Archive of Our Own

“So what do you think he looks like?” Milagro’s friend Luz asked as they made their way home from school.

“Who?” Milagro asked, trying to keep her balance as she walked along the curb, one foot in front of the other.

“Blue Beetle, who else?” Luz said. She hugged her chemistry book to her chest. “I bet he’s cute.”

Milagro slipped off the curb and practically fell. “Ew, what? No way!”

“What do you mean, no way? He could totally be cute,” Luz said. “Or do you not like heroes with sexy voices who can totally fly?”

Milagro remembered not to gag just in time. Luz didn’t know – and couldn’t know – that the Blue Beetle was Milagro’s dorktastic older brother Jaime. And ugh, sexy voice? She was going to have to dip her Q-tips in bleach to unhear that one. “Sorry, I prefer guys whose faces I can see,” she said, stepping back onto the sidewalk. “Besides, isn’t he, like, way old? He’s been around for six years.”

“That’s okay.” Luz placed her hand on her forehead and struck a dramatic pose. “I don’t mind older men.”

“We’re freshmen. All men are older men,” Milagro pointed out. To her great relief, they’d come to the intersection where she and Luz parted ways. “Hasta luego, Luz.”

“See you tomorrow.” Luz waved and headed off in the direction of her house.

Milagro shook her head and went in the opposite direction. Sometime over the summer, Luz had gone totally boy-crazy. Milagro could see the appeal, sure, but there were other things to talk about. Like school, or soccer, or that time last week when Superboy and Supergirl had shown up to help Jaime put out that huge fire.

Superboy. Now there was a cute superhero, even if it was a little weird for him to still be calling himself Superboy when he looked around Jaime’s age – and Jaime was almost done with college.

Really, though, Milagro didn’t see much point in ogling superheroes. She’d known too many of them since an alien scarab had bonded to Jaime’s spine and made him El Paso’s first and foremost protector. She was more interested in talking to them. Jaime tended the censor the good parts out of his stories for Milagro and their folks, but other heroes would tell her about their adventures – fighting villains, stopping natural disasters, traveling through time and space. Guy Gardner in particular liked to regale Milagro with tales of bar fights in other galaxies, and last week after the fire had been put out Supergirl had told her a bit about Krypton.

Milagro squinted up at the sky. It was the middle of the afternoon, but she imagined she could see the stars beyond the atmosphere, and the other worlds beyond that – the millions and billions of adventures just waiting for someone lucky like Jaime. She sighed.

Something glinted in the sky.

Milagro frowned. Maybe it was a bird, or a plane? But no, it was moving faster than a bird, and more haphazardly than a plane – and straight towards her.

Milagro backed up. Was it a meteor? She should call Jaime if it was, but she didn’t want to bother him if it wasn’t an emergency.

The object was still coming towards her at a breakneck pace. Milagro turned and bolted down the street, into the lot where, as luck would have it, Jaime had found the scarab. She glanced over her shoulder as she ran – and saw the object adjust its course to follow her. Crap.

She zigzagged through the lot, fumbling in her pocket for her phone. She could tell now from her backwards glances that the object was much smaller than a meteor, compact and metal and following her zigs and zags easily. Was it a heat-seeker? Was it more advanced than that and tracking her specifically? Had some villain found out that she was the Blue Beetle’s sister, or was she just a random victim?

The word “victim,” even just in Milagro’s mind, brought her to a screeching halt. No. She was tired of running from Jaime’s various rogues and crises. Shoving her phone back into her pocket, she turned to face the Unidentified Flying Whatever.

She slung her backpack off her shoulder, ready to swing at the object if it attacked. It came straight at her face – then stopped.

It was a ring. A green one.

Milagro Reyes of Earth, it said. You have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps.

*

So this was basically the coolest thing ever.

“I can’t believe this,” Jaime said. “How could this happen? How could you let this happen?”

Milagro ignored Jaime’s ranting and gazed at the ring on her finger. It didn’t sparkle, exactly, but when she turned her hand it caught the light in fascinating ways, as if it was reflecting another sun than theirs.

“Mijo, calm down,” Milagro’s mother said. “We didn’t let anything happen. It just sort of…happened.”

Milagro concentrated. Green fireworks shot out of the ring, crackling and sparking before cascading to the floor in a shower of sparks. “Sweet!”

“Stop that!” Jaime said. “Guy, make her stop!”

The bulldog-faced, redheaded “family friend” – the explanation they’d used for all the strange adults who’d shown up at the Reyes’ home to see Jaime over the past six years – shrugged and kicked his feet up on the coffee table until he caught Milagro’s mother’s glare. “Sorry, kiddo, no can do. If the Guardians say she’s in, she’s in.”

Milagro sighed. When she’d come home with the ring yesterday afternoon, her parents had been less than happy to suddenly have another superhero in the family. They’d spent the evening debating it in hushed tones. They next morning they’d called in Jaime and Guy, the Green Lantern they knew best, to figure out what to do. Milagro’s opinion of this plan of action had not been asked.

Now Milagro was hemmed in on the couch by both her parents, while Guy sprawled in a nearby armchair. Jaime paced in front of them like a lawyer on TV, as if he could argue the truth away. “Jaime, you’re being a total dork. Just deal with it, okay? I’m a Green Lantern.”

She couldn’t stop the little shiver of excitement that went through her at the words, but Jaime just scowled at her. “You’re not a Green Lantern. You’re a fourteen-year-old kid!”

“You were only sixteen when you became the Blue Beetle!” she retorted.

“I had no choice! That ring’s not bonded to your finger, is it?” He turned on their parents. “And you two!”

“Watch it,” Milagro’s father said warningly.

Jaime reigned in the outrage slightly. “Sorry. But come on! You didn’t want me to become a superhero. Now you’re just going to let her fly off into space when she’s younger than I was?”

“No one said anything about space,” Milagro’s mother said. “This just happened a few hours ago, Jaime. We haven’t decided what we’re going to do.”

Now Milagro frowned. “What do you mean, decided? I was given the ring. I’m a Green Lantern.”

“Mija, you’re very young…” her mother started.

“I’m not that much younger than Jaime was,” she protested. “And it’s not the same, anyway. Jaime only had himself. I have Guy, and everyone else in the Corps. Lanterns get training and stuff when they start, right, Guy?”

He grinned. “Yep. There’s a whole school back on Oa.”

“In space,” Jaime pointed out. “She’s only a freshman in high school!”

Guy shrugged. “Sometimes the Guardians pick ‘em young. My girl Arisia was only thirteen by her planet’s standards when she joined the Corps.”

Jaime folded his arms. “Yeah? How’d that work out for her?”

Guy cleared his throat and looked away. “She, uh, aged herself up with the ring so that she could date Hal Jordan. And Major Force kind of…killed her. But she got better!”

“Ha!” Jaime said triumphantly. “See? And you.” He pointed at Milagro. “Stay away from Hal Jordan.”

“Ugh, not a problem,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Milagro’s parents looked troubled. “How often do Green Lanterns…uh, fall in the line of duty?” her father asked.

Guy scratched the back of his neck. “Not that often, unless there’s some big, you know, cataclysm or something and the whole Corps gets wiped out. The ring protects from mortal harm. I mean, I’ve never died, and the kid has,” he said, jerking his thumb at Jaime, “so, you know, it’s kind of a crapshoot.” He glanced at Milagro. “Poopshoot.”

“I only died for a minute!” Jaime said. “And anyway, that’s all the more reason she should give the ring back.”

“Quit talking about me like I’m not here!” Milagro snapped. “And quit yelling at everyone! You get to be a superhero. Why can’t I?”

“It’s because I’m a superhero that I don’t want you to be!” Jaime retorted. “I know how dangerous it is, Milagro! I’m not gonna let my kid sister – ”

“I’m not a little kid anymore, and you don’t let me do anything!” she said, standing up. “You’re not the boss of me, and you’re not the boss of this!” She held up the fist with the ring on it. The ring sparked, and she felt a rush of righteous anger. He wanted her to give this up?

Jaime’s eyes flashed yellow before getting the distracted look that meant the scarab was talking to him. “Yeah, I know. I’m gonna stop her, Scarab. Power down.”

“You are not going to stop me!” Milagro shouted, trying to drown out the stupid bugvoice in his head.

“Okay, that’s enough!” Milagro’s mother said, standing up. “Both of you power down, and both of you stop yelling. And you can stop arguing about who’s in charge here, too, because that’s still me and your father, and we’re still deciding. But throwing a tantrum is going to help us make our minds up real quick,” she added, glancing at Milagro.

Milagro bit her lip and stepped back, still seething inwardly. Guy sat forward in his chair, hands spread placatingly.

“Look, it really isn’t that big a deal,” he said. “I’ll take her to Oa. It’s totally safe there – fully-trained Lanterns everywhere. She’ll learn how to use the ring, she’ll learn how to navigate space and call for help if she needs it and all that good sh— good stuff, and she’ll come back in a few weeks totally prepared to take care of herself, and anyone else that comes along.”

Jaime tilted his head. “Really. Is that what happened when you got your ring?”

Guy paused, lips tightening. “Things weren’t so organized in my day, so no. That’s not what happened.”

Jaime raised his eyebrows. “Go on.”

Guy shrugged, his own ire clearly rising. “Okay. Yeah. I had a bum battery and it blew up in my face. But I’m fine.”

“Bull!” Jaime shouted. “Booster told me! You were in a coma for three years. You had brain damage.”

“I got better!” Guy retorted.

“See?” Jaime asked, looking at their parents. “See? That is exactly what I’m talking about! All these superhero lifers don’t even think about stuff like comas and injury and death, because they think everyone ‘gets better.’ But they don’t! I’m living proof of that!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Guy demanded.

“Ted Kord,” Jaime snapped. “If he’d ‘gotten better’ I wouldn’t be the Blue Beetle, would I?”

Milagro couldn’t take any more of this. “Ugh! Shut up, Jaime, okay? Just shut up! I am sick of this conversation, and I’m sick of hearing about stupid Ted Kord all the time, and I’m sick of you bossing me around!” The ring on her finger flashed green. “You know what? I think you’re just mad that you’re not the only one around here who gets to be important anymore. Well, I’m a superhero now too, and I was chosen – not just dumb luck.”

“Oh, that is so not what this is about,” Jaime said. “Excuse me if I don’t want my little sister joining a group of holier-than-thou space fascists who get decimated every five years!”

“Hey, watch it,” Guy said, standing up.

“Fascists? You’re the one telling me what to do!” Milagro said.

“All of you, stop it!” Milagro’s mother said, holding up her hands again. “You all need to cool down. Milagro, go to your room. Jaime – ”

“No!” Milagro said. “You’re going to tell me to quit, aren’t you? You always listen to Jaime. You let him go into space and fight monsters and hang out with Batman, and I have to stay at home like a good little girl. Well, I’m keeping the ring, and you can’t stop me!”

She turned on her heel and stormed out the door. “Milagro, get back here!” her mother called after her, but Milagro ignored her, stalking off down the front walk.

Stupid Jaime and that stupid bug on his back. What did he know? The Guardians knew everything, right? So if they figured that she was ready to become a Green Lantern at age 14, then she was.

Speaking of which…she looked at the ring on her finger, and then back at her house. If she went to one of her usual sulking places, sooner or later one of her parents would come find her and give her a talking-to.

But the ring could take her anywhere.

She concentrated. A green glow shot out of the ring, bathing her in it before lifting her off her feet. “Whoa!” she yelped, losing her concentration and landing back on the street.

Okay, so she could fly. Now to try it for real. Furrowing her brow, she tried again…and found herself lifting up off the ground, above the houses and higher, until the city of El Paso was sprawled beneath her like a map.

“Awesome,” she breathed.

Where should she go? Jaime would find her eventually, she knew – he could find anyone he’d ever touched by tracking their DNA. But hopefully their parents would make him leave her alone until he’d cooled down. In the meantime, she wanted to go somewhere she could be alone, well out of reach of her parents, and somewhere Guy would never think to look for her – or any other superhero Jaime called in to find her.

She floated over El Paso, gazing down at the city below her. She was just close enough to make out what they were doing – an old man walking his dog, joggers running in the park, a couple of guys cornering another guy in an alley…

Wait.

Milagro flew closer. Yep, two of them were wearing gang colors and blocking the way out of the alley. The other guy looked like he was about to pee his pants.

She flew even lower, close enough to hear what they were saying. “…owe us money, Manuel. So that better be what you just got out of the bank.”

“I just need a little more time,” Manuel pleaded.

The thug shook his head. “Not good enough, ese.” He glanced at the other thug, who slipped a pair of brass knuckles onto his fingers. “Diego?”

Oh crud. Milagro reached for her phone. Maybe Jaime could get here in time to –

Wait. What was she doing? She didn’t need Jaime. She was a Green Lantern!

She didn’t exactly look it, though. With an extra shot of willpower, she changed her outfit to look like Guy’s – and on second thought, added a mask. Then she flew lower, into the alley proper, and hovered over the three men’s heads. “STOP!”

They all looked up. “What the hell?” Diego said.

Okay, apparently she wasn’t as imposing as she had thought. “Uh…release that citizen…citizens,” she commanded, trying to make her voice sound deep and authoritative.

The two thugs stared for another minute, then burst out laughing. “Aw, how cute. It’s Green Arrow Junior!” the not-Diego thug said.

Milagro scowled. “Green Lantern, moron. Do you see a bow and arrow anywhere?”

“Whatever. Run along, chiquita. You’re gonna be late for kindergarten.” Not-Diego turned back to Manuel, and Diego raised his fist.

Milagro’s scowl deepened. She was sick and tired of people writing her off as a child! Anger shot through her, faster and easier than cool willpower, and a giant green hand erupted from her ring to push Diego away from the terrified-looking Manuel. Diego stumbled back, crashing into some trashcans.

“Hey!” Not-Diego shouted. He turned on Milagro, pulling a pistol from his waistband. “I said back off, kid. Now get out of here if you don’t want to – hey!”

Manuel bolted towards the street. Diego, still disentangling himself from the trashcans, grabbed for Manuel’s pant leg and yanked. Manuel went sprawling.

Milagro saw the look on Not-Diego’s face. She didn’t think, just threw up a shield of green light between him and Manuel.

Blam! Blam! Not-Diego fired twice. The bullets ricocheted off Milagro’s shield and cracked into the brick walls on either side of the alley. Diego and Manuel threw their hands over their heads, cowering.

Not-Diego swore and aimed at Milagro. She threw up a second shield, this time in front of her. The bullets pinged harmlessly against it.

Milagro smiled. Despite the fact that someone was shooting at her, she didn’t feel scared at all. She was a Green Lantern, all right.

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” she said. Reaching out with another giant hand, she pinched the barrel of Not-Diego’s gun shut. “I wouldn’t try firing that again, if I were you.”

Diego scrambled to his feet and tried to run, Not-Diego after him. Milagro scooped them both up in a giant butterfly net. “I think you two have some ‘splaining to do down at the police station, don’t you?” she asked. She glanced down at Manuel. “You okay?”

“Uh…yeah,” he said, looking shaken. “Thanks, Green Lantern!”

Green Lantern. The thought gave Milagro a warm glow all the way to the police station, where she dropped off her catch in front of the bewildered officer on duty, and back up into the clouds. She floated on her back, aglow in her own triumph.

That had been easy. More than easy – it had been fun. She was clearly a natural at this. And Jaime thought –

Thinking of Jaime brought her good mood to an abrupt end. She’d always had a bad temper, and she and her brother had always bickered – but the fight that morning wasn’t like their usual fights.

She played it over in her head and found herself getting angry all over again. Jaime had been such a jerk. And God, he was obsessed with Ted Kord! It was like he thought Ted’s name was automatically the answer to any problem. Who was the greatest superhero of all time? Ted Kord. Why can’t Milagro be a Green Lantern? Ted Kord. What’s the square root of a hundred and nine? Ted Kord. He’d even taken them all to visit Ted’s grave once –

Milagro paused in midair. She’d wanted somewhere no one would think to look for her, right? “That’ll do,” she said out loud, startling a passing bird.

Chicago was a fair way from El Paso, but it gave Milagro a chance to practice flying. She soon discovered that she could go crazy fast, way faster than a plane. It was scary at first, but once she found that the ring would warn her of any planes or birds or storm clouds in her way, she relaxed and enjoyed the rush. Jaime wasn’t nearly this fast.

Still, it was a long trip. She was trying to convince herself that she wasn’t getting tired when she spotted the city, sparkling on the shore of Lake Michigan. Minutes later, she was touching down in front of Ted’s grave. Luckily, there wasn’t anyone there to see her – she guessed the middle of a Wednesday morning wasn’t a high-traffic time for cemeteries.

The grave was marked by a simple headstone: RIP Theodore Stephen Kord, and some dates beneath it. Milagro eyeballed roughly where the foot of the coffin would be, and sat cross-legged just beyond it. The idea of sitting on top of a dead body, even one she kind of felt like she knew, gave her the creeps.

Leaning back on her hands, she contemplated the grave. If her math was right, Ted had been only thirty-six when he died. That was younger than both her parents, and they weren’t old or anything, as parents went.

She sighed. “What would you think of all this?” she asked. “Everyone says you were really fun, not like my stick-in-the-mud brother. You wouldn’t’ve made a whole stink about me being a Green Lantern, I bet.” She spread her hands. “I mean, come on. I rock this outfit!”

She glanced down at the mimicked-from-Guy vest, big white belt, and moonboots. “Okay, well maybe not this outfit. Hang on.”

Standing up, she power ringed up a mirror. It reflected everything back with a distinctly green tint, but that was okay. She fiddled with the costume, turning the vest into a dress, leaving the leggings, changing the neckline, fixing the boots and gloves. After experimenting both ways, she decided to go maskless for now – there was no one here to recognize her, and she still wasn’t used to the way wearing one cast green in her peripheral vision.

She swished the skirt a little for the benefit of the tombstone. “What do you think?”

“Oh, I like it,” said a strangely familiar voice behind her. The hair on the back of her neck rose.

Slowly, she turned. There, sitting on someone’s headstone, arms folded casually, was someone she hadn’t seen in years. Someone she still had nightmares about.

“Black Beetle,” she whispered.

He stood up, and she took a cautious step back. “Aw, you remember. I’m touched.”

How could she forget? Black Beetle had shown up while they were hiking – years ago, back when Jaime was still kind of new to the heroing thing. He’d hit her…

She didn’t remember much after that. Just pain, and fear, and Black Beetle’s voice taunting Jaime with all the things he’d done. Things Jaime would do.

Things Milagro would do.

She took another step back. “I’m not afraid of you.”

He smiled. Unlike Jaime, his mask showed part of his face – just nose to lower lip, but it was there. But where it was easy to tell what Jaime was thinking, even though the mask, Black Beetle was unreadable, all gleaming black armor and lies. “I hope not,” he said. “Because if you are, that little Cracker Jack ring you’re wearing won’t do you much good.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, raising her fist to point the ring at him. “It works fine!”

She sent out a blast of pure energy. Just before the green beam hit him, he blinked out of sight.

Something hit her from behind and she flew forward, hitting the ground hard, her back alive with pain. Only the ring’s baseline protection against harm had saved her spine. Biting back a scream, she forced herself up onto her hands and looked over her shoulder. Black Beetle was standing on Ted’s grave, smirking.

“Did you forget that I can jump anywhere I want in time?” he asked. “Just one of the reasons I’ll always be one step ahead of you, Milagro.”

“Shut up!” she said, and fired another blast at him. He blinked out of the way and she rolled hard to the left. Another blast scorched the earth where she’d lain as Black Beetle appeared on the other side of it.

“You learn fast,” he said approvingly. “But not fast enough, I bet.”

She sat up and brought her ring to bear, but her willpower faltered. Any other enemy she could’ve fought; any other villain she could’ve green-beamed into the nearest jail cell with a flick of the ring.

But not him. Not the person who’d put her in the hospital when she was eight. Who’d nearly killed her. Who’d nearly made her become…she didn’t want to think about it.

The truth was: she was scared.

“What do you want?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

He shook his head. “All I want is to ensure that the future goes my way. Which means keeping you from – ”

There was a high-pitched hum from somewhere, almost too high for Milagro to hear, and static electricity crackled along her skin. Black Beetle pulled back, looking around for the source of…whatever it was that was happening.

Suddenly a huge glass sphere appeared beside them. A panel on it swung open, and a girl about Milagro’s age leaned out. “Get in, quickly!” she said, holding out a hand to Milagro.

Milagro had no idea who this girl was, where she’d come from, or what she was planning on doing with Milagro, but anything was better than staying here to be blasted into tiny bits by Black Beetle. She flung herself towards the proffered hand.

“No!” Black Beetle yelled, and blasted her again. Desperately Milagro threw up another green shield. It fizzled once Black Beetle’s blast hit it, but it was enough to keep her skin in one piece.

She scrambled into the globe. The other girl slammed the door shut. “Hold onto something!” she said, and pressed a few buttons. There was that weird hum again, and then Black Beetle – the whole cemetery, in fact – disappeared.

Milagro let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Oh God. She was alive.

“Are you all right?” the other girl asked her.

Milagro blinked and took stock of her surroundings. They were in a glass sphere wide enough for them to take several steps without bumping into each other. There was a control panel at waist height stretching across about half of it – this was where the other girl had pressed the buttons that had gotten them out of there – and two chairs. It looked seriously high tech, like a spaceship or something.

She remembered abruptly that the other girl had asked her a question. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks to you,” she said. “I’m Milagro— I mean, I’m, uh. Green Lantern.”

The girl squinted at her. She was white and taller than Milagro – but then, everyone was – with light brown hair and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Despite her high-tech surroundings, she was wearing jeans and a Gotham Goliaths t-shirt. “Aren’t you Blue Beetle’s sister?”

Milagro blinked. “Yeah, how’d you guess?”

“Jaime Reyes has a sister named Milagro, you share a physical resemblance, and you were just attacked by a known Blue Beetle rogue at the former Blue Beetle’s grave,” the other girl said matter-of-factly.

Milagro frowned, uncomfortable with having her secret identity compromised so early, and mildly annoyed by the other girl’s clinical, know-it-all tone. “Yeah, okay. Wait – how do you know my brother?”

“I’m Rani Carter,” the girl said, sitting down in one of the chairs. “I’m Booster Gold’s ward. Sort of.”

Now Milagro was downright skeptical. “I’ve met Booster, like, a million times. I’m pretty sure he would’ve mentioned if he had a daughter.”

“I’m his ward, not his daughter,” Rani said. “I mean, technically Michelle – his sister – is my legal guardian, but we all live together so it’s something of a moot point.” She nodded towards the control panel in front of her. “Besides, how would I have shown up to rescue you in a time sphere if I didn’t know Booster Gold?”

Milagro looked around at the globe again, startled anew. “Is that what this is?” Now that she was paying attention, she realized that it wasn’t just that the cemetery was gone from outside the time sphere. Nothing was out there, or at least nothing that resembled any place on Earth – just a fathomless rainbow void they were streaking through at top speed. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the rainbow.

“The timestream,” Rani replied.

“Why does it look like something a My Little Pony puked up?”

“A what?”

Milagro shook her head, suddenly realizing that there was a more pressing question here. “Wait. Are you taking me back in time? Or…forward in time?”

“Sort of,” Rani said. “I’m taking you to Vanishing Point.”

“What’s Vanishing Point?” Milagro asked.

“Home,” Rani said. “It’s at the end of time. And it’s top secret, so you can’t tell anyone. Promise!”

She looked so serious that Milagro put her hands up in self-defense. “Okay! I promise. But if it’s so secret, why are you taking me there?”

Rani shook her head. She’d looked serious since she’d arrived in the time sphere, but now she looked positively grim. “No one’s seen Black Beetle for years, but I’ve read his file. Every time he’s around he causes trouble – big trouble.” She glanced at Milagro. “And now he’s targeting Blue Beetle’s sister – who just happens to be a Green Lantern? Trust me. This is bad.”

Vanishing Point turned out to be a weird half-castle, half-laboratory-looking building perched on a giant rock floating in space. It was certainly a far cry from the Reyes’ little split-level.

“If this is at the end of time, is it safe?” Milagro asked as Rani landed the time sphere in the middle of the workroom. “Won’t time, like, run out while we’re here?”

Rani stared at her. “It’s not that kind of the end of time.”

“Ooookay,” Milagro said, and hopped out of the open time sphere door. Then she stopped and gazed around the lab. It was huge, with high-tech futuristic-looking machines everywhere, a couple of broken or half-built time spheres in the corner, and the walls lit up with glowing computer screens. Incongruously, there was a totally low-tech chalkboard given a place of honor in the center of the room, with things scrawled on it like “The lost Earth-born angel is found” and “Wendy the Werewolf Stalker will save us all.”

“Wow,” Milagro said. “You live here?”

“In the living quarters. Well, sort of,” Rani said. “I actually attend boarding school, so I live there most of the year. The Elias School?” Milagro’s face must’ve betrayed her ignorance, because Rani said, “It’s supposed to be very advanced. I suppose. I mean, the other girls aren’t really at my level. Or at least…” She paused. “Well, I don’t really have a lot in common with them. Anyway, it isn’t their fault that our science curriculum is so behind. I guess that’s the problem with your century, right?”

Milagro frowned. “My century?”

Rani was already doing something on one of the computers. “I’m from the future.”

Okay, that was pretty cool. “Like Booster?”

“Well, I’m from the 30th century and he’s from the 25th, but yes, essentially.” Rani looked over her shoulder at Milagro. “Move over to the right.”

“What?”

“Hurry up!” Rani waved an urgent hand at Milagro, who took a few baffled steps to the right. “And don’t make any noise. I want to explain to him why I brought you here before he sees you.”

“What?”

“Shhh!”

The computer screen came to life. A man’s face filled the screen – white, with brown hair and scruff on his chin. He looked vaguely familiar – and annoyed. “What is it, Rani? Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Rani said quickly. “Well…maybe? Something kind of happened.” She’d sounded older than 14 while talking to Milagro, but now she suddenly sounded younger – halting and uncertain.

“What?” the man on the screen asked. He seemed distracted, and there was a lot of background noise wherever he was that made it hard to hear him.

“Well, I was monitoring the tachyon spikes and I noticed a chronal signature that – ”

There was a loud bang and the image on the screen veered wildly. “Rip? Rip!” Rani called.

The man – Rip, Milagro guessed – stuck his head back into the frame. “Rani, can we talk about this when I get back?”

“But Rip, I think it might be imp— ” Rani started.

Someone ran past Rip holding a musket. “Come, Nathaniel! We must help General Washington!”

“Gotta go, Rani,” Rip said. “We’ll talk about this later. And don’t break anything!”

“But— ”

The screen went dark. Rani stared at it for a minute. She was facing away from Milagro, but from the slump of her shoulders, Milagro could guess at the expression on her face.

Milagro took a cautious step forward. “Was…was that really the Revolutionary War?”

Rani glanced back at her, then sat on a nearby workbench “Yeah,” she said. “Mikey – Booster, I mean – is somewhere in the late Shang Dynasty with Skeets, and Shel’s in the 42nd century. It’s all very routine.”

Milagro sat down next to her. “It sounds pretty cool,” she said.

Rani stared glumly ahead, chin in her hands. “Yeah. I mean, I guess. They don’t usually take me on missions. I’m usually not even around for this sort of thing, but school just broke for the winter holidays and I kind of thought…” She trailed off. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, you were the one who spotted the Black Beetle, so they’ll have to give you credit for that one,” Milagro said. “You did spot him, right? That’s what you were saying about the tachyons and the chrono-thingy, right?”

“Chronal signature,” Rani corrected her. “And yes. It looked familiar and there was a huge tachyon spike in Chicago, so I borrowed a time sphere to check it out.” The slight pause before she said “borrowed” made Milagro suspect Rani wasn’t supposed to be joyriding in the time sphere, but Milagro certainly wasn’t going to tell on her.

“Well, thanks again for saving my life,” Milagro said.

Now Rani looked at her, and smiled a little. “You’re welcome.” Then the smile vanished again. “I just wish Rip had listened to me about it. I mean, you’d think the leader of the Time Masters would want to know about a wanted criminal tampering with the timestream, but I guess he’s too busy.”

“What about Booster? Or his sister?” Milagro asked.

Rani shook her head. “They’d just say the same thing. ‘Leave the computers alone, Rani.’ ‘You’re too young to go on a mission, Rani.’ ‘Did you do your homework, Rani?’ Like 21st century homework is hard.” She sighed. “They treat me like such a child.”

“Tell me about it,” Milagro said. “My brother freaked out when he found out I’d gotten my ring. He tried to make my parents forbid me to be a Green Lantern.”

That was stretching things slightly, but Rani looked properly appalled. “That’s completely unfair.”

“I know!” Milagro rolled her eyes. “He thinks I’m gonna end up dead, just because Ted Kord did. Well, Ted Kord didn’t have one of these.” She waggled her ring finger.

Rani looked surprised. “Is your brother fixated on Ted Kord too?”

“Yeah, he talks about him con. Stant. Ly,” Milagro said. “Booster too?”

“Actually, no,” Rani said, looking thoughtful. “He almost never mentions him. But every so often someone else will and he’ll get super quiet, and stay like that for a few days. It’s weird, because…well, come on, I’ll show you.”

She stood up and led Milagro out of the lab and into what she’d called the living quarters. The hallway was such a normal house kind of hallway that Milagro had to look back to make sure the lab was still there. It was, of course, the time sphere still perched in the center like something out of a movie.

Milagro shook her head. This superhero lifestyle was going to take some getting used to.

Rani led Milagro about halfway down the hall and opened one of the doors. Behind it was a bedroom, neat and clean with crisp navy linens on the bed and heavy, dark furniture.

“This is Mikey’s room,” Rani said, startling Milagro. She would have expected Booster Gold’s room to have a lot more life-sized cardboard cutouts of himself. “Look at the photos on the dresser.”

Milagro walked in, feeling a little weird about being in the bedroom of a grown man she only kind of knew. There were five picture frames on the dresser, next to a bottle of what Milagro was oddly relieved to see was Booster Gold-brand cologne. One was of four people, all in regular civilian clothes: Booster, a younger but unmistakable Rani, that Rip guy Rani had talked to in the lab, and a blonde woman who looked so much like Booster that she had to be his sister. Booster was holding Rani and smiling at the camera, and there was a small gold robot-looking thing floating next to Rip’s head.

The other four were of Booster and Ted. Thanks to Jaime’s obsession, Milagro recognized Ted instantly, even though only one of them showed Ted and Booster in costume – an old newspaper clipping about the Justice League. The others showed them in civvies – dressed up at some formal event, in bathing suits on a tropical beach somewhere, wearing matching “I’m with Stupid” shirts.

“Wow, he has four pictures of Ted and only one of you guys?” Milagro asked, then realized what she’d said. “Uh…no offense.”

Rani shrugged. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t love us.” She paused. “Well, he loves me and Shel. He puts up with Rip. Anyway, none of us are dead. He doesn’t really need photos of us.”

Milagro frowned and looked more closely at the newspaper clipping. “Why is he still dead, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“It just seems like superheroes come back from the dead all the time,” Milagro said. “Jaime did it once. Superman. Superboy. Ice, which is good, because she’s super nice.” She waved her ring. “A bunch of Green Lanterns.”

Rani nodded. “Mikey died once,” she said. “He said Ted brought him back.”

Milagro snorted. “I wish Ted would come back. Maybe then Jaime would get off my case about being a Lantern.”

“Mikey tried to bring him back…once?” Rani said. “Maybe twice? He doesn’t like to talk about it, but there was something with time travel and something with…zombies?”

Milagro’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, I remember the zombie thing! Jaime told me about it. He said all the dead superheroes were coming back as zombies, and Ted came back and tried to kill Booster and Jaime, and they had to blast him with this light thing to make him really dead again.” She grinned. “I had nightmares after he told me about it and Mom grounded him for a week.”

“No wonder he doesn’t like to talk about it,” Rani said. “I think something really bad happened when he tried to take Ted out of the timestream, too. He and Rip got into a fight about solidified time once and Rip started yelling about Ted and how Mikey nearly destroyed the world. Which you’d think Rip would be used to by now, but I guess not.”

Milagro snorted. “Man, we should bring Ted back. Jaime’d have to stop complaining then. And I bet Booster would let you come on Time Bandit missions with him if you did something that big. Heck, I bet he’d buy you a stable full of ponies if you brought Ted back.”

“Time Masters, not Time Bandits,” Rani said absently. She gnawed on her thumbnail, then giggled.

“What?”

“Oh, I’m just picturing the look on Rip’s face when we pop out of the time sphere with Ted,” she said.

Milagro took a minute to picture that herself. Then she imagined Jaime’s face when she strolled into their living room with one Theodore Stephen Kord. Oh, him? You seemed really bummed that he was dead, so I went and got him for you. Oh, don’t thank me, big brother – it was easy!

“We should do it,” she said.

“What?”

“We should bring back Ted,” Milagro said. “I’m serious! We should totally do it!”

Rani shook her head. “Ohhh no. I’m not even supposed to be using the time sphere, let alone…”

“But you did, and you saved me!” Milagro said. “Plus I’ve got this.” She held the ring up. “Ain’t nothing getting by this baby.”

Rani chewed her thumbnail again. “I don’t know. Mikey tried and he couldn’t do it…”

Milagro waved that away with a careless hand. “Psh, oh no, Booster Gold couldn’t figure out how to do something, I’m so intimidated. Uh, no offense.”

“None taken.”

“Look,” Milagro said, warming to her subject. “You’re from further in the future than Booster and you grew up around this stuff, right? You’ve probably forgotten more about time travel than Booster ever knew. Plus, he didn’t have a Green Lantern ring on his side. This thing can do anything. I could split an atom with this!”

“Please don’t,” Rani said quickly.

“Well, duh, obviously not. The point is, you and I are, like, totally equipped to go on a rescue mission through the uncharted reaches of time and space. Like, maybe more than anyone else,” Milagro said. “And after we do, no one can say we aren’t grown up enough to do this on the regular. Besides, it’s for a good cause. I mean,” – she grabbed one of the photos off the dresser, the “I’m with Stupid” one – “don’t you want to meet this man? Doesn’t he deserve to live again?”

She could tell Rani was weakening. “Welllll,” Rani said, “it would make Mikey really happy. And his birthday is coming up…”

“Yes! What better birthday present than Your Dead Best Friend?”

“…and you’re right. He’d have to let me escalate my Time Master training then.” Rani took a deep breath, then nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s save Ted Kord.”

“Yes!” Milagro crowed again, pumping her fist in the air. “Okay, how?”

*

Milagro peered over Rani’s shoulder at the list she was writing. “Is that all of them?”

“It’s all the ways superheroes have come back from the dead that I know of,” Rani said. She sat back and tapped the end of her pencil against her chin. “Okay. Body repaired in a Kryptonian birthing matrix.”

“But Ted’s not Kryptonian,” Milagro pointed out.

“True. Also, I believe Superman was resurrected fairly quickly,” Rani said. “Ted’s body is probably in an advanced state of decomposition by now.”

Milagro wrinkled her nose. “Okay, nothing that involves us actually touching the body.” She shuddered. “And we’re ruling out getting him before he dies, right? He has to die first.”

“Correct,” Rani said. “That’s how Mikey tried to save Ted, but he couldn’t, thanks to ‘solidified time.’” She snickered.

“What? What’s funny?” Milagro asked.

“Nothing. It’s just that, well.” Rani smiled. “Rip wouldn’t believe me if I told him, but solidified time is an outdated theory that’s been totally discarded by the 30th century. Every six-year-old knows that.” She gestured to herself. “Obviously. It was replaced by the Gordon-Kord Paradox, which makes far more sense.”

“Wait, the what?” Milagro asked.

“The Gordon-Kord Paradox,” Rani said. “Solidified time is the idea that there are moments in time that can’t be tampered with. The Gordon-Kord Paradox explains that those moments aren’t chosen at random. You can’t tamper with any event that allows you to time travel. For example, if I give you a time sphere, you can’t go back in time to stop me from giving you a time sphere, because then you would never be able to stop me from giving you a time sphere. Understand?”

“Sort of,” Milagro said. “But why is it called the Gordon-Kord Paradox?”

“Because the theory was developed out of the research of the ancient scholars Barbara Gordon and Theodore…oh my God,” Rani said, staring. “I never thought about it before! I’m so used to the name ‘Gordon-Kord’ that I never thought that it was that Kord!”

“What does that mean, though?” Milagro asked. “That Booster couldn’t save Ted because…because that would mean that he wouldn’t be able to time travel?”

“Well, Ted Kord’s research must have led to time travel being practicable,” Rani said. “But that shouldn’t affect anything after he’d already done the research…unless he hasn’t done it yet.” She grinned.

“What?” Milagro asked. Whatever Rani had just figured out was still a mystery to her.

“We’re going to bring Ted back,” Rani said.

“Well, yeah, I know we are…”

“No,” Rani said. “We are. Because he still has to conduct his research. He has to be alive to make time travel practicable, or none of us would be here right now!”

All these paradoxes were making Milagro’s brain ache a little, but Rani’s enthusiasm was infectious. “Well, who are we to stand in the way of science?” she asked. “Let’s get to it!”

“Right!” Rani grabbed the list of resurrection methods. “Okay, it’s a no to the birthing matrix. Hmm. Possessed by a giant yellow space bug.”

“Put a ‘maybe’ next to that one,” Milagro said. Rani raised an eyebrow at her. “What? I know a guy! I could probably make it happen. What’s the next thing?”

“Brought back from the dead by the spirit of God’s vengeance.”

Milagro frowned thoughtfully, then shook her head. “My brother met him one time, but he didn’t seem like the type to do favors. What else you got?”

“Frozen solid and worshipped as an ice goddess.” Rani shook her head. “I think we’re going about this all wrong. These resurrection methods are all remarkably idiosyncratic.”

“Huh?”

“They all have to do with the person who was coming back to life,” Rani explained. “We can’t use Ice’s resurrection method for Ted, or Green Arrow’s, or Batman’s. Well, maybe Batman’s.” She looked thoughtful. “I think we should examine the grave.”

“What, back in Chicago?” Milagro asked.

“Oh, no, there’s nothing in that grave but an empty coffin,” Rani said. “He’s buried here.”

Instinctively Milagro looked at the floor, as if there’d be a freshly dug grave and a headstone beneath her that she just hadn’t noticed. “What, here here?”

“Outside,” Rani said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

She led Milagro outside the building to what passed for Vanishing Point’s backyard: a rocky expanse, stark and eerie against the starlit void beyond. Close to the house was a small stone cross.

“Mikey comes out here on Ted’s birthday,” Rani said, standing by the cross. “We mostly leave him alone those days.”

Milagro looked at the grave. It seemed small in comparison to the weight this man’s legacy had in both her and Rani’s lives. Was that how everybody ended up? Just a barely-marked grave on a lonely space rock somewhere in time?

“I wonder…” Rani said.

Milagro looked at her. Somehow she didn’t like the tone of that wondering. “What?”

“Wellll, I wonder if there’s something the body could tell us,” Rani said. “I mean, we’re hypothesizing ways to bring it back, but we don’t even know what state it’s in.”

“Gross decomposed state, if Jaime was telling the truth with that zombie story,” Milagro said. “Besides, I thought we agreed – nothing that involves touching the body.”

“I don’t mean touching it, exactly,” Rani said, not quite meeting Milagro’s eyes. “I thought you could just, you know…use your ring to sort of…feel the body.”

“Ew!”

“Not like that! Just sort of…get a reading off of it. If you’re going to start an experimental project like this, you should gather all relevant data first, right?”

Milagro made the most horrible face she could force her features into. “I guess you’re right. Nnnnnn.” She took a deep breath, then concentrated. A translucent green beam shot out of her ring and into the grave. Tell me about the body, she thought at it, hoping this would work – she’d never tried anything like this before. Tell me what’s under there.

Images came to her mind – rock and soil, faintly green in the glow from her ring. But nothing else.

“Are you…sure he’s buried here and not Chicago?” Milagro asked.

“Of course I’m sure,” Rani said. “Can’t your ring get any information?”

“Yeah, but it’s telling me is that the only thing down there is dirt,” Milagro said.

“What? That can’t be right.”

Milagro concentrated harder, but she still didn’t get a reading on a body. “Nothing. I mean, there’s kind of a space, like a body was there, but…look.” She dropped the searching beam and made a glowing green shovel instead. With a couple of quick strokes, it dug up the ground in front of the cross. All it turned up was more dirt. “See?”

Rani shook her head. “I don’t understand. Mikey wouldn’t have lied about this…and Rip and Shel never said anything different anyway.”

“Could someone have…taken the body?” Milagro asked. She shuddered a little. She didn’t know why someone would steal a dead body, but none of the potential reasons that crossed her mind were very nice.

Rani frowned. “The ground wasn’t disturbed until now, though. Besides, only a time traveler could get here, and none of the time travelers I know of besides Mikey would care about Ted.”

Milagro had a sudden and very unpleasant thought. “Except Black Beetle.”

Rani stared at her. “I’ll get the chronal signature gauge.”

She ran into the house and was back in a minute with a small white device. It looked kind of like the things they used in movies to read radiation levels crossed with an iPhone. “This won’t give us a name or anything like that, but every mode of time travel leaves a distinct energy residue, and Rip’s recorded Black Beetle’s. If we find any we can compare the two.”

She waved the chronal signature gauge over the churned-up soil. It let out a steady series of beeps until she pulled it back and checked the screen. “I’m not as familiar with these as Rip. Let’s go inside so that I can hook this up to the computer and cross-reference the signature with what we have on file.”

They headed back into the house and Rani plugged the gauge into the huge computer in the lab. The reading displayed as a spiky line over a series of points, like polygraph results, or one of those heart monitors Milagro saw sometimes on the medical dramas that her mother hated so much. Then Rani pulled up a file that was just row after row of similar readings and started scrolling through it, comparing the new one to the ones on file. Milagro tried to do the same, but it was like identifying fingerprints at a glance – they were clearly all different, but not different enough that she could easily identify a match.

“Well?” she asked, somewhat dreading the answer. “Is it him?”

Rani kept scrolling through the recorded signatures, clearly seeing something in them that Milagro couldn’t. “No, he hasn’t been here. There’s a lot of low-level time radiation, but most of it matches the kind that we all use – the Time Masters, I mean. It’s just a natural byproduct of…huh.”

She fell silent, scrolling up and down through the signatures with a thoughtful look on her face. Milagro waited as long as she could, then burst out with an impatient “What?”

“What?”

“You said ‘huh.’ ‘Huh,’ what?”

“Well, I mean…” Rani cocked her head and moved the cursor to a particularly spiky part of the reading she’d just taken. “There’s this one pattern here that doesn’t resemble anything I’ve ever seen before. But whatever it was, it was big. I bet that’s when he disappeared.”

Milagro frowned. “So Ted’s body is just…somewhere? Somewhen?” Somehow, she didn’t exactly relish the idea of hopping through the timestream looking for a half-decayed corpse.

“Maybe…” Rani said. “Or maybe…”

She got that same distracted look on her face. Milagro managed, just barely, not to shake her. “What?”

Rani blinked, clearly startled. “Well, look at our list of possible resurrection techniques,” she said, picking up the paper they’d left in front of the computer. “These are all major events requiring a huge amount of energy, right? Energy like this spike right here.” She pointed to the reading on the screen.

“So…what?” Milagro said. “You think Ted’s…alive? Then where is he?”

“Well, you said it yourself,” Rani said. “He’s somewhen. What if this energy, whatever it was, brought him back to life and shot him somewhere in the timestream? And he’s not a time traveler, so he couldn’t get himself back here on his own.”

Milagro brightened. “Well, let’s go get him, then!”

“It’s not that simple,” Rani said. “We can’t just zero in on one person out of all the people who have ever and will ever existed. I mean, we’re talking about close to eternity here. It’s not like we can time-Google him.”

“Well, there has to be a way!” Milagro said, frustrated. She concentrated on her ring. “Find Ted Kord,” she told it. A green beam lanced out, then fizzled. “Aw, come on! This thing is supposed to be able to do anything.”

“Anything you can will it to do,” Rani corrected. “You don’t have the expertise necessary to guide it through time.”

Milagro scowled at her. “Oh, and you do?”

But if Rani noticed the snide tone in Milagro’s voice, she ignored it. “Actually, I just might.”

*

Forty-five minutes later, Milagro sat in the time sphere, kicking her foot impatiently against the control panel in front of her. “Rani, if you don’t hurry up, I swear I’m gonna leave without you!” she called.

Rani came running in from the living quarters. “Sorry, I’m here! It took me a while to find this.”

Milagro stared at her. Rani was wearing a gold and white costume with a blue star on the chest, clearly designed along the same lines as Booster’s. It was a little loose and baggy on her, as if it had been made for someone much taller and, well, bustier. “What are you wearing?”

“It’s Shel’s Goldstar costume,” Rani explained. “I figure it’ll come in handy if we run into danger.”

Milagro raised an eyebrow. “Because you can…what? Wrap criminals up in all the extra material?”

Rani frowned. “It’s not that big. And no. So I can do this.” She held her hand up, palm pointing towards a nearby metal stool, and picked it up, then let it drop with a clang. “It gives me magnetic powers.”

“And your aunt won’t mind you borrowing it?” Milagro asked.

“Well, she never uses it anymore,” Rani said, but she didn’t quite meet Milagro’s eyes. Milagro thought about pressing the matter, then let it drop. It wasn’t like what she was doing was totally Reyes-Parent-Approved either.

“So you’re sure this will work?” she said instead as Rani climbed into the time sphere.

“It should,” Rani said, opening up the control panel to reveal a series of wires hooked and twisted around Milagro’s ring. “I’ve basically swapped out the time sphere’s auxiliary power source for your ring. If you tell it to find Ted Kord, the time sphere should be able to translate that command into a temporal leap.”

Milagro nodded. “I’m gonna be honest with you: I only understood about fifty percent of that sentence. But okay.”

Rani flipped some switches and the time sphere came to life, humming softly as the control panel lit up. “Ready?”

“You bet. We’ll be back here with Ted before your Uncle Rip even realizes we’re gone,” Milagro said.

Rani blinked. “Rip’s not my uncle.”

“Okay, cousin, then. Whatever.”

“No, Daniel’s my cousin. Sort of. Rip isn’t related to me. Well, to Mikey.”

Milagro raised an eyebrow. “Really? Because they look seriously alike. I would’ve sworn they were brothers.”

Rani shook her head. “No, Rip’s not from the 25th century. Or this one. Actually, he’s never really said when he’s from, but I think it’s a little bit into the future. The only way he could be related to Mikey is…” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Milagro asked.

“Nothing,” Rani said. “I either just thought of something crazy, or everything in my life suddenly makes total sense.” She shook her head again. “We’ll worry about it later. Come on, let’s go.”

“Going!” Milagro said. She reached forward and touched her forefinger to the ring. Then she shut her eyes and concentrated on the man in the pictures on Booster’s dresser; the man whose initials adorned her brother’s bulletin board at home long after he’d moved into a college dorm; the man who once occupied the grave at Vanishing Point. “Find Ted Kord.”

“I’m getting something!” Rani said. “The chronospectrometer is recalibrating towards…the future? Looks like the 23rd century…no… Wait, it’s fading out.”

Milagro cracked one eye open. “Maybe because someone keeps distracting the carburetor?”

“Well, technically you wouldn’t be the carburetor, you’d be…” Rani caught Milagro’s expression. “Right. Shutting up.”

Milagro refocused her willpower on her mental image of Ted Kord. She felt the unearthly hum of the time sphere start up and all the fine hairs on the backs of her neck and forearms stood up. The time sphere gave a lurch – not into space, but into time, which was a weird feeling.

“Okay, you can stop. I’ve got a lock on the coordinates,” Rani said.

Milagro opened her eyes and sat back in her chair. They were already zipping through the rainbow time void at a steady clip. “You sure? I thought I’d have to steer this thing all the way to…whenever.”

“I thought you might too,” Rani said, “but after a few minutes the directional coordinates settled down into a single time and place. That must be where – when – we’ll find him. The symbiosis between your brain, the ring, and the time sphere is fascinating. I wonder what would happen if we measured your brain waves while— ”

Milagro rolled her eyes. That was way too much talking about science when there was adventure afoot. “Rani. Where is he? I mean, when? And also where. Both.”

“Oh.” Rani’s face grew very serious. “He’s in Gotham,” she said, her tone heavy with meaning. “In 2460.”

It was clear that there was something important about that date, but Milagro wasn’t from the 30th century and didn’t know about World War VII or whatever. “Okay, so what – ”

Wham! Something hit the time sphere, hard. Rani yelped and Milagro went tumbling out of her chair. “What the— ”

“Milagro,” Rani said, her voice tight with fear. Milagro scrambled to her feet and looked out the front of the sphere, already dreading what she would find.

The Black Beetle was floating directly in front of them.

He smirked, then blasted them again. The sphere rocked violently. Milagro clutched the back of her chair to keep her balance, temporarily blinded by the glare of Black Beetle’s volley against the glass sphere.

“Shoot him! Shoot him!” she screamed.

“I can’t!” Rani said, sounding just as frantic. “The time sphere doesn’t have any weapons! It’s a research tool!”

“Oh, come on,” Milagro said, and thrust her fist at Black Beetle.

Nothing happened.

Of course! She wasn’t wearing her ring! She dropped to her knees and started fumbling at the wires wrapped around it.

“No!” Rani said. “He’s knocked us off course. Use the ring to find Ted again so we can get away!”

“Why can’t I hit him with a giant green baseball bat, then get away?” Milagro asked, but she pinched the top of the ring tightly between thumb and forefinger and screwed her eyes shut in concentration. Ted Kord Ted Kord TedKordTedKordTedKord…

The time sphere lurched again, and Milagro lost her concentration. “Hurry!” Rani called. “I think the glass is cracking!”

“I’m trying!” Milagro snapped, and refocused. Ted Kord. TED KORD.

“I’ve got it!” Rani said. “Just…another…”

Thump! The time sphere came to a sudden stop. Milagro opened her eyes.

She couldn’t see much from her position on the floor, but there was a blue sky above her, and what looked like the tops of trees. “Did we lose him?” she asked.

“I think so,” Rani said, looking shaky. “But I think we lost ourselves, too.”

Milagro stood up. They were on a grassy hill in what looked like a park, with paved paths winding through it and a handful of buildings. The buildings looked…well, like normal buildings, not the towering chrome skyscrapers Milagro would expect of the future. And the passersby and parked cars looked normal, if about 25 years out of date.

“When are we?” she asked, though she had a pretty good idea from some of the hairdos. “And…where?”

Rani was already checking the control panel in the time sphere. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I think Black Beetle damaged the chronometer. It’s going to take me a few minutes to get it back online.”

Milagro sighed, sinking into her chair. “Great. Why is he even going after us, anyway?”

“Well, technically he seems to be going after you,” Rani pointed out.

Milagro scowled. “Thank you, that’s very helpful.”

“Sorry.”

Rani didn’t look up, too busy fiddling with what Milagro could only assume was the chronometer. Rolling her eyes, Milagro turned to look out the sphere. Luckily there was no one nearby, though she could see people walking down distant paths in the park.

Actually, now that she was paying attention, she wasn’t so sure they were in a park. Something about the scattered red brick buildings and the carefully manicured landscaping was reminding her of something else. She frowned and tried to place the memory.

Touring colleges with Jaime! That was it. The layout was just like the schools the Reyeses had looked at a few years ago when Jaime was a senior in high school. They were on a college campus.

Rani did something that made the chronometer go blank and start beeping. “Okay, it’s resetting. Give it a minute.” She looked up at Milagro. “But seriously, can you think of any reason Black Beetle might want to kill you?”

Milagro swallowed, taken aback by the abrupt return to the conversation. Rani wasn’t one to dance around a delicate subject, apparently. “I don’t know. I mean, he attacked me once before, years ago, but that was to get to my brother. Jaime doesn’t even know where I am right now, let alone that Black Beetle’s tried to…to…” Green Lanterns were fearless. “…kill me twice.”

“Well, did he say anything to you in the cemetery before I got there? Black Beetle, I mean.”

“He said…” Milagro screwed up her face, trying to remember. “He said something about…ensuring his future, or something? I didn’t really understand.” She bit her lip. “Years ago, when I was little, he attacked me and my brother and he said…he said that I was going to become a supervillain.”

“Well, he’s a time traveler, so maybe he’s going to be one of your rogues,” Rani suggested.

“One of my rogues…” Milagro’s eyes widened. She hadn’t even thought about having her own rogues gallery. “Wow.”

“Or if you become a supervillain, maybe you’ll be rivals,” Rani added.

Milagro glared. “Thanks a lot. You know, maybe you should – ”

Suddenly students started pouring out of the buildings, and the once-nearly-deserted campus was abruptly very crowded. “Uh, can you, like, cloak the time sphere or something?” Milagro asked nervously, forgetting to be annoyed with Rani. “I think a class period just ended, and I don’t really want to explain…”

“Sure, hang on.” Rani pressed a button, and the time sphere flickered briefly. “We’re cloaked. What do you mean, class period?”

“I’m pretty sure we’re on a college campus,” Milagro said. “I…huh.”

A student was walking past them, close enough for Milagro to see his face – and it was oddly familiar. She frowned, trying to place him. He was white, kind of short and a little chubby, with messy reddish-brown curls in need of a cut. His sweater vest was the brightest and ugliest Milagro had ever seen, and he had a half-open backpack slung over his shoulder, crammed with books, crumpled papers sticking out every which way.

Milagro cocked her head. Okay, he was super nerdy…maybe he reminded her of Jaime? But even Jaime wasn’t that much of a dork…

“Uh…Milagro?” Rani said. “Your ring is glowing.”

Milagro looked down. Sure enough, her ring was glowing bright green. Hastily, she put her finger on it – and felt an abrupt mental tug towards the geeky student in the sweater vest.

“What the…Rani, I need to take this out,” she said, undoing the wires that held the ring in place.

“But – ”

“You can put it back in once we know where we are! I just need to…” Milagro got the ring free and slipped it onto her finger. It flared up and her ring hand reached out, almost of its own accord, towards the student.

“What’s it doing?” Rani asked.

“I don’t know! It’s freaking out over that guy! It’s like – ” Milagro paused as understanding hit her. “Oh my God. Rani, that’s Ted Kord.”

“What?”

But it was all starting to make sense. “When Black Beetle knocked us off course, the ring must’ve sent us to the nearest Ted Kord,” Milagro said. “The…time-nearest. The now-est. Whatever.”

Rani stared at Ted, who was heading towards one of the distant buildings. “Are you sure that’s him, though?”

“Why else would the ring be freaking out?” Milagro asked. “Besides, I can see it. He looks like a younger version of the guy in all those pictures. Doesn’t he?”

“I guess…” Rani said slowly.

Milagro opened the door of the time sphere. “Come on, let’s get a closer look.”

“What are you doing?” Rani hissed as Milagro jumped down onto the grass. “We can’t leave the time sphere!”

“Why not?” Milagro asked. “It’s cloaked, right?” Sure enough, when she looked back she couldn’t see the sphere at all, except for the open door with Rani’s upper half sticking out of it – unless she used her ring, which outlined the sphere in a faint green glow. “I just want to get a better look and come right back. It’s not like we’re going to be late getting to the future or anything.” Rani looked unconvinced, so Milagro tried another tack. “Besides, aren’t you curious? I mean, we came looking for Ted, and we found him. Maybe we’ll find out something important.”

Rani bit her lip. Milagro could tell she was wavering. “Well, we can’t just walk into a lecture hall looking like this,” she said finally.

Milagro smiled. “No problem.” She concentrated, and suddenly she was in the civvies she’d been wearing that morning, and Rani was in the clothes Milagro had first seen her in – or at least they looked like they were.

Rani stepped out of the time sphere, taking a small device with her. When she closed the door, the time sphere vanished completely. “And no one’s going to think it’s weird that two 14-year-olds are attending a college lecture?”

“I thought you were supposed to be a genius,” Milagro said, heading off in the direction that Ted had gone.

“I am, but they don’t know that. And that doesn’t explain you.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Milagro caught a glimpse of the ugly sweater vest heading into a building. “That way! Come on.”

They hurried after Ted, trying to keep him in sight while staying far back enough that he wouldn’t notice them. Milagro saw a few people give them curious glances, but for the most part they were ignored.

Ted walked into a large, auditorium-style lecture hall and sat in the very first row. He pulled a book out of his bag, sending papers flying, and scrambled to retrieve them. Milagro hid a smile as she and Rani took seats in the very back. This was Jaime’s hero?

Over the next few minutes, the room filled about halfway up with talking, laughing students. They fell silent, however, when the front door opened and the professor walked in – a tall redheaded man, handsome in a teachery kind of way, wearing a tweed jacket over a blue shirt. “Good afternoon, class. Did everyone do the reading over the weekend?”

There was a mumble of noncommittal agreement from the class. Milagro hid another smile. Apparently college wasn’t all that different from high school.

“Are there any questions about it before we begin today’s lecture?” the professor asked.

A student raised his hand. “Professor Garrett, will Upper Palaeolithic parietal art be on next week’s test, or are we done with that?”

Milagro’s jaw dropped. Professor Garrett? Professor Garrett who was Ted Kord’s archaeology professor?

She started frantically elbowing Rani, who looked just as stunned as she did. “Oh my God! That’s Dan Garrett, the first Blue Beetle!” she hissed.

Rani elbowed her back. “I know, shut up, shhh!”

Milagro stared, amazed, as Professor Garrett answered the student and began his lecture. It felt like she was watching a bit of personal history unfold in front of her, or at least her brother’s personal history – Blue Beetles One and Two, young and vital and very much alive, completely unaware of the tragic fates in store for them. She noticed that even though a lot of the students were doodling or holding whispered conversations, Ted seemed enthralled. He seemed to hero-worship Garrett as much as Jaime hero-worshipped him. Milagro wondered if he knew Garrett’s secret.

Suddenly there were screams from outside, and the sound of running footsteps in the hall. Everyone, including Professor Garrett, looked up in alarm.

A girl stuck her head in the open door. “Run!” she cried. “It’s a giant mummy! That’s…not dead!”

Milagro powered up her ring, ready to change into her costume, but Rani put a hand on her arm, stopping her. “Wait,” she whispered. “Don’t mess with history. There’s already a superhero here.” She pointed to Professor Garrett.

“Uh…class dismissed,” Professor Garrett said quickly. “I suggest you all stay here, where it’s safe. I’m going to…just…call 911.” He darted out of the room.

Of course no one else stayed in the room. Half rushed in the direction the screaming girl had come from, presumably to see the giant mummy; the other half fled the opposite way. Ted was in the half looking for the mummy. Milagro stood up, torn between following Ted and trying to find Professor Garrett, who she was sure had gone to change into the Blue Beetle.

Lightning ripped through the sky out the window, and there was a crash that sounded suspiciously like a bug-themed superhero colliding with something giant and undead. That made up Milagro’s mind for her. “Come on!” she said, grabbing Rani’s wrist and running after Ted and the other students.

They ran out of the building and skidded to a halt. Lumbering across the grass was, sure enough, a giant mummy, three stories high, with bandages trailing from its limbs. Its eyes were a dark, cavernous space from which two red lights burned. “I WILL DESTROY YOU, BLUE BEETLE!” it bellowed in a voice that echoed like an empty tomb.

Milagro instinctively looked for her brother, but of course the Blue Beetle that flew into view was Dan Garrett, sunlight gleaming off his chain mail armor. “You’re not going to hurt anyone, Kha-ef-re!” he declared, flying head-on at the mummy and unleashing bolts of lightning from both hands.

“Wow,” someone said next to Milagro. She glanced over and stifled a surprised yelp. They were standing right next to Ted, who was gazing up at the fight with wide eyes, too enraptured to notice the two definitely-not-college-age girls beside him.

The giant mummy shook off Blue Beetle’s lightning as if it was a minor annoyance. “ARE THESE PITIFUL MORTALS UNDER YOUR PROTECTION, BLUE BEETLE? I WILL CRUSH THEM!” he said, and turned towards the crowd of students.

Ted abruptly turned and bolted for a building – not the one they had just come from, but the next-closest. “Wow,” Milagro muttered. “I guess courage was an acquired trait for him.”

She went for her ring, but again, Rani placed a restraining hand on her arm. “You can’t!” Rani hissed. “We’re not supposed to be in this time period! We could damage history irrevocably!”

“Yeah, well that thing could damage us irrevo—that thing you said!” Milagro hissed back.

But Blue Beetle swooped in, slamming into the giant mummy’s chest with a perfect football tackle. It didn’t down the giant mummy, but it did make him stagger back, arms flailing for balance. One struck Garrett and sent him flying. He hit the ground hard, plowing up a furrow of earth.

The giant mummy laughed, a sound that made the hair stand up on Milagro’s arms, and took a few giant steps until he was standing over Garrett’s prone body. “YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME, BLUE BEETLE. NOW GIVE ME THE SCARAB!”

“This scarab’s magic may have reanimated you, but I won’t let it be used for greater evil!” Garrett said, struggling to rise. He shot another bolt of lightning at the mummy, but it didn’t even faze the monster.

“THEN I WILL KILL YOU AND TAKE IT ANYWAY,” the mummy said, and reached down.

Milagro took a step forward, throwing off Rani’s grip. “I’m stopping this,” she said. “I can’t just let – ”

“Blue Beetle!” someone yelled.

Milagro turned to see Ted running towards Blue Beetle and the mummy. He had a large spool of wire in his hands, a good foot in diameter and twice as long. He ran heedlessly into the sweep of the mummy’s reach. “Catch!” he yelled, and threw the wire towards Blue Beetle.

It didn’t quite reach, but Blue Beetle rolled and grabbed it, holding it in front of him like a weapon.

The mummy laughed. “THAT PUNY OBJECT WILL NOT SAVE YOU, BLUE BEETLE.”

Dan seemed to agree, because he shot Ted a confused look. Ted backed up, but he was smiling. “I guess mummies don’t know about electromagnets, huh?”

Dan visibly startled, then lunged for the mummy’s ankle. He clung to the ankle, stomped a foot down on the spool, and shot a bolt of lightning down at the wire.

There was a blue flash, and pressure that made Milagro’s back teeth ache. Then the mummy collapsed.

Blue Beetle staggered back, away from the wire, and shook his head as if shaking off the force of what he’d just done. “Is he…dead? Again?” Ted asked.

“I don’t think so,” Blue Beetle said, “but he’ll be out long enough for me to get him somewhere where he’ll never menace innocent civilians again.”

The students burst into cheers. Ted stood there beaming as his fellow students congratulated him. Blue Beetle walked over and shook his hand, and Milagro thought Ted might faint with excitement.

In the midst of it all, Rani tugged on her sleeve. “Come on,” she said. “We need to go.”

Milagro let herself be pulled away from the crowd and back up the hill towards the time sphere. She thought she saw Ted give them a sharp look as they walked away, but she was probably just imagining it.

“Why do we have to leave?” she asked when they were out of earshot. “This is fun!”

“Until someone starts asking questions,” Rani said. “We’ve pushed our luck long enough. Besides, the time sphere should be back online now. We should get going before Black Beetle is able to track us down.”

That sobered Milagro quickly enough. “Okay, fine. Let’s go.”

Rani uncloaked the time sphere long enough for them to find the door and get in, and wired Milagro’s ring back into the system. “I’ll get us back to our time before we try honing in on Ted again, otherwise it’ll just keep us here,” Rani said. The world shimmered around them as she sent them back into the timestream.

“That. Was. So. Cool!” Milagro said as she sat back in her chair. “Wait’ll I tell Jaime!” Then she frowned, remembering that she was still mad at her brother.

“…Okay, yes, it was,” Rani admitted. “I wonder what animated the mummy and caused that extreme growth? Professor Garrett said magic, but that’s obviously nonsense.”

“Oh, magic is real,” Milagro assured her. “My brother’s girlfriend Traci? Well, they’re kind of on-again, off-again, but the point is, she’s magic. Like, actual magic, with conjuring and pentagrams and ley lines and stuff.” She paused. “Also she’s way too good for him, but that’s beside the point.”

“Well, yes, the existence of Homo magi has been proven, so to speak,” Rani said with a disdainful little sniff. “But that doesn’t explain a giant mummy, even if whoever he was was a Homo magus when he was alive.”

“Professor Garrett said the scarab’s magic brought the mummy to life,” Milagro pointed out.

“But the scarab isn’t magic,” Rani argued.

“I know, but Dan Garrett thought it was. Everyone thought it was until the Reach showed up and tried to get my brother to help them take over the world,” Milagro said. “Anyway, Scarab’s brought Jaime back from the dead before. Maybe being buried underground with it for like a billion years brought the mummy halfway back?”

“The dynastic Egyptian pharaohs didn’t live a billion years ago,” Rani said. Milagro gave her a look. “Right. Hyperbole. Anyway, I suppose the scarab could’ve emitted radiation that increased the mummy’s size and imbued it with the appearance of life.”

“Yeah, Scarab’s all about the imbuing,” Milagro said. “And maybe that even helped Professor Garrett take the mummy down, since it was kind of dependent on Scarab to live…or half-live, or whatever.”

Rani made a face. “That seems awfully speculative, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” she said. “Okay. Ready to find Ted again?”

Milagro nodded, and once again used the ring to zero in on their target. “Now, we’ll have to be careful,” Rani said once their destination was locked into place. “Time travel is highly illegal in this era. If we get caught…well, let’s just say that Mikey was nearly executed once.”

“Yeah, let’s not get executed,” Milagro agreed.

Rani landed them in an alley, and cloaked them the minute they hit the ground. Milagro gazed out of the time sphere in wonder. The buildings were twice as high as the ones she knew, all glass and chrome and rounded edges. The cars zoomed along several feet off the ground, and the people walking by were dressed in outlandish, alien fashions. Some had shiny little robots bobbing after them, like the one that sometimes followed Booster around.

Yeah. They were definitely in the future.

Rani unhooked Milagro’s ring and handed it to her. “Here you go. I’ve pulled up some examples of contemporary teen fashion on the screens. Can you make our clothes look like that?” She pointed to the time sphere’s monitors.

“I can, but I won’t like it,” Milagro said. She concentrated and their clothing changed. “There. Ugh. We look like a Nascar pit crew redesigned their jumpsuits after watching every episode of The Jetsons. While drunk.”

“These are school uniforms, actually,” Rani said.

Milagro looked down at the shiny fabric and garish colors and shook her head. “I never thought I’d long for a kilt. Oh, well. When in Future Rome, do what the Future Romans do, right?”

“This is Gotham.”

“Forget it.”

Rani shut the time sphere, and they headed out of the alley. Despite the general glossy futurism of the city around them, Milagro could tell that the neighborhood they were in wasn’t the greatest. It was grungy down on the street level, with actual litter, something Milagro never would’ve expected to see in the future. The cars were dingy and some had visible mechanical problems. One that passed by even made a noise that reminded Milagro of Paco’s old convertible, which gave her a sudden and ridiculous pang of homesickness.

“Are you zeroing in on Ted?” Rani asked, looking around as if she expected armed future cops to leap out at them at any minute, ray guns blasting away. “You can’t go sightseeing in this era like you did the last time. We have to move quickly.”

“Yes, I’m looking for him,” Milagro said in an annoyed voice, even though she hadn’t been. She concentrated. “Okay, the ring says…that way.”

She pointed, and they headed off in that direction. Rani walked so fast that Milagro, with her shorter legs, had to trot to keep up with her.

“Hey! Speed Force McGee!” Milagro said, grabbing Rani’s sleeve. “Can you dial it back a little?”

Rani slowed her pace by a fraction. “I just want to get this done,” she said, glancing over her shoulder and shying visibly away from a passing car.

“Dude, the cops are only going to notice us if you keep acting all weird,” Milagro said.

“Huh? Oh, right, the cops,” Rani said. “Well, I’d still be happier if we were inside.”

Milagro frowned. “Is there something besides the police you’re worried about?”

“No!” Rani said a little too quickly. “Come on, let’s just – oof!”

She collided with a man coming around the corner. She stumbled back, and would have fallen if the man hadn’t reached out and grabbed her arms, steadying her.

“Whoops! Sorry, kiddo,” he said, letting go. “You okay?”

Milagro squinted at the man, trying to place why he looked so familiar. He was younger than she’d thought at first, maybe eighteen or nineteen, but tall and broad-shouldered. He was also crazy handsome, despite his tremendously stupid hairstyle – all curled into one big sideways bang in the front. Still, he was blond, blue-eyed, dimpled, and showing approximately nine million teeth as he smiled at Rani, and that more than made up for the weird 80s-esque ‘do.

Those perfect, gleaming white teeth made Milagro think of toothpaste, and then toothpaste commercials, and then one particular toothpaste commercial. And then she realized how she knew him.

“Uh…kid?” Booster asked, his smile now tempered with concern.

Rani stared at him, lips moving soundlessly before she managed to stammer, “Sorry…you’re…uh…”

The line between Booster’s brows vanished. “Oh, you must be a fan! You coming to the game tomorrow?”

Rani shook her head.

“Well, root for me anyway, okay? Here, hang on.” Booster pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of his jacket pocket and scrawled something on the paper. “There ya go. Go Gotham!”

“Go Gotham!” Rani echoed weakly, taking the paper. Booster gave her one last toothpaste-commercial grin, then walked off.

Milagro hauled Rani around the corner. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Rani said. She looked more herself now that Booster was out of sight. “Yes. I just panicked for a minute. I thought for sure he’d recognize me.”

“How could he recognize you?” Milagro asked. “He hasn’t met you yet.”

“I know that!” Rani said, a little snappishly. “It’s just weird, okay? You try going back in time and meeting your fa—your guardian when he was practically your age.”

“Good thing he didn’t try to date you, or he would’ve erased you from existence,” Milagro said.

“What? How?”

“You’ve never seen—never mind,” Milagro said. “Are you okay to go look for Ted?”

“Yes, let’s go,” Rani said, setting off. “I was serious about the science police before. I think it’s best if we get out of this time period – with Ted – as quickly as possible.”

They followed the ring’s directions through the weird futuristic streets, at which Milagro tried not to gawk too much. After only a few blocks, the ring led them to a gleaming chrome skyscraper and tugged straight up.

They gazed up at it. “Do you think he’s in there?” Milagro asked.

“Definitely,” Rani said. “Look at the sign.”

Milagro shielded her eyes and squinted up at the sign. “Khepri Industries? I don’t get it.”

“Khepri was the ancient Egyptian god of the rising sun, sometimes seen as an aspect of Ra,” Rani said. “He was generally depicted as a dung beetle, or a human man with a dung beetle for a head.”

“Gross,” Milagro said. “So?”

“Dung beetles and scarabs are the same thing,” Rani said. “Well, technically the ancient Egyptian scarab was inspired by the Scarabaeus sacer, a specific type of dung beetle, so while all scarabs are dung beetles, not all dung beetles are scarabs…”

“Okay, first of all, you know way too much about dung beetles,” Milagro said. “And second, you think Ted…what? Built this building? And then named it after some kind of poop bug?”

Rani shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

They walked into the building. Milagro expected to encounter a receptionist, but instead there was a set of waist-high barricades, almost like saloon doors, with an elevator bank beyond them. As they watched, a woman in what looked like futuristic business attire came out of one of the elevators. She approached one of the barricades, which zhwooped open like the automatic doors at the mall, and walked out of the building without a second glance at Rani and Milagro.

Milagro glanced at Rani, who shrugged. They approached the barricades, but nothing opened for either of them. Instead, a tinny, robotic voice said: “Please present employee card.”

Rani shrugged again. Milagro leaned forward. “Uh…we’re here to see the head of Khepri Industries?”

“Do you have an appointment?” the robot voice asked.

“…Yyyyes,” Milagro said, crossing her fingers.

“Name?”

“Uh,” Milagro said. “Um. Susie…McFuture…son…worth.”

“What?” Rani hissed.

“Well, you come up with something!” Milagro hissed back.

“I have no record of that name in Mr. Samsa’s schedule,” the robot voice said. “Please make an appointment with Mr. Samsa’s office three months in advance. Thank you.”

Milagro and Rani drew back. “What are we going to do?” Milagro asked. “Even if we hop the barricade, we can’t go poking around this whole building looking for Ted.”

“We don’t have to,” Rani said. “He’s Mr. Samsa.”

“How do you know?”

“Gregor Samsa is the main character in the 1915 novel Die Verwandlung, or The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. In the book, Samsa transforms into a monstrous creature of some sort, usually rendered in English as a cockroach or beetle,” Rani explained.

Milagro shook her head. “Okay, either you or Ted knows way too much about bugs. First dung-beetle-head, and now this.” She glanced back towards the elevators. “Well, Robodoor won’t let us through without an appointment, so I guess we’re hopping the fence.”

“Wait!” Rani said. “Maybe we should – ”

But Milagro was already moving. She ran for the barricade, braced her hands on top, and sprang over it. “Come on!”

Suddenly the hallway was filled with flashing red lights. “ALERT. ALERT. SECURITY BREACH,” the robot voice announced.

“I don’t think that was a very good idea!” Rani said over the noise of the robot voice, which was repeating the alert at top volume over and over again. “Now they’ll send security after us!”

“Well, then, you’d better hurry up!” Milagro said.

Grumbling, Rani ran for the barrier, then flew over it. Milagro stared. “How…?”

“Goldstar suit. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work,” Rani said. “Come on!”

Milagro hit the button for the elevator. “SECURITY BREACH. NO ACCESS,” another robot voice boomed.

“Oh, great,” Milagro said. “Ring, find us some stairs!” The ring tugged them towards a door, which turned out to be locked. Milagro used the ring to wrench it open, then pulled Rani in after her.

They started running up the stairs. “I don’t…think Ted is…going to be very…happy with us…after you broke…his lobby!” Rani puffed.

“Well…maybe he should…be more open to…drop-in appointments!” Milagro retorted.

“HALT!”

Two little flying robots came zooming down the stairwell. “Please provide your security access code or we will fire to stun,” one of them said.

“Here’s my access code, you flying toasters,” Milagro said, ringing up a giant green mallet.

“No!” Rani said, grabbing her arm. “They’re like Skeets!”

“They’re gonna shoot us, Rani!” Milagro said.

“They’re just doing their job!” Rani protested. “Here, hang on.” She held her hands up in front of her. The air shimmered for a minute, and then both robots dropped to the stairs with a clatter.

“Oh, so I can’t break them but it’s okay if you do?” Milagro asked.

“I didn’t break them, I just sent a magnetic pulse that took them offline for a few minutes,” Rani said. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t…they look just like Skeets.”

“Booster’s little robot sidekick thing?” Milagro asked, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s family,” Rani insisted. “Now come on, before they wake up or the building sends any more.”

Milagro concentrated. “Okay, the ring says Ted’s…yikes. He must be way at the top of the building.” She looked dolefully at the many, many flights of stairs above them. “This is gonna take forever.”

Rani stared at her. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” She lifted off the ground.

“Oh, right.” Milagro lit up the ring and flew ahead of Rani. “Give me a break, I’m new at this. Besides, I thought you wanted to be low-key.”

“Yes, well, hopping the turnstile and breaking the door kind of put an end to that.”

“You’re never gonna let me hear the end of that, are you?”

They flew straight up the center of the stairwell. About halfway up, another, larger fleet of security droids showed up to confront them, but Rani knocked them out like she had the first two, and Milagro used the ring to place them gently on the stairs rather than let them fall down the center. Finally the ring tugged Milagro towards a door – the one that led to the very top floor.

“Here we go,” Milagro said, glancing at Rani. “Do you think he knows something’s up?”

“ALERT. ALERT. SECURITY BREACH,” the robot voice announced for the umpteenth time.

Rani gave Milagro a look. “I think he might have an inkling.”

There was nothing for it, though. Milagro tried the door, which was locked, then used her ring to yank it open.

They emerged onto a hallway that, aside from the flashing red alarm lights, seemed undisturbed. The ring led Milagro to a door at the end. With the red lights flashing like that, she had to lean in close to read the nameplate: Stephen Samsa, CEO.

She looked at Rani, then tried the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. Swallowing, she opened it and stepped in, Rani behind her.

“All right, that’s far enough,” said the man standing in the center of the office. And leveled a gun at them.

“Don’t shoot!” Milagro said quickly. She knew she could take out a gun, and Rani probably could too, with her magnetic powers – but if this was Ted, she didn’t want to fight him.

The man paused, lowering the gun slightly. “Wait – you guys are just kids.”

Milagro bristled a little at that. She opened her mouth, but Rani spoke first. “And you’re Ted Kord.”

The man lowered the gun all the way, blinking in surprise. “Wh—how did you—”

“We’re from the 21st century,” Rani said. “We’ve come to take you home.”

Ted stared, then walked over to his desk. Now that Milagro had a minute to take in her surroundings, she could see that the desk’s entire surface was a touchscreen, which was very cool.

Ted keyed in a password, and the flashing lights and robot voice stopped. Milagro breathed a sigh of relief.

Then Ted keyed in something else, holding up a hand towards the girls in the universal “be quiet” sign. “Sorry about that, folks,” he said. Milagro could hear his voice echoing from the speakers out in the halls. “False alarm. Go about your business.” He pressed another button, then looked up at the girls. “Explain.”

Milagro squinted at him. “You are Ted Kord, right?” she asked. He was dressed in futuristic clothes, and he had a close-trimmed, reddish-brown beard to match his graying hair, but beneath that, he did look like the man in Booster’s pictures – if a little older.

“Yes,” he said, putting the gun down on the desk. “My God. I’m sorry, it’s just…it’s been years since anyone called me that.” He smiled a little crookedly. “It’s nice to feel like myself for a minute. Who are you?”

Milagro glanced at Rani, who nodded. Then Milagro dropped the illusion of civvies, leaving them in their costumes.

“A Green Lantern?” Ted said. “And you’re…” His eyes widened as he took in Rani’s costume. “Isn’t that…didn’t Booster’s sister…?”

“This is Milagro Reyes,” Rani said. “Her older brother Jaime is your successor, the third Blue Beetle. And my name is Rani Carter.”

“Carter,” Ted said sharply. “You’re…Booster’s daughter?”

Rani paused, then nodded. Ted sat down heavily.

“A daughter,” he said slowly. “He has a daughter. And I…” He looked back up at Milagro. “Your brother is the Blue Beetle?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, her stomach twisting. When she’d fantasized about bringing Ted back and throwing it in Jaime’s face, she’d never thought about what it would mean to Ted, learning how his world had gone on without him. “But he – I mean, you’re not forgotten or anything like that. He thinks you’re just the greatest.”

Ted gave her a small smile. “Well, that’s good to know, at least.” He looked back at Rani. “How’s…how’s Booster?”

“He’s…good?” Rani said. She looked as uncomfortable as Milagro felt. “He’s a Time Master now. He works with Rip…do you know Rip Hunter?”

“By name,” Ted said. “We’ve never met.”

“Oh. Well, anyway, Rip and Mikey – Booster – and Shel all work to protect the timestream. I’m still in training.” She looked down at the floor. “Um…he misses you. I know he still misses you.”

“How long has it been?” Ted asked.

Rani didn’t look like she could bring herself to say it, so Milagro did. “Eight years.”

Ted made a soft noise, as if something hurt. Milagro looked away. “…Why didn’t he come get me himself?”

“He doesn’t know you’re alive,” Rani said. “Here, I mean. We, uh…we may have decided to find you on our own.” She cocked her head. “Why are you here?”

“I don’t know,” Ted said. “I remember Max pointing a gun at me, and then…nothing. I mean, I have this vague memory of…attacking Booster? But I don’t know if that really happened. And then this voice said my name, and there was this white glow, and I was floating in space wearing all white…but then it vanished, and I was falling, and I landed here. I mean, now. I mean, six years ago, but in the 25th century. I’ve been here ever since.”

“Of course!” Rani said. “It all makes sense!”

“It does?” Milagro asked.

“Yes!” Rani started pacing, working it out. “You did attack Mikey, when you were resurrected as a Black Lantern. And then…you must have been resurrected properly, I mean not a zombie, as a White Lantern, when Max Lord and all the others came back. But because your body was buried at Vanishing Point, the temporal field around it prevented the ring from bonding with you properly, and you were bounced to a random era. I should have known when we didn’t find your corpse that that was what had happened. It’s so obvious!”

Ted looked at Milagro. “Did any of that make any sense to you?”

“Nope.”

“It doesn’t matter. Rip will understand,” Rani said. “So you’ve just been stranded here for six years?”

Ted nodded. “It was pretty touch-and-go at first. I mean, once I realized when I was I knew not to say anything about being from the past. Booster’s told me what they’re like about time travel in this era. And even without mentioning any of that they still thought I was crazy – this raggedy stranger with no ID, no family, no understanding of this era’s basic technology and culture. Anyway, once I figured it out I did okay. Built this place from the ground up.” He shook his head. “I guess I’ll have to build Kord Industries up again after I go back with you.”

“So you’ll come with us?” Milagro asked.

“Are you kidding?” Ted said. “Do you know what it’s been like for me? I haven’t seen the people I love in six years. I haven’t had a proper meal in six years! Did you know cows are extinct in this century? I would seriously kill for a proper steak. And the music is terrible.” He stood up. “I’ve spent the past six years working on my own time machine, trying to get home. But now that you guys are here, I can skip all that.”

He picked up the gun he’d been holding before. “What’s that for?” Milagro asked.

“Just in case,” Ted said, stashing it inside his jacket. “It wouldn’t have really hurt you guys, just flashed a temporarily blinding light at you. It’s based on my old B.B. Gun.” He headed for the door.

“Do you need to pick anything up before we go?” Rani asked. “Leave a note for someone?”

Ted shook his head. “I’ve left an encoded file on my computer that explains…well, not everything, but enough to cover my disappearance and arrange for my succession at the company. Other than that…” He shrugged. “I’ve just been killing time. I want to go home.”

“Well, we’ve got the time sphere stashed in a nearby alley, so…” Milagro gestured towards the door. “Shall we?”

They left the office and got into the elevator. “Speaking of time spheres, why did you have to invent your own time travel?” Rani asked. “They must be capable of it in this era, or Mikey couldn’t have traveled back to the 20th century.”

Ted shook his head. “Not really. That’s part of why it’s so feared – the government has only a vague understanding of it. They can’t fine-tune it. There’s the one time sphere in the Space Museum, but I needed to leave that there for Booster.” His expression turned grim. “He’ll be needing it in just a couple of years.”

“Wait, why is that bad?” Milagro asked as they emerged onto the street.

Ted glanced at Rani. “It’s okay,” she said. “I know about it.”

Ted nodded, then turned back to Milagro. “Things go…badly for Booster in a couple years. He’s going to steal the time sphere and come back to our time to start over. I…it’s been hard, watching. I’ve kept an eye on his career, but I can’t be in his life. I mean, he was only thirteen when I got here, but still…” He sighed. “It’s bad enough that I can’t ever let him see me, in case he recognizes me…later. That’s why I changed my name, and grew this.” He pointed to the beard. “In case we bump into each other. But I can’t…I mean, I know he’s going to make mistakes, and I can’t stop him. It’s hard.”

Milagro looked at Rani. “You know what? I don’t think I like time travel.”

“It’s not easy,” Rani agreed. “Mikey always says it’s not.”

Ted forced a smile. “But hey, he didn’t do so bad, right? I mean, he’s married, he’s got you…”

“What?” Rani asked, looking startled. “Oh, no, Mikey’s…I’m adopted, sort of. He’s not married. He’s never even really dated much.”

“Oh!” Ted said. “Well, that’s good. I mean, not good, but, uh. You know. I’ve missed so much, I’d hate to have missed out on being best man.” He looked away, cheeks a little flushed. “Hey, is the time sphere down that way?”

“It’s in that alley right there,” Milagro said, pointing. “We’d better hurry before someone stumbles over it.”

They picked up the pace. A minute later they were turning into the alley where they’d left the time sphere.

“Now!” someone yelled. There was a zapping noise, and Rani crumpled to the ground beside Milagro.

“What the – ?” she said, lighting up her ring. “Rani?”

Rani didn’t move. Milagro looked wildly around her. There were at least six uniformed men and women in the alley, moving to flank her and Ted. “It’s the science police!” Ted said. “Use the ring, they – ”

ZZAP! Ted collapsed on Milagro’s other side.

“All right, that’s it!” Milagro said, and ringed up a huge green catapult.

“A Green Lantern?” one of the officers said.

“It doesn’t matter! Stun her before she can use the ring!” another one shouted.

Milagro turned and wrapped him up in green ropes, making him drop his weapon, but doing so left her vulnerable to the cops behind her.

“Now!” one of them yelled. Something lit up Milagro’s brain, and then all was darkness.

*

Everything hurt.

Milagro groaned and opened her eyes. Then she frowned. Her bedroom ceiling looked strange, like it was made of metal or something. And why was her bed so hard?

“Oh thank God, you’re awake,” a man’s voice said. “We were getting worried.”

That wasn’t her father or Jaime. Milagro turned her head – and saw Ted Kord and Rani leaning over her, concerned looks on her faces. Oh. Right.

She sat up, wincing as she did. “What happened?”

“The science police stunned us,” Ted said. “I assume on charges of time travel. They’re probably filling out the paperwork to properly charge us now. Well, they don’t use paper in this century, but you know what I mean.”

“We just woke up a little before you did,” Rani added. “I don’t know how long we’ve been out. Or what they’ve done with the time sphere.” She looked pensive.

Milagro stood up and pushed her hair out of her face. “Well, good thing you’ve got a Green Lantern with you, huh?” She concentrated.

Nothing happened.

Dread coalesced in her stomach. Milagro looked down at her hand to find it bare. They’d taken her ring.

“Yeah,” Ted said. “My B.B. Gun’s gone, too.”

“What about your suit, Rani?” Milagro asked. Her heart was racing. She’d only had her ring for two days – that was, if her internal clock hadn’t been thrown all out of whack by all the time travel – but she missed it like a physical ache.

“It seems fine,” Rani said. “I don’t think they had time to tamper with it. Maybe they didn’t even know there was anything to tamper with. But I also don’t think I can fight our way out of a jail cell alone. I’m a scientist, not a pugilist.”

“A what?” Milagro asked.

“A fighter.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say that?” Milagro demanded. “Can’t you talk like a normal person?”

Rani pulled back as if stung. “What?”

“I mean, it’s bad enough that everything you say sounds like you’re vomiting up an encyclopedia, but now we’re in jail and you’re too busy showing off your vocabulary to break us out!” Milagro snapped. Her head was throbbing. Everything was throbbing. She’d never felt as helpless before getting her ring as she felt now, and she was pretty sure it was all Rani’s fault.

Rani’s surprise was visibly turning to anger. “Now hold on a minute,” she said. “This whole thing was your idea! And you’re the one who set off the alarm back at Khepri Industries! Maybe if we’d gotten Ted more subtly, the science police wouldn’t have caught us!”

Ted looked a little terrified. “Uh. Girls?”

“And maybe we would’ve rotted in that lobby instead of in jail!” Milagro retorted. “You can’t always just sit around waiting for Ted to come to us, or waiting for a way out of here, or waiting for Booster to remember that you exist. You have to make stuff happen.”

Rani went red. “He knows I exist!” she insisted. “And have you noticed that when you ‘make stuff happen,’ it’s always bad stuff? You left El Paso, and Black Beetle attacked you. You decided we should time travel, and Black Beetle attacked both of us. And now you got us here!” She glared at Milagro. “Maybe your brother was right about you being a crummy superhero.”

Milagro’s fists clenched. “Maybe you should shut up before I – ”

“With what ring?” Rani asked coolly.

“Okay, that’s enough!” Ted said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere, and you’re both being really mean. God, no wonder I hated high school,” he muttered. “Anyway, we’re stuck here, and I wouldn’t let a fourteen-year-old girl risk her life breaking me out of jail even if you did feel up to it, Rani, so let’s just sit tight and figure out a plan instead of saying horrible things to each other. Deal?”

Milagro wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. Guilt was starting to set in. Being a superhero was turning out to be harder than she’d anticipated. “Deal. Sorry, Rani.”

“Me too,” Rani said softly, looking at the floor.

“Now, explain a little more,” Ted said. “Booster doesn’t know you’re here? And the, uh, the Blue Beetle?”

“My brother,” Milagro said. “Jaime.” She glanced at Rani, and then told Ted everything that had happened since yesterday – had it just been yesterday? – when she’d gotten the ring. She told him about the fight with Jaime, and the mugging, and going to his grave, and Rani showing up to rescue her from Black Beetle. Rani took over at that point, describing how they’d discovered that Ted’s grave was empty and journeyed to the future. She delicately skipped over their little side trip to Ted’s college years, which was probably for the best.

“So you don’t know who this Black Beetle guy is or why he attacked you?” Ted asked.

Milagro shook her head. “We don’t even know if he has a scarab like Jaime’s.”

“Wait. Your brother has the scarab?” Ted asked.

Milagro nodded. “Yeah. It’s attached to his spine and it gives him, like, this suit of armor, and wings and weapons and things. Oh, and it’s not magic. It’s from outer space. These aliens called the Reach sent it as part of a plan to take over the world.”

Ted stared. “Holy crap.”

So then of course Milagro had to tell him all about how Jaime had found Scarab and become the Blue Beetle and disappeared for a year and then came back and saved them all from the Reach. And Rani told them about how she’d been on vacation with her foster parents in the 30th century when they’d found themselves in the middle of a war zone, and how everyone had been killed, but Booster had saved her and taken her home with him. Milagro hadn’t known about that, and it made her feel even more guilty for saying that Booster didn’t know Rani existed. If someone had said that about one of Milagro’s parents, she would’ve punched them right in the teeth.

Ted sighed. “Well, thanks for the thought, anyway. It sounds like you two got further in rescuing me than anyone else, even if the motive was…well.”

Milagro scowled. She didn’t like Ted’s tone. “Even if the motive was what?”

Ted held up his hands. “Look, what I don’t know about kids could fill a book, and I’m hardly the person to question anyone’s life decisions, but it sounds like you guys were doing this less to save me and more to prove something about yourselves. And…well, there’s nothing less mature than making a big stink about how mature you are. Believe me, I know from experience.” He gave Rani a sad smile. “When you see Booster, tell him I said that.”

Rani frowned. “Wait. Why can’t you tell him?”

“Because I’m going to tell the science police that it’s my time machine and that I led you astray, of course,” Ted said. “Hopefully they’ll give you your ring back, Milagro, and then the two of you can find the time sphere and go home.”

Milagro sat up straight, appalled. “But they’ll execute you!”

“Maybe not,” Ted said with an unconvincing smile. “Anyway, if the last thing I can do for Booster and my successor is to send their loved ones back to them alive, well…”

“Absolutely not!” Milagro said, getting to her feet. “Now listen here, mister. I don’t care what you think of my ‘motive’ or how mature I am or whatever, but I came five hundred years into the future to save your butt, and I’m saving it whether you like it or not!”

“That’s right,” Rani said, scrambling to stand up too. “What would Mikey say if I told him I went to rescue you and got you killed instead?”

“I won’t let you two get hurt because of me,” Ted insisted.

“Well, too bad for you you’re not the boss of us,” Milagro retorted. “Anyway, you’re supposed to be a big genius. Why not think of an escape plan instead of a suicide one?”

“Good idea,” said a voice behind them. “Unfortunately for you, they’re one and the same.”

Milagro whirled around, though she already knew who it was. Sure enough, Black Beetle was standing in the middle of their cell, smirking at them.

“Black Beetle?” Ted asked.

“The one and only,” Black Beetle replied.

“You’d better get out of here,” Milagro said, backing up closer to Ted and Rani and struggling to keep her voice from shaking. “Time travel’s illegal. You don’t want to get locked up too.”

“Oh, I know it is,” Black Beetle said. “Who do you think gave the science police the anonymous tip that helped them catch you?”

“What? Why?” Rani asked. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill us yourself?”

“Stop helping, Rani,” Milagro snapped.

“Oh, I don’t want to kill you,” Black Beetle said, looking at Milagro. “Take you out of commission for a while, sure. But killing you wouldn’t work out very well for me.” He looked at Ted. “You, on the other hand…”

“I’ve been dead before. It’s not that scary,” Ted said. “Girls, get behind me.”

Milagro didn’t move. “Why don’t you want to kill me?” she asked. “Because my brother will kick your butt if you do?”

Black Beetle laughed. “Ha! Like that’s possible. No. Oh, no, that’s not what concerns me. It’s just…without you, there is no me.”

“What are you talking about?” Milagro said. “I know you’re not my brother from the future. Don’t try to pull that one again.”

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Black Beetle asked. “I’m not your brother. I’m you.”

Milagro paused. “Um, you’re a boy.”

Black Beetle made an impatient noise. “God, I’d forgotten how stupid I was at that age. Don’t believe me? Fine.”

And he left the mask drop.

Milagro stared. It was a woman’s face behind the mask – a woman in her late twenties, Latina, with an ugly scar running across one cheekbone and the bridge of her nose, and dead, flat eyes with black irises and almost no white around them. Despite that, she did look familiar, like a younger, nastier version of Milagro’s mom. Or…

“But…your body,” Milagro argued, pointing to a figure that was much bigger and dude-er than Milagro would ever be. “And your voice…?”

Black Beetle rolled his – her – eyes. “You’ve seen the scarab make clothing out of dead skin cells and go undetected by the most sensitive instruments in the world. You think it can’t bulk me up or change my voice?” With the mask gone, her voice was female, too – and, like her face, horrifyingly familiar.

“But why…?”

“People don’t take cute little girls too seriously,” Black Beetle said. “You already know that. If passing as a man got me what I wanted…”

“Why should we believe you?” Rani interrupted. “If the scarab can convincingly pass you off as the opposite gender, it can make a total stranger look like an older Milagro.”

Milagro could’ve kissed her right then, but Black Beetle just looked bored. “Well, I could tell you all sorts of things that only Milagro could know, but hell, I could’ve just time traveled to find them out,” Black Beetle pointed out. “Instead, I think I’ll tell you what only I know.”

“Or you could just leave,” Ted said. “That’s a perfectly good option. My preference, actually.”

Black Beetle glared at him. “I definitely didn’t forget how annoying you were. I’m so glad you’re not dead. It would be so unfair if Max Lord was the only one who got to kill you.”

“What were you going to tell me?” Milagro interrupted before that particular line of conversation could escalate. She wasn’t about to let Ted get killed again, not when she’d come so close to saving him! Besides, she needed to hear more from this supposed older version of her. She needed to hear something that would hopefully prove that this woman wasn’t her and never had been.

But there was a sick feeling in her stomach already, warning her that she wasn’t going to like whatever Black Beetle had to say.

“Let me tell you how this goes,” Black Beetle said, smiling in a way that sent chills down Milagro’s spine. “You – we – make it home in one piece. Your friends, not so much.” She glanced at Rani. “Will it help your abandonment issues any if I tell you that Booster is really, really sad about your untimely death?”

Rani looked as if she’d been struck. Ted glared at Black Beetle and pushed Rani a little bit behind him, out of Black Beetle’s direct line of attack.

“Anyway,” Black Beetle went on, turning back to Milagro, “Jaime’s not too happy about it either. He blames you – us – for Ted’s death, and goes to Oa to get the Guardians to take your ring away. They don’t, of course, but Mom and Dad back Jaime up, and…let’s just say that relations at home are strained after that. You leave home not long after, and then that you finally open your eyes and see how the world really works. Jaime’s touchy-feely lovey friendship crap doesn’t get you anywhere out there. You turn hard.”

Her eyes went distant. “You still love your brother, though. So when all the heroes get called off to deep space to fight an advancing Dominator fleet and you find him floating in an asteroid field, dying, the scarab badly damaged…”

For the first time, her eyes looked almost normal. “The ring can heal. The scarab can heal. But neither of them could do the job themselves, and I couldn’t control the scarab.”

Milagro was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear this next bit.

“So I cut the scarab out of Jaime and used the ring to bond it to my own spine,” Black Beetle continued. “But a dying scarab pulled from a dying host doesn’t play well with a Green Lantern ring. It shifted my ring down the spectrum as it bonded with it. I wasn’t a Green Lantern anymore, but I wasn’t an infiltrator either. I wasn’t even a Black Lantern, because I was alive. I was something more.”

“What happened to Jaime?” Milagro whispered.

Black Beetle was silent for a minute. When she spoke again, her voice was careless and cruel again, free of its momentary humanity. “After Jaime died, I started exploring the limits of my new powers. After all, with a power ring and a scarab, I should be nearly omnipotent. Certainly powerful enough to resurrect a Blue Beetle or three.” She threw Ted another dark smile. He shifted, all tension and defensiveness.

“It was then – after poaching some techniques from our good buddy Rip Hunter – that I learned that I could skip through time,” Black Beetle said. “I started out trying to save Jaime, but I was thinking too small. With the power of the black scarab and all of time at my disposal, I could reorder the cosmos! Make it run the way it should run.”

“You’re insane,” Rani said.

“How is it any different from what the Time Masters do?” Black Beetle retorted.

“We don’t remake history in our image!” Rani said. “We allow it to unfold naturally.”

Black Beetle snorted. “Please. There’s nothing natural about time travel and you know it. But if we can’t live the way we’re supposed to, why not live the way we please?”

Rani rolled her eyes and turned to Milagro. “I’ve heard enough. Milagro, do you really want to keep listening to this? She’s obviously out of her mind.”

“That might be true, but she’s also telling the truth.” Milagro swallowed. “She’s me.”

“See? You don’t need to understand quantum physics to be the smart one in the room,” Black Beetle said.

“She’s a possible you,” Rani said. “Hypertime allows for parallel realities. Some can become unmoored and travel across the spectrum. She might have been you at some point in the past, but that doesn’t mean you have to become her.”

“Absolutely right,” Black Beetle said. “So I’ve come here to ensure my future. Which starts with getting rid of you two.” She turned towards Ted and Rani.

But Ted was ready. He tackled Black Beetle, sending them both crashing to the ground. “You…hnf…may be Milagro from the future,” he grunted as they struggled, “and you may be loaded down with weapons from space, and you may be Junior Miss Crazypants of America, but you are not hurting these girls!”

Milagro scrambled back, feeling helpless without her ring. “Use your suit!” she told Rani.

Rani already had her hands up, ready to fire a magnetic pulse. “I don’t want to hurt Ted!” she said.

Black Beetle shoved Ted off of her with scarab-augmented strength. He hit the opposite wall with a groan and dropped to his knees. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I don’t have that problem.” And she fired a blast at Ted.

He rolled just in time to keep from frying. The blast grazed his side instead and he shouted in pain.

“No!” Milagro said. She wouldn’t let Ted get hurt, not for her, not now. And Black Beetle had said that she needed Milagro alive…

Black Beetle lifted her hand to fire again, and Milagro charged into her. The blast went wild, blowing a hole in their cell wall.

Science police officers came running around the corner to see what the disturbance was. The one in the lead screeched to a halt at the sight of Black Beetle. “What th—okay, freeze!” he shouted, drawing his weapon. The men and women behind him followed suit.

“Idiots!” Black Beetle yelled. “I’ll kill you all!” She started firing through the hole in the wall. The cops fired back.

Milagro dropped to her stomach. “Rani! My ring! Now, now, NOW!” she yelled.

“What – oh!” Rani said. The air in front of her hands shimmered, and the ring came zipping through the hole in the wall and into Rani’s hand. She tossed it to Milagro, who jammed it on her finger.

“Force field!” she told it, and suddenly she, Rani, and Ted were encased in a green bubble.

“NO!” Black Beetle yelled, shooting at the bubble. It bounced harmlessly off the side.

“Find the time sphere!” Milagro yelled at the ring, and concentrated. Suddenly they were zipping down the halls of the police station. Officers flung themselves out of the way and doors crashed open, helpless against their momentum.

They burst into the evidence room. There were shelves with carefully tagged weapons and bloody shirts and the like, but no time sphere.

Milagro frowned. “The ring says it’s here…” There was a gurney in the middle of the room that would have been big enough to carry it, but it was empty.

Rani suddenly brightened. “Oh!” she said, and pulled out the remote she’d used to cloak the sphere before. She hid a button, and the sphere shimmered into view on the gurney.

The science police who weren’t busy fighting Black Beetle were piling into the evidence room. “Get us inside, quick!” Rani said as the cops’ stun-blasts ricocheted off Milagro’s green force field and the time sphere itself. At least, Milagro hoped they were stun-blasts.

“Okay, come on!” she said, letting them drop to the ground and turning the force field into a flat shield between them and the cops. She and Rani half-helped, half-carried Ted into the sphere, and Milagro used the ring to slam the door behind them.

“Get us out of here!” she yelled.

“I’m trying, I’m trying!” Rani snapped back, powering up the sphere. “When should we go?”

“Home! Wherever! It doesn’t matter!” Milagro said. “Just not here!”

“Right!” Rani hit a button, and they shimmered into the timestream.

Milagro breathed a sigh of relief. “We made it.”

But Rani still looked worried. “Maybe,” she said. “If Black Beetle doesn’t follow us.” She adjusted their coordinates. “I’m taking us to the 21st century. If nothing else, at least there are about a billion other heroes there who can help us.”

Ted groaned.

Milagro turned, heart sinking. She’d forgotten about him for a minute. Some rescuer she’d turned out to be.

He was sitting on the floor of the time sphere, his side scorched and bleeding. Milagro dropped to her knees beside him. “Are you okay?” she bit her lip. “Sorry, stupid question.”

Ted forced a smile. He was pale and sweaty. “I’ve had worse.”

Rani glanced over her shoulder. “Hold on, Mr. Kord. We’ll be home in a few minutes.”

“Maybe I can help,” Milagro said. She closed her eyes and concentrated. She didn’t really know anything about medicine, her mother’s profession notwithstanding, but she focused on the idea of flesh stitching itself back together, of pain easing and damage mending. When she opened her eyes again, the wound was still there, but it looked much less scary than it had before, and it was no longer bleeding.

Ted sighed in relief. “Thanks,” he said, letting his head drop back against the side of the sphere. “Hey.” He clutched at Milagro’s sleeve.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Listen, I don’t know too much about parallel realities and alternate futures, and I don’t know if Lady Scarface back there was you or what,” he said, “but your friend’s right. We are what we choose to be. And you seem like a really good kid to me.”

Milagro swallowed, then nodded. “Thanks, Mr. Kord.”

He closed his eyes and let go of her sleeve. “Call me Ted.”

“He’s right,” Rani said softly. “This isn’t a Gordon-Kord Paradox. You have a choice. And I don’t think you – the real you – would hurt your brother.”

Milagro thought about hurting her brother: Jaime, who’d taught her how to ride a bike and read her Caps for Sale three times every night when she was four and it was her favorite book. Jaime, who’d taken her to the Justice League Watchtower for her last birthday even when Batman said he couldn’t. Jaime, who’d disappeared for a year and shattered Milagro’s world.

She couldn’t make herself imagine it. Her brain skidded sideways and latched onto a side matter. “I don’t even know how she made the ring and the scarab bond. Oa and the Reach have been enemies for millennia. Their weapons don’t play well together.”

“Maybe that’s part of why she’s so unhinged,” Rani said.

“Maybe,” Milagro agreed. “And maybe…” Maybe that was why she’d been so angry at Jaime. Maybe that was why he’d been so angry at her. It was hard to think rationally when a little voice was whispering in your ear, telling you that the person standing in front of you, someone you loved, was really everything evil in the universe.

Rani glanced at the control panel. “Okay, we should be arriving in the 21st century right about now. I left the geographic coordinates where they were last time we were in this era, but we should talk about where we want to go from here.”

As she was talking, they popped out of the timestream and landed in the cemetery where Milagro had first met Rani. This time, though, it wasn’t deserted.

“That’s my brother!” Milagro said, pointing to the group clustered around Ted’s grave.

“And my whole family,” Rani replied, looking at the other three people who were now hurrying towards the time sphere. “I am in so much trouble.”

After hearing Black Beetle’s story, Milagro was ready to make peace with her brother. She opened the time sphere door and stepped out.

“Milagro!” Jaime said, storming towards her. “Where have you been? When have you been? Do you have any idea what – is that blood?”

“Jaime, what are you doing here?” Milagro asked.

“After you’d been gone for a bit, I tracked you here, and then Scarab said you’d time traveled. So I called Booster, and – ”

“Rani!” Booster said, running towards Rani as she climbed down from the sphere. “What were you doing taking a time sphere out on your own?”

“I’ll tell you later, but right now we need a hospital,” Rani said.

“What? Are you hurt?” he demanded, holding her at arms’ length and checking her over for injuries.

“No, it’s not me, it’s – ”

BLAM!

A massive concussive blast rocked the cemetery, sending them all flying. Milagro hit the ground hard. She looked up to see Black Beetle hovering over them, holding a sizeable weapon on her shoulder.

“Black Beetle!” Jaime said.

Milagro struggled to rise, to bring her ring to bear, but it felt like a huge weight was pressing down on her. She could barely breathe, let alone stand.

Around her, it looked like the others were having the same problem. Jaime’s suit was even retracting, leaving him in regular clothes. “Is that a – ?” Michelle asked.

“Inertial field generator,” Rip said.

“That’s right, kids,” Black Beetle said. “Rip gets the gold star – no pun intended. This little baby is used by the science police to suppress riots about 450 years from now. And lucky for me, a couple of brats had me spending some quality time in a 25th century police station recently.”

“An IFG won’t hurt us, Beetle,” Booster said. Milagro realized it was true; though she couldn’t move, she wasn’t in pain.

“Oh, I know it won’t,” Black Beetle said. “But it’ll keep my better half here from interfering while I kill the rest of you.” She – Milagro still thought of her as a “she” now, even though the mask was back up and Black Beetle looked completely male again – looked at Jaime and cocked her head contemplatively. “Well, not you. Although I wonder what would happen if I took your scarab now?” She shook her head. “Nah. Gordon-Kord Paradox.”

“What?” Booster asked.

But Black Beetle ignored him. “Now, who should I start with?” she asked. “Eeny, meenie, miney…” She pointed at Rani with her free hand. “Mo. You’ve been the biggest pain in my ass lately. Plus, I’ll get a kick out of this loser’s face when I off you.” She jerked her thumb towards Booster.

“Don’t do this!” Milagro pleaded. “If you’re really me, you cared about these people once. Rani’s your friend!”

“No,” Black Beetle said, lifting her free arm to fire at Rani. Rani, trapped on her back, managed to force her hands up to cover her face. “She’s yours. At least, she was.”

She fired. “Rani!” several voices screamed.

The air in front of Rani shimmered as she fired a magnetic pulse, bouncing Black Beetle’s shot. “Leave her alone!” Booster screamed. “You want a fight? Fight me, but don’t you touch my kid!”

“Ugh, shut up,” Black Beetle said, and fired at Rani again. It bounced again. “Would you stop? I know it’s getting harder for you to hold your hands up every second. I’m gonna kill you no matter what, so you might as well go easy.”

“Not if it leaves you free to hurt my family,” Rani said.

Milagro struggled desperately against the field that held her down. Something about the scene was naggingly familiar to her – the looming villain, the grounded hero, and her watching, helpless to do anything.

Then she had it. With a tremendous effort, she forced her ring hand towards Rani. “Rani!” she called. “How did Dan stop the mummy?”

Rani looked at her. And smiled.

Milagro shot a bolt of green lightning at Rani just as Rani unleashed a massive magnetic pulse. The electromagnetic field hit the inertial field and exploded outward. Milagro threw her hands over her face to protect herself from the worst of it. In the numbing silence that followed, she heard the thump of something hitting the ground.

She opened her eyes and sat up. The inertial field was gone, leaving her with an odd ringing sensation in her ears but otherwise none the worse for wear. As she watched, Rani and Jaime and the others all got up and dusted themselves off.

Black Beetle lay unconscious in the grass. Booster leveled his blasters at her. Jaime powered back up and approached her cautiously, then touched two fingers to the scarab on her back. “Scarab’s taken Black Beetle’s scarab offline,” he said. “We’ll be able to take him into custody now.”

“Her,” Rani corrected.

“What?” Jaime asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” Milagro said, standing up.

The threat of Black Beetle over, Booster turned to Rani and grabbed her in a fierce hug. “Oof!” she gasped.

“I thought…I was so scared…” he managed. “Don’t you ever - ever….what even possessed you to – ”

“Aw, did I miss all the fun?”

Booster froze. Very slowly, he released Rani and turned towards the time sphere. Milagro jammed her hands over her mouth to hide her smile.

Ted, looking pained and tired but very much alive, was carefully making his way out of the time sphere. “Hey, Booster-buddy. Long time no see.” The tremble in his voice might have been from pain, but somehow Milagro didn’t think so.

“…Ted?” Booster breathed.

“Wh—Ted? Ted Kord?” Jaime repeated.

“In the slightly damaged flesh,” Ted said, stepping onto the ground. “You must be the Blue Beetle. I gotta say, your costume’s way snazzier than mine.”

“Ted,” Booster said again, sounding choked.

“Yeah, Boost. It’s really me,” Ted said gently. “That’s one amazing kid you’ve got there. You too,” he added, nodding at Jaime. “You know, sister-wise.”

Cautiously, as if Ted might vanish if he moved too fast, Booster approached Ted. “You…”

“Yeah,” Ted said.

Booster reached out a hand and touched Ted’s cheek. That seemed to solve whatever he was struggling with, because he made a small, helpless noise, and wrapped his arms around Ted.

Ted buried his face in the curve of Booster’s shoulder, and Milagro was glad, because whatever his expression was like right now, she was pretty sure it was too private for all of them to be witness to. Instead, she reached out and hugged her brother, who still looked flabbergasted.

“I…hey,” he said, hugging her back. “So. Very soon you’re going to have to tell me what just happened.”

“I will,” she promised. Around Jaime’s shoulder she could see Michelle alternating between hugging Rani and checking her over to make sure she was in one piece. Rip reached out and ruffled Rani’s hair, then looked up at Booster and Ted with an expression Milagro couldn’t name.

Booster pulled back to look at Ted, and if his cheeks were wet, no one commented on it. “But…how?”

“Ask the girls,” Ted said, nodding towards Milagro and Rani in turn.

Booster turned towards Rani without letting go of Ted. “Rani?”

“Now can I be a Time Master?” she asked.

Milagro couldn’t help laughing. Ted grinned. “Like I said. Amazing kids.” He shifted his weight, then winced.

Rip did something that looked suspiciously like brushing at his eyes, then cleared his throat. “I would suggest that we move this party elsewhere before the cemetery caretakers find us. Why don’t Jaime and I take Black Beetle into custody while the rest of you take Pa—take Ted to get that injury checked out?”

“Injury?” Booster asked, suddenly panicked.

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Ted insisted. “I mean, yes, ouch, painkillers would be good, but I’ll be fine.” He cupped Booster’s jaw with his hand and gave him a comfortingly little squeeze. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Milagro glanced back at Black Beetle. She was pretty sure Ted was right, about that and about what he’d said in the time sphere. Maybe Black Beetle was Milagro from some reality. But not this one. Milagro would make sure of that.

She ringed up a stretcher for Ted, and a platform so that Booster and Rani could stand on it when they flew to the hospital, since Booster refused to let go of either Ted or Rani’s hands. Jaime hefted Black Beetle and headed for the time sphere with Rip.

Suddenly there was an orange blur, a sudden rush of static electricity, and a girl Milagro and Rani’s age was standing in front of them. She had red hair, freckles across her nose, and a yellow and white costume. “Hi! I’m Impulse,” she asked. “I kind of lost my dad’s treadmill, and I know Rip Hunter is a time travel guy, so I ran all around until I found him, and here you all are! So, can some of you time travel people help me?”

Milagro and Rani exchanged glances. Then they grinned. “Hi, Impulse,” Milagro said. “I’m Green Lantern. I think Goldstar and I can help you out.”