From a place no one could perceive, a blue-eyed child stood silent, watching. All around him lines of colour swirled. Infinite possibilities. All twisting together, bound and unbound, enslaved endlessly to this point.
Destiny pivoted.
It had to.
Please.
*
Behind her, in the muddy ruins of the Baptist compound, Jane heard Matt cough. Slowly, she turned away from Philip Fredericks’ ashes and walked over.
“Hey,” she whispered, kneeling down beside him, “Hey. You okay?”
Matt’s breathing came quick and shallow. His eyes, wracked with pain, seemed to be having difficulty adjusting to the light.
“What happened?” he whispered, his voice wavering, anxious and urgent, “Where am I?”
“You’re safe,” Jane promised, “You’re safe. It’s over.”
But for some reason Matt’s distress only grew. His hands shook, his cheeks pale, and droplets of sweat beaded on his forehead.
“MEDIC!” Jane shouted, standing up and turning around. She surveyed the devastation, the chaos, now fallen to stillness – the man‑sized shards of diamond embedded in craters, cracked plates of obsidian and marble littering the ground, veins of metal hardened like silver wax on the Earth’s cold crust. Currents of dust blew atop the wind, police cars lay sheared cleanly in half, and in the distance she saw the red figures of Acolytes crawling tentatively from cover. Jane strode through the wreckage, muttering in disgust under her breath.
“Medic!” she shouted again, annoyed that they would make her wait. Across in the nearby parking lot she spied the back of Wally’s head next to the Legion healer Editha, both crouched on the ground leaning over something. Neither answered her calls. Scowling, Jane marched towards them to find the focus of their crowding was Giselle. Her legs were gone, like they’d been cut and dipped in black wax.
“Medic,” Jane repeated, her shadow looming over the group. Before her Giselle whimpered, her breathing coming fast and shallow, eyes swimming in wretched pain.
“Jane,” the speedster begged, the words pure agony.
Jane gazed down at Giselle’s stunted form, the anguish on her face and the consternation on Editha’s.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded. She could see the healer pressing her hands into what remained of Giselle’s upper thigh. “Why aren’t you healing her?”
“It’s not… it’s not working,” Editha snapped, flashing Jane over her shoulder the barest furious glance. She returned to Giselle, bending down lower, working her fingers as close as she dared to the injury site while the leader of the Legion writhed and moaned. “I can’t… I can’t heal it, her legs aren’t injured, they’re not there!”
The corner of Jane’s lips twitched. “Move,” she said, and without waiting for Editha to reply she clicked two fingers and the pavement the healer was kneeling on shimmied and slid backwards like a sheet of breaking ice, carrying the small woman clear. Everyone around her stared with a mixture of terror and trepidation, but Jane didn’t care. Instead, she loomed over Giselle, gazing down at her blackened stumps. Jane’s lips twitched, she raised her hand, and the black lines flew open, flesh knitting back together from the surrounding air. Flesh blossomed downwards like a time-lapsed growing of skin‑coloured icicles. In a little under three seconds the speedster’s legs had reappeared. Giselle gasped, and abruptly ceased her sobbing.
“There,” said Jane, indifferent, “Fixed. Now can you please come check Matt out. I want to make sure I didn’t miss something.”
She turned on her heel, gold cape flapping in the wind, leaving behind a wake of stunned silence. She strode back across the street, passed the desolated trucks and ruined sidewalk to where Matt continued to lay. Jane was pleased to see he had managed at least to sit up and that his eyes seemed reasonably clear.
“You okay?” she asked again. Matt did not immediately nod, though he didn’t shake his head either.
“Jane,” he whispered, breathlessly. He turned to her, his eyes fearful. “What happened? Where’s Fredericks? What did you do?”
Jane was not in the mood to repeat this conversation. She crouched down, wrapped her arms underneath Matt’s shoulders, and helped him to standing. “I love you,” she told him.
“I know,” he murmured – but he still did not sound reassured. Slowly though, his arms moved around her in an embrace.
They stood like that, Jane holding onto him, her head buried against his cheek, Matt hugging her in a loose grip, his breathing shaky and uncertain, until Editha arrived. The small healer said nothing, merely glanced at Jane with an expression of anxious fear, then moved in to look at Matt. Jane pulled back to let her approach.
“Open your eyes,” Editha requested. Matt obeyed. “Your mouth. Say ‘ahhh’. Good. Glands are fine. Temperature normal. Pulse… high.”
“That’s fine,” Jane assured her, “He’ll be home soon.” The healer did not look at her.
“Pupils are normal. Reflexes fine. I’m going to prick your finger. There. How’d that feel?”
“Ow.”
“Good.” She paused and the way she stared at Matt reminded Jane of a trapped bird squirming behind cage bars. “How do you feel?” There was a trembling her voice and perhaps… some hidden significance?
“Physically or mentally?” Matt asked, and though in Jane’s view not particularly helpful the answer nevertheless caused Editha to sigh in relief.
“Any pain?” she murmured.
“No.” Yet Matt’s eyes dropped as he said it.
“You see fine.”
“Yes.”
“You hear fine.”
“Yes.”
“Taste, smell?”
“Normal.”
“I-” Editha’s voice cut out mid‑sentence. “Let me feel you.” She glanced at Jane, who nodded, and then pressed her dainty hands into Matt’s skin. The healer closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them.
“He’s okay,” she murmured – yet for some reason that good news made the small woman look scared. “There’s no room for healing. Everything’s alright.”
“Good,” Jane said matter‑of‑factly, “Good to know.”
For a few moments Editha seemed to be struggling for words.
“I… I was watching,” she managed finally. She stared up at Jane, her small frame trembling. “I saw. You… you put him back together?”
“Yes,” Jane replied curtly.
“How?” Editha whispered.
“Does it matter? Go identify the missing. Once Matt’s back to safety I’ll see what I can do.”
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Editha opened her mouth, maybe to question, maybe to argue, maybe to thank, but after a few seconds it seemed she could not find the words. Her mouth closed, and for the first time since Jane had known her, she gave a little bow. The healer shuffled quickly off.
“Jane,” Matt murmured, “I need to talk to you.”
“Shh. It’s okay. Not now.”
“No, it has to be…” He put his hand on her shoulder, turning her away so she was no longer facing the Legion, the crimson figures of Acolytes slowly gathering around Giselle and the rest. “Fredericks. You don’t understand. He was crazy.”
“Yeah,” Jane scoffed, “Obviously.”
“No you…” Matt’s fingers dug into her shoulder, though from difficulty standing or simple stress Jane couldn’t tell, “It was all a trick.”
“What was? Using you as a hostage? I know,” she shrugged, “But I found a way around it. Just like before. I beat him.”
“You took his power.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“The power to control matter.”
“Ye-” Jane hesitated, feeling the new band of crimson satin sitting warm against her ring finger. Yes. She leant into the sensation, and yes, she could feel it. With any movement she made, at any moment, she could plunge her arm deep into an endless pool of soft, warm sand, and the grains would change their shapes for her. “Yes. I suppose that is what it is.”
“You have to get rid of it,” Matt said, “I’m begging you, Jane, listen to me, this is exactly what he wanted, he wasn’t trying to win, he wasn’t trying to hurt me, he wanted you to take his power.”
Jane’s brow furrowed. She turned to Matt, peering at him with a sceptical frown, but every line of his face was pleading, earnest.
“Why the hell did he want-?” she began.
“Because he was insane,” Matt pleaded, “He’d gone crazy, had some existential crisis, and he thought...” Her boyfriend paused, sucking in heavy, shaking breaths. “He’s been behind everything. Just him, not the government. There’s no…” Matt shook his head. “The assassination at the studio. He was testing to see if you could really travel through time. The attacks, the assault on the apartment, the hit squad, he orchestrated all of it. He was trying to force you into absorbing the twins. And now this here, it’s the same plan, it’s all some mad obsession, because he was trying to make you…” Matt’s voice dropped so low Jane couldn’t hear the final word he whispered.
“What?”
“God.” Matt leaned back, looking desperately to either side of him before staring up at Jane, his eyes wild. “Don’t you get it? With the power of time, the power of Dawn, control over life and death and the ability to control matter… you could do anything. Literally, that’s-” he was at a loss for words, “‑the keys to divinity.”
The world seemed oddly light and silent. Jane tried to speak, but whatever she was trying to say kept catching in her throat. She paused, swallowed and gazed down at Matt, her brow furrowed.
“Does that…” she said, the words stumbling, “…would that even work?”
“How the hell would I know?” Matt replied, throwing up his hands – though he kept the movement small, clearly keen not to be seen displaying too much distress. “Jane, we’ve seen what happens when these powers are used incorrectly, and now you’ve got not one but four?” He grabbed her right hand in both of his, though her own grip remained limp. “There’s still time Jane, I know, I know it’s a lot to take in, but we can still make things right here, we can still-”
Matt’s words kept coming but increasingly Jane found it hard to listen. The world around her seemed strangely quiet, her own thoughts bright and pressing as this feeling of disbelief grew within her, a mingling sensation of curiosity and awe. Slowly she looked down at her hand, the one Matt wasn’t holding, turning the palm over, seeing the bare skin, pristine, scoured free of any impurities. It was as if she could feel them now, could almost see them – in the gaps between her fingers, the spaces where powers could be, the impossible forces churning, wrapping heavy and around, binding to her skin more tightly than ever before.
Four rings. Four fingers. Red of endless sand, blue of bottomless ocean; twisting black and white, and eternal burning gold.
God, she heard Matt whisper.
Was it possible?
In the beginning, there was the word. How could she know? Where had God started? Distantly, she remembered sitting beside her grandmother in church, barely more than four or five, a memory from another lifetime, the one time her Dad had relented to grandma’s nagging. In the beginning, God, then light and earth and water and then… a garden. God had started with a garden.
Slowly, Jane held out her free hand. Beside her, Matt’s pleas fell suddenly to silence, and he looked on, eyes darting in fear between Jane’s palm and her curious expression. Beyond him, a few yards away, some of the civilians, the remaining Acolytes, had begun moving cautiously forward, drawn towards her, her shining presence, to witness her inhuman acts. Jane paid them no heed. She paid none of them any heed. Her thoughts lay only in her outstretched palm.
Be, she thought, and in her mind’s eye she imagined a single image – a delicate magenta flower. Not one that she’d seen, just quiet musings of her imagination. Instantly Jane felt the rings shift and respond.
And from windswept nothingness, lines of colour began to grow.
All this time, Jane wondered as she watched. All this time the power of Dawn had hummed to her, the power of time had whispered, and she’d felt overwhelmed by their presence, their intangibility, their endlessness. Yet she heard it now, the twisting sounds. Not inconceivable – a melody. Four living pieces, separate songs each distinctly their own, but impossible to truly grasp until they were put together, until they sung together in tune. It was like clockwork; one turned, the other moved. One gave, the other took. The red ring pulled pieces from reality all around but the instant that grew detrimental the gold ring hummed and offered its power for conversion. All matter was energy, all energy was matter, and she had, she could be endless. And she knew – instinctively she knew. No, not instinctively; her fingers floated across the surface of time, soft and cool yet never breaking the water’s tension, and she flowed where she saw she needed to be, a thousand past and present micro‑adjustments. She knew the way. She had done it before, she realised, with Matt’s body, with Giselle’s legs – it was the like the power of time, if you didn’t think, if you just do, then the thing is done.
How do you balance footsteps on uneven stone? How do you know how to sleep, to breathe, to catch a ball? Overthinking destroyed ability. So Jane just did, like she’d always meant to. She didn’t think. She just made life.
The third ring surged, and the flower in her palm bloomed into existence.
“Jane,” she heard Matt whisper.
A hush had fallen over the crowd. For a few moments, Jane simply gazed upon her hand, taking in the flower, marvelling at her own handiwork – the delicate green stem, so thin it looked as if it should have collapsed under the weight of the petals, which hung in a long bell a swirling beautiful magenta hue. Tiny roots fanned out from its base, trailing between her fingers like spiderwebs; gently, Jane knelt and placed the flower on the ground. Grow, she smiled, and she felt the silken tendrils extend, anchoring the life into place against the Earth. Amidst the stem, two small leaves unfurled. It needed a name, Jane realised. Clara.
Slowly, she rose.
“Jane,” Matt whispered again. The empath turned and glanced at him, at the living flower at her feet, saying nothing, her face unmoved.
“Please,” Matt begged her. He leant in closer, desperate, though his hands held back from touching, hesitated from clutching her wrist. “Stop. You’ve got to give it up. Let it go, get rid of his power, now, before you- before…” His eyes flicked to the flower. “I don’t know, but this is dangerous,” he whispered, “Jane, can’t you see? We’re beyond crazy here. The line’s been crossed, we crossed it ten miles ago, and we’ve got to go back, we’ve got to…”
His voice trailed off. For a time Jane just looked at him, and then she turned and stared into nothingness, her eyes not fixing on Matt, nor the crowd, nor anything else around her. Her mind churned. She glanced up, and it was as if she saw the world they were forced to live in for the very first time. There was Matt and in the distance Giselle and the others, and in periphery the Clara’s colour beautiful and enduring… but around that, so much darkness. So much brown and grey, ruin and pain, devastation and destruction… the police cars, the ambulances approaching, people injured, their sallow faces, screaming, weeping, loss…
And beyond that. The city of Sedgwick and the roads flowing ever onwards. The state of Kansas. America. The Earth. So many people. So many cities. So much pain and grief and suffering, so much that could be prevented, so much…
“Jane,” Matt whispered, and this time he took both her hands, craning his face up to try and hold her gaze, “Please. Please. Let’s go home.”
“Home,” Jane murmured. Home, where men had tried to kill them. Home, where for so long she’d been hunted, hated. Home, where the Black Death had slaughtered millions. Home, full of suffering, cruelty, sickness and hurt. Where could they go to escape that? Where was free from stupidity and death? From injustice?
Once more Jane glanced down at her flower, and once more she slowly raised her palms in front of her, both hands now, though Matt still held loosely to her wrists. An orb of stone, she thought. Beyond simple. And indeed as she imagined it a white, flawless sphere appeared, barely bigger than a bowling ball, where it hung in impossibility, floating gently above her palms.
We will do what we must, we few, we great. We, who have the power to save the world, and who will not, cannot, stand idly by while its peoples suffer.
Would she stand by? Jane’s mouth twitched, and a thousand seams and patterns etched themselves into the stone before in an instant it cracked and vanished.
Slowly, she pulled free from Matt’s grasp.
“Jane,” Matt whispered, more urgent than ever.
“He wanted me to be a god,” she murmured. She turned away, staring out over open sky.
“Yes,” Matt said urgently, misunderstanding, “He was insane. He thought that if the world didn’t have some sort of deity, some guiding hand completely in control, that it was all just pointless, everything was doomed – but Jane,” Matt pleaded, “You can’t listen to him. You can’t give him what he wants.”
“Who cares what he wants,” Jane replied mildly, “What do you want? What do I want?” And she turned at him, gazed at him, in quiet contemplation. “I want a better world.”
“Jane!” Matt hissed, “Listen to me! Listen to what I’m saying! You have to let go! You can’t be a god!”
But two steps away Jane turned slowly to face him, her face a calm, inscrutable mask. She fixed her lover with an unblinking gaze – her irises gliding through all the colours of the rainbow, the ‘E’ on her cheek shifting steadily from black, to red, to blue.
“Why not?” Jane replied.
And in an instant, she vanished.