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

retreated to the stairwell and sat alone on the stairs. The cold of the concrete steps leached through the seat of her pants, and the cement walls echoed her tears back to her, but at least it was only her own voice, not the endless vocal demands of the agents of the Time Bureau.

She wept for Sara. Sara, the White Canary, the captain of the missing Waverider, and the love of Ava’s genetically foreshortened life. Sara and her crew and vessel had disappeared without so much as a wisp of evidence or a byte of telemetry data to mark their passing or delineate their trail.

Without Sara, Ava had only work. As a clone, she had no family, no long-standing friendships. Her only relationships of any depth or import were with the time-traveling Legends of Tomorrow.

All of whom had vanished.

A red blur manifested itself along the south wall of the stairwell. At first, she thought it was her eyes playing tricks on her: tear-smeared light from the glowing exit sign. But then the blur, roughly human-shaped, resolved into a solid figure.

“Director Sharpe—” began the Flash.

“I’m so sick of you super-people,” Ava growled through her tears. “I’m sick of your costumes and your powers and your code names. Your secret identities and your archnemeses and your hidden cities and your customized weapons. I don’t want to live in a world of wonder and splendor and marvels if the price of it is losing the woman I love. I want to live in a boring world with boring people and boring clothes and a boring job in a boring house with my boring girlfriend, do you hear me?”

The Flash said nothing for a moment. Then, “I’m very sorry.”

They did not speak. The Flash crouched down next to her. Ava decided that if he took her hands in his own, she would scream bloody murder and bite his nose right off his face.

Fortunately for the Flash’s future olfactory delights, he did not even feint in the direction of touching her. Instead, he pressed his hands together as though praying, focusing every bit of his attention on her as he spoke.

“I know things look bad. I know things are chaotic. But we think we can find the person responsible for the breaches. And it seems like too much of a coincidence that all of this happened right when the Waverider disappeared. If we find the person who started all of this, I bet we’ll also find the Waverider and Sara and her crew. Please, Director Sharpe. Ava. We can’t do it without you.”

He gazed at her so intently with those ridiculously needy eyes behind that ridiculous cowl that she sighed heavily, then knuckled her tears away, and said, “What do you need?”

7

Caitlin walked with stiff legs and nearly motionless arms down the empty S.T.A.R. Labs corridor toward the Pipeline.

She was not hypnotized or mind controlled. Not precisely. The best description for her condition was numb. She could still control herself and she could have shaken off Madame Xanadu’s orders . . . but she just couldn’t be bothered.

Fully aware of where she was headed and what she was about to do, she could not bring herself to resist. Madame Xanadu had not commanded her, precisely. Instead, the seeress had . . . suggested Caitlin’s course of action. And Caitlin—knowing it was insanity, knowing it was dangerous—instantly understood that she would comply nonetheless.

In the Pipeline, she ignored Superwoman and Ultraman as they hooted and cursed at her. Johnny Quick dozed in the corner of his cell. Power Ring had curled into a ball, knees to his chest, rocking back and forth and weeping.

She didn’t care about them at all. She cared about the cell at the end of the corridor.

“Did you mean it?” she asked Owlman. “Did you mean it when you said you would save the world?”

Unfolding himself from the floor, where he sat cross-legged, the villain from Earth 27 stood to tower over her.

And smiled a smile that spoke many emotions, none of which were mirth.

8

Barry tried to remain patient as he held out his hand, palm up, waiting for Ava Sharpe to give him the Time Courier. It seemed to be taking forever.

“And you promise you’ll bring it back?” she asked.

“For the third time,” Barry said solemnly, “yes.”

She hovered it over his palm, pausing. “And you’re sure this will help you find Sara and the others?”

Barry sighed with exasperation and dropped his hand to his side. “I can’t be sure of anything, but it just makes sense. I promise you—if we get to the End of Time and defeat our enemy and that doesn’t turn up the Legends, I will spend however long it takes searching the time stream for them. I will rescue them, Ava. Now . . . please?”

He held out his hand again and nodded to the Time Courier. It was a chunky black bracelet with a slightly thicker bulge where a watch face would normally be. And it could take him anywhere in time or space. Just what he needed to get to the End of Time.

With a firm nod, as though convincing herself of something, Ava dropped the Time Courier into his hand. “Just one thing, Flash: The Legends have been to the End of Time. There was nothing there. Certainly no enemy. There was once a group called the Time Masters who had a headquarters there, but they’re no longer, uh, extant.”

Barry considered this. That someone had already been to the End of Time hadn’t occurred to him. “Well, we’ll report back once we get there and see what’s what,” he told her. “Maybe the whole thing’s a wild-goose chase. But the Martian who got us this intel has really reliable telepathy.”

Ava goggled. “Martian? Telepathy?”

With a shrug and a grin, Barry gave her a thumbs-up as he darted toward the door, ready to phase through the Time Bureau headquarters and dash back to Central City. “Don’t worry, Director Sharpe,” he called out. “We’ve got the team and the talent.”

Much