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

Superman’s eyebrow arched as though to say, Oh? Do tell.

“‘Limited chronal realignment?’” Oliver said. “What’s that?”

“Time travel,” Barry said with a slight shiver. “Come on, Brainy . . .”

“Very, very limited,” Brainy promised. “No more than a day. I promise.”

“Scout’s honor?” Barry asked.

“I assume you refer to the oath of the Pangalactic Scouts of Zoon, the most holy oath in the galaxy. Yes, scout’s honor.”

“A day at most?” Oliver snorted. “Big deal. Been there, done that.”

“That’s the spirit, Oliver,” Barry said, slapping him on the back. “We’ll make you a mad scientist yet.”

2

It was a Tense Standoff in the S.T.A.R. Labs Cortex. Iris ground her teeth together, trying to ignore the bleat of the alarm as it sang out its danger signal. I know! she thought fiercely. Danger! I know!

Owlman. The missing member of the evil Crime Syndicate of America from the now-defunct Earth 27. He stood in the doorway to the Cortex, holding a knife to the throat of Madame Xanadu. He’d shown up right after Team Flash managed to rescue Mr. Terrific and Cisco Ramon from the past . . .

That rescue that would go down in the record books as the shortest and least effective ever. Mr. Terrific—Curtis Holt—was fine: winded a bit and slumped in a chair, but none the worse for wear. Cisco, though, was nowhere to be seen. He’d emerged from the time breach with Curtis, only to be snatched almost immediately and yanked back through by . . . something. Something big. Something incredibly powerful.

As bad as all that was, it wasn’t even the reason for the alarm singing its horribly shrill song. The alarm had been triggered by a sudden, massive surge of breaches to and from multiple universes. The Multiverse had gone Swiss cheese without warning, and Iris was standing there without superpowers, without her resident genius, and without her superspeedster husband.

“Can someone turn off that alarm!” she demanded. First things first.

Owlman leered. “Finding it hard to focus, dear?”

“I’m not talking to you yet,” Iris snapped at him. “Some guy with a lousy mask and a baggy costume holding a knife doesn’t even make my top ten priority list right now.”

“Um, I think the keyword in that sentence is knife,” said Felicity Smoak, hacker on loan from Team Arrow. “We seem to have brought bare hands to a knife fight.”

“Just turn off the alarm,” Iris told her.

Felicity slapped her palm down on a control pad. The alarm went silent.

“Can anyone else hear that ringing noise?” Caitlin Snow said very, very loudly. She’d gone temporarily deaf when she used some jerry-rigged equipment to bring Curtis and Cisco back from the past.

“Not now!” Iris told her.

“Iris! What’s going on? Iris!” It was her father’s voice, emanating from the big monitor at the center of the Cortex. He’d called to plead for help with his Ambush Bug case in Star City, and the webcam in the Cortex didn’t show him Owlman.

“Dad!” she said, spinning to the screen. “We’ll help you as soon as we can. But right now the world is falling apart and we’ve got more concerns than a bunch of bees in Star City.”

“But—” Joe West began, cut off instantly as Iris disconnected the Star City team.

“Felicity! Mr. Terrific!” she barked in the tone of a woman who was used to being heeded immediately. “Start analyzing the satellite data on these new breaches. I want a report in ten minutes, along with suggestions for fixing the problem.”

“In ten minutes?” Curtis’s voice betrayed a wounded sense of the impossible as he shuttled his chair over to a workstation.

“Then do it in nine,” she snapped, turning her attention back to Owlman. Folding her arms over her chest, she struck her most confident pose. “And you. You say you’re here to save the world? Great. Put down the knife and get started.”

Owlman pursed his lips. She could tell he was considering her previous jab at him and whether he could or should let it slide. He made her wait a moment longer before speaking again.

“I am indeed ready to save the world. But first: What’s in it for me?”

Iris snorted. “How about having a world to live in?”

He shrugged, a movement that caused the point of his knife to indent Madame Xanadu’s throat in a very unnatural way. “I survived things you wouldn’t believe on Earth 27.”

“An Earth that is now dead,” Iris told him, as if he needed a reminder, “which sort of calls into question your world-saving bona fides. Now, tell me why I shouldn’t just throw you in the Pipeline along with the rest of your twisted friends—or stop. Wasting. My. Time.” Those last words she hurled with as much venom and aggravation as she could conjure.

She had no way to deduce Owlman’s motives or even his abilities. All she had on her side was what she knew of Earth 27. Owlman came from a world where good was evil and evil was good, where he ruled with an iron fist, his every whim a command to be obeyed instantly, or else. So maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be accustomed to being dissed and dismissed. If she could keep him off guard, maybe she could stall long enough for a miracle.

“Tell them, Bruce,” said Madame Xanadu.

“Bruce?” Iris said.

Owlman’s upper lip curled in disgust and he opened his mouth to speak . . .

. . . just as a sudden wind erupted in the center of the room, bringing with it a lurid red light that hovered and throbbed in midair before coalescing into a familiar form.

Barry.

He stood there for a single second, not moving as his body vibrated into view. His costume, ragged and torn, revealed bruises and patches of blood. He stood between Iris and Owlman, but even with him turned three-quarters away from her, Iris knew her husband—his stance, his poise. It was him.

“Owlman?” Barry said, his voice tremulous and thready. “But that must mean . . .”

And then, as they all watched, he vanished just as quickly as he’d appeared.

Before anyone could react, a bolt of silver spun across