by Barry Lyga
“If you ever want to get out of there,” Supergirl told him, “tell me what you’re up to. What were you doing with the treadmill?”
He pursed his lips, considering. “What do I get in return for an honest answer?”
Supergirl pretended to think about this. “Food and water.”
Another laugh. “You’re not going to let me starve to death in here. I’ve already got your number, lady. You’re not the kind to let me suffer.”
“You’re right about that,” Supergirl agreed, and thumbed the pad that opened the door to the Pipeline.
Iris strode in. “I, on the other hand, have absolutely no compunction about torturing you. That’s my husband in the far future whom you’re messing with. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to help him. And I don’t have to kill you to do it. I’m more than willing to let you get within spitting distance of death before I give you to a hospital to resuscitate you.” She leaned in close. “Imagine it, Bruce: Long days and nights with nothing in your belly. I bet you’ve trained most of your life to endure such a thing. But even training can’t forestall the inevitable physiological ramifications of no food or drink. Caitlin tells me it’s pretty painful. And if it goes on long enough, you’ll never fully recover. Even with good medical attention, you’ll still never really be at 100 percent again.”
He swallowed audibly, even through the glass.
“Someone like you, someone who’s spent his entire life honing his body to physical perfection . . . I bet that would drive you crazy, wouldn’t it? Knowing that you’ll never be at that peak again.”
Owlman managed a sneer. “You’re bluffing.”
Supergirl whistled. “I wouldn’t bet on that!”
“Possibly,” Iris conceded. “But imagine how much damage will happen to your body while we both wait to find out.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked a hip.
It didn’t take him long.
“OK, OK, you win. The truth is, I don’t know what I was doing at the treadmill.” He held up a hand to forestall her interruption. “I was just following orders.”
“From whom?”
He sighed and rested his forehead against the glass. “Her. Madame Xanadu.”
Iris shivered. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I’ve told you the truth all along. I wanted to save the world because I need a place to live, too. And I’ve done everything in my power to do so.”
Up until that moment, he’d been calm, placid. Now, though, his temper burst through to the surface and he pounded on the glass with both fists.
“So let me out of here! I played my part! Let me go! You can’t keep me in here forever! You have no right!”
Iris nodded thoughtfully. “Oh. Right. Your whole theory of Multiversal jurisprudence. The idea that no Earth 1 court has jurisdiction over what you did on Earth 27. I actually agree with you.”
Owlman blinked a few times, processing this revelation, looking for the catch. “So . . . you’re letting me out? I’m free to go?”
“Not so much.” Iris grinned. “We’re going to hand you over to the people who do have jurisdiction: the Earth 27 refugees. They will determine your fate.”
For the first time since meeting him, Iris beheld true fear on Owlman’s face.
Iris brought Caitlin with her to interrogate Madame Xanadu. Not because Caitlin was a doctor, but rather because Caitlin turned out to be a good shot with the cold gun. She stood at the foot of Xanadu’s bed and took careful aim.
“Try anything tricky or witchy or magical,” Iris warned, “and Caitlin will turn you into a popsicle.”
Madame Xanadu showed no concern at this pronouncement. She sat up a little straighter in bed without so much as a glance in Caitlin’s direction.
“There is no need to threaten me.”
“You’ve been conspiring with Owlman.”
Xanadu clucked her tongue. “Conspire. An interesting word. It literally means ‘to breathe together.’ So . . . yes, I have found it prudent to mingle my breath with his. That does not mean we share the same goals.”
“I think the death of your Earth 27 counterpart drove you mad,” said Caitlin. “And you’re trying to bring the same fate to our world.”
Xanadu shook her head. “Quite the contrary. I’m trying to save what is left of this Multiverse and the other.”
“You have a funny way of showing it: sabotaging the treadmill.”
“That was not an act of sabotage. We did nothing to impair your friends’ run to the future. We merely . . . modified the treadmill for an alternate purpose.”
Caitlin hefted the gun significantly. “No more riddles and half-truths. Tell us what you’re up to.”
Xanadu sighed at Caitlin’s display but still did not look at her, focusing on Iris.
“Iris, I’ve foreseen it. We all have, the fifty-one remaining Madame Xanadus across the Multiverse. Flash and his team cannot stop the Time Trapper. As his name implies, they are running into a trap.”
Iris felt a chill. “Then why did you let them go?”
“Because we needed them to breach the Iron Curtain of Time. And now Bruce has reconfigured your treadmill, turning it from an engine into a weapon. A pulse of vibrational energy so powerful that it will destroy the Time Trapper at the End of All Time and collapse the universe into its next form.”
“But . . . but Barry and the others . . . They’re at the End of All Time, too! What will happen to them?”
Madame Xanadu’s expression told Iris everything she needed to know. “This is why I needed Owlman. His narcissism made him desperate to save the universe so that he could live. And at the same time, I knew I could rely on his ruthlessness to do what had to be done.”
“No,” Iris said, wiping furiously at a stray tear. No time for sadness. Only anger and action. “I don’t believe you. I can’t let this be a suicide mission.”
“Never fear. Our plan will not work.”
Caitlin groaned from the foot of the bed. “What? Then why go through all of this in the first place?”
Madame Xanadu smiled her enigmatic smile. “Because something else will.”
“This is absolutely nuts!” Iris exclaimed.
With a soft, slow shake of her head, Madame Xanadu said, “This is how it must be. This is how it shall be. This has all been foreseen, including Bruce’s betrayal and the destruction of the Time Trapper and the heroes at the End of All Time.”
“Will I ever see Barry again?” Iris asked.
Madame Xanadu folded one hand atop the other and closed her eyes. For a long time, she said nothing. Then, with a small, placid smile, she said, “You already have seen him again.”
53
Luthor wore a prison jumpsuit, so the Trapper had plucked him from one of the many times he’d been incarcerated on Stryker’s Island, the special airborne prison for super-criminals.
He also wore a smarmy smirk. Superman hadn’t much cared for that expression when they’d been kids—he liked it even less as an adult.
“I don’t have time for you, Lex. Get out of the way.”
“Oh, how I’ve missed that confident, solipsistic tone of voice!” Lex crowed. “As though you were the only person in the world who mattered. And I’m sure you actually believe that. Which is why . . .”
Superman marched over to Lex and did what he’d been wanting to do for years but couldn’t—wound up his fist and punched him squarely in the jaw with every ounce of strength in his body. If he’d done this under a yellow sun, Lex’s head would have become a grayish-red free-floating mist. Without his powers, though, only two things happened: First, Lex shut up and dropped to the ground, unconscious.
Second, Superman realized he’d probably broken a couple of bones in his hand. It throbbed with radical pain.
Worth it, he decided, gazing at Lex’s prone form beneath him.
Shaking the pain from his right hand, he stepped over Lex and rotated the console toward him. He knew alien and future techn
ology, true, but this was something beyond even him. He worried at his lower lip. Think, Clark. Prove that you don’t solve every problem with your fists.
He glanced at Lex. Appearances to the contrary.
The wiring and cabling of the machinery seemed chaotic at first. He blocked out the battle raging in the distance, blocked out the enormity of the Time Trapper, and focused on the task before him. Soon, it started to make sense. He began tapping at the screen. Tentatively. Experimentally. A set of concentric circles widened and a green light flashed. That didn’t seem right to him. He tried another series of taps—the circles tightened on each other and the light faded into crimson.
I think this is it. I think I’m moving the Curtain closer to the present.
There was another console nearby. His own console was about as red at it could get, but the concentric circles still weren’t overlapping. There was a gap there. He knew it in his gut—the circles had to meet, had to become one. That would mean the Curtain had arrived at the present moment.
But to do it, he would have to manipulate both consoles at once. And the other console was out of reach.
What was he going to do?
“I’m hope this makes sense to you,” Oliver said. “Because to me it just looks like a stereo committed suicide.”
Sara nodded in agreement. She and Oliver had helped Barry disassemble parts of the Time Sphere. The hull was still intact and would—theoretically—shield them as they made their lunatic dash into the future of nothing, desperate to circle back around to the past. But the guts of the Time Sphere were now arranged before them, disconnected and then reconnected in a spiral pattern on the ground.
“Trust me,” Barry said. “When the Curtain hits the present moment, this device will activate and harden it. Nothing will get through it from this side. Not the Trapper. Nothing.”
He gazed over to Needle. “Now it’s up to Superman.”
“What have you done?” the Time Trapper demanded, swinging a gargantuan arm at Mick, who buzzed around him like biplanes around King Kong. “The Curtain approaches!”
“Yeah, and the fat lady’s tuning up her windpipe, you Scooby-Doo reject!” Mick knew he had to keep the distraction going. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Time Sphere, a pattern of circuitry arrayed around it. Flash and Kid Flash were loading everyone into the Time Sphere. It was only a matter of time now.
Mick used the ring to make a gigantic mace and swung it at the Trapper, but something went wrong—it fuzzed and fizzled and dissolved before the blow could land.
“Your wearable thought-weapon is losing its charge,” the Trapper advised. He brought one fist down with astonishing speed and power.
Mick created a brick wall overhead, interposing it between them. Then he made another wall behind that one and then a steel wall and then a concrete wall.
The Trapper’s fist smashed into the first wall.
Mick gritted his teeth together and screamed in absolute agony. The ring was on fire, burning his hand. Blood seeped from ruptured blood vessels in his eyes, oozed from his ears, gushed from his nose. Volthoom cried out in his mind, begging for mercy. Something about limits to power. Something about exhaustion . . .
The Time Trapper bashed his way through the barriers Mick had erected. The feedback from the ring was excruciating, but Mick fought against it, throwing up wall after wall. He had to hold the line. They were still getting everyone into the Time Sphere. Still hooking up a pair of cables to the Flash’s costume. The only things standing between the Multiverse and destruction were Mick Rory and Volthoom.
He imagined a cannon loaded with napalm, aimed it at the Time Trapper, and fired. “Eat hot liquid death, you faceless creep!” Mick shouted. He could barely see through the blood, but the ring guided him, and the fire belched out at the Time Trapper.
“Take that!” Mick screamed, and then showed off the finger on which he wore the ring of Volthoom.
54
“Rao’s shadows!” Superman swore in his birth language. It was the worst epithet in Kryptonese, and he was immediately ashamed of himself for having uttered it. If ever there was a time for profanity, though, it was now.
“Need some help?” a small voice asked.
Superman looked around. The voice had seemed to come from the air itself. Only, there was no air here, so where had—
In the blink of an eye, the Atom grew to normal human height. “I hope you don’t mind—I thought you might need a hand, so I shrank down and hitched a ride on your belt buckle.”
Superman laughed his enormous relief.
Careening in mid-flight, Mick hoped that once the smoke and flames from his napalm burst cleared, he would see nothing but scraps of scorched purple cloth and maybe a nice, fricasseed Time Trapper corpse. He was beyond tired—his entire body felt as though it had been pounded for hours with a meat tenderizer. And that was good compared to the pain and fatigue pummeling his brain.
Of course, when the smoke cleared, the Time Trapper still stood there as if nothing had happened.
“You have delayed and delayed,” said the Trapper, reaching out, “thinking that to be your advantage. But it is to mine. All delays serve me. As your weapon’s charge depletes. Entirely.”
The Time Trapper reached out to Mick, pinching the ring between his thumb and forefinger. With a near-silent krak, the ring crumbled into dust.
In that moment, Mick no longer heard Volthoom in his head. He had become so accustomed to the pain, the sensation of something chewing at his thoughts, that the sudden relief brought tears to his eyes.
Without the ring, he should have plummeted from the sky. Instead, with there being no gravity, he simply bobbed in space. The Time Trapper flicked him with the back of his hand, and Mick spiraled across the void, colliding with one of Globe’s rocky outcroppings. He lay against it, closing his eyes.
Well, well, well. Hey, Lenny. He thought of Leonard Snart, Captain Cold, his old partner and fellow Legend. Who’d died at the Vanishing Point, at the End of Time in the Earth 1 universe. Hey, Lenny, looks like we both get to go out heroes. Who’d a thunk it?
Hands grappled him. Reluctantly, Mick forced his eyes open. Kid Flash grunted as he tugged Mick up. “We don’t leave people behind, man.”
• • •
“Now or never,” Sara warned. She had been keeping an eye on the Time Trapper, who—without Mick and the ring to distract him—was now turning his attention toward them. Everyone was loaded into the Time Sphere, except for Superman and . . .
Ray?
“Cisco, you have enough in you for one last breach?” Sara yelled. The Time Trapper was now sweeping aside his own army, knocking them this way and that, reaching out for the Time Sphere.
With a squint and a grimace of anguish, Cisco fanned his fingers out, pointing. A breach opened just outside the Time Sphere, and Superman and Ray crashed through it. Leaning on each other, they crammed into the Time Sphere.
“Did you do it?” Sara asked, grabbing Superman by his shoulders and shaking him. “Did you adjust the Iron Curtain of Time?”
Superman nodded, his mouth set into a grim line. A trickle of blood ran from his hairline down along his temple. “Did it. We can go.”
Barry licked his lips. The cables connected to his costume would allow him to translate his speed energy to the Time Sphere, hauling it through the time stream with him as he ran. He’d designed it so that when they intersected with their own present, the Time Sphere would drop out of the temporal zone and back into reality.
It should work.
It had to work.
Behind him, standing just inside the Time Sphere, Oliver put a hand on his shoulder and gazed at him with great emotion.
“I know, I know,” said Barry with a forced smile. “‘Run, Barry, run.’”
“No. Just . . . Godspeed, Barry Allen.” Oliver paused. “And . . . we’ll never forget you.”
Barry whispered, “3X2(9YZ)4A.” It was the only thing left to say.
&n
bsp; 55
He ran, vibrating his body as he did so. There was still a chance—a good chance, honestly—they were wrong about all of this. It was all theory, none of it proven. For all they knew, this was a Big Crunch, not a Big Bounce, and he was running to a place and a time that simply did not exist. In which case no one could say what would happen.
The Time Trapper’s hand came down, hard. But it didn’t matter. Not any longer. They were already fading seconds into the future. The last thing Barry saw at the End of All Time was the circuitry he’d laid out flaring to life as the Iron Curtain of Time solidified.
A series of bright white bursts of light erupted all throughout the void. The activated circuitry had also reversed the Trapper’s latest breaches, sending the super villains back to their native time periods. Barry wondered if they would just imagine this whole episode had been a bad dream.
It’s done. We did it. The Time Trapper is penned in. We stopped him.
Now the question is just whether or not we live to tell anyone.
Barry ran, his legs pumping. He felt the Speed Force. He felt Wally lending him speed along the cable connection. He felt the vibrational energy from the Earth 27 speedsters, that ripple that had grown over the eons into a tidal wave. It all propelled him forward.
Forward. Reality was blueshifting as he ran, condensing down. The distance between stars became measurable in miles, then in yards, then in feet, then inches . . .
And then the whole of reality—the entirety of fifty-four universes—compressed down to atomic size. A single, primal atom, lost amid an infinity of absolute nothing.
And still Barry ran. There was no light—photons did not exist—and nothing to run on, nothing to push against. Somehow, though, he did it. Somehow, he kept running. Converted to math, to numbers, to pure information, as he’d surmised. Shielded by the mad science of the Speed Force. He’d been bending the laws of physics for years—now he utterly smashed them to bits and trampled on the bits.
And ran.
56
And kept running. No Landmarks. Nothing to judge his progress against. It felt like running in place, only there was no place because there was nothing. There was an eternity of empty.