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

along Route 70 out of Central, then along the straightest course to U.S. 90 into Star City. Cars and trucks alike pulled to the side of the road as the phenomenon whipped along like a living, pulsating, hurricane-force wind.

It was more than six hundred miles from Central City to Star City. In a car, without rest stops, a driver could make the trip in half a day. Barry Allen could do it in less than a minute.

Led by James Jesse, the ten thousand Earth 27 speedsters made it in under two hours.

• • •

“Picking up major tectonic activity just outside of town,” Dig warned from the Bunker. “It’s either the Big One or . . .”

Out in the field, Joe wore a protective hazmat suit to stave off attacks by the swarm of bees buzzing everywhere. The air was thick and black with them. He didn’t need Dig’s warning from the relative safety of the Bunker, which was hardened against anything short of a nuclear attack. The rumble of the ground vibrating up through his feet told the tale, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t the fabled Big One, the massive earthquake predicted to sever the West Coast from the rest of the country.

No, this “quake” portended something else.

Pop!

“Joe!” Ambush Bug put a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “You’ve changed! Your face is all flat and shiny now. Your skin is saggy.” He plucked at the loose-fitting hazmat suit. “Your diet is all kinds of mucked up. Wheatgrass, Joe! It’s the wonder food of the next millennium!”

“You maniac! You’re going to kill people!”

Ambush Bug shrugged. “Background characters! No-names! NPCs!”

Joe took aim, knowing it was pointless. Pop! The Bug was gone.

He turned around. Thundering down Weisinger Street came the beat of twenty thousand superfast feet. Joe grinned. Supergirl couldn’t bring the Kryptonian muscle, but she’d come up with something almost as good: ten thousand speedsters.

He’d make do.

42

In the Cortex, Supergirl paced back and forth, furious at herself.

“It’s not your fault you don’t have your powers,” Iris told her.

“Well, technically . . .” Felicity chimed in, “she made the decision to go all super-flare on Anti-Matter Man, so it is her fault. But, uh,” she added quickly at a glare from Iris, “it was totally the right decision to make.”

“If I had my powers, there’d be nowhere on this Earth or any other where Owlman could hide from me,” Supergirl fretted. “I feel useless just standing around here.”

“Mr. Terrific is on his way back from the treadmill,” Iris told her. “Once he gets here, we can use his tech to search the building from top to bottom.”

“He might not even be in the building,” Felicity put in. “He could be halfway to Opal City by now.”

“He’s not going to Opal City,” Supergirl snapped a little more harshly than usual. Being a mere mortal grated on her nerves. “He sent all that energy here. He’s got a reason for that. A purpose. And it has to do with something in this building. Which means he’s already here. I guarantee it.”

Iris pursed her lips and rested her hand near the emergency sanctuary switch. Once pressed, it would lower blast shields over every entrance and exit into and out of S.T.A.R. Labs.

“I can close off the building, cut us off from the outside world entirely . . .”

Supergirl shook her head. “No. That would just alert him, give him a heads-up that we’re onto him. I’m going to go find him.”

She spun on one heel and headed for the door.

“How are you going to do that?” Iris asked in disbelief.

“Any way it takes,” Supergirl said defiantly.

43

“Over there!” Superman called. “He’s with the others!”

The Man of Steel pointed to Egg. Barry, having just emerged from the sphere, cursed himself in terms so vociferous that even Mick blushed.

They hadn’t breached the Iron Curtain of Time after all, Barry realized. They’d been lured through it.

They’d walked right into a trap. They’d split their forces poorly, sending their weakest members right into the Time Trapper’s grasp.

“And every second that passes, Superman’s powers fade more and more,” Barry said. “The Time Trapper has us just where he wants us.”

“Guys, it’s a trap!” Sara’s voice crackled over their comms channel. “Cisco isn’t—”

And then nothing.

“They’re gone,” Superman said, his voice hollow. “Even my limited telescopic vision would see them, but . . . They’re gone.”

“He killed them? He killed them?” Mick’s fist clenched. The ring glowed a green so intense it was hot. Heat Wave’s eyes began to take on a greenish hue that Barry recognized from fighting Power Ring.

“Don’t do it, Mick!” Barry grabbed Mick by both shoulders. “Don’t give in to the ring. Control it; don’t let it control you.”

Sweat beaded on Mick’s forehead and dripped down his cheeks. “But. . . But he says . . . He says he can get revenge. All I have to do is let him . . . let him . . .”

Superman put a calming hand on Mick’s shoulder. “Vengeance is a poor reason to lose yourself, Mr. Rory. I have a good friend who’s spent his entire life proving that. The easiest thing in the world is to find the biggest weapon and lose yourself in it. But there’s another way. A path outside of revenge: justice.”

Hyperventilating, Mick darted his greenish eyes this way and that. His lips curled back; his teeth gnashed. The struggle with Volthoom was etched into every line in his face, the hollows of his cheeks, the rivulets of sweat collecting along his jawline, the crow’s feet around his eyes.

“Take the ring,” Barry said quietly. “Take it away from him.”

“He can beat it,” Superman said confidently. “I believe in him.”

Barry opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment, he heard a soft groan. Wally was waking up. He dashed to his brother’s side.

“Barry . . . ?” Wally’s eyes took a moment to focus. “What are you doing here?”

In literally half a second, Barry explained everything that had happened since Wally had gone missing in the 1960s. Only a speedster could keep up with that rapid burst of speech.

“Oh man,