Rescue Everyone

There are moments when the whole world needs saving at once.

Not in one place. Not in one city. All at the same time, in twelve different locations on six different continents, on a Tuesday morning when most people were eating breakfast or walking to school or looking out their windows at the ordinary sky.

The Boom Tubes opened everywhere at once.

From each one came Parademons, and they were not fighting today. They were collecting. Scientists. Engineers. Doctors. Mathematicians. People with brilliant minds that Darkseid wanted. Two hundred people. Seven minutes.

Victor Stone saw it all simultaneously. His sensors tracked every tube — coordinates, location, number of captives, estimated closing time. He broadcast everything to the League before the first portal sealed.

The word he sent was simply: go.

Barry Allen moved through North America like a summer storm. Six locations spread from coast to coast, covered in three minutes. Arriving at each Boom Tube as it was closing, he pulled people back by their hands and arms. At a tube in Houston, there was someone still on the other side as it nearly shut. Barry dove through — into the burning orange heat — and came back out with them, with enough time left for a torn sleeve and a hard sidewalk landing. He was moving before he finished landing.

Green Lantern swept through Europe. He sealed three portals with containment fields. Then, at a Lisbon tube still open, he flew through voluntarily. Into Apokolips. Forty seconds. His ring blazed as bright as he had ever made it. He found six captives, wrapped them in a protective bubble, and walked backward through the portal until it pushed him out. He emerged shaking slightly.

"You're okay," he told them. "You're home."

Aquaman worked the coasts. The sea obeyed his will, sending currents pushing against Parademon extraction teams — walls of moving water that bought minutes. In Alexandria he dove with three Parademons into the deep harbor, leading them down into cold and pressure and disorientation. He swam back up alone.

Wonder Woman moved through Africa with sword and lasso. The lead Parademons were the commanders — without them, formations collapsed. She caught two commanders in Lagos with a single sweep of the lasso, and the formation around them dissolved. She was four cities away before the dust settled.

J'onn J'onzz placed his hand against an active Boom Tube wall and became intangible — his body passing through matter like light through glass. He stepped inside and drifted through Apokolips, invisible as thought, into the collection facility. He moved from mind to mind through forty-three captives, leaving each one the same quiet thought: stay still, help is coming, you are not forgotten. Then he sent all forty-three positions to Victor in a single telepathic burst.

Victor processed it in two seconds. "Clark. With me. Last tube. Now."

Superman and Cyborg went through together. Clark carried people — arms full, back and forth, trip after trip. Victor used his own power systems as a conductor, holding the tube open past its natural closing time. His readings climbed red. DEEPER red. His systems sent warnings in rapid sequence.

He held it.

Clark came through one last time. Victor released the connection. The portal sealed with a thunderclap.

"How many?" Superman asked.

Victor checked. His systems confirmed.

"Two hundred and twelve," he said. "All of them."

Clark exhaled. He looked up at the dark sky where the last Boom Tube had been.

All of them.

That night at the Hall of Justice, Victor ran diagnostics quietly for an hour. Barry was asleep in his chair at the round table, still in his suit. J'onn stood at the window, facing the direction of Apokolips — not visible from here, but he always knew where it was.

After a while he said quietly: "They will try again."

"Yes," Superman said from the doorway.

"They will always try again."

"Yes. And we will always come for everyone."

J'onn looked at Clark. Something in those ancient eyes was not sad — it was steadiness. Like a deep rock that the water moves around.

"Yes," J'onn said. "We will."

Outside, the city was quiet. Two hundred and twelve people were home, in their own beds, breathing the air of their own cities.

Sleep well. You are not forgotten. The League keeps watch.