Post by redsycorax on Feb 18, 2022 0:46:40 GMT
On Earth-Alpha, Bruce Wayne's son Terry is Batboy, while Kara Zor-El and Barbara Gordon have matured into Superwoman and Batwoman; there is a visibly older Joker who has his own daughter, Pierrote; other grown JLA children include Aquaman's son, Arthur Jr. who has survived to adulthood and become an adolescent Aqualad ; Barry Allen's kids, Don and Dawn Allen are now known as the Tornado Twins and live in the twenty first century; Harvey Dent (cured of his Two-Face persona) has become employed as Terry Wayne's tutor. As for the older Justice League cohort, most of them have now retired. There is a new Justice Collective in the form of the adult (ex) Teen Titans. Terry has a baby sister, Helena Wayne. Finally, the one still-active original Justice Leaguer is Hal Jordan/Green Lantern. Journey with us now to this world of what might have been.
++
WAYNE MANOR:
Selina Wayne ran a hand through her hair as her husband Bruce took her in his arms:
"Sweetheart, you look beautiful tonight."
"Oh, Bruce, I'm going grey. Not all of us are ageing as gracefully as you do."
"I'm just glad that I came to my senses and realised how much I loved you. Selina, you are my anchor and my hope."
There was a keening sound from the Wayne nursery:
"Our fledgeling is making noises again."
"Coming, Helena, darling!" Selina kissed her husband and turned to take care of her baby daughter's needs. A bath was scheduled. As she entered the nursery, Helena had her play mask on again and Selina sighed to herself. Would her daughter become the latest Wayne to don the cape and cowl when she reached a certain age, just as her father and brother had?
BATCAVE:
"Young Master Terrence, your father has entered the Batcave. Hello, Master Bruce."
Terry (Batboy) Wayne pivoted and nodded to his father: "Evening, Dad. Look, I think I've managed to discover the perpetrator of those clown-related crimes in Gotham. Look at this."
Bruce whistled: "Why am I surprised that there's a new Joker? I knew his retirement was too good to be true- it's a woman?!"
"Boy, would you ever catch it if Mom, Barbara or Wonder Woman caught you saying that, Dad. Yes, ALFRED here helped me to piece together the identity of the miscreant. While it can't be the Joker, ALFRED extrapolated that there was overlap within the perpetrator's cells that indicated that this person had inherited her father's psychosis. Judging from the forensic traces of make-up, it looks like she's emulated her father in other ways as well."
"Have you had dinner yet, Terry?"
"I took the liberty of preparing some when I detected your incoming presence, sir." Bruce grinned. Even though his corporeal body was now buried in the mansion graveyard, the advent of neural network technology meant that they'd been able to save Alfred Pennyworth's mind and personality and imprint it on the Batcomputer- now known as ALFRED in tribute to his late retainer. Even after he'd passed from this life, Alfred Pennyworth still served and protected the Wayne family.
"There's something else, Dad. She's using motifs from the Renaissance Italian commedia dell 'arte, indicating that she might be more ruthless and focused than her father used to be. Her nom de guerre is Pierrote."
"Come on, son. You've had too much screen time. You're coming with us to the reception."
"Aw, Dad. I was hoping Uncle Dick was going to get into town so we could go on patrol together."
"No arguments, Terry. Okay, you can bring your Batboy outfit along with us so in case something comes up, you can change. ALFRED, you're on guard until Terry, Helena, Selina and I return from the reception."
"Very good, sir." As he activated his surveillance and self-defence routines, ALFRED reflected with resignation that young Master Terrence would inevitably get into trouble. After all, obsession and its correlatives, self-discipline and forensic focus, ran in the Wayne bloodstream.
JUSTICE COLLECTIVE HEADQUARTERS:
The Regolith was the headquarters of the Justice Collective, formerly the Teen Titans and now the Earth's foremost team of superheroes. Of them all, only Robin had kept his original heroic identity, but he had consigned his boyhood uniform to oblivion ages before and grown a beard. By contrast, Roy Harper hadn't followed his own retired guardian, Oliver Queen, into fashionable facial hair when he'd taken over his duties as Red Arrow. Donna Troy had made the best of her former marriage to Terry Long and was now known as Amazon, instead of Wonder Woman. Although Diana was now Queen of the Amazons after Hippolyta's ascension to divinity a decade ago, Donna had decided to adopt her own name to stress both continuity and differentiation. After Steve Trevor's death, the Amazon was in retirement, insofar as her administrative duties over Themiscyra ever permitted her to 'rest.' Given that Barry and Iris Allen were now living in retirement in the thirtieth century and given that their children were now adolescents, Don and Dawn Allen had been dispatched to serve as the JC's resident speedsters. And because Arthur had retired to Atlantis after Mera passed away, Garth was Aquaman II. And that was all. Who knows what might have happened if Jacob Stone's son Victor had survived the emergency operation that might have transformed him into a cyborg? Or if the demon Trigon had not overrun Azarath and absorbed his daughter Raven into himself? Or if the Tamaranean Princess Koriand'r of Vega had not died before she could reach Earth? Or if Gar Dayton hadn't perished avenging himself on Madame Rouge and the Brotherhood of Evil? However, one had to deal with the cards one had been dealt. And there was one other corrective gesture. With the fall of the USSR and the democratic reform of Russia, it had also seemed redundant to limit the Justice Collective to America alone, and so the organisation's ambit extended over the whole globe and its various orbital and planetary colonies.
Robin checked on the Waynes as they journeyed to their gala in Gotham, until Amazon and Red Arrow materialised in the JC teleporter:
"No trouble down there?"
"I suspect ALFRED is probably monitoring developments down there and knowing Terry, he'll be on his guard. Batboy is definitely his father's son."
"I almost feel sorry for Selina, surrounded by bats as she is. First Terry and now probably Helena when she gets old enough." Amazon replied.
"How are our esteemed mentors?"
"The last time I checked in, Dinah was trying to restrain Ollie from boring the rest of his former team mates with stories of his archery prowess at the Masters Games. Lois sends her regards and wants to know if you'll drop in later this evening. She thinks the greybeards need a half-way competent cook and Clark is threatening to do so again unless he's stopped."
"Who knows, perhaps I can even convince Senator Gordon to step away from Washington for a few hours."
"So she's not being Batwoman this week?"
"Well, given her responsibilities on the Law Enforcement, Rehabilitation and Justice Senate Committee now, she doesn't spend as much time in the Cape and Cowl as she used to do. On the other hand, Linda's on holiday as Florida Governor, so that means Superwoman is active in case anything threatens to arise in the current context. Oh, and Terry emailed me with some troubling news. The Joker's retirement wasn't as permanent as we'd hoped. And apparently, our old mentors aren't the only ones with kids at the moment. Old Jack has a daughter now, Pierrote, and she's definitely following in her father's criminal footsteps -and fashion and cosmetics sense..."
"Why didn't he follow Lex Luthor's lead and reform? Look at Lex now, a reknowned humanitarian and philanthropist- he even breaks bread with Clark and Lois."
Red Arrow looked out into the lunar sky at the crescent Earth:
"God. It only seems like yesterday that we were chasing around as the Titans. Now look at all of us. Successors to the purple."
"Yes, exactly. What about all the supervillains, though? Most of Barry's rogues have gone legit now, except for Prof Zoom. After the Cheetah and Doctor Psycho perished in that nuclear terrorist attack on Atlanta, most of Diana's old foes joined them. No-one's seen Brainiac in decades. Sinestro's the only one of Hal's adversaries who's still drawing breath. I don't think those two will ever give up their daggers poised at each others throats." Amazon leant against the wall, her arms crossed.
MIAMI:
"Kara?" Superwoman turned to see a diminutive white kitten whose lefthand side was emblazoned with the telltale lightning bolt marking that revealed his parentage:
"Hey there, Kuip! Long time no see."
"I was visiting the future. Hey, did you know I've got a descendant all the way up in the thirtieth century? His name is..."
"Whizzy. Yes, I know. I met him several decades ago. How is he?"
"He was helping repel a horde of incoming cometoids from the Oort Cloud after Starfinger lobbed them sunwards. And he had his daughter with him, Ariana. Talk about cute. It's just a shame she's related to me. So how's Florida?"
Superwoman sighed: "You want to see my balance sheet, Kuiper. So much of it is based on flood avoidance and remedying the damage past generations did. And Superwoman is the hero of the hour because I've saved the state from numerous tidal waves, land subsidences and myriads of other supervillain attacks. Clark warned me there'd be times like these."
Kuiper somersaulted: "So how's my foster dad?"
"Krypto sends his regards. He's in an older canine's residential centre on Rokyn now."
"Wow, you mean he gave up being Superdog? Why?"
"Because his pups have taken up his duties and because his mate passed away years since. Speaking of which, I wonder what your parents, Streaky and Ester, would make of this world. They'd certainly be proud of the hero their son has become."
"Flatterer. Hey, is that the Joker's alleged daughter Pierrote down there?"
"Good telescopic vision spotting. Wait for me!"
"Not if she's got kryptonite on her. Remember, I don't share your vulnerability to it."
"Ah, the Kryptonian. To what do I owe this decided displeasure?"
"Possibly the fact that you've been trespassed from Gotham City, Pierrote, and you have no business being on this routeway?"
The Clown Princess of Crime's demonic visage lit up: "Now, now, how did you know I was on my way back to the happy hunting ground? Owwww!! Your hellcat just burned my hand."
"Which may be attributable to the stray Green K particles he saw emanating from that leaden chamber on your pistol? No, sorry. You don't get to disrupt that Wayne Enterprises gala over there."
"I have as much right to be on this routeway as... damn it, your cat needs to stop that right now!"
Kuiper immediately solidified back from his superspeed and x-ray vision display.
"Nicely done. I'll just take care of this..."
"This is metahuman harassment!" Pierrote complained as she was trapped in her own fast-setting liquid cement, as Superwoman and Kuiper took to the skies above the Miami-Charleston routeway, her cold hydrogen vehicle now redirected far away from Illinois and Gotham City at the end of its trajectory.
WASHINGTON DC:
But in Washington DC, Senator Barbara Gordon had noticed something uncanny about the world that they now lived in. As she watched the newsfeed about Superwoman and Kuiper's confrontation with Pierrote en route to Gotham, she was deeply troubled. There was something that was strange about this situation- as if she had somehow lived another life and was now living in a simulated, virtual reality world. Why did she have memories of being defeated as Gotham's Democrat House of Representatives Congresswoman? Or being shot by the Joker? And hadn't she seen Superwoman killed in an antimatter bombardment after she'd attacked a large-scale menace? Why did she now know Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson were Batman and Robin? Should Dick even be Robin anymore? Why did she have elusive memories of him in other heroic garb? Arthur Curry Jr had died in infancy, she remembered being at his funeral. And Don and Dawn Allen had never visited the twentieth century. The Joker had never married and did not have a daughter.
"So you've noticed too, eh?"
As she turned, she saw Green Lantern, visibly older and in his early sixties:
"What is going on here, Hal? It's almost as if this is a deliberately created virtual reality, an almost utopia. So why can I remember things not being like this? This whole world seems...false, a wish fulfilment fantasy somehow."
"I think that's what it is. I tried to remember Alan Scott the other day, but my power ring denied any memory or encounters with him, or with Earth-T...Beta. Hang on. Why did I almost say Two then?"
"You're not wrong, Hal. It's almost as if this whole world is some form of 'overwrite' that has no tangible existence beyond our own immediate territory."
"Exactly. Like it's some sort of pocket universe, perhaps. I've been out to the nearest stars. They don't tally with the historically recorded interstellar distances. And it's not only our immediate stellar neighbourhood. The same applies to the size of the Milky Way Galaxy and the distance from here to Andromeda."
And then
Everything
Froze.
BLEEDSPACE:
The Monitor turned to Harbinger: "I thought this might happen, Lyla. It looks as if their Barbara Gordon and Hal Jordan have deduced the truth about "Earth-Alpha"- that it is a transposed timeline branch 'cutting', taken from Earth-One's intermediate future before the Crisis and placed in its own secondary universe to preserve a memory of what they might have become, given time."
"Were we wrong to do that, Monitor?"
He shook his head: "No. Merely because the Time Trapper crafted a "Superboy" within his own pocket universe, we should not assume this is a moral equivalent. It is not. We are not harming any of these individuals through our artifice. Let them live on. Let them have the joys of love, marriage and fulfilment, growing old, having satisfying careers and lengthened lives. Supergirl and the Flash deserved more than they got in our timeline, Lyla. Here, Kara Zor-El has grown to maturity, Barbara Gordon was never crippled, Barry Allen lived to see his children born and grown to adolescence, and other situations have been avoided."
"But Earth-Alpha is an idealised version of Earth-One. Can it be sustained over the long term? Batwoman and Green Lantern have begun to suspect. For how long can we maintain this facade? And what happens when its inhabitants do realise that they're living in a tributary, a subsidiary, a confection?"
"With luck, they never will. And we can intervene to prevent that."
"Do we have the right?"
"Every virtuous being deserves a reward for their labours, Lyla." And with that, the Monitor set down his finger. A microsegment of Earth-Alpha's timeline was excised from existence, namely the one where Green Lantern had measured interstellar and intergalactic distances and Barbara Gordon had started to remember the displaced alternate path of her life and those of her friends, enemies and comrades. That late afternoon, Batwoman and Green Lantern never met one another to discuss their discoveries in Barbara Gordon's Congressional office. Instead, Senator Gordon met constituents and Green Lantern was headed for Proxima Centauri to prevent a solar flare damaging its only planet, Ra'ahkba'at.
Harbinger said nothing, but wondered how long they could postpone what she privately regarded as inevitable.
And on Earth-Alpha, its heroic inhabitants continued to live on, unaware that they were living in a grafted timeline within a bonsai universe. Which is not to say that their lives were somehow any less virtuous or meaningful because of this. They regarded their world and surrounding universe as being the natural scheme of provenance, evolution and personal biography. And after Batwoman and Green Lantern's cancelled "meeting" in her office, no-one suspected or deduced that their world was anything other than it seemed. Or if they did, it was not on the public record, or else it was kept within the confines of their own mind.
Events unfolded in their turn. Batman I grew old, but contented in retirement with his beloved Selina. Ultimately, they died within hours of each other. By then, Terry Wayne had become the second Batman. Superwoman followed the Flash to the thirty first century and married Querl Dox (Brainiac 5), making her home there. Don and Dawn Allen produced a line of speedsters, becoming the third and fourth Flash. Successive iterations of metahuman defenders of justice came and went. Superman left Earth after Lois Lane's death and resettled on Rokyn, but his adopted world still kept abreast of his life and mourned deeply when they finally knew that he passed away. Queen Diana of Themiscyra was immortal and lived across centuries and millennia, immortal, never forgetting the days of her relative youth. Green Lantern became a hallowed legend within the Green Lantern Corps, married Carol Ferris and had children of their own. All of Earth's valiant twentieth and twenty-first century heroes left posterity and descendants whose valour, courage and determination matched their own legendary endeavours.
The derivation of the term 'utopia' means 'no place'. Even if they were but metaphorical 'ghosts' in a pleasant facade, they lived, loved and formed relationships and undertook heroic deeds as if they were more substantial. In the end, isn't that what is important?
THE END
++
WAYNE MANOR:
Selina Wayne ran a hand through her hair as her husband Bruce took her in his arms:
"Sweetheart, you look beautiful tonight."
"Oh, Bruce, I'm going grey. Not all of us are ageing as gracefully as you do."
"I'm just glad that I came to my senses and realised how much I loved you. Selina, you are my anchor and my hope."
There was a keening sound from the Wayne nursery:
"Our fledgeling is making noises again."
"Coming, Helena, darling!" Selina kissed her husband and turned to take care of her baby daughter's needs. A bath was scheduled. As she entered the nursery, Helena had her play mask on again and Selina sighed to herself. Would her daughter become the latest Wayne to don the cape and cowl when she reached a certain age, just as her father and brother had?
BATCAVE:
"Young Master Terrence, your father has entered the Batcave. Hello, Master Bruce."
Terry (Batboy) Wayne pivoted and nodded to his father: "Evening, Dad. Look, I think I've managed to discover the perpetrator of those clown-related crimes in Gotham. Look at this."
Bruce whistled: "Why am I surprised that there's a new Joker? I knew his retirement was too good to be true- it's a woman?!"
"Boy, would you ever catch it if Mom, Barbara or Wonder Woman caught you saying that, Dad. Yes, ALFRED here helped me to piece together the identity of the miscreant. While it can't be the Joker, ALFRED extrapolated that there was overlap within the perpetrator's cells that indicated that this person had inherited her father's psychosis. Judging from the forensic traces of make-up, it looks like she's emulated her father in other ways as well."
"Have you had dinner yet, Terry?"
"I took the liberty of preparing some when I detected your incoming presence, sir." Bruce grinned. Even though his corporeal body was now buried in the mansion graveyard, the advent of neural network technology meant that they'd been able to save Alfred Pennyworth's mind and personality and imprint it on the Batcomputer- now known as ALFRED in tribute to his late retainer. Even after he'd passed from this life, Alfred Pennyworth still served and protected the Wayne family.
"There's something else, Dad. She's using motifs from the Renaissance Italian commedia dell 'arte, indicating that she might be more ruthless and focused than her father used to be. Her nom de guerre is Pierrote."
"Come on, son. You've had too much screen time. You're coming with us to the reception."
"Aw, Dad. I was hoping Uncle Dick was going to get into town so we could go on patrol together."
"No arguments, Terry. Okay, you can bring your Batboy outfit along with us so in case something comes up, you can change. ALFRED, you're on guard until Terry, Helena, Selina and I return from the reception."
"Very good, sir." As he activated his surveillance and self-defence routines, ALFRED reflected with resignation that young Master Terrence would inevitably get into trouble. After all, obsession and its correlatives, self-discipline and forensic focus, ran in the Wayne bloodstream.
JUSTICE COLLECTIVE HEADQUARTERS:
The Regolith was the headquarters of the Justice Collective, formerly the Teen Titans and now the Earth's foremost team of superheroes. Of them all, only Robin had kept his original heroic identity, but he had consigned his boyhood uniform to oblivion ages before and grown a beard. By contrast, Roy Harper hadn't followed his own retired guardian, Oliver Queen, into fashionable facial hair when he'd taken over his duties as Red Arrow. Donna Troy had made the best of her former marriage to Terry Long and was now known as Amazon, instead of Wonder Woman. Although Diana was now Queen of the Amazons after Hippolyta's ascension to divinity a decade ago, Donna had decided to adopt her own name to stress both continuity and differentiation. After Steve Trevor's death, the Amazon was in retirement, insofar as her administrative duties over Themiscyra ever permitted her to 'rest.' Given that Barry and Iris Allen were now living in retirement in the thirtieth century and given that their children were now adolescents, Don and Dawn Allen had been dispatched to serve as the JC's resident speedsters. And because Arthur had retired to Atlantis after Mera passed away, Garth was Aquaman II. And that was all. Who knows what might have happened if Jacob Stone's son Victor had survived the emergency operation that might have transformed him into a cyborg? Or if the demon Trigon had not overrun Azarath and absorbed his daughter Raven into himself? Or if the Tamaranean Princess Koriand'r of Vega had not died before she could reach Earth? Or if Gar Dayton hadn't perished avenging himself on Madame Rouge and the Brotherhood of Evil? However, one had to deal with the cards one had been dealt. And there was one other corrective gesture. With the fall of the USSR and the democratic reform of Russia, it had also seemed redundant to limit the Justice Collective to America alone, and so the organisation's ambit extended over the whole globe and its various orbital and planetary colonies.
Robin checked on the Waynes as they journeyed to their gala in Gotham, until Amazon and Red Arrow materialised in the JC teleporter:
"No trouble down there?"
"I suspect ALFRED is probably monitoring developments down there and knowing Terry, he'll be on his guard. Batboy is definitely his father's son."
"I almost feel sorry for Selina, surrounded by bats as she is. First Terry and now probably Helena when she gets old enough." Amazon replied.
"How are our esteemed mentors?"
"The last time I checked in, Dinah was trying to restrain Ollie from boring the rest of his former team mates with stories of his archery prowess at the Masters Games. Lois sends her regards and wants to know if you'll drop in later this evening. She thinks the greybeards need a half-way competent cook and Clark is threatening to do so again unless he's stopped."
"Who knows, perhaps I can even convince Senator Gordon to step away from Washington for a few hours."
"So she's not being Batwoman this week?"
"Well, given her responsibilities on the Law Enforcement, Rehabilitation and Justice Senate Committee now, she doesn't spend as much time in the Cape and Cowl as she used to do. On the other hand, Linda's on holiday as Florida Governor, so that means Superwoman is active in case anything threatens to arise in the current context. Oh, and Terry emailed me with some troubling news. The Joker's retirement wasn't as permanent as we'd hoped. And apparently, our old mentors aren't the only ones with kids at the moment. Old Jack has a daughter now, Pierrote, and she's definitely following in her father's criminal footsteps -and fashion and cosmetics sense..."
"Why didn't he follow Lex Luthor's lead and reform? Look at Lex now, a reknowned humanitarian and philanthropist- he even breaks bread with Clark and Lois."
Red Arrow looked out into the lunar sky at the crescent Earth:
"God. It only seems like yesterday that we were chasing around as the Titans. Now look at all of us. Successors to the purple."
"Yes, exactly. What about all the supervillains, though? Most of Barry's rogues have gone legit now, except for Prof Zoom. After the Cheetah and Doctor Psycho perished in that nuclear terrorist attack on Atlanta, most of Diana's old foes joined them. No-one's seen Brainiac in decades. Sinestro's the only one of Hal's adversaries who's still drawing breath. I don't think those two will ever give up their daggers poised at each others throats." Amazon leant against the wall, her arms crossed.
MIAMI:
"Kara?" Superwoman turned to see a diminutive white kitten whose lefthand side was emblazoned with the telltale lightning bolt marking that revealed his parentage:
"Hey there, Kuip! Long time no see."
"I was visiting the future. Hey, did you know I've got a descendant all the way up in the thirtieth century? His name is..."
"Whizzy. Yes, I know. I met him several decades ago. How is he?"
"He was helping repel a horde of incoming cometoids from the Oort Cloud after Starfinger lobbed them sunwards. And he had his daughter with him, Ariana. Talk about cute. It's just a shame she's related to me. So how's Florida?"
Superwoman sighed: "You want to see my balance sheet, Kuiper. So much of it is based on flood avoidance and remedying the damage past generations did. And Superwoman is the hero of the hour because I've saved the state from numerous tidal waves, land subsidences and myriads of other supervillain attacks. Clark warned me there'd be times like these."
Kuiper somersaulted: "So how's my foster dad?"
"Krypto sends his regards. He's in an older canine's residential centre on Rokyn now."
"Wow, you mean he gave up being Superdog? Why?"
"Because his pups have taken up his duties and because his mate passed away years since. Speaking of which, I wonder what your parents, Streaky and Ester, would make of this world. They'd certainly be proud of the hero their son has become."
"Flatterer. Hey, is that the Joker's alleged daughter Pierrote down there?"
"Good telescopic vision spotting. Wait for me!"
"Not if she's got kryptonite on her. Remember, I don't share your vulnerability to it."
"Ah, the Kryptonian. To what do I owe this decided displeasure?"
"Possibly the fact that you've been trespassed from Gotham City, Pierrote, and you have no business being on this routeway?"
The Clown Princess of Crime's demonic visage lit up: "Now, now, how did you know I was on my way back to the happy hunting ground? Owwww!! Your hellcat just burned my hand."
"Which may be attributable to the stray Green K particles he saw emanating from that leaden chamber on your pistol? No, sorry. You don't get to disrupt that Wayne Enterprises gala over there."
"I have as much right to be on this routeway as... damn it, your cat needs to stop that right now!"
Kuiper immediately solidified back from his superspeed and x-ray vision display.
"Nicely done. I'll just take care of this..."
"This is metahuman harassment!" Pierrote complained as she was trapped in her own fast-setting liquid cement, as Superwoman and Kuiper took to the skies above the Miami-Charleston routeway, her cold hydrogen vehicle now redirected far away from Illinois and Gotham City at the end of its trajectory.
WASHINGTON DC:
But in Washington DC, Senator Barbara Gordon had noticed something uncanny about the world that they now lived in. As she watched the newsfeed about Superwoman and Kuiper's confrontation with Pierrote en route to Gotham, she was deeply troubled. There was something that was strange about this situation- as if she had somehow lived another life and was now living in a simulated, virtual reality world. Why did she have memories of being defeated as Gotham's Democrat House of Representatives Congresswoman? Or being shot by the Joker? And hadn't she seen Superwoman killed in an antimatter bombardment after she'd attacked a large-scale menace? Why did she now know Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson were Batman and Robin? Should Dick even be Robin anymore? Why did she have elusive memories of him in other heroic garb? Arthur Curry Jr had died in infancy, she remembered being at his funeral. And Don and Dawn Allen had never visited the twentieth century. The Joker had never married and did not have a daughter.
"So you've noticed too, eh?"
As she turned, she saw Green Lantern, visibly older and in his early sixties:
"What is going on here, Hal? It's almost as if this is a deliberately created virtual reality, an almost utopia. So why can I remember things not being like this? This whole world seems...false, a wish fulfilment fantasy somehow."
"I think that's what it is. I tried to remember Alan Scott the other day, but my power ring denied any memory or encounters with him, or with Earth-T...Beta. Hang on. Why did I almost say Two then?"
"You're not wrong, Hal. It's almost as if this whole world is some form of 'overwrite' that has no tangible existence beyond our own immediate territory."
"Exactly. Like it's some sort of pocket universe, perhaps. I've been out to the nearest stars. They don't tally with the historically recorded interstellar distances. And it's not only our immediate stellar neighbourhood. The same applies to the size of the Milky Way Galaxy and the distance from here to Andromeda."
And then
Everything
Froze.
BLEEDSPACE:
The Monitor turned to Harbinger: "I thought this might happen, Lyla. It looks as if their Barbara Gordon and Hal Jordan have deduced the truth about "Earth-Alpha"- that it is a transposed timeline branch 'cutting', taken from Earth-One's intermediate future before the Crisis and placed in its own secondary universe to preserve a memory of what they might have become, given time."
"Were we wrong to do that, Monitor?"
He shook his head: "No. Merely because the Time Trapper crafted a "Superboy" within his own pocket universe, we should not assume this is a moral equivalent. It is not. We are not harming any of these individuals through our artifice. Let them live on. Let them have the joys of love, marriage and fulfilment, growing old, having satisfying careers and lengthened lives. Supergirl and the Flash deserved more than they got in our timeline, Lyla. Here, Kara Zor-El has grown to maturity, Barbara Gordon was never crippled, Barry Allen lived to see his children born and grown to adolescence, and other situations have been avoided."
"But Earth-Alpha is an idealised version of Earth-One. Can it be sustained over the long term? Batwoman and Green Lantern have begun to suspect. For how long can we maintain this facade? And what happens when its inhabitants do realise that they're living in a tributary, a subsidiary, a confection?"
"With luck, they never will. And we can intervene to prevent that."
"Do we have the right?"
"Every virtuous being deserves a reward for their labours, Lyla." And with that, the Monitor set down his finger. A microsegment of Earth-Alpha's timeline was excised from existence, namely the one where Green Lantern had measured interstellar and intergalactic distances and Barbara Gordon had started to remember the displaced alternate path of her life and those of her friends, enemies and comrades. That late afternoon, Batwoman and Green Lantern never met one another to discuss their discoveries in Barbara Gordon's Congressional office. Instead, Senator Gordon met constituents and Green Lantern was headed for Proxima Centauri to prevent a solar flare damaging its only planet, Ra'ahkba'at.
Harbinger said nothing, but wondered how long they could postpone what she privately regarded as inevitable.
And on Earth-Alpha, its heroic inhabitants continued to live on, unaware that they were living in a grafted timeline within a bonsai universe. Which is not to say that their lives were somehow any less virtuous or meaningful because of this. They regarded their world and surrounding universe as being the natural scheme of provenance, evolution and personal biography. And after Batwoman and Green Lantern's cancelled "meeting" in her office, no-one suspected or deduced that their world was anything other than it seemed. Or if they did, it was not on the public record, or else it was kept within the confines of their own mind.
Events unfolded in their turn. Batman I grew old, but contented in retirement with his beloved Selina. Ultimately, they died within hours of each other. By then, Terry Wayne had become the second Batman. Superwoman followed the Flash to the thirty first century and married Querl Dox (Brainiac 5), making her home there. Don and Dawn Allen produced a line of speedsters, becoming the third and fourth Flash. Successive iterations of metahuman defenders of justice came and went. Superman left Earth after Lois Lane's death and resettled on Rokyn, but his adopted world still kept abreast of his life and mourned deeply when they finally knew that he passed away. Queen Diana of Themiscyra was immortal and lived across centuries and millennia, immortal, never forgetting the days of her relative youth. Green Lantern became a hallowed legend within the Green Lantern Corps, married Carol Ferris and had children of their own. All of Earth's valiant twentieth and twenty-first century heroes left posterity and descendants whose valour, courage and determination matched their own legendary endeavours.
The derivation of the term 'utopia' means 'no place'. Even if they were but metaphorical 'ghosts' in a pleasant facade, they lived, loved and formed relationships and undertook heroic deeds as if they were more substantial. In the end, isn't that what is important?
THE END