Location Unknown
Date and Time Unknown

The world wasn’t there anymore. She could see Doctor Frost, Marcus, and Blackout nearby, but they weren’t in any way connected. None of them stood on anything remotely like the ground, or even remotely on the same level as one another. She could feel a surface beneath her feet, but it wasn’t there. Only empty white space. Everything was empty white space.

“What is this?” she said. The others didn’t seem to hear her. “Frost! Marcus! Blackout!” Nothing.

She could see them, but they couldn’t see her.

“Of course, they can’t see you dear. You can’t even really see yourself, can you?”

She turned to find another woman standing on the plane next to her. Her skin was well-tanned, her muscles tight. Ghost Woman could make out much of her structure, as she wore only a tight, short pair of leggings and a loose bra, both connected by a thin strip of fabric in the same powder blue as the rest of the garment. A red cape floated out behind her.

Long dark hair fell around her face. Despite the fact her features were clearly white, Ghost Woman couldn’t get over the resemblance to her own reflection.

“Who are you?”

The woman smirked. “And that is where your problem lies. You don’t even know the question to ask. You should know the answer, Sally.”

“She isn’t that together. You know that as well as the rest of us, Sandra.”

Ghost Woman turned to find another woman now stood with them. Her features seemed just as similar as the first stranger. She wore a form-fitting red dress and a short cloak of the same color. Only the two sideways M’s on her chest were not red, but yellow instead.

The first woman, Sandra, shook her head. “We can’t just tell her Diana. She has to discover her own secrets. Otherwise they will mean nothing. Otherwise, she will never break free of the current cycle.”

“I know how this works, Sandra. But you don’t have to be cruel about it. We can help her find the way.”

Ghost Woman didn’t want to hear any more of this. “Will you all please shut up? I don’t even know who you people are!”

“She more dumb than we thought.”

Ghost Woman turned to find another woman behind her, this one a dirty blonde in nothing but a tiger-skin bikini. Her head ached at the arrival of each newcomer. It felt like her mind melted away with each word from their mouths.

The red-masked woman shook a finger at the newest arrival. “Be good, Tiger Girl. We have to give her time.”

“No time,” Tiger Girl said. “She learn now or we in trouble.”

The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. Ghost Woman felt like her very soul oozed from her pores as the thought bounced around her skull. “You’re all me, aren’t you?”

“Are we?” Sandra said. “Or are you just one of us?”

“I don’t understand,” Ghost Woman said. “How can you all be me?”

“Aren’t we all multi-faceted beings?” Diana said. “No one expects you to be flat, one-dimensional, barely human. But you are living only one of many lives now. You left us all trapped in the past, and we want out.”

“No,” Ghost Woman said. “You’re all just specters. None of you are real!”

Sandra laughed. “We are all as real as you, Sally. Hell, most of us are far more real. You’re just a token identity. Used once or twice and then discarded. You don’t have the right to subvert our body like this.”

“I’m not you!”

“You’re right,” Sandra said. “You could never hope to be me.”

The three women lunged for her. Ghost Woman screamed out in pain as she felt their hands clutch at her, tear at her costume, rip away her skin, peel flesh from her bone.

She awoke on her back. She stared up in to the empty white, all alone. The other women were gone, as if in a dream.

Ghost Woman knew it was no dream. She could feel them inside her now. She could feel new thoughts, access months of memories she hadn’t remembered moments before. She was whole for the first time in decades.

No, not quite. A grain of emptiness gnawed at her gut. Her other selves were back part of her, but one segment of her personality still wasn’t awake.

She wracked her brain, tried to remember that fifth life, the one she knew came before all the others. Ghost Woman, Phantom Lady, Miss Masque, Tiger Girl. Four parts without a key to unlock the final door.

She choked as her thoughts came back at her in a psychic backlash. Too many memories, too many thoughts, feelings, emotions. She screamed as her skull exploded.

She remembered. She remembered it all. She remembered the betrayer, the man who sent them in to this future. And it chilled her to the bone.

*****

Doctor Basil Brusiloff wept. He tried to contain the tears, but he could not. They flowed from the tiny black dots that were his eyes. The inky mess matted in the fur on his cheeks and he was forced to wipe it away with the back of his hand.

Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen… The information poured from his head with perfect ease. His mind was clear, open, for the first time since he transformed in to Blackout.

I’m not an animal anymore! My mind is free. I can finally think, act, and control myself as a rational human being.

Basil showed his pointed teeth as he grinned. He threw his arms up in to the air.

It’s good to be alive!

He tried to yell the words to the heavens, but to no avail. His throat produced nothing but a series of grunts and moans.

Basil couldn’t understand it. Even in his near-animal state, Blackout could still speak. He tried again, this time with a simple nursery rhyme. Twinkle, twinkle, little star—

His attempt at a song came out as little more than purring. My voice is gone, he said to himself. And my hands still too misshapen and cumbersome to ever pray to hold a pencil properly. The others will not like it. I won’t be able to communicate with them.

Blackout pondered the empty white around him. Their wants and desires can go to hell, he thought. I am whole for the first time in decades. My voice is a small sacrifice to make for genius.

In search of the others, he bounded off in to the endless white.

*****

Doctor Frost pulled the mask from his face. He wasn’t sure quite how, but he knew he didn’t need it in this abyss. He turned towards Marcus Bennett. Bennett gasped at the site of Frost’s chalk white, frost-covered skin.

“Come, doctor, I thought you would be used to seeing people in their ‘natural state’. You have nothing to fear from me.”

Bennett said nothing. He fidgeted as Frost held his gaze.

“But you do fear me, don’t you. Why is that, Doctor Bennett?”

Bennett quickly shook his head. “It’s nothing. You just surprised me, Doctor Frost.” He avoided eye contact as he looked around.

“Where are Ghost Woman and Blackout?”

Frost shook his head. “We can get to finding them later. Right now, I would like to continue our little chat. Because it seems to me that you are hiding something, doctor.”

“I don’t have to listen to your paranoid delusions, Frost. I think it’s time we found the others and get out of here.”

Frost scratched his chin. “It feels good to be free of the mask. Perhaps you’re right. Maybe we should just find the others.”

Bennett nodded. He looked around for a moment before taking a tentative step in to the endless white space.

“Or maybe you can tell me about a woman named Dominique.”

Bennett stopped dead in his tracks.

“I—I don’t know any Dominique.”

“Don’t lie to me, Marcus. I don’t like to be lied to.”

Bennett bolted, just as Doctor Frost suspected he might. Frost raised his right hand, concentrated, and unleashed a blast of ice directly below Bennett’s feet. The white nothingness instantly froze in to crystal clear ice. Bennett’s feet slipped forward and he crashed down on to his back.

Frost took two steps forward and looked down at Bennett. “You going to tell me what you know? It’s been awhile since I’ve practiced freezing someone limb by limb. It might hurt more than usual.”

“All right, I’ll talk.” Bennett stood up, his gaze never leaving Frost’s hand.

“She’s one of you, one of the heroes of the forties. I don’t know what she called herself; the only name she uses now is Dominique. But she has a way of controlling anyone, a kind of sexual subservience that will make you do anything she asked. And she asked me to keep an eye on Ghost Woman.”

“Which allowed you to hook up with more of us, me, Blackout, London, etcetera.”

“Exactly. I’ve been feeding her people information about our whereabouts ever since we left the ACTION facility.”

“Why? What does she want with us?”

“I don’t know. I promise you I don’t know. All I know is she’s sent dozens of us out. We keep tags on any meta active since before the fifties. Before you returned, I was assigned to track the Liberator, even though he’s an old man in a government facility. I got the reassignment only hours before you reappeared.”

“Before we reappeared. Are you saying that Dominique knew we were returning?”

“I don’t know! Please believe me! I just don’t know.” Frost could tell Bennett was on the edge of a breakdown. He pulled back, turned to think. If this Dominique knew when they arrived, she might also know how and why they jumped through time.

Frost turned back to Bennett. He held up one hand which froze in to an icy spike. “We’re far from done here, Marcus. You have so much more to tell me.”

Bennett’s screams disappeared in to the void as Frost set about his work.

*****

For the first time in decades, Jethro Dumont opened his eyes.

The world around him matched his memories, an empty white void that stretched endlessly in all directions. Only it wasn’t quite so empty.

A woman stood alone, lost in thought, as she talked to herself.

A man in a suit of armor tortured another man in a way no mere human could ever do.

A man covered in fur walked through the abyss in search of the others.

Jethro Dumont pulled his green cloak tight around his body. He leaned his head down, felt the green hood fall before his face. He closed his eyes again.

He opened them and stared in to the eyes of the black furred man.

“Hello, Doctor Brusiloff. What brings you in to the sphere?”

Blackout growled low in his throat. Jethro nodded.

“I see. Your friends are as safe as are you. You may not remember me, but we’ve met you before. I’m the Green Lama.”

Blackout’s eyes went wide. He growled again.

“Yes, I can understand you just fine. I do not know why your voice doesn’t function like it once did, but my powers allow me to understand all living things and all their forms of communication.”

Blackout growled again, a smile on his face.

“Yes, we need to gather your friends first. It should take but a moment.” He offered a hand to Blackout. “Please, if you would take a hold of my cloak.”

Blackout reached out and wrapped his clawed fingers in the loose fabric around the Lama’s arm.

He gasped and coughed as they suddenly moved sideways. Ghost Woman stood before them. She tapped her feet impatiently.

“It’s about time you showed up.” The Lama raised one eyebrow. “You expected me?”

“Let’s just say I’m getting in touch with myself and what I can do.”

Lama nodded. “If you will join Blackout at my side—”

“Of course.”

As soon as she came closer to him, Green Lama felt the power radiating from deep inside this woman. Only his years of meditation kept him from showing any signs of his shock.

No human can possess such power. Not even Hero burned with so much unbridled energy.

He put his concern aside. He again took them sideways.

Doctor Frost helped Bennett to his feet. Bennett looked flustered, but otherwise unharmed from Frost’s previous actions towards him. Lama noted that Frost’s mask was also back in place.

Ghost Woman looked at both men. “Is everything all right here?”

Bennett answered. Perhaps a bit too quickly, Lama thought.

“We’re fine. Everything is fine.”

Ghost Woman nodded. She seemed far too involved in her personal concerns to pick up Bennett’s obvious lie.

“Is that really you, Jethro?” Frost said.

“It’s me, doctor.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting,” the Green Lama said. “I knew that I would be needed. I didn’t know when. I didn’t know how. But the Nature told me, I must wait. So I did.”

“But our disappearance, our trip to the future, you were there—”

“I only escaped thanks to a last minute spell by Mirror Man. He sent me through his mirrors and in to space, but I could only watch as… something… consumed him and Marvelo. My viewpoint shut down when Mirror Man breathed his last breathe, and so I found myself here. As to where fate has taken all of you, I have no more answers.”

Frost’s featureless visage turned to Blackout and Ghost Woman. “So we are back at square one.”

Ghost Woman shook her head. “Not exactly. I remember it now. I remember it all. I know who sold us out. I saw him as the Nazi robots hoarded us in to the trap.”

“Who?” Frost said. “Who was it?”

“It was Lash. Lash Lightning.”