Issue 5: To Tomorrow and Back...

I waited for him in what remained of the Metropolis headquarters for STAR Labs.  To be fair he was only about ten minutes behind me, but when you live your life literally in fast forward, ten minutes is an eternity.  I scoped out the perimeter while I waited.  The city was pretty much a living ruin, not that I didn’t expect that given that apparently Nuclear Man ran rampant across the city over two hundred years ago.  No, this was what I was actually expecting.  What I was not expecting was to find the building for STAR Labs nearly entirely intact.  There was some structural damage here and there, but nothing too terrible, more cosmetic than anything else.

“I’m impressed.” He said as he descended from the sky.

“Thanks.” I tried not to let my voice crack when I showed my appreciation.  The thing you should understand is, I grew up watching Superman.  He was my idol, and my reason for getting into science.  “The door is locked with a four digit code.” I pointed out.  Superman scanned it with his x-ray vision “I don’t see any tampering or traps, but much of the building is lined with lead.”

“They started doing that in the early two thousands as they started dealing with more and more radioactive materials.” I pointed out.  I sped through about six thousand combinations before the door clicked open.

“I’ll open it.” Superman said.  I guess it made sense to have the invulnerable guy open the door.  There was a click followed by a massive explosion that shot Superman across the street.  I sped to his side, but he was already getting up like it was a mild inconvenience.  “Thought you said it wasn’t trapped?”

“I also said the building was lead lined.  That bomb was from the inside.”

Fair enough, can’t see what you can’t see and all that.  But that did tell us one very important thing.  “We’re going to have to be very careful.” He said.  I felt a little twinge of pride knowing he and I were on the same wave length.

Entering the building I pulled a pen light from my belt.  Shining it around I looked for the origin of the explosion.  “Found it.  Pretty rudimentary, really.  They attached a impact sensitive pipe bomb to hammer and hung it from the ceiling.  When the door was opened, it tripped the release for the hammer and dropped it on you.  You can see what’s left of the hammer up there, secured with a rope.”

“Impressive.” He said dryly.

“Oh, you haven’t heard impressive yet…” I knelt down at the debris caused by the bomb.  “Looks like it was a high end bomb, cutting edge, the stuff Luthor used to cook up.  It’s got bursting patterns, but little to no scorching, this was a kinetic energy bomb, using antimatter.  Intergang used to do that back in Central City.”

He stopped and turned to me “How do you know all this?”

“I’m a forensic scientist with the Central City Police Department.”

“Very impressive.”

I shrugged “We’ve had to keep pace.  After Nuclear Man first showed up, we were dealing with a whole new brand of crime.  Suddenly guys were making islands…it got crazy.”  We continued to walk down the main corridor.  “My lab is actually based in the STAR Labs Central City Division.  The city couldn’t keep up with the changing technology on their budget so they contracted STAR Labs at a fraction of the cost.  Harrison Wells used to work out of my unit.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Harrison Wells.  He founded STAR Labs and when the need arose, started setting up satellite offices.”

“So Emil Hamilton…”

“I’ve met him, kind of argumentative, but brilliant mind.  He’s pretty much the major brains but from what I’ve seen he and Wells have a very “you do your thing, I’ll do my thing” relationship.”

“That makes sense.  You seem oddly at ease for being flung hundreds of years into a dystopian future.”

“It’s apocalyptic, not dystopian…” did I just correct Superman on GRAMMER! “and this isn’t actually the worst one I’ve seen.  I’ve…stumbled through time a few times.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, different timelines, completely separate universes.  There’s one where…um…is that wall moving?”

We looked ahead and saw that the far wall on the end of the hallway was seemed to be vibrating.  Superman used his x-ray vision, then shouted “Get down!”

The wall exploded and this massive purple man-like thing emerged.  “What the heck is that?” I said speeding to the far wall.  “His name is Parasite.” Superman explained.  “He siphons energy, and if you have powers he can copy those as well just by touching you.”

“Got it, bad touch.”

Superman opened up with heat vision on the creature, and it reeled back “Rudy, calm down, you don’t have to do this.” He said pressing the attack.  “Rudy” just growled and launched himself at Superman.  I sped around the pair building up as much energy as I could.  Then I scooped up a handful of the energy and threw it at him as hard as I could, basically hitting him with lightning.  This apparently angered him more than the heat vision because now he was chasing me.  That was fine because I needed Superman to get back to the past.  They’ll probably get by without the Flash, but they clearly need Superman.

“Keep going, I’ll take care of bad touch!” I shouted and we were gone.

                Superman stood alone in the corridor, the silence deafening.  He turned to the wall that had shattered and flew towards it.  He arrived in a large chamber that had various display cases.  One contained a suit of armor outfitted with a cape and hammer.  Another contained the shattered remains of a red robot.  Yet another tiara and golden lasso of Wonder Woman.  Superman stopped at one that had a tattered blue t-shirt with the Superman shield across the chest.  The room was filled with such mementos, and one case had its door open.  Superman figured that one had contained Parasite.  “Do you like it?” said a withered voice.  A soft whirring sound came down a dark doorway.  A wheel chair bound figure emerged.  Its cybernetic torso was merged with the wheel chair; the back of his once bald head was replaced with circuits and wires.  Even half machine, the form looked decrepit and old as it leaned to one side, unable to hold itself up straight.  “It’s my trophy room.” The figure said.  As it emerged into the light, the wrinkled face smiled.  “Lex?” Superman whispered.

“I always knew it’d be us in the end, Clark…” he said wheeling around the trophy room.  “Just thought it would have lasted a little longer…”

“What have you done, Lex?” Superman asked.  “I did what I set out to do, Clark.  I beat you and everyone like you.  It took a long time, but I did it.  I formed a legion of doom that washed destruction across the planet.  Not one hero could stand against me.  It wasn’t until I killed the Batman that they suddenly realized that they needed to band together, but by then it was too late…the damage was done.”  He looked wistfully at the cases, his eyes resting on the one with the tattered shirt.  “You would have been proud, Clark.  Jason went down fighting.  He ended up taking Nuclear Man with him.  So brave.”

Superman moved to grab the cybernetic corpse that was Lex Luthor but Lex held up a hand “Oh come on, Clark, that won’t do you any good.  That happened hundreds of years ago.  Besides, I’m going to help you get home, help you…stop me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I unleashed the Legion of Doom, I thought I was doing the world a favor by tipping the balance of power, putting into place an organization that could do what was necessary to fight a threat from beyond the stars.  I was very, very wrong.  Now, with you here, I see my chance to fix that…”  He rolled to a cabinet and opened a drawer.  “I’ve held onto this for a long time, Clark.  It’s what you need to get back.”

He handed it to Superman “Now, go to the Flash, to Barry, and get home, Clark.  Stop us.  You will need others like him, like you, in order to do it.”  Superman took the device and scanned it.  He nodded and flew out the door after me.  Lex rolled back from the door and waited for the sonic boom announcing Superman’s departure.  He opened up a panel on his chair that displayed a flat holographic screen in the air at his eye level.  A young and healthy Lex Luthor smiled back at him “It’s done, Lex.  He’s on his way home.”

“Excellent.” Young Lex said.  Behind old Lex two more trophy cases slid up from the floor, one containing the tattered cape of Superman, the other the shredded remains of a Flash costume.

 

We were in New York in Time Square when Superman caught up with us.  I raced around trying to avoid letting Parasite pound on me.  I'd always wanted to visit Time Square, but not like this, not with rotting decaying buildings and the giant purple man with a leach mouth trying to eat me.  Superman landed hard, cracking the pavement, and slammed his fist into the ground.  I barely had time to move before the street opened up and swallowed Parasite whole.  Superman then punched the sides of the crevice, causing them to cave in on "Rudy".  "Well, that was very forward." I said.

Superman shrugged "I figure I can't do that much more damage to an abandoned city."  Buildings on either side of us rumbled as they crumbled into dust and debris.  "Well..." I said, leaving the word hanging in the air.

Superman pulled out the device.  "Is this it?"

"Yeah, that's it."  I turned it on and it started to glow.  "Alright, this should be interesting."  I started to run as hard and fast as I could.  Landscapes shot past me in rapid succession before I passed Superman again, causing him to step back.  Again and again I circled the globe, building up as much speed as possible before my vision started to blue shift.  Then I grabbed Superman on my last run and we vanished.

The universe seemed to bend around us, matter became energy, energy became tangible, and time seemed to twist.  We could see visions of things that had happened, Jason's birth, me getting struck by lightning, my parents dying, a man in a black cape leaping off a building, and a green man with red eyes dropping to his knees in a landscape of red soil.  "What are we seeing?" Superman asked.  It startled me.  I'd never crossed time with someone before, so it never occurred to me that we could talk on the trip.  "We're time and space separating.  We are physically moving backwards through time, seeing past events.  Our consciousness is tapping into the collective unconsciousness of the universe.  We'll talk about it sometime but I think this is our..."

With a thunderous boom we landed in the present, creating a massive crater on Amazon Island.  My whole body hurt, but Superman stood as if it was nothing.  Nuclear Man stood over a weakened Diana.  Superman locked eyes with him and said "Stop."