The Legends of Forever by Barry Lyga (books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

the cash register, right next to a plastic box holding a chain of lottery scratch-offs.

Joe pounced, bringing down his hand, careful to cup it so that he wouldn’t smash the thing. The cash register let out a ring at the smack of his hand, and the drawer sprung open.

“Got it!” he crowed excitedly, more to himself than to the guy at the counter. Under his hand, he felt the bee shifting and testing its boundaries. Steeling himself for the inevitable sting, he turned to the cowering employee, who’d pressed himself back against a wall of cell phone chargers.

“Hey, man, go get me a box or a cup with a lid or something.”

The guy flattened himself further against the wall. A couple of chargers fell off their pegs and clattered to the floor.

“Come on, man. Get a move on.”

Licking his lips, the employee sidled away from the counter, toward a soda machine. There, he grabbed a clear plastic cup, a lid, and—amusingly—a straw. He set them down on the counter near Joe and backed away.

Joe grabbed the cup with his free hand and moved quickly, slapping it into place as he pulled his other hand out of the way. The bee buzzed and clicked angrily against the side of the cup. For a heartbeat, Joe expected it to break through the thin plastic, but the cup held.

He put the lid on before the bee could escape.

It looked like a normal bee. Joe would have worried that he’d wasted his time, but when he put his eye right up against the cup, he could just barely make out the glint of metal along the bee’s antennae. This was a Bug-Eyed Bandit special, all right. Modified by Ambush Bug himself.

Joe felt around for his comms bud and slipped it back in his ear. Dig, Dinah, and Rene were all calling out to one another as Ambush Bug pinged around the city.

Aware of the presence of a civilian, Joe was careful to use Felicity’s code name. “Overwatch, this is Joe West. I have a bee.” His chest swelled with pride, and he could not hold back a self-satisfied smile.

“Good for you, dude,” the guy at the counter said without a trace of sarcasm, and lifted a thumbs-up as Joe headed out the door.

10

With Owlman once again locked up, Iris, Felicity, Mr. Terrific, and Oliver gathered around and peered down at the Time Courier strapped to Barry’s wrist.

“This is it?” Oliver asked. “This little gizmo is going to beat the enemy who cracks open moons and unleashes living weapons?”

“No, it’s just going to give us a fair shot at beating him,” Barry said. He explained that the Time Courier was a personal temporal teleportation device that could transport the user anywhere and anywhen. “I’ll set it for the End of Time and . . .”

He made a magician’s poof! gesture.

“I’m not on board with this,” Iris said. “I get that the Big Bad is using Reverse-Flash to power some kind of machine that’s causing all of these . . . crossovers to happen in the present. But you can’t just show up at the End of Time without any kind of reconnaissance. You could be running right into a trap. Say . . .” Iris gnawed at her lower lip for a moment, thinking. “You’ve got the Time Courier, right? Why not go back to Earth 38, jump forward a few days, and grab Supergirl from when she’s healed?”

Flash shook his head. “Too risky. There’s still a lot of antimatter contamination over on Earth 38, and that could interfere with the Time Courier. And before you ask, we can’t go grab her from the past, either—if something horrible happened to her, it would create a time paradox.” Barry hooked a thumb over his left shoulder, where Superman stood with his arms crossed over his chest. “Besides, have you met my secret weapon? More powerful than a locomotive. I think between the two of us, we can handle whatever’s lurking at the End of Time.”

“Between the three of us,” Green Arrow said, stepping over to join them. “I’m coming with you.”

Barry opened his mouth to protest, but Superman put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Don’t be so hasty, Flash. Green Arrow’s a lateral thinker and an accomplished strategist. On my own Earth, I have a good friend who’s the same, and while he may be only human, his skill set and perspective make him a force to be reckoned with. I get the same feeling from Green Arrow.”

“How is it that you say something like only human, but you do it in such a way that I don’t take offense at it?” Oliver asked in a tone of true wonderment.

Taken aback, Superman knitted his brows together in concern and apology. “You took no offense because I meant no offense. Some of my very best friends are only human, Green Arrow.”

“You know, you can call me Oliver if you like.”

“The names we assign ourselves are important and powerful,” Superman said. “It’s a measure of respect to use them.”

Green Arrow shook his head. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“I wish I did. I don’t know who or what is waiting for us at the End of Time. But I know this: We’ll encounter it and defeat it together.”

Everyone in the room went silent as the Man of Steel’s words and emotions washed over them.

“Oliver,” Felicity said into the solemn moment, “I love you dearly, but if you don’t come back, am I allowed to marry him?”

11

In one of the deepest chambers in the S.T.A.R. Labs complex, Flash, Superman, and Green Arrow prepared for their jump to the final moments of the universe. They did not know what might happen when using the Time Courier to move so far into the future, so they isolated themselves in a room four stories belowground, surrounded by steel and concrete walls.

Barry adjusted the Time Courier, following the instructions Ava Sharpe had given him. “According to her,” he said, “there’s