By the time Kara, J’Onn, and Barry returned to Superman’s hidden workshop under the Kent Farm, Oliver and Kal had come back as well. Brainy, working two computers at once and speaking to himself in three different languages, broke free from his labors as soon as Kara entered and stood silent for a full second as a single tear wended its way down his cheek. Kara knew that to disconnect and focus all twelve of his multitasking threads on one thing was a high compliment.
“Get ahold of yourself, Brainy,” she joked.
He wiped the tear away. “I am . . . gratified that you’re still alive.”
“Still?” Superman’s tone demanded an immediate answer.
“Brainy says history says I die today,” Kara said with as much lightness in her voice as she could muster. “But, you know, history also says that Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA, but they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without the work of Rosalind Franklin.”
“Yeah,” Barry chimed in, reluctantly handing Brainy’s flight ring back to him; “and people also think that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and that Columbus discovered America. Sometimes false information perpetuates down through the ages.”
“Historical fact or not, we’ll need to talk more about Brainy’s recollections soon,” Superman said in a very no-nonsense tone. “But first . . . Any updates?”
They brought in the DEO on speakerphone, conferencing in Lena and Alex, who both admitted—in voices that betrayed utter exhaustion—that they had nothing new to report. The red skies were spreading, all weapons were useless against Anti-Matter Man, and pretty soon they would need to evacuate more and more cities . . .
“And eventually there will be nowhere to evacuate to,” Alex finished.
The gang in the workshop shared a silent look of resignation.
“OK, then,” Superman said. “Brainiac 5?”
Brainy’s only outward sign of nervousness or regret was the way he twisted his Legion flight ring as he spoke. “I have made what could charitably be described as negligible progress on the issue of Anti-Matter Man. With thirty-first-century technology and six or seven hours, I could solve our problem. We lack both.”
“So when you say negligible progress . . .” Barry hinted.
“I mean none.”
“This is going well,” Oliver said. “Does anyone have any good news?”
“J’Onn tapped into Anti-Matter Man’s mind,” Kara volunteered.
“You could have led with that announcement,” Alex said on speakerphone.
Kara stood behind J’Onn, who sat in a chair, elbows on his knees, haggard and beat. “I wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk about it. If he was ready.”
“I don’t think we have the option of respite,” Barry said, not unkindly. He felt more than a little bit woozy after his maiden flight. Maybe his first time flying independently shouldn’t have been in circles a few million times.
“If you know something, you need to tell us,” Oliver added. “Preferably right now. Otherwise, there won’t be a later.”
J’Onn nodded his heavy-browed head, not looking up as he spoke. “I used my telepathy to force my way into Anti-Matter Man’s mind. Force might be the wrong word. I . . . I expected a door. Defenses. But there were none. I barged right in.”
“He had no mental defenses?” Barry asked.
“No one thought he would need them,” J’Onn said. “He’s genetically modified. Artificially conceived and customized. No independent thought or individuality. But he has memories, and those I was able to access. To . . . relive.” He winced with deep memory. Kara’s hand on his arm was a balm against the psychic pain. He nodded to her in gratitude and then told them everything he’d experienced—Anti-Matter Man’s “birth” in a gestational chamber, his modification, his imprisonment in the heart of a moon.
“And then someone . . . something reached back and released him,” J’Onn went. “Just . . . cracked open the moon and let him out. Set him on his path.”
“Reached back?” Barry asked. “What does that mean? Reached back from where?”
“Not where, Flash. When.” J’Onn finally looked up, his glowing eyes dimmer than usual and haunted. “I saw through the veil of Time itself, into the future.”
Barry stiffened. He thought of Abra Kadabra, the techno-magician from the sixty-fourth century who had so harried him, who had almost conquered the twenty-first century. “How far into the future?” he asked.
J’Onn shuddered with the memory and his voice was hollow when he spoke:
“All the way, Flash. All the way to the end of Time itself.”
No one said a word. The room was silent save for the slight hiss of the speakerphone.
“So . . .” Oliver broke the eerie quiet. “Something reached back in time from the end of the universe and broke open a moon to let this living weapon march across the Multiverse. Do I have it right?”
J’Onn nodded mordantly.
Oliver threw his hands in the air. “I don’t even know where to go with this.”
“Who has that sort of power?” Supergirl asked rhetorically. “Breaking open a moon. . .That’s a big ask, even for Kal and me.”
“All I know,” J’Onn said, his voice gathering some heat and strength, “is that whoever or whatever it was, the enemy from the future used a special machine to open the breaches through the Multiverse for Anti-Matter Man. A machine powered by a person. I caught a glimpse of a man within that machine, running in a circle. Moving fast. Like you do, Flash. Only, he was a yellow blur.”
Barry froze in place. Oliver whispered, “Damn it.”
A yellow blur. A man in yellow.
Eobard Thawne. The Reverse-Flash. The man who’d killed Barry’s mother, the man who’d killed Ronnie Raymond. The man who had almost destroyed the world as part of his mad, narcissistic quest to heap misery upon the Flash.
“This makes a little more sense,” Barry said to them all. “If the Reverse-Flash is involved . . . that explains the time travel aspect of things. He’s teamed up with others before. At least we know he’s at the heart of this.”
“How does that help?” Oliver spluttered. “We’re still facing an extinction-level event on Earth 38 in the next hour or so—”
“Forty-nine minutes and seventeen seconds,” Brainy interrupted.
“—and we have no way to get to the end of Time to punch your old nemesis in the face and I can’t believe I just said that sentence out loud!”
“We have to do something,” Kara put in. “It’s getting worse and worse out there. The damage is contained right now, but according to Brainy and Lena’s calculations, in forty-nine minutes—”
“Forty-eight minutes and thirty-two seconds.”
“—we’ll cross the threshold, the point of no return. We can’t let that happen! Now is the time for your craziest ideas! Anyone?”
Superman folded his arms over his chest and gazed around the room. “Kara’s right. If you’ve been holding back because you think your idea is silly or unworkable, speak up now. Please.”
Barry shook his head. He had nothing. Neither did Oliver.
J’Onn looked at the floor again.
“All my ideas require a functioning Miracle Machine,” said Brainiac 5. “And Matter-Eater Lad ate . . . will eat . . . the last one in existence.”
No one spoke.
And then, over the speakerphone, Alex:
“If you ask me, you all are thinking too hard. Sometimes, you have to throw fancy strategies and tactics out the window and just hit something.”
Kara’s and Barry’s eyes met. He shrugged.
She looked over at Superman, who stared briefly, then smiled confidently.
“She’s not wrong, you know. And I’m up to something like ninety-nine point five percent.”
Kara nodded resolutely and punched her fist into her palm. “That’ll have to do. Let’s go.”
Supergirl, Superman, and the Martian Manhunter rose into the red sky, leaving Oliver, Brainy, and Barry behind. The red skies had spread to surrounding communities now. It was too late to evacuate anyone, but the three of them could work to contain the damage and keep people safe.
Brainiac 5 took to the skies at a lower altitude, pinpointing trouble spots for the ground team: Barry raced people into shelters while Oliver worked to keep people calm.
The whole time they were saving lives, they wondered, Is there any point? Is everyone going to die anyway?
The answer was up in the sky.