The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells (e novels for free txt) 📕

she spoke, the door creaked open, then fell off entirely. Iris screamed in surprised joy when Wally stepped out. She ran to her brother and threw her arms around him.

Cisco, the Atom, White Canary, Heat Wave, Green Arrow, and Superman emerged next. Every single one of them looked wrecked, even the Man of Steel.

Iris clutched Wally and planted kisses on his forehead. “Where’s Barry?” she asked.

Wally said nothing. He looked at the floor.

Iris thought of Madame Xanadu’s words. No. “Is he hurt? Still in the Time Sphere? Wally . . .”

“Kal . . . ?” Supergirl said, her tone acknowledging what she already knew.

Superman came to her. “Mrs. West-Allen . . . Iris . . . I’m so sorry . . .”

Iris howled and swung her fist at him. He rocked with the blow, accepted it, then folded her in his arms and held her as she wept.

60

Barry ran through the thirtieth century, wondering briefly and wryly if the Tornado Twins, Dawn and Don, would be aware of his passing.

He ran to the Legion, blew through the thirty-first century on a wind of tachyons and bosons. Chased the history of the future down its pathways, the only sounds his own breath and the sizzle-crack of his atoms shifting into energy.

In the sixty-fourth century, he phased back into reality for just an instant, spying a familiar face.

“” she exclaimed, forgetting in her shock to revert to ancient English.

“Hefa!” he cried out to her. And then more. Hoping she could hear him. Knowing she probably couldn’t.

The sixty-fourth century was history now, so distant in the past that it might as well have been the Jurassic.

He ran and ran. He ran, missing them all. He ran, loving them all. He ran, knowing that he would hit the Iron Curtain of Time and be destroyed.

He ran and ran and ran.

And then . . .

And then he stopped.

61

There was sunlight and a breeze and cool green grass under his feet.

Barry peered around. The sky, blue, offered a single white cloud, a puffy and cheerful promise on the horizon.

It had to be morning, because the grass was wet with dew. It grew almost waist-high in some spots. With gentle curiosity, he stepped to the tall grass. Watched as it bent in the breeze.

He was not tired. He was not on fire. He was whole and intact. His breath came easy. His heart beat normally.

“Barry, you did it.”

It was the voice of his mother.

“Son, we’re so proud.”

His father.

Dead all these years. Speaking to him now.

He had run faster than light. And then he’d run faster than life itself.

“You can rest now, Barry. Everyone is safe. You saved the world. Again.”

He ran the tips of his fingers along the grass, picking up the dew. Dew was the product of water vapor condensing overnight on flat surfaces, usually when the air was calm. Determining whether or not dew would form was a simple matter of calculating the dew point, using the Magnus formula.

Everything was calm now. There was no wind.

Their arms around him. The familiar brush of her lips on his forehead, wishing him sweet dreams.

He turned his face to the sun. He smelled the air and the grass and the clean soil.

Dew was just condensation, he knew, but it had different meanings across cultures. For some, it was a symbol of reincarnation, a promise of new life with each morning.

He smiled.

Flash Fact.

62

The Legends and Superman used the Time Courier to travel to the thirty-first century for emergency medical aid. Iris shook off Felicity and Curtis. She needed to be alone. Her father was headed home from Star City, but she didn’t want to see him, either. Not right now.

Instead, she went to the Time Vault. She called up the newspaper that predicted Barry’s disappearance during some sort of “crisis.” This had been a crisis, all right, but the timing had been all wrong. He was supposed to vanish years from now.

She stared at the newspaper. Everything about it was the same.

Almost everything.

The byline was the same. The date. The masthead.

The headline, though, had changed.

Iris didn’t know what it meant, but it made her smile through her tears.

63

“Hey, pretty lady. Can I borrow a cup of sugar?”

Ava jolted upright at her desk. Since Sara had disappeared, she’d been spending every waking moment at her desk at the Time Bureau. Compartmentalizing. Keeping herself too busy to mourn.

“Am I seeing things?” she said softly.

Sara, leaning against the doorjamb, shook her head, grinning that self-satisfied grin she always flashed when she’d just pulled off the impossible. “Nah. You’re seeing exactly one thing: the woman who loves you.”

Ava launched herself over the desk and threw herself into Sara’s arms.

Mick moved slowly as he chose a seat in the commissary at the Time Bureau. He didn’t trust fancy-pants thirty-first-century medical technology, so unlike the others, he’d just let the Legion’s docs put some bandages on him and that was that. He would heal on his own, the way it was supposed to be. His body hurt, but eventually it would hurt less.

In the meantime, he had a plate piled high with french fries, a nice lean corned beef sandwich with mustard hot enough to burn out his nose hairs, and a beer. Good medicine.

Ray came in, bearing a tray with a plate of broccoli and a fruit cup. Mick wrinkled his nose. “Rabbit food, Haircut?”

Ray beamed as he sat down. “Healthy body, healthy mind, Mick!”

“Meh.” Mick waffled his hand back and forth.

“How are you feeling?”

Mouth stuffed with corned beef, Mick managed another “Meh.”

Leaning in conspiratorially, Ray asked, “What’s it like being without the ring?”

Mick chased his sandwich with a hearty glug of brew. “Just like being with the ring. Only, without it.”

Ray snorted. “C’mon, man! You can tell me! You had the most powerful weapon in the universe. That had to have changed you.”

Mick regarded Ray quietly and seriously for a moment. Then, without warning, he belched—loud, long. Powerful enough to muss Ray’s hair.

“Kinda . . . like that?” Ray asked, combing his hair back into