile-thick mattress of frigid water. The white wall of antimatter swept over Africa, eliminating it from existence. It moved across Europe, erasing whatever it touched, leaving behind only the black emptiness of undemanding space. I had to run faster. I had to make it to America.

  I had to find Iris.

  Twenty-three

  Iran across the ocean so fast there was no time for me to break its surface; I was literally running on water.

  I glanced back as the wall of antimatter narrowed the already slender gap between us. The ocean disappeared in its wake, but I didn't care. The wall was behind me, but America was dead ahead. Iris.

  I had to keep her in my thoughts.

  I had to let the speed force take me to her.

  I had to see if she was still alive.

  I had to know if she could still be saved.

  I had to tell her, even if she never heard me, how much I loved her. Closer.

  Was she there? Please, God, let her be alive.

  Iris.

  Then, suddenly, a wave of— what? Energy? The shadows? Something else I couldn't see? —struck. It knocked me back into the antimatter. But I was already dead. How could it kill me again?

  I burst free from the wall, and continued toward the U.S. To where I last saw Iris.

  The energy struck again, knocking me back a second time and then a third.

  In the next seventeen seconds I tried a hundred more times to get past it, but whatever it was, wouldn't let me proceed. It wouldn't let me see Iris. I kept trying. I kept running.

  Until I couldn't.

  Until I fell to my knees.

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  Until I could do nothing but surrender.

  I called out to God. I was angrier at him than I'd ever been before.

  "Damn you. I just want to see her one more time." Then the Earth disappeared.

  Or, actually, I disappeared.

  Taken God knows where.

  I didn't want to go. I wanted to try another hundred times to find her. Or a thousand times, or a million if that was what it took. But I wasn't allowed to.

  I was in blackness, floating in a sea of ink, pulled by forces I couldn't see in a direction I couldn't control.

  And I didn't care.

  I was floating in the darkness. Without a point of reference there was no way to determine where I was or where I was going.

  Darkness.

  Blackness.

  An angry infinity of nothingness.

  Then I saw it.

  It was cold, gray. I had no idea how far away it was. Behind it I saw a shimmer of green.

  I was running.

  But when did I start?

  The gray was still very far away. It stretched toward the ball of green. The green turned out to be a planet.

  Wherever I was, I wasn't alone.

  I was closer now. The gray looked like a castle floating in the black. Was

  :hat even possible? But there was scale now and for the castle to be seen against that world—barely a pinprick itself in the distance—it would have to be immense. As large as a moon.

  Suddenly, I was afraid. I knew what I was hurtling toward. This was the fortress of the enemy, the one who was destroying the multiverse, the one who was destroying my world.

  The one who might have already killed Iris.

  Then I smiled.

  I had found my foe.

  Twenty-four

  Iwas inside the enemy's home. I'd seen it before but I had never run through its oppressive stone corridors. So I did as I always do in any new surroundings; I began a superspeed reconnaissance to get the lay of the land.

  I was looking for the torture room. I knew he'd be there. It was his favorite place in the castle.

  As I ran past seemingly endless stone courtyards, the smallest still larger than any football field, I thought about the speed force. I wondered if it had always been there, just beyond my sight and reach. Had it somehow been guiding me all these years? Was it responsible for that single, errant bolt of lightning that changed not only my life but the life of everyone I knew? And most of all, I wondered why I hadn't discovered it until now?

  Its portal into all times and places would have been invaluable. Imagine how many disasters I could have prevented if I were able to move through time. Why did it take my death for me to literally stumble across it? I thought of Wally. When this crisis was over, if it ever was, I promised myself to make sure he learned about it. If someone alive wielded its energies there would be no place or time he couldn't go.

  Or destroy, if its knowledge fell into the wrong hands. But I'd known Wally since he was nine. He was cocky and hot-headed for certain, but when I fought alongside him I knew he had the stuff to be a much greater influence on the world than I would ever be. The castle walls were thick, dark gray stone. I ran past more courtyards crowded with deadly weapons wondering if one of them was the device that killed me or would do so soon again.

  Crisis on Infinite Earths

  I heard voices and ran for them.

  "He'll kill me, Flash. I know he will."

  Someone was talking to me.

  "He's only kept me alive because he needs me to manipulate them. But Flash, I failed him. When he finds that out he'll kill me. I failed him when he needed me the most."

  I recognized the Psycho Pirate's voice and my stomach suddenly fell. He was gibbering like a baby. "Here I am, the master of emotion. Want someone to be happy? Bam! He's grinning ear to ear. Want him to laugh himself to death? Almost too easy. Need him to be so paranoid he kills himself? Flashy, I don't even have to break a sweat for that one." I found the Pirate on his knees, staring at the floor and still prattling his nonsense.

  "I can create any emotion in anyone, Flash. But look at me. I'm petrified."

  Then I glanced up and saw the all too familiar figure I knew in my heart was waiting for me. His eyes were closed and he was hanging unconscious in a small steel chamber built into the stone. Energy beams of some sort held him in place so he couldn't move.

  I hadn't just run through space, I had gone back in time. Not centuries or years, but a matter of hours or perhaps days.

  I was staring at myself, still alive, but unconscious in that box-like prison. But if I'm dead now and I was alive here, why didn't I remember any of this?

  I pushed past the Pirate. "Barry," I called out to him or me or whatever we were, but he didn't seem to hear. "How did you get here? Give me a damned clue. Give me anything I can work with." I, maybe it's he, didn't move.

  When did I die?

  Did I ever get back home? Did I ever see...

  My other self stirred for a moment and we spoke the same word at the
same time. "Iris."

  We were both thinking of Iris.

  Lady Quark Earth—6

  Although no one knew it yet, in less than twenty eight minutes, Earth-6 would be gone.

  The skies had long since turned red. Tornadoes ravaged the southern hemisphere and earthquakes sank Japan and Australia. Ice slid down across Korea, Russia, and China and swept up from Antarctica to engulf Australia, Argentina, and South Africa. There were already more than three billion not dead, but erased.

  No one realized their universe was a singular anomaly. Of the untold billion worlds that were created at the moment of its birth in a primal explosion, sentient life was born to only one. The other worlds remained dead and inhospitable.

  Where other Earths in other universes gave birth to long traditions of the heroic ideal, spawning untold numbers of warriors hungry to fight, and even better, die, for a common good, the hero myth never formed here. In fact, throughout the ages only a handful of Specials—as the normals called them—ever existed. Their powers and values were passed on from generation to generation, but their numbers sadly never increased. By the time the shadows appeared, only thirteen Specials were still alive. Within an hour, six of them died in the first attack. Four more vanished eighteen minutes later as they tried to save random innocent lives. Lady Araythya Quark was one of the last three Specials still living. Her husband, Lord Karak Volt, and their daughter, Princess Liana, were the other two.

  The royal family of Venice, Italy, traced their ancestry back more than four thousand years. Once Liana married Griyseth Sorasen, one of the Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  younger Specials living in the southern hemisphere, they anticipated their new combined lineage to last at least a thousand more. But Sorasen no longer existed, wiped out of reality when the pale death swept across his ice-bound continent.

  Lady Quark watched as the red sky tore itself open and released a white cloud that quickly reshaped itself into a massive wall, one mile wide by two miles tall. It swept across the Earth, eliminating everything in its path, growing even larger as it fed upon the planet's dwindling energy. Araythya was unaware Venice was the last surviving city on Earth-6.

  "Karak, what is it?" Quark, trying to control her rushing emotions, struggled to keep her voice steady. Don't panic. Karak and I will figure this out. We always do.