Crisis on Infinite Earths Read online

There was more than one Lyla. Which one was going to kill the Monitor?

  The Monitor studied the group. "Remember. Bring me only the ones I asked for."

  The Harbingers bowed to him and then, as one, disappeared. I wanted to follow, but which one? As fast as I was I couldn't, like her, be in sixteen places at the same time.

  The Monitor turned in my direction. I knew he couldn't see me, but his eyes fixed on mine. Had to be a coincidence. Had to be.

  "There are futures that can't be undone," he said. He started out the room then paused at the door and looked back as if indicating for me to follow.

  What else did I have to do?

  Green Lantern—Earth—1

  Jon Stewart glanced at the glowing green ring on his finger and allowed himself a wide grin. It had been only six months since the Guardians turned the Power Ring over to him, after its previous owner—Hal Jordan—retired, and only three since he was asked to join the Justice League of America. He still felt giddy every time he flew above the clouds, birds soaring at his side, tilting their wings, catching the currents. This was the life, he thought. He could fly like this forever. Unfortunately, he was usually, like today, on his way to stem one emergency or another. The ocean below him may have seemed endless, but Jon knew it would only be a matter of minutes before Australia rushed into view. So many of the so-called super heroes—he didn't think of himself as one, but he knew others did; it came with the uniform and the pledge to duty—

  always looked, well, angry, or, in Batman's case, cold and emotionless.

  "We can fly," he wanted to shout at them until he forced them to understand how miraculous it actually was. "Why are you taking this for granted? Look at all the incredible things we do. You gotta be enjoying this, man. You just gotta.'"

  It seemed to Jon that Batman never got joy from anything. He was relentlessly grim and consistently uncommunicative, even to the Justice Leaguers who should have been his friends. If you got even a two word answer out of him— huzzah! —it was time to party. Jon realized Batman was an irreplaceable member of their little adventurers clique, but that didn't mean he had to like the man. Wonder Woman was also an enigma. She was beyond beautiful, always warm and friendly, but Jon sensed an unbridgeable gulf between her and the rest of the League. She should be standing alongside giants, battling Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  great mythological beasts and monsters, not stopping crimes in Washington, D.C.

  Hawkgirl was an alien from a world Jon never heard of, but he related to her better than he did Wonder Woman. Zatanna was a sorceress with unbelievable magical powers, but the two of them often went clubbing, dancing to 70s disco, emptying one cafe or another, all the while talking

  'til dawn.

  But Wonder Woman. Jon was told she was an Amazon and that her mother once made love to the half-god Heracles.

  Gods never walked the streets Jon Stewart grew up on. Jon believed of all of them, Superman understood. Superman was the first and probably the most powerful of them. He never seemed to get angry or lose his temper, but he wasn't the boring boy scout Batman accused him of being, either.

  Superman just believed in doing the right thing, as if the very possibility of there being any other option never crossed his mind. He remembered the first time he met Superman was on a mission with the League. Some super-powered criminal was up to something evil, they always were. But Superman saw a civilian in danger and took time away from battle to rescue him.

  The man kept thanking Superman. He pledged his life to him, probably would have given him his wife if asked, but Superman just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "I was given these special abilities. Of course I use them to help." Of course, indeed.

  From anyone else that would sound preciously cloying, but not from Superman. Somehow it fit him.

  Jon also noticed that Superman was also one of the few of them who never wore a mask. He never thought to hide who he was. Sydney had been decimated by tsunamis, freakish three hundred foot waves that crashed through anything that stood in their way. Fort Denison, built to protect the city from invasion, its brick and stone crushed instantly to dust, fell into the sea first, churning up waves, swamping ferries and cargo boats that slowly chugged their way to the south shore. Like the coat hangar for which it was affectionately nicknamed, the Harbour Bridge easily buckled, its rounded spans collapsing at their hinges.

  The Circular Quay found itself buried under seventy feet of unseasonably icy water. The Opera House at Bennelong Point fell apart in seconds, its 40

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  great arches lost under the roiling foam. A minute later, hundreds of exotic animals died as flood waters ravaged the Taronga Park Zoo. Jon concentrated. His will energized his power ring, giving its green light form and substance.

  The light reshaped itself into giant emerald walls which Jon rammed into the harbor bed as protective shields against the terrible waves. The ocean pummeled furiously against them, but they held firm. That would do the trick for the moment, Jon thought. He turned to see the ocean was already crushing its way through the city.

  He flew over the harbor and made his way to the city center where waves were about to crush the Queen Victoria building, its hundred year old Byzantine construction hiding a very a modern mall. It was two in the afternoon, the stores crowded with shoppers taking advantage of mid-week specials, not realizing their lives were close to being snuffed out.

  "Not on my watch," he swore.

  Jon closed his eyes, envisioning a massive curved tube like a water park slide. His power ring flashed its light, and formed a two-mile long tunnel which scooped up the waves and sent them crashing out to sea again. Jon knew his walls would protect Sydney from new waves while his network of laced tunnels would redirect most of the water already in the city back out again.

  Another crisis was averted, thank the Guardians.

  The Guardians. He thought of his alien benefactors through whose diminutive blue-skinned frames coursed so much power. He had met them face-to-face on Oa, their home world, only once, but that was enough to understand who they were and for him to agree to become part of their mission.

  They had come together countless ages ago to protect the universe from natural disasters and unwanted intrusions. Jon had no idea what started them on their crusade, but he knew they had somehow created an energy source of nearly limitless power. They contained it in a massive lantern-shaped device that could be tapped as needed by a power ring such as the one Jon wore.

  Jon was only one of many ring wearers; he estimated there were more than three thousand Green Lanterns, as they called themselves, scattered across the universe.

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  The Lanterns were of different species and different cultures. To be privileged to become a ring wearer they had to agree to abandon their personal prejudices and act in concert alongside races, often those with conflicting beliefs from their own. They would no longer be serving just

  :heir own world, but an entire sector of space.

  A Green Lantern could be called upon to negotiate treaties between warring worlds or to use the power of his ring to stop, if need be, that war. Jon embraced the idea instantly.

  Within weeks of becoming a Green Lantern he was asked to replace Hal Jordan, the former Lantern, in the Justice League.

  In less than six month's time, Jon Stewart's life had changed completely. Despite all the dangers, he never thought it as anything other than for the better.

  Jon realized the Australian tsunami was not a natural occurrence, no more so than the erupting volcanoes along the equator that Superman flew to investigate, or the frigid weather that swept across Africa. Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl were checking that one out.

  His power ring indicated unnatural fluctuations in air pressure surrounding Sydney harbor, but nothing powerful enough to trigger such massive destruction.

  The ring sensed something powerful was moving toward the planet, but it di
dn't know what.

  He tried to use the ring to contact the Guardians, hoping they would know what to do. Knowing them, Jon assumed they had probably encountered these anomalies before.

  Jon's signal died in transmission. Something— whatever was causing the anomalies? —was blocking it. The Guardian's energy was nearly limitless, he knew. What in the universe could be powerful enough to jam a power ring?

  "Green Lantern?" The voice behind him was gentle and friendly. He saw she was hovering about thirty yards away. She had blonde hair and wore blue armor. She was very pretty, but not remotely Jon's type. All right. This is different. You've got my attention.

  "This your doing?" Jon nodded toward the waves that crashed off the still-glowing power ring-created walls.

  She looked confused. "My name's Harbinger. We need you." 4 2

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  "So do they." People scrambled out of the Victoria mall running toward hopeful safety. "I think they need me more."

  "Unless you come with me they're all going to die." His temper flared and he focused his thoughts. Should his ring rip her apart unless she stops the floods?

  "We've come to help you," she said, perhaps realizing his concerns.

  "We're the only hope this world has."

  "We?"

  "Please, Jon Stewart. You have to believe me." She knew his real name. How?

  "Your world isn't the only one in danger. Even your masters on Oa will perish unless we stop the murderer."

  She knows about the Guardians. That wasn't possible. But then, why couldn't he contact them? What's happened to them?

  "If you're behind this..."

  "The multiverse is on the verge of destruction. Help us, Green Lantern, to help you"

  He glanced back at the Sydney harbor. The waters were retreating. "All right. But if you try anything...."

  Before he finished his threat, they had already disappeared. Eleven

  Ientered a huge, circular steel-walled chamber. There were dozens of rows of view screens set into pre-fab niches approximately three meters above my head, each focused on different worlds and, as I quickly noted, different universes.

  The Monitor sat at a computer panel beneath one of the screens and adjusted its image. "Earth-3," he said, but to who? It couldn't be me. He didn't know I was even there.

  Red skies covered a planet already deep into the crisis. I saw the white wall of antimatter edge its way across a city. It was erasing buildings and people as if they were unneeded pencil drawings.

  I was sick. I wanted to throw up, to scream or to react somehow, but all I could do was watch.

  A man who reminded me of Superman flew at the white wall. The Monitor focused the view screen on him. "Ultraman," he said as if anticipating my question. "Earth-3 is ruled by super-villains, but today they're fighting to save their world."

  Was he talking to me?

  Ultraman hefted a truck and threw it at the encroaching whiteness as if he thought that would be enough to slow it down. The truck quietly disappeared inside, swallowed whole. He then aimed his heat vision at the wall, also to no effect.

  He tried to freeze it with a blast of arctic breath but it continued pushing forward. It wasn't going to stop, not for Ultraman, and I feared, when the time came, not for Superman, either.

  Finally, Ultraman shrugged his shoulders and flew at it, turning himself into his own weapon, valiantly and foolishly thinking he could fight whatever it was from inside.

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  I couldn't turn from the view screen as he entered the whiteness and was gone.

  Another man jet past the relentless wall of white. Costumed in blue and red, he flew with miniature jet packs strapped to his back—was he another super-villain? He was tall, lanky and bald but sported a close-cropped red beard.

  "Alexander Luthor," the Monitor said as he again adjusted the screen. We followed him as he flew home.

  His wife was sitting up in their bed—she looked like the Lois Lane of my Earth. She was holding a newborn boy close to her as if afraid to let him go. Her smile was warm as she mouthed a kiss to Luthor. He lay down next to her, taking the baby and gently patting his cheek. All he said was, "It's time."

  I'd seen the baby before, during my time in the speed force. He was slightly older then and his body equally divided between areas of matter and antimatter. I'd been taught that was a scientific impossibility but physics couldn't negate what I saw. But here, in his father's arms, the baby was normal.

  When will he change?

  "You can save him?" his wife asked. She was afraid but trying hard to hide her fear. Luthor nodded. "The voice told me how. And judging from what I've seen, we don't have a choice."

  He heard voices? Were those the same voices I had heard in the speed force?

  Luthor finally relaxed as his arm wrapped around Lois. He looked at her, smiling the same smile I know I must have when I see Iris getting dressed every morning, preparing for work.

  She turned over to him and with a soft laugh traced his lips with her finger. "And the rest of us...?" She didn't need to complete her question. She took the boy from Luthor; they didn't have much time left, but as she held her family as tightly and as closely to her as she could, she knew it had to be enough.

  I tried to understand what I saw in the speed force, but the Monitor's voice startled me back to reality.

  "Events are already in motion," he said, "And I know Lyla is going to kill me."

  He knew he's going to die? He leaned into his chair and sighed. "My death is necessary, required, actually. Just as to save the multiverse I need the child."

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  The Monitor kept staring at the screen. "I need him brought to me," he said as he turned back to his work.

  That was when everything went black again.

  Lois Lane Earth—2

  When she first met Clark, Lois took an instant dislike to him. He was handsome, no doubt. Well built, in that tractor-pulling naïve farm boy kind of way. She fully expected his hair was normally tussled and topped with a distracting cow-lick instead of plastered down and parted with hair cream.

  And, she thought, he always stood at her desk, hunched over like Quasimodo, his eyes darting right and left to avoid direct contact with hers as he wheezed streams of apologies instead of defending his position as a real man would.

  Lois Lane thought he may have been built like Clark Gable but Clark Kent acted like a timid version of the Cowardly Lion of Oz. He'd never do, she was sure.

  And with that first impression she dismissed him from her life. What an idiot I was, she thought now, as she watched the real man beneath the crumpled shirts and stammering manner accept another award from the ever-grateful citizens of Metropolis. She watched from the back of the crowd, and though he smiled and waved at the people applauding him, only she knew how ill at ease he actually was.

  Despite all his incredible deeds, despite the world leaders he met and the distant planets to which he had traveled, he remained shy, never comfortable with acclaim, preferring not to have the spotlight of attention shone on him. He didn't see any need to be thanked for doing what needed to be done. She ran her fingers over her wedding ring. He had given it to her fortyseven years ago, on Valentine's Day—he was always that sweetly corny. On that day she didn't pause to think before she slipped it on her finger. Lois had fallen in love with his stumbling and stammering years before. Crisis on Infinite Earths

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  If you were only paying attention to all his myriad distractions, you could be forgiven for believing that Clark Kent was a clown. But once you looked into his eyes, once you saw the man beneath the pretend tics and twitches, you saw such innate goodness that, even against her wishes, he kept forcing his way back into her thoughts.

  She saw him glance in her direction and give an almost imperceptible, nod. He had to get away from the crowds. He loved these people, but if he had to listen to even one more comparison
between him and the Gods who strode Mount Olympus—why did they always have to use that inappropriate comparison?—he was sure his head would explode.

  Time and again he complained to Lois about being nearly invulnerable; there was very little that could harm him, so there was hardly any risk doing what he did. The real heroes, he always said, were the ones who put their lives on the line, the ones who had the most to lose. He was Superman, yet he looked up to the policemen who protected the city and the firemen who risked everything to do their jobs. They were the ones who should be getting the awards, not him.

  Lois walked across the square to the Planet building and took the elevator to the roof. She sat and waited. In less than a minute, Superman would thank everyone who came, say he was touched by this latest honor—and he truly was—and then he'd fly up and away, only to circle back unseen to land next to her.

  "I was feeling claustrophobic again," he said. Lois started. She hadn't heard him land, but then, even after all these years, she rarely ever did.

  "You know how long I've been waiting?" She smiled warmly at him.

  "You sure took your sweet time, Clark."

  "You know me," he replied. "Always goofing off. So, how was I?" She kissed him. "You were great. They loved you. C'mon. Let's see it."

  He handed her his newest medal. "What do you think they'll do when I tell them I'm retiring?"

  Lois slipped the medal in her purse, to be put into the current volume of her scrapbook that night. "Maybe you should just send them an e-mail. 'It's been nice, but I'm outta here. Love, the S-man.' Hell, it'd be easier than the alternative."

  He laughed. "How to destroy a lifetime reputation in twenty-five words or less. But I sort of like it." He was still chuckling. 48

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  "You deserve it. Fifty years saving the world from itself, I'd say that's long enough. Besides, there are all the others now who will pick up the slack. I want to spend some time with you while I can." His smile faded. He was obviously getting older. His powers were still remarkable, but they had diminished somewhat over the last ten years. Superman had no idea how long he was expected to live. He wasn't an earthman, after all, and there was nobody who could tell him what the lifespan of a Kryptonian should be. And how much of him was super and how much was just a man?