by Barry Lyga
Ray had “landed” three days later on the Saturnian moon of Titan, where the local telepaths quickly located him. Mick had ended up farthest away, arriving two weeks later on the ruins of the planet Trom, where apparently the elemental structure was quite unstable and no longer suitable for habitation.
The Legion of Super-Heroes (and yeah, they actually called themselves that . . . although who was she to judge, leading a group called the Legends of Tomorrow?) had received various temporal alerts when the wreckage of the Waverider exploded out of the temporal zone and into real space. They’d scrambled teams across the galaxy to rescue the time-lost refugees.
But still so many of the Legends were lost, missing somewhere in time: Mona Wu. Nate Heywood. Charlie. John Constantine. All of them scattered across time.
Mick and Ray would recover. Even thirty-first-century science couldn’t say what would happen to Zari. And the others? No one could say for sure. Sara knew they were “out there.” Somewhere.
Slipping into her White Canary togs, Sara set her lips in a grim line. I need a ship. And a crew. And then I’ll find them. I swear.
“Breep!” Computo chirped for attention. “Captain Lance, your presence has been requested in the medical bay, if you don’t mind.”
Sara grabbed her jacket, threw it around her shoulders, and headed for the door. “On my way, Gideon!” she shouted.
“I mean Computo,” she muttered under her breath as she stepped into the corridor.
5
Cisco was being torn apart, shredded, disassembled.
Strangely, it didn’t hurt at all. He observed as though from afar, as though watching on a screen somewhere. The laceration of his self happened on a level beyond the physical. Beyond even the metaphysical. It was, perhaps, something superphysical. Spiritual. His entire concept of self had been dissected, his history left bleeding in the open air.
There he was in school, with Jake Puckett dunking his head in the toilet until Cisco cried uncle and agreed to let his bully copy his homework. And there he was again, mooning after Melinda Tores, the love of his life, never to be with him after his brother, Dante, thought it would be funny to lie and tell her that Cisco intended to become a priest.
Days at school, working hard. Nights at home, poring over tech magazines and journals, wishing that someone in his family would bother to notice him, would look up from their worship of Dante and his magical fingers at the piano.
Flashing forward, strips of history and time flayed from the corpus of his life and were left crumpled and sodden on the floor of the past. College and his roommate, Sebastian. Graduating. The job at S.T.A.R. Labs. And then so much more . . .
Cisco saw it all in an instant, his entire life arrayed around him in an infinity of facets, as though he were embedded in the center of a jewel made of concentrated time itself. Each facet was stripped away, pulled from him, examined.
And then it all came together again, the jewel collapsing into him. With the return of his own history came the return of his physicality, the return of pain. He screamed in agony as every punch, pinch, kick, scrape, cut, bruise, and contusion in his life revisited him at once.
Every heartache. Every tear. Every moment of sadness and anger and self-recrimination. His soul swelled with pain.
And then it was over. He was intact and real again, collapsed on a rough metal floor rusted with age. Around him, an energy field crackled and spat blue-white sparks.
“Yes, you will do nicely, Cisco Ramon.”
He managed to lift his head enough to look up. The perspective was wonky, but through the energy field, he spied a figure in a bedraggled purple cloak standing over him. A hood shrouded the face in utter darkness, and the voice from within grated, echoing along itself.
“You time-napped the wrong superhero, dude,” Cisco said with much bravado, in contrast to how he felt. He didn’t have the energy to summon a breach right at the moment, but once he did . . .
“You are precisely the right person, Cisco Ramon. Indeed, in the whole of the Multiverses, you are the exact individual I require. One out of trillions.”
Multiverses? Multiverses? Plural?
So it turned out this guy knew about the TV world, then. Cisco forced out a single, wry chuckle. “Shows what you know, buddy. There’s an excellent Xerox of me out there.”
The voice spoke again, lacking emotion, the syllables and phonemes sliding against one another. “The doppelgänger you speak of surrendered his powers for a time, and their return has left him somewhat weaker. You are the sole possessor of the powers I need. And now you are mine.”
Cisco licked his lips. “You’re lying.” But deep down, he knew it was true. He’d tried to commune with the TV Cisco when he was trapped in the past but had felt no reciprocal vibe in return. TV Cisco was powerless—or at least, powered less.
Why? Why would he do that? Why would he render himself defenseless in the face of so much danger?
“Well,” Cisco said with what he hoped was a muscular, defiant tone, “when my buddy Barry gets here, you’re gonna wish you’d never heard the name Cisco Ramon. Ever been punched in the face fourteen thousand times at the speed of light? Maybe if you let me go, he won’t run over here and pummel you into the dirt.”
The voice emanating from the solid shadows within the hood did not so much as chuckle, but Cisco thought he detected amusement nonetheless.
“I am eager for your friend to arrive, Cisco Ramon. Indeed, I rely on it.”
6
Barry vibrated through the walls of the Time Bureau and into Ava Sharpe’s office. It was empty and dark, with a half-eaten ham sandwich abandoned on a crumpled square of wax paper in a cone of light from the desk lamp. Barry tapped his left ear to activate his comms bud.
“Superman? Do you see her?”
Hovering above the clouds in order to conceal his presence on Earth 1—the people here were used to metahumans, not godlike aliens—Superman spoke with a calm resignation. “I don’t like to invade people’s privacy with my X-ray vision, but I suppose these are extenuating circumstances. I see a woman matching your description in the northern stairwell. And Flash?”
Barry was already speeding in that direction so quickly that no one at the Time Bureau would be able to see him. “Yeah?”
“Be kind,” Superman said.
• • •
As director of the Time Bureau, Ava found that privacy had become a rare commodity. The demands on her—pardon the pun—time were constant, intense, and unrelenting. Like endless hail. That was on fire. And bristling with sharp spikes.
The northern stairwell was one of the few places that afforded her a measure of privacy. No one used it because it was too distant from the central command theater. Plus, there were no bathrooms nearby.
So when she needed a moment to herself, a moment of humanity and vulnerability and mourning, she retreated to the stairwell and sat alone on the stairs. The cold of the concrete steps leached through the seat of her pants, and the cement walls echoed her tears back to her, but at least it was only her own voice, not the endless vocal demands of the agents of the Time Bureau.
She wept for Sara. Sara, the White Canary, the captain of the missing Waverider, and the love of Ava’s genetically foreshortened life. Sara and her crew and vessel had disappeared without so much as a wisp of evidence or a byte of telemetry data to mark their passing or delineate their trail.
Without Sara, Ava had only work. As a clone, she had no family, no long-standing friendships. Her only relationships of any depth or import were with the time-traveling Legends of Tomorrow.
All of whom had vanished.
A red blur manifested itself along the south wall of the stairwell. At first, she thought it was her eyes playing tricks on her: tear-smeared light from the glowing exit sign. But then the blur, roughly human-shaped, resolved into a solid figure.
“Director Sharpe—” began the Flash.
“I’m so sick of you super-people,” Ava growled through her t
ears. “I’m sick of your costumes and your powers and your code names. Your secret identities and your archnemeses and your hidden cities and your customized weapons. I don’t want to live in a world of wonder and splendor and marvels if the price of it is losing the woman I love. I want to live in a boring world with boring people and boring clothes and a boring job in a boring house with my boring girlfriend, do you hear me?”
The Flash said nothing for a moment. Then, “I’m very sorry.”
They did not speak. The Flash crouched down next to her. Ava decided that if he took her hands in his own, she would scream bloody murder and bite his nose right off his face.
Fortunately for the Flash’s future olfactory delights, he did not even feint in the direction of touching her. Instead, he pressed his hands together as though praying, focusing every bit of his attention on her as he spoke.
“I know things look bad. I know things are chaotic. But we think we can find the person responsible for the breaches. And it seems like too much of a coincidence that all of this happened right when the Waverider disappeared. If we find the person who started all of this, I bet we’ll also find the Waverider and Sara and her crew. Please, Director Sharpe. Ava. We can’t do it without you.”
He gazed at her so intently with those ridiculously needy eyes behind that ridiculous cowl that she sighed heavily, then knuckled her tears away, and said, “What do you need?”
7
Caitlin walked with stiff legs and nearly motionless arms down the empty S.T.A.R. Labs corridor toward the Pipeline.
She was not hypnotized or mind controlled. Not precisely. The best description for her condition was numb. She could still control herself and she could have shaken off Madame Xanadu’s orders . . . but she just couldn’t be bothered.
Fully aware of where she was headed and what she was about to do, she could not bring herself to resist. Madame Xanadu had not commanded her, precisely. Instead, the seeress had . . . suggested Caitlin’s course of action. And Caitlin—knowing it was insanity, knowing it was dangerous—instantly understood that she would comply nonetheless.
In the Pipeline, she ignored Superwoman and Ultraman as they hooted and cursed at her. Johnny Quick dozed in the corner of his cell. Power Ring had curled into a ball, knees to his chest, rocking back and forth and weeping.
She didn’t care about them at all. She cared about the cell at the end of the corridor.
“Did you mean it?” she asked Owlman. “Did you mean it when you said you would save the world?”
Unfolding himself from the floor, where he sat cross-legged, the villain from Earth 27 stood to tower over her.
And smiled a smile that spoke many emotions, none of which were mirth.
8
Barry tried to remain patient as he held out his hand, palm up, waiting for Ava Sharpe to give him the Time Courier. It seemed to be taking forever.
“And you promise you’ll bring it back?” she asked.
“For the third time,” Barry said solemnly, “yes.”
She hovered it over his palm, pausing. “And you’re sure this will help you find Sara and the others?”
Barry sighed with exasperation and dropped his hand to his side. “I can’t be sure of anything, but it just makes sense. I promise you—if we get to the End of Time and defeat our enemy and that doesn’t turn up the Legends, I will spend however long it takes searching the time stream for them. I will rescue them, Ava. Now . . . please?”
He held out his hand again and nodded to the Time Courier. It was a chunky black bracelet with a slightly thicker bulge where a watch face would normally be. And it could take him anywhere in time or space. Just what he needed to get to the End of Time.
With a firm nod, as though convincing herself of something, Ava dropped the Time Courier into his hand. “Just one thing, Flash: The Legends have been to the End of Time. There was nothing there. Certainly no enemy. There was once a group called the Time Masters who had a headquarters there, but they’re no longer, uh, extant.”
Barry considered this. That someone had already been to the End of Time hadn’t occurred to him. “Well, we’ll report back once we get there and see what’s what,” he told her. “Maybe the whole thing’s a wild-goose chase. But the Martian who got us this intel has really reliable telepathy.”
Ava goggled. “Martian? Telepathy?”
With a shrug and a grin, Barry gave her a thumbs-up as he darted toward the door, ready to phase through the Time Bureau headquarters and dash back to Central City. “Don’t worry, Director Sharpe,” he called out. “We’ve got the team and the talent.”
Much to the surprise of everyone in the Cortex, Owlman strode in as though he owned the place, with Caitlin Snow at his side. Mr. Terrific and Felicity were at workstations, while Iris and Green Arrow stood nearby. With a smug, satisfied grin, Owlman planted his fists on his hips. “Let’s try this again, shall we?”
Green Arrow spun around instantly at the sound of Owlman’s voice, drawing and nocking an arrow in less than a heartbeat. He aimed unerringly at Owlman’s head. “If you so much as blink in a way that makes me nervous,” Oliver Queen said, his voice steady and low, “I will put this through your eye.”
Owlman chuckled but—crucially—did not move. “How skittish are the proponents of truth and justice on this Earth,” he said. “You have me outnumbered, on an unfamiliar playing field, and yet you identify as the prey, not the predator.”
“We’ve heard enough about you from the Earth 27 refugees to respect your abilities,” Iris said. “Oliver, can you disable him?”
“Define disable.”
“Guys!” Caitlin shouted, and stepped between Oliver’s bow and Owlman. “He’s really here to save the world. Or at least, that’s what Madame Xanadu says.”
Iris folded her arms over her chest as Green Arrow shifted his feet slightly, repositioning himself. If necessary, he could fire the arrow over Caitlin’s shoulder, ricochet it off the wall, and clip Owlman in the ear. Not fatal, but it would distract the villain long enough for Oliver to prep another arrow and get a better vantage point.
“Madame Xanadu?” Iris asked. “What do you mean? He had a knife to her throat.”
Caitlin shook her head. “That was her idea. She knew we wouldn’t trust Owlman if he just walked in here, so she offered herself up as a hostage in order to give him time to explain.”
“Why didn’t she just tell us herself? Why all the trickery?”
“Because you people need to be duped into doing anything remotely effective,” Owlman sneered.
“You talk like you think you’re the good guy,” Oliver said. “How deluded are you?”
“Deluded? No, I’m precisely as you understand me. I’m the hero of the story—not weak-willed and incapable of making the tough decisions, like you lot from Earth 1. I’m the hero who gets things done. And yes, sometimes people die.” He thought for a moment. Shrugged. “A lot of times, actually. But look at it this way—the refugees were all on Earth 27 and they’d all be dead now anyway.”
“He’s got a point,” said Mr. Terrific.
“No, he doesn’t,” Oliver said, seething. “You think murdering people makes you a hero? Trust me, it doesn’t.”
Owlman inclined his head, scrutinizing Green Arrow. “You know something of killing, don’t you, archer? Too squeamish to keep pulling the trigger, though, eh? I’ve seen it before. It’s always sad when the superior man allows himself to be neutered by the concerns of weaklings.”
“It takes more strength not to kill,” Oliver informed him.
“We could debate ethics and philosophy all day,” Owlman said airily, “and you’d still be wrong. The point remains: You can cling to your absurd morality or you can opt for pragmatism. Which will it be?”
“What, exactly, are you offering?” Iris asked him.
“It’s quite simple—I’m brilliant. I figured out how to open an interdimensional breach from my world to yours, working with substandard equipment under very dire
circumstances. I can help you take the battle to the End of Time . . . and defeat the enemy that awaits us there.”
“What do you know about this enemy?” Oliver asked, narrowing his eyes. He had been holding his bow at full draw for several minutes now and showed no signs at all of weakening.
“Madame Xanadu told him. And me,” Caitlin said. “The enemy is a creature at the End of Time. We have to—”
“Didn’t I already put you in the Pipeline?”
It was Barry, returning from Washington, D.C., and the Time Bureau. Just as he phased through the wall of the Cortex, Superman swooped in through the doorway and hovered in the air just over Owlman.
“Hh,” Owlman grunted, looking up. “I know someone just like you.”
“Bruce?” Superman asked, confused.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t lock you up again,” Barry said.
Caitlin clenched her fists and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Will you all just listen to me?” she shouted. “I just watched my best friend get sucked into a breach after we moved heaven and earth to rescue him from the past, and now this guy says he can help and Madame Xanadu vouches for him, and I believe her, so can we please stop arguing and get a move on before Cisco gets killed?”
“I’m sorry, Caitlin,” Barry said soberly. He remembered everything the Earth 27 James Jesse had said about Owlman. The crimes he’d committed. The horrors he’d visited upon the people of that Earth. “I just can’t trust him.”
Owlman grinned. “You’re a fool.” But he held out his hands. “Back to the cell, then. I predict I won’t be there for long.”
9
Joe West heaved out his breath, his lungs burning, his throat afire. He was way, way too old to be running down criminals on the streets, but life had a funny way of not caring how old you were, how much your knees hurt, or how hot the fury of that stitch threading up your side was as you ran.
“GPS has you almost in position, Joe,” Felicity said over the comms bud he wore in his left ear. “Just one more block.”