Eventually.
With a frustrated groan, Supergirl sank back against the pillow. “Man, I never get to save the Multiverse.”
“Next time,” Superman promised with a grin. “In the meanwhile, J’Onn, Brainy, and Jimmy will keep the peace until you recover.”
Her eyes clouded over. “How is it out there?” Temporarily bereft of her super-senses, Supergirl could not see or hear through the walls of the Arctic Fortress of Solitude in order to make an assessment of the world at large. She’d been told that since her defeat of Anti-Matter Man, breaches had begun opening all over the world. People from Earth 38 were being sucked in, and people from other Earths were being spat out. It was chaos.
But thanks to J’Onn J’Onzz’s mental link with Anti-Matter Man, they at least had an inkling of how to stop things: Anti-Matter Man had been released from his prison inside the moon of Qward in the antiverse by a force at the End of Time. Her friend Barry Allen—the Flash—thought that he knew of a way to get to the End of Time, but they would have to return to Earth 1 first. Superman insisted on joining them.
“Between Flash and Green Arrow, they have speed, power, brains, and talent,” Kal told her. “But I think they could use a little super-boost.”
He was right, she knew. The Flash and Green Arrow and their respective teams had bravery, intelligence, and wits to spare, but their enemy in this case could project its power through the time stream, create breaches at will, and break open a moon. Speed and arrows could go only so far; Kryptonian strength and stamina would be a big help.
“Be careful, OK?” she told him. “I didn’t blow myself up just so that you could go flying off to the End of Time and get killed.”
Kal grinned. “Don’t worry, cousin. Lois would never forgive me if I didn’t come back. She’s already read me the riot act. ‘Go do your hero thing, Smallville, but don’t forget you have two thousand words on the mayoral election due to Perry by Thursday.’”
Smiling, Kara allowed herself to relax. “I knew there was a reason I liked her. Good luck, Kal. Go with Rao.”
He winked at her. “Enjoy the next twenty-four hours of bed rest. It’ll be the only rest you get for a while, I suspect.”
“Ever made the Multiverse transit before?” Barry asked the Man of Steel.
Superman tilted his head this way and that, as though not entirely sure how to answer the question. “I’ve been places,” he said.
They stood atop the DEO building in National City. Brainiac 5 had reverse-engineered the transmatter device Cisco Ramon had invented so that it could project a large enough breach for the Flash, Green Arrow, and Superman to travel to Earth 1.
“At the same time,” Brainy said, “I believe I may be able to use this technology to begin closing breaches from other Earths to Earth 38.” He paused. “But this is only theoretical at this point in time.”
“And we still need to identify the strays from other Earths . . .” Alex Danvers put in.
“And track down the people from Earth 38 who’ve ended up on other Earths . . .” J’Onn added.
Gathered on the roof, the team exchanged a group look of exhaustion.
“Our best bet,” Superman told them with a sunny confidence that seemed both out of place yet wholly earned, “is to track down the villain behind this and stop him.”
“Or her,” Alex said, fuming. “Women can be world-conquering, time-traveling, universe-distorting menaces, too, you know.”
Superman nodded. “Point well taken. I apologize. Once we confront and stop him or her, the quantum breaches should halt. Then we’ll have a finite number of Multiversal refugees to locate and return.”
“Assuming we can identify all of them and figure out where they’re supposed to be,” Oliver said somewhat dourly. “It’s a big, complicated Multiverse out there.”
There were, so far as they knew, fifty-four universes: the fifty-two universes of the known Multiverse, plus the rogue Nazi universe of Earth X. All fifty-three of which were composed of positive matter.
The fifty-fourth was the antiverse, the anti-matter universe, including Qward, the world where Anti-Matter Man had been created. So far, no breaches had opened to or from that hellish place, but if they did, the current crisis would worsen beyond imagining—when positive matter and anti-matter came into contact, they destroyed each other, causing a cascading toxic chain reaction that had wiped out Earth 27 and almost eradicated all life on Earth 38 as well.
With breaches opening at random between the fifty-three positive-matter universes, it was, as Green Arrow had indicated, nearly impossible to track who had come from or gone to which universe.
Superman smiled. “I have every confidence we’ll figure it out, Green Arrow.”
“Your optimism is appreciated, if not entirely founded in logic,” Brainy said. He grimaced for a moment at the tablet he held. “There is considerable interference at the quark level. No doubt a side effect of our unnamed foe opening so many breaches at once. The fabric between universes was never intended to suffer so many tears.” He paused and looked up at them all. “You understand I’m using the word fabric metaphorically? There is no actual—”
“We get it, Brainy.” Barry Allen—the Flash—bounced on the balls of his feet in mingled eagerness and frustration. Every second they wasted on Earth 38 was another second that his archenemy, Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash, spent at the End of Time, using his speed to power the machinery that their mysterious foe used to wreak havoc on the present. Barry knew that they needed to get back to Earth 1 and use the Time Bureau’s technology to head to the End of Time. End this once and for all.
“I just wanted to avoid any unnecessary confusion,” Brainy sniffed. “Now, due to the recurring breaches, there is a slight chance that you may experience some limited chronal realignment during
