Crisis on Infinite Earths Page 3

  Marv Wolfman

  side, and use their powers to fight the shadow demons or try to stop the ever-encroaching antimatter wall.

  But the heroes were always helpless.

  Their pain would soon be over, but his, as always, continued. "Why do I have to keep living through this hell again and again?" He already knew the answer. He had sinned and this was his terrible punishment.

  He was brought to each universe before it was destroyed and he was forced to watch its people die and hear their final cries. But worst of all, he had to accept that there was nothing he could do.

  Once again he saw the white wall move silently across the planet, cutting short voices, discriminating against nothing, absorbing everything. Everyone who died was innocent, but the children were the hardest for him to forget. Every so often one would see him staring helplessly at the destruction. In their innocence, they would reach out and plead with him to take their hand and pull them away from that cold, white wall. Please. Help me. Don't let me die. Do something. Save me. Save my sister. Save my brother. Save my parents. Save my—

  As always, Pariah would try, hoping this time would be different but always knowing it never would.

  And, as always, he failed.

  He took a child in his arms as antimatter swept over them. He held her close, hoping his immortal body would protect her. But, as the wall moved on, only he was left standing in the black nothingness. Even the planet he had been standing on was gone.

  He felt the familiar burning inside his stomach. It told him he was about to be brought to yet another world in yet another universe. And when he got there, he would be forced to watch it die, too.

  He cried out, "Why me?"

  There was no answer.

  As always.

  Six

  Even when I tried, the speed force wouldn't let me stop running. I wanted to slow down, but instead I found myself racing even faster. Strangely, as much as I knew that should have bothered me, it didn't. I felt at ease here, eerily calm.

  Yes, I knew there was an urgency that demanded my attention. I was, after all, supposed to save the world. But I felt strangely at home in this place of speed.

  I didn't want to leave.

  Instead, I wanted to find the other speedsters, whoever they were. I wondered if they shared the same problems and concerns I once had? Were they as impatient with everything as I used to be? Did the world move slowly for them, too? People took forever to think. One word conversations seemingly dragged on for months. C'mon, man, move it. Spit it out. Say it already!

  For someone who had once been the slowest man on Earth, after I became the Flash I had to learn, of all things, patience. Slow down. Listen to them. It's not their fault they 're slow.

  I could live a whole life before they finished drinking a soda. I could be in Central City one moment and in Paris the next. I could eat a full banquet in an instant and metabolize it just as quickly.

  Actually, I had to constantly eat. I burned food so fast it was the only way to keep my energy levels constant.

  Learning to think slow, to walk instead of run, even re-learning how to breathe, seemed to take me forever.

  I had to decrease my heart rate. I had to learn how long it took to lift a cup off a table. How much time to take a shower? How many breaths do 28

  Marv Wolfman

  I draw in a minute? Do I run a mile in a blink of an eye, or do I let it take longer?

  I had to re-learn everything I once took for granted. Patience.

  Slow down my vision so people appeared to walk normally. Slow down my hearing so instead of that annoying Doppler-induced buzz I could actually understand what they were saying.

  My hardest lesson? Enjoy the process, not the results. It wasn't easy.

  But here, wherever here was, there were others who had gone through it all before me. I wanted to speak to them.

  But...

  Something kept nagging at me.

  The outside world. The real world. There was danger there, wasn't there? Oh, right, I remember now. Something about the end of the universe. But it was so peaceful here. I belonged here.

  I could die here.

  Then—

  Iris.

  Beautiful Iris.

  Waving goodbye. That sweet smile. A much too quick kiss, "See you soon," she said, although she never would.

  Iris.

  Was she still alive? Did the Earth still exist? Was the future still changeable?

  Iris.

  The speed force was drawing me into it and didn't want to let me go. This was to be my final home, but I knew I couldn't let myself rest. Not yet.

  Yes, I can accept that I had already died, although, by the paradoxes of time, my death had not yet occurred. Yes, my world was destroyed, but that hadn't yet happened, either.

  The future and the past were all the same here, and the longer I stayed, perhaps the happier I'd be.

  But then everything else would be destroyed. Everyone I knew and cared about would be dead.

  Actually, it would be worse. They never would have been. I had to go home.

  Seven

  Time wrapped itself around me like an all-embracing blanket. I saw a young Cro-Magnon caveman try to disperse mastodons about to trample his small village.

  Then the mastodons disappeared.

  I saw Superman shouting in pain again. What in the universe happened to him?

  I saw myself die again. This time I didn't bother to linger. There was Supergirl hovering beside a rooftop next to Batgirl, precariously perched on a gargoyle. They were looking over the city, talking and laughing and I found myself smiling.

  They were good people and I loved talking to both of them. Kara, Supergirl's Kryptonian name, loved movies more than Iris and almost as much as me.

  We'd argue for hours in the JLA cafeteria, me drinking my tenth coffee—

  like I needed to be more wired—and she sipping from that bottle of water always stuck in her hand. What was the best Hitchcock or Spielberg film? Me: Psycho and Raiders. Her: North by Northwest and ET. Kara came to Earth as a teenager. To her, movies were a way of catching up with a world she didn't know, and she embraced every frame she watched, good and bad. She even liked Ed Wood films. She accepted they were awful but she loved their unintentional humor.

  She was so young, but Supergirl worked harder, was always optimistic and probably more dedicated to our cause than almost anyone I knew, including her cousin, Superman.

  Batgirl was not related to Batman, and though she shared his crimefighting techniques. When she took off that costume and became Barbara 30

  Marv Wolfman

  Gordon again, she also became alive and funny and somebody Iris and I loved being with as often as we could.

  Barbara was a librarian and researcher and Iris would call her at the weirdest hours to track down information for whatever story she was currently writing.

  But I worried about her. She craved Batman's approval and, knowing him, I was certain he didn't parcel that out liberally. I saw the Justice League of America fighting those demonic shadows. A long time ago I was one of them and I wished I was with them now. Then I realized, the crisis the voices spoke about—it had come to my Earth.

  I saw the young Cro-Magnon again, standing by a marsh, spear in hand. He'd been hunting for game. Three Neanderthals made their way to his side. Had the two species actually overlapped in time? I cursed myself for not remembering my prehistory.

  Suddenly, the Cro-Magnon looked up beyond the marsh. His eyes widened as he saw something in the mist that frightened him. Whatever it was disappeared by the time I looked up.

  He rubbed his eyes, dismissing the thought, then held up his spear to the others and grunted unintelligible sounds that probably meant, The village needs food. Let's hunt.

  Suddenly, the marsh was gone and I was elsewhere.

  I saw Batgirl again, but this time she was crying.

  What happened?

  Eight

  Iwas on
a spaceship of some sort.

  No. It was a satellite and I was in a small laboratory. The boy I saw before, half flesh, half anti-matter—how did I know that?—was no longer an infant. I was looking at a three year old. Had that much time passed? A woman flew into the room. She was human, blonde, very pretty and dressed in skintight blue armor. I'd seen her before. She examined the boy, not pleased with whatever she saw.

  Another figure entered. He was male, humanoid but not human. Almost bald, his hair was shaped into a widow's peak of cornrow strands that lay flat across his forehead. He wore a white tunic over blue armor. He talked to the woman. They smiled, even laughed.

  Then the laughing stopped.

  The happy look in her eyes abruptly changed. "I have to do this. I can't help myself," she said.

  He nodded as if there was no alternative. "I've been waiting."

  "You know he's controlling me?"

  "That's his way, Lyla. You know that."

  "Don't call me that. He doesn't like that name. He calls me Harbinger."

  The male didn't respond.

  "I don't want to hurt you. Please, Monitor, stop me from hurting you." His name was Monitor?

  "You know I can't do that, Lyla."

  "Harbinger! Why can't you understand my name is Harbinger?"

  "Harbinger then. Listen to me. I want you to forgive yourself."

  "Are you trying to trick me?"

  32

  Marv Wolfman

  "No. That's for you to remember... after."

  "What are you talking about, old man?"

  He turned to her, dropping his hands to his side, resigned, or perhaps just anxious to get it over with. "It's time. Do what you have to." She stared, her red eyes deepening to black. Her breathing became labored and her chest heaved. "I don't want to do it. I know you can stop me, so why won't you?" She was in tears.

  If I knew what was coming, why didn't he? I ran at them, intending to push them apart, but instead I raced through both images. I was still in the speed force while they were in the real world. I yelled at him, "Run, you idiot. She's going to kill you." He turned as if he heard me, although I knew that was impossible. The look in his eyes seemed to say, "It's for the best." He closed his eyes and lowered his head as she raised her hands. With a terrible scream she unleashed a blaze of golden fire. He looked up, whispered some words to no one I could see, and then he was dead.

  Lyla or Harbinger, fell to her knees and cried.

  There was a flash of light, and I was back in time, but just two minutes ago. The Monitor was in the room. She entered. They talked. And she killed him again.

  It happened three more times, as if I was watching a constant loop of a slow-motion replay. Was this some pivotal moment I was being shown until I understood it?

  Who was the Monitor? Who was Lyla? Who made her kill him? I watched him die a sixth time. As he fell at my feet, I instinctively reached to help.

  "Now it's your turn," he said as he died again. I was still in the speed force, watching the outside world. Was he already dead? Was this the past or the future?

  How do I find you? How do I save you?

  And then everything went black.

  Nine

  Ibarely heard the voices and couldn't tell where they came from.

  "You understand the mission?"

  "Don't worry. It's not a problem." I recognized the voice. It was the killer's voice.

  "If you're sure, then it's time."

  The voices were faint, a few words here and there filtered through, but nothing made sense. I was still in the Monitor's ship— that was his name, wasn't it? —but there was something different now. Metal walls surrounded me; there was a floor under me. The lights here were dim and I heard the grinding noise of complaining engines below me. I was no longer in the speed force.

  I was on the Monitor's ship. His actual ship.

  But how did I get here?

  I remembered he died and I wanted to help. Then there was—blackness? Nothingness? Unconsciousness?

  Just as suddenly, I was here.

  Did I somehow bring myself here by saying I wanted to be here? Had I controlled the speed force, making it take me where I needed to go?

  "We're going to need help." It was his voice. He was someplace near. I realized this had to be the past. I'd seen the woman, Lyla, kill the Monitor. But I just heard him speak. He was still alive. That meant there was time to warn him about Lyla's future treachery. The ship was designed like a globe, approximately one-half mile in diameter. The interior walls were black metal, a steel alloy similar in look to our own, but slightly different: oilier, slicker, even warmer to the touch. Marv Wolfman

  I tapped the metal and it buckled slightly; the wall was paper thin. I tried to punch through it, but I was thrown back. Okay. Thin but very solid, it probably weighed next to nothing.

  Our scientists would love to get a sample. If it was fireproof as well as unbreakable, I knew Ferris Aircraft would be making jet fighters out of this stuff as fast as they could get them off the assembly line. I ran past a dozen laboratories crowded with equipment and machines. Some looked like weapons, but the majority were so alien in design I couldn't identify them let alone use them. I had four University degrees but I felt like Homer Simpson during a meltdown.

  There was one thing I did recognize: view screens were built into the walls and all of them were showing scenes from different worlds. I recognized Earth-2, Jay Garrick's Earth. The Monitor was observing not just one universe but the multiverse.

  Good reception, too. Cable or satellite?

  Duh. I looked around me. Definitely satellite. On one screen I saw my own Earth and the sky was still blue. I'd been sent back in time to before the red skies, to before the shadow demons and the white wall of antimatter, to before my planet and my universe were destroyed.

  I stared at the multiverse of worlds displayed on the view screens. Why was the Monitor watching them? I had seen Lyla kill him and I made the logical assumption she was a murderer and he was her victim. But what if I was wrong? Was he the killer and was she trying to stop him?

  Good guys and bad. It was getting harder to sort out who was who. When I was a kid I played cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad. My friends liked playing the bad guys because they could shout as loud as they wanted and pretend to act tough. I preferred playing the good guy, even if the part at first appeared to be more boring. I was too young to realize then that assigned definitions were not always clear. Cops and robbers? No problem. But cowboys and Indians? The movies always showed the Indians, tomahawks raised high, whoopin' and hollerin'

  as they attacked wagon trains and civilians.

  Clearly they were the bad guys.

  Only we knew now that wasn't necessarily the case.

  Crisis on Infinite Earths

  35

  The speed force voices inferred there was still time to save the multiverse. If there wasn't, why did they bother saving me? If Lyla killed the Monitor, then his death should have saved my world.

  Evidence speaks for itself. That was the first thing I learned in the police academy. Emotion should have no role in determining guilt or innocence, good guys or bad.

  There were fifteen levels on the satellite. I awoke on the ninth. Lyla and the Monitor were on the first. It took less than a second to find them. Sometimes it was good to be the fastest man, dead or alive. Ten

  Lyla's eyes were blue, not red or black as I'd seen them before. And I saw them looking at the Monitor with respect, not hate. The Harbinger I saw in the speed force acted as if she were anxious to kill him. This Lyla was very different. She was gentle. Her voice, softer. But it was her eyes that separated the two of them—there was no hate anywhere in them. In fact, she looked at him as if she loved him. They didn't see me, even when I stood in front of them and waved my hands like an idiot to get their attention.

  That proved I was dead. But did it mean I was a ghost? Was I only able to watch the universe go to hell or coul
d I do something about it? Patience. Sort out the evidence then figure out between the settler and the Indian, who was protecting whose home.

  "But will they listen?" she asked. "I don't think they'll believe me." i

  Lyla had an easy, relaxed smile, not at all as I'd seen her before. The question asked itself: Were there two Lylas, two Harbingers?

  "They'll believe. Maybe not at first, but when you show them the evidence..."

  She laughed. "Yeah, right. I go up to these super heroes and villains and say, 'Excuse me, the multiverse is coming to an end' Then I say, 'See this?' I show them the proof. 'Oh, and why am I here?' they'll ask. 'Well, it's because we—we being me and some alien guy you've never heard of before—need you to save the universe for us.' I wouldn't believe that. Why should they?"

  He didn't look at her but I could see he was smiling. "I'd leave out the part about an 'alien guy'." I couldn't tell if he was joking, but it made me laugh.

  Crisis on Infinite Earths

  37

  On one of the view screens I saw something that looked like a ten-story tall tuning fork cobbled together out of mismatched circuit boards, bailing wire and spit. Well, maybe it was a bit more sophisticated than that, but not much.

  The Monitor waved his hands over a control panel. On the screen I saw a light on the fork turn itself on. "Unless you recruit an army to protect my machines, you know there's no hope."

  Lyla stared at the view screen. "But will it work?"

  "It has to, doesn't it?"

  Lyla placed her palms together and held them in front of her yoga style. She closed her eyes and rested her head on her fingertips as if in prayer. She was nothing like the woman I'd seen in the speed force. But someone— who? —was going to control her— when? —and, sooner or later, she was going to kill the Monitor— why?

  "Don't let her go," I shouted, but the Monitor couldn't hear me. For some reason I screamed again then hammered my fist against his chest. It fell through him without affect.

  I'd never felt so helpless.

  Lyla's body shimmered and suddenly there were two of her. A second later there were four, then eight, and finally sixteen seemingly perfect copies. She had the power to duplicate herself.