Post by redsycorax on Jul 24, 2023 2:46:08 GMT
Adeline Kane was born in the twentieth century, former wife to Slade Wilson, and mother to Rose Wilson, Joseph Wilson and Grant Wilson. After her estranged husband Slade Wilson saved her life with a blood transfusion, epigenetic sequences were activated which meant that Adeline was now as immortal as her ex-husband. Using intelligence garnered from her time in covert operations about then-future events, Adeline watched as her children died, then shared eternities with other immortals such as Rose Forrest (formerly the dominant alter of the superheroine known as the Thorn) and R'as Al-Ghul, her sometime lover. It is a rare person who can watch as lifetimes pass and friends lovers age and die. Including the Legion of Super Heroes. This record is about some interludes in Adeline's continuing, eternal life, her relationships and her battle against her former husband bitter enemy, Slade Wilson.
++
PROLOGUE: SHANGELLA, 3223 CE:
As the suited form of the last surviving member of the original Legion of Super Heroes, Drake (Wildfire) Burroughs turned to walk away, he saw a familiar figure standing at the edge of the Legion's memorial asteroid:
"Hello, Wildfire."
"Adeline. Thank you for giving me some time alone with her, one last precious moment."
"I'm so sorry. I wish I could have given you the ability to become wholly corporeal and human again. Not being able to intimately touch and kiss Dawnstar for the decades you were together."
"Yeah. Yeah, you must have lived through heartbreak like this over and over again. How do you do it, Addy? How do you keep living, even when everyone you ever knew and loved passes away?"
"There's a difference between merely surviving and really living, Drake. I know. You didn't ask for any of this, neither did I. But we're both effectively immortal, unless one of us chooses to become otherwise. And I won't. I loved all of you like my own long-gone original children and as you passed away one by one, it tore my heart out. But you lived brilliant, incandescent heroic lives. You saved trillions of lives. You lived, loved and built lives and families together. You made a profound difference to the universe around you. Never doubt that."
"Will I see you again?"
"Drake, anytime you want to talk about your beautiful, precious Dawnstar, I'll be there. Or any of the others."
"I know I'll probably take you up on that, Addy. And thank you. For being the steady rock and pinion you were to all of us, not only financial, but emotional and spiritual."
"Thank you, Drake. And Drake? I know you're hurting now, and given what I know from my own children's lives and from their deaths, immortality is about change, not about stasis. I'm not sure whether it's a blessing and curse. I've wept over lovers too, some taken before their time. You and Dawnstar had decades together. She was a remarkable woman. Take some time for yourself, grieve and heal. Know that although it feels like it now, you will never be alone."
As Wildfire and Adeline Kane embraced one last time in the thirty third century vacuum of space, it was with reluctance that they drew apart and Drake Burroughs disappeared into the void of space. Adeline looked around her. Almost the entirety of the Legion of Super Heroes, one-time Legion of Substitute Heroes, Wanderers and Heroes of Lallor and even one or two reformed members of the long defunct Legion of Super-Villains lay here. An era was finally over. She would never forget them, but now that they were almost all gone, it was time to prepare for what lay ahead. As she ascended the causeway to her own personal starship, she remembered her daughter Rose's favourite folk song from all those centuries ago:
If I held you now as I held you before
I would cling to the memories of our love evermore...
FLASHBACK: CE 3100:
As Superwoman XII gently alighted on the desolate hilltop, Adeline looked over her shoulder:
"It's good to see you again, Elna."
Elna (Superwoman) Kent sighed: "You too, Adeline. It's been too long."
"I'm sorry you couldn't get back in time."
"Ironic, considering my superspeed. But you always knew that was going to happen, didn't you?"
Adeline nodded: "Brane Taylor...Batman XXIX... was always going to die last week when his exoskeleton malfunctioned fighting the Yerxa-Muto team. His body was weakened with all of those temporal excursions into the past to assist his legendary predecessor, the very first Batman. Unfortunately, baseline human physiology can't withstand that for too long. I warned him, just as I did Kristin Wells, your namesake, the original "Superwoman." I hate this, Elna. I hate saying goodbye to dear friends and living onward like this."
"But you do. And don't discount how valuable you've been to so many generations of us throughout the centuries. If it hadn't been for you, countless numbers would have died throughout those years, well before our time. And you don't patronise us, or withhold, except when events are inevitable and the result of cumulative momentum. And that's the way it should be. No-one is meant to be omnipotent."
"I was reading a book about Queen Elizabeth I, near the end of her life. She'd lost family, lovers, friends, advisors and enemies. As the seventeenth century dawned, she'd outlived them all and was weary of life. Me? I've outlived my children, generations of humanity and metahumanity."
"But you haven't wasted any of those centuries, or sacrificed your humanity. You could treat baseline humanity and metahumans as mayflies, but you never have. You always cry and grieve for us. That is what is precious and irreplaceable about you. I can't imagine my life without you, Adeline. And I don't think I want to. Rao speed you, old friend."
"Goodbye, Elna." And for a few more minutes, Adeline Kane looked out over the hilltop cairn that marked the final resting places of Brane Taylor (Batman XXIX) and Riq Griart-Taylor (Robin XXXV), over the remains of Old Gotham, the ancient city below the starscrapers of the eastern coastal Megalopolis that encompassed five hundred million North Americans.
Elna was right. This never got any easier.
MEGALOPOLIS: CE 3450:
As Adeline Kane watched Superboy vanish high in the skies above, she turned to Alixe Luthor, the thirtieth generation of his family. At length, she said:
"Thank you for that necessary lie, Alixe."
"It would have torn the Man of Steel apart to learn the truth about his descendant- that Superman XXX was indeed a mass murderer who obliterated planets, cities and starships, a mentally ill sufferer of the incurable Kryptonian Virus Z. So I played along with the pretense as you requested, Ms. Kane. I think we all owed the original Superboy that, at least, given his achievements in his own past era and then as Superman. So, do you have those canisters of nuclear war radioactive residue seawater that I shipped here?"
"It's a shame that Superman XXX didn't inherit his ancestor's vulnerability to kryptonite. But I had a duty to perform and when his grandmother Elna told me about their family's new weakness, I knew what was coming and prepared for it. It's good to see your family back in the light, Alixe."
"Given what the first Luthor perpetrated, at times his other descendants and I wonder if there can ever be complete recompense and atonement."
"You're living proof that there can be. Never release him, Alixe. He has to be a lesson that even the best and brightest of us can fall from the sky, like the mythical Icarus and Daedalus."
INTERLUDE:
And time went on. Adeline didn't intervene in momentary appearances in future history from bygone metahumans of the past, such as the Grim Ghost, Superman, Hawkwoman, Hawkman and the Justice League on temporal recovery missions for errant and unintentional time travelers and against more malignant adversaries such as the Legion of Doom when they took over the United Planets in CE 3984. Or Wonder Woman's encounter with a misanthropic giant in CE 4458, or the "Unknown Superman" and "Batsman"'s encounter with the so-called "Lord of Time" in CE 4580. However, she was there in the background, providing logistical support to the descendants of those she cherished and valued, defending life, liberty and decency as a resilient thread of continuity and constancy across the centuries and millennia. She enabled Rip Hunter and his colleagues to ensnare one of their number's renegade former members in the Maryland Sector of Megalopolis in CE 4784.
In CE 4956, she encountered Jimmy Olsen once again, nearly two millennia after his descendant, the brilliant and noble Superwoman, Kristen Wells, had succumbed to the accelerated progerid condition that she had acquired through temporal travel. She'd known that she'd see him again, even if by now he was the stuff of legends akin to those of ancient Greece. She watched as he acquired enhanced abilities due to the advanced technologies of that era, and remembered his one-time youth, innocence and enthusiasm. Once again, she relived those moments as an onlooker as she "hadn't" met him yet, several years in his 'future.' When the inevitable happened, she smiled as the original Superman caught up with his errant best friend and swept them back to the distant twentieth century past. She momentarily entered an alternate timeline where one of the past world wars had destroyed all sapient life on Earth and provided a sanctuary, food and intellectual resources for the Silver Age Flashs' transtemporal adversary Mazdan in an alternate CE 4956. There were other visitors who momentarily appeared in the future, like Superboy when he momentarily visited a Smallville homage theme park in CE 5180.
SOLAR CITY, CE 5700:
It was now almost three thousand years since she'd talked to and lived alongside the Legion of Super-Heroes and in all that time, she was preparing for the next major period in Earth's history. By now, humanity had colonised every planet in Earth's solar system and pantropic genetic modification was widespread. She knew that the era required an experienced interstellar operative, and who should be selected to fulfill that role. And so, she utilised her prepared cover identity and her presence on the Solar Council to implant the idea that Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan was the appropriate individual for the period's challenging galactic situation and interspecies ethnic animosities. At times, too, she had to sit Iona Vane down and talk to her about what would happen downtime and how she mustn't reveal what would befall the man that she feigned love for. And then a past Hal Jordan had to be assisted to save the Solar Union planets one final time. Iona Vane never saw Hal Jordan again and died two centuries later. Adeline felt her immortality keenly as she caught momentary glimpses as eternity bore on.
But humanity was entering darker times, as one could note when Superman visited the sixtieth century twice and found that information retrieval technology had decayed enough for inhabitants of that century to question his existence, in CE 5902 and 5921.
NIEUSHIKAGO, CE 6087:
In CE 6087, the tyrannical Klein-Hernandez industrial cartel had launched a coup d'espace to shove aside the creaking edifice of the collapsing United Planets and craft a tyrannical " Empire Galaktika" that would blight the Milky Way for the next three generations of human history. And at long last, she encountered Slade Wilson again, as she boarded Ironwolf's starship Limerick Rake, and masqueraded as his associate Shebaba O'Neal. It broke her heart when as a brutal reprisal for supporting Ironwolf O'Brian, the ruthless Empress Erika Klein-Hernandez sacked the Novakeltos Irish-descent lunar colony, killing millions. And she had no doubt who was responsible for that. As a consequence, and after the death of their colleague Missy, she covertly assisted Ironwolf to amass resources and support to bring down the corrupt and repressive Klein-Hernandez dictatorship. And ultimately, they succeeded, but in the process Ironwolf O'Brian was fatally injured. And she abandoned her Shebaba O'Neill facade to take on her eternal nemesis and finally encountered her immortal enemy, her long since abandoned husband:
"Slade. Turn and face me."
"So it is you, Addy. I thought the boy wasn't capable of doing this on his own."
"Why have you abandoned all vestiges of decency, Slade? The Empire Galaktika was responsible for the deaths of millions of innocents. Have you forgotten our children? Or do you really only regard baseline humans as ephemeral mayflies, fit only for servitude to immortals?"
"Of course not. But don't tell me you haven't benefited from our longevity and amassed wealth of your own, even if one does need to keep ahead of the advance of information and surveillance technology every century or so."
"Too bad if "mayflies" get "squashed" underfoot, eh? You sickening piece of offal. It ends now."
"You tried to kill me once before, Addy, remember? That's how I got this eyepatch."
"It's been four millennia since then, Slade. You have to be stopped before you turn any more people into cannon fodder for your obscene desire for power and wealth. No more."
"All for that man who lies bleeding in the hall across from us? Even though you knew this day would come?"
"You don't get to say his name, Slade. Not now, not ever."
"Presumptuous as ever, Addie."
"Arrogant as ever, Slade." And with that, battle was joined, amidst the ruins of the Empire Galaktika as the Liberationist Legions fought for every inch of Nieushikago around them. Their weapons were swords and bucklers, lasers, particle beamers, warpers and holers and technology too advanced to adequately describe here. It was no good. They were too evenly matched, as they forever had been, throughout the time leading up to this. But finally, a weary Slade Wilson realised that he was becoming exhausted against the determination and desire for vengeance of the indomitable woman who faced him. Finally, he could stand no more and triggered a pre-arranged teleport. Provoked, an embittered Adeline slammed her fist into a crumbling plasteel wall. She swore, then remembered that there was a final duty to perform. Kneeling by Ironwolf O'Brian, she began to softly sing a melody from millennia past as she cradled this latest mortal lover of hers in her arms:
"O Bonny Portmore..."
INTERLUDE II:
And again, the centuries and millennia passed by.
In CE 6263, the Kane ISCorp hired a transtemporal Titanian telepath to transmit details about the ersatz "magician" Adra Kadabra, who would become a member of the original Flash's rogues gallery four millennia in the past using his advanced matter condensation and teleportation technologies. In CE 6284, she provided remote logistics to enable Themiscyra and Wonder Woman to repell an invasion from porcine mutants. In CE 7277, she provided information to Oa to assist that era's Green Lantern of Sector 2813 to assist a group of Justice Leaguers who sought to restrain a temporarily insane and temporally displaced Adam Strange. In CE 7474, she enabled Arn Anwnn to travel five millennia back to the ancient Legion of Super Heroes to fix the temporal anomaly of Superboy's 'failed' membership as "Anti-Lad." In CE 8700, she pleaded with scientific authorities to provide some elliptical information that would enable Superman to save the lives of Lois Lane and Lana Lang back in the twentieth century after Luthor and the Phantom Zone Kryptonian criminals had frustrated him. At last, they acquiesced. During the brutal Thirty Years War against alternate universe Martian invaders (CE 8958-8988), she provided resources for Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Hawkman and Hawkwoman as they dealt with the consequences of that bloody interlude in Terran history until eventually, the Martians were repelled. Having background information about a paralytic plague in CE 9140 from a retrieved Justice League database, she provided medical supplies to assist the Flash in providing prophylaxis against the infection. In CE 11,946, she provided assistance to the Justice Society to prevent advanced Atlantean interdimensional technology falling into the wrong hands. In CE 25, 673, she assisted the twentieth century Justice League to defeat a vicious transtemporal tyrant, Alien Ator from enslaving the descendants of humanity on 257th Century Earth. In CE 50,017, she enabled shipment of resources and geotechnic weapons to 501st Century Earth to assist Professor Solis to stabilise Earth's orbit, even though she had now lived on Hesperus (Tau Ceti II) for millennia. By CE 80,000, she had enabled an Assault Computer to repell post-human and hostile extraterrestrial threats to human welfare, even the armies of Apokolips' Darkseid when they launched a mistimed and foolhardy invasion of this distant future Earth. Shifting her attention to 102nd Century Rann, she assisted Adam Strange and the inhabitants of New Ranagar to resist an invasion from the Klannf aliens in CE 101,961.
In CE 852,998, she enabled a nexus to connect the Justice Legions of that era and the distant human past. She thwarted the plans of a hyper-evolved, evil technocratic Batman who had momentarily arrived in CE 801,965 as the result of a Kryptonian evolutionary apparatus that had fallen to Earth in the almost forgotten twentieth century. In CE 1,000,000, she monitored Superman's appearance on a devastated and abandoned Earth under a red sun caused by sabotage from the Superman Revenge Squad's interference with the Earth's primary in the distant past. She realised that he would make his way to the Fortress of Solitude and provided a miniaturised Kandorian rocket and appropriate red kryptonite isotope when he reached it, kept in stasis until his temporary exile in that remote era. It took several millennia, but fortunately, Earth's sun was returned to its convivial yellow and once more, Earth returned to its inhabited state as one of the nexus points for galactic civilisation. In CE 12,000,000, she once again provided logistical assistance to the Challengers of the Unknown, Deadman, Rip Hunter and Swamp Thing as they fought and defeated the Sun Lords of that era. Superboy exiled the Legion of Super Heroes adversary Meglaro to CE 100,000,000 and Adeline arranged for a long-duration stasis field to provide food, shelter and amenable resources when the psionic mutant arrived in his globular life support sphere carried by the Boy of Steel. And then, she had other, thus far unrecorded interventions in the increasingly distant future as Earth and its solar system aged and humanity evolved almost beyond recognition.
EPILOGUE: EARTH: CE 1,000,000,000:
It was now long after humanity had evolved into the ultimate stage of its evolution, homo futurus. That species had spread across the universe, alternate universes and to remote times before and long after the historical presence of homo sapiens had come and gone. At a safe distance, with innumerable others, Adeline Kane watched the long-dead Barry (Flash) Allen become the last human being to set foot on the abandoned Earth. With a thirtieth century polymer suit, he was able to breathe and survive in the superheated, uninhabitable environment that sprawled around him. There was no sign of life on this barren, grey, unchanging graveyard of stone and metal. Pools of liquid metal met him as he ran across his surface. And then, through the heliopause glasses incorporated into his polymer survival suit, the Flash noticed the telltale sudden increase in luminosity and heat output that would destroy the Earth in a little less than eight minutes. She was almost tempted to tell him not to touch the liquid metal, but knew that he would overcome the difficulty that his inadvertent action had produced. He knew it was time to leave and then began to blur away into the past. Seconds later, the nova wavefront began to impact on the dessicated Earth surface and it started to pitch and disintegrate. As the Earth died, its former inhabitants bore witness to the demise of its legend. Adeline sighed, but realised that even if humanity's original homeworld had ceased to exist, the species had survived it. And she would always be there to protect it. She saw R'as and Rose in the crowd and waved to them. They made their way to one another through the immensity of the crowd as it began to break up and disperse. Behind her, the last fragments of Earth broke free from the debris field of the dead planet as it was incinerated and vapourised.
And as for the future beyond that, who can say? And did Slade Wilson and Adeline Kane cross each others paths one final time? If they did, it lies beyond the scrutiny of this survey of her presence in future history, for there is even a limit to the abilities of the most advanced transtemporal surveillance technology.
THE END [11.55 PM, AUGUST 7, 2023]
++
PROLOGUE: SHANGELLA, 3223 CE:
As the suited form of the last surviving member of the original Legion of Super Heroes, Drake (Wildfire) Burroughs turned to walk away, he saw a familiar figure standing at the edge of the Legion's memorial asteroid:
"Hello, Wildfire."
"Adeline. Thank you for giving me some time alone with her, one last precious moment."
"I'm so sorry. I wish I could have given you the ability to become wholly corporeal and human again. Not being able to intimately touch and kiss Dawnstar for the decades you were together."
"Yeah. Yeah, you must have lived through heartbreak like this over and over again. How do you do it, Addy? How do you keep living, even when everyone you ever knew and loved passes away?"
"There's a difference between merely surviving and really living, Drake. I know. You didn't ask for any of this, neither did I. But we're both effectively immortal, unless one of us chooses to become otherwise. And I won't. I loved all of you like my own long-gone original children and as you passed away one by one, it tore my heart out. But you lived brilliant, incandescent heroic lives. You saved trillions of lives. You lived, loved and built lives and families together. You made a profound difference to the universe around you. Never doubt that."
"Will I see you again?"
"Drake, anytime you want to talk about your beautiful, precious Dawnstar, I'll be there. Or any of the others."
"I know I'll probably take you up on that, Addy. And thank you. For being the steady rock and pinion you were to all of us, not only financial, but emotional and spiritual."
"Thank you, Drake. And Drake? I know you're hurting now, and given what I know from my own children's lives and from their deaths, immortality is about change, not about stasis. I'm not sure whether it's a blessing and curse. I've wept over lovers too, some taken before their time. You and Dawnstar had decades together. She was a remarkable woman. Take some time for yourself, grieve and heal. Know that although it feels like it now, you will never be alone."
As Wildfire and Adeline Kane embraced one last time in the thirty third century vacuum of space, it was with reluctance that they drew apart and Drake Burroughs disappeared into the void of space. Adeline looked around her. Almost the entirety of the Legion of Super Heroes, one-time Legion of Substitute Heroes, Wanderers and Heroes of Lallor and even one or two reformed members of the long defunct Legion of Super-Villains lay here. An era was finally over. She would never forget them, but now that they were almost all gone, it was time to prepare for what lay ahead. As she ascended the causeway to her own personal starship, she remembered her daughter Rose's favourite folk song from all those centuries ago:
If I held you now as I held you before
I would cling to the memories of our love evermore...
FLASHBACK: CE 3100:
As Superwoman XII gently alighted on the desolate hilltop, Adeline looked over her shoulder:
"It's good to see you again, Elna."
Elna (Superwoman) Kent sighed: "You too, Adeline. It's been too long."
"I'm sorry you couldn't get back in time."
"Ironic, considering my superspeed. But you always knew that was going to happen, didn't you?"
Adeline nodded: "Brane Taylor...Batman XXIX... was always going to die last week when his exoskeleton malfunctioned fighting the Yerxa-Muto team. His body was weakened with all of those temporal excursions into the past to assist his legendary predecessor, the very first Batman. Unfortunately, baseline human physiology can't withstand that for too long. I warned him, just as I did Kristin Wells, your namesake, the original "Superwoman." I hate this, Elna. I hate saying goodbye to dear friends and living onward like this."
"But you do. And don't discount how valuable you've been to so many generations of us throughout the centuries. If it hadn't been for you, countless numbers would have died throughout those years, well before our time. And you don't patronise us, or withhold, except when events are inevitable and the result of cumulative momentum. And that's the way it should be. No-one is meant to be omnipotent."
"I was reading a book about Queen Elizabeth I, near the end of her life. She'd lost family, lovers, friends, advisors and enemies. As the seventeenth century dawned, she'd outlived them all and was weary of life. Me? I've outlived my children, generations of humanity and metahumanity."
"But you haven't wasted any of those centuries, or sacrificed your humanity. You could treat baseline humanity and metahumans as mayflies, but you never have. You always cry and grieve for us. That is what is precious and irreplaceable about you. I can't imagine my life without you, Adeline. And I don't think I want to. Rao speed you, old friend."
"Goodbye, Elna." And for a few more minutes, Adeline Kane looked out over the hilltop cairn that marked the final resting places of Brane Taylor (Batman XXIX) and Riq Griart-Taylor (Robin XXXV), over the remains of Old Gotham, the ancient city below the starscrapers of the eastern coastal Megalopolis that encompassed five hundred million North Americans.
Elna was right. This never got any easier.
MEGALOPOLIS: CE 3450:
As Adeline Kane watched Superboy vanish high in the skies above, she turned to Alixe Luthor, the thirtieth generation of his family. At length, she said:
"Thank you for that necessary lie, Alixe."
"It would have torn the Man of Steel apart to learn the truth about his descendant- that Superman XXX was indeed a mass murderer who obliterated planets, cities and starships, a mentally ill sufferer of the incurable Kryptonian Virus Z. So I played along with the pretense as you requested, Ms. Kane. I think we all owed the original Superboy that, at least, given his achievements in his own past era and then as Superman. So, do you have those canisters of nuclear war radioactive residue seawater that I shipped here?"
"It's a shame that Superman XXX didn't inherit his ancestor's vulnerability to kryptonite. But I had a duty to perform and when his grandmother Elna told me about their family's new weakness, I knew what was coming and prepared for it. It's good to see your family back in the light, Alixe."
"Given what the first Luthor perpetrated, at times his other descendants and I wonder if there can ever be complete recompense and atonement."
"You're living proof that there can be. Never release him, Alixe. He has to be a lesson that even the best and brightest of us can fall from the sky, like the mythical Icarus and Daedalus."
INTERLUDE:
And time went on. Adeline didn't intervene in momentary appearances in future history from bygone metahumans of the past, such as the Grim Ghost, Superman, Hawkwoman, Hawkman and the Justice League on temporal recovery missions for errant and unintentional time travelers and against more malignant adversaries such as the Legion of Doom when they took over the United Planets in CE 3984. Or Wonder Woman's encounter with a misanthropic giant in CE 4458, or the "Unknown Superman" and "Batsman"'s encounter with the so-called "Lord of Time" in CE 4580. However, she was there in the background, providing logistical support to the descendants of those she cherished and valued, defending life, liberty and decency as a resilient thread of continuity and constancy across the centuries and millennia. She enabled Rip Hunter and his colleagues to ensnare one of their number's renegade former members in the Maryland Sector of Megalopolis in CE 4784.
In CE 4956, she encountered Jimmy Olsen once again, nearly two millennia after his descendant, the brilliant and noble Superwoman, Kristen Wells, had succumbed to the accelerated progerid condition that she had acquired through temporal travel. She'd known that she'd see him again, even if by now he was the stuff of legends akin to those of ancient Greece. She watched as he acquired enhanced abilities due to the advanced technologies of that era, and remembered his one-time youth, innocence and enthusiasm. Once again, she relived those moments as an onlooker as she "hadn't" met him yet, several years in his 'future.' When the inevitable happened, she smiled as the original Superman caught up with his errant best friend and swept them back to the distant twentieth century past. She momentarily entered an alternate timeline where one of the past world wars had destroyed all sapient life on Earth and provided a sanctuary, food and intellectual resources for the Silver Age Flashs' transtemporal adversary Mazdan in an alternate CE 4956. There were other visitors who momentarily appeared in the future, like Superboy when he momentarily visited a Smallville homage theme park in CE 5180.
SOLAR CITY, CE 5700:
It was now almost three thousand years since she'd talked to and lived alongside the Legion of Super-Heroes and in all that time, she was preparing for the next major period in Earth's history. By now, humanity had colonised every planet in Earth's solar system and pantropic genetic modification was widespread. She knew that the era required an experienced interstellar operative, and who should be selected to fulfill that role. And so, she utilised her prepared cover identity and her presence on the Solar Council to implant the idea that Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan was the appropriate individual for the period's challenging galactic situation and interspecies ethnic animosities. At times, too, she had to sit Iona Vane down and talk to her about what would happen downtime and how she mustn't reveal what would befall the man that she feigned love for. And then a past Hal Jordan had to be assisted to save the Solar Union planets one final time. Iona Vane never saw Hal Jordan again and died two centuries later. Adeline felt her immortality keenly as she caught momentary glimpses as eternity bore on.
But humanity was entering darker times, as one could note when Superman visited the sixtieth century twice and found that information retrieval technology had decayed enough for inhabitants of that century to question his existence, in CE 5902 and 5921.
NIEUSHIKAGO, CE 6087:
In CE 6087, the tyrannical Klein-Hernandez industrial cartel had launched a coup d'espace to shove aside the creaking edifice of the collapsing United Planets and craft a tyrannical " Empire Galaktika" that would blight the Milky Way for the next three generations of human history. And at long last, she encountered Slade Wilson again, as she boarded Ironwolf's starship Limerick Rake, and masqueraded as his associate Shebaba O'Neal. It broke her heart when as a brutal reprisal for supporting Ironwolf O'Brian, the ruthless Empress Erika Klein-Hernandez sacked the Novakeltos Irish-descent lunar colony, killing millions. And she had no doubt who was responsible for that. As a consequence, and after the death of their colleague Missy, she covertly assisted Ironwolf to amass resources and support to bring down the corrupt and repressive Klein-Hernandez dictatorship. And ultimately, they succeeded, but in the process Ironwolf O'Brian was fatally injured. And she abandoned her Shebaba O'Neill facade to take on her eternal nemesis and finally encountered her immortal enemy, her long since abandoned husband:
"Slade. Turn and face me."
"So it is you, Addy. I thought the boy wasn't capable of doing this on his own."
"Why have you abandoned all vestiges of decency, Slade? The Empire Galaktika was responsible for the deaths of millions of innocents. Have you forgotten our children? Or do you really only regard baseline humans as ephemeral mayflies, fit only for servitude to immortals?"
"Of course not. But don't tell me you haven't benefited from our longevity and amassed wealth of your own, even if one does need to keep ahead of the advance of information and surveillance technology every century or so."
"Too bad if "mayflies" get "squashed" underfoot, eh? You sickening piece of offal. It ends now."
"You tried to kill me once before, Addy, remember? That's how I got this eyepatch."
"It's been four millennia since then, Slade. You have to be stopped before you turn any more people into cannon fodder for your obscene desire for power and wealth. No more."
"All for that man who lies bleeding in the hall across from us? Even though you knew this day would come?"
"You don't get to say his name, Slade. Not now, not ever."
"Presumptuous as ever, Addie."
"Arrogant as ever, Slade." And with that, battle was joined, amidst the ruins of the Empire Galaktika as the Liberationist Legions fought for every inch of Nieushikago around them. Their weapons were swords and bucklers, lasers, particle beamers, warpers and holers and technology too advanced to adequately describe here. It was no good. They were too evenly matched, as they forever had been, throughout the time leading up to this. But finally, a weary Slade Wilson realised that he was becoming exhausted against the determination and desire for vengeance of the indomitable woman who faced him. Finally, he could stand no more and triggered a pre-arranged teleport. Provoked, an embittered Adeline slammed her fist into a crumbling plasteel wall. She swore, then remembered that there was a final duty to perform. Kneeling by Ironwolf O'Brian, she began to softly sing a melody from millennia past as she cradled this latest mortal lover of hers in her arms:
"O Bonny Portmore..."
INTERLUDE II:
And again, the centuries and millennia passed by.
In CE 6263, the Kane ISCorp hired a transtemporal Titanian telepath to transmit details about the ersatz "magician" Adra Kadabra, who would become a member of the original Flash's rogues gallery four millennia in the past using his advanced matter condensation and teleportation technologies. In CE 6284, she provided remote logistics to enable Themiscyra and Wonder Woman to repell an invasion from porcine mutants. In CE 7277, she provided information to Oa to assist that era's Green Lantern of Sector 2813 to assist a group of Justice Leaguers who sought to restrain a temporarily insane and temporally displaced Adam Strange. In CE 7474, she enabled Arn Anwnn to travel five millennia back to the ancient Legion of Super Heroes to fix the temporal anomaly of Superboy's 'failed' membership as "Anti-Lad." In CE 8700, she pleaded with scientific authorities to provide some elliptical information that would enable Superman to save the lives of Lois Lane and Lana Lang back in the twentieth century after Luthor and the Phantom Zone Kryptonian criminals had frustrated him. At last, they acquiesced. During the brutal Thirty Years War against alternate universe Martian invaders (CE 8958-8988), she provided resources for Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Hawkman and Hawkwoman as they dealt with the consequences of that bloody interlude in Terran history until eventually, the Martians were repelled. Having background information about a paralytic plague in CE 9140 from a retrieved Justice League database, she provided medical supplies to assist the Flash in providing prophylaxis against the infection. In CE 11,946, she provided assistance to the Justice Society to prevent advanced Atlantean interdimensional technology falling into the wrong hands. In CE 25, 673, she assisted the twentieth century Justice League to defeat a vicious transtemporal tyrant, Alien Ator from enslaving the descendants of humanity on 257th Century Earth. In CE 50,017, she enabled shipment of resources and geotechnic weapons to 501st Century Earth to assist Professor Solis to stabilise Earth's orbit, even though she had now lived on Hesperus (Tau Ceti II) for millennia. By CE 80,000, she had enabled an Assault Computer to repell post-human and hostile extraterrestrial threats to human welfare, even the armies of Apokolips' Darkseid when they launched a mistimed and foolhardy invasion of this distant future Earth. Shifting her attention to 102nd Century Rann, she assisted Adam Strange and the inhabitants of New Ranagar to resist an invasion from the Klannf aliens in CE 101,961.
In CE 852,998, she enabled a nexus to connect the Justice Legions of that era and the distant human past. She thwarted the plans of a hyper-evolved, evil technocratic Batman who had momentarily arrived in CE 801,965 as the result of a Kryptonian evolutionary apparatus that had fallen to Earth in the almost forgotten twentieth century. In CE 1,000,000, she monitored Superman's appearance on a devastated and abandoned Earth under a red sun caused by sabotage from the Superman Revenge Squad's interference with the Earth's primary in the distant past. She realised that he would make his way to the Fortress of Solitude and provided a miniaturised Kandorian rocket and appropriate red kryptonite isotope when he reached it, kept in stasis until his temporary exile in that remote era. It took several millennia, but fortunately, Earth's sun was returned to its convivial yellow and once more, Earth returned to its inhabited state as one of the nexus points for galactic civilisation. In CE 12,000,000, she once again provided logistical assistance to the Challengers of the Unknown, Deadman, Rip Hunter and Swamp Thing as they fought and defeated the Sun Lords of that era. Superboy exiled the Legion of Super Heroes adversary Meglaro to CE 100,000,000 and Adeline arranged for a long-duration stasis field to provide food, shelter and amenable resources when the psionic mutant arrived in his globular life support sphere carried by the Boy of Steel. And then, she had other, thus far unrecorded interventions in the increasingly distant future as Earth and its solar system aged and humanity evolved almost beyond recognition.
EPILOGUE: EARTH: CE 1,000,000,000:
It was now long after humanity had evolved into the ultimate stage of its evolution, homo futurus. That species had spread across the universe, alternate universes and to remote times before and long after the historical presence of homo sapiens had come and gone. At a safe distance, with innumerable others, Adeline Kane watched the long-dead Barry (Flash) Allen become the last human being to set foot on the abandoned Earth. With a thirtieth century polymer suit, he was able to breathe and survive in the superheated, uninhabitable environment that sprawled around him. There was no sign of life on this barren, grey, unchanging graveyard of stone and metal. Pools of liquid metal met him as he ran across his surface. And then, through the heliopause glasses incorporated into his polymer survival suit, the Flash noticed the telltale sudden increase in luminosity and heat output that would destroy the Earth in a little less than eight minutes. She was almost tempted to tell him not to touch the liquid metal, but knew that he would overcome the difficulty that his inadvertent action had produced. He knew it was time to leave and then began to blur away into the past. Seconds later, the nova wavefront began to impact on the dessicated Earth surface and it started to pitch and disintegrate. As the Earth died, its former inhabitants bore witness to the demise of its legend. Adeline sighed, but realised that even if humanity's original homeworld had ceased to exist, the species had survived it. And she would always be there to protect it. She saw R'as and Rose in the crowd and waved to them. They made their way to one another through the immensity of the crowd as it began to break up and disperse. Behind her, the last fragments of Earth broke free from the debris field of the dead planet as it was incinerated and vapourised.
And as for the future beyond that, who can say? And did Slade Wilson and Adeline Kane cross each others paths one final time? If they did, it lies beyond the scrutiny of this survey of her presence in future history, for there is even a limit to the abilities of the most advanced transtemporal surveillance technology.
THE END [11.55 PM, AUGUST 7, 2023]