by Barry Lyga
“A costume?” Rene said incredulously.
“A protective suit,” Larvan snapped, “designed to shield the wearer from beestings and also to allow a measure of control over the bees through transmissions from the antennae. And as a bonus, it’s lined with a gel-like substance that soothes and heals beestings. Help me get him into it.”
Joe and Dinah helped out as Rene stood off to one side, shaking his head and muttering. Together, the three others got Schwab into the suit.
For several long moments, nothing happened. Except the man was no longer moaning and writhing in pain.
“Now what?” Dinah asked.
“Now we wait,” Larvan told her.
At that instant, the man in the green suit sat bolt upright and peered around. They all jumped back at his sudden movement.
“Weight?” he asked with a voice a little too bouncy and mischievous for someone who’d almost been stung to death. “Hey, it’s not polite to tell a guy he’s put on a pound or twelve. Sure, I’m a little heavy right now, but who doesn’t indulge during the big Arbor Day celebration?”
“What?” Joe blurted out.
“Oh, sorry, I misread. He said wait, not weight. Point still stands. Or does the stand still point? Hmm . . .” He stood up to strike a thoughtful pose and stroked his chin. “I always get confused by nouns that can be verbs, don’t you?”
Joe nodded to Dinah. He drew his weapon and his handcuffs. She drew her weapon, too.
“Irwin Schwab,” she said, “you’re under arrest for—”
“Irwin?” he interrupted. “Irwin? The only people who call me Irwin are my mom and my dad and my best friend from kindergarten and all my elementary school teachers and the guys from the Army and the barista who makes my caffè mocha every morning and pretty much everyone else who knows me. I know I had a point in there somewhere.”
Joe blinked rapidly. “This is a serial bomber and master thief?” A beat. “He sounds like Bugs Bunny on acid!”
“The apitoxin must have messed with his neurochemistry,” Larvan said. “He’s . . . loopy.”
“No,” Ambush said, sighing, “I’m Irwin. We just went through that. Hey, wait!” He stuck his index finger in the air. “I have an idea, even though a lightbulb has not conveniently appeared above my head! I’ll be right back!”
Joe raised his gun. “You’re not going any—”
There was a soft, hollow POP sound . . .
. . . and Ambush was gone.
“What’s going on here?” Larvan howled in dismay and sheer bafflement.
“Teleporting . . .” Joe murmured.
“That’s a thing?” Dinah asked. “For real?”
“I told you!” Rene exclaimed. “Every time the Flash people come to town, things get weird!”
• • •
Starling City Bakery hadn’t bothered to change its name when the city switched from Starling to Star. The owner had declared, “We started as Starling and we’re going to stay Starling, even when they decide to change the name of this town to just plain S City!”
The early shift was finishing decorating some meringue pies when a POP sound echoed in the confines of the kitchen. Everyone turned to see what it was—
—they caught a brief glimpse of a green figure—
—and then it was gone with another POP.
And so was a pie.
“Everyone just calm down,” Joe ordered. The ramshackle apartment was a chaos of overlapping voices, rising in panic. Star City wasn’t Central City—they weren’t used to crazy stuff like teleportation here. “It’s gonna be OK. I promise. I’ve seen this kind of power before.”
“Take the creep who can teleport,” Wild Dog said in a steady tone, “and go back to Central City with him!”
“I gotta say, Joe,” Dinah said, “this is a little out of our wheelhouse.”
“Will someone explain this to me?” Larvan demanded. “How can he just disappear like that?”
“There’s no time,” Joe said calmly. “But I’ve got this. Everything is under control.”
Suddenly there was a POP right behind him. He spun around and raised his weapon, just in time to see the man in green appearing right before his eyes.
“Hey, Joe!” Schwab chanted. “Where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?”
And then—WHAPP! Before Joe could move or even blink, something smashed into his face. Something warm and soft and gooey and . . .
Well, delicious, really.
“Did you just hit me in the face with a pie?” Joe demanded, clawing at the stuff on his face.
“Is it cliché or homage?” Schwab asked. “Who knows? The Shadow knows! Is that reference kosher? Who knows? The Shadow . . . Oh, I could do this all day!” He danced a little jig and jumped in the air, clicking his heels together.
Rene growled and leaped at him. “You ain’t doing nothing all day!” he snarled.
“Double negative!” Schwab cried as Rene tackled him. “Double negative! Get a copy editor in here, stat!”
As Joe tried to clear the pie from his eyes, Dinah pushed a gawking Larvan out of the way, looking for a clear shot. But the way Rene was entangled with Schwab made it impossible.
“Little help here!” Wild Dog shouted. “He’s slippery!”
“And you’re adorable!” Schwab cried, then bussed Rene loudly on the cheek. POP! He was suddenly up by the ceiling. Dinah shifted her aim there as he began to drop to the floor.
“Gravity! Right! I forgot!”
POP! And he was behind Dinah, taking her gun from her. She spun around just in time to see him POP away again, this time over by the window.
“He’s got my gun!” she shouted.
“Who?” Schwab demanded, looking around. He saw it in his own hand and recoiled in horror. “Oh no! Don’t shoot me! I’m young! I have so much to live for!”
POP!
The gun clattered to the ground, but Irwin Schwab was gone, and even though they waited for several minutes, this time he didn’t come back.
Joe’s phone buzzed. He used his forearm to wipe off the last of the meringue and answered.
“It’s Felicity. Do we have a sitrep? I want to update the guys in Central City and get an update from them.”
Joe looked around the room. Wild Dog was hunkered down, shaking his head in disbelief. Dinah picked up her weapon, looked out the window, and sighed in defeat. Bert Larvan stood in a corner, eyes wide, not moving.
“Sitrep?” Joe asked. “Uh, yeah. Situation . . . weird.”
28
Hours had passed. Barry, Caitlin, and Iris were still in the Cortex. By now, they figured Dig had to be back in Star City, to break the horrible news to Felicity soon after.
As the day outside burned on, they’d all sunk into chairs. Barry had peeled back his cowl but otherwise hadn’t moved in a long, long time. Eternities to a speedster.
Caitlin and Iris sat close to each other. Barry had rolled his chair a little ways off. Some part of him insisted that he didn’t deserve the comfort of proximity to his friend or his wife. He’d been there, and he’d survived when Cisco, Curtis, and Oliver hadn’t.
According to reports, CCPD still had the breach site cordoned off, even though there was no breach. It would take a long time to clear out the debris, assess the structural damage, and make repairs. Barry knew that he would have to get involved—as the Flash, he could speed up the process considerably—but right now he couldn’t even convince himself to get up from his chair.
“Diggle must have gotten to Star City by now,” Caitlin said out of nowhere.
“God, poor Felicity. I can’t even imagine . . .” Iris gave Barry a significant look. One superhero widow was enough.
He would have to call Dante soon, he knew. He couldn’t put it off any longer. It wasn’t right or fair. But there was also a baseball stadium full of speedsters from another universe to deal with, and the crew in Star City probably needed help with the bomber . . . if they wanted anything to do with Team Flash at t
his point.
“I’ll . . .” he started, and then broke off at the sound of footsteps in the outer corridor. Except for Madame Xanadu, still unconscious in her room, there was no one else in the building. Had the mysterious stranger returned?
Spinning around in his chair, he was shocked at the sight of the figure standing in the doorway. Iris gasped. Caitlin erupted in a squeaky sort of hiccup.
“Thanks for just leaving me to my own devices,” Oliver Queen said. “You know how long it takes to walk here from downtown?”
Barry glanced over his shoulder at Iris and Caitlin. He witnessed two pairs of widened eyes and similarly dropped jaws.
“Oliver,” he managed after a moment, rising from his chair on shaky legs, “is it really you?”
Oliver was taken aback. “Of course it’s really me. The guy you abandoned.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean? I shot the arrow. Hit the target. There was a white flash of light, and when I looked around, there were Central City police surrounding the area and moving blockades into place. I must have blacked out for a second. Which is probably twice as long as it took you to get back here.”
Barry approached Oliver, sizing him up, studying him. Every instinct in his body cried out that this was his friend. But how? He’d explored the breach site after the explosion of light. Unconscious or not, Oliver hadn’t been there.
“What time do you think it is?” he asked suddenly.
Oliver frowned at him. “That’s a ridiculous question.” But he unsnapped a catch on his left gauntlet, revealing a digital panel there. “It’s just after six in the morning.”
Barry pointed to the clock on the wall. “No, Oliver, it’s almost noon!” he said excitedly. “I thought the blast of energy killed you, but it didn’t! It just pushed you forward in time!”
From behind him, the sound of two chairs rolling back and colliding as Iris and Caitlin leaped to their feet. “That means Cisco and Curtis . . .” Iris started.
“. . . might still be alive, too!” Caitlin finished. She high-fived Iris and the two hugged. “They’re alive!”
Oliver furrowed his brow. “What is going on here?” he demanded. “Wait . . . Did you all think I was dead?”
“Glad we were wrong,” Barry said. “I’d hug you, but you’re not that guy.”
Caitlin wiped tears of joy from her eyes. “I knew Cisco couldn’t be killed by something as simple as a Multiversal breach detonation.”
“Curtis and Cisco are missing, too?” Oliver asked.
Caitlin bobbed her head. “But if you were shunted into the time stream, the same thing must have happened to them. They could pop up like you did, or maybe they’re still stuck. But now that we know where to look . . .”
“We can find them,” Iris finished, nodding triumphantly.
“Time to get to work,” Caitlin said.
“I’ll call Diggle before he gets to Felicity,” Iris said.
“And I’ll go find Cisco’s quark-tracking equipment,” Caitlin added. “He keeps moving it from lab to lab, but I’ll find it.”
As she and Iris rushed off to do their jobs, Barry offered Oliver a big grin and clapped him on both shoulders.
“If we’re going to find those guys, we need to contact White Canary and the Atom and their crew on the Waverider,” he said, his voice excited and alive. He raced over to the main computer bank and started typing. “Plus, we have to figure out what to do with the speedsters from Earth 27.”
“And don’t forget there’s a mad bomber loose in my city,” Oliver reminded him, coming over to watch him at the computer. “We need to get on that, too.”
Barry nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Plus, if we’re really going to earn our superhero credentials, we should try to figure out why Anti-Matter Man got cut loose from Qward. And track down Owlman, who started this whole mess.”
Oliver blew out a long breath. “That’s a lot on our plates.”
Barry reached for the phone. “Yep. I guess I’m about to request some vacation time from Captain Singh . . .”
29
Idiots. Fools. Morons.
Owlman knew one thing—
No, wait. Scratch that. Owlman knew many things. He knew, in fact, all of the things. All of the things worth knowing, in any event.
Coming through the breach into this alternate universe, he’d realized that the smart play—the only play, really—was to lie low and puzzle out the particulars of this world. The best way to conquer was to study first. Examine. Scrutinize. Then make plans. Then double-check the plans. Then triple-check the plans.
Then, and only then, did the smart man strike.
Smart, as opposed to the dunderheads in the Crime Syndicate, who had barreled through the breach and decided to start wreaking havoc right away. And as always, without him there to plan, they’d fallen out, bickering among themselves, doing more damage to one another than any enemy could ever hope to do. They’d divvied up America for just that reason—every time they were in a room together, they tried to kill each other. Only he, Owlman, had the brains to resist the temptation.
Among the other four, there weren’t enough brains to fill a monkey’s skull.
He, though, had thought ahead. He had come through the breach and immediately ripped off his mask. And his cape. In the chaos following the breach, he’d sneaked into a nearby clothing store and changed into a staid, boring business suit. No one would recognize him. No one would know.
And now, completely incognito, he was shuffling through a line of locals, who were queueing up just outside the cordoned-off area, receiving food and medical attention from some sort of benevolent local bureaucracy. He smiled to himself. These people were weak and soft. Soon enough, he would rule this pathetic world. Just as he’d ruled Gotham back on his own version of Earth.
Just then, a man in uniform snapped his fingers and pointed. Right at Owlman! “Hey!” the guy barked. “You!”
Outwardly calm and placid, he couldn’t keep his heart from hammering. How could they know? How . . . ?
The cop came closer, head tilted, as though in recognition. But that was impossible!
“Hey,” the cop said again, “aren’t you Bruce Wayne?”
CHRONOCRAFT DESIGNATED WR-2055:
THE WAVERIDER
TIME/LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Mick Rory heard a noise like an old man trying to clear his throat, then realized that its source was himself. He was groaning deep in his chest. Pain raced all over his body.
He was used to pain. Pain didn’t bother him. But usually he knew where it came from.
The last thing he could remember was leaving the bridge with a sandwich. And then . . .
And then . . .
He sat up. He was at the center of a field of wreckage, still-hot plates of metal steaming and sizzling, bubbling fluids lying in puddles all around, shards of glass strewn about. Overhead, the sky was a sickly yellow, with ominous black clouds gathering.
There were three moons, one of them partly eclipsing another, the third a dull gray.
His legs wobbled, but he forced himself to stand anyway, leaning on one piece of metal that wasn’t too hot. He recognized it, he realized. It was part of the hull plating for the Waverider.
He was in a field of wreckage from the ship.
And he was alone.
A buzzing sound emanated from somewhere nearby. Mick scrounged around and dug through the weirdly soft sand at the base of the piece of metal. After a moment, he unearthed a glowing sphere that flickered from white to yellow and back again. The buzzing—bzzzzt! bzzzzt!—stopped for a moment, and then a voice spoke.
“. . . chronal abnormality . . .”
It was Gideon’s voice. Mick was holding some component of the Waverider’s AI.
“. . . extreme danger!” Gideon went on amid the buzzing. “Bzzzzt! . . . chronocraft, be on alert! Bzzzzt! Bzzzzt!”
“What do you mean?” he asked, shaking the stupid thing like a Magic 8 Bal
l. But Gideon couldn’t hear him.
“. . . day Supergirl died,” Gideon continued. “Be aware of . . . Bzzzzt! . . . on the day Su . . . Bzzzzt!”
Mick dropped the Gideon component, letting it babble static to itself on the ground.
“Guys!” he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Guys!”
No one answered. He wished fervently for his flame gun; he was suddenly incredibly cold.
The black clouds advanced. Rain was coming.
Rain and, Mick was certain, something more.
Cisco and Curtis are lost in time! A lunatic is on the loose in Star City! Tens of thousands of superspeedsters need a home! And an evil version of Bruce Wayne is starting to make plans.
Sounds like our heroes have a lot on their hands, right? Well, it’s about to get worse. The good news: They can look for help from Supergirl on Earth 38. The bad news: Anti-Matter Man has beaten them there . . .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As usual, I have to begin with a shout-out to all Flash writers past and present . . . and this time to those who’ve made Green Arrow’s bow sing! These folks hit the target every time, and I’m proud to slap their domino mask on my face.
I am grateful to the folks at Warner Bros. and the CW who made these books possible, especially Carl Ogawa, Amy Weingartner, Victoria Selover, and Josh Anderson, but also to Greg Berlanti, Todd Helbing, Sarah Schechter, Lindsay Kiesel, Janice Aquilar-Herrero, Catherine Shin, Thomas Zellers, and Kristin Chin.
And my undying thanks to my partner-in-crime and editor, Russ Busse, along with the rest of the hardworking crew at Abrams—including but not limited to Andrew Smith, Kara Sargent, Jody Mosley, Maggie Lehrman, Chad Beckerman, Evangelos Vasilakis, Marie Oishi, John Passineau, Alison Gervais, Melanie Chang, Maya Bradford, Kim Lauber, Trish McNamara O’Neil, Brooke Shearhouse, Borana Greku, and Liz Fithian.
My thanks once more to César Moreno, who brings the comic book heat with every cover.
Last but never least: My undying love to my wife and kids, who are so understanding when Daddy walks through the office door and vanishes into the Multiverse.
