Countdown (45 page)

He’s got a point,
Ray conceded.
What’s really holding me here?

He walked away from the others, trying to get a little distance from their arguments. “I tried running away before. It didn’t work.”

“You wouldn’t be running away this time,” Forager observed. “You would be serving a purpose.”

“I don’t know,” Ray said. “I—I’ve got to think about this....”

Donna came up behind him and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. “No. You don’t.”

THE TIMESTBEAM.

Tin
Monitors’ enormous space station, which was located at the nexus of the fifty-two universes, reminded the Atom of the Justice League’s satellite headquarters. Air locks and heavy steel bulkheads protected the heavily shielded base from the formless void outside. Insulated cables snaked across the walls and ceilings. A multitude of glowing view-screens offered pictures of all the myriad realities, from the postatomic wasteland of Earth-17 to a world of anthropomorphized cartoon animals. Portholes looked out onto the swirling vapors beyond the station’s walls. The air was clean and sterile. The gravity was mercifully Earth-normal.

“This is preposterous!” an indignant Monitor proclaimed. “Sheer madness!”

The Atom, Forager, and Donna occupied an elevated dais in the Monitors’ central assembly hall. Dozens of the armored aliens packed bleachers and galleries facing the dais, their individual appearances reflecting the distinctive nature of their respective universes. Fangs and pointed ears betrayed the vampiric nature of one Monitor, while another sported Victorian-style muttonchops. Facial hair, scales, feathers, tattoos, skin color, and variations in size and gender distinguished the Monitors from each other. The Atom scanned the galleries, but failed to spot Solomon among the quorum. According to Nix Uotan, the rebellious Monitor was now a pariah among his kind.

Solomon could be a problem,
the Atom thought.
We ’re going to need to keep a close eye on him.

“They do not belong here!” another Monitor objected. Her elaborate headdress looked vaguely Kryptonian in nature. “Their presence is an insult to our eons of selfless duty!”

“And yet here we are,” Donna said defiantly. Like the Atom, she had traded her civilian garb for her super-hero costume. Silver stars glittered upon her ebony leotard.

“You will abide by our decisions, or you will accept our punishments.”

Forager brandished a futuristic lance. “You know we do not lack the will to enforce them!”

The Monitors could barely contain themselves. They rose from their seats like an angry mob. “We are the Monitors!” someone in the first row shouted. “We answer to no one!”

“We are flawed!” Nix Uotan shouted above the uproar. He strode out onto the stage beside Donna and the others. “I sponsor these Challengers!”

“You!” another Monitor mocked him. “You could not even stop Solomon from invading your own universe!” Uotan did not back down. “All the more proof they are needed.”

“But they are anomalies!” An avian Monitor, whose scalp sported glossy black feathers instead of hair, pointed accusingly at the Challengers. “Only the being known as Atom’ has a world!”

The Atom stepped forward. “Not anymore!” His voice was strong and without hesitation. He had made his decision and he was going to stick to it, no matter what. ‘There’s nothing left for me in my world. I renounce my place in it.” He held his palm up as though taking an oath. “From now on, I join these others to serve the Multiverse as ‘border guards’ for man and Monitor alike!”

The audience was not yet convinced. “This is without precedent,” observed an elfin-looking Monitor whose armor bore a medieval coat of arms. “We must weigh your proposal carefully.”

“You misunderstand,” the Atom corrected him. “We didn’t come to ask permission. We came to serve notice.” He activated the controls upon his belt and brilliant atomic orbitals circled him and the two women. Harnessed white-star energies prepared to transport them away from the nexus. “We’re out there ... so watch yourselves!”

They disappeared into the Multiverse.

BfflUiraB'CJ! 319

THE SBfllCI WALL.

“Well,
well.” Solomon chuckled. “And so a new game begins.”

The renegade Monitor watched the Challengers’ departure via a miniature view-screen on his gauntlet. Although unwelcome among his fellows, he continued to track their affairs with interest. He savored their consternation at the Challengers’ professed new mission.

Who knew Donna Troy and her fellow anomalies would prove so amusing?

Solomon stood astride an asteroid at the literal border of the universe. Before him rose the Source Wall, a dense barrier of incalculable size. Although it appeared to be constructed of weathered ocher stone, it was actually composed of a unique preternatural substance more durable than any mundane element. Humanoid figures, some hundreds of feet tall, were embedded in the very substance of the Wall. No mere effigies, the figures were actually the entombed remains of the ancient Promethean Giants, as well as everyone else who had ever attempted to penetrate the Wall to discover what lay beyond. The victims of their own overreaching ambitions, they stood as eternal warnings to any other reckless soul who might dare to brave the Wall’s impregnable defenses. Few knew that, among other things, the Source Wall divided the fifty-two universes from each other.

“The Wall still stands,” Solomon stated, recording his observations for posterity. His personal force field protected him from the vacuum of space. “Despite his every machination, Darkseid won only scattered skirmishes, not the war. The Fifth Age will dawn. The Multiverse endures.”

And. I too endure,
he thought,
even while shunned by my fellow Monitors.
He scowled at the galling injustice of it all. His bold vision and decisive action should have raised him high among their immortal fellowship, but instead he found himself an outcast. “So be it,” he spat venomously. “While they dither and debate, my plans unfold. Infinitely patient, I play for the highest stakes imaginable.”

Diverting the course of the asteroid, he cruised nearer to the Wall until it was close enough to touch. Its vast immensity filled his vision as he spied a solitary ledge jutting slightly outward from its ornate surface. “Let me be the first to add to the Wall in this new age.”

He reached out to lay a small object upon the ledge. Only seven inches tall, the exquisitely sculpted chessman was nearly lost amidst the colossal dimensions of the Wall.

“Darkseid would have been Creation’s new architect, yet his monument is the smallest of all,” Solomon gloated as he contemplated a miniature figurine fashioned in the likeness of Apokolips’s once-invincible ruler. “A token reminder for anyone foolish enough to underestimate me in the future.”

He vanished in a shower of sparks.

METROPOLIS.

“Man, oh man,” Harley whispered. She perched on the fire escape of her and Holly’s new apartment as she stared up at the starry night sky overhead. An oversized Gotham University T-shirt served as a nightdress. Her bare feet dangled over the nocturnal alley below. A warm breeze, holding the promise of spring, rustled her pigtails.

“You say something, Harley?” Holly climbed out onto the fire escape beside her roommate. The fresh air felt good after painting the kitchen all day. Her ratty tank top and shorts were splattered with aquamarine splotches.

Harley kept on gazing at the stars. “I was just thinking.” “Really?” '    '

“Yeah,” Harley replied. “There’s so much going on here, and out there, and places we don’t even know about.” From where they were sitting, you could see the enormous crater where the middle of Suicide Slum used to be. The two women had managed to get a good deal on the apartment by pretending that they had lost everything when the New Gods exploded; they figured it wasn’t really all
that
far from the truth. “Everything’s so scary and uncertain. We never know when fate—or some wacky alien god—will shake it all up.”

Tell me about it,
Holly thought. She cast a wistful glance at Harley’s T-shirt. Someday she hoped to return to Gotham, but that wasn’t an option right now; she was still wanted for murder there. Things could be worse, though. Metropolis didn’t quite feel like home yet, but at least she had a roof over her head and a friend to share it with. “That’s deep,” she told Harley.

Lowering her gaze, the blonde watched the construction crews working overtime to rebuild Metropolis. Darkseid and giant-turtle Jimmy had left a hell of a mess behind. “You gotta wonder how we’ll ever make it through what comes next.”

Holly shrugged. “I guess we can fall back on what’s gotten us this far.”

“A positive attitude and lots of denial?”

Holly laughed. “Don’t ever change, Harley.”

THE BEGINNING.