by Barry Lyga
“How did he get out?” Barry asked.
“More important than such trifling facts,” the stranger remonstrated, “is that he is out. And as Anti-Matter Man walks through the positive matter universes, he corrodes, corrupts, and destroys them. The world you designate Earth 27 is already corrupted beyond habitation. Its atmosphere is toxic, its biosphere disintegrating.”
Barry and Cisco shared a worried glance. “And I thought evil super-Nazis from Earth-X were a problem,” Cisco said. “This guy could actually destroy the universe.”
“How do we stop it?” Barry asked, then did a double take, grabbing Cisco’s elbow and pointing.
Madame Xanadu lay peacefully asleep in her bed. The stranger, though, was gone.
9
In Star City, Felicity Smoak stared at her computer screen. Then, with a quiet moan of frustration, she lightly rapped her forehead against her desk.
“We are the stupidest smart people in the world,” she said aloud to no one. She was alone in the Bunker, but she went ahead and said it out loud again, just to hear the words, the harsh truth.
She’d completely disassembled the explosive device the Flash had recovered, examining and analyzing not just each component but also how they fit together. That gave her a bomber’s profile, something she could run against databases from Interpol, A.R.G.U.S., the FBI, and more. Building a bomb was delicate, dangerous work—bombers liked to find a method that worked for them and stick with it. So it was possible to track bombers by their tendencies, the same way police used a criminal’s modus operandi to track him or her down.
That part of her investigation was going really, really well. She had a 99.87 percent database match to a bomber named Irwin Schwab, who often went by the code name Ambush. In a series of bombings throughout Asia and parts of Africa, Ambush had used explosive devices nearly identical to the one the Flash had recovered, each time avoiding casualties but still causing massive property loss. She felt pretty certain she’d identified the bomber.
But she’d missed something else. All of them had.
There had been three successful bombings. And it turned out that each of those bombings corresponded to a break-in at a very high-tech facility. The Star City locations for Palmer Technologies, Kord Omniversal Research and Development, and Mercury Labs had all been burgled at the same time as the three successful bombings. Nothing had been taken at any of the would-be robberies, though.
But this very night, during what was supposed to be the fourth bombing . . .
“ALL UNITS ALERT!” read the encrypted email she’d intercepted from A.R.G.U.S. “Star City facility on lockdown! DO NOT APPROACH! No personnel in or out!”
Ambush had been using the bombings as a distraction while he made his way inside some of the most secure tech facilities in the world, looking for something.
Something that he’d found at A.R.G.U.S. That encrypted message, that lockdown . . . All that meant more than a simple breach of security. They were in lockdown because they had to figure out what was missing and how to get it back.
She’d sent a message offering help to Lyla Michaels, the director of A.R.G.U.S. and, conveniently enough, Diggle’s wife. The message had bounced off A.R.G.U.S.’s cyber-shielding. Until they figured out what was missing, they weren’t going to let any data in or out, either.
So Ambush was looking for something. He was willing to knock down buildings to get it. And now, whatever it is, he has it.
She ran her fingers over the communications switches. She’d taken things as far as she could on her own. No matter what was happening in Central City, she needed to get Oliver back.
10
At S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry stood in the Pipeline with Cisco and Oliver.
Originally, the Pipeline had served as a series of holding cells for the various super villains the Flash defeated in and around Central City. But after a while, the extralegal nature of the facility made Barry uncomfortable. He was essentially running an off-the-books prison, and that just didn’t sit right with him from a human rights standpoint. Nowadays, metahumans who broke the law were incarcerated in a special wing of Iron Heights Penitentiary, their powers nullified by a series of overlapping energy fields devised by Cisco, using the same tech they’d used in the Pipeline originally.
Still, occasionally there were bad guys who just didn’t fit into the legal system, and on those occasions, the Pipeline was ready. For, say, time travelers like Abra Kadabra.
Or, as now, villains from another universe.
The Crime Syndicate of America was locked up in four holding cells arrayed around a central node. From their position, Barry, Cisco, and Oliver could see into each of the four cells, but the villains couldn’t see one another. Ultraman, Power Ring, Superwoman, and Johnny Quick were powerless and helpless.
“Where’s the fifth member of your little club of evil?” Barry asked, remembering his time on Earth 27. “Where’s Owlman?”
“Owlman?” Cisco blurted out. “What kind of name is that?”
“Could we focus on what matters?” Oliver asked.
“This does matter! Owlman? I mean . . . I guess I get it,” Cisco admitted, contemplating. “Owls are predators. They operate at night. Super-quiet fliers. They’re swift, talon-y death birds from the dark skies. As far as nocturnal critters go, it’s not bad. I mean, if you want to be really silly, they could have gone with Bat—”
“Focus!” Oliver intoned, making Cisco jump a little.
“Owlman,” Barry said again to the villains. “Where is he?”
They said nothing. “I ain’t no snitch,” Power Ring finally said with something resembling pride.
“How admirable of you,” Oliver said in a voice dripping with insincerity. “Flash, give me five minutes alone with any of them, and I’ll have answers for you.”
Barry shrugged. He had never been great at playing Good Cop/Bad Cop. He preferred to reason with people, even villains. But the CSA came from a world where their evil was lauded, rewarded, and perpetuated. They might not respond to anything resembling logic.
Still, he had to try. “I won’t have Owlman out on the streets of my city, causing problems,” Barry told them. “Tell me where he went and how to find him, and we can consider better quarters for you four.”
Superwoman laughed and slammed her palms against the reinforced thymoglass that separated her from the rest of the world and her powers. “Why should we be afraid of someone so weak and needy?” she asked. “If you really wanted to get us to cooperate, you’d’ve killed one of us by now to prove your strength.”
Ugh. The twisted logic of Earth 27 was no help to him here.
“Fine,” Oliver said, unslinging his bow. “Open up a cage, Flash. I’ll pick one of them off before the door’s all the way open.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Cisco stepped between Oliver and the cells. “Maybe we try something different before we go putting arrows in people’s eyes?”
Oliver hissed his anger and adjusted his aim over Cisco’s shoulder. “Never—ever—come between me and a shot.”
“Guys!” Barry took each of them by the wrist and pulled them apart. In the cells, Johnny Quick and Ultraman were laughing. Superwoman had turned away in disgust, and Power Ring was just sitting on the floor, making shadow puppets on the wall.
Out in the hallway, out of earshot of the Crime Syndicate, Barry released Cisco and Oliver, who took a step apart, sizing each other up.
“You were playing it too hard, man!” Cisco said.
“Who says I was playing?” Oliver asked. “I know how to make it look like I’m shooting to kill without actually killing.”
Cisco barked laughter. “So, what, you take out an eye or put an arrow in someone’s femoral artery to make a point?”
“To save lives?” Oliver spat back, his anger barely controlled. “Absolutely.”
Barry came between them again. “Guys, we’re not getting anywhere. I’m gonna—”
“Green Arrow, Green Arrow.” It was
Iris’s voice coming over the facility-wide public address system. “I have a comm from the Bunker for you.”
Oliver grunted and, with one final, withering look at Cisco, turned on his heel and marched off.
“That guy is too hard-core,” Cisco complained when he and Barry were alone.
“Don’t be too hard on him. He’s had a rough time, rougher than we have. His outlook is a little dark, but his heart’s in the right place.”
Cisco sighed and rubbed his eyes, yawning. “It’s been a day and a half, crammed into one day,” he said. “What are we going to do about Owlman? And Anti-Matter Man, for that . . . matter.” He winced. “Didn’t mean that pun. I am so much better than that. You know, right?”
“I do,” Barry reassured him, clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s go see what Felicity has, and then we’ll figure out where to go from there.”
11
Lyla Michaels pressed her palms against her eyes, blotting out the world. It was easier this way. Easier when she couldn’t see the world, when it all just went away.
A.R.G.U.S. Advanced Research Group United Support. One of the most secretive and powerful organizations in the country. All hers. Being director of A.R.G.U.S. had been a dream fulfilled, but the funny thing about dreams was this: All you had to do was turn the wrong corner in your dream-world, and you’d find yourself in a nightmare.
She had responsibilities that most people could not fathom. Under her watch was an organization devoted to wrangling the uncontrollable, comprehending the impenetrable, and deflecting the unstoppable. She’d dealt with time travelers, mystics, aliens, mad scientists, and just plain lunatics. And that was just on the weekends.
Her husband, John Diggle, had told her that there was a serial bomber in the city but that she needn’t worry about it, because Green Arrow was on the case. And she had gratefully allowed her mind not to wander in that direction, focusing instead on the hard work of A.R.G.U.S.
But now there seemed to be a connection. She had a readout on her desk that told her someone had broken into an A.R.G.U.S. lab that very night, stealing something very dangerous.
No one was supposed to know where that lab was. No one was supposed to know that the lab even existed in the first place.
And yet . . .
With a heavy, reluctant sigh, she pulled her hands away from her face. Light danced into her eyes, her vision clearing. She ran a hand through her short hair. Right at this moment, she wanted nothing more than to go home, tell the babysitter to take the rest of the night off, and cuddle her daughter, Sara. Hold her close and safe.
But she had a job to do. She didn’t get to shirk her duty just because it was tough sometimes.
She tapped one immaculately manicured finger on the sheet of paper on her desk. It was titled “INCIDENT REPORT: MISSING ITEMS.” What followed was a lot of jargon and technical mumbo jumbo, but only three words actually mattered.
Those three words were Bug-Eyed Bandit.
There is a part of Star City where the tourists never go, unless they get lost, take a wrong turn at Grell Park, and wind up ambling down a dark alley, turning left, then walking up a decrepit block of crumbling brownstones and broken macadam.
The only people who live here are the forgotten. The forsaken. The ones Star City would rather pretend don’t exist. Some of them are here because they made mistakes. Some because they made bad choices. Some because they just had bad luck.
And one of them was here because it was exactly where he wanted to be.
In a dimly lit room in an old town house, the man some called Ambush sat at a desk. The desk had been retrieved from a garbage dumpster. It was made of steel, one leg dinged and bent, the surface pitted and scarred. There was a single lamp burning, an old clip-on sort, attached to the desktop, aimed precisely so that it formed an almost-perfect, sharp circle of white light on the desk’s surface.
Ambush sat at the desk in a green T-shirt, his chair a similar dumpster-dive treasure, one wheel frozen in place. He wore a set of magnifying goggles, and with a pair of tweezers, he probed at the thing before him, the thing pinned down in that circle of white light.
It was a bug.
A tiny, mechanical insect. Such a faithful reproduction of real life that anyone looking at it would have thought it to be real. But it wasn’t made of flesh and keratin and blood. It was manufactured out of bits of alloy and plastic and woven metallic fibers. It was a wondrous thing, a clone of nature, a perfection of the imperfect.
Ambush probed at its innards. He liked what he saw. He grinned broadly. “Oh, yes. This will be . . . advantageous.”
12
The Cortex hummed with activity. Caitlin was following John Diggle around with a thermometer and a blood pressure cuff, but he was ignoring her, barking orders into a cell phone that he held in one hand while pressing a swatch of bloody gauze to a cut on his forehead with the other.
At the same time, Iris was giving commands to Mr. Terrific and Black Canary, who were hustling to control boards and relaying her instructions to those in the field. Central City recognized that when it came to metahumans and the problems they incurred, mere humans could not prevail. At times like this, the city had a contract with S.T.A.R. Labs to help coordinate responses, and now Iris was basically running the show. She was helping Mercury Labs scientists take readings from the breach site, arranging for medical attention for those injured by the mob or by the Crime Syndicate, and coordinating the National Guard response as the entire area was shut down and cordoned off. She was also taking rapid-fire notes on a tablet as she listened to someone on her headset.
“We’re trying to get a head count of the speedsters,” Iris told Barry as he and Cisco entered the room. “But it’s not easy. You try counting a bunch of people who are scared and moving at seventy-five miles an hour.”
“What’s the estimate?” he asked her.
“At least ten thousand.”
Barry whistled. Ten thousand speedsters. What were they going to do with them? He didn’t think they could just send those people back to Earth 27. Not with Anti-Matter Man there. Even if they found a way to defeat Anti-Matter Man, Earth 27 would never be habitable again.
“We’ve got a problem,” Oliver said, sidling up to Barry.
“It must be a day ending in Y,” Cisco joked hollowly.
Oliver told them what he’d just learned from Felicity: Someone had used the Star City bombings as a diversion and broken into an A.R.G.U.S. lab. Something was stolen, but they didn’t know what.
“Unless we’re talking office supplies, I can’t think of anything you’d steal from A.R.G.U.S. that would be safe,” Cisco said with a shiver. “This is shaping up to be a crazy day, even for us.”
Barry noticed that Oliver seemed antsy. Anti-Matter Man was a big problem, but someone on the loose with A.R.G.U.S. weaponry was a big problem, too. “Get back to Star City,” he told Oliver. “Go track down this guy.”
Green Arrow shook his head. “No. Nothing compares to the danger of that thing.” He pointed to the big monitor, which showed the breach and—in the distance—Anti-Matter Man. “I’ll stay here with you, but I need to send some of my people back to work the Ambush case.”
“Hoss . . .” Wild Dog had been listening. “You know I’m no good with the universe-ending stuff. But tracking down some jerk who ripped off Dig’s wife? I can handle that.”
Oliver nodded. “Yeah. Take Dinah with you.”
Barry had a thought. “Hey, Joe! What are you up to?”
Joe West looked up from the monitor Iris had assigned him to. “Just finished giving Singh a report. Why?”
“Want to go to Star City for a little bit? Help Oliver’s crew out with some detective work?”
Joe considered, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can swing that with Singh. I’m due for shift change.”
Barry turned to Oliver. “How’s that?”
Oliver sighed and gave Barry a grateful look. “Perfect. Thanks.” He jerked his head toward the bi
g monitor. “Now let’s figure out this guy.”
• • •
Joe West didn’t know from multiple universes. He didn’t care about alternate timelines or parallel worlds. Super villains from another dimension were not his bailiwick. Going to Star City to catch a serial bomber and tech thief? Yeah, that was more his speed.
It’s not that he wasn’t smart. Joe knew that he packed considerable gray matter between his ears. Youngest cop to reach detective in the history of CCPD. Solved cases no one else had ever even come close to. He had the goods in the brains department. It’s just that he cared most about the world beneath his feet, his family.
His kids.
Iris was the storyteller. From the time she could speak, she spun yarns all day long, jabbering and chattering whether Joe listened or not. Her dolls became characters in a sprawling, all-encompassing story line that Joe had privately thought of as the Dollpocalypse. “Daddy, this is Princess Garbie and she’s Sleeping Beauty’s best friend, but she doesn’t sleep because she doesn’t sleep and it’s OK not to sleep and I don’t like my bed so I’m sleeping in your room tonight and you go sleep on the sofa because that’s where you sleep and you can take Princess Garbie if you want because she can keep you from being lonely.”
She’d gone from inventing stories to figuring out stories as a journalist. Her detective skills rivaled his own, put to a different sort of service. Joe figured out stories all day long as a cop, assembling narratives presented piecemeal by the world, just as Iris did as a reporter. And now she applied her gifts to sussing out the story of solving problems at S.T.A.R. Labs. He couldn’t be more proud.
And Wally . . . Joe had known Wally for only a couple of years now. Hadn’t been there for the boy’s childhood, a fact that snipped away pieces of his heart every time he encountered it afresh in his thoughts. But Wally had a head for mechanics, which, really, was just a variation on the same brainpower Iris and Joe evinced. Mechanics was the science of storytelling made solid. You swap plug and points instead of characters. You balance fuel mixtures and octane ratios instead of plot elements. But the goal was the same: Something that hummed. Something that moved. Something that worked.