It began with a shimmer in the air. A nearby cow looked up from feeding as faint waves appeared in empty space, small at first, then growing larger and more rapid. The cow ambled off as a human hand pushed through the ripples. It reached forward, covered in a silvery aura. The hand was followed by an arm and the impression of a face. Suddenly, the odd-colored membrane popped, and a figure ran out onto the green grass. Clad in a scarlet bodysuit, the man stooped over with his hands upon his knees, taking great shuddering breaths.
"I...don't...ever...want...to do...that...again," he wheezed. "Ever." Another minute of deep breathing, and he straightened up to look around. "This is the right place," he said. He tapped the JLA communicator embedded in his cowl. "Hello, anybody read me?" The only reply was static. "Hello, Watchtower? This is the Flash. Is anyone home?" He heard nothing but white noise. "Maybe it was damaged doing the inter-dimensional mambo," he said. "I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way."
The Flash stretched once, with his arms over his head, and then was gone in a scarlet blur. His passing stirred a small wind that rattled the leaves on the ground. It took him a couple of moments to find out he had returned in Alabama, of all places. For the Fastest Man Alive, it was just a short jaunt from there to Keystone City, home to the Flash Museum. The museum had a fully functional JLA transporter in the private wing, just in case it was ever needed.
The Scarlet Speedster zoomed across country and through the streets of Keystone, dodging traffic like it was standing still. The Flash had always found a great joy in running, and he smiled as he zipped about town. He slowed, and then came to a halt in front of the museum, except it wasn't there. He stood and stared at a strip mall where the museum should have been standing. He cocked his head to one side, his right foot tapping the sidewalk. He quickly checked the address then came back to his original spot, staring at something that made no sense.
"What is going on here?" he asked of the empty air.
"Hey, you're the Flash," called out a voice to his right. The hero turned and saw a black man in his late thirties walking toward him.
"That's me," said the Flash.
The man reached out his hand. "I've never met one of the superheroes before," he said.
The Flash shook the man's outstretched hand. "Now, you have," he said. "What is your name, sir?
"Harvey Jones," replied the man, still with a look of wonder upon his face.
"Mr. Jones, do you know how long this has been here?" asked the Flash, waving his arm in the general direction of the strip mall.
Jones looked at it, then squinted a little as he thought. "Oh about ten years, I'd say. Been awhile."
I see. I see," said Flash. Has there ever been a museum on this spot?"
Harvey Jones thought some more. "No," he said. "I don't believe there ever was."
"Mr. Jones, have you ever heard of the Flash Museum?"
"Sure, there is one over in Central City. Are they building another one somewhere?"
"Central City, thought the Flash. "Home of the original Flash Museum. Weird." He turned and grasped the man's hand again, vigorously pumping it up and down. "Thank you, Mr. Jones. You have been a tremendous help."
Sure," replied Jones, but he barely got the word out before he was battered by bits of papers and small pieces of debris rising up in the Flash's wake as he sped away. "Superheroes, he muttered, sure are an odd bunch."
The Flash screeched to a halt in front of the Flash Museum. "It shouldn't be here," thought the speedster. In his experience, the museum had been destroyed years ago and a new one built in Keystone. Something was definitely off. He ran up to the front door and punched in the lock combination to open the door. It didn't work, and the red light on the control panel seemed to mock him. He thought about trying thousands of combinations at super speed, but doing so would likely fry the circuitry.
"Okay," said the Flash. "We do it the hard way. Again." He began to vibrate his entire body until he was just a fuzzy shape. When he was sure he had the right frequency, he stepped through the thick glass door into the museum. The Flash let out a sigh of relief. Earlier in his career that trick would have blown the door apart, and maybe the whole front wall. It had taken him years to master vibrating through solid matter without exploding whatever he had passed through.
The Flash stood on the far side of the door. He knew the building would have alarms. Cameras wouldn't bother him, but motion detectors might if they were calibrated high enough. It was possible the museum would be equipped with advanced technology that he didn't know about, Thanagarian or something. He reached into his memory for the layout of the museum, even with the possibility that it wasn't the same as he remembered, he knew where the transporter must be if one was here. After all, he had seen it there several times when he was younger. He ran through the museum, betting he could be gone before the alarms could alert the authorities of a break-in. The flashes he saw of the exhibits were strange to him. Things he remembered were definitely different, and many things were missing. He made it to the basement door and stopped. It was heavy-grade metal with a series of complex-looking locks, the lights of which regarded him balefully. The Flash tuned up his vibration rate to match the door and stepped through with no problem.
Slowing down to normal, he spied his prize over in a far corner. A JLA transport tube, ready and waiting. He went over and looked it over. "This must be an older model, he thought. "I wonder what kind of recognition it uses."
Suddenly the vault-like door behind him swung open, crashing against the wall. A commanding voice said, "Stop right there! Move away from the equipment and get down on the floor!"
The Flash put up his hands and slowly turned around. He knew that voice. "Barry, is that you?" A second scarlet-clad figure stepped into the room. The two men stared at each other in silence, for what was to them an eternity.
"Barry, it's me, Wally." The newcomer said nothing, but continued to look fixedly at the Flash. "Look, I'll show you," said Wally. He slowly reached down and peeled back his mask, showing a shock of reddish hair, green eyes and a ridge of small freckles across the nose. He stood expectantly as the other man studied his face.
"I don't know you", he said.
"What?" stammered Wally. This was rapidly turning worse that he had imagined.
"What I do know," said Barry Allen, "is that you broke into this museum and were about to attempt to use private, classified technology without permission." He kept up his cop voice, because inwardly he was rocked that this stranger knew his real name. Barry could also see that this was no run-of-the-mill thief. Speed Force power was just pouring off of him. He was also taken aback that the guy was wearing his uniform, or a close approximation of it, anyway.
Wally's thoughts were racing. Something was very wrong here, and they were not going to get answers by standing around in a basement. "Barry," he said. "I know this looks strange. Take me to the League and we'll get this figured out."
"Get what figured out, exactly?"
"Things are wrong," said Wally as he began to pace the floor. "I don't know how much, but this isn't right. Take me in and I'll tell you the whole story."
Barry Allen considered the proposition. He was, in fact, curious about this fellow given the new guy's knowledge and obvious power set. "Let me call the League," he said. "Stay right here until I hear back from them." Barry turned to go, then paused. "
"Don't run," he warned. "I'll catch you."
In the time it took Barry to contact the rest of the League, Wally sat on a crate and tried to sort things out in his head. Try as he might, his thoughts were on a circular track. How was his wife, Linda, and their kids, Jai and Iris? What about the other speedsters he knew about, Jay Garrick, Bart Allen, and the rest? If Barry truly didn't know him, what had become of his aunt Iris West? The questions about his friends and family weighed heavily, and Wally West began to shake. The only thing that kept him from snapping was his faith in the League. They were the World's Greatest Heroes. The League would figure out what was going on and fix it.
After what seemed like a century, Barry returned to the basement. "The League has agreed to hear you out," he said. "We're going to transport up to the satellite. Don't do anything stupid. You won't like what happens if you do." Barry took Wally's arm and led him into the transport tube. The machine clicked over and scanned the duo. "Flash, plus one," said Barry.
"Acknowledged," beeped the machine and the two Flashes vanished in a stream of light.
Not long after, Wally found himself alone in a small, locked conference room, bare but for a round table and chairs. The room was almost blindingly white, making it easy to pick out the cameras and surveillance equipment. Wally could feel Bat-eyes on him each time he moved. He waited, knowing the League was pooling information and going over options. But, it was getting harder to just wait. He wasn't used to it and it was never a strong point with him anyway.
Soon the double doors opened, and the Justice League entered. Wally watched as they walked in and formed a semi-circle around him. He knew all of them, for which he was grateful. Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Batman all faced him wearing solemn looks. The final member to enter the room clanked inside and made Wally's heart leap with joy.
"Vic," he shouted as he stood up from one of the chairs. The other Leaguers all tensed, but Cyborg just stared at Wally as his facial recognition software looked for a match. It found none.
"You know my name," said Cyborg in a flat voice. "But I've never seen you before."
Wally sank back into his chair. "We were on a team together when we were kids," he said softly. "The Teen Titans."
"That never happened," said Cyborg.
"We ran a check on the identity of Wallace West out of Blue Valley, Nebraska," broke in Batman. "There is such a person living there. He works as a mechanic in a car dealership, and looks remarkably like you."
"You understand that we have to check things out as completely as possible," said Superman as he floated around behind Wally. "Why don't you tell us how you came to be here?"
Wally sighed. "It's fairly complicated," he began. He waved an arm at the other Flash in the room. "I'm sure Barry can fill you on some of the more technical details, if you need them. It wasn't long after we had fought off a super-powered zombie invasion. I was cleaning up part of St. Roch after helping to defeat the Royal Flush Gang. I was contacted by someone from another dimension to try and stop an Alpha-level entropy effect from destroying their universe. So, seeing as I was a hero always ready to fight the good fight, I went with. It was a close thing, but we finally got it stopped, and then I came back."
"How exactly do your transverse dimensions?" asked Green Lantern.
Wally glanced at Barry, who was not forthcoming. Wally sighed again, then continued. "It's a power that speedsters have," he said. "We match our inner vibrations to that of the other dimension and just slip through the barriers between the two."
"How do you know what the vibrational rate is for the other dimension?"
"It helps a lot if you have access to something from that dimension. Luckily, inter-dimensional dude was able to give me a face-to-face."
"And how do you return?" asked Wonder Woman.
"Easy," said Wally. "Stop vibrating."
"You are convinced that this is the world you came from...," said Batman.
"The vibration rate don't lie," interrupted Wally.
"And that this world has been significantly changed," continued the Dark Knight. "Yet, none of us, or any of our contacts can confirm your claims. It is much more likely that you are the anomaly."
"Look, just get J'onn up here," said Wally. "He can verify everything I've said as the truth."
"Who is J'onn?" asked Barry.
"J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter." said Wally. "Big, green telepathic alien. Ring a bell?"
Superman and Batman exchanged a hurried glance. "He knows the Martian," said Batman.
"The Martian is not a friend of the League," said Superman. "He has been...difficult to deal with."
"We may not have a Martian," said Wonder Woman, uncurling her magic lasso, "but we have this. We'll get to the truth."
"Ah, I hate that thing," said Wally. "I always end up saying something embarrassing. But, if it's the only way, let's get it over with." He relaxed as the lasso wrapped around him, and he began to speak.
Later, the League gathered in another location to discuss what they had learned from the interrogation. "He believes that what he said is the truth," said Wonder Woman.
"So, what do we do about it?" asked Aquaman. "Some of the things he told us were disturbing."
"We still have no evidence," said Batman, "or anything resembling a course of action."
"And even if we did," said Barry, "should we condemn everyone on this planet to bring back the world of one man? If we helped him and somehow pulled this off, what happens to us, to our world?" There was a long silence as every hero drank in the Flash's words.
"What are we to do with him?" asked Superman. "Diana says he's a good man, a hero in his own right. We can't leave him up here to rot in space. He could help us."
"I don't want him running around unsupervised," said Batman. "Not with his power and likely mindset. Nor do I want him on the satellite with access to our equipment and records."
"He will need time to adjust," said Superman. "Maybe we could set him up somewhere until he gets his bearings." He glanced over at Batman. "You can rig it up to your liking, Bruce."
Great," said Green Lantern. "Who is going to tell him his world is gone forever?"
