Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 5, 2013 13:16:22 GMT -5
* * * Epilogue (Stiletta) * * * “You’re sure about this? Absolutely sure?” “I’ve run the test three times, and got a positive result each time.” Vance put his hands on Stiletta’s shoulders, saying, “Don’t worry, I know exactly what to do. You’ve seen some of my handiwork running around the halls here.” “I know, I know, it’s just...” She slumped a bit as she sat on the gurney, her hand going to her belly. “It doesn’t seem fair. If I’d known about this when...” “You did the right thing, letting him go back home.” “But I could’ve gone with him. He asked me, and I said no.” Tears were forming in her eyes as she told Vance, “I wanted him to be happy, and this...I think this would have made him happy.” He nodded. “Probably, but right now, you can’t dwell on what could have been. It’s not good for either of you.” “I suppose not.” She let out a sigh, then said, “Can we keep this between ourselves for a while? I don’t think I’m ready for all the attention yet.” “Can I tell Marya? She’ll need to know so she can get the proper supplies, especially since you’re going to be staying on with us past spring. At least I hope you’re staying on.” “Yeah, I guess I am. Hadn’t thought about that.” She rubbed her belly once more before hopping off the gurney. “Go ahead and tell her...but only her. I mean it.” “Doctor/patient confidentiality. Got it.” “Thanks.” Stiletta surprised Vance by giving him a peck on the cheek, then she left the infirmary. Other people passed her as she walked to the sleeping quarters, but she didn’t really notice them. Her mind was elsewhere, on a future she’d never even considered. When she reached Jonah’s room, she paused to trace her fingers over his name still spray-painted on the door, then went inside. She’d taken it over nearly two months ago, just a few days after Jonah and Green Lantern had gone back home. Her old room was now occupied by a woman named Amanda and her daughter Merrissa -- Green Lantern had told Stiletta how they’d supplied him with the Newstime that clued him into this world’s divergent history, and had asked her to look in on them -- after seeing the dreadful conditions they were living in at River’s End, she and Marya invited them to move into Maple, where the little girl could grow up in safety. And so will he...or she, Stiletta thought, and she could feel herself tearing up again. Jonah’s old coat was draped over the back of a chair, so she sat down upon it, wrapped the coat’s sleeves around her, and closed her eyes. She never considered herself a religious or spiritual person, but at that moment, she hoped that somehow, someway, the ghost of Jonah Hex was in that room with her, having traveled across time and space to be there when she needed him most. She imagined him kneeling before her, taking her hands in his with a tenderness that belied his hardened disposition, as she tried to get the words out. “You’re going to be a father, Jonah,” she spoke aloud. “I’ll admit, I was pretty shocked when Vance first suggested it...figured I was just sick or something...but it looks like he was right. I never thought about...I’m not sure if I’m the mothering type. I know Mookie and Marya and everybody else here will help me out, but I don’t...I wish you were here to do this with me. Or I was there with you. I wish...” Her voice broke, and she began to sob, pulling the coat even tighter around her. It would be easy to blame it on hormones, but in truth, she was terrified of what lay ahead, and didn’t want to face it without the man she loved. And there was the unfairness of it all: Jonah would live and die in the past without a clue that Stiletta was raising his child in the future. Even if he couldn’t be here, he should at least know that his name and memory would carry on, that he wouldn’t end up forgotten like that ominous relic they’d found in the back of the warehouse. But there’s no way to let him know about any of this, Stiletta thought. He’s long gone, and the machine that sent him back is nothing but a burned-out piece of junk now. No second chances, just like I told him.Or maybe there was a chance, albeit a slim one. Yes, the Casimir engine had burned itself out, but perhaps the design could be copied. And there was also the time machine her father had built: both it and the fortress that contained it were destroyed, but there might be something salvageable left beneath the rubble, or even blueprints so it could be rebuilt from scratch. Neither she nor Hex had considered that possibility before, because such things were far out of their realm of expertise...but now she knew others who could most certainly handle the technical and scientific acrobatics necessary to construct such a fantastic thing. Wiping her eyes, Stiletta looked at the table next to her. On it lay a slim green rod, not much longer than her middle finger: a communications device given to her by the three Green Lanterns who’d come to the aid of their comrade from the past. They planned on taking Earth’s case to the Guardians so that the planet could get the help it so desperately needed, and left the communicator behind as both a show of good faith and to allow them to update Stiletta and the others on their progress. She picked it up, running her thumb over the surface the rod. On one end was a tiny button, which would send a signal to the Green Lanterns -- she’d been tempted many times over the past two months to press the button and ask if they were making any headway with their bosses, but she’d resisted. Now she wondered if she should dare to ask them a favor: help her find a way back to the past, the one that her Jonah resided in, or at least find a way to send him a message. It seemed so selfish, especially when compared to the more-important task of repairing the damage done to this world, but when one is in love, one’s worldview can contract until it contains only two people. Stiletta sat there for a long time, her thumb hovering over the button, before finally making her decision. ...The end of the beginning...
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Susan Hillwig
Staff
I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 5, 2013 13:10:34 GMT -5
* * * Epilogue (Jonah) * * * The first chance he had, he burned the clothes. Jonah wanted no reminders of his life in 2050, no evidence that he'd ever been anywhere else but his own time. The only things he kept were the Dragoons, of course, and the gunbelts he'd taken off his own corpse -- while the leather was cracking from centuries of neglect, they seemed to be in serviceable condition for now. He found a man, a former son of the Confederacy like himself, that was willing to part with an old uniform for a reasonable sum. It wasn't the same as his original cavalry coat, but it was close enough. He soon discovered that it would take more than a change of clothes to restore any sense of normalcy to his life. After Emmylou had been cleared of the criminal charges against her, and Jonah had rounded up the rest of Brett's gang (collecting a tidy fee for his services in the process), the two of them left Red Dog behind. The spark of love was still there between them, but that wasn't why they stayed together: they clung to each other emotionally like lost children, both desiring the comfort that familiarity brought, neither wanting to be alone with the memories of their personal traumas. Sometimes Emmy would talk about what Brett had done to her, about the fear that still dwelled in her heart, and Jonah would hold her and kiss her and do his best to show that she was safe now, the man was dead and would never touch her again. It helped her over time, but for Jonah, there was no consolation. He refused to speak about what occurred during his brief disappearance, even when he woke up in the middle of the night, crying out in confusion because he couldn't remember where he was. There were moments when he'd just stop what he was doing and stare around him, sure that what he saw was a dream or hallucination, that he was still trapped in a world where it wasn't even safe to walk out in the rain or drink from an open stream. After a few months, his odd behavior began to put a strain on their relationship. One night as they lay in bed, Emmy pressed him about what really happened that day in Red Dog. "I hear you talking in your sleep," she said, "but it doesn't make any sense. There's something you're holding back from me, and I want to know why." Stubborn as always, he replied, "Ah told yuh, Ah don't remember nothin'." Emmy wasn't about to let him off that easy. "Jonah...who's Stiletta?" He tried his best to not let the shock show on his face. Hex knew that he had a tendency to mumble things when he was having bad dreams, but he didn't know he'd let that much slip out. "Ah cain't tell yuh," he said, the words sounding weak and pathetic as he spoke them. "If you loved me, you'd tell me." "Ah do love yuh, darlin'...an' thet's why Ah won't." He left her in the morning, checking out of the hotel they'd been staying at and never looking back. It was an easier choice for him than trying to live with that lie hanging between them. Unfortunately, being out on the trail alone did nothing to help stop the nightly visitations from ghosts of people that hadn't even been born yet...or may never be born, if he understood what Hal told him right. By the beginning of the Centennial Year, Jonah had wandered down the Texas/New Mexico way. The man had become uncomfortable in his own skin, unsure of how to go on with his life in the past now that he'd seen the future. He started drinking again, not as heavily, but enough to blur his memory of what may or may not happen. It was hard to look at the world around him and think that, in less than two centuries, it could all be gone, wiped away by both progress and foolishness. Slowly, Hex began to fall away from his old path, no longer caring about the reputation he’d worked so hard to earn over the years, and he soon found himself on the wrong side of the cell door more often than not, living the life of an outlaw instead of a bounty hunter. That in turn led him to places that, in his previous life, he never would have thought existed. They had always been there, of course, but after the things he’d experienced in 2050, the strangeness of his own time became more evident: worm creatures, talking bears...not to mention a little troll of a man that could raise the dead. Though he didn't know it, Doc “Cross” Williams did Jonah a favor. What the ugly skunk did to unsuspecting folks in general was nothing short of blasphemous, but when he resurrected the corpse of Wild Bill Hickok just for a bit of revenge, he inadvertently hit an area a bit too close to home for Jonah, especially with the silly fringed and embroidered outfit Doc made the dead man wear. It was Jonah’s worst nightmare come to life...or un-life, rather. To make matters worse, the Doc tried to do the same to Hex, and that just didn't sit well with him. Once he’d laid old Hickok to rest with a pair of bullets to the braincase (and another pair for the Doc’s knees), Jonah found himself sleeping a lot better at night. He knew that the Hickok corpse wasn't his own, but facing the thing head-on in a gunfight the way he did put something in his soul at ease. Not long after that, Jonah began his journey back to the “civilized” world, doing his level best to rebuild his reputation as a hunter of men. He even managed to find a more suitable replacement for his old cavalry uniform along the way. Despite the time he'd spent out on the fringe of society, he soon found that little had changed in his absence. There would always be a need for men like him, ones that weren't afraid to get their hands bloody in the name of justice...and for now, that knowledge would have to be enough to get him by. It had taken a couple of years, but Hex had finally made peace with the thought that, try as he might, he'd never be the same man he was before he'd walked into the Red Dog Saloon. The months he'd spent in that hellish future had left a scar on him as deep and permanent as the one on his face, and if he could go on living with that twisted memento staring back at him from the shaving mirror every day, then he could live with the secret one in his mind and heart. Time passed, as it is wont to do, and one evening Jonah rode into a town called Morrow deep in the Arizona Territory, dog-tired and in dire need of a bath. He wasn't normally inclined to such things, but after getting caught in a sudden downpour and subsequent mudslide two days previous, he figured soaking his old bones for a few minutes wouldn't kill him...providing he got out quick enough. The local hotel fulfilled his needs nicely, and he even sprung for a shave and haircut at the barber down the way the next morning. When he walked to the sheriff's office afterward to check for wanted posters, he looked almost respectable. Almost. As he perused the papers tacked to the wall outside, the sheriff stepped out. He recognized Hex immediately and said, "You lookin' for work, bounty hunter?" "Just 'til muh inheritance comes through," Jonah deadpanned. "Figure Ah must have a rich uncle somewheres thet'll kick the bucket soon." "You and me both." He leaned against the doorframe, saying, "Got a job that's right up your alley, but it ain't on that there wall." "Ah'm listenin'." "Blond-haired fella named McAllister, he done shot up some folks 'bout a week ago, includin' one of my deputies. He lit out right after, headed north into the desert. We ain't been able to turn up hide nor hair of 'im since. I sent a wire to this little town just north of here, tellin' 'em to keep an eye out, but he ain't showed so far. Figure maybe he's tryin' to wait us out." "Stupid move. This time of year, desert's hot enough tuh fry the Devil's tail off." He hitched his thumbs in his new gunbelt -- the old pair he'd brought back with him from the future had finally given up the ghost a couple of months ago, and he was back down to only one holster, the left-hand gun tucked beneath his belt like before. "How much yuh offerin'?" "I can give you two hundred myself, and if I pass around the kitty, I might be able to get you a bit more." Hex thought about it for a moment, then said, "Thet'll do fine." He headed back to the hotel to gather his gear and horse, then hit the trail. The rain the other day hadn't reached that far north, luckily, and there were still a few signs of McAllister's passing to be found. For hours, Jonah scanned his eyes over the country about him, searching for anything that would point him in the direction of his quarry. The heat of the day tore at him, threatening to boil him right out of his skin, but he didn't let it deter him in the least. As the sun moved closer to the west, the gunfighter began to think about making camp for the night, preferably in a shady spot. Those thoughts went right out of his head, however, when he saw movement off to the west: vultures...and they were circling. Could be a stray cow, or maybe even a hobbled mustang, he thought, turning his mount in the direction of the birds. An' on the other hand, might be a man. Standing in the saddle, he drove the horse to a full gallop. There was the possibility that whomever or whatever lay out there was already dead, but if they weren't, then time was of the essence. Ain't many things worse than dyin' alone an' thirsty. Ah'm not a sociable man by nature, an' Ah'd just as soon cuss a man as look at 'im, but this is dif'rent. An' besides, could be Ah've found the man Ah've been lookin' fer! The vultures appeared to be focused over a dry riverbed. Jonah rode alongside, and they fled at his approach, which was fine by him. Saved him the trouble of having to shoot them. He spurred his horse down the bank, but soon found himself almost thrown from the saddle as the animal reared up, veering away from an emerald shaft of light shooting up from out of the riverbed. He cursed and did his best to control the horse, then moved with caution towards the bank again, unsure of just what was going on. As he peered over the side, he saw a man with brown hair sprawled out below, dressed in clothes that had no Earthly reason for existing in 1878. The uniform was slightly different from the last time Hex had seen it, but not so different that he couldn't recognize an old friend. Well, would yuh look at thet? Jonah thought. Hal Jordan, as Ah live an' breathe. A grin began to spread over his face, and he was about to call out a greeting, but then the Green Lantern raised his right hand. Another beam of light bolted past the gunfighter's head, missing it by inches and spooking the horse again. All thoughts of being friendly left his mind as he cursed once more and yelled, "Ease up, boy! Yuh tryin' tuh get a man killed?" "Move one inch closer, cowboy, and dead is just what you'll be!" The black-and-green clad man propped himself up with his left hand, the ring on his right still trained on Hex. Sweat was pouring down the Hal's face, and it looked like he was on his way to a decent sunburn, as well. The mask he wore hid a good portion of his face, but Jonah could read his expression well enough to see that Hal meant every word he said. Jonah was stunned, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Why was Jordan acting like this? Hex was about to ask if the man had lost his mind from the heat, then he suddenly realized what year it was, and where he was...and he knew right then, even though the sheriff hadn't told him such, that the little town to the north he'd mentioned was called Desecration. A cold chill ran down his spine. While Jonah knew who the man was, Hal Jordan... this Hal Jordan...had never met him before. Their positions had been reversed from the last time, and unless Jonah wanted to tempt fate, he'd have to keep his trap shut about all he knew, or else risk screwing up the entire timestream. Hal tried to stand, but he just didn't have the strength to pick himself up off the ground. He looked wasted, and Jonah wondered just how long the man had been out here in the middle of nowhere. One of the birds, seeing him struggle, dipped a little lower as it circled overhead with its brethren. The motion caught Hal's attention, and he asked in a raspy voice, "Those vultures up there...what are they doing?" The bounty hunter didn't respond right away. When he finally did, he took account of every word he said before he spoke it, afraid of letting the wrong ones slip out. "They're waitin' on y'all tuh die, stranger." It was odd to call him that, after spending almost a week in his company all those years ago, but until Hal said his name outright, Hex would have to play dumb. "Looks tuh me like they might not have long tuh wait, either." His right arm began to sag, as did the rest of him. "I don't know what you're talking about..." he managed to get out before collapsing, falling back onto the riverbed. The irony of what Hal had said struck Jonah as funny, and he couldn't help but smile. "Ah'll bet yuh don't," he muttered, and swung out of the saddle. He didn't know how the Green Lantern had come to be in such a mess, but it was obvious to him that it wasn't a planned excursion. He grabbed a canteen and headed down the side of the bank, saying under his breath, "Comin' out in the desert without a horse...without proper clothes...why, son, it's a miracle Ah found yuh breathin'!" He soon found that his lecturing fell on deaf ears: Hal had passed right out, finally giving in to the oppressive heat. Figured he would, Jonah thought as he knelt down, didn't seem like he had much push left in him. He pulled out an old bandana, soaked it with water from the canteen, and laid it across Jordan's forehead. He then sloshed some more down the man's throat. Judgin' by his burn, he's been out in the sun eight, ten hours, bareheaded. Only a durn fool would try a stunt like thet. But he knew Hal Jordan was no fool. A bit uppity maybe, as most Yankees were, but he had a good heart, and a willingness to go out of his way to help folks, whether they liked it or not. Whatever reason Jordan had for being out there, so far from his proper time and place, it was a good one. And Hex also knew that he'd soon find himself entangled in that reason as well, at least for a day. Jonah wished that the Green Lantern had told him more during their last time together, so he'd know what to expect, but things never worked that way for him. He'd just have to get through it like he always did, relying on his quick wits and quicker guns. At least this time, he'd have a friend by his side to get through it with. Jonah looked up at the sky. The vultures had gotten the hint that the Green Lantern had been taken off the menu and moved on. A lucky break, since it meant that he wouldn't have to worry about wrestling Hal's unconscious form onto the horse. They would make camp there for now, and as soon as Jordan recovered, the two of them could get down to whatever business awaited them in the town of Desecration. "Reckon Ah don't know whut'll happen when we get there, Hal," he said, "but Ah know it's gonna be a Hell of a day."
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Susan Hillwig
Staff
I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 5, 2013 13:09:38 GMT -5
* * * Epilogue (Hal) * * * The sky was clear over Seattle, a bright summer sun looking down on the ships passing through Puget Sound. The tourists visiting the Space Needle that day had a perfect view of the city, and if they were lucky enough to be facing the southeast not long before noon, they would have caught sight of a streak of green zipping across the skyline. It was gone rather quickly, disappearing somewhere over the downtown area. A few minutes afterward, a man dressed in jeans and a battered leather flight jacket walked out of an alleyway and fell right into step with the sidewalk traffic. The last few weeks had been busy ones for Hal Jordan: reconstruction of Coast City had been announced a couple of days after he'd returned from the future, and as soon as the government began taking applications to fill the empty buildings, Hal signed up. At first he thought it would feel strange, living in a ready-made city almost void of residents, but after a day or two, it seemed right. He was starting from scratch, and so was Coast City. They both bore scars, but together, they would find their place in the world again. In a way, the newborn city lent him a hand with his place-finding: its proximity to Edwards Air Force Base made him think of his old flying buddy Shane Sellers, and after a long debate with himself, he finally picked up the phone and called him. Shane was shocked to hear Hal's voice, but soon the conversation fell into old familiar rhythms. It didn't take much coaxing to talk Shane into meeting him at the base for a turn in the skies, and maybe...just maybe...a chance at doing it full-time once again. But that meeting was tomorrow. Today, Hal had an appointment with another old friend, and a promise to keep. He could have picked any city to search for the book, but Seattle seemed the most appropriate choice. After a quick consultation with a payphone directory, he headed to a place called Tony's Used Books and Magazines, not too far from where he'd landed. It was a tiny store with stacks of paperbacks filling up the front window. An elderly Filipino man with graying hair was sorting through a box of fantasy novels sitting on the counter, and he looked up when the bell on the shop's door tinkled. "Good morning...I mean afternoon," he said after checking his watch. "Help you with something?" "I hope so. I'm trying to find a book." Hal scratched the back of his head. "Unfortunately, I don't know the title...it was printed around the late sixties, I think. Maybe early seventies." "What's it about?" "Jonah Hex. He was a bounty..." The man held up a hand. "You want the Lawrence. There's others, of course, but if you want a Hex book, buy the Lawrence." He came around from behind the counter and started down one of the aisles of bookshelves, Jordan following behind. "I don't have the original from '72...they're close to impossible to find...but there was a revised edition around '93. Should be one back here." The man stopped before one of the tall cases and pulled down a thick hardback book, HEX prominent on the dust jacket. "These are out of print, too, though I read in one of the publishing trades that they might crank out a new run this year. It seems like they don't think about printing things like this unless Westerns are 'hot', like nobody gives a damn about history until they make a cable show out of it." He stopped, realizing what he'd said, then asked, "That's not why you're looking for it, is it?" Laughing, Hal shook his head. "No, a friend of mine wanted me to pick it up. You could say he lives for Westerns." "Well, you can tell your friend that I said he has great taste." The man handed the book over, and Hal opened the cover. Penciled lightly on the corner of the title page was the price: $125. Noticing his customer's wince, the storeowner told him, "Believe it or not, that's cheap. I heard of one going for five hundred a few years back." "I understand, it's just that my cash flow is a bit of a trickle right now." He'd lost track of how much money Ollie had loaned him since he'd come back -- whatever job Hal ended up getting, the first dozen or so paychecks would probably head straight to Star City. "Look, I can tell this really means something to you. How about we make it an even hundred, would that take some of the sting off?" Hal agreed, and they walked back up to the counter. As the man rang up the sale, he said, "If your friend's interested, I know somebody that might be willing to part with a first-edition Hawk, Son of Tomahawk at a decent price." "I'll let him know next time I see him." He paid the man and left, slipping his purchase inside his jacket and making his way to a small park not far from the bookstore. Hal found a bench under a large shade tree and settled in. Nearby, some kids played Frisbee with a dog, the early-afternoon sun shining down on them. "Well, Jonah, I got it," he said under his breath as he pulled out the book. "Time to see how everything turned out." He opened the book, unsure of whether he should just skip to the end. Instead, he flipped to pages at random, taking in snippets of Jonah's life. There were so many things about him Hal didn't know, but now they were right here before him, good and bad. He read about Jonah's abusive father, who sold the boy to a tribe of Apaches. He came across a photo of Hex, years before his face became scarred, posing with some of his fellow scouts during his days with the Union cavalry -- Jonah had an arm around a young woman, his fiancée according to the caption, which then went on to say that she died not long after the picture was taken. Another photo only a few pages after that showed him with another cavalry, proudly flying the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy behind him. His years as a bounty hunter after the Civil War were laid out in bloody detail, intermixed with moments where the man shone through the killer. There was a brief marriage, a child, then those were swept away from his life. There was even mention of his disappearance from the town of Red Dog, along with a reproduction of the local newssheet detailing how Jonah "vanished in a burst of Hell-Fire", only to reappear minutes later "with the stink of Brimstone still clinging to the renowned Bounty-Killer". The editor of the paper was of the opinion that Hex was so mean, even the Devil didn't want to claim him. The later years of Hex's life didn't read very different from the earlier ones. He still had his fair share of troubles (Hal laughed aloud when he came across a criminal record for the gunfighter, complete with a mug shot, that offered only the phrase "Damn Big Scar!" for distinguishing features), and his choice of company still fell on the interesting side (a photo labeled "The Graves Ranch c. 1876" showed Jonah alongside a young man that bore striking resemblance to Billy the Kid), but the man continued to do what he was best at: running down just about every variety of scum the Old West had to offer. The closer Hal got to the final pages, the more he was sure that all would end well for his old friend. Then he came across a color photograph, the only one he'd seen so far. It showed a middle-aged man standing in front of a statue of a cowboy...one decked out in a white, spangled outfit like Gene Autry or Roy Rogers might wear. In its hand was an ivory-handled Colt .44 Dragoon, the mate holstered in the same gunbelts Hal had seen Jonah wearing in 2050. The caption beneath the photo read simply, "The author and his subject, 1987". Hal almost dropped the book onto the grass. It still happened? he thought. Jonah had seen what might become of him and it still happened? Turning back a few pages, he read the account of the final days of Jonah Hex. Apparently, the gunfighter had spent his twilight years in semi-retirement near Cheyenne, Wyoming. In 1904, at the ripe old age of sixty-six, he was approached by the owner of a Wild West revue with an offer to join the troupe. Jonah refused, but the owner wouldn't be denied: after a bank robber named George Barrow killed Jonah in cold blood, the body was stolen by the revue owner and his cronies, murdering a professor writing Hex's memoirs in the process. They stuffed the body, dressed it in the garish outfit they had tailor-made for the gunfighter, and began displaying it in their sideshow. Not long after, the owner himself was murdered, and the body of Jonah Hex stolen once again, passing from one person to the next for over eighty years, all of them unaware that the cowboy statue they possessed was really a well-preserved corpse. It wasn't until the body was accidentally knocked over and the skeletal armature revealed that the truth was known. Even then, Hex still couldn't be put to rest: a legal battle ensued between the body's current owners and Jonah's widow, a Comanche woman named Tall Bird. She was well over a century old, and wished to have her late husband cremated. When it was finally settled and custody awarded to Tall Bird, it was discovered that the warehouse storing the corpse until the verdict was decided had misplaced the body. By the time the revised edition of the book was published, Jonah Hex's remains were still missing, the victim of a paperwork snafu. Hal felt sick. The man deserved better than that. He was no hero, but he at least deserved a funeral, not some strange wandering afterlife like something out of a Twilight Zone episode. Maybe they've found him by now, Hal thought, it's been over a decade since this was published. His gut told him different, though: it seemed Jonah's fate to be lost, through all the various incarnations of reality. It was a sad, horrible way to end a life... He then remembered what he'd said when Jonah's spirit was being crushed by those same thoughts: Everything counts. Hex's final fate did nothing to diminish his life, it only added to the legend. To judge his entire career by his last moment was wrong, and Hal knew that, despite what he'd learned, he would never think of him that way. He'd remember Jonah Hex as a haunted man, to be sure, but one that was also fiercely loyal to those he cared about, and willing to do whatever it took to get the job done. He'd also remember him as a friend...and who was to say that he wouldn't meet his friend again? The flow of time is very strange, he'd told Jonah. They'd already run into each other twice now. Perhaps someday there would be a third time, free of paradoxes and desperate situations, when the two of them could sit down, share a drink, and swap stories about all the adventures they'd had since their last meeting. Jordan looked down at the book in his lap. From the cover, a grainy photograph of Hex looked back. He was seated and dressed in Confederate gray, his Dragoons drawn and held before him. The gunfighter's eyes, though half-hidden by shadow, seemed to be daring the photographer to take the picture. "Goodbye, Jonah," he said. "Hope to see you again sometime."
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 5, 2013 13:06:20 GMT -5
* * * Déjà-Vu All Over Again * * * "Oh my God! What's happening to him?" Emmylou Hartley stared in horror at the spot where Jonah Hex had stood only moments before. This isn't real, she thought, this is a nightmare, it has to be. She'd been telling herself that off and on for two months now, ever since Brett had kidnapped her off that stagecoach to St. Louis. When she bought passage, Emmy thought she was moving away from trouble: she'd decided to leave Jonah before he broke her heart yet again, as he always seemed to do. If she'd known what lay ahead of her, however, she would have stood through the heartache to spare herself the torture she'd endured after Brett got hold of her. Beaten, starved, locked in a closet for days on end, all in an effort to break her spirit and make her a part of his gang. Emmy wondered if the two other women in his "family" had gone through the same trials before giving in to his whims. But Emmy was resolved to never give in, not even after she accidentally shot Jonah when he tried to rescue her during that robbery in the assayer's office. She held on, and when she got the chance, she ran. Brett wasn't about to let her go, though, and chased her down as she made her way back to the town of Red Dog, back to Jonah, back to the man that had saved her countless times before. And now...and now he was gone, whisked away in a blaze of red light. The afterimage still hung in front of her eyes, the shock on Jonah's face before he disappeared matching her own. The bar's patrons gaped as well, and who could blame them? This was 1875: things like this just didn't happen, not in Red Dog, not anywhere. "Looks like that johnny-reb decided you're not worth the trouble," Brett said. The incident had shaken him as well, but it wasn't enough to take his mind off why he'd come in there. He leveled his revolver at Emmy. "Don't worry, I'll save a couple shots for him in case he changes his mind." Emmylou backed up against the bar, her mind still reeling. There's no one left, she thought, nowhere else to go. She braced her hands on the bartop, her fingers brushing against the whiskey bottle Jonah had been pouring from when she'd run in. Barely aware that she was doing it, she grabbed the bottle by the neck and swung it as hard as she could at Brett's face. The glass shattered on impact, tearing up his cheek and shards lodging in his eye. He fired blindly, missing Emmy by inches. She froze for a moment, watching him as he fell to his knees yelling in pain, then she bolted for the door. Once out in the street, she ran as fast as she could, not knowing where to, just so long as it was far from Brett. People blundered into her as they tried to figure out what all the commotion in the saloon was about. "Get out of the way!" she screamed, pushing them aside. "Come back here, you tramp!" Brett had recovered himself enough to come after her. He emerged from the bar, gun still in hand, blood running down the side of his face. The sight of him was enough to make folks move out his way. He fired a shot at Emmy, missing again, but it was enough of a scare to make her stumble, slowing her down just long enough for him to catch up and tackle her. They wrestled in the street, Emmy doing her best to free herself from his grip, but in the end, Brett was just too strong for her. Flat on her back, choking on dust, she looked up at him as he straddled her. "You just had to make it hard, didn't you?" he growled. His injured eye was squeezed shut, and flecks of blood hung from his moustache. "Figured you'd learn to behave after a while, but it looks like I was wrong. Now I ain't got any other choice." He then shoved the barrel of the gun under her chin, saying, "End of the line, pigtails." From behind them, a voice called out, "Get the Hell away from her, yuh yellowbellied skunk!" Brett turned his head to look at the man speaking, perhaps even shoot him for daring to interrupt, but when he saw who it was, his blood ran cold. In the middle of the street, not far from the entrance to the Red Dog Saloon, stood Jonah Hex. The Confederate uniform was gone, replaced by a black shirt and dark blue trousers that clung to his tall frame, and black boots with oddly-thick soles. A breeze stirred Jonah's shoulder-length red hair as he glared at Brett, death in his eyes and his hands dangling inches away from the Dragoons strapped to his hips. "Get up," the bounty hunter told him. "Ah've been waitin' a damn long time tuh finish this." Brett didn't move. He had the advantage, surely Hex saw that. All he had to do was twitch his finger and the girl would die. But the look in Jonah's eyes, the snarl on his lips...it was like staring down a bloodthirsty wolf. And if Brett didn't take him down first, the man would jump on him and tear out his throat. He quickly stood up and swung the gun around, cocking the hammer as he took aim at Hex. Those who saw the shootout in Red Dog that day would swear they never saw Jonah Hex draw his guns. One moment the Dragoons were resting in their holsters, the next they were in Jonah's hands, the report deafening as he fired five times at Brett without hesitation. One bullet knocked the pistol from the man's hand before he could even pull the trigger, three more drilled straight through his chest, and the last ended up squarely between the outlaw's eyes. He staggered forward a few steps, then collapsed, dead before his body even hit the ground. "Jonah..." Emmy cried weakly as he ran over to her, falling to his knees beside her and scooping her up into his arms. She pressed her face to his chest and sobbed, barely taking note of how strange the clothes he was wearing felt, all slick and unnatural. She just wanted to reassure herself that he was there, that this wasn't a dream. Jonah was crying as well, shedding the tears that he'd refused to show Stiletta as he kissed the top of Emmylou's head, her cheeks, her lips. "Oh God...Ah missed yuh so much," he said, his voice quivering. "Ah kept hopin' an' prayin' Ah'd get back, but it's been so long...seems like years..." She looked up at his face, then touched his hair -- it was longer now than it had been minutes before in the saloon. "What happened, Jonah?" she asked. "You disappeared, I saw it...where did you go?" Jonah realized then that people had begun to gather around, not too closely. They were staring at him, at the clothes he was wearing. He could already hear folks whispering to each other, speculating as to what had just occurred in their small town, and waiting to hear an explanation from him. Emmy was waiting too, gazing at him with trusting eyes. Slowly, he felt the lie forming on his lips. It was a simple lie, but one he'd repeat to everyone that asked him about the incident for the rest of his life. Gently pushing a stray lock of blonde hair from Emmy's face, he said to her, "Ah don't rightly know whut happened, sugar. All's Ah kin remember is seein' this real bright red light, then a bright green one right after. Everything in between...reckon it's just a big blur."
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 5, 2013 13:02:47 GMT -5
* * * Time Has Come Today * * * The Green Lanterns finished their repairs not long after sunrise. Christmas Day had finally arrived, and with it a miracle for two men, one of whom had stopped believing in such things a long time ago. Jonah stood in front of the engine, Stiletta beside him and holding his hand. He'd already said a brief goodbye to those who'd come with them on the raiding party, though it didn't make a bit of difference to him one way or the other. There would only be one person he'd miss once he was gone. Hal's own goodbyes were taking a little longer. While he didn't know these Lanterns, they knew of him. It didn't matter to them that he really wasn't their Hal Jordan: either way, he was a legend, and they couldn't just let him leave without telling him so. "It's been an honor to work with you, even for such a brief period," the humanoid Lantern said. "I wish you could stay, it would mean so much." "I'm sorry, but I've already been away from home for a long time, even before I came here," Hal told them. "You could do something for me in my absence, though." "Anything, just name it." "When you speak with the Guardians...and I'm sure you will after this little escapade...do your best to talk them into lifting the quarantine. These people need help, not isolation, and the Corps' presence could really turn things around here. Also, give them this." With his ring, Hal made a small data disc, imprinting on it all the pertinent information about the Parallax entity, and what it had done to both him and the Corps in his reality. So far as he knew, the thing was still imprisoned in the Central Battery, but what happened once could happen again. "Make sure they look at this, it's vitally important." Taking it from him, the tall Lantern asked, "What is it?" "Something they forgot." With a nod, the alien tucked it away. Hal wondered how the Guardians of this reality would react when they saw it. He then turned around and looked at Jonah. The gunfighter had ditched his long coat, and the Dragoons were once again sitting in their holsters, the yellowing ivory grips standing out in contrast to his dark clothes. "Are you ready?" Hal asked him. Jonah didn't answer, his attention still focused on Stiletta. They stood together for a moment longer, neither willing to part just yet, then shared one final kiss before stepping away from each other, Stiletta moving off to one side of the machine, and Jonah walking over to where Hal was waiting. "So...this is it," Hex said. "Who goes first?" Smiling, Hal said, "I figured age before beauty." "Very damn funny." "Sorry, couldn't resist." He nodded towards the engine, saying, "When we get this thing started, don't hesitate, just walk forward. The rings will generate a field that'll read your chronal signature...it's like a fingerprint your body gives off, showing where and when your proper place in the timestream is. It'll help adjust the quantum energy so that it can plug you back into where you're supposed to be. You should end up near your original point of departure, but it might be a little before or after, time-wise. Brace yourself for that." "Alright." Jonah looked down at the floor. "Reckon Ah should be thankin' yuh fer all this." "I'm just repaying a debt to an old friend, that's all." He picked his head back up. "Yuh won't know none of this when we meet later on, will yuh? If'n we do meet, Ah mean." "Nope, I'll be in your shoes...and remember, you didn't mention anything about this the first time, so don't say a word if you do run into me. Everything has to play out the same as before." "Hell, Ah wouldn't know where tuh start, anyhow." His face began to cloud over with worry. "Listen, when yuh get back tuh yer end of it all...one of them Vietnam fellas said he'd read 'bout me in some book. Could yuh maybe...yuh know, take a look-see? Just tuh be sure..." "First chance I get. I promise." That seemed to ease his fears a bit. "Okay...reckon Ah should quit draggin' muh feet," he muttered, then held out his hand. "Take care of yerself, Hal." "You do the same, Jonah." They shook hands. "Remember: 1878...Desecration, Arizona." The gunfighter nodded, then turned away without another word. As he did so, the trio of visiting Lanterns aimed their rings at the Casimir engine, activating it one last time. As before, the device produced a high-pitched whine, but it was nowhere near as deafening. The emerald energy mingled with the white light from the engine, smoothing out the sparks until it became a uniform green glow from the front exhaust ports. Jonah did hesitate a moment, taking just enough time to look Stiletta's way, then stepped forward. The glow enveloped him, tinting his visage a deep shade of green, then there was a sudden flash of white around his body. Jonah began to raise his arms to shield himself from the brilliance, but he was gone before he could fully bring them up. The engine shuddered at the same time, hard enough to shake the floor. One down, and one to go, Hal thought. He waited for the glow to flare back to green again, then stepped into it himself. He could feel the energy grabbing at his ring again, but it was merely a gentle tug this time. When the white flash came, he shut his eyes, but it did no good. The light seemed to tear right through his eyelids as it washed over him, then tossed him about the timestream like a leaf in the ocean. This will work, he told himself, the first ride was just as rough, you can hold on... When the light faded, Hal found himself about to crash head-first onto a tile floor. Instinctively, he pointed his ring at it and stopped his descent inches from impact, then righted himself to find out where he'd landed up. There wasn't enough light to see by, so he created some with his ring as he hovered in the air. Though his vision was still blurry from the flash, he could make out the smooth walls of the lab, along with the scattered remains of diagnostic equipment -- both bore scorch marks from the arcs of energy the Casimir engine had thrown off before Jordan contained it. He also saw the gaping hole where part of the lab's wall had been carried away in the original blast. Well, the location's right, he thought, but how long has it been? "Hal? Are you all right?" He turned around and saw John Stewart standing in the doorway to the lab. He was clad in a variant of the standard Green Lantern uniform, sans mask as always. "Where have you been?" he continued. "One minute I'm getting a distress signal from here, the next..." His dark hand cut the air. "It's like you dropped off the face of the Earth." "No, just veered off to the left a bit," Hal said. "How long ago did you lose the signal?" "Three hours ago. I set the ring to keep scanning for you while I helped out with restoring power. You did a great job containing the explosion, it looks like, but some of the grid got fried out from that engine screwing with it. They're still having trouble..." As he said that, the lights in the lab began to flicker back to life. "Well, would you look at that. Guess everything's back to normal." "Hooray for the good guys." Hal set down on the ground next to his associate, his right leg buckling when he put weight on it. John steadied him, looking worried. "It's okay," Hal told him, "I'm just a little sore still from that gunshot wound." "When did you get shot?" he asked, surprised. "About four or five days ago." "Hal, you weren't even technically alive four or five days ago." Now John looked really worried. "Are you sure you're all right?" Jordan flashed his fellow Green Lantern a grin. "Right as rain."
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 5, 2013 12:55:33 GMT -5
* * * Hard Truths * * * When the dust settled, over 150 cutthroat scavs had been defeated by a band of only a dozen people. There were a few bullet wounds to patch and some other minor injuries, but otherwise neither side suffered any loss of life. It was the most bloodless battle Jonah had ever participated in. Kinda takes the fun out of it, he thought as he helped with moving the captured gang members to one of the intact buildings near the parking garage. Many of them had been stunned into submission, but some of them were still up and kicking...and punching and biting and whatever else they could think of doing in an effort to get free. Those that tried to pull any of that nonsense with Jonah soon got knocked out the hard way. Personally, he didn't understand why they were making such a fuss to keep the little maniacs alive, but Hal made it very clear that none of them were to be permanently harmed. It's a lovely sentiment, Hex said to himself, but damned impractical. Once all the gangbangers had been herded inside their temporary prison, Jonah went inside the garage itself, joining Hal and his fellow Green Lanterns as they busied themselves with repairing the Casimir engine. They’d been at it for hours, going over the machine inch by inch to determine what caused the original malfunction that brought Hal to this reality, and to see if it could be safely duplicated. Stiletta had been helping out where she could, and she stepped away from the others when Jonah came up the ramp. "How's things going out there, cowboy?" she asked him, hugging her thick coat to her body. "As well as kin be expected," he said, "them skunks ain't too happy 'bout us kickin' 'em out of their home." The two of them walked over to the machine. "So, is this thing gonna do the trick or no?" The insect-like Lantern poked its head out from behind the machine. "Very soon. Device is almost disengaged." "Ah don't follow...yuh mean yo're turnin' it off?" "Just part of it," Hal explained. He reattached some of the outer housing, then stood up to face them. "From what we can tell, Dr. Steveling and his team got a little overzealous: apparently, a true Casimir engine is only good for one use. Once it's extracted energy from the quantum vacuum and expelled it, the engine burns out. They thought they'd found a way around that problem, but the truth is, they had inadvertently wired the thing so it would never stop extracting energy. It just keeps cycling over and over." He twirled a finger in the air to emphasize. "Luckily, when it let out that burst that knocked me here, it burned out the mechanism that allowed it to draw power. This thing's been idling for the last four days, just waiting for somebody to give the order to expel its full load." "Ah ain't even gonna pretend thet Ah understood a bit of thet," Jonah said. "He means it still works," Stiletta told him, "and as soon as they finish disconnecting the energy-cycling thing from the rest of the engine, it'll be safe to turn it back on." "Once we get rid of that piece of equipment, we should be able to control the engine with our rings and not have to worry about it sucking them dry like before," Hal continued. "All we need to do then is manipulate the quantum-energy field to make another hole in space-time, and we can slip right through." "'We'?" Hex said. "Don't yuh mean..." "No, you heard me right. This engine should have enough energy stored in it to open two portals, one for each of us." He put a hand on the gunfighter's shoulder, saying, "I know you told me that you didn't want me to get your hopes up, but I'm not playing around here: you're finally going home." Jonah stared at him for a moment, then at the engine. "Ah'm...Ah cain't," he said eventually. "W-whut Ah mean is..." Stiletta took Jonah by the hand and said, "Can I talk with you for a minute? Just the two of us?" She pulled him away from the Lanterns and led him over to the far end of the garage. The tarps had been torn down in that section, and a gray, pre-dawn light was pouring in from outside. As soon as they were alone, the first thing Hex said was, "Ah'm not goin' back." She put a hand over his mouth. "Don't talk, just listen. I know that you love me, and you're willing to just walk away from this chance at going home to stay with me, but...it's not right. You don't belong here, and no amount of love will change that. I had to think about that long and hard before I realized it was the truth. I wish it wasn't true, because...I'll admit it, the thought of letting go of you hurts, but it's the right thing. We may love each other, but in the long run, that still won't make this place your home." "Don't Ah get any say in this? Ah don't want tuh leave yuh, sugar. It don't matter tuh me where Ah am, just so long as yo're there, too." "You say that now, but what about five years from now? Or twenty-five? This isn't some bus ticket you can cash in whenever you like. If you don't go now, then that's it, no second chances. Can you live with that for the rest of your life?" Jonah turned his head away, but Stiletta wouldn't let him ignore what she was saying. She placed a hand under his chin and made him look at her. "When you love somebody, even a little, sometimes the best way to show them that is to give them up. I want you to be happy, Jonah. Not just now, but forever. And I know that if you stay here, you won't be." He closed his eyes for a moment, taking stock of what she'd said. He'd had similar thoughts, but he'd refused to acknowledge them. Just once, Ah'd like tuh get whut Ah want, he thought. Maybe someday...but not today. When he looked at her again, tears had begun to form in his eyes, but he held them back. "If'n yuh think it's the right thing, Ah'll go...but Ah think it'll be a long time afore Ah'm happy 'bout it." He reached down and patted the Magnums still sitting in his gun holsters. "Reckon Ah'll have tuh get one of them Lanterns tuh fetch muh Dragoons. Cain't go back with these things." "I know," she answered, and opened up her coat. From one of the large inner pockets, she pulled out Jonah's old guns, carefully wrapped in one of his shirts. "I stopped by your room before we left Maple," she explained, handing them over, "just in case." He turned the guns over in his hands. They had been loaded with the bullets he'd bought the other day: three in one gun, two in the other. He hadn't even thought about bringing the Dragoons along, he'd had no intentions of leaving...but Stiletta knew, she knew before he did. "Maybe...maybe yuh could come with me," Hex said to her. "Yuh ain't got nothin' tyin' yuh down here, so why don't yuh..." "And what then? I don't belong back there any more than you belong here. Can you imagine me running around in a hoop skirt...and I'd love to see you try and explain me to your girlfriend Emily." "Her name's Emmy," he said quietly, "an' she ain't muh girlfriend no more. She done left me a couple of months afore Ah got stuck here." "I'm sorry. The way you've talked about her..." "Ah still love her, if'n thet's whut yo're thinkin'. Ah've loved a lot of women over the years, fer lots of dif'rent reasons...an' Ah've never stopped lovin' any of them, deep down." He brushed a hand against her cheek. "Same goes fer yuh, Stiletta: Ah may never see yuh again, but Ah'll love yuh 'til the day Ah die." Tears rolling down fer face, she threw her arms around his neck. "God damn you, Jonah," she sobbed. He held onto her tightly, wishing that he never had to let go. "Ah think He already has, sugar."
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 5, 2013 12:54:11 GMT -5
* * * The Battle for Seattle * * * About eight blocks away from the parking garage where the Casimir engine lay, the two gangbangers Hal Jordan thought of as Baldy and Flyboy were making their way down the snowy, moonlit street. Locked arm-in-arm for mutual support, they sang raunchy versions of Christmas carols as they split a bottle of schnapps between them. Flyboy currently had possession, and he took a long pull while Baldy tried to come up with a way to pervert "Joy to the World". "Joy to the girls, I am so hung!" he started, then paused to think of the next line. "In bed, I am the king!" his friend chimed in. They both burst out laughing, Flyboy doubling over and almost dropping the bottle. "Ah-haha...aw, shit, I think...huh...I think I'm gonna puke." Baldy let go of him quick. "Don't puke on me! Here..." He pulled Flyboy's aviator cap off his head and held it under the bent-over man's face. "Let 'er rip!" He grabbed his cap away, saying, "You lousy fugger," then let out a belch, a line of spittle dribbling from the corner of his lip. "Ugh...that tasted like shit. Here, you take this." He passed Baldy the bottle. "Merry Christmas to me!" He turned in a circle in the middle of the street, toasting the empty buildings around them before taking a swig. "And a Happy muthafugging New Year!" Flyboy laughed at him, then stopped and cocked his head. "Hey, you hear something?" "Nope." He was still turning in small circles, waving the bottle to and fro. "Listen a minute, man." He grabbed hold of Baldy's arm to make him hold still. The noise soon grew louder, and they both looked up the eastbound street, straining to make out any sort of movement in the darkness. "Sounds like engines." "Well, then I guess we'll have to give 'em a little Season's Greetings." They drew guns and pointed them in the direction of the noise, ready to open fire the moment they got a visual. Unfortunately for Flyboy and Baldy, once their targets came into view, they were each too stunned to pull the trigger. The cycles they'd expected, that was obvious enough by the noise, and the fact that there were only three of them was no big deal at all. But the two black-and-green figures in the air above them caught the scavs completely flat-footed, and even that wasn't as big a shock as what was leading the charge: a scar-faced man on an emerald-green horse, standing tall in the saddle and letting loose with a blood-curdling Apache war cry. "Holy..." was all Flyboy could get out before Jonah leveled his ring-generated rifle at the man and blasted him in the chest, then did the same for Baldy. They both crumpled to the ground unconscious, neither of them aware that on the southern end of the city, their compatriots were falling to a second assault as the invading force worked its way towards the parking garage. Any scav that stood in their way soon found themselves either knocked out cold or locked in the shell of a building by a green force-field. Resistance was pretty low until they reached the garage itself. Many of the gangbangers were doing their partying at home this year, and some of them were still sober enough to pose a threat. Gunfire rang out in the street, causing the non-superpowered members of the raiding party to take cover. "Keep 'em busy!" Jordan called out as he and the humanoid Lantern flew up to the third level. "Easy fer y'all tuh say," Hex answered, "we ain't got no fancy magic rings tuh keep the bullets off us!" Nevertheless, the gunfighter directed his mount into the thick of it, picking off scavs on the fly. Most of them had never seen a horse before outside of photographs, and the fact that this one was made of green energy didn't settle their nerves any as they dived out of the way in an effort to not get trampled. All's Ah need is muh spurs an' a cavalry sword, an' this'll be like Old Home Week, he thought. The other raiders were giving it their all as well, providing cover fire or following Jonah's lead and running down the fleeing scavs on their cycles. Some of the gang members wised up and began to go for their own rides, which caught Jonah's attention real quick. "Hey, big fella!" he yelled at the tall Lantern nearby, "want tuh help storm the fort?" The Lantern immediately headed for the garage's street-level entrance, Hex right behind. The gangbangers soon found themselves severely lacking in transportation as beams of emerald light tore their vehicles to shreds, and their owners were also swiftly taken out of the picture by Jonah's lightning-fast trigger finger. With all the action on the ground, the two Lanterns breaking into the upper level of the garage went virtually unnoticed. The plastic tarp protecting the interior from the elements did little to deter them, and the third floor seemed clear of hostiles as they set down inside. "It should be over this way," Hal told his companion, and they headed over to where he'd last seen the Casimir engine. Before they reached it, however, they met up with a couple of scavs running up the ramp, probably on their way to find sniper's positions so as to defend their hideout from above. They opened fire the moment they saw the strangers, paying no mind to the fact that their bullets bounced off the emerald shield the Lanterns had tossed up. "I hate to say it," the humanoid Lantern mused, "but I am beginning to see the point the Guardians were making." "Nobody's perfect, not even them." Hal forced the shield forward until it began to envelop the gunmen, pushing them back down the ramp. Once they'd been forced down to the lower level, they sealed off the ramp with a larger shield -- the gangbangers beat their fists against it in frustration. "There's at least one more access point to this level, back that way," Hal said. "Go seal it up and check around for others. I'll look over the engine." Lucky for Hal, the machine appeared to be mostly intact, with only some of the outer housing peeled away. Some tools lay scattered around it, but whomever was using them had made no obvious progress in either repairing or dismantling it. When the other Lantern came back around, Hal was kneeling in front of a large access panel that someone had pried open, inspecting the innards. "The area is secure," he informed Jordan, kneeling beside him, "and it appears that many of the scavengers outside have been subdued." He looked at the mess of wires pouring out of the machine. "Is the device still usable?" With a sigh, Hal said, "I have no idea."
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 5, 2013 12:52:12 GMT -5
* * * Not-So-Little Green Men * * * "We had to see if it was true." That was what the Green Lanterns told Hal when he asked why they'd disobeyed the Guardians' wishes. Apparently, the signal he'd sent out through the relay network had been picked up by a few other Lanterns as it made its way to Oa, but the quarantine prevented any of them from answering directly, and they could only listen as Hal argued his case. "After they cut off your transmission, those of us that heard it decided that it should not be dismissed," the more human-looking Lantern said -- while his skin color was rather ashen and his eyes a little too blue for close-up inspection, at a glance no resident of Earth would even notice the difference. "We three were the closest in proximity to your planet, so we were chosen to come investigate." "Not that I don't appreciate you coming," Hal said, "but aren't you afraid of reprisals when you get back to Oa?" The second Lantern, a tall fellow with a broad face and two sets of pitch-black eyes, flashed a toothy grin at him. "From what I've heard about the great Hal Jordan of Earth, you never seemed to concern yourself with such thoughts when it came down to obeying the Guardians or doing what was right." "Later is for consequences," the third, insect-like Lantern said, "now is for action." Hal agreed, and the sooner the better. The only question was what sort of action to take. They had relocated to inside the warehouse, and after a getting-acquainted period with the residents of Maple (which involved a lot of the kids being fascinated by the "big bug"), the Lanterns, Hex, Stiletta, and a handful of the residents got down to business. "First priority is getting that engine out of the hands of the Slabberz," Hal said. "Hopefully, they haven't tried dismantling or scrapping it yet. Once we secure it, we have to see if it still works, and then try to figure out if there's any way we can direct the energy to suit our needs." "So we're plannin' a raid, thet it?" Jonah pulled out one of his guns and cocked the hammer. "Hell, Ah'm game." "No...no guns." Hal answered. "We do this the Corps way: no killing, not unless it becomes absolutely necessary." "Ah'd love tuh see how yuh plan on corralin' all them skunks, then." The tall Lantern used his ring to grab Hex by his gun hand, pick him up off his feet, then pull him over to where he stood. A little extra force made the bounty hunter drop his Magnum into the Green Lantern's outstretched hand. "Is that enough of a demonstration?" he asked, lifting Hex up until he was looking straight into the alien's four eyes. "Reckon it'll do. Mind puttin' me down, big fella? We's on the same side, last Ah checked." With a laugh, the alien set Jonah back on his feet and handed him the gun. "Ah still think some backup couldn't hurt," he grumbled. "It looks to me like you don't even need help," Stiletta said. Hal shook his head. "Even with the rings, we're not invincible. The more people we have with us, the easier this will be.” “But if you don’t want us to use guns, how are we supposed to help you out?” Red asked, Mookie by his side. “Are you guys passing out those rings to everybody?” “Not quite.” Hal had taken a moment earlier to charge up his own ring, and used it now to construct what appeared to be an ordinary rifle, save for the fact that it was fashioned out of green light. “These won’t fire normal ammunition, but they will pack enough punch to stun anybody hit by it,” he explained, holding it by the stock, “and so long as our rings are powered up, they’ll never run out of ammo.” “Let me see thet,” Jonah said, and took it from Hal. He was surprised at the heft the thing had, even though he could see through it like it was made of glass. When he worked the loading mechanism, it made a solid kla-chack just as a real, metal rifle would. “Ah’ll be damned. Kin yuh make anything with thet there ring?” “Just about.” Hal turned to the others. “Mookie suggested earlier that the scavs might be taking the night off because of the holiday, and if that’s true, then we can catch them off guard. We need to do this hard and fast. Don’t give them a chance to retreat or figure out why we’re really there. And remember, the only purpose of this is to get that engine back. This isn’t a smash-and-grab or vengeance mission. Anybody that wants to come along to take care of a grudge against the Slabberz can stay right here. Those that really want to help can meet us at the motor pool in a half-hour.” The group dispersed after that, some deciding to opt out, others sticking around to talk more with the newly-arrived Lanterns. Hal went over to confer with his fellow Corpsmen, leaving Jonah to examine his new weapon some more. As he did so, Stiletta came up to him, standing quietly beside him until he noticed her. “This is a fine trick, ain’t it?” he said, holding up the rifle. “Just think ‘bout something an’ there it is.” Then he saw the look in her eyes. “Whut’s the matter?” “You know.” He was about to say that he didn’t, then realized what she meant. “This don’t change nothin’, sugar. Ah ain’t packin’ muh bags, Ah swear.” Jonah touched her face, but she pulled away. “I...I need to do some things before we leave,“ she said. “I’ll see you in half an hour.” Stiletta then walked away from him and down the hall leading to the sleeping quarters. Jonah watched her go, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut. While he hadn’t been standing near enough to overhear the conversation, Hal did see Stiletta’s departure, and left his own group to check on the gunfighter. “Everything all right, Hex?” he asked. “Right as rain,” he answered, not meaning a word of it, then turned and began to walk towards the motor pool. “Ah'd better get muh ride warmed up.” Hal put a hand on Jonah’s arm to stop him, saying, “Forget it. I‘ve got something better for you.” “Whut did yuh have in mind?” “Just something that you told me the future was a mite short on,” he said with a smile.
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 5, 2013 12:51:02 GMT -5
Issue Five; Story by Susan Hillwig, Cover by Scot Paisley
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Jan 4, 2013 13:57:22 GMT -5
I loved Ellen's story revealing the secret life of Gordon's dad so much, I went searching around the Internet afterward to read up on the background that inspired it! In over two decades of reading Bat-books, this is the first I've heard of it. Great job.
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 2:04:45 GMT -5
We're up to the penultimate "Notes form the Road", so check out the letters column, and leave a note of your own while you're there!
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Susan Hillwig
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:59:04 GMT -5
Notes from the Road: The Schism There’s a problem with writing about the future: in most cases, when you actually reach that timeframe in which the story takes place, it’s nothing like the writer said it was going to be. The Hex series is a good example of that. According to Michael Fleisher, the world’s going to be blown to Hell and gone by the year 2045, and the gang-controlled wasteland that follows will be filled with flying vehicles and laser cannons and giant mutant grasshoppers and lots of other stuff that I really don’t think is going to come true in the next couple of decades. Maybe when he wrote those comics in 1985, it seemed plausible, but by 2005, even the idea of nuclear Armageddon was becoming far-fetched. And when you add in the notion of a DCU with no superheroes in it (a condition Fleisher insisted upon at the beginning of the series, but started to reverse around issue #11, when he brought in his own version of Batman...whom he then killed in #12), this particular future world becomes downright laughable. So that was another factor in my desire to write “The Long Road Home”: To close the door on a timeline that had once been an integral part of DC Comics history, but the company now refused to acknowledge the existence of. I also knew there were fans out there who liked Hex and still did after all these years, so I wanted to do this in a respectable manner, not just dismiss everything out of hand. A legitimate reason had to be found for why this future existed once, but no more.
Once again, Hal Jordan was the key. In the guise of Parallax (the original, non-space-bug version), he’d come close to rewriting history during Zero Hour, but was stopped by his fellow heroes. Though not as reality-altering as Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hal’s time-meddling had brought about a few minor tweaks...so what would have happened if he hadn’t been there to make them? I began backtracking Hal’s appearances prior to becoming Parallax until I got to Green Lantern #46, wherein Mongul does indeed give Hal such a pounding that he almost lets the villain kill him. From there, I speculated on what would have occurred if Hal truly had died in that moment, and how badly things could have spiraled out of control from there, based on what facts we already knew. How much of that post-Zero Hour history would have come true without Parallax dipping in his hand into the timestream? Was Hal’s descent into madness really a blessing in disguise? By positing such simple questions, I’d found a way to set up a parallel universe for that 2050 wasteland to exist in without contradicting anything that’d come before or since. When I laid out the idea to my husband, he went goggle-eyed, which told me I was on the right track. If someone who preferred Marvel to DC more often than not was reacting with such shock and amazement, how would the hardcore DC fans react?
The coup de grace came when I realized there was evidence within the comics themselves to support the parallel universe theory. In Jonah Hex #83 (set in 1875, remember), the gunfighter went on a bender and chucked his signature Colt Dragoons into a lake so deep he was unable to retrieve them when he sobered up...yet in Hex #18 (175 years later), when he finds his stuffed corpse, he very clearly proclaims, “Them's (gasp) my Dragoons!” Now this particular model of gun was rare even back in Jonah’s day, so if the man says they’re his Dragoons, then I presume he means the ones he threw in the damn lake. So how do you explain a paradox like that? The same way I had Green Lantern do it in my story, with the added benefit of giving Jonah a thread of hope to cling to once more, a way for him to recover some of his sanity by letting him believe his fate isn’t so inevitable. I will admit to having some trepidation about that particular wrinkle, though, as I was worried some longtime Hex fans would fear I was undoing his death, so I originally put a note for the reader at the beginning of that chapter asking them to be patient and finish the story before screaming at me.
And now you’re almost finished with the story as well, or at least this leg of it. When you come back for the final set of notes, I’ll tell you where it all goes from here.
- Susan Hillwig
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Susan Hillwig
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:57:01 GMT -5
* * * Rude Awakening * * * Nestled under blankets, Jonah lay perfectly still, trying to not disturb Stiletta as she drowsed in his arms. The bed was only made to fit one person, leaving little room to stretch out. Don't bother me none, he thought, and gently traced the contour of her face with his finger. Ah could spend the rest of muh life right here. She shifted closer, her breath tickling his neck, then kissed him along his jawline. "This is nice," she said softly. "Ah was just thinkin' the same." "So...what do we do now?" "If'n yo're suggestin' we have another go already..." "No, I meant us." Stiletta moved a little so she could look Jonah in the eye. "Is this a one-time thing or what?" "Ah'd rather it not be," he said, touching her face again. "Ah thought Ah'd made thet clear." "You did, but I was just thinking, with you and the Lantern trying to find a way back home..." " He's tryin' tuh get home, not me. Far as Ah'm concerned, this is muh home from now on." She looked at him quietly for a moment, then said, "You're serious." "Why wouldn't Ah be? Been doin' a little thinkin' of muh own: if'n Ah ain't the Jonah Hex we found in the warehouse, then maybe Ah ain't the Jonah Hex thet Lantern met, neither. Maybe he met the one thet got his dumb ass stuffed." "But what if you are the one that helped him out? Do you want to take that risk?" "We ain't goin' nowheres, so there ain't no risk. Fer all Ah know, this is where Ah'm supposed tuh be...an' if'n thet's the case, then Ah want y'all tuh be here with me." He cocked an eyebrow. "Assumin' yuh'll have me, of course." Stiletta kissed him in response, letting her hand drift up to his face. She had been hesitant about touching his scars while they made love, unsure of both his reaction and her own if she'd done so. Now she did it without fear, her fingertips lightly brushing the skin . "You've never told me how this happened," she said. He laid his hand over hers, so that her palm covered most of the ruin on the right side of his face. "Does it matter?" he asked. "No, it doesn't." She went to kiss him again, but stopped when someone began pounding on the door and calling Hex's name. It sounded like Mookie. "Whutever yo're sellin', we ain't buyin'!" Jonah yelled at the door. Mookie wasn't so easily deterred. "C'mon, Hex, we've got a situation out front!" That made both of them sit up in bed. Jonah already had his pants on before Stiletta could even put her feet on the floor. "Whut's goin' on?" he asked as he buckled on his gunbelts. "I'm not sure," Mookie told him through the door, "but I think some of GL's friends decided to drop in for Christmas dinner." Hex and Stiletta froze, staring at each other. "Tell him we're a-comin' on the double!" he called out, throwing on the rest of his clothes. Jonah ran out into the hall seconds later and bolted to the front entrance, dodging people who were collecting by the open warehouse door in an effort to discover what the commotion was about. When he made it outside, he could see Hal standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac, looking up at a trio of green, human-shaped streaks in the sky that were closing in fast. As they neared the ground, Jonah saw that only one of them could actually pass for human. The other two were almost beyond the gunfighter's comprehension in appearance, though they all wore uniforms very similar to Hal's. Jonah barely noticed when Stiletta caught up with him, laying a hand on his shoulder -- she was struck dumb the same as him. After a few minutes of watching Jordan talk with the new arrivals, Hex finally managed to recover his voice long enough to croak out the standard saying he used when words just plain failed him: "Holy Hannah..." To be concluded!
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:55:28 GMT -5
* * * Upon a Midnight Clear * * * "Hey, how's things going up here?" "Very boring," Hal said, leaning against the catwalk's rail. He watched Mookie step off the ladder and walk over to him, a thermos in hand. "Not much to do except count stars." The sun had set a few hours before, and the night sky was virtually cloudless, with a crescent moon hanging over the cul-de-sac. "Yeah, I've done that quite a bit myself on watch. That's a good thing, though. Means the scavs are taking the holiday off." "So what brings you by?" "An urgent errand of mercy." She held out the thermos. "Marya sends coffee and a notice that if you don't get your butt down to the Hub, all us piggies are gonna eat your share of the chow." "I'll survive," he answered, then took the thermos and unscrewed the plastic cup from the top. "Tell her that the coffee is appreciated. I feel like I might fall asleep up here." "Sure you don't want to pop off for a bit? I can keep an eye out...not that I think anything will happen." Hal insisted that he was fine, and turned back to gaze through the wall slots at the cul-de-sac, taking a sip of coffee . Mookie leaned against the rail herself and said, "Do you mind if I ask you something?" "Go ahead." "There's a rumor going around that you're really an alien or something, and you were, like, trying to phone home yesterday. That true?" "You don't beat around the bush, do you?" "I know, it drives Red nuts. So, is it true?" "Only half. This is alien," he explained, holding up his ring hand, "and so were the beings that gave it to me, but I'm human last I checked." "Oh...damn, I always wanted to meet an alien." Hal laughed, spitting a little coffee back into the cup. "Trust me, it gets old fast," he said as he wiped his bottom lip. "After a while, you don't even think of them as being different." "You've met a lot of 'em?" "Met them, worked with them, fought them, dated them..." "Aw, get out! You didn't date an alien!" He raised his hand again, like he was taking an oath. "It's the truth, I swear. It happened years ago, but..." He stopped when he saw that Mookie was staring at his hand. "Something wrong?" he asked. "Was that glowing earlier?" Jordan didn't know what she was talking about at first, then he saw it as well: a faint green glow skirting the edges of his ring emblem. "What the Hell?" he muttered, then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye through one of the wall slots. He rushed forward, leaning as best he could out of the slot, staring up at the dark sky. I imagined it, Hal thought, it's just a trick of the light, nothing's... Then he saw it again: three new stars in the sky. Green stars. And they were growing. Mookie stood next to him, staring just as hard. "What is that?" she breathed. "I think you might get to meet some aliens after all," Hal said. "Go find Hex, quick!" They both ran for the ladder at the same time, almost knocking each other off the catwalk.
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:54:10 GMT -5
* * * Confessions of a Wounded Heart * * * December twenty-fourth: even in a world torn to pieces by nuclear holocaust, that day still meant Christmas Eve to many people, including those residing at Maple. That particular date, however, would also be remembered as the day they laid Cutter to rest in the tiny cemetery outside the complex's perimeter. The grave lay next to his father's, though not as deep due to the hardness of the winter earth. Stiletta began to cry as one of the residents read a few passages from a ragged Bible, and even Hal felt some tears slip free when they lowered the body in, swaddled in a plastic tarp. Only Jonah seemed unmoved by the whole proceedings. In fact, he didn't show up for the funeral until halfway through, choosing to stand at the edge of the group around the grave, his face lacking any expression. He hadn't talked to anyone since thrashing Lewis the night before, and when Stiletta tried to approach him after the funeral, Jonah simply walked away before she even got close to him. "You don't think he's starting to slip again, do you?" she asked Hal. "After what he did yesterday, I don't know," he answered. That didn't make her feel any better. As the day went on, the children began to get wound up in anticipation for the big Christmas Eve dinner, and the presents to follow. They didn't understand why most of the grown-ups seemed sad, or why they changed the subject when one of the kids asked why Cutter wasn't there to fix the lights on the artificial tree they'd set up in the Hub. Despite the hellish environment they had spent most of their lives in, many of the children still had no comprehension of death. In the days to follow, their parents would do their best to explain it to them, but for now, the words would go unsaid. Hal volunteered to play watchdog while the others gathered for the feast. He thought it only fair, seeing as he was sort of the odd man out. Stiletta tried to talk him out of it, but the Green Lantern had made up his mind. "If I'm staying here, I'll have to start pulling my own weight sometime, right?" he said, giving her a small smile. "Consider this my Christmas present to everybody." He then left the Hub, wishing a happy holiday to folks as he walked past them. Once he was gone, Stiletta’s thoughts lingered on him. Though he seemed fine, she worried that the current setback might cause Hal to become like Jonah: a stranger out of time, isolating himself from a world that he felt he had no place in. No, Lantern said he's been through this sort of thing before, she thought, he'll be all right. Jonah, on the other hand... Stiletta realized then that the gunfighter hadn't shown up for the dinner hour. She'd hoped that he wouldn't try and skip out as well, but it appeared that was exactly what he was going to do. As the other residents began sitting down at the tables laid out around the room, Stiletta left the Hub and headed down the hall to Hex's quarters. Not surprisingly, the door was shut, and she gave a light rap on the metal plating, saying, "Jonah? Are you all right in there?" There was no answer at first, then she heard movement behind the door. He opened it just enough to look out at her, the poker face still in place. "I was just...do you want to come down for dinner?" she asked, his stony gaze making her nervous. "Not hungry," was all he said. "Well, maybe you could come down anyways, just to hang out. It's Christmas Eve, you shouldn't be cooped up all by yourself." "Wouldn't be the first one Ah spent by muh lonesome." A small flicker of emotion in his eyes, gone before it could fully manifest. "'Sides, them folks don't want me 'round tuh spoil their fun." "That's not true. If you think they hate you for what you did to Lewis, forget it. Everyone here has wanted to bust him in the chops at one time or another." She'd hoped to get a smile out of him, but the poker face remained. "If you're not coming out, can I come in, then? I feel silly talking to you through a crack in the door." He hesitated, then opened it a little wider, stepping aside to let her in the room. The dim lamplight made her shadow dance on the wall as she passed it. "Why ain't yuh down there yerself?" he asked, closing the door. "I wanted to see if you were okay." "Ah ain't been drinkin'." "That's not what I said." She stood in the middle of the room, hugging her elbows. "I'm worried about you, Jonah. I don't want you to start hiding again." "Ah won't, promise. Ah just don't feel like bein' 'round nobody right now." "Do you want me to leave?" "No...no, yo're fine," Jonah said, then looked down at the floor. "Ah'm kind of glad yuh came by, actually. Been wantin' tuh talk, but..." He ran a hand through his hair. "Ah ain't sure whut tuh say." "What is it? You can tell me." She took a step forward, closing the distance between them. He looked nervous, and she had a feeling about what was on his mind. "Did you want to talk about Cutter?" He shook his head. "Ain't thet exactly. Close, but..." He took a deep breath, then said, "When we was down in them tunnels, an' thet dog came out an'...when it pinned yuh, Ah got scared." Stiletta smiled and said, "Is that it? You dope, we were all scared, that's nothing to be ashamed of." "Thet ain't whut Ah meant. Ah got scared 'cause Ah thought...Ah thought it was gonna kill yuh, an' Ah couldn't bear the thought of thet." He mussed his hair again, stalling. "The whole time Ah've been stuck in this godawful place, yo're the only thing thet's kept me goin'. Hell, Ah'd be dead ten times over if'n yuh hadn't been there tuh tell me whut's whut these days. Ah need yuh." "Maybe in the beginning, but you do all right for yourself now. What about those couple of times when we got separated? You did fine then." "Chalk thet up tuh dumb luck, 'cause thet's all thet was." Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders. "Even then, the only thing Ah could think of was findin' yuh again. Yo're important tuh me, Ah..." He lowered his head for a moment, and when he brought it back up, he looked directly into her eyes. "Ah love yuh, Stiletta." She didn't speak, couldn't speak. She'd always suspected, but to hear him say it was something else entirely. For him to lay himself bare like that, after months of dancing around how he felt, took courage. "Jonah..." she finally managed to say, but he cut her off. "If'n yuh don't feel the same, thet's fine. Ah think Ah kin live with thet, but after everything thet's happened lately...Ah didn't want tuh lose yuh without yuh knowin' thet." "I think I already did," she said, then reached out and touched his chest, her hands sliding over the black, synthetic material of his shirt, "but I don't know how I feel." "Like Ah said, thet's fine...but Ah do hope thet yuh feel the same. Ah know Ah ain't the handsomest fella 'round these parts, but Ah like tuh think thet Ah'm long on charm." "Oh, you are," she answered, laughing. Jonah laughed a little himself, then moved his hands from her shoulders up to her face, cupping it in his callused palms. He then gave her a kiss, lingering for just a moment before pulling away. Stiletta had kissed him before, just hours after they’d met. Not out of affection, though, merely a thank-you for saving her life. The look of surprise on his face at the time had been priceless. The look he gave her now was one she'd never seen from him before: soft and full of warmth, overshadowing the twisted scars until they seemed to not exist at all. "Sorry, had tuh do it," he said, "even if it's just the once." "It's okay." She then surprised herself by saying, "You can do it again, if you want." He did, taking his full measure of time as he embraced her, hands caressing her long blonde hair. Jonah's fingers brushed against the clasp of her bodysuit at the base of her neck and stopped there. After a minute of fumbling with it, he pulled back from kissing her and grumbled, "Have Ah ever told yuh how much Ah hate this damn zone suit yuh wear?" With a smile, she reached behind her neck, brushed his hands aside, and undid the clasp.
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:49:43 GMT -5
* * * Breaking Point * * * The sun was setting as the crawler pulled back into its berth at Maple. The three of them stood clustered around Cutter's body for a moment, no one speaking -- the blanket had been pulled up over his face, but they were all reluctant to disturb the scene any further. "I'll ask Vance to bring the gurney down here," Stiletta said eventually. "That seems like the best thing to do." Hal and Jonah nodded in agreement. They lingered on a while longer before finally disembarking, none of them ready to face the other residents just yet, but they had no choice. "Christ, what took you so long?" Lewis said as they exited the vehicle. "Where the Hell did you go, you said it'd only take a few hours." He immediately began looking over the exterior for damage. They all ignored him, filing past the mechanic on their way out of the motor pool. When he began to enter the crawler, however, Hal turned around and took hold of Lewis's shoulder. "Don't...just hold off for now, okay?" "Why, what did you break?" Lewis then looked over the group and said, "Where's Cutter?" At the mention of his name, Stiletta began to tear up again. "We had an accident...just hold off for now," Hal repeated, then let go and rejoined the others as they entered the main hall. Lewis wasn't about to let them off so easy. "What sort of 'accident'? Where'd you guys go?" He followed them out into the hall. There were a few other people milling about as well, and they all stopped to watch as Lewis grabbed Hal's arm and spun him around. "This have to do with your 'superhero' bullshit?" The Green Lantern said nothing, which to Lewis was as good as an admission of guilt. "You son of a bitch...you weren't happy with playing dress-up by yourself, were you? You had to drag that kid into it, too!" He shoved Hal back a step. "Can't you shut up for once?" Stiletta said. "You're totally out of your depth this time, Lewis." "The Hell I am. First it was your crazy boyfriend pretending to be some dead cowboy, then this asshole shows up saying he's a superhero, and everybody plays along with the joke. Now Cutter's dead, and that joke isn't so damn funny now." "It's not a joke," Hal told him in an even tone, "it never was." "Yeah, right. The two of you are really time-travelers, and this is just one big happy adventure for you. No problems to worry about, no consequences when you screw up and kill some eager-to-please kid." He glared at Hal. "Well, the rest of us don't have that luxury. We live in the real fugging world. We're all scrounging to survive in this nightmare, and we don't need a couple of briq-heads coming around to..." Jonah stepped forward and punched Lewis in the jaw, cutting him off mid-sentence. He fell to the ground, and Jonah jumped on top of the mechanic and began pounding on him, his face locked in a tight grimace. Lewis wrapped his arms over his head in an effort to protect himself, but it didn't deter the gunfighter in the least. Hal tried to grab hold of Hex's arm and stop him, but his efforts only earned him a fist to the face. He stumbled back, Stiletta catching him before he could fall to the ground himself. The slight distraction gave Lewis a chance to land a few blows, knocking Jonah off of him. "Fugger's crazy!" he yelled as he scrambled to get away. The gunfighter didn't let him stray too far, though: he grabbed Lewis by the hair with one hand, then reached beneath the collar of his coat and pulled out his knife with the other. He held it to the mechanic's throat as they knelt on the floor, Lewis's back pressed against Jonah's chest. "Mister Bowie wants tuh hear yuh say 'Sorry'," Hex whispered directly into the man's ear. Lewis let out a whimper and nothing more. "That's enough, Hex, let him go," Hal said. While his head didn't move, Jonah's eyes focused on Hal, and what the Green Lantern saw in them gave him a chill. He remembered what Jonah had said not long after he'd arrived about showing those gangbangers who the bigger, meaner dog was. Judging by the look in Jonah's eyes, Hal felt that the biggest, meanest dog in the yard may have just gone rabid. "Oh Jesus," Lewis begged, "Jesus God, don't, please..." "Thet ain't whut Ah asked fer," Jonah told him, pressing the knife harder into Lewis's throat. Blood was already trickling from the corner of mechanic's mouth and his nose, and it was soon joined by a small drop collecting on the edge of the blade. "Sorry! I'm sorry! Christ Jesus, I'm sorry, don't kill me!" Jonah removed the knife and shoved Lewis forward, sprawling him out on the concrete floor. "Ah hear yuh shootin' yer damn fool mouth off like thet again, an' Ah won't be so forgivin'," Jonah said as he stood up, slipping the knife back into the sheath beneath his coat collar. He then turned and slowly walked out of the main hall as Jordan pulled Lewis to his feet. The mechanic was still muttering apologies under his breath.
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Susan Hillwig
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:47:46 GMT -5
* * * Dogfight * * * The four of them walked back to the surface like they'd been condemned, no one speaking. When they entered the long dark spot in the corridor where they'd found the body, Cutter tried to break the bleak mood. "It'll be nice to have you around for Christmas," he told Hal. "Marya says she got two hams for the big dinner tomorrow night." "That's great, Cutter." "It's not so bad living at Maple, you'll see. Better than some other places." He dropped back a little so that fell in step beside Hal, the beams from their flashlights bouncing in rhythm. "You seem like good people." The young man couldn't see the Lantern's face very well in the dark, but his voice came out flat. Cutter began to say something else, but Jonah shushed him and made them all stop. "Ah think Ah heard something," the gunfighter whispered. He panned his light in a circle from left to right, letting it crawl over the walls and pour down a nearby hallway. Nothing out of the ordinary could be seen. "Thought fer damn sure Ah heard something," he muttered, and started to step forward. That was when they all heard a soft whirr and a scraping of metal, but not from their level. Hal caught sight of it first: a large hole in the ceiling, opening up to the level above them. They'd passed the rubble in the corridor earlier with barely a second glance, there were so many areas like it. Now Hal looked up and saw red eyes watching Jonah as the gunfighter walked right beneath the hole. "Hex, get down!" Jordan pushed Cutter behind him, then brought up his borrowed gun and fired at the mechanical dog just as it jumped down from its perch. One of the bullets struck home, but it wasn't enough to stop the machine. Jonah saw it coming and hit the floor, dropping his light as he slid out of the way and drew his own guns. When he came up into a kneeling stance to take aim, however, he stopped cold. In the spinning beam of his abandoned flashlight was Stiletta, flat on her back with the machine-hound straddling her, the stock of her rifle wedged in its jaws. The first time Jonah had gone up against these iron hounds, it had been in one of the aboveground hangers, with a good distance between him and them to work with before they could sink their teeth into him. It had been close, but in the end, they'd never laid a paw on him. This time, however, the odds were stacked against him: he was trapped in a dark, narrow corridor, barely five feet away from the thing, and it had Stiletta pinned to the floor, to boot. The explosive charges he'd brought along would just rip them all apart at this range, and if he risked a shot with it thrashing around on top of Stiletta, a stray bullet might kill her. He had to make a decision, though, and quickly: the splintering rifle stock in the woman’s hands wouldn't hold the huge metal beast at bay much longer. "Everybody out of the way!" Hex yelled, then charged straight at the dog, turning his shoulder towards the bulk of it and knocking it off Stiletta. Hal and Cutter both dove for cover on opposite sides of the corridor as Jonah and the machine-hound tumbled past. The gunfighter came to rest about twelve feet from where he'd started, fighting to right himself before the dog could recover. Unfortunately for him, the machine was built to take heavy impacts, and it soon regained its footing and lunged after him. Hex rolled out of the way, but one of its front paws raked across his back, metal claws easily ripping through the layers of protective clothing and drawing blood. Cutter grabbed hold of Hex and pulled him into a hallway branching off from the main corridor. Holding his flashlight along the length of the gunbarrel to illuminate his target, Hal fired at the machine-hound's own back as it ran past, the armor-piercing rounds punching holes in its hide. He didn't stop it, but he definitely got the machine's attention. It skidded to a stop and whirled on the Green Lantern, exposing itself to another barrage of gunfire from behind, this time from Stiletta at the head of the corridor -- her rifle was useless, so she was blasting away with the handgun she'd been carrying for a backup. "Get moving!" Hal told her. "Head for the crawler, we'll be right behind you!" "No way, you need all the help you can get!" she answered, never letting up on the dog. "Well, somebody better get a move-on," Jonah said as he and Cutter began to open fire from their position at the back, "'cause these bullets ain't gonna last forever!" One of their shots took out part of the dog's cranial housing, exposing wiring and sensors, but that only succeeded in making it more berserk. Sparks and shrapnel flew everywhere as it howled, metal teeth champing at the air. The photoelectric eyes of the beast stuttered for a moment, blinking on and off like twin traffic signals, but it still thrashed around. "I think we knocked out its vision," Hal said. Reaching down, he undid the Velcro straps on his leg brace and ripped it off. "If we're gonna make a run for it, now would be a good time!" "Yuh heard him, son," Jonah said, and gave Cutter a push to get him moving. The young man's eyes were fixed on the dog as they ran past. It looked straight at them for a moment, but it didn't appear to notice them. "Never mind it, Ah've got us covered," Jonah told him, giving him another push, "yuh just look where yo're goin'!" Flashlight beams swung back and forth as they retreated, alternating from the floor to check for obstacles, to the walls as they searched for the markers that would lead them back to the surface. Stiletta was far in front, with Hal gaining, and Hex at the tail end with a hand clamped on Cutter's arm to make him keep pace. In the darkness behind them, the sound of the machine-hound careening into walls echoed up the corridor. "It's still coming," Cutter gasped, craning his neck around to stare into the black. "Fugging thing's blind, and it's still coming..." "May be blind," Jonah said, "but it ain't deaf, so put a cork in it!" He knew it wouldn't help, though, their footsteps alone made enough noise for the dog to follow. Their only hope was to stay as far ahead of it as possible. Suddenly, Hal went down, his flashlight dipping as he cursed and hit the floor. Cutter and Hex paused to help the Green Lantern, who was holding on to his injured leg. "Figured I could run faster without the brace," he said through gritted teeth, "but my stupid knee gave out." Stiletta turned around and shined her light back at them. "What happened? Are you all right?" "Perfect," Jonah answered, and put a hand under Hal's arm to yank him to his feet. "Lantern decided we don't have enough problems, so..." He stopped when Stiletta began shouting, the beam of her light darting to the right of the corridor. He then heard the whine of the machine-hound's gears directly behind them. With barely a thought, he threw himself to the left, pulling Hal along with him and getting off two shots with his Magnum. Unfortunately, Cutter was not so quick, and the hound jumped on top of him, knocking him to the ground. Front paws planted on his chest, it sank its teeth into his shoulder, the powerful jaws clamping down hard enough to snap his collarbone. Deciding that the danger of accidentally shooting Cutter was of little consequence now, Hex took aim for another shot...and hit an empty cylinder. In their rush to get away, he'd never reloaded. "Sonovabitch!" he shouted, then ran forward and smashed his gun over the dog's muzzle until it let go, giving Hal the opportunity to grab Cutter. It snapped at Hex blindly for a moment, then jumped on the young man again, latching onto his calf before Hal could pull him completely away from the dog. The Green Lantern fell to the ground as well, but he kept his arms wrapped around Cutter's chest and held on as the dog tried to drag them both further down the corridor. "Hold on tuh him, Ah'll be right back!" Jonah said, then ran off into the darkness. Stiletta soon joined Hal, adding her weight to the human chain as the dog jerked Cutter's leg in a perverse game of tug-of-war, the young man screaming the whole time. "Where the Hell did Hex go?" Hal asked her, then turned his head in the direction he saw the gunfighter run, yelling, "Come back here, you bastard! I swear to God, if you don't..." He stopped when he heard something banging down the hallway, and Jonah's voice echoing off the walls: "C'mon, doggie! Yuh want a fight, Ah'll give yuh a good one!" Though Hal couldn't see very well in the dim corridor, he could hear the sound of bootheels slapping the ground, and it was coming closer. "Over here, yuh stupid clockwork mutt! Yuh couldn't take me out last time, so here's yer chance fer a rematch!" Jonah yelled, then Hal saw a human shape fly out of the darkness and land on the machine-hound. The dog reared up with a growl, letting go of Cutter and turning its attention on its new opponent, who offered no resistance. "Jonah, no!" Stiletta screamed, and began to reach out to try and pull the dog away, but another hand came from behind her and latched onto her wrist. She turned to yell at Green Lantern, then saw that it was Jonah. "How the Hell..." "Never mind," he said, "we've got maybe ten seconds 'til the charges go off." He then scooped Cutter up into his arms, and the three of them ran as fast as they could away from the dog, Stiletta supporting Hal on his bad leg. Seconds later, an explosion lit up the corridor, shards of metal and concrete flying everywhere as they hit the deck. More of the ceiling caved in behind them, entombing the remains of the machine-hound. Coughing a bit from the smoke, the gunfighter muttered, "The timers on them things is a shade off." Hal groped for Jonah in the darkness. “How’s Cutter? You still got him?” He ran a hand over Cutter's neck to check for a pulse as Jonah set him down on the floor. “I need a light...who’s still got a flashlight?” “Shit, I dropped mine back there somewhere. Jonah, do you...” Stiletta began to say, then stopped when she saw a spark. “Sometimes, yuh got tuh do things the old-fashioned way,” Jonah said, holding up the wooden match so Hal could see what he was doing. The light was poor, but it was enough to tell that Cutter was in awful shape. His coat was soaked with blood at the shoulder, and the dog had nearly torn his leg off, dislocating it from the hip socket in the struggle. More blood was pumping out of the shredded muscle that used to be his calf. He wasn’t screaming anymore, just laying there with his eyes rolled up to the whites and breathing shallowly. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding.” Hal undid Cutter’s belt and cinched it tightly around the young man’s thigh. "I need something for bandages." Stiletta removed her coat and tore the sleeves off, handing them to Jordan. She then ripped a few more strips off of what was left and wrapped it around a long piece of metal laying nearby. "You want to explain your little magic trick back there?" she asked Hex as she lit the impromptu torch with his match. "Figured since the dog was blind, it wouldn't know the dif'rence 'tween a live body an' a dead one right off," he said, "so Ah ran up the hall 'til Ah found thet fella we stumbled across, shoved a couple of charges in his pockets, then ran back here howlin' like the Devil so's the dog would think Ah was the one a-jumpin' on it." "That's an absolutely insane idea." "Worked, didn't it?" Hal waved a hand at Stiletta, saying, "Bring the light closer." He'd bandaged the shoulder, and was now working on tying a splint to Cutter's leg, using two more pieces of the metal shrapnel that used to be part of the corridor. "This should keep it immobile enough to move him," he said. "We've got to get him back to the warehouse, and fast." Careful not to jostle him too roughly, Hal and Jonah carried the unconscious young man out of the complex, Stiletta leading the way with the torch. Once they'd returned to the vehicle, they laid Cutter across the bench-like seats in the passenger compartment, wrapping him in a blanket stowed onboard and strapping him down as best they could so he wouldn't bounce around. The gunfighter collapsed on the floor next to the seats as Hal and Stiletta readied the crawler to head out. Hal poked his head out of the driver's cabin to check on the two of them once they were moving, but Jonah waved him off. "Y'all worry 'bout steerin' this monster, Ah'll keep an eye on the kid," he said. "Who's going to keep an eye on you?" Though Hal had treated Cutter's wounds, no one had even taken a look at the gouges in Jonah's back. "Ah've had worse," he answered, and leaned back against the crawler's hull. Despite his bravado, Jonah was in quite a bit of agony. The engine seemed to thrum in time with the throbbing pain in his back as they drove across the frozen wasteland, but he ignored it for now and focused his attention on Cutter, watching the kid for any sign of trouble. After an hour or so, the gunfighter's eyes began to slip closed from exhaustion, but he soon snapped to attention when he thought he heard Cutter speak, followed by a cough. Jonah sat up and felt the young man's pulse near his throat, saying, "Kin yuh hear me, son?" "Dad?" he gasped, trying to lift his head. "Yer dad's not here," Jonah said, "lie still." "It hurts, Dad...make it stop, please..." His voice was so weak, he sounded like he was eight instead of eighteen. Jonah placed a hand against Cutter's pale, clammy cheek as the young man stared through him with unfocused eyes. "Ah wish Ah could," he said, and he meant it. He'd seen things like this when he'd fought in the Civil War: badly wounded men laying in battlefront hospitals or out in the field, begging for the comfort of friends and loved ones. A few were so far gone, they became incoherent. He remembered one long night hunkered down in a ditch, listening to some poor soul out in the dark screaming for fried chicken and ice cream. After a couple of hours, someone managed to put a bullet into the screaming man and end his misery. "Yuh did real good today, Cutter," he told him. If he heard the words, he made no sign. "I'm tired..." "Ah know. Yuh rest easy now, boy...yer dad will be here when yuh wake up." Cutter said nothing else after that, the only sound coming from him being the unsteady wheeze of his breathing. A few minutes later, that faded away as well. Jonah moved his hand over the young man's eyes to close them, then got up and walked over to the front cabin. Hal immediately began to get up from the co-pilot's chair, but the gunfighter put a hand on his shoulder to hold him in his seat. He then leaned over to Stiletta and told her to slow down. She looked up at Jonah and was about to chew him out for suggesting such a thing, then she saw the expression on his face. "No...no, you're wrong," she said, tears already forming in her eyes. "You go check, GL. He's wrong, he's got to be..." Even as she said the words, she was cutting the acceleration on the crawler. By the time the machine came to a full halt, she had crumpled up over the steering wheel, still telling Hex he had made a mistake in between sobs.
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Susan Hillwig
Staff
I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:46:34 GMT -5
* * * Dungeon Crawl * * * About a half-hour later, the crawler passed the remains of a fence that marked the perimeter of the base. Not much was left standing aside from a couple of sagging hangers and a nondescript two-story building. “It may not look like much," Jonah remarked, "but some of the corridors seemed tuh go down awful deep. Them critters Ah told yuh ‘bout didn’t make us feel real welcome, though, so we didn’t poke ‘round here too long.” They drove the vehicle into one of the hangers, then disembarked, guns at the ready. “Okay, let’s assume for now that there still might be some of those dogs roaming the grounds, or even some other defense measure,” Hal said. “It’ll slow us down, but I think we should all stay together, just in case.” “Fine by me,” Cutter answered, slinging a bag of electronics gear onto his shoulder. “I don’t relish the idea of being robo-kibble.” A sweep of the above-ground levels revealed nothing of use, though it appeared that some scavengers had been there in the months since Jonah's visit. They took it as a good sign: if people had been on the grounds, then perhaps all the defenses had been eliminated. Despite that, they were taking no chances: each of them carried a weapon loaded with armor-piercing rounds along with a few timed explosive charges, the only things the gunfighter thought were capable of stopping one of those machine-hounds. Picking a building at random, the group began to head into the bowels of the facility. Jonah took the lead, with Cutter and Stiletta following, and Hal taking up the rear. The Green Lantern carried a can of reflective spraypaint in addition to a gun, and marked the wall every ten feet or so with an arrow pointing the way they'd come. They soon found that a few areas were completely impassible, as parts of the structure appeared to have caved in, or the sliding metal doors refused to open no matter how much force was applied. The deeper they went, the more the place felt like a tomb -- the echoes of footsteps off the walls and the lack of power in some areas didn't help. During one long stretch of darkness, the otherwise stale air in the corridor began to sour, like raw meat that had been left out too long. Jonah stopped short, waving his hand into the beam of one of the flashlights behind him to call for a halt. "What's wrong? You find something?" Stiletta asked, raising her light towards his face. He grabbed hold of it and pushed it back down. "Don't know yet. Stay still." He left the group and moved forward, his own light trained on the ground. It soon fell on a dark mass laying on the floor, vaguely human-shaped. Putting down his flashlight, he knelt beside it for a moment, then called the rest of them over. The added light soon revealed a man in a heavy coat that had been shredded in multiple places, along with the flesh beneath. The face was a mask of dried blood and splintered bone, and the person's right arm was missing below the elbow. Jonah looked up at them and said what they were all thinking: "There's at least one left." "How long ago?" Hal asked, his nose wrinkling up at the smell. "'Bout a week. Scav, most likely. Got adventurous an' decided tuh go explorin'. Ain't much of a blood trail, so he must've gotten hit pretty quick. Put up a fight, though." He picked up his flashlight and pointed it to the other side of the corridor -- the rest of the arm was over there, a pistol still in hand. "Knocked him down, ripped it off, then crushed his skull." Cutter made an unpleasant noise and put a hand over his mouth. "You all right?" Stiletta asked him, and he nodded. "Last time Ah was here, three of 'em tried tuh jump us. We blowed up two, an’ the third fell through a rotted spot in the floor. Made a lot of noise on the way down, an' Ah figured thet was the end of it." Jonah stood up. "Reckon Ah underestimated it." "If any of you want to go back, I won't hold it against you," Hal said, looking at each of them in turn. "It's my risk, not yours." Jonah shrugged. "Ain't changed much fer me. Now Ah know fer sure there's something down here 'stead of just guessin' 'bout it. 'Sides, maybe it won't know we're here if'n we keep this quick an' quiet." Stiletta and Cutter agreed, but the young man seemed a bit pale. Don't blame him, Jonah thought, muh own stomach's startin' tuh flutter a touch. He did his best to push such thoughts aside as they continued down the corridor, all of them keeping a closer eye on their surroundings. The tension in the group went down a bit when they reached a lit section once again, and not long after that, they came upon a door marked simply CONTROL. "This might be it," Hal said, and worked his fingers into the slim opening to pry the doors apart. With a squeal, the frozen mechanism finally gave way and revealed a room lined with computer terminals and monitoring equipment. Some were even operating, though they currently showed nothing more than static. "All right, let's see what we can do with this," he said to Cutter, and the two of them began walking up and down the rows of electronics, toggling switches to see what did and didn't respond. Stiletta followed after them, but stopped when she noticed Jonah still standing in the doorway. "Feeling a little lost, cowboy?" she asked, gesturing to the terminals. "Somebody's gotta stand guard," he replied, then turned to face the corridor. She came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, where's that smile I saw earlier?" "No smilin' when Ah'm on the job...bad fer muh reputation." He cocked his head towards the others. "Go on, girl. If'n Ah need help, Ah'll holler." She lingered for a moment, then gave his shoulder a squeeze and walked away, rejoining the guys as they fiddled around under one of the consoles. To be honest, he did feel lost in this place, but it was a feeling he was learning to live with. Maybe Ah won't need tuh much longer, though, Hex thought. No matter what he told the Green Lantern, he had been wondering if the masked men they were trying to reach really could help him get home. And after Hal mentioned that the gunfighter's future may not be one that ends in a dusty warehouse, his desire to get back had grown. Yo're settin' yerself up fer another fall, Jonah boy, he told himself. Wish in one hand an' spit in the other, see which one'll do yuh the most good. As the other three worked on making the long-neglected equipment functional again, Jonah paced up and down the corridor, smoking too many cigarettes and keeping his eyes and ears wide open. There appeared to be no trace of the four-legged defense system nearby, but he wasn't about to drop his guard. He stopped at the head of every hallway that branched off of the one near the control room, listening for the whine of servomotors or the throaty metallic growl he remembered the machine-hound made, but heard nothing but the thump of the ventilation system. If'n it was a real animal, Ah could check fer droppings, he thought. 'Course, this thing could shit out scrap metal fer all Ah know. Whenever his path took him past the control room, he'd poke his head in to see how they were making out. Unfortunately, the gibberish they spoke to each other about frequencies and signal-bouncing and words that he wasn't even sure were English just made him shake his head and continue on down the corridor. After a few hours, he began to wonder how long they'd go at it before they finally declared it a loss. The gunfighter was thinking of interrupting them to ask if they were spending the night when Stiletta came out of the room and waved to him. "It worked! I can't believe it, we got a hold of somebody!" she said as he came down the hall. "Keep yer voice down, sugar," he replied, "we're trespassin', remember?" Inside, though, he felt like shouting as well. "Is it the right somebody?" "GL says so. He called the guy 'Owen', I think." "Well, if'n he's on a first-name basis with the fella, then Ah reckon we're in business." The two of them headed into the control room. Hal and Cutter sat at one of the terminals, each wearing a slim headset with a microphone attached to the earpiece. Stiletta handed one like it to Jonah, who held it up to his ear. The voice he heard was partly obscured by pops of static, but he could make it out well enough: "...ask you to cease transmission. Communication over this frequency is reserved for emergency signals only. You are in violation of..." "I don't care if I'm in violation. Matter of fact, I encourage you to come arrest me personally," Hal answered. "This is not a joke, this is a genuine distress call from Earth, Sector 2814. My name is Hal Jordan, I was Green Lantern for this sec..." "Hal Jordan is dead," the voice interrupted, "and Earth is no longer under the protection of the Corps. I must ask you to cease transmission. Communication over this frequency..." "Don't start that again, dammit! I'm not in the mood for typical Oan bullheadedness! If you don't believe I am who I say, then dig up my old security codes and I'll rattle them off to you. Better yet, get someone that knew me. We'll have this cleared up in five minutes." "No matter your true identity, I cannot comply. A quarantine has been placed on Earth, outlawing contact with the planet in any form...including this communication." "Why?" Jonah spoke into the headset mike. Everyone looked at him like he'd fired a shot in the room. Hal repeatedly drew a hand across his throat and mouthed Shut up! Without missing a beat, the voice from Oa replied, "The planet's inhabitants have been declared too unstable to maintain meaningful relations with. They have a history of self-destructive behavior, as well as xenophobic tendencies. While the actions of Green Lantern Hal Jordan and a few others from his planet have shown that some can rise above their society's limitations, on a whole Earth is still far too barbaric. Until evidence is presented to the contrary, the Guardians will not allow the planet's negative influence to spread beyond its system." "Give me a chance to plead my case to the Guardians," Hal said. "I'll convince them to lift the quarantine, just for a while." "Request denied. This communication will be forcibly terminated in five seconds, and all further transmissions from your coordinates will be ignored." After a pause, the voice said, "I am sorry," followed by a brief electronic tone, then silence. Hal slowly sat back in his chair, then took off the headset, tossed it onto the keyboard in front of him, and let his hands drop to his lap. One by one, the others did the same. After a minute, Cutter began to turn off the equipment, his hand lingering for a moment above every switch, as if waiting for a last-second reprieve. It was Jonah that finally broke the silence. "Thet 'Owen' fella always talk like a big-city lawyer?" he asked. "I think the Oans have perfected that sort of talk," the Green Lantern answered, standing up. "Let's get the Hell out of here."
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Susan Hillwig
Staff
I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:45:19 GMT -5
* * * A Moment of Clarity * * * The snow came back in full force the next day, the wind howling and shaking the walls of the warehouse. Despite that, the four of them agreed to head out into it, albeit with a different sort of transportation: the crawler was the biggest vehicle in the motor pool, and had been built to withstand all sorts of abuses, both physical and environmental. The four tank-like treads that propelled it could eat up the roughest terrain, and the armor plating was thick enough to deflect most weaponry. Lewis threw a fit when they came to borrow it, but somehow they managed to pry the vehicle out of his hands. Due to Hal's inexperience with the technology and Jonah's track record of crashing just about every big vehicle he'd ever attempted to pilot, Cutter and Stiletta strapped themselves into the front cabin to drive the monster. Not long after they’d gotten underway, Hal left his seat in the small passenger compartment and braced himself in the connecting doorway, both to get an idea of how the vehicle worked and to observe the lay of the land through the windshield. Jonah had laid out directions on an old map of the area, one that had been modified to reflect the changes the nuclear war had wrought. That left him little to do but sit back and enjoy the ride, so he began to double-check the munitions he'd brought along, popping the clips on the guns to verify they were loaded. Once he was done, he started over again from the beginning. It was unnecessary, of course, but it kept him distracted from how much he wanted a drink at that moment. The thought of it had kept him up most of the night: just sneak down to the pantry, take one little nip, and sneak back. No one would know if he kept it small. Besides, it would help quiet the voices that always seemed to whisper in his ear as he tried to sleep. But he'd made a promise to Stiletta: no booze, not one drop. He didn't want her to think of him as weak, so he did his best to ignore the dryness of his throat and concentrate on the task in front of him, methodically pulling the weapons one at a time out of the duffel bag between his feet and looking them over. When Hal came over and sat next to him, he didn't even lift his head. "I don't think any of the guns have run off yet,” Hal said, nudging the duffel with his boot. Jonah grunted, put the pistol in his hand back with the others, then picked up a new one. "Speaking of guns, I've been mulling over what you told me yesterday about your Dragoons," he continued, "and how you'd gotten rid of them back in your time." "Rather not talk 'bout thet right now." "You don't need to talk, just listen. I actually feel kind of stupid about this, it didn't occur to me until this morning," Jordan said, shaking his head. "You said they were with your corpse in the warehouse, and that you're positive they're the same guns you'd ditched." "Yuh callin' me a liar, boy?" Jonah growled, obviously annoyed. "No, I didn't mean that at all. It's just that, in light of what we found out yesterday...well, I don't think that corpse you found is really you." He dropped the gun back into the bag, then slowly turned to look at the Green Lantern. "Ah beg yer goddam pardon?" "Hear me out, this is a bit complicated. Stiletta told me that her father pulled hundreds of people out of their respective timeframes and brought them here, including yourself. She also said that most of them died fighting these mockup battles he arranged for." Hal leaned closer. "Do you know how much damage to the timestream that would cause, so many people being yanked out of where they should be and never returning? One or two might not have too big an impact, but hundreds..." Jonah remembered something he'd seen when escaping Borsten's complex not long after he'd arrived. "He'd snatched up a mess of Yankees and stuck 'em in glass cages...reckon enough fer a whole battalion...an' he had a lot of other fellas in uniform, too," he said. "Thet many soldiers go missin', figure whatever war they're fightin' might turn out dif'rent without 'em." "Exactly, which means by changing the past, you've just changed your own future. So how could you disrupt past events that much and have it not effect you?" After a moment, Hex answered, "Take 'em from somebody else's past...thet crafty sonovabitch, he wasn't just reaching backwards in time, he was veerin' off tuh the left, too!" He slammed his fist onto the seat. "Thet no-good, heartless...dammit, Ah'm glad we killed him!" "Whoa, hey, calm down! He may of not even known he was crossing realities: sometimes despite our best efforts to screw things up, the universe manages to find a way to smooth out the anomalies. Maybe some sort of cosmic fail-safe kicked in and tried to disperse the damage he was causing. He's gone, and so's the equipment he used, so we'll never know for sure. No matter whether it was intentional or not, it means that this reality isn't yours anymore than it's mine. We're both visitors here." "How kin yuh be so sure 'bout thet?" "It's the Dragoons. Think about it: the Jonah Hex for this reality never threw them in a lake. Maybe he never even got drunk like you did, and he probably never got pulled into the future as well. He kept those guns until he was an old man, died somehow, and the body got stuffed and mounted by someone who then displayed the Dragoons with the body. That's why they look like the same guns to you: until that split in reality, they were the same guns." An' nobody notices, Jonah thought, not even me. He turned away from Hal and stared straight ahead -- the implications of what the man was telling him were still sinking in. For over a month, he'd been struggling with the knowledge that he would someday become nothing more than a carnival attraction, robbed of any sort of dignity or respect, and that there was no way to stop it since it had already happened. But if'n this ain‘t the same world Ah come from, then maybe it won‘t happen tuh me. It might, but it might not...fifty-fifty odds, same as everybody else. Suddenly, Jonah felt like a weight had been cut away from his heart. "Ah ain't dead," he gasped under his breath. When he'd said that on other occasions, it was to calm himself down, to reassure himself that what he'd seen in that dusty storeroom hadn't come true yet. Now he said it with a conviction he could never muster before. "Ah ain't dead!" he shouted, pumping his fists into the air and laughing. "Ah beat it, yuh ugly bastard! Ah ain't gonna end up like yuh! Ha ha!" From the co-pilot seat up front, Stiletta poked her head into the passenger compartment. "What are you guys doing back there?" "We're havin' a wake," the gunfighter answered, a huge grin on his face. "Some jasper named Jonah Hex up an’ died, but not this one!“ “What are you talking about?” “Lantern thinks Ah got bounced up an’ over here like he did.” Hex got up from his seat and went over to hers. “If’n it’s true, thet means Ah ain’t gonna end up some corpse in a godawful costume! Thet’s just a maybe!” he said, laughing again. “Ah could die tomorrow, or not ‘til Ah’m a hunnert...but Ah'm gonna do muh damnedest tuh outlive Methuselah!” “Oh my God, are you serious?” She looked from him to the Green Lantern and back again. “Oh my God,” she repeated, then threw her arms around Jonah, laughing herself now. He returned the gesture in kind, almost lifting her out of her seat. Cutter complained that it was hard to drive with both of them carrying on like that right next to him, but neither of them listened.
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:44:28 GMT -5
* * * S.O.S. * * * Truth be told, Hal didn't have much of a plan, just a sketchy idea. For a real, concrete plan, he was going to need some more help. Once they returned to the warehouse, him and Jonah located Stiletta, then went off to her quarters for privacy so they could fill her in on what the two of them had discovered. Wisely, Hal skipped the part about Parallax and the theory that he was the cause of the current state of the world ("Yuh start tellin' folks thet, they might decide tuh stretch yer neck fer yuh," Jonah reasoned). Like Hex, Stiletta was curious to find out how the Green Lantern was going to turn this situation into something useful. "That's great that some of your friends might be alive on Mars or wherever," she said, "but you're stuck on Earth. There's no way to reach them." "Physically, no, and I figured as much, but I still might be able to contact them,” Hal replied. "Back in my reality, the Green Lantern Corps had only recently reformed. There's only five of us, and we're starting almost from scratch. However, in this reality, I never...I mean, the incident that disbanded the Corps never happened. I could be wrong, but unless something disastrous occurred in the past half-century, the old Corps should still be operating out there. That's 3,600 different beings that can potentially respond to a distress call." Jonah had commandeered the only chair in the room, and was sitting on it backwards, his arms folded over the backrest. "Whut do yuh plan on doin'? Gonna stick yer head out the window an' holler fer 'em?" he said. "Close. There's an emergency frequency that the Corps set up for planets under our protection. If I can zero in on that, I can send a message through the relay network, and hopefully it'll get picked up by a Lantern in this sector. But for this to work, I need to find a long-range transmitter, something that can bounce a signal off a satellite and into space." "Oh, I'm sure there's one in the storeroom," Stiletta joked, then turned dead serious. "Are you crazy? Where do you expect to find something like that?" "Best bet is a military installation, but I doubt any survived the war." "I think a few did, but they've more than likely been taken over by the Conglomerate or some other strong-arm group. I doubt they'd let us in to make a long-distance call." "Yuh think any ol' military place would have one of these transmitters?" Jonah asked. "'Cause Ah know of one ‘bout a hunnert miles south of here. It's in bad shape, but Ah don't think anybody's set up housekeepin' there yet." "Hate to burst your bubble, cowboy," Stiletta answered, "but you're mistaken. There's no bases out that way." "Yuh don't think Ah know whut Ah'm talkin' 'bout?" He turned towards her. "Remember me tellin' yuh 'bout how Ah ran into Harris? Him an' them other soldiers from Viet-whutever, we all stopped by this run-down compound set up by the Army fer research. Weren't on no maps, but one of the fellas said his Pa used tuh work there in his time." "Vietnam? Is that what you mean?" Hal asked, thinking to himself, He sure does get around, doesn't he? "Reckon thet is, but it ain't important. Point is, the place is there, an' it might have whut yuh need. 'Course, it weren't exactly the friendliest of places when we stopped by. There was these machines whut looked like big dogs a-runnin' 'round, almost took a few good nips outta muh hide. Ah think we wrecked 'em all, but if'n we're goin' there, Ah'd come loaded fer bear just in case." "Sounds like a good idea. I'll leave that up to you, Hex: you scrounge up whatever ordnance you think will help," he said, then turned to Stiletta. "I'm not asking you to come along, but an extra set of hands might be useful." "If you'd told me not to come, I would have made Hex shoot you until you changed your mind." "Thank God you didn't have to resort to that. I want to leave early tomorrow morning, if possible. That should give us enough time to get supplies and equipment together." Hal rubbed a hand over his face. "Now all we have to worry about is whether or not the transmitter still works...if it's even there." "Cutter should be able to help on that end, assuming you don't mind making this trio a quartet," Stiletta offered. "Do you think he'll be up for it?" She laughed. "It's a secret military base full of high-tech gizmos...we'll have to watch him all night to make sure he doesn't try and beat us there on foot."
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:42:54 GMT -5
* * * Turn Left * * * "Alright, Jordan, explain all this nonsense tuh me, and make sure yuh chew it fine so's Ah kin understand it." After retrieving Hal's coat from the still-unconscious biker, the two men found what passed for a food court near the center of the mall and grabbed a secluded table where they could hash things out. They received a few dirty looks from some of the vendors for taking up space without buying anything, but the look Hex gave them back was dirtier, and they were soon left in peace. They sat across from each other at the small table, the magazine laying between them. "You remember the year I told you I came from?" Hal said, then tapped the cover’s upper corner, where the date was printed. "This was published on the one-year anniversary of Coast City's destruction. That event happened three years before I came here...it's a time I've already lived through." "Ah got thet much straight. Whut Ah don't understand is why whut yuh said happened back then don't match up with whut this says." He tapped the cover himself now. "Is this one of them paradox things yuh was talkin' 'bout?" "Sort of. What I was referring to before has to do with changing what happened in the past in a catastrophic way, one that makes the timeline unravel. But this...the flow of time is very strange, Jonah. In addition to what we think of as 'normal' reality, there's all these 'possible' realities lying just beneath the surface...the way things might have been if events happened in a different order, or not at all in some cases." "Yuh lost me...sounds like yo're sayin' things happen more'n once." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and shook one out. "The simplest way to explain it is that, for every decision you make in life, you make the opposite one in another reality. Let's say you come to a fork in the road: in one reality you go left, in the other you go right. Everything after that is different in both realities, because different things will happen to you depending on the direction you go." Jordan held up a hand. "Not every decision you make is that reality-altering, of course, but some little things do effect the universe in ways you can't imagine. It's like a snowball effect." Jonah had been in the process of snapping off the cigarette filter when Hal said that. The gunfighter now sat there, looking at the two halves. He was far from stupid, but he did have difficulty with concepts that weren't tangible. It had taken him a day or two to get his head around time travel, and the incident with the corpse...well, he was still wrestling with that one. Now he had to deal with the notion of reality being multiple-choice. He placed the halves next to each other on the table so they looked like a whole cigarette again. "Everything starts off normal," he said aloud, more to himself than to Hal, "then something happens thet could go two ways...maybe three or four ways...so it splits off." He pushed the two halves around so they now lay side-by-side. "Everything keeps goin' on like afore, only now there's two of everything...an' nobody notices?" The last part he directed at the Green Lantern. "Most normal people don't, no...which is good. It helps them stay sane." "So have things always been screwed up like this? Is there someplace where the South won the War?" "Yeah, probably." Hal did his best to not laugh when Jonah's eyes almost bugged out of his head. "There's probably also a world where the Civil War never happened, or where America as we know it never even existed...just about everything that could happen has happened in another reality. And this," he said, picking up the magazine, "is one of those other realities." "By which yuh mean it ain't yorn." Hex lit his cigarette-cum-visual aid. "How the Hell did yuh end up here, then? Ah thought yuh just got tossed forward in time like me." "So did I, but the blast that knocked me here was mainly made up of a cosmic energy source, one that Dr. Steveling said existed everywhere. I'll bet it passes straight through all the alternate realities, too. I just slipped right through and didn't notice...and if we hadn't found this, I probably would have never noticed since I ended up a few decades ahead of where I started." "Lucky you. So how's this place different from where y'all came from...other than the fact thet yo're dead, of course." "I wish that was all. Like I told you before, Mongul was trying to take over Earth...him and a cyborg that was impersonating Superman. They'd built a massive engine on the ruins of the city, and Mongul was about to turn it on and knock the planet out of orbit when I intervened. The real Superman and the others were working on taking down the cyborg and disabling the engine, so it was just the two of us duking it out. That monster almost had me at one point: I was flat-out on a catwalk, just totally spent. He raised his fist for a killing blow, but I managed to roll out of the way at the last moment, bought myself enough time to get my second wind so I could get up again and cream him." He looked down at the cover and the picture of the memorial. "It was just a fleeting moment. If I'd moved one second later, Mongul probably would have crushed my skull into powder...and I almost let him, he'd knocked me so low." "Yuh didn't, though, yuh got up an' finished the job. But this other Hal Jordan..." "One damn second, that's all it would have took. With me out of the way, Mongul would have gone on with activating the engine. By that time, the others had probably rendered it inoperable, but the power source would still be intact: pure kryptonite. Maybe he saw that he couldn't win, so he detonated the engine core just so he'd have the satisfaction of wiping out those who had ruined his plan." Hal traced a finger over the statue faces, naming them in turn. "Supergirl, Steel, Superboy...they were standing right outside the core chamber when I found them after the fight, so they were probably there when it went off, and Superman...he was in the heart of the thing, along with the cyborg and Eradicator. I'm just speculating, of course: according to this, no one survived the final blast that wiped out the last of Mongul's complex, so nobody knows what exactly happened. They couldn't even do a full investigation of the wreckage, the whole area was so hot from radiation." "Superman's one of the fellas yuh've been askin' around fer," Jonah said. "Yuh called him one of the 'big guns'." "The biggest. I figured if any of the heroes could last through a nuclear war, Superman would make it for sure," Hal said, "or at the very least, people would remember his name. He went everywhere, from one end of the globe to the other." He opened the magazine to a random page. It showed a dark-haired, muscled man in a red and blue outfit soaring across the sky just as easy as you please, a red cape spread out behind him like wings. Hex recalled seeing something quite like that a few months back, but he'd written it off as a hallucination caused by too much rotgut. 'Sides, it was here an' gone afore Ah knew it, he thought. Maybe it was just some odd little hiccup in time like whut brought Lantern here, no point in gettin' the fella's hopes up fer nothin'. "The boy an' girl...they his kids or something?" he asked. "No, just heroes that looked up to him, so they wore his symbol as a kind of tribute. Same with Steel. I suppose we all wanted to emulate him." "Sounds like wantin' tuh be like him weren't enough tuh carry 'em through, though. Ah take it in yer time, they all made it out safe an' sound?" He nodded. "We were all banged up to some degree or another, but yeah, everybody walked away intact. Hooray for the good guys. But in this timeline...remember I said that someone had been impersonating Superman? That same man had talked the government into staying away from the ruins of Coast City, then sent the Justice League on a wild goose chase across the solar system, all to make sure they wouldn't interfere with Mongul's plan. As far as they all knew, he was Superman, so why wouldn't they believe him? By the time people realized they'd been duped, it was too late, we were all dead, and they didn't have a clue as to why. According to one of articles in here, the public thinks Eradicator was one of the bad guys...and some people still think the cyborg was the real Superman." Hal flipped ahead a few pages, saying, "All this confusion didn't help the League's reputation, either. There's another piece in here mentioning that the government forced the League to disband a couple of months earlier due to 'lack of trust', probably because the heroes fell for the ruse just like everyone else." "An' without yer 'big gun' tuh back 'em up, they didn't have a leg tuh stand on.” He thought of all his fellow Confederates that were so quick to brand him a traitor after the Fort Charlotte Massacre, then said, "All them regular folks wanted somebody tuh pay fer whut happened, an' all yuh masked men was just convenient scapegoats, seein' as how the real skunks thet did all the damage was already dead." "That's sounds about right, unfortunately. There was a similar uproar during the 1950s, I think, due to the Red Scare. The government called the members of the Justice Society Communist sympathizers and wanted them to publicly reveal their identities. They all retired or went into hiding rather than comply, and there were no superheroes operating in the public eye for decades until...well, until Superman. If the pattern repeated again in the modern era, and all the heroes of my time went underground...my God, do you know how much chaos that would bring? In just the past three years, there's been so many global threats that only...” Hal let the sentence trail off, his face becoming pale. "Whut's wrong?" Jonah asked. The look on the Green Lantern's face was disturbing, like the man had seen the Devil himself. "Yuh still with me, son?" His voice barely audible, Hal managed to form one word: "Parallax." "Come again?" Jordan's eyes seemed to focus elsewhere as he spoke. "For years, I've been beating myself up for the loss of Coast City, wondering what I could have done differently, how my life would have turned out if I hadn't..." He stopped, pain flickering across his features for a moment. "I never thought things could turn out worse." "This has tuh do with whut y'all was tellin' me the other night, don't it? The bad decisions." Hex tossed away the cigarette and leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Them gloves yuh wear ain't as white as they look, are they? All them folks died, an' yuh couldn't take it, so yuh went crazy...just like me." Hal opened his mouth, but nothing came out at first. Then, slowly, he told the gunfighter, "It wasn't the same, I...something was...influencing me. I wasn't in control all the time. It let me think I was, but..." He drew in a shuddering breath. "I was afraid, and I didn't want anyone else to die, so I amassed this staggering amount of power to the point where I could affect Time itself, and I tried to...restart everything. Just erase all the bad things that ever happened. I almost did, but my friends stopped me. For a moment, though, I touched the very fabric of the universe...who knows what sort of imprint I left on it once they made me let go?" Jonah leaned back in his chair, thinking, He's lyin', whut he's talkin' 'bout ain't possible. Then again, if someone had come to him before he'd been dragged into the future and told him about a tenth of the things he'd seen here, or about moving through time in and of itself, he would have laughed it all off. If'n it's true, though, then thet means... "This is all yer fault: the world got blown tuh Hell an' gone in this time 'cause yuh weren't there tuh leave yer mark." "I think so." Hal looked around at the people sitting nearby, oblivious to the two of them discussing matters of time and space. "In one reality I live and almost wipe out the universe in an attempt to save lives, and in another I die and unintentionally destroy civilization by my absence. Which is worse?" "Apples an' oranges," Hex muttered. "Both of 'em are bad, just dif'rent types of it." "I'm surprised you're so glib about this." "Yuh want me tuh browbeat yuh over this or something? Ain't no point in it, the deed's done...both of 'em. Ah gather from the way y'all was talkin' the other night thet yuh've done yer penance fer the damage yuh caused back in yer own time, anyhow." "'Penance' is the perfect word for it." Jonah nodded. "Fair enough. Ah ain't one tuh hound a man once justice has been served, so yo're off the hook with me. As far as whut happened in this time goes, yuh died. How the Hell kin yuh punish a man fer dyin'? Kill him again?" "I suppose you're right. It's just hard to think that what I did as Parallax was a good thing in the long run." "Like yuh said afore, God has a strange sense of humor." Jonah lit another cigarette and watched the Green Lantern through a haze of smoke. He saw the man in a different light now: not as high-and-mighty as he seemed at first glance, for sure. “So whut do we do now, Jordan? If’n all them long-underwear folk is gone, how we supposed tuh get yer green butt home?” “All the heroes on Earth are gone...but there are others that weren’t based on Earth,” Hal told him, then pointed upwards. Like a rube, Hex looked up and saw nothing but the mall’s ceiling, then the meaning of what Hal said sunk in. “Oh, Ah’ve gotta see how yuh plan on pullin’ this one off.”
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 21, 2012 1:41:47 GMT -5
Issue Four; Story by Susan Hillwig, Cover by Scot Paisley
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 6, 2012 13:39:11 GMT -5
We're halfway through our tale, so pop by the letters column and tell us what you think so far, plus check out more "Notes from the Road"!
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 6, 2012 13:36:04 GMT -5
Notes from the Road: the Girl To tell the truth, I never liked Stiletta. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she was the worst thing about the Hex series, but she didn’t seem to do much to make it better, either. Even though she’s first presented to us as this tough chick bent on revenge, she doesn’t really do a lot to back up that claim. Matter of fact, she seems to land in the “damsel in distress” role more often than not, a bit of arm candy perpetually in trouble. This isn’t to say that, historically, Jonah’s girlfriends don’t usually end up in the same boat, but that’s the worst part: going by what we see in those 18 issues, Jonah and Stiletta are never actually an item.
This was something I didn’t realize when I first began plotting “The Long Road Home”. When I originally envisioned Jonah waking up from the first nightmare scene in the story, I had Stiletta in bed right next to him! I just took it as a matter of course that Jonah had hooked up with the girl -- the man’s no Bat Lash, but his boots have been under quite a few beds, and I figured Michael Fleisher had put Stiletta in there specifically to become his girlfriend. But as I perused the Hex series more closely, it became obvious that their relationship didn’t go as deep as I remembered: while Jonah kept giving off signals that he definitely cared for Stiletta beyond the “just friends” level, the opposite didn’t appear to be true. I’d been bouncing ideas off of another Hex-nut named Kevin via the Internet, so I asked him what he thought of it, and he felt that Stiletta was pretty much there for window dressing, nothing more. If she had any romantic feelings for him, she never showed it. So that became another twist to the story: Jonah being genuinely in love with Stiletta, but never telling her outright, either due to fear of rejection or because so many women he’d loved died tragically.
As for the “window dressing” notion, I knew I couldn’t write a character whose sole function is to stand around looking sexy, so I tried to build up Stiletta into a more well-rounded person, someone I would want to read about and root for when she got into trouble, as opposed to baggage that had been imposed upon me as a writer. I also used her as a go-between for Hal and Hex -- just as Green Lantern was the go-between for the reader and this unfamiliar world -- resulting in a slight love-triangle vibe, which I then played with in the second dream sequence (and to those who just read that scene for the first time, I added a certain character who didn’t exist yet in 2005...let me know if you spotted her!). By the time the story was all finished, my buddy Kevin’s opinion of Stiletta as a character had changed for the better, so I suppose I did my job well.
Speaking of other people’s opinions (and we’ll be getting to yours soon enough), I have to give some credit to my husband, Jamin, who loves my writing but hates Jonah Hex. He’s a born-and-raised Southerner, and finds the character’s phonetic drawl insulting (though proud of his heritage, Jamin has pretty much erased his own accent to avoid being looked upon as “a dumb hick” by us Yankees). But he knows how much I like the surly cuss, so when I got myself a healthy case of writer’s block, he came to the rescue. The problem was that little game of “Question an’ Answer” between our two leading men: I’d written three or four drafts of that particular scene, and none of them were playing out well. I had Hal tied up, I had Jonah threatening him with a gun, and I knew that, considering the state of paranoia I’d whipped Jonah into, the odds of Hal getting shot were terribly high. So I had to find a way to make Jonah put the gun away, and I couldn’t think of a reasonable way to do it without making it look like he gave in too easily. After yet another failed attempt, I told my husband about it, and he offered a simple solution: “Who said the gun has to be loaded?”
It made perfect sense, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time Jonah faked someone out in order to get what he wanted. I started the scene over and allowed Jonah the freedom to shove that Dragoon into Hal’s face and deliver a high-tension scene without the worry of him actually shooting the Green Lantern. So if you enjoyed how that particular scene played out in the end, please tip your hat in Jamin’s direction.
Okay, time for y’all to weigh in on this issue, and next time, I’ll expound a bit upon the other contribution Hal Jordan’s presence made to this story. Let’s just say it was world-changing.
- Susan Hillwig
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 6, 2012 13:28:54 GMT -5
* * * You Get A Lot More for Your Money in Bolivia * * * They reached the first settlement that Jonah deemed worth their trouble by eleven in the morning. Freepoint wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but the ramshackle buildings and rows of converted trailers did well enough for the residents, and unlike Crystal Palace, they wouldn't charge for the privilege of walking through their streets. The two men drew their fair share of looks as they made the rounds, asking questions of anyone that seemed willing to talk to a clean-cut gentleman in a mask and a rough-looking man with a face only a mother could love. Unfortunately, most of the answers they received were the same as the ones Hal got from Stiletta and her friends: no one had seen a meta since the war, few to none were known before the war, and the names Green Lantern rattled off, including his own, jogged no memories. After two hours with no luck, they declared the place a loss and headed to the next town five miles away, a hole in the wall laughingly called New Eden. Prospects didn't improve any there, though Hal did spot some people clustered around a burning oil drum that gave off the same reddish-pink smoke he'd seen in the parking garage. When he asked Jonah about it, the gunfighter made a face and muttered, "Lotus-eaters." Hal smirked, saying, "I didn't know you read Greek mythology." "Whut do Greeks got tuh do with anything?" He waved a hand at the small crowd. "They burn little bricks of the stuff an' suck up the smoke. Makes 'em act all moony, like opium, only they don't even got the sense tuh do it in a den, they just drag it out into the open." Jonah lit a cigarette and blew smoke their way, as if to counteract the strange drug's effects. "Cain't get drunk like civilized folk do." The more hours that passed, the more Hal's discouragement grew. They had traveled countless miles and had nothing to show for it but sore backs from all that riding. As they headed back to their cycles after hitting yet another dead end in another shantytown, Hal expressed his concerns to Jonah. "Maybe we're going about this wrong, or just asking the wrong questions. We should have found out something by now." "We're followin' a cold trail, Jordan. Thet's the worst sort tuh follow. All's we kin do right now is keep siftin' through all the worthless information 'til we find a good solid lead, then we kin jump on thet an' hope it pans out." Hal sat down on his bike, saying, "Yeah, I know, but this is frustrating. I'm about ready to call it quits for the day." "C'mon, one more stop, then we'll head back tuh Maple." "Are you really that eager to get rid of me?" "Yes." Jordan was knocked speechless for a moment. "I thought we'd settled all this." "Ah've decided tuh tolerate yuh, Ah never said we was best buddies now. The sooner Ah kin foist yuh off on some of yer fellow masked men, the happier Ah'll be." He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his fingers. "Yuh have no idea how much it troubles me just tuh look at yuh sometimes. Ah don't care thet yuh've got this idea in yer head thet we're pals...maybe when we meet the other time we will be, but right now yo're just a bad dream Ah cain't shake." "I'm sorry you feel that way, Hex. I hope you'll change your mind when we do find my colleagues, because if they can help me get back to my proper time, then they might be able to..." "Don't start." "Start what?" "Makin' promises. Ah don't want tuh hear 'em, 'specially 'bout thet." Jonah leveled his gaze at him and said, "Ah've missed muh chance tuh go home twice now. Both times Ah got muh hopes up only tuh have 'em crash down like one of them newfangled flyin' machines. So don't go an' build 'em up again, Ah don't think muh heart kin take the strain a third time." Green Lantern fell silent for a while, looking out over the sprawling, snow-covered expanse that lay before them, then said, "Okay, I won't bring it up anymore." "Fine by me." Jonah straddled his own bike. "So, one more stop? River's End is only 'bout three or four miles thetaway." He waved a hand to the east. "Sure." They fired up their rides, and Jonah led the way to River's End. As they neared the building, Hal let out a quick laugh. The gunfighter had told him that lots of people came to the place, and once he saw it, he realized why...or at least why they would still associate it as a fine source for goods and services. The world comes to an end, Hal thought, and people still go to the freaking mall. Most of the structure was intact, but parts of the exterior had been built upon, extending out to the mall's crumbling parking lot. That area had the air of a Turkish bazaar about it, with people standing out in the cold haggling over the price of whatever junk lay before them. Jonah skimmed the booths with a practiced eye, picking out the truly useful vendors from the crazies that would make up tales just to part the two men from what little money they had. But even the bounty hunter's experience couldn't produce information where there simply wasn't any, and they slowly worked their way inward to the mall proper. The interior shops looked much better than their outside counterparts, as did the people running them, but the higher quality didn't improve their prospects. "Looks like we've gone bust again," Jonah muttered as they neared the back end of the mall. "Yuh sure we're lookin' fer real people, Jordan?" "Very funny." Hal surveyed the area, hands on hips. Some of the storefronts on that end had been converted into living quarters, with all sorts of people and their possessions crammed within. "Let's check with some of the folks down here before we take off," he said...then realized he was talking to himself. Jonah had disappeared. Oh damn, he thought as he turned around in a circle. Did he decide to ditch me here? After a moment, he saw the gunfighter across the way, walking into one of the stores. In the display window was a hand-lettered sign: GUNS + AMMO BUY SELL TRADE "Like a kid spotting a toy store," he mused, then followed after him. Hal found him already engaged in conversation with the owner behind the counter, handing the man a bullet. "Yuh got anything like thet?" Jonah asked. "What sort of gun is this for?" The man held it up for a closer look. The brass casing was blackened with age. "Colt .44 Dragoon...converted, of course." "Are you high? I sell guns, not antiques." He tossed the bullet back at Hex, who snatched it out of the air. "Lay off the Lotus and come back when you've really got business for me," he said, and began to turn away. Jonah reached over the counter, grabbed the man by his shirt, and pulled him back. "Ah ain't in the mood fer sass. Show me whut yuh got, an' Ah'll tell yuh if'n we've got business." "All right, all right! Jesus..." He shook loose, then rummaged under the counter for a moment. "I've got a box of odds and ends, maybe what you need is in there." He placed a metal box half-full of bullets in front of Jonah. "I didn't know we were doing any shopping today," Hal said as Jonah began looking through the box. "Place was here, figured Ah'd try." "Good idea...think I'll do the same." He then said to the owner, "Mind answering a few questions for me?" "Let me guess: you want musket balls." Hal ignored the comment. "I'm looking for some people...the sort that would really stand out if you saw them. They used to call them metas: stronger than average, faster, some have extranormal powers. There were quite a few back around the turn of the millennium. I'm trying to locate some, find out if any survived the war." "People like that don't exist around here," the man said, shaking his head. "You've seen too many movies." "What about before the war? Did you ever hear about any of the old heroes?" Hal felt strange referring to himself and those like him as "old", but at this point in time, it was the proper context. "You should know Superman, at least." He laughed. "Superman? That's a fairy tale. You may as well be looking for Rumpelstiltskin." "He's not a fairy tale, he's a real person." "If you say so, buddy...personally, I think you both need to cut down on the briqs." The man turned to Hex and said, "So are you buying or just wasting my time?" Hal expected Jonah to punch the owner, but instead he held up five bullets, all roughly the same size as the one he'd showed the man earlier. "How much?" "Two-and-a-half Soames." Reaching into his coat, the gunfighter produced a small plastic container and shook out what looked to Hal like Alka-Seltzer tablets. Stiletta had told the Green Lantern before about the importance of Soames in current society: in a world where almost every water source was poison, the purifying tablets were worth more than gold, and had become the de facto currency. Jonah snapped one of them in half, then handed over the proper amount. "Pleasure doing business with you...now scram." The owner jerked a thumb towards the door. "Cain't imagine why folks ain't linin' up tuh come into this place," Jonah muttered as they left the shop. He gave the bullets in his hand one more look before tucking them in his pocket. "I'm surprised you're still using your old guns," Hal said. He'd seen the Dragoons laying on the table in Jonah's room and recognized them immediately. "It's obviously not easy to find ammunition for them, so why do you keep bothering?" "This is the first time Ah've gone lookin', actually. Didn't get them back 'til a month ago." "You mean they were..." "Yeah, they were," Jonah said, cutting him off before Hal could mention the corpse. "Funny thing is, they should be at the bottom of a lake 'bout two hunnert years back." "A lake? What happened?" "Ah was drunk." Jonah stopped walking and shoved his hands in his pockets, obviously embarrassed to admit what he'd done. "Drunk an' fed up with the world. Ah thought muh guns was the cause of all muh troubles, so Ah tossed 'em in a lake an' said good riddance. When Ah sobered up a week later, Ah thought 'bout tryin' tuh fish 'em out, but Ah wasn't 'bout tuh up an' drown muhself fer 'em, even if they was the nicest pair of guns Ah ever owned." Hal could see the confusion brewing in the gunfighter's eyes once again. "They should be nothin' but hunks o' rust by now, but there they were, right in muh hands." "Maybe you had copies made after you...I mean...." "Ah know whut yuh mean, an' Ah thought of thet, but Ah know thet it ain't so. When yuh trust yer life tuh something fer so long, yuh get tuh know every quirk 'bout it." He pointed at Hal's ring. "If'n yuh dropped thet in a pile of rings made tuh look just like it, wouldn't yuh be able tuh pick it out? Yuh kin spot it an' just know thet it's yorn. Ah had them Dragoons fer years, Ah know every inch of 'em. Even the damn serial numbers is the same." "Then you must have retrieved them somehow, I don't know. For sure, you had guns just like that when we met in..." He stopped, hearing a commotion coming from down the hall. Two men in biker leather ran out of one of the converted storefronts. With them was a two-year-old girl, beating at the man carrying her and screaming bloody murder. The bikers shoved away what little resistance they met and headed towards the nearest exit. Hal didn't know what was going on, but years of experience told him it couldn't be good. "Come on, we've got to try and head them off!" he shouted at Jonah, and began to run after them. "Whut's this 'we' nonsense, Lantern? Yo're the damn hero." But after standing there a few seconds, he cursed under his breath and followed, easily overtaking the still-injured Jordan. The bikers were too far away for him to block their escape route, though, so Hex decided to improvise: he drew one of his guns and fired a shot at the pushbar on the door to the outside just as the unencumbered biker was reaching for it. The ricochet was more than enough to make the guy change his mind. Seeing the bounty hunter and the Green Lantern bearing down on them, the second biker turned tail and ran off in another direction. "Ah'll fetch the one with the girl," Jonah told Hal, "y'all kin have the other fella." "Much obliged." Hal had discovered that when you spent a good deal of time around Jonah Hex, his speech pattern tended to rub off on you. The first biker had only been momentarily stunned by the sudden gunshot, and was now pulling out his own weapon. Time to even the odds, Hal thought. He whipped off his coat, threw it in the biker's face, and forced him against the wall. He then grabbed the man's hand and twisted until the gun dropped to the ground. "Why do I doubt either of you is that girl's father?" Jordan said to him. "Fuggoff, man," the biker spat back, tossing his head to push aside the coat. "What business is it of yours?" "I'm the new mall security." He gave the biker's head a quick rap against the wall, hard enough to knock him out, then turned to a man standing nearby. "Watch this guy," Hal said, handing him the gun before heading off the way Jonah and the second biker had gone. He found them not far away, the would-be kidnapper sprawled out on the tiles with a bloody nose and the gunfighter kneeling down to gather up the sobbing child. "M-Mama, hur' my Mama," the girl stuttered out as she buried her face in the folds of Jonah's coat. She was dressed in a ragged sweater three sizes too large and mismatched shoes. Jonah smoothed down her hair with a surprisingly gentle touch. "Hush there, youngster, it's alright now." Balancing the girl in the crook of his arm, he stood up and said to Hal, "Yuh lost yer coat." "The other guy looked like he needed it more." He gestured at the girl, saying, "I didn't know you had it in you." "Ah have muh moments." Jonah looked down at her tear-streaked face. "Got a boy back home...ain't seen him since he was a month old, but Ah reckon he was 'bout her age when Ah came here." "I'll bet he's a hellion on the playground." He reached out with a gloved hand and wiped away some of her tears. The girl sniffled and lifted her head away from Jonah's chest to look at Hal. After a moment, her expression went from sadness to the sort of joy you only see on a child's face. "Lannern!" she cried out. The two men stared at each other. "Did she just say..." Hal began, then stopped as the kid began to pull at the chest-symbol on his uniform. "Geen Lannern!" she said the best her two-year-old vocabulary would allow. "Out of the mouths of babes," Hex wondered aloud. The child began to wiggle in his arms, so he handed her off to Jordan. "Looks like yuh got yerself a new sweetheart." "I guess so." He gagged as the girl locked her arms around his neck in a toddler death-grip, giggling and saying his name over and over. "Time to go find Mama," he said, and the three of them retraced their steps back to the storefront Hal had seen the bikers come out of. As they neared, a woman dressed just as haphazardly as the little girl ran up to them, her face bloodied and a bruise forming on her cheek. "Oh my God, Merrissa," the woman said, pulling the girl from Hal's arms, "oh, my baby girl." She ignored the men as she rocked the child in her arms, the relief plain to see on her face. "Are you all right, ma'am?" Hal asked. She nodded, saying, "I'll be better if you tell me you killed those bastards. God knows what they were planning to do with her." Paying no mind to her mother's thoughts of homicide, the girl pointed and said, "Mama, iss Geen Lannern!" "No, sweetie, I told you, they're gone, all gone." Then she gave Hal a long look. "He does look a lot like the pictures, though." "Pictures?" Jordan laid a hand on the woman's arm. "Ma'am, what are you talking about?" "It's nothing, just some old magazine Merrissa found. She asked me who was in the pictures, so I read her the names and made up stories to go with them." "Can I see it?" "Sure, I guess," she said, and led them into the converted store. They walked past piles of junk and old furniture to a small area where the mother and daughter lived. They had little more than a mattress and a few bags of belongings. The girl fought her way out of her mother's arms, saying, "I wanna show 'im!" She ran over to the mattress and pulled out the magazine tucked beneath it, then held it up for Hal to see. "Don' like the ou'side pages, jus' the inside. Ou'side's all blucky." Hal didn't know what "blucky" meant, but he figured it referred to the smears of dirt ingrained into the magazine cover. The image was still clear enough for him to recognize the Newstime logo, and beneath that... "Oh Jesus," he breathed, then took it from her and began to flip through it. "Whut is it?" Jonah asked, leaning over Hal's shoulder for a better view. The Green Lantern didn't answer, just kept flipping the pages and skimming paragraphs. After a couple minutes, he said to Hex, "How many Soames do you have left?" "Ah don't know, maybe..." "Whatever it is, give them half." " Whut? Yuh lost yer mind, boy?" "Give them half," he repeated, then knelt down in front of the girl. "I'm sorry, honey, I'm going to have to keep this. It's important." The girl pulled at the magazine. "No, iss mine, I wanna keep it," she said. "If I give you one of the pictures, can I have it?" he asked. "I'll try to have one of my friends bring it back when I'm done, I promise." She thought about it, lower lip pouting out, then said quietly, "Okay." Hal opened the magazine to a picture of himself, making sure the back of the page contained nothing more than an advertisement, then carefully tore it out. He handed it to her and gave her a kiss on her forehead. "Thank you, Merrissa," he said, then stood up and looked at the mother. "And thank you, ma'am. You've just helped me more than you'll ever realize." The woman was stuffing the Soames into her pocket. "No problem...come by next week and I'll have even more magazines for you." "This one will do fine," he told her, then turned to walk back out into the mall, the gunfighter right behind. "Yuh mind tellin' me why Ah gave thet gal eighteen Soames fer an old periodical?" Jonah asked once they were out of earshot. Still walking, Hal said, "Have you ever heard of a place called Coast City?" "Cain't say thet Ah have." "It's in California. I spent most of my life there. A few years ago...to me, it was a few years ago...an alien warlord named Mongul came to Earth and wiped out the entire city, killing millions of people in a bid to take over the planet. I wasn't there to stop him from destroying Coast City, but I was able to take him out before he could finish with his plan. Broke my arm, tore up my knee, but I didn't let up until I was sure he couldn't hurt anyone else." "Whut's all thet got tuh do with anything?" He stopped now and handed the magazine to Jonah. Beneath decades of grime, the gunfighter saw the Newstime banner running across the top, and the phrase "One Year Later" at the bottom of the cover. Between the two was a picture of a slender tower with a memorial flame burning near its tip, and five statues ringing its base. The faces on four of the statues were unfamiliar, but Jonah had come to know the fifth one very well the past few days. "According to this," Green Lantern said, "Mongul killed me as well." To be continued!
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 6, 2012 13:26:02 GMT -5
* * * The Cowboy and the Hero Go to Town * * * True to his word, the Green Lantern found Jonah in the Hub the next morning, ready to hit the road. He looked a bit rough around the edges, but he was sober, and that was the important thing. Right after Hal managed to put some breakfast in his belly, the gunfighter came up and shoved a bundle into his hands. "Put this on," Jonah said, "so's yuh don't look like a fool in his underwear while we're out there." Hal unfolded it and saw it was a long black coat, made out of the same leather-like material as Jonah's. There was also some cold-weather headgear and goggles. "Ah managed tuh borrow this fer yuh, too," he added, and pulled out a .45 automatic pistol. "Red told me this is from 'bout the same time as yuh are, so yuh should know it well enough." "Thanks," Hal said as he slipped the coat on, "but you can keep the gun. That's not my style." "This ain't 'bout style, it's fer protection." "I don't use guns...and I don't kill." "Any owlhoots we run into out on the trail ain't gonna know thet." He grabbed Hal's hand and slapped the pistol into it. "If'n there's trouble, just take the damn thing out an' shoot over their heads. Yuh do know how tuh fire a gun, don't yuh?" Reluctantly, Hal put the gun in his coat pocket. He had no intention of using it, but Jonah did have a point: just showing that he was armed might be enough to deter trouble. The next stop was the motor pool, just off to the left of the main entrance. As they stepped into the makeshift garage, their ears were assaulted with the sound of the Rolling Stones blaring full-blast from a stereo on one of the workbenches. Jonah rolled his eyes as Mick Jagger declared that, after nearly a century, he still couldn't get any satisfaction. Hal saw the gunfighter's sour look out of the corner of his eye and asked, "Not that crazy about the Stones?" "Ah'd stone the jaspers muhself if'n Ah could," he answered. "Sounds like a bull moose 'bout tuh rupture itself." They headed over to a row of cycles standing at the other end of the garage, the one Hal had ridden to the complex on among them. "Looks like yuh picked a good one," Jonah said as he checked it out, "ain't nowhere near as beat-up as muh own." "I can't picture you tooling around on a motorcycle." "Ain't by choice...the future seems tuh be a mite short on horses." He toggled some switches, and the machine fired up. "Hey, hands off!" Lewis slid out from under a hulking armored vehicle not far away. "I'm stripping that thing for parts." "Well, muh eyesight must be gettin' poor in muh old age," Jonah replied, "'cause it looks tuh me like yo're a-crawlin' 'round under thet metal armadillo." "Don't play stupid, you know what I meant." The mechanic walked over just as the Stones began telling whomever cared that Jumping Jack Flash was a gas gas gas. "I'm gonna take the power cells out of this and slap them in the crawler," he told them, killing the ignition on the bike. “The old ones are almost burned out." "Do you have another bike to spare, then?" Hal asked. "What for? You two gonna run off and play Butch and Sundance?" "You got it. I'm Newman, he's Redford." He nodded towards Hex. "If you really must know, we're going to check with the locals about where my colleagues might be." "Oh, my mistake," Lewis said, "today's Superhero Day." "Thet's right," Jonah told him, "an' if'n we find any of 'em today, we're gonna bring 'em back here so's they kin thank yuh personally fer givin' us such a damn hard time." He flashed a grin at the mechanic that would make the Devil cringe. "Ah hear-tell some of 'em kin rip through steel like it's tissue paper...wonder whut they could do tuh yer dirty hide." While he may not have believed that the Green Lantern was truly a superhero, he did find Hex's smile disturbing enough to sputter out, "The red one over there's available." "Thank yuh kindly," Jonah said, and tipped a nonexistent hat in Lewis's direction. The two men grabbed their rides for the day and wheeled them out of the warehouse. The snow had quit for the time being, but the sky still had a dead gray look to it. "Reckon we kin hold off on the headgear fer awhile," the gunfighter told Hal, and stashed his own on the cycle. "The minute yuh feel it stingin', though, put it on. Don't want tuh spoil yer pretty-boy looks." He hopped on board and revved the engine, a different sort of grin on his face now -- while he may have said he preferred horses, it was obvious that Jonah got a kick out of riding something faster than the locomotives in his day. Hal started up his bike and revved it as well. "You ready to roll, Sundance?" he yelled over the noise of the engines. Jonah looked over at Hal, puzzled. "Ah thought Ah was Redford!" he yelled back. "It's the same...never mind!" He waved a hand in a gesture of dismissal, and the two of them sped off, snow spraying off of their back tires.
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 6, 2012 13:23:23 GMT -5
* * * One Day at a Time * * * Sobriety, in Jonah's opinion, was highly overrated. He saw nothing wrong with taking a nip or two every so often, but after his little sit-down with Hal, even he had to admit that perhaps he'd slipped too deeply into his cups. He promised to cut back, but both Stiletta and Green Lantern told him that wasn't good enough, it was either all or nothing. Jonah felt they were being rather extreme. "Y'all sound like this temperance woman whut got a hold of me once," he told them. "If'n yuh start thumpin' a Bible at me, Ah'm leavin'." They informed him that wasn't an option, either. During his first day on the wagon, the gunfighter was watched closer than a fox circling a henhouse. The only time they let him be alone was when he answered the call of nature, and even then somebody stood outside the bathroom door. By the end of the day, he was ready to kill for both some privacy and a stiff drink, and the fact that he was beginning to feel sick as a dog didn't help his mood. Hal noticed Jonah's discomfort, and told him it was from something called "the dee-tees". "I went through the same thing when I dried up," Hal said as the two of them sat in the Hub, each of them nursing a cup of weak coffee. "Figure it's your body's way of getting even for trying to kill your liver." Though he was suffering, Jonah found the man's frankness a comfort. It made Hal more human to him, not just some strange relic from a past that he hadn't even experienced yet. "Yuh don't strike me as the sort of fella thet would drink." "The best alcoholics don't look the part. That's how they get away with it. I wasn't a slobbering, fall-down drunk, but I did enough to land up in jail on a drunk-driving charge." He stared down at his cup. "Crippled one of my friends, nearly killed my brother...and yet I still managed to get this." Hal brought up his ring hand. "God has a strange sense of humor." "Ah've noticed thet," Jonah said, then gestured about them. "Seems the best way tuh explain all this." "This wasn't God, just men...very stupid, short-sighted men. I thought we'd finally gotten out of the shadow of nuclear war in my time, but it certainly doesn't look that way. I just wonder what happened to all of us that we couldn't stop it." "Hell, son, Ah wasn't even here fer thet." "No, I didn't mean you and me, I meant the other heroes." Hal had explained earlier about all the other masked men that used to exist back at the turn of the millennium. To Jonah it all sounded like hogwash. Sure, he'd seen a few odd things himself since coming to this time, but the sort of people Green Lantern claimed to know didn't even sound like real folks. He reasoned it away as he did most of the strangeness he'd encountered in "modern" society: somewhere between 1875 and 2050, everyone had gone completely insane. "There's no way they would have all sat back and let this happen," Hal continued, "not to mention that apparently no one has shown their face since then." "There was thet Bat-fella," Jonah said, "but Ah think he's dead." "Okay, one guy out of thousands. What about the rest?" "They're yer friends, why do yuh keep askin' me?" "Well, isn't this your field of expertise? Finding people?" Jonah looked at the man for a moment, then turned away. "Thet ain't whut Ah do no more. Back home, Ah'd do yuh fine, but here...yuh don't want some broken-down old man helpin' yuh. Ah wouldn't do yuh one lick of good." "Why not? You've been here for quite a while, you know how things work. I don't even know the name of the nearest town." "Breyersville...but there ain't nobody there worth talkin' tuh." Hex thought for a moment, then said, "Best place tuh start is the Crystal Palace, if'n yuh got money tuh spare...cost yuh twenty Soames just tuh set foot in the place. Then there's Freepoint a few miles past thet, an' River's End...lots of folks go through there all the time. An' if'n yuh don't mind hoofin' it fer a couple days, yuh kin..." He stopped. "Whut's so damn funny?" "Nothing," Hal replied, a sly grin on his face. "Yuh ain't gonna get nowheres if'n yuh don't take this serious. Don't yuh know there's folks'll kill yuh soon's they look at yuh 'round these parts? Thet hole in yer leg is proof of thet. They don't give a damn 'bout yer name or yer fancy ring, all's they see is easy pickin's." He took a sip of coffee, then said, "Ah'd best come along an' watch yer back when yuh go lookin' fer these friends of yers, otherwise yuh'll be buzzard chow in no time flat." Still smiling, Hal said, "That's very generous of you, Hex." "An' yuh'd best appreciate thet generosity, 'cause yo're gonna have tuh depend on it awful heavy." Jonah pointed a finger at him. "Yuh ain't got a gun, a ride, or one red cent tuh yer name, so muh sense of Christian charity is all yuh got goin' fer yuh at the moment." "So, do you want to start tomorrow morning?" "If'n Ah ain't sickin' up muh guts, sure thing."
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 6, 2012 13:21:09 GMT -5
* * * Prepare for the Worst * * * Stiletta groaned and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She’d spent most of the night tossing and turning, her mind unable to let go of this new wrinkle in Hex’s downward spiral. She wasn’t sure if, in the long run, Green Lantern’s presence would be a help or a hindrance to getting the cowboy back on his feet, but she was desperate to try anything. Ever since the bombs fell five years before, Stiletta had seen many people -- both strangers and loved ones -- crumble into madness due to the stress of living in this nightmare. She had skirted along that edge once or twice herself, but the thought of destroying her father’s ill-gotten empire had always been enough to pull her away from it. And when her goal had been accomplished, her thoughts turned to Jonah. Not in a romantic way, of course, more like...a responsibility. Her father had brought him here, and Jonah had sacrificed his chance to go home in order to rescue her from her father’s fortress. To slough him off after that would have been far too cold-blooded an act in a world full of cold actions. So they stayed together, watching each other’s back, holding each other up...and the further Jonah slipped down into whatever dark place his mind had constructed, the more Stiletta felt compelled to hold onto him as tightly as she could. It was concern for Jonah that motivated her to get out of bed earlier than usual. She pulled off the old t-shirt she slept in and began to slip into her zone suit, already pondering how to approach him this morning. Green Lantern said they needed to back off, but she wanted to at least see if she could encourage Jonah to eat some breakfast, just the two of them, no pressure at all. But when she got to his room, all notions of having a nice, quiet breakfast flew out of her head: the door was wide open and the room vacant. “Oh no,” Stiletta whispered, immediately thinking that Jonah had left the warehouse in the middle of the night. Then she saw that his coat was still there, as well as his old guns -- it didn’t seem likely that he’d leave those behind, but that didn’t provide any clue as to where he was at the moment. Deciding that she’d better get some help, Stiletta headed for Cutter’s room, only to find that the man she was looking for was also missing. “Cutter!” she hissed, going over to his bed and shaking him. “Dammit, Cutter, wake up!” “Whuh...what the...stop it...” Cutter swatted at her groggily. “Go ‘way...” “Not until you tell me where Green Lantern is.” The young man sat up, rubbing his face, then said, “What’re you talking about? He’s right over...” He turned to the empty bed on the other side of the room. “Huh.” “Yeah, now you’re getting it. Didn’t he sleep here last night?” “He was here when I dozed off. Maybe he’s an early riser?” “Maybe...but Jonah’s missing too, and you’ve seen how the cowboy’s been sniping at him.” Stiletta stepped out into the hall again, saying over her shoulder, “So get your butt in gear and help me find them!” Cutter followed, his clothes rumpled from sleeping in them. “You got a clue on where to start?” he asked as he tried to pull his boots on and walk at the same time. “The Hub,” she replied. “Not sure if anybody’s up yet, but we’ll enlist whoever we can, then begin searching the whole warehouse.” She fast-walked down the hall, a million scenarios going through her mind, none of which prepared her for what she saw when she got to the Hub. Jonah was sitting on a couch all alone, shirtless and with a cigarette dangling from his lips -- when Stiletta and Cutter came into the room, he looked at them but said nothing. “Okay, Hex, you’d better start talking,” Stilleta said, stalking up to him. “Where’s Green Lantern?” Still silent, Hex jerked a thumb towards the kitchen, and a lump of dread formed in Stiletta’s gut. Did she really want to see what might be in there? She could tell by the look on Cutter’s face that he wasn’t overjoyed by the possibilities either, but they both went in there regardless, bracing themselves for the sight of blood. When they entered the kitchen, however, all seemed normal, then they heard the sound of footsteps in the pantry, and turned to see Green Lantern standing in the doorway, his hair tousled but otherwise unharmed. “Morning, guys,” he said to them. “Something the matter?” “Oh my God, you’re alive!” Stiletta gasped, then ran over and threw her arms around the Lantern’s neck, knocking him back into the pantry a few steps. “I thought for sure Jonah had gotten creative with the kitchen knives.” “No, he just scared the Hell out of me with an empty gun.” He pried loose from her grip, then told them about the little “chat” he and Jonah had. “He’s still a bit twitchy about things, but I got him talking. More important, he’s listening, and he understands that I’m not a threat to him. Now it’s your turn.” Green Lantern put his hands on Stiletta’s shoulders. “I need you to go back out there and talk with him. It doesn’t matter what about, just show him that you’re there for him. I think you’re the one thing that’s kept him anchored in reality, and he needs some reassurance that you’re not going anywhere.” Stiletta bit her lip. “Okay. Not too much pressure, right?” “Hey, what about me?” Cutter piped up. “Can I go back to bed now?” Green Lantern smirked and said, “Nope, you get to help me make breakfast. Jonah said he wanted grits, and I have idea what a grit is.” As the two of them tried to puzzle out what that particular Southern delicacy consisted of, Stiletta exited the kitchen and saw that Jonah was still on the couch, stubbing out his cigarette on the coffee table. Despite Green Lantern’s urging, she wasn’t sure what to say -- the best thing she could come up with by the time she sat down beside him was a pathetic “How you doing, cowboy?” Jonah didn’t reply, he merely stared straight ahead as if she wasn’t there. Her gaze wandered away as she told him, “I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier. It’s just...you know...I couldn’t find you or GL and then you’re just sitting in here like no biggie.” Without thinking twice, she put a hand on Jonah’s knee. “You got me worried, that’s all. I’ve been worrying about you a lot lately, and...” She stopped talking when Jonah suddenly took her hand in his own, grasping it tightly. Stiletta looked over at him, afraid that perhaps she’d said the wrong thing, and saw that his eyes were shut and his head bowed. He still didn’t say a word, but the heavy sigh that he made spoke volumes. “It’ll be okay, Jonah.” She leaned against his bare shoulder, shutting her eyes as well. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 6, 2012 13:17:10 GMT -5
* * * Late-Night Jawjackin' * * * When Hal Jordan saw the quarters he'd be sharing with Cutter, his first thought was that a Radio Shack must have exploded in the vicinity, and all the debris landed on that spot. Metal shelves bolted to the walls overflowed with small, half-dissected motors and unidentifiable parts. A plastic milk crate was engorged with circuit boards stacked vertically like old LPs. Wiring had been swept aside into corners and under the beds, where even more junk lurked like electronic dust bunnies. It didn't matter to Hal what the place looked like, though, so long as the mattress he was sleeping on was soft. "How long do you think you'll be sticking around?" Cutter asked as they settled in for the night. "Don't know. Guess it depends on how long it takes for me to find the help I need." "You mean like your super-friends?" "Yeah, like them," Hal said, "or whoever came after them." Before and during dinner, he'd pumped all the residents for information about any metas they may have been familiar with. He drew a fair share of blank looks, and the people who did understand what he was getting at usually couldn't come up with anything useful, or at least recent. In fact, for nearly all of them, Hal was the first superhero any of them had actually seen in the flesh, and certainly the only one they'd heard about post-war. There was, of course, the Batman in New York Stiletta had mentioned, but she'd never seen the man herself, and Jonah wasn't exactly someone he could talk to at the moment. Still, it's a lead, Hal thought, though I doubt Bruce would be alive after all these years. Dick maybe, or even that Drake boy, but Bruce would be...what, eighty? Ninety? He certainly wouldn't be jumping off rooftops, even he's not that good. Despite the funny look he got from Cutter, Hal kept on his whole uniform when he got into bed, boots and all. It was an old habit: so long as the mask was on, he was "on duty", which meant he stayed prepared. It didn't matter that his ring was dead, he was still a Green Lantern. Green Lantern...he was still coming to grips with his reinstatement, and here he was, representing the Corps in a time when there may not be a Corps. They'd only recently reformed, had they managed to weather the past half-century? And if so, why weren't they here, helping Earth recover from this nightmare? Where are any of the heroes? Hal thought as he lay there in the dark, the only sounds being a low-level hum of electrical current and Cutter's light snoring. Someone has to be left, there were too many of us, all over the globe. What bothered Hal the most was the fact that so many people had barely any recollection of superheroes before the bombs dropped. What could have happened between his time and now that nearly all of them disappeared? The questions followed Hal as he drifted into sleep, coloring his dreams in ambiguous shades of gray. He ran down the empty streets of Seattle, calling out names and receiving no answer. He'd catch reflections of his friends and colleagues in store windows, but be greeted with nothing when he turned around. His mind was so wrapped up in the images, it didn't even register when the cold metal nuzzled his cheek. The sharp click of a hammer being cocked, however, cut right through. Hal's eyes snapped open, and he saw the shadowed figure of Jonah Hex standing over him, barechested and pointing a gun at the Green Lantern's face. He almost asked Hex how the man figured out where he'd been sleeping, then realized this was one of the most renowned bounty hunters of the Old West. He had his ways. "Get up," Jonah told him, his voice barely above a whisper but still full of menace. It wasn't until then that Hal realized his hands were bound behind his back -- Jonah had trussed him up while he was sleeping. Hal's eyes darted over to the other bed, but Cutter was still asleep, paying no mind to the small amount of light pouring through the now-open door. Jonah somehow knew what Hal must have been thinking and growled, "Make one sound, an' yuh won't make another," then stepped back just enough to let the Green Lantern get out of bed. It was hard enough to do tied up, but to make matters worse, Hal's injured leg had stiffened up while he'd been sleeping. When he tried to stand, he let in a sharp hiss of breath through his teeth, which made Jonah shove the gun in his face again. "My leg," Hal mouthed, stopping himself from adding "you idiot" to the end of that. "Don't care," Jonah replied, then jerked the gunbarrel in the direction of the door. Hal limped out to the hallway, then Jonah grabbed him by the back of his collar and steered him down the hall to the gunfighter's room, shoving the Green Lantern down on the small metal-frame bed once inside. Place smells like a cheap bar, Hal thought as he sat up. The dents in the wall and the empty liquor bottles on the floor added to the ambience. After he shut the door, Jonah picked up a battered metal chair off the floor and wedged it under the door handle. With him turned around like that, Hal could see a series of diagonal scars running down Jonah's back -- it looked like the man had tried hugging a mountain lion -- they were the most prominent ones among the dozens of scars all over his body, a testament to a hard, violent life lived without the benefit of Kevlar or plastic surgery. When he finished his task, he walked over to the bed and stood over Hal, staring down at him for a moment before pressing the gunbarrel under the Green Lantern's chin. "Hold still," he said, then reached up with his free hand towards the mask. Instinctively, Hal leaned back and turned his face away, but Jonah grabbed him by the hair. "Do yuh want me tuh blow yer head off, boy? 'Cause Ah'll oblige yuh if'n yuh do." "You don't need to take my mask off." "Yes Ah do." He then let go of Jordan's hair and ripped off the mask in one fluid movement. Hal did his best to remain quiet, though the skin around his mask was still tender from the acid burn. "Ah don't cotton tuh folks whut wear masks," Jonah said, then held up the offending object. "Makes me a mite curious 'bout whut they're hidin'." He bent down close to the Lantern's face, his blue eyes meeting Hal's brown ones. "Fer whut it's worth, Ah know a couple of masked men back home. They seem like alright fellas, but if'n Ah had muh druthers, Ah'd do the same damn thing tuh them." He straightened up, removed the gun from beneath Hal's chin, then tossed the mask at the Green Lantern's chest-symbol -- it bounced off and landed on the floor. "Don't know why yuh'd want tuh wear such a damn silly outfit fer, anyhow." "It goes with the job." "Whut's thet? Head fool at the Mardi Gras?" Jonah leaned against the wall, the Magnum still pointed at Hal. "Do you really want an answer, or is that rhetorical?" "Reckon thet's why Ah dragged yer green butt down here: we're gonna play a little game of 'Question an' Answer'. Ah ask, yuh tell." He held up the gun, saying, "Ah've got one bullet in here. Yuh give a bad answer, Ah pull the trigger." He spun the cylinder. "If'n yuh win, yuh get tuh go on yer merry way. Yuh lose, an' Marya sets out one less plate fer Christmas dinner." Well, Hal thought, this happened a little sooner than I expected...but certainly not in the way I expected. There was no choice but to go along with the game, though. He'd given the bindings a few tugs, but the knots were good and solid. The man knew how to truss somebody up, that was for sure. "Okay. Start asking your questions." "Whut's yer name...an' Ah mean yer proper Christian name, not thet 'Green Lantern' nonsense." "Pass," Hal answered, shaking his head. "Yuh sure yuh don't want tuh reconsider?" Jonah stepped forward and put the gun to Hal's temple. "Cain't imagine why yuh wouldn't want tuh tell me, seein' as how we're supposed tuh be such good friends an' all." After a long pause, he said, "Jordan...my name's Hal Jordan." "There, was thet really so hard? Now how 'bout where yo're from?" He pressed the barrel harder against the Green Lantern's head. "Gonna try an' back outta thet?" "No...but I assume by 'where', you also mean 'when'," Hal said. "Before I came here, I was in San Diego, California, the year 2005." "Bad answer number one," Hex said, and pulled the trigger. Hal braced himself, and was greeted with the click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber. "One down, five tuh go. Want tuh change yer answer?" "It's the truth, I swear." "Then how come yuh said we met in 1878 afore? Cain't be from both places." Hal tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. "I'm from around the turn of the millennium, that's where I'm supposed to be. When I met you, I had been sent there from my normal time." Jonah pulled the gun back. "Fair enough...was it Borsten?" "I don't understand." "Reinhold Borsten. Everybody Ah've met thet got stuck here from somewheres else has thet bastard tuh thank fer it." "No, it was an accident, plain and simple." "Thet's one Hell of an accident." The Green Lantern shrugged. "Happens more than you'd think." "Ah try not tuh," Jonah said, and his eyes wandered away to the dark corners of the room. The man looked too gaunt in Hal's opinion, just a shadow of the Jonah Hex he'd met years ago (or would meet, depending on your point of view). The fire was still there, but it was beginning to sputter out. "How long yuh been here?" "Just arrived," Hal answered, then, tentatively, he asked, "What about you? How long ago did you come to this time?" Jonah looked over at him. Hal expected to be told to be quiet, he wasn't allowed to ask questions, but instead, the gunfighter said, "It's been so damn long, Ah honestly don't remember no more." He ran a hand through his red hair. "Yuh never did answer muh first question, by the by." "I told you, my name's...." "Not thet." He gestured at Hal's attire. "Whut kinda job makes yuh wear green longjohns?" "Oh." Hal thought for a moment, trying to couch the idea in terms a man from the 19th Century would understand. "I'm kind of like a Texas Ranger." Jonah cocked an eyebrow. "Thet a fact? Never seen a Ranger run from a mob afore, even if all he had was his longjohns." "Let's just say I was out of options...and ammo." "There ain't no such thing as 'out of options'. Yuh just didn't try hard enough." "Like you've been trying to hide in a bottle? Was that your only option?" The words spilled out of his mouth before he'd realized it. "Thet's number two, now." Jonah pointed the gun at him again and pulled the trigger. Click. "Gettin' a little personal there, don't yuh think, stranger? Ah don't care whut yuh say, y'all don't know me." "It's true, I don't,” Hal answered. He knew he was putting his life on the line, but at the rate he was going, he’d be eating a bullet tonight no matter what he said. “The Hex I knew wouldn't be afraid of an unarmed man, and if things got strange, he wouldn't get drunk and ignore it." "Ah ain't no drunk!" Jonah grabbed the front of Hal's uniform and pulled him to his feet. "An' Ah sure as Hell ain't afraid of no baby-faced greenhorn." "Then why did you tie me up? Why do you keep shoving a gun in my face?" "'Cause Ah don't trust yuh. Yuh show up outta nowheres, actin' all cock o' the walk, claimin' we're old pals...Ah don't buy it, not one damn bit. Yuh may have all them convinced," he said, waving the Magnum towards the door, "but Ah think yo're holdin' something back, an' yuh ain't leavin' here 'til yuh tell me." "I can't tell you everything." The gunfighter scowled, then stuck the barrel under Hal’s chin again. “Three.” “Don’t!” Click. “Am Ah makin' yuh nervous, boy?” Hal looked him dead in the eye. “Compared to what I’ve been through lately, this is a cakewalk,” he answered. "I'm not holding back by choice, believe me. If I thought it was safe to tell you, I would, but...do you know what a paradox is?" When Jonah didn't respond, Hal said to him, "It's a contradiction, something that shouldn't be possible, but it is. That's what this is: you meeting me in this time before we meet in 1878. Anything I tell you about what happened then could change it, even though it's already happened for me." "Thet don't make one damn bit of sense." "It's the truth. The timestream is very sensitive. One tiny change can make a ripple in the flow of time, which can make even bigger ripples, and those can make huge rifts, causing the whole thing to collapse. Trust me, I've got what you could call 'hands-on experience' in this sort of thing." "Seems awful convenient, clamin' yuh cain't tell me nothin' less'n Ah want the whole world tuh come crashin' down." "I know how confusing the whole idea is to you, Hex, but you're going to have to believe me when I say that we were friends. It was a brief friendship, but you were there for me when I needed you, and that's what matters. I can tell you that the last...the other time I saw you, I told you I was glad that I didn't have to count you as an enemy. I meant every word of it...but right now, you're making it really hard for me to live up to those words." The two of them stood there for the longest time, silent and unmoving. Hal prayed that he'd gotten through to Jonah, for both their sakes. Unfortunately, the bounty hunter's face gave no hint as to what his thoughts might be. After a few minutes, though, Jonah's eyes drifted down to the floor, and he quietly asked, "Was Ah old?" "What?" "When yuh saw me the other time...was Ah an old man?" Hal suddenly remembered Stiletta's description of the "statue" they'd found. "No...God, no. You looked, well, about the same as you do now, I guess. Your hair was a bit shorter in the back, though," he said, noting that it was currently long enough to start brushing Hex's shoulders, "and you were wearing...I think it was an old Confederate uniform." "Ah was?" Both Jonah's eyes and his voice brightened a little. "Don't josh me now, son." "No joshing, promise.” Jonah fell quiet again for a moment. “Stiletta said...she said yuh don’t know nothin’ ‘bout...’bout how Ah died.” He pushed the gunbarrel harder under Jordan’s chin, but not as hard as he’d done previously. “Tell the truth an’ shame the Devil, now.” “I wish I had something to tell, but...I only knew you for one day, that’s it.” “ One day? How kin yuh call me a friend if'n yuh only knew me fer one damn day?" "It was a Hell of a day." The gunfighter said nothing, his eyes drifting away again. Hal began to see the same look of distress on the man's face that he'd witnessed earlier that day. "Hex..." "Quiet." Jordan heard the hammer cock back, but that was all. "Less'n yuh got something useful tuh say, don't open yer mouth." "I do...but I'm afraid to say it with this pistol jammed beneath my jaw." "Scared thet Ah might take offense?" Hal paused. "Yes. Yes, I am scared. Is that what you want to hear? There's a one-in-three chance that the next time you pull the trigger, you'll blow my brains out, so any rational man would be scared." Jonah looked at Hal with red-rimmed eyes, like he hadn't slept in years, then lowered the gun. "Fine. Speak yer piece." He took a deep breath, then asked, "Do you care about Stiletta?" The anger in Jonah's eyes was plain to see through the exhaustion. "Sonovabitch...Ah knew it..." He brought the Magnum back up to the Green Lantern's head so fast, he scraped the barrel against the man's cheek. "Yuh cain't have her!" "I don't want her, I just wanted you to take a look outside your own misery for a second," Jordan snapped, all too aware of the gun just inches from his face. "Maybe destroying yourself with booze makes you feel better, but it's hurting her, too. Trust me, I know what it's like to try and drink away your problems: when you sober up, they're still there, the people you love are suffering worse than you are, plus you've got the hangover to deal with." He was trying not to yell, but it wasn't easy. Jonah's behavior, his denial, was reminding Hal too much of his own bout with alcoholism. Even after he was given the ring, it took him a while to face up to the fact that he was responsible for a lot of his own problems, and that if he wanted things to get better, he had to dry up first. "I don't blame you for wanting to hide from all this. I'm only a half-century removed from this time, and the thought that this is where the world's headed makes me sick. And as far as that corpse goes..." Jonah flinched at the word like it was a lash. "As far as that goes," Hal continued, "you're gonna have to learn to live with it. Yes, it's horrible to think that you died in some undignified fashion, but let me tell you a little secret of life that I learned the hard way: people don’t judge you by your last act as much as they do by the sum of all your years. Everything counts, every grand deed and misdeed. Some people...some people will focus more on one than the other, sure, but that doesn’t mean you should lie down and give up because things aren’t going to turn out the way you wanted." "Ah should kill yuh right now fer talkin' like thet tuh me," Jonah snarled. "Then do it and get it over with, because if you're not going to listen to what I've got to say, I quit." "Why yuh so all-fired concerned 'bout whut happens tuh me, anyhow?" "Because Stiletta asked me to help an old friend," Hal told him, "and because if you don't get your head on straight again, I might die." He let that hang there for a moment before going on. "When I met you in 1878, I was so messed up, I couldn't even remember my own name. If you hadn't been there to rescue me, I probably wouldn't be standing here right now." He shook his head. "I shouldn't be telling you this, it could screw up the whole timeline." The gunfighter regarded him for a moment, then said, "So yo're only tryin' tuh save muh neck so's Ah kin save yorn somewheres down the line." "Not completely, but yeah, that is part of it. The other part is because not too long ago, I was where you are. I'd lost nearly everything that I cared about, and I thought there was no one that gave a damn about my pain, so I...I made some bad decisions. They made sense to me at the time, but..." Now it was Hal's turn to look away. "When my friends tried to tell me I was doing the wrong thing, I refused to listen, and it ruined my life. You wouldn't believe what I went through to get back to where I am today." He looked at Hex again and said, "There's people here that are worried about you, Jonah, and they want to help you, but you won't let them. I can understand why you don't trust me, and that's fine, but trust them, before you do something you regret." Eyes still red, mouth pressed in a hard, thin line, Jonah drew in a long, slow breath, then let it out and said, "Ah've already got a long list of regrets, but it started long afore Ah got here." He then let go of the Green Lantern. "Ah don't agree with everything yuh said, an' Ah sure as Hell don't believe all of it, but Ah think yo're doin' yer best tuh be straight with me. Ah'll admit, Ah'm a mite impressed y'all told me off like thet, whut with me havin' a gun at yer head an' all. Yuh don't have muh full trust yet, but yuh got muh respect, Jordan." "Does that respect include you untying me?" "Don't rush me, son." Jonah holstered his gun, walked over to where his coat lay, then pulled out a knife from somewhere within. "Just 'cause Ah'm doin' this don't mean thet Ah'm turnin' muh back on yuh. If'n yuh cross me, Ah'll come down on yuh so hard, yuh won't know yo're dead 'til yuh've been in Hell fer an hour." With that, he reached behind Hal and cut the restraints. "Thanks...and you won't be sorry, I promise." The Green Lantern rubbed his sore wrists, then bent down and picked up his mask off the floor. "I'm just glad we reached an understanding before you finally hit that bullet." "Nothin' tuh worry 'bout there," Hex said as he reloaded the Magnum. "Looks like Ah forgot tuh put a bullet back in the gun after Ah emptied the cylinder." "You... what?" Hal stared at the gunfighter. "You were threatening me with an empty gun?" "If'n Ah was gonna kill yuh outright, Ah would've slipped muh Bowie 'tween yer ribs while yuh was sleepin'. Nice, quiet death. Wanted tuh be sure yuh was a skunk afore Ah went an' did something like thet, though. Ah ain't the heartless bastard some folks think Ah am." He clicked the now-loaded cylinder shut with a smile. "Ah'll remember next time." "I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hex, you're a menace."
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Susan Hillwig
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I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.
Posts: 1,612
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Post by Susan Hillwig on Dec 6, 2012 13:14:41 GMT -5
* * * Showdown * * * The next time Jonah found himself in the Red Dog Saloon, he noticed a drastic change in the clientele: he knew everyone there. Some were friends, most were enemies, and nearly all of them were long dead and gone. He spied Lewis dealing out a hand of poker to Reinhold Borsten, Stiletta's father and the man responsible for dragging Jonah into the future. On either side of Borsten sat Quentin Turnbull, the rich Virginian that blamed the gunfighter for the death of his beloved son, and El Papagayo, a Mexican bandito who had crossed paths with Hex more times than he liked to remember. Bat Lash, never one to miss a good game, asked Lewis for a fresh card. In a dim corner stood El Diablo, a faint red glow in his eyes as he surveyed the room, while the gunslinging duo of Nighthawk and Cinnamon got cozy at a table near the door. Solomon, Turnbull's faithful black manservant, tended the bar, pouring drinks for both Jonah's stuffed corpse and his father Woodson. Accepting the impossible with the logic people possess only in dreams, Jonah sidled up to the bar. "Glad yuh could finally join us, son," his father said, clapping him on the back. "Surprised they let him back in," the corpse said. "Damn near destroyed the place last time." Jonah turned his head to either side, looking at the two of them in turn. "Weren't muh fault," he muttered, then pointed behind them to Borsten. " He's the one whut done it." Turnbull shook his head as he picked up his cards. "Pay that man no mind, my dear Mr. Borsten. He has never taken credit for a single wicked deed his entire life." "Not to mention that he's crazier than a shithouse rat," Lewis said with a laugh. "Come on...cowboys in the 21st Century? He must be nuts." "Don't listen to 'em, son," the elder Hex told him, and pulled him close -- the man reeked of alcohol, as always. "People like them is just jealous, yuh don't need 'em. Long as yuh got a bottle in one hand an' a stack o' coin in the other, the world kin go hang." He hoisted his glass as if in example. Somewhere behind them, Jonah could hear a woman laughing. It sounded familiar, but as he turned around to look, his father tugged at him again. "Pay attention when Ah'm talkin', boy! Lord, yo're as bad as yer Ma, not listenin' tuh a damn word Ah say." "Why should Ah?" Jonah asked. "Yo're a drunk." "An' yuh ain't?" Jonah pulled away from him. "Thet's dif'rent. Ah'm just...Ah kin stop right now, if'n Ah wanted." The unseen woman's laughter rose higher. Once again, he tried to see who it was, but this time he was interrupted by Solomon. In his hand was a brandy glass filled with a black, viscous liquid, and he set it down in front of the gunfighter. "I was told tuh bring this tuh you special, Mistuh Hex," he said. Jonah stared at the glass, his hands pressed flat against the bar on either side of it. The stuff was poison, he knew that as sure as he was breathing...but that didn't make him want it any less. He wanted to pick up the glass with both hands and guzzle it down, consequences be damned. He didn't care if it burned his throat and ate right through his stomach, he needed a drink so badly, just one mouthful, just one drop on his tongue. With a trembling hand, he pushed the glass back towards Solomon, saying, "Yuh tell Turnbull Ah don't want a damn thing from him." His voice came out strained, the words a labor to form. "Ain't from Mastuh Turnbull, suh," Solomon told him. "It was Mistuh Green that ordered it." He was about to ask who the Hell Mister Green was when he heard the laughter again. Nothing stopped Jonah from looking this time, but when he caught sight of the source, he wished he hadn't. In the corner of the saloon sat Green Lantern. His mask and ring were still intact, but he'd ditched the funny union suit in favor of a green chambray shirt and black trousers. In his lap was Stiletta, clad in a low-cut red dress and laughing, her long blond hair cascading over her bare shoulders. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Lantern was surrounded by other women from Jonah's past: Emmylou Hartley, Cassie Wainwright, Tallulah Black, Joanna Mosby, Adrian Sterling, his ex-wife Mei Ling...even White Fawn, the first girl he'd ever loved, and little Carolee, barely past seventeen and one of the last of Jonah's romantic conquests. They were all but throwing themselves at the feet of "Mr. Green", though Stiletta appeared to have the lion's share of his attention. "Take yer damn hands off her!" Jonah yelled at him, leaving his place at the bar and advancing on the group with gritted teeth. A table sat between him and the Green Lantern, so he threw it to the side. Stiletta gasped and clung even tighter to the masked man. In fact, all of the women were backing away from Jonah. "Don't worry, ladies," Lantern said, "I won't let him hurt any of you ever again." "The Hell yuh say. Yo're the threat 'round here, not me." The Lantern eased Stiletta off his lap and stood. "Are you sure? You're the one that looks out of place," he said. It was true: Hex was still dressed in his 2050 clothes, while even Lewis and Borsten had traded their modern duds for less conspicuous attire. The former bounty hunter stuck out like a sore thumb. "You don't belong in the future," Lantern continued, "and there's no way you can fit in again in the past. You may as well be dead." From its spot at the bar, the corpse said, "Thet's whut Ah've been tryin' tuh tell him." Jonah's head whipped around. "Shut up! All of yuh, just..." He started to turn back towards the masked man, and was greeted by a fist to the face. The man's ring collided with Hex's nose, breaking it on impact. Bat Lash let out a whoop as Jonah stumbled backward and ran into the bar. "Get back out there, boy!" Woodson shouted. "Yo're makin' me ashamed tuh call yuh my son!" "He couldn't stand up tuh a dead man," the corpse said, "so whut makes yuh think he kin lick one thet's livin'?" "Butt out," Jonah gasped, trying to wipe away the blood gushing out of his nose. He balled his hands into fists and stepped forward. "Fifty pesos on the hombre verde!" El Papagayo said. "One hundred Soames on Hex!" Borsten countered. "Of all the people tuh be on muh side..." Jonah growled, then swung at the Green Lantern. He managed to land a few blows, but it seemed like for every hit he made, good ol' Mr. Green followed up with three more, smiling as he did it. The ring cut up Hex with every blow, and his black shirt was soon soaked with his own blood. He exhausted himself to the point where he could barely lift his arms, but the masked man kept coming, not letting up until the gunfighter fell to the saloon floor. Hex tried to get back on his feet, but he felt empty, used up...dead. Borsten cursed and handed the Soames over to a laughing El Papagayo. "You should have known better," Green Lantern told Hex. "You're just a relic. Why don't you crawl back to the warehouse and collect dust like the rest of the antiques?" He then turned away from Jonah and returned to the welcoming throng of women -- Tallulah gave the masked man a pat on the rump, while Mei Ling produced a lacy handkerchief and wiped the blood from the Lantern's hands with a discreet smile. "No...Ah won't let yuh take them from me, too..." Still sprawled on the floor, Jonah drew one of his guns and pointed it at the masked man. Stiletta walked over to him and pulled the Magnum from his hand with barely any effort, saying, "Why don't you leave him alone, you bully?" "But Ah...Ah'm doin' this fer yuh, sugar," Jonah said, "'cause Ah..." "You what?" Ah love yuh. The words refused to come out of his mouth, though, same as always. He'd tried to tell her at least a dozen times, but he always fell short. Once, he'd gotten the guts to ask if she loved him, and she'd looked at him like...well, like he was crazy. Now it was too late. He'd lost her to the mystery man, the young stud. She turned her back on Jonah and went over to the Green Lantern, who greeted her with that damned smile of his. She gave him one back as she tucked the Magnum beneath the Lantern's belt, then steadied her hands on his shoulders so she could reach up and give him a long, lingering kiss... " NO!" Jonah hollered, loud enough to wake himself up from his own nightmare. He found himself curled up on the floor of his quarters, legs pulled to his chest and arms wrapped around the now-empty whiskey bottle. Jonah held it up in front of his face and stared at it, dazed. He had no memory of drinking it, though judging by the dampness of his shirt, more of it was probably on him than in him. Bad waste of good whiskey, Jonah thought as he sat up, then peeled off the wet shirt and tossed it in the corner. While he knew the dream hadn't been real, the feelings it had dredged up lingered on. The loss of control, the sense of abandonment...he hated it. Jonah wasn't the sort of man who was used to feeling helpless. There was always a way out, even if it meant spilling a little of his own blood in the process. Problem was, he was fighting against Time itself...and it was winning, especially now that it had thrown a new obstacle in his path. "Green Lantern," Jonah muttered under his breath. "Whut kinda stupid name is thet?" The very thought of the man made the gunfighter grind his teeth. And knowing that this stranger was out there, possibly turning everyone against him... Delusion or not, Jonah couldn't take that chance. He wouldn't let that bastard take away what little he still possessed without a fight. But that meant confronting the masked man for real. The voice of his stuffed and mounted corpse bubbled up in his brain: He couldn't stand up tuh a dead man, so whut makes yuh think he kin lick one thet's livin'? "Got yuh in the end, though, didn't Ah?" Jonah said aloud, then stood up and walked over to the door. The lights in the hallway were dimmed, a power-conserving measure as most of the warehouse's residents slept. "Ripped yuh limb from limb, an' by God, Ah'll do the same tuh this Lantern fella if'n Ah have tuh."
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