They had taken almost everyone. The time masters, I mean. They'd apprehended everyone besides Sara and Snart, who were currently MIA, and Jax, who of course was back in 2016, but I couldn't think about that now. My body was clouded with anger. The body I had sworn an oath to was protecting the bastard that killed my family. I was snapped out of my thoughts when out of nowhere, Stein started coughing.
"Martin, are you okay?" Kendra asked him.
"I'm required to merge with Jefferson...periodically in order to maintain nuclear cohesion." He explained.
"Then sending him away on the jumpship probably wasn't the greatest idea." Mick pointed out.
"Given the circumstances we're under, I'm surprised any of us are alive." Stein admitted.
"Oh, you'll be dead soon." Rory assured him. "You're getting off easy."
"What gives you the free pass?" Ray asked him.
"They have other plans for him as Chronos." I answered, already knowing where Rory was going with this.
"They're gonna try and put me through the induction process again."
"Brainwashing?"
"Kills most men, professor. And those that don't die, end up like mindless goats."
"But Snart said you weren't mindless when you were Chronos." Ray pointed out.
"No more than usual." Kendra corrected him.
"The whole time I stayed focused on one thing. The one thing that kept me sane... vengeance. I focused on how much I hated all of you." Just then, a dozen guards came in. "Ah, gentlemen, I missed you!" Mick said sarcastically. They lowered the barriers for Mick and Kendra's cells. "Come on in. Ah, that's it. Go ahead. Break my arm."
"Hey, what are you doing? Why are you taking her?" Ray asked the guards. "Hey!" As they were dragging her away, Kendra hawked out, knocking the guards away from her. Unfortunately, a guard snuck up behind her and shot her. "Kendra! Kendra!" Then, more guards came for Rip and I. We knew better than to fight. We just accepted it.
XXX
"Leave us." Druce instructed the guards who obeyed.
"We have a query." Rip admitted to Druce.
"Why haven't we killed you yet?" Druce asked him.
"That's what you've been trying to do all this time." I pointed out.
"Fortunately for the two of you, two of your crew are still at large. Tell me where to find them, and I'll spare the others." Druce proposed.
"If it's anything like the offer you gave us at the USSR, we're sorely tempted."
"You were a fugitive from justice." Druce defended himself.
"You're helping Vandal Savage take over the world." I pointed out. "I have a feeling that our definition of the word justice may differ somewhat."
"The only difference between us is that my view of the timeline reaches further and wider than either of yours."
"Are we supposed to be impressed?" Rip asked him.
"In 2175, less than ten years from when Savage conquers the world, the Earth is attacked by a warlike race of extraterrestrials from the planet Thanagar. Without Savage to unite the world under a singular rule, this is what becomes of the world."It was destroyed. Everything was destroyed.
"This is the work of Savage." I disagreed.
"No. This is what will happen to Earth if Savage is not there to lead it. Without him, all human life is extinguished. Even this realm falls to the Thanagarians. Are you impressed now?"
"No." We said in unison.
"You are as mad as your friend Vandal if you think that he is the world's only hope."
"We've examined the timeline. There is no other hope. I don't expect either of you to take my word for it. That's why there's something else I have to show you."
XXX
"What is this place?" I asked Druce.
"Our Holy of Holies. The Oculus viewing chamber, our most powerful window into the past, present, and future. The source of all our information on the timeline."
"Why did we not know about this?" Rip asked the obvious.
"No captain does. The Oculus' existence is known only to the high council, including its greatest kept secret: the Oculus not only gives us a window into time, but the ability to shape it as we see fit. We've been helping Vandal Savage consolidate his power by giving him access to time travel. But the two of you have been helping him too. From the moment we realized only Savage could save the world, we've been using the Oculus to manipulate you both."
"That's impossible."
"Think about it. Thanks to your efforts, Vandal Savage was not in prison for the sale of a nuclear war weapon in 1975. You prevented the Soviet Union from winning the Cold War in 1986. Carter Hall's death provided Savage's closest lieutenants preternaturally long lives. You and your team have been moving through the course of time. We've merely redirected it, and you, you both, to the outcomes history requires." We shook our heads in disbelief. "Look, see for yourselves." We both obliged and stuck our hands in the Oculus. I could only watch in awe. Me meeting Sara in Nanda Parbat. Me leaving her. Me finding her in Siberia. Our missions- the explosion in 1975. Us crashing in the USSR. Snart not shooting Mick. Every mission we've gone on. Rip almost killing Per Degaton. 2046 Star City. Everything. Whether I was there for it or not, I saw it. "You're looking into the past. You see that everything I've told you is true."
"This isn't only the past." Then, I saw the future. Moments involving me that hadn't happened. "You can also see the future. Not a possible future. Not a prediction. You are looking into events as they will happen."Sara slapping me and yelling in my face. Me, weeping with my knees tucked against my chest. This had never happened. Amaya Jiwe from the Justice Society of America. The team meeting Nate Heywood. I wasn't there for that.
"What about choice? What about free will?"
"Illusions. The only place in the universe free will exists is here at the Vanishing Point." Ray Palmer blowing to a million pieces.
"No!" I drew my hand away from the Oculus as did Rip.
"No matter what you do, it will happen. And there is nothing either of you can do to stop it."
"No, we acted without your consent." I argued. "In- in defiance of your orders."
"Everything we've done has been to save our family! No one controls us!" Rip yelled.
"We counted that, on your anger, on you both going rogue. We needed something to spur you on, to give you purpose. That's why we ordered...Savage to kill your family."
I bent over, my hands rested on my knees. I felt sick. I felt so goddamn sick. We were selected for pain, for anger. We were selected to lose our family and fail rescuing them.
XXX
They escorted us back to our cells where Stein and Ray.
"Rip? Jes?" Ray asked us.
"Oh my god, they've tortured them." Stein muttered. We looked worn down. We couldn't look up, we walked sluggishly. It was torture what Druce told us.
"What did they do to you?" Ray asked us, afraid of our answers.
"They showed us the truth." I answered. "Druce showed us something called the Oculus."
"They've been controlling us all. Nothing we've done so far has been of our own accord."
"We've been following a script laid out by the time masters."
"No, that's- that's not possible." Ray denied. "I- I refuse to believe that."
"Well, maybe you should, Ray, because they showed us your death." I snapped. "I'm sorry."
XXX
"I can't just stand around here and wait to die." Ray decided.
"Well, if it's any consolation, you're not alone." Stein told him.
"Oh, you're giving up too?" Ray asked the professor.
"Well, let's just review our situation, shall we, Raymond? They're turning Mr. Rory back into Chronos, I- I'm about to have a nuclear meltdown-" Ray cut him off.
"And our captains think our future is already written for us. You know what I think? I think you're all a couple of quitters."
"There's no escape from either these cells or the future." I muttered.
"Face the facts, Raymond. We're completely out of allies."
"You're forgetting Sara and Snart." He reminded us.
"Who are most likely dead by now, yes."
"As long as they're on the loose, we still have a chance."
XXX
Druce came into our holding room. "Your friends have time jumped away. We've lost them. And I've lost any reason to keep you all alive."
"Hold on, let's just talk about this for a moment." Ray tried to reason with him.
"Time master Druce." A guard walked in.
"Kill them all. Starting with those two." He pointed at Rip and I.
"Yes, sir. But we've calculated when the waverider is headed."
"Past or future?"
"The present."
All of a sudden, Snart came in and started blasting guards with his cold gun and he knocked out Druce.
"Somebody order up a rescue?"
"Mr. Snart, your timing is impeccable." Stein commented.
"Or not." Ray said. In came Chronos.
"Put the gun down, Mick." Snart instructed his partner.
"Chronos, fire." Time Master Declan said.
"Sure thing." Mick turned around and shot Declan and then proceeded to take off his mask. "If I recall, I made you a certain promise."
"No, I beg of you. No!" Mick broke his neck.
XXX
"Where's everyone else?" Sara, who was piloting the ship, asked us.
"Uh, Mr. Snart is helping the professor get situated in the medbay."
"He's not doing so well without his nuclear half." I explained.
"Get me out of this stupid robot suit!" Mick yelled at everyone.
"First, get us the hell out of here, Gideon?" Rip asked the AI.
"I'm here, Captain, and if I could just take a moment to add how wonderful it feels to be back together."
"We have missed you too." I assured her.
"Now that we've had our reunion, I should mention we have a slight problem."
"Uh, the time masters are locking onto us with a tractor beam." Ray told us.
"Punch it, Gideon." Sara told her. "Sorry, your job." She said to Rip and I.
"No, Sara, stay right where you are. You've proven yourself quite adept at piloting the ship." I complimented her.
"About the tractor beam-" Rip cut Mick off.
"Dr. Palmer is going to help Jessica and I remotely disable it."
"I've already established an uplink to the omnimatrix mainframe, captain."
"The time masters are evil, but not dumb. There's no way they're going to let Gideon override the tractor beam remotely." Ray pointed out just before the ship started rumbling like crazy.
"Whatever you're gonna do, you better do it now. They've locked on." Sara recommended.
"Wait. What if I convince the system that the override command is coming from somewhere else?"
"Or someone else." I pointed at Rory.
"Somebody they trust." Ray followed along. "Just need to borrow Chronos' operating system." He took the glove off Mick's hand.
"I'm hot swapping Mr. Rory's harddrive as we speak."
"Whatever you're doing, do it faster!" Sara yelled at us.
"And...done."
"Now, Sara!"
XXX
"Professor's in the medbay. Promises not to blow up while he's on board, which I thought was considerate." Snart announced as he entered the bridge.
"Yeah, the professor's condition is the least of our worries, I'm afraid." I told the group.
"Yeah, much to my chagrin, it turns out everything we've done, maybe even our whole lives, has been determined by the time masters." Ray informed Mick, Snart, and Sara.
"What?"
"The time masters have this thing called the Oculus, which allows them not only to gaze into the future, but to engineer it." I explained.
"A future where I'm dead, apparently." Ray added.
"And why would they want you dead?" Sara pointed out.
"Have you ever listened to what comes out of his mouth?" Mick asked her.
"Now, in my opinion, Dr. Palmer's death is not part of their plan." Rip said.
"No, that's not reassuring." Ray informed him before Mick hit him. "Ow!"
"You saying the time masters wanted me to do that?"
"What we're saying is that they've been engineering our lives to move in very specific directions. And we are playing out that script even now." I tried to explain again.
"So we can go to 2016, but that might be what the time masters want." Sara pointed out. "Or we can go get Kendra and Carter-" Snart cut her off.
"Which could also be what they want."
"Then we need to do what they don't want." Ray said. "If the Oculus is what they're using to control us, then we need to destroy it."
"But how do we do that if the time bastards are pulling our strings?" Snart brought up.
"Well, Druce told us that the Oculus' ability to control our actions doesn't work in the Vanishing Point, most likely because the Vanishing Point itself exists outside of time." Rip explained.
"Explains why we were able to escape." Mick decided.
"And why we might actually have a chance at destroying this thing." Sara added. "I'm with Ray." She hit his other arm.
"Ow!"
"If I'm gonna be someone's puppet, I'm gonna be the one that cuts her own bloody strings." I agreed.
"And I like blowing stuff up." Mick agreed.
"We set out on this mission to stop Savage and to save the world. To become legends and to change our fates. That mission hasn't changed." Ray said profoundly.
"This is madness." Snart said. "I like it."
We all looked at Rip. "Gideon, plot a course to the Oculus wellspring. Team, I think it's about time we seized our destinies back."
XXX
"Oh, god, Sara, I'm so sorry-" I was cut off by Sara's lips on mine.
"It's okay. I'm just glad you're okay now. No matter what, I love you."
"No matter what, I love you too."
XXX
"How are you feeling, Martin?" I asked the man, who was now out and about.
"Well, I'm dying." He reminded Rip and I. "I'm also sure that you're both dying and so are the others. I'm just a little ahead of you. Normally I'd be quite concerned, but the truth is discovering one's life has already been predetermined is ironically liberating. I've already run through everything we know about the Oculus, and with the help of a few 'back of the envelope' physics calculations, I've determined that we have a chance. Infinitesimal as that might be."
"Captains, we've arrived at the Oculus Wellspring on the far side of the Vanishing Point."
XXX
"Based upon the Captains descriptions, the Oculus is a massive temporal computer, most likely powered by a scaled down supernova contained at the bottom of the Wellspring. Why aren't any of you more excited about this?" Stein asked everyone.
"We're excited to blow it up." Sara informed him.
"Dr. Palmer will deactivate the core contained supernova, which should create an anomalistic event." Rip explained, only to get blank stares from Sara, Snart, and Mick.
"A very big explosion." I dumbed it down for the three.
"Sounds like a plan." Mick said.
XXX
We started to make our way to the Oculus, but were quickly surrounded by Druce and guards.
"Hello again, Rip, Jessica. Right on schedule."
"Uh, I think we've walked into a trap." Ray pointed out.
"No, it's destiny. I must say, you've all played your parts well. As with everything else you've done, I'm afraid it was all for nothing."
"All your posturing." Rip said to him. "All your claims about doing what's best for the timeline, about protecting history, and it all comes own to cold blooded murder."
"The difference between murder and execution is only a matter of authority. I have it. You don't. Kill them." He ordered the guards. They were about to fire on us when the jump ship appeared and fired on them before touching down next to us.
"Returning the jump ship to the waverider. Good luck, Mr. Jackson." Gideon announced as Jax approached us.
"Hope I'm not too late."
"No, Jefferson, you're right on time." The two merged into firestorm.
"How did you..." My voice trailed off.
"What? You thought you were the only one who knew a thing or two about time travel?"
"Good work." I complimented him. "We need to get to the Oculus before reinforcements arrive."
XXX
"Take about two minutes to figure out how to self destruct this thing." Ray informed us.
"We'll buy you some time." Rip told him. "You lot, guard the entrance, Mr. Rory, you're with Jes and I."
XXX
"Hurry up, Haircut."
"How much longer?" I asked Ray.
"Well, just about to reverse the polarity matrix. Once I do that, I say we have about two minutes before this whole place goes boom." He answered with certainty.
"How big of a boom?" Rip asked him.
"On a scale from one to ten, a googolplex." He took off his mask and Rip and I looked at each other. This is what Druce showed us. This was how Ray Palmer died.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
"I can't work with all this gear on." He explained.
"You can't!"
"A programmer needs his hands-"
"Ray!" I snapped.
"I got this, don't worry."
"No, you don't. This is what we saw. This is what Druce showed us. This is how you die."
"It's okay. All my life I've wanted to make a difference. Creating a future for you guys without the time masters' influence, that counts." Just then, guards started busting in and it became a shoot out between them and Mick, Rip, and I. "That said, I'm in no rush to die, so keep 'em off me, okay?"
"We got you." Mick assured him.
XXX
"All right. Almost done. Uh-oh."
"Uh-oh?" The rest of us said in unison.
"There seems to be a failsafe to prevent tampering, which probably includes trying to blow this thing up."
"English, haircut."
"I have to maintain contact with the failsafe in order to destroy the Oculus."
"Not that much English." Mick muttered.
XXX
"Get back to the ship." Ray instructed us.
"We are not leaving without you!" I yelled at him.
"You've already seen the future. I'm dead already."
"You're right." Mick agreed. He went up behind Ray and knocked him out before putting his hand on the failsafe.
"Mick..." I muttered.
"I got this." He assured us. "I want revenge on those bastards. Now get outta here." Rip shrunk Ray down and put him in his pocket. I kissed Mick on the cheek and we both left.
XXX
"We're leaving!" Rip yelled out to everyone.
"Where's Raymond and Mick?" Snart asked us.
"Raymond is in Rip's pocket, and Mick has elected to stay."
"Why?"
"Someone needs to be present to destroy the Oculus. Mick has elected himself." I explained. He ran in with Sara following him. I tried to follow, but I felt hands on my shoulders. Rip was holding me back. "Rip, I have to go back there for her."
"She's going to be okay, Jes. She's a smart woman."
XXX
Thank god he was right. Sara was physically okay, but she was also devastated. We both needed our space, so I joined Rip in the cargo bay instead.
"Gideon?" I said softly.
"Yes, Captain?"
"Would you please review the timeline for us?"
"There is no timeline data due to the destruction of the Oculus."
"We're sailing without a map." Rip muttered.
"Uh, would you please... review news accounts from 2166 then. You know what we need to find out."
"I'm sorry, Captains. News accounts from 2166 confirm that Vandal Savage has already succeeding in murdering Miranda and Jonas."