Countdown. Part 26

But instead his voice dripped with contempt. "Spoiled, willful child. I have always done what I must, while you simply do what you want."

"Want?" Mary felt like she'd been slapped in the face. "I didn't want this! I didn't ask for this!"

If the G.o.ds hadn't stolen her powers in the first place, and cut her off from her original family, she wouldn't have had anything to do with this. She would still be the same happy Mary Marvel she was supposed to be. It's not my fault!

Black Adam ignored her protests. Turning away from her, he started to fly away. "Do not come to me seeking a partner in your misery."

Mary's shock at his brusque dismissal flared into anger. How dare he abandon her-just like everyone else! "Don't!" Lightning blasted from her fingertips, striking Black Adam in the back. "Do not turn your back on me! Not ever!"

The thunderbolt knocked him out of the air, causing him to crash down onto the moonlit sands. Smoke rose from his scorched uniform as he rose angrily to his feet, but still he refused to look back at her, as though she was unworthy of his notice. "I called you a child, and you reacted like one." He took off into the sky once more. "As I normally find beating children distasteful, I shall simply take my leave." She found herself staring up at the soles of his boots. "Farewell, Mary."

She was tempted to fire another blast at him, but what was the point? He had made his feelings clear. "That's right!" she shouted after him as he disappeared into the distance. "You'd better run!" She shook her fists at the heavens. "I'm Mary Marvel! I don't need you! I don't need anyone!"

Lightning erupted all around her, tearing up the desert. Billowing clouds of sand raced outward across the dunes, leaving the aggrieved heroine standing alone in the center of a smoking crater. Her tantrum over, she took a deep breath and contemplated the messy aftermath of the explosion. The extent of the damage demonstrated, once and for all, that there was still one thing she could always count on.

"I'm Mary d.a.m.n Marvel," she whispered.

The rest of the world would just have to deal with that.

IVY TOWN.

"First Donna. Now you two?" Ray sulked upon his easy chair. "One more super-being sets foot in this house and I'm going to start charging rent."

"Sorry," Jimmy Olsen apologized. The carrot-topped reporter perched on the arm of the chair next to Ray. "But Forager insisted."

The insect-woman, who was wearing a restored version of her chitinous exoskeleton, was conferring in the corner with Donna, who had apparently invited them to this improvised reunion of the Challengers of the Unknown. The only consolation was that, according to Donna, Jason Todd would not be joining them.

I can live with that, Ray thought.

"But to what end?" He gazed at the alien female standing over by the entertainment center. "The G.o.ds she served, the worlds of New Genesis and Apokolips, are all gone." Superman had informed the League that the two planets had ultimately crashed together, forming a new world whose future was known only to the Source. "I can't help her find any of her own kind who might have survived."

Jimmy shrugged. "Yeah, well you tell her that."

His weary tone implied that his ardor for the exotic alien had cooled somewhat. Ray felt sorry for the younger man; it seemed that true love remained evasive no matter what planet you were on. At least she didn't go crazy and murder your friends.

Donna and Forager finished their private conversation and joined the two men. "We've decided," Donna announced, her hands upon her hips in a very take-charge manner. She sounded completely confident in her choice, whatever it might be.

"To leave?" Ray said hopefully. "Please?"

Donna shook her head. "We're going to monitor the Monitors-with your help."

"No way," he protested. Just because he had figured out how to traverse the Multiverse didn't mean he was planning to make a career of it. He lurched angrily from his seat. "And why would I want to do that?"

"Because you know they are right," a solemn voice declared from a sparkling column of light. The teleportation beam signaled the arrival of a Monitor, but not the one Ray first expected. Instead of the bearded Solomon, Ray recognized the clean-shaven Monitor of Earth-51, the one who had granted Ray sanctuary on his world until Solomon barged in and sent everything to h.e.l.l. The one who had banished him from Earth-51 forever.

"Nix Uotan!" Donna blurted.

"Yes," the Monitor confirmed. The coruscating energies dissipated, leaving behind the looming extraterrestrial in his intimidating high-tech armor. His black hair was bound up in a ponytail. "I have heard your words and agree. Sentinels are not infallible. Mistakes are made. Hubris, arrogance . . . these are the pitfalls of those who become complacent with the responsibility they bear."

Ray was grateful that the living room drapes were drawn. The last thing the neighbors needed to see was the steadily growing alien population in his living room. "Count me out!" he insisted. "I've got a life."

"Really?" the Monitor asked. He eyed Ray dubiously. "Professor Palmer, you above all others should know the difference between living and merely existing." He looked about the crowded living room, as though he knew exactly just how lonely and forlorn this place had been before Donna had invited herself in. "Have you ever felt more alive than when you were exploring the new worlds? First in the nanoverse, then in the Multiverse?"

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 TIMESTREAM.

The Monitors' enormous s.p.a.ce 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 s.h.i.+elded base from the formless void outside. Insulated cables snaked across the walls and ceilings. A mult.i.tude 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 a.s.sembly 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.

THE SOURCE 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 s.p.a.ce. "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 fellows.h.i.+p, 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 fas.h.i.+oned 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-s.h.i.+rt 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.d-will shake it all up."

Tell me about it, Holly thought. She cast a wistful glance at Harley's T-s.h.i.+rt. 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 h.e.l.l 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 att.i.tude and lots of denial?"

Holly laughed. "Don't ever change, Harley."

THE BEGINNING.

About the Author.

GREG c.o.x is the New York Times bestselling author of three other DC Comics novelizations: Infinite Crisis, 52, and Final Crisis. He has also written the official movie novelizations of Daredevil, Death Defying Acts, Ghost Rider, and all three Underworld movies, as well as novels and short stories based on such popular series as Alias, Batman, Buffy, CSI, Farscape, The 4400, The Green Hornet, Iron Man, The Phantom, Roswell, Star Trek, Warehouse 13, Xena, X-Men, and Zorro. He has received two Scribe Awards from the International a.s.sociation of Media Tie-In Writers. He lives in Oxford, Pennsylvania.

His official website is www.gregc.o.x-author.com.

Ace Books by Greg c.o.x.

(Based on DC Comics Series).

INFINITE CRISIS.

52.

COUNTDOWN.

FINAL CRISIS.