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

with confidence. She took a step closer to the so-called Dark Canary.

But her double’s attention remained focused on Dig. Dark Canary’s lip curled as she took him in. “John Stewart. On my Earth, I turned your bones to jelly with the power of my Scream-Song. Then, I could not pause to enjoy it.” She licked her lips. “Here, I shall.”

Dig didn’t like the sound of that—so he squeezed off three shots in rapid succession.

Dark Canary did not so much as flinch. She opened her mouth wide, and the pulsing red light on her choker shifted to a bright blue as she sang out. The note was high and sustained, a single unit of sound that seemed to stretch forever. The air between them vibrated and shook, wavering with its disrupted frequencies. The bullets—every single one of them—hit that wall of sound and spangled off in different directions, leaving Dark Canary unharmed.

“You, uh, you can’t do that, right?” Dig asked.

Dinah snorted and let loose with her Canary Cry. At the same time, Dark Canary narrowed the opening of her lips. The choker shifted to a dull yellow, and suddenly Dig felt a blast of something collide with his chest, lifting him off the ground and hurling him against one of the wrecked cars. He felt like spaghetti thrown against the wall; he was done.

“You pathetic poseur,” Dark Canary said, her smile knowing and humorless as she addressed Dinah. “Your sad little song has no effect on me. I am immune to your scream.”

Dinah leaned into it, blasting out with her Cry until her throat was raw, but sure enough, Dark Canary merely stood there, unaffected.

And then Dark Canary pursed her lips almost to a whistle’s diameter, her voice deepening as she did so. The choker’s light went green as she aimed herself at the ground. A massive tremor shook the road beneath their feet, and as Dig watched, the street seemed to unzip itself in an unerringly straight line, opening up and launching clods of pavement into the air from Dark Canary to Dinah.

Dinah threw her hands up in self-defense, jumping back, but Dark Canary’s ScreamSong continued and the exploding street followed Dinah wherever she stumbled.

Struggling to stand, Dig felt bent and twisted metal from the car biting into him, catching on his body armor. At least one rib was broken, poking into places it didn’t belong. If he moved too much, he might puncture a lung.

Meanwhile, Dinah’s luck ran out and a fusillade of flying pavement pummeled her to the ground.

Dark Canary stood triumphant, arms akimbo. “And now, for my next trick . . .” she said.

Dig didn’t want to see it.

Joe approached Bert with near-silent steps. The entomologist had been bent over the microscope, his work evident only in the minutest twitches of his hands, for hours now. Sure, Bert needed time and quiet, but this was getting ridiculous. The swarm over Star City was now twice the size it had been when they’d first begun tracking it. Something on the order of two hundred thousand bees. And growing.

“Bert, I’m sorry, but I need to know if you’ve made any progress.” Rene’s idea of flying up there with a flamethrower was ridiculous, but Joe was beginning to think that maybe someone at Star City PD could fly a helicopter through the storm or something. Anything to break up the swarm, impede its growth, throw a monkey wrench into Ambush Bug’s plans.

He expected another prissy rebuke from Bert Larvan, but instead, the man simply sat up straight, groaning as his back unkinked from his hours of work. He set aside his scalpel and rubbed his eyes. “I’m pleased to report progress, Detective. Observe.”

With that, he extended one hand out, palm open. As Joe watched, the bee on the microscope’s stage roused itself and buzzed a direct path to Bert’s hand, where it landed and remained still.

“I’ve managed to disconnect this bee from Ambush Bug’s hive network, for lack of a better term. It no longer obeys his commands and can no longer serve as a teleportation end point.” He smiled a smug, knowing smile.

“Great,” Rene said somewhat acidly. “Now all we need to do is capture two hundred thousand other bees and let you spend a few hours with each of them, and this’ll all be wrapped up.”

Larvan snickered. “Do you really think me that idiotic? This bee can send its new firmware patch to others wirelessly within a certain range.”

“Wait,” Joe said. “You mean if we can get this one near the swarm, it can reprogram them for us?”

Larvan nodded. “Precisely. In fact, there were four bees within range already. Witness . . .”

He held up his other hand. As they watched, four new bees buzzed as a cluster into the Bunker and separately alighted on Larvan’s hands. He had three bees in one hand, two in the other.

Something cold tiptoed up Joe’s spine. “Bert? What, exactly, is going on here?”

Larvan grinned. “I am simply offering proof of concept, Detective West.”

Rene and Joe exchanged a glance. Years of instinct and experience communicated between them just as wirelessly as Bert’s signal to the bees.

“How are you controlling them?” Rene asked. Exactly the question Joe wanted answered.

“I’m using an old implant of Brie’s. I had it in my briefcase when you brought me here.” He tapped his ear. “It looks like a hearing aid, doesn’t it?”

Then he dropped his hands to his sides. The bees remained hovering in midair, then began orbiting him as though he were their personal sun. Their little bodies whizzed and buzzed in the air.

“Don’t even think of drawing your weapons,” Bert told them, still grinning. “You don’t stand a chance against the new Bug-Eyed Bandit.”

23

On-site at the treadmill, Curtis yawned. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept. He’d been pounding energy drinks and chewing caffeinated gum in order to stay awake, but it was worth it—the treadmill was finished. A part of him wished they had time for a test run, but . . . How did you test