by Barry Lyga
Instead of answering Power Ring, Barry gestured to encompass all four cells. “Let’s try this another way. I’ll ask questions. You guys answer. Most helpful answer gets a reward. We’ll figure out what kind of reward later.”
Ultraman smirked and folded his arms over his chest. Superwoman grunted and leaned back against her cell wall. Johnny Quick sat down on his bunk and stared at the ceiling, pretending to ignore everyone. And Power Ring lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, mewling pitiably for his ring.
“How did you open the breach from your Earth to ours?” Barry asked.
For a moment, no one spoke, but then Ultraman barked a sinister yet genuinely amused laugh. “Craters of Wegthor! I’ll answer that one. Because it won’t help you at all. We didn’t open it. Owlman did. And none of us know how.”
“Traitor!” Johnny Quick howled, hurling himself at the glass with such ferocity that Barry had a moment of panic, thinking that the barrier would actually break. But it held, and Johnny collapsed to the floor, hissing in pain, his eyes locked on Barry, quivering with hate.
“Oh, shut up, you speedy little freak!” Ultraman snapped. “It’s no good to them and gets me a reward. Right?”
Barry nodded absently. Owlman. The fifth member of the Crime Syndicate. He knew nothing of Owlman but what James Jesse had told him. “He doesn’t have any powers,” James had said. “That’s what makes him so dangerous.”
He turned away from the villains, walking slowly down the hall. “Hey!” Ultraman shouted after him. “Don’t forget my reward! You promised!”
Out in the corridor that led away from the Pipeline, he paused, thinking. Owlman had somehow opened the breach. But Owlman was missing. Had he even gotten through the breach? Was he still back on Earth 27, no doubt dead for his troubles? Or had he slipped through and—unlike the others—laid low, not drawn attention to himself . . .
Great. Do I have a genius-level super villain from another dimension loose in Central City? Again?
Iris popped around the corner. “You OK?” she asked.
“I’m all right. What about you? I thought you rested up, but you still seem exhausted.”
“Flatterer,” she joked, punching his shoulder lightly. “I just . . . didn’t sleep well, is all. Too much on my mind, I guess. Weird dream.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
She hesitated for just a moment, then shook her head. “No. Now’s not the time. Bigger fish to fry, you know?”
He gave her a long hug. He liked to think that he had a pretty good string of smart decisions in his life, but marrying her had been the smartest. She gave him strength. She made him a better hero and a better man. In her presence, exhaustion and pessimism could not abide. He wished he could flood her with the same relief she brought him.
After a few moments luxuriating in each other, she pulled away and jerked a thumb down the Pipeline toward the Syndicators’ cells. “Were they any help?”
“A little. Maybe. Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure, what?”
“I didn’t see a Big Belly Burger on Earth 27. Can you rustle up some burgers and sodas for them? Extra fries for Ultraman.”
“Ultraman’s lucky day,” she quipped.
“Yep.” He kissed her forehead. “Thanks. Talk soon.”
At the stadium, he zipped around until he found James Jesse again. The Not-Trickster had his space blanket draped over his shoulders and was sipping hot soup from a steel mug.
“What more do you know about Owlman?” Barry asked without preamble.
James shook his head slowly. “I don’t like all these Owlman questions. I hated Johnny Quick and the others, but Owlman actually scared the living hell out of me.”
“I get that. So, tell me what you know so that I can make the problem go away.”
“He was the crime boss of Gotham City, back on the East Coast. I never met him, obviously. Never interacted with him. He ran that place with an iron fist. I knew him by reputation, and that was enough.”
Barry couldn’t get over the idea of a super villain without powers, but then again . . . On Earth 1 there were plenty of heroes without powers. It made sense that there’d be powerless villains on Earth 27. “How did he keep up with the likes of Ultraman?”
“You don’t get it. He was just human. And determined. And brilliant.” Something occurred to James. “Why do you keep asking about Owlman?”
Barry hesitated. “No reason. Thanks for your help.” He looked around at the milling masses. “We’re going to figure out a place for you and your people, James. I promise. You won’t be stuck here for long.”
James offered his hand. “I believe you, Flash.”
They shook on it, and Barry dashed back to S.T.A.R. Labs. Avoiding the Cortex for now, he ran to the subbasement, where he located the storage locker in which Cisco had secured Power Ring’s gadget. His fingers hovered over the keypad. It was a ten-digit code to unlock the door, and then the glowing green ring and all its power would be at his fingertips.
Am I really this desperate? he thought. Am I really going to try to wrangle something powerful and so evil?
He punched in the first three numbers, then hesitated. His hand dropped to his side. No. It was too risky. He couldn’t chance making the current bad situation even worse. He had to trust himself and his team.
Upstairs in the Cortex, Barry arrived in the middle of a raging argument between Mr. Terrific and Cisco. They were stalking around each other like rival lions, flinging their hands in the air, yelling.
Oliver stood off to one side, arms folded over his chest, mouth set in a grim, almost-out-of-patience line.
Caitlin lounged in a chair, picking at a paper envelope of Big Belly Burger Xtra Salty fries.
“What did I miss?” Barry asked.
“Thing One and Thing Two are unhappy with each other,” Caitlin said, waving her fry-less hand in the direction of Cisco and Curtis. “Cisco says the flabbernasty won’t jib-jab the grundlewhat properly, while Curtis believes Cisco’s quantum whatchamajig will cause rampant mucus flooding.” She grinned up at him. “Or something like that.”
“Thanks for the update.” Barry cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Geniuses! Enough!”
Cisco and Mr. Terrific stopped arguing and looked over at Barry. Then they turned to each other and—inexplicably—bowed before backing away to separate workstations.
“They’ve been doing that the whole time,” Caitlin told him. “Curtis had this theory that if they let emotion override intellect, something might pop loose. So they’ve been screaming at each other in five-minute intervals, then bowing to show respect and no hard feelings.”
“I really do love this guy,” Cisco said, with a not entirely convincing smile.
“It’s been half an hour,” Barry said. “What do you have?”
Mr. Terrific and Cisco looked at each other, then at Barry, then at the floor.
“Nothing,” Cisco admitted.
“The energy field is too intense,” Mr. Terrific went on. “Planck’s constant doesn’t even hold at the very edge of the breach. Nothing we do will close the door.”
“It’s not a door,” Cisco muttered somewhat irritably.
Barry groaned. He didn’t want to carry through on his threat to release the Thinker from jail, but the image on the monitor showed the breach growing and Anti-Matter Man closing in. He had to hope that Clifford Devoe truly was the lesser of two evils in this—
“Door.”
It was Oliver, speaking so quietly that Barry almost missed it.
“It’s not a door,” Cisco said again, this time definitely irritated. “It’s a breach, a hole in reality. If it was a door, we could just slam it shut.”
“You’re being too literal, Cisco,” Oliver said, striding quickly and with purpose so that he stood underneath the big monitor. He pointed up at the image of the breach. “Think metaphorically. You’ve been trying to close the door by pushing it. But what if you pull instead?”
/> Cisco shook his head. “You’re not getting the science of this. There is no push. There is no pull.”
“Oliver,” Mr. Terrific said, “I mean no disrespect, but when it comes to this, you are a little out of your depth.”
“I’m sure,” Oliver said, smiling tightly. “But consider this: You’ve been trying to close it from this side. But it was opened on Earth 27. What if you tried to close it from that side?”
Cisco opened his mouth to shoot the idea down, but then stood there, frozen, his mouth open for several seconds.
“It’s too toxic over there,” Mr. Terrific said, glancing over at the stock-still Cisco. “Right, Cisco? Cisco?”
Recovering, Cisco said, very slowly, “That’s . . . possible . . .”
Mr. Terrific blinked as Oliver’s tight smile widened with satisfaction. “Well,” Curtis said, “I mean, I guess . . . The quantum foam would have different characteristics over there. But it doesn’t solve the problem of how . . .” He stopped and slapped his forehead. Then, in the same moment, he and Cisco said:
“A T-sphere!”
An instant later, they were at the clearboard, scribbling formulas and drawing schematics. Oliver sauntered over to Barry.
“Sometimes they just need a good, sharp jab in the ego,” he commented.
“Good job, Oliver.” Barry felt a tremendous sense of relief. The Thinker could stay in his cell at Iron Heights. The Crime Syndicate would remain in the Pipeline. And Power Ring’s deadly, evil ring could remain unused and harmless in the safe deep in the S.T.A.R. Labs complex.
“As soon as they’re ready,” Barry said, “we can—”
“Ready!” Cisco and Mr. Terrific shouted out as one. They were standing at the clearboard, beaming. Curtis held aloft a single T-sphere.
Oliver smiled a genuine smile. “Even for Team Flash, that was fast!”
Barry and Oliver joined Cisco and Mr. Terrific at the breach site, just in case. The memory of the bolt of black lightning that had followed him and Diggle through the city was still fresh in Barry’s mind.
Anti-Matter Man loomed impossibly huge and yet still impossibly distant.
“He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry,” Cisco mentioned, watching in awe. It was one thing to see the breach and the creature on the monitor. Quite another to witness them for real, up close.
“He doesn’t have to be in a hurry,” Oliver reminded them all. “He’s a living engine of destruction. Now let’s shut him down.”
“On it,” Mr. Terrific said. From a pocket, he produced the T-sphere he and Cisco had modified. “Off you go, little guy.”
The T-sphere floated up from his outstretched hand and drifted into the air, picking up speed as it closed in on the breach. Barry noticed that both Cisco and Mr. Terrific had their fingers crossed as the little machine approached the tear in reality. Winds buffeted it, but it compensated, twisting and spinning in the air to maintain its course.
“Come on, come on . . .” Mr. Terrific whispered.
Yeah, Barry thought. Come on.
It hit the threshold between universes, jittered for an instant, then passed through. Cisco gave a little mew of satisfaction and triumph. Mr. Terrific whispered “Yes!” and fist-pumped. Barry relaxed.
Oliver . . . watched.
The T-sphere transitioned through the breach to the Earth 27 side. It spun in midair for a moment, as though orienting itself.
“It needs to detonate within three millimeters of the breach edge on the Earth 27 side,” Mr. Terrific told them all. “That will cause a quantum collapse that will basically mimic a local vacuum decay effect.”
“It’s gonna shut it down,” Cisco translated for Barry and Oliver.
The T-sphere spun in a perfect circle, juked left toward the edge of the breach, then suddenly shot straight up in the air. They all craned their necks, tracking it as it reached the top of the breach . . .
. . . and then arced off into the far distance, disappearing from view before it could even reach Anti-Matter Man.
“What the heck, Mr. Not-So-Terrific!” Cisco exploded, rounding on Curtis. “What happened?”
“You tweaked the interdimensional-detection sensors!” Mr. Terrific complained.
As Curtis and Cisco argued, Barry and Oliver shook their heads at each other and took one step closer to the breach. The noisome breeze from Earth 27 had intensified. Anti-Matter Man was positively enormous at this point, still placidly walking toward the breach.
“This isn’t good,” Oliver said softly. “We’re running out of options.”
Barry gritted his teeth. Maybe it was time to consider . . . time. If he ran to the past, was there a way to stop all this from happening in the first place? The risk of causing something like Flashpoint was high, but at least the Multiverse would still exist, albeit warped . . .
No. No, he couldn’t take that chance. The world was full of people making the wrong decision because they figured, “Well, it can’t get any worse.” But things could always get worse. He needed another way.
Was it possible . . . Could he run through the breach carrying some sort of weapon? Maybe get off a shot or two before succumbing to the poisonous environment?
Or maybe if he just carried a bomb and ran straight at Anti-Matter Man . . . A suicide run. But to save his world? Of course he would do it. In a heartbeat.
“OK, we figured out the problem,” Cisco said, coming up behind them. As Barry and Oliver turned, he bowed and gestured to Mr. Terrific as though to say, After you, my friend.
“We got some telemetry back from the T-sphere before it disappeared out of range,” Mr. Terrific said, consulting a glowing hologram projected by a second T-sphere. “It seems the transition zone between universes is screwing up the guidance systems on the T-spheres. It couldn’t figure out where it was or where to go.”
“Can you fix it?” Oliver demanded. “Right now?”
There was no hesitation in Mr. Terrific at all. “No. There are just too many variables to account for. Give me a day or two and yeah—”
“We don’t have a day or two,” Barry said. “We need to build a bomb and we need to do it now.” He told them his plan, which—let’s be honest—didn’t take long. It was a pretty simple plan.
“No way,” Cisco said immediately.
“Not a chance,” said Oliver.
“I could totally build that bomb for you,” Mr. Terrific offered enthusiastically. Then he noticed the expressions of shock and disbelief on Cisco’s and Oliver’s faces. “But, uh, I absolutely refuse to do so. You can’t make me,” he added for good measure.
“Guys,” Barry said gently, “we don’t have a choice. It’s my life or the life of everything on Earth. Maybe everything in the universe, for all we know. This is easy math.”
“There’s gotta be another way,” Cisco insisted. “We always find another way. That’s what we do.”
Oliver snapped his fingers. “There is!” He gave them all a moment to turn and look at him with incredulity. “I figured it out.”
Cisco was the first to speak. “Look, uh, you’re a treat with the bows and arrows, and I’m sure you’re a smart guy in your own way, but . . .”
“But what Cisco is trying to say,” Mr. Terrific said, leaping in diplomatically, “is that this is hard-core mad science here, Oliver. It’s not really your bailiwick.”
“They’re right,” Barry said with an apologetic tone. “Even I can barely keep up with some of the—”
“You’re all idiots,” Oliver said very matter-of-factly. “You keep thinking of fancy science, but what we need is something primitive.” He turned back to the breach and mimed firing an arrow into it.
“Nice idea,” said Cisco, “but there’s nothing we can put on an arrow that would guarantee killing Anti-Matter Man. Plus, the windage and distortion effect of the transition between universes would be impossible to gauge.”
Barry and Mr. Terrific nodded in agreement.
Oliver jabbed a finger in their direction. “F
irst, never tell me what shot I can and can’t make. Second, I’m not talking about hitting him. I’m talking about hitting the breach. You put whatever tech was in the T-sphere into an arrow. And then I fire it inside and hit the breach on the Earth 27 side to close it.”
Cisco opened his mouth to shoot down the idea, but then a light came into his eyes.
“Is it . . . ?” Mr. Terrific said.
“We could . . .” Cisco said.
“No need for inertial . . .” said Mr. Terrific, and they started going back and forth, gesturing excitedly, not even finishing sentences:
“Reduce the profile by at least a centimeter . . .”
“. . . no quark induction because . . .”
“If we adjust the eruption component . . .”
“. . . nothing bigger than a teaspoon, right?”
They ran off together to the nearby S.T.A.R. Labs van and started rummaging through parts. Oliver allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.
Barry was a bit relieved but still uneasy. “Look, not to doubt you or anything, Oliver, but that’s gonna be a crazy shot. You have to hit a target a millimeter wide, and you have to do it after the arrow goes through the transition zone. Are you sure you can do it?”
Green Arrow gazed into the breach, his jaw set, his eyes steely. “It’s not about being sure. I will do it.” Then he tilted his head to one side, as if thinking. “And I guess if I miss, we’ll strap that bomb on you after all. That’ll make you happy, right?”
21
Joe and Dinah grabbed a quick breakfast in a decent diner after their hospital visit. They agreed that Brie Larvan was legitimately not involved in the heist or the bombings. With nothing else to go on, they decided to check in with Felicity, but she called them just as they got back in the car.