CHAPTER 42: JSA ENDANGERED
The Waverider landed in 1942 to find the JSA in mourning—Rex Tyler's murder had shattered their confidence.
The headquarters I'd assessed during our first encounter felt different now. The art deco confidence had been replaced by something heavier—grief, uncertainty, the collective weight of a team that had lost its leader. JSA members moved through the halls with the mechanical efficiency of people trying to function through shock.
I've seen this before, I realized. The Legends after Snart "died." The same hollow efficiency, the same desperate need for action to replace feeling.
"The attack came at 0300," Commander Steel explained, leading Sara through the operations center. His voice was flat, controlled—military discipline holding together what grief threatened to shatter. "Rex was working late, reviewing intelligence reports. The assailant bypassed our security systems completely. No alarms, no witnesses, no evidence."
"Except the body."
"Except the body." Hank Heywood's jaw tightened. "Multiple stab wounds. Personal. Intimate. Whoever did this wanted Rex to know who was killing him."
Darhk, I thought. Or Merlyn. The kind of kill that sent a message.
Sara asked the tactical questions while I studied my interface. The territorial stability had continued declining during transit—we were at 68% now, with stress fractures spreading through the timeline's structure.
[TERRITORIAL SCAN — 1942 JSA ERA]
[STABILITY NODES IDENTIFIED: 7]
[— NODE 1 (JSA HQ): CRITICAL STRESS — 45% INTEGRITY]
[— NODE 2 (TRAINING FACILITY): MODERATE STRESS — 72% INTEGRITY]
[— NODE 3 (RESEARCH LAB): LOW STRESS — 88% INTEGRITY]
[— NODE 4 (ARMORY): MODERATE STRESS — 68% INTEGRITY]
[— NODE 5-7: PERIPHERAL — STABLE]
The headquarters node was the problem. Rex's death had concentrated paradox energy here, creating cascading failures that threatened to destabilize the entire era.
"I need to check something," I told Sara quietly. "Security assessment of the perimeter."
She nodded, distracted by the investigation. "Report back if you find anything."
I slipped away from the main group, moving through the headquarters with apparent purpose while actually following my interface to the first stability node.
The node manifested as a point of concentrated temporal energy—invisible to normal perception but blazing to my enhanced senses. Rex's office. The place where he'd worked, planned, led. The place where he'd died.
[STABILITY NODE — CRITICAL]
[— INTEGRITY: 45%]
[— TEMPORAL STRESS: SEVERE]
[— PARADOX CONCENTRATION: HIGH]
[— INTERVENTION REQUIRED: TEMPORAL ABSORPTION — ESTIMATED TIME: 90 MINUTES]
Ninety minutes. I'd need to find reasons to stay in this location for an hour and a half without raising suspicion.
I began the absorption process, drawing temporal stress through my system the way I'd practiced countless times. The energy was different from mission debris—heavier, more complex, tangled with causality violations and paradox threads. Each pull required careful calibration to avoid creating new instabilities.
Like surgery, I thought. Removing damaged tissue without harming healthy structures.
The process was slow, painstaking. I positioned myself near a window, appearing to study the exterior while actually focused on the invisible work of timeline repair.
Fifteen minutes passed. The node's integrity climbed to 52%.
Thirty minutes. 61%.
A voice interrupted at the forty-five-minute mark.
"You're not just checking the perimeter."
I turned to find Commander Steel watching me from the doorway. His posture was casual, but his eyes carried the assessment of a trained soldier.
"What do you mean?"
"You've been standing in Rex's office for almost an hour. The perimeter is outside." He stepped closer. "What are you actually doing?"
My mind raced through options. Lie? Deflect? The absorption process was half-complete—stopping now would leave the node vulnerable.
"Paying respects," I said. "Rex was... someone I admired."
"You met him once." Hank's voice carried no accusation, just observation. "During our joint operation against the Nazi facility."
"Once was enough." I let some genuine emotion show—easier than expected, because the statement was true. "He led with competence and conviction. That's rare."
Hank studied me for a long moment. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy something.
"He trained me," he said quietly. "When I joined the JSA, I was just a soldier with good reflexes. Rex saw something more. Pushed me to be better." He looked around the office. "This place still smells like his coffee. He always brewed too strong."
The observation was so human, so grounded, that I forgot the absorption process for a moment.
"How are you holding together?"
"Barely." The admission cost him something. "The team's looking to me for leadership, and I don't... I was never meant to be in charge. Rex was the leader. I was supposed to follow."
Like me, I thought. Thrust into command by circumstance rather than choice.
"Leadership isn't about being ready," I said. "It's about being necessary. Your team needs someone to hold things together. Right now, that's you."
"What if I fail?"
"Then you fail, and you learn, and you try again." The words came easier than I expected. "The alternative is doing nothing, and that guarantees failure."
Hank nodded slowly. "You sound like you've thought about this."
"I've had to lead people through situations I wasn't prepared for. It doesn't get easier, exactly. But you get better at functioning despite the uncertainty."
The conversation continued for another twenty minutes—Hank processing his grief while I quietly completed the absorption process. By the time he left to check on his team, the stability node had recovered to 78% integrity.
[STABILITY NODE — STABILIZING]
[— INTEGRITY: 78%]
[— TEMPORAL STRESS: MODERATE]
[— INTERVENTION: SUCCESSFUL]
One node down. Six to go.
I moved through the headquarters over the next three hours, finding reasons to linger near each stability point while the team investigated Rex's murder. The training facility required thirty minutes. The armory took forty-five. The research lab only needed fifteen—its distance from the murder site had protected it from the worst paradox effects.
[TERRITORIAL STATUS — 1942 JSA ERA]
[STABILITY: 68% → 76%]
[ALL NODES: STABILIZED]
[PARADOX CONCENTRATION: REDUCED]
[PROJECTION: STABLE WITHIN 72 HOURS]
The territory was recovering. Not fully healed—Rex's death would leave permanent scars in the timeline's structure—but functional. Sustainable. No longer at risk of cascade failure.
Hidden victory, I thought. The Legends hunt a killer; I save a timeline. Neither knows what the other accomplished.
I rejoined the investigation as Sara briefed the team on their findings. The killer had left minimal evidence—professional work, consistent with trained assassins like Darhk or Merlyn. The attack had been surgical, targeted, designed to create maximum disruption with minimum exposure.
"They wanted to hurt us," Sara concluded. "Not just kill Rex—hurt the JSA, hurt the timeline, hurt our ability to fight back."
"Then we hit back." Mick's voice carried grim determination. "Find them, burn them."
"We will. But carefully." Sara's eyes swept the room. "The Legion has been one step ahead this whole time. If we're going to change that, we need better intelligence, better preparation, better strategy."
Her gaze lingered on me slightly longer than the others. I wondered if she'd noticed my absences during the investigation, the hours I'd spent in seemingly random locations throughout the headquarters.
Sara notices everything, I reminded myself. That's what makes her dangerous.
The mission concluded with the team returning to the Waverider and the JSA preparing for life without their leader. Hank Heywood walked us to the exit, his posture slightly straighter than when we'd arrived.
"Thank you," he said to Sara. "For trying. For caring."
"We'll find who did this."
"I know." He turned to me. "And thank you, Bennett. For what you said. It helped."
"Take care of your team," I replied. "They're going to need you."
He nodded once—soldier's acknowledgment—and returned to his command.
[RECRUITMENT ASSESSMENT — HANK HEYWOOD (COMMANDER STEEL)]
[— LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL: HIGH]
[— TACTICAL CAPABILITY: EXCELLENT]
[— ORGANIZATIONAL MINDSET: CONFIRMED]
[— CURRENT AVAILABILITY: LOW (JSA COMMITMENT)]
[— FUTURE POTENTIAL: TERRITORY GOVERNOR CANDIDATE]
[— RECOMMENDATION: MAINTAIN CONTACT — LONG-TERM DEVELOPMENT]
The file saved automatically. Another potential asset for future recruitment.
The Waverider transited away from 1942, carrying a team frustrated by their inability to catch the killer. I sat in my quarters, watching my territorial display.
[TERRITORY 002 — 1942 JSA ERA]
[STABILITY: 76%]
[STATUS: RECOVERING]
[THREAT LEVEL: REDUCED]
The territory's marker shifted from warning yellow back toward steady blue. Not fully green—the damage would take weeks to fully heal—but stable. Sustainable.
I saved a timeline today, I thought. While surrounded by people mourning a friend.
The dissonance didn't escape me. Ray's concern, Snart's observations about family, Masako's question about whether I saw her or just what she could become—they all pointed to the same uncomfortable truth. I was building an empire on emotional detachment. Treating crises as opportunities. Calculating while others grieved.
Maybe that's the price of power, I thought. Or maybe it's just the price of who I've become.
The Legends' investigation continued. The Legion's Spear hunt continued. And somewhere in the timeline, my organization kept growing—three territories stabilized, two agents deployed, a foundation ready for whatever came next.
The victory was quiet. The cost was measured in something I couldn't quite name.
But the empire survived.
That had to count for something.
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