by Marv Wolfman
He acknowledged her. "I've been waiting for you, Lyla."
"No. I'm not Lyla." Her eyes blazed with hatred. "I'm Harbinger. Call me Harbinger."
The anger suddenly left her and she saw, for just a moment, the man who long ago saved her life "Please. Stop me. He's making me do this." They talked, back and forth, word for word everything I heard before.
"Are you trying to trick me?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No. That's for you to remember... after."
"What are you talking about, old man?"
In two seconds I knew he would drop his hands to his side, accepting his fate. "It's time," he said again. "Do what you must."
"I don't want to do this. Stop me, Monitor. Please. Stop me." She was in tears.
This was the future I saw. I then realized another me was in the room, but he existed out of my current time, beyond my sight. Still, I knew that right about now he was shouting, "Run, you idiot. She's going to kill you." I knew he wouldn't hear me, but I saw the Monitor look to his side. I couldn't hear his whispered words, but I remembered what he had said. "It's for the best."
He smiled at her as I knew he would. "You have to do it, Lyla. I'm ready."
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"I told you before. I am not Lyla. I am Harbinger!" Her hands erupted with a burning flame that seared into him with ferocious suddenness. "I am Harbinger!!" She shouted. "Harbinger!" I screamed— again—as the Monitor disintegrated before my eyes. I tried to run around him, to smother the flames by whipping up a speedcreated hurricane. But my powers, all my incredible powers, were useless when I needed them most.
His flesh dissolved in patches, exposing the muscle and bone beneath. As a forensics scientist, examining more bodies than I ever want to remember, I'd seen similar horrors so many times before. I watched his heart beating even as the flames clawed their way through it.
Everything about him, his skeleton, his heart, his organs, even the smell of his burning flesh, was unbearably familiar.
As he died, this alien I met only hours ago, seemed so... human. His skin dissolved, his skull crumbled, and his voice cracked as he whispered to me, "Protect her, Flash. This is only the beginning." He saw me. And he spoke to me.
Harbinger's eyes widened with horror. Her anger was gone, replaced only with the realization of what she had done.
"Monitor.... Oh, God, oh, dear God."
Suddenly, she leapt from the satellite and disappeared into the void. I tried to stop her, but she was gone. The Monitor had asked me to protect her and I failed.
Terrified, I turned back to see Pariah fall to the floor. He clutched at the Monitor's smoldering corpse. "What do I do now? Monitor? Your machines. How do I activate them? Tell me. What do I do now?" I shouted to tell him that there was nothing he could do. Just look at the screens, you idiot. The Earth—it was my Earth, Earth-1—was disappearing within a shroud of terrible whiteness. My world was dying. My universe was coming to an end.
The other screens showed another Earth. I recognized it as Earth-2. It was disappearing, too.
The Earths and their universes were being erased before my eyes. This was the end of everything.
Earth-1 was gone.
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A moment later Earth-2 joined it in oblivion.
Pariah was babbling. "This is the end of all hope," he repeated again and again.
The whiteness covered me.
But all I could think about was...
"Iris."
PART TWO
WORLDS IN LIMBO
In theory, all time exists simultaneously but to any observer it progresses linearly, events neatly unfolding in progression. But as existence itself destructed, time collapsed as if no longer having purpose.
—The Monitor Tapes Pg. 956
Psycho Pirate Earth-1
It is done. The Monitor is dead. The two prime universes are destroyed."
"You've won then," the Pirate said, forcing a laugh that wasn't there. Appease him. Always agree with him. That way he won't kill me.
"Congratulations, master. This is a great day, isn't it? Umm, I do have one question." Don't ask anything, you idiot. Don't spoil the mood. "Master, you promised me a world. But if you destroyed everything...."
"Silence. I have my own questions."
Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!
The Pirate stumbled back and pressed himself to the wall as his master swept past him, staring into the infinite space. "With his death my strength should have increased. With the destruction of two universes, my power should be overflowing."
He turned to his slave, gesturing with his finger, and the Pirate was quickly pulled through the air to his side. His fingers tightened around the Earthman's frail body. "Tell me, Pirate. Why aren't I all powerful?" There was no safe answer. "Maybe it just hasn't happened yet, master. These things, maybe they need time."
He held the human close to him. "I was born the very moment he was. His power comes from positive matter, mine from antimatter. If he is Harbinger's Monitor, I am the Anti-Monitor."
"Anti-Monitor? That's your name? You never told me...."
"We have no name. We have existence. We have purpose. Mine was to eliminate positive matter. His was to maintain what was. Now he is dead. So explain to me again, Pirate, why I need to wait before his power becomes mine."
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The Pirate felt the steel like fingers tighten around him, crushing his ribs, pushing the air from his lungs.
"Master, I did everything you told me to. I'm controlling the Flash, aren't I? He's not escaping us, right? Anything you want me to do, I do it. Master... please tell me what do you want me to do now?" He pressed closer to the Pirate, then, with a snarl, he tossed him aside. The Pirate fell hard against the far wall and he wanted to cry out in pain, but clamped his mouth shut instead. Don't say anything, you idiot. Anything could change his mind.
"I still need the Flash. He is the only being able to transverse dimensions. And you are the only one available to me who can control him." He watched the Pirate try to press himself into the wall. "All right. For the moment you live."
The Pirate watched him leave. "Thank God. Thank you, Jesus." He cried again as he picked himself off the floor.
"Pirate." The Master called him again.
"Join me now. There is still work that needs to be done." With his forearm, the Pirate wiped away his tears as he staggered to the door. Do whatever he wants. Agree with whatever he says. He's a scary little mother and he'll tear you apart as soon as let you breathe. What the hell did I let myself get mixed up with?
He closed the door behind him.
"Damn you, Anti-Monitor. Damn you and damn me." Thirty-four
I saw her in the whiteness. Beautiful and calm. She smiled as her hand reached for mine.
"Barry, c'mon, you doofus. Answer me. What do you think it'll be?"
I shrugged. "You want a boy or a girl? You know it doesn't make any difference to me."
She lay back into her cushion as we circled the lake. We were in the middle of a vast park far from the city and the people we knew. She took another sip of lemonade.
"We're not kids. I'm a little scared."
"I would've been more scared if I was younger. Maybe I'm ready now." I wasn't lying.
"Me, too. And you're sure you want to stay here? What about your friends?"
The Justice League seemed so far away and so long ago. "It'll be okay. If the Flash has to stop, uh, flashing, I'll have no regrets."
"You don't mean that."
"Yeah. I do. It hasn't been easy but I'm ready to stop. I don't want anything getting in our way again."
"Yeah. I love you, too."
She leaned closer with one of the happiest smiles I had ever seen. That was when we heard the explosion, muffled and distant. I tried to ignore it.
"What was that?" she asked, surprised.
"Don't know. Don't care. Someone
else'll check it out." I was sure she'd believe me.
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"Yeah, right. I see you chomping at the bit." Evidently, I was not a very good liar. I tried again. "That part of my life is over." I actually believed that, too.
"Not today." She squeezed my hand. "I'll be all right." I pressed the hidden button on my ring and my Flash costume sprung out of it and unfolded in the air. An instant later I was wearing it. I leaned over and kissed her cheek.
"I'll be back soon as I can," I said as I took off toward the city. Nothingness.
I felt the cold.
Everything had disappeared.
"Iris."
I called out her name again. This time not even my dreams answered. Then my eyes opened.
Thirty-five
Didn't the universe just die? And didn't that white wall of anti-matter kill me a fifth, or was that a sixth time?
I appeared to be on the Monitor's satellite, but the space outside us was no longer black.
There were no planets here. No suns. No rocky fragments or even a gaseous trail marking some unknown path.
We were surrounded by an uninterrupted pure white void that was somehow more frightening than the gloomy solitary blackness of space. If this wasn't the speed force, then where were we? I saw Lyla sprawled on the floor, her eyes slowly blinking open. She was Lyla again and definitely not Harbinger. A long crimson dress somehow replaced her blue armor. I knew better than to ask how.
"I killed him, didn't I." She wasn't asking a question. She was still dazed as she stood and saw Pariah kneeling beside the dead Monitor. "Tell me he's alive." She was crying, not quite understanding, or perhaps remembering exactly what she did.
"He's dead," Pariah said. "And the universe was destroyed with him. Why haven't I died yet, too?"
"Lyla."
It was the Monitor's voice. I looked at his body, but he was still dead. Then again, so was I.
Being dead isn't what it used to be.
"Monitor?" The color had drained from Lyla's face. She pulled herself away from Pariah. "Where are you?"
"Don't grieve for what you've done," he said. "You freed me. And if we win this struggle, it will be because of you." 128
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His face was on one of the view screens and she saw him the same time I did. "Monitor?" Lyla called to him but his eyes were focused somewhere behind her, his speech obviously pre-recorded.
"I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
His message interrupted her. "He was controlling you, Lyla. It was his hand that killed me, not yours. But still, my death was necessary if even a single universe is to be saved.
"I needed you," he said, "To kill me at the very moment I activated my machines. But my enemy's plan commenced before I found the power to trigger them."
He paused, giving us time to understand what he was talking about.
"My death released my energy and provided the machines with the power to do more than I originally planned. Lyla, my body died, but out of my essence a limbo of pure matter was born. I absorbed the universes of Earth-1 and 2 into me, into the universe I created."
"They live?" I asked. "Both worlds?" Did that mean Iris was alive? He ignored me, but I was getting used to that. "There is still danger. Because the enemy forced my hand, the machines were not fully activated. Even though the universes are safe within me, the temporal vibrations that separate them are slowly fraying. In time, the universes will merge." He didn't need to tell me what that meant. Two objects can't occupy the same space and time. Even before the planets came together, when they reached some sort of interdimensional roche limit, their gravities would destroy each other.
"There is still much that must be done. Listen to him. I protected him because only he can save the universe."
Was he talking about me? Nobody could see or hear me. I couldn't make myself known. How the hell could I save anything?
"Who do I listen to?" Lyla asked. "Monitor... please, tell me what I'm supposed to do."
He continued speaking. But his voice softened and he allowed himself a wistful smile. "I know you feel guilt for what you've done, but I knew when I first found you floating helpless in the sea that you would one day have to do just what you've done. I saved you to become the conduit through which I would save the universe. But Lyla you became so much more." She was staring at the screen, trying to see him clearly through her flood of tears.
"My plan was only to train you. But in raising you, you became my child. You became part of me."
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On the screen the Monitor turned to the side, nodding, as if answering someone's off-screen question. He then turned back, facing us.
"It is time. My death is close and your mission is beginning. Goodbye, Lyla, and remember, I love you."
Lyla kept staring even as the view screen went black.
"Who am I supposed to listen to, Monitor? Tell me. Please tell me."
"Me. You're all supposed to listen to me." The voice was young. Lyla, Pariah and I turned to see him standing in
:he doorway.
He was tall and thin, looking no more than seventeen, and he was dressed in gold armor that covered him from foot to head, his hands included. His narrow face was framed with a thick mane of curly red hair. I was sure I'd seen him before. But where?
He smiled at Lyla. "He knew you might not believe him, and he wanted me to make sure you knew how much he loved you." Lyla stepped toward him but he moved back, keeping just out of reach.
"Please. Don't. Don't touch me," he said. "It's safer. For you."
"Who are you?" Lyla wanted to know. So did I but there was no way I'd expect him to answer me.
He smiled at her again, and that's when I realized who he was.
"We've spoken before, Lyla. I'm Alexander Luthor, formerly of Earth-3."
The last time I saw him, less than an hour ago, he had been three years old.
Thirty-six
Grinning, Alex Luthor turned to Lyla and Pariah. I don't know why, but I immediately liked him.
"You took care of me when I was first brought to the satellite. Of course, I was only a week old then." Luthor's green eyes sparkled, waiting for a reaction.
Lyla stared at him, her head tilting as if to joggle loose a stray memory.
"The baby?" She shook her head. "You can't be the baby." He laughed as he sat down. "Is there any milk here? The Monitor does have a refrigerator, doesn't he?" A panel slid open on the wall to my right revealing a glass of milk. "Computer programming. Excellent," he said, retrieving his drink. "Maybe some cookies, too?" Lyla started to approach him but he held his free hand out. "No, don't. It's not a good idea to touch me. We need to do some tests first." He drank his milk then set it aside. "Except for my head, half my body is positive matter and the other half is antimatter. Generally a lethal combination." A hologram of him as a baby appeared in his hand. It rotated to show his positive and negative sides. "Somehow, don't ask me how or why, they exist together. I know. Scientifically impossible. And, just in case physics has a problem with me, the Monitor built this containment armor." Pariah stared at Alex who understood he was a curiosity and decided to accept it. "You can't exist," Pariah said.
"And yet I'm here. The Monitor said you'd both have problems. He also said, this is a quote, 'Get over it.' We've got work to do." For a moment I thought he looked up at me. "All of us," he added. Pariah followed but stayed at a healthy distance. "You were an infant. Nobody had time to teach you anything. How can you—?" Crisis on Infinite Earths
131
"Talk?" Alex interrupted. "The Monitor provided learning discs. You should know that's how it's done. I was taught most of Earth's culture. Actually, the culture of multiple Earths, my own included. Also, history, science, mathematics and so much more."
Lyla was confused but I was beginning to understand. I mentally marked a check of approval on the Monitor's invisible chart. Other than rapid aging, a
rtificial intelligence implants and a logic inconsistency that by all rights should blow up known existence, I'd say I'm pretty normal. Now follow me. The Monitor left instructions. We need to go back to the telecommunications room."
Lyla didn't move. "Not until I know the plan. And if it doesn't sound like something the Monitor would do, I'll kill you." Pariah reached for her. "Lyla, don't. The Monitor wants us...."
"Wants us to do what?" Lyla's eyes narrowed in anger. "All we have is his word for it," she said, indicating Alex. "He's a baby who's grown up in less than twenty-four hours. How do I know we can trust him. I couldn't even trust me."
Alex understood. "There's no danger here, Lyla. I was given a list of instructions. As predicted events unfold, he wants us to follow them. The universes are slowly merging. To keep the peace he's already summoned back-up forces."
"Back-up forces?"
"The other heroes, Lyla. We shouldn't keep them waiting."
"All right," she said. "Show me these forces." We entered the telecommunications chamber and my mind, what little was left of it, was blown away by what was waiting for us. Lois Lane Earth—1
Lois stood at the intersection of Siegel Street and Harbor Blvd. Behind her was supposed to be Metropolis Port, a mile-long series of interconnected docks that welcomed tankers, south of 12th street, and passenger ships, north of 17th. Between the two separated areas had been government offices and cargo firms.
"Perry," Lois calmly said into her cell phone. "You are definitely not going to believe this."
To her right, Lois would almost always find at least two city-sized cruise ships letting out tourists for their day trip into Metropolis, or loading on new passengers about to begin their journey south to Bermuda or the Caribbean.
"Remember the docks? There's supposed to be ships. And people. And God knows what else."
Sometimes, she thought, she envied people's ability to get away and have fun. Lois couldn't remember her last real vacation.
"It's gone, Perry. All of it."
Where piers 37 and 38 were the night before when her number 7 train sped past them on her way back home, Lois instead stared at a volcano rising at least three stories high. Something inside the rim was spewing fumes and she saw a blood red reflective glow on the clouds above. But Metropolis, solid on its bedrock foundation, was not built over any previous seismic activity.