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 13:13:31 GMT -5
Issue Three; Story by Susan Hillwig, Cover by Joey Jarin
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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 Nov 22, 2012 19:05:09 GMT -5
More "Notes from the Road" await in the letters column, and while you're there, please leave your comments!
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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 Nov 22, 2012 18:55:49 GMT -5
Notes from the Road: The Paradox Though he didn’t create the character, Michael Fleisher is responsible for virtually everything we know about Jonah Hex. From his boyhood to his death and everything in between, Fleisher laid a lot of groundwork in the 13 years he wrote about the bounty hunter. And while he managed to fill in so many details, he also neglected to set Jonah’s “current” adventures in a workable timeframe. When he first got a hold of the character, he usually set the stories in 1874, and after a few years, this drifted up to 1875...and then it stopped. For roughly a decade, time stood still when it came to date-references, yet major events kept happening in Jonah’s life to belie that -- he got married, had a kid, seasons passed, the kid got older -- it’s a weird hiccup that many Hex fans (including myself) have to ignore when reading the old pre-Crisis stories. Of course, when Jonah got tossed into the future, Fleisher kept up with the 1875 reference whenever mention was made of Jonah’s proper timeframe. What was once an oddity became cold hard fact, and that meant his appearances in both the JLA 2-parter and Crisis on Infinite Earths could only have happened after he got back from the future. If I planned on sticking as closely as possible to what was already canon -- and I did, that was the whole point of writing the fic -- my original notion of Jonah recognizing Green Lantern straight off was impossible. Instead, I decided that, if we already had one paradox going with Jonah finding his stuffed and mounted corpse, so why not throw on another? Why not make his inability to deal with these paradoxes and life in 2050 in general the undercurrent of the story? So I decided to give him a nervous breakdown.
To tell the truth, I didn’t have to push him too far. It’s well-known that Jonah’s an alcoholic, plus there had been past instances where his life had become such a shambles he climbed into a bottle to escape it (one of which occurred about a year before DC stuck him in the future -- you’ll learn more about it later), so all I had to do was establish where the cracks were developing this time and how deep they went. The mild depression I’d felt before I got the idea for the fic provided a starting-point for me -- I figured that, if I was getting upset over Jonah’s situation, how upset would Jonah be, especially after staring his own corpse in the face? Fleisher always believed that character-building moments were more important to a story than action scenes, and Jonah struggling with post-traumatic stress seemed like a logical progression of what Fleisher had already established. Adding Hal Jordan to this -- a man who had not only met Hex before, but whose life depended upon the gunfighter returning to the past stable and sane -- gave the story another, more emotional level to work with, as opposed to just being a straight “time travel hi-jinks” tale.
With the plotline finally, firmly established, the writing began in earnest. Jonah’s nightmare came first, then I jumped right over the “present day” scenes (Green Lantern: Rebirth hadn’t reached its conclusion yet, so I wanted to avoid contradicting it) and went right into dumping Hal in the parking garage and introducing him to the finer points of life in the future. The world of 2050 as seen in “The Long Road Home” is a pastiche of what Fleisher put forth in Hex, filtered through twenty years of hindsight. As I mentioned before, I like to stay somewhat grounded in reality when I write, so some of the “future” elements concocted in 1985 that now seemed unrealistic in 2005 were omitted -- no flying vehicles or laser guns here -- and I expanded on the ones that seemed more true-to-life, the warehouse community glimpsed at the end of Hex #18 being the best example of this. For practical reasons, I wanted to have a “safe” place to set most of the story, and since we’d left off at the warehouse, it made sense to return there, which meant I had to create nearly everything in it from the scraps Fleisher had given us. What few people that had names were fleshed out, others were invented to fill necessary roles in the story, and once the work was done, I christened the warehouse with the moniker of one of Jonah’s biggest fans from back in the day, the late T.M. Maple.
There’s another element from Hex that was greatly expanded upon in “The Long Road Home”, probably far beyond what Fleisher had planned. As with Jonah’s breakdown, however, it seemed a logical progression. I’ll tell you more about it next time, but for now, let’s flip through a fresh stack of letters.
- Susan Hillwig
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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 Nov 22, 2012 18:43:08 GMT -5
* * * Plan B * * * "I think we've lost him." Hal had been sitting by himself, nursing what he was pretty sure was the oldest, flattest can of Soder he'd ever drank. After dinner, most of the people had left the Hub, off to their rooms or to finish up various tasks before calling it a night. Those that stuck around broke off into their own little groups, leaving Hal by himself to reflect on everything that had happened to him that day. When Stiletta walked up and spoke to him, it took a moment for her words to cut through his ruminations. "Beg pardon?" he said. "Jonah. I don't think he trusts anybody now, not even me." She sat down on the floor and leaned against the recliner Hal was sitting in, his right leg stretched out stiffly before him. Between the rest he'd gotten and the pills Vance had scrounged up, the pain was down to a dull throb, but the brace, while short, made it difficult for him to bend his knee. She looked up at him, saying, "Why does he have to be so stubborn?" "I think that's how he's made it this far," Hal said. "Even back home, I know people that can't handle the concept of time travel, much less the paradox we've got going here. Remember, he's from the 19th Century: you've got to give him credit for not having a nervous breakdown the moment he got here." Stiletta let out a sigh. "I guess so, but what about him breaking down now?" Hal took a long swig off the can, buying time to think. "We have to back off," he said finally. " What? Do you want him to get worse?" "No...and that's why we need to back off. You said it yourself: he's stubborn. Every time we go after him, he's going to throw up another wall, and it'll put him more on the defensive." He shifted in his seat to look Stiletta in the eye. "We're talking about a guy whose entire livelihood was based around tracking down and killing people. His guard is permanently up, and trying to blindside him for what we say is his own good will get us nowhere." "So we do nothing?" "Just because we're not confronting him head-on doesn't mean we're doing nothing, it means we're showing the man that we're not the threat he thinks we are. Problem is, we'll have to wait until he makes the first move, and that might take weeks." "And what exactly is 'the first move', hero?" Hal smirked. "The same thing you've been trying to get him to do for a month: admit something's wrong...and he almost did that tonight, I think." "Before or after he scared the Hell out of me?" "During. When I suggested that he might be hurting you, Jonah dismissed it out of hand until he saw that he was. I think for a moment he really saw what this little dilemma is doing to him, and you as well." He knocked back some more Soder. "Couple more jolts like that, and he'll probably start talking." "Meanwhile, we're all walking targets," she said, and patted Green Lantern's uninjured knee. "Great plan, hero." Hal leaned his head back and stared at the warehouse's ceiling. "Sorry, but if you wanted an expert in psychological warfare, you should have called Batman." As they sat there contemplating what to do about their troubled friend, Cutter came into the Hub and walked over to the two of them. "Hey, Mister Lantern, how's the leg?" "Better, thanks...and you don't have to call me 'Mister'. Just 'Lantern' will do fine. Or 'GL', a lot of people call me that." "Okay, cool," he said, then dropped his eyes down for a moment. "So, um, GL...you figured out where you're sackin' for the night?" "No, not really. I guess in here on one of the couches." "Oh, 'cause if you want, there's an extra bed in my room. It'd be quieter than the Hub, that's for sure." Stiletta reached up and touched the young man's arm. "Cutter, you don't have to do that," she said, "we'll work something else out." "No, no, it's cool, Dad wouldn't mind." He gestured towards Hal. "Figure if he's one of the old heroes, then he probably saved the world a billion times over. Least we can do is give him a real bed." "All right, if you're sure," she answered, then looked over at Jordan. "Guess you two are now bunkies." "Fine by me," he said, nodding. Cutter's face brightened. "Really? Okay, um...crap, I gotta move that hard-drive..." He held up a finger. "Don't come down yet! I've gotta clean up the place first." He turned around and half-walked, half-ran out of the Hub, yelling over his shoulder, "Gimme, like, an hour!" "I'm surprised he did that," Stiletta said after Cutter left. "What, that he offered to share his room?" She nodded. "The extra bed was his dad's...he died last spring. Jonah and I weren't here then, but Mookie told me about it after we came in for Thanksgiving. I didn't know him too well, but he was a good guy." She waved a hand upwards, calling attention to bundles of cable crisscrossing in the rafters. "When Vance and Marya settled in, him and Cutter did most of the wiring for the place, rigged two sets of gennys...the guy was great with electronics, and his son's no slouch either." She sighed again, then said, "If it hadn't been for the damn war, the kid would be in college getting an engineering degree instead of jerry-rigging appliances." Hal drained the last bit of Soder from the can and set it on the floor beside the recliner. "I think we've all got that in common, even Hex," he said. "What do you mean?" He thought of the years he spent under the thrall of Parallax, then soul-bound to the Spectre. "None of us got the future we were expecting," he answered. 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 Nov 22, 2012 18:40:08 GMT -5
* * * Coffin Varnish and Cowboy Killers * * * Most people living within the confines of the warehouse called it the Hub: it was the largest room in the complex, aside from the motor pool. and everyone's favorite gathering place, especially with the kitchen right next to it. It was also one of the few rooms with unblocked windows, and though they were up rather high, it helped people's moods to be able to look out them and see that there was a world outside all this patched steel and plastic. Currently, a snowstorm was obscuring the view, giant flakes hitting the reinforced panes in wet, thudding clumps, and the fluorescents above were fired up and buzzing to supplement the waning light. As Jonah approached the Hub's open doorway, two boys came running out into the hall, screaming like banshees as kids are wont to do. He stopped short as they bolted past him, the children barely taking notice that they'd nearly had a head-on collision with his legs. This wasn't the first time, either: there were six or seven kids living in the complex, ranging from only a year old to nearly ten like the two rugrats that had almost run Jonah down. For the life of him, he couldn't fathom how somebody could bring a child into a world like this. Then again, the Good Lord did like to spring surprises on people. Once he was sure the stampede was over, Jonah began to step forward, but stopped again when he heard the conversation drifting through the doorway. "This is wild, man. Two time travelers, both under our roof." Cutter's voice. A good kid, in Jonah's opinion, but too chatty. "I'm telling you, it's bull." That was Lewis, the resident mechanic. "Come on, think about it: Who'd want to come here?" "Haven't you been listening?" Cutter said. "It wasn't by choice, same as Hex." "Hex is bull, too. I don't believe that cowboy crap. Thinks he's fugging Clint Eastwood or something." Jonah frowned. One of these days, he'd find out who this Eastwood fella was, and why people insisted on calling him such. Someone laughed, then said, "I never thought of him like that, but I guess that's pretty close. Trust me, though, he's for real, and so am I." After a moment, the voice registered in Jonah's mind: the new guy, the one he'd saved from the scavs. All of the sudden, he felt very ill. What was he still doing here? He'd told Stiletta to kick him out. Jonah leaned against the wall, eyes shut. Ah cain't do this, he thought. Ah don't even want tuh look at the jasper. Dammit, Stiletta, why didn't yuh listen tuh me? He tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry again, as was his throat. Behind closed eyes, Jonah could see the stranger's face, his mask, his broad white smile. It was back in 1878, he could hear the man say in his memory, near a little town in Arizona called Desecration. A time he'd never lived through, a place he'd never seen or heard of. Another impossibility, and it was in there, blocking the way. Jonah opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, whispering, "Lord, why do Yuh keep doin' this tuh me?" He did his best to steel himself, then walked into the room. The furniture within was a hodge-podge of beat-up chairs, a couple of worn couches, and various-sized tables, all scattered around the place. The stranger was sitting in an ugly yellow easy chair, his injured leg propped up on a coffee table and wrapped in a brace. Nearest to him on a couch was Stiletta, with Cutter stretched out on the other end clad in an oversized Seattle Mariners jersey and jeans. Lewis stood close to the door and turned towards Jonah when he came in. "Well, speak of the Devil," Lewis said, arms crossed over his dirty coveralls. "Been called worse," Jonah replied as he walked past, doing his level best not to make eye contact with anyone. "Jonah, why don't you come sit over here for a while?" Stiletta asked, and shifted on the couch to make room for him. "Haven't seen you for hours." He didn't even dignify the request with an answer, just kept heading towards the kitchen. "You say you know Hex," Lewis said to the stranger. "Tell me, has he always been an asshole, or this a recent development?" That made him stop. Jonah spun on his heel and walked back over to where Lewis stood. He had no love for the mechanic: the man had a habit of shooting his mouth off and constantly smelled like a train yard. As he stood toe-to-toe with Lewis, staring him down, Jonah searched through his memory for what would be a good response. Although both he and the residents of the 21st Century spoke English, he'd quickly learned that it wasn't necessarily the same language, and it took a moment to produce an insult that sounded "modern" enough. "Bite me, briq-licker," Jonah growled, and turned around to continue back to the kitchen. Cutter let out a laugh more akin to a bark, then covered his mouth to hold in any more outbursts. Lewis did the smart thing and stayed quiet. Just as Jonah had feared, there were four people running around the kitchen area. Vance's wife Marya was directing the chaos, as always. It amazed Jonah the way that little Mexican ( Latino, he corrected himself. She don't like bein' called a Mexican, same as yuh cain't call Vance a Negro) seemed to be on top of everything, making sure none of the 20-odd people living in the complex were overlooked for anything, Jonah included, as evidenced by the tray of food that always turned up outside his door whenever he decided he couldn't deal with the mealtime crowd. Despite her best intentions, though, he'd lost at least 5 pounds in the past month. His mostly-liquid diet didn't help. Marya spotted Jonah out of the corner of her eye as he tried to slip into the pantry. "Come to help?" she asked. "Hell, no. This is women's work." "Watch your mouth!" Red, one of Stiletta's friends, called out as he struggled with a can opener. His girlfriend Mookie took it from him and managed to get it working. "Like Ah said," Jonah replied, and stepped backwards into the dimly-lit pantry. It was about 30 feet square, with rows of aluminum shelves stacked high with various shelf-stable goods. Doing his best to act casual, he headed to the section he'd last seen the liquor in. There wasn't much available -- especially since he'd been pinching some when he couldn't get out and buy it himself -- but it would do for now. He'd picked out a pint with the heartwarming name of Southern Comfort when he heard someone behind him. Jonah spun around, holding his hands (and the bottle) behind his back as Marya came around the corner. He was a good head taller than her, but her sudden presence made him feel very small indeed. "Looking for anything in particular," she asked, "or just window shopping?" "Cigarettes," he said. It was the excuse he'd thought up on his way down to the Hub. "Back this way." As she turned to lead the way, Jonah pulled out his shirttail, shoved the bottle under the waistband of his pants, then tucked his shirt back in before following her. Marya led him two rows over and pointed to a shelf at his eye level. "Don't know how you missed them," she said. Jonah mumbled thanks and grabbed two packs without looking. "You might want to think about quitting. They give you cancer, you know." "Y'all kin die in a light drizzle, an' yo're worried 'bout a little tobaccy?" He shook his head and walked past her out of the pantry. "Aren't you forgetting something?" He froze in the doorway. Caught. He began to stutter out a weak apology when Marya came up behind him, pulled a clipboard and pen off the pantry's inner wall, and held it in front of him. The inventory sheet, he'd forgotten. "Yuh remind me of a supply sergeant Ah knew durin' the War." Jonah took the clipboard and marked down the cigarettes but omitted the whiskey. "Couldn't get a pair o' socks out of him without fillin' out twenty dif'rent forms." He hung the list back on its hook and beat a hasty retreat out of the kitchen. As he reentered the main room, Jonah saw that the stranger was up and mingling with the growing dinner crowd, Stiletta at his side -- the sight of that made him want to draw his guns and open fire. She knew how he felt about this guy, and yet she was helping the bastard as he limped around. Jonah stuck to a far wall and followed the two of them around the room with his eyes. "He's kind of cute," someone beside him said. He turned and saw Mookie standing there. "It's hard to judge with the mask and all," she continued, pushing a lock of her short, blue-dyed hair behind her ear, "but I bet if he took it off, he'd be a real looker." Her comments weren't doing anything to help the gunfighter's mood. "You talked to him yet, Hex?" "No." "Well, come on then. Don't want to be the last one, do you?" She tugged on his shirtsleeve playfully, but he yanked his arm away. "Oh, you're having one of those days," she said, then walked away, making a beeline for Stiletta and her new friend. The man flashed Mookie a warm smile as she introduced herself and shook hands. It reminded Jonah of a politician making the rounds, and it made him trust the masked man even less. As Mookie and the new guy got acquainted, Stiletta glanced over in Jonah's direction, and he could tell by the look on her face that his own emotions must have been pretty plain at the moment. She leaned close to the stranger to say something, then left him to walk over to Hex's side. "What in the blue Hell are yuh doin'?" he said through gritted teeth. Stiletta held up her hands. "Stop. Right there, just stop," she told him. "I know you're upset about him being here..." "'Upset' don't even cover it," he snapped. "...but he's not here to hurt you, I swear," she continued. "He's just as concerned about you as we all are. He wants to help you." "He kin help by leavin'." "Nuh-uh, he's not, and you're going to listen to what he has to say. I don't care if I have to tie you to a chair, you're going to suck it up and deal with this, no more hiding." "Ain't nothin' tuh deal with," he said, then pointed in the stranger's direction -- the pack of cigarettes in his hand had become a crumpled wad of cellophane and tobacco shreds. "An' if'n thet skunk over there says one word tuh me..." "His name is Green Lantern." " Don't tell me his name!" He leaned into Stiletta and she backpedaled, her eyes wide. "Ah don't want tuh know a damn thing 'bout him, an' Ah sure as Hell don't want tuh hear anything from him 'bout me! Fer all Ah know, he's the one thet killed me!" "Jonah, he doesn't know..." "Yuh believe him?" He reached out and grabbed a handful of her bodysuit. "Yuh'll listen tuh a stranger hidin' behind a mask an' not me? Don't whut Ah say mean nothin'?" "Let her go, Hex." Jonah whipped his head up and saw the Green Lantern standing there, out of arm's reach but close enough to do something if he had to. "Ah warned yuh, boy. Yuh touch me..." "I know, and I'm not. Now let Stiletta go before you hurt her." He snorted. "Yo're crazy, Ah'd never..." But then Jonah turned back to look at her, and saw the tears in her eyes. "Yuh know Ah'd never hurt yuh, sugar," he said quietly. "After everything we've been through..." The look in her eyes told him different. He loosed his grip on her and she stepped away. Marya had come out of the kitchen to see what the fuss was about, and she went over to Stiletta and put an arm around her. In fact, it seemed to Jonah that everyone was in the Hub now. The only person that dared to stand close to him though was Green Lantern...the last person he wanted to be near. Jonah's hands drifted to his guns, both as a warning and to hide the tremors. The masked man held up his hands, just as Stiletta had done moments before. "I know you have no reason to believe me," he said calmly, "but I am...I will be...your friend." "Ah ain't go no friends," Jonah Hex answered, and moved his darkening gaze from the Green Lantern to Stiletta. "Not a damn one." He then turned away from the both of them and headed for the exit. People scrambled to get out of his way. Just like the good ol' days, he thought as he walked back to his room. Everybody thinks Ah'm some sort of monster, but not thet new fella. No sir, he comes waltzin' in here like a carpetbagger an' charms the whole lot of 'em. Sure, he's wearin' a mask, but thet ain't a good reason tuh not trust a stranger. Maybe he's just shy...right, an' muh daddy's Abe Lincoln. He returned to his quarters, slamming the door shut behind him hard enough to shake the false walls -- the sound reminded Jonah of a cell door closing. "Thet's whut this whole world is," he muttered aloud, "a damn prison." He drove his fist against the door, making the metal reverberate again. "Nobody gives a damn 'bout me...they just dumped me in this godforsaken place an' forgot thet Ah ever existed..." He punched the door a few more times, but that wasn't bringing the gunfighter the satisfaction he wanted, so he grabbed the steel chair and folded it flat. " Ah ain't gonna take it no more!" he bellowed, and swung the chair at the wall with both hands. "Ah'm sick an' tired of y'all pissin' on me like Ah don't matter! Ah'm sick tuh death of it!" The metal wall rang like an out-of-tune churchbell, the welded seams developing splits from repeated blows. "Ah had a life, goddam yuh, an' y'all took it away from me!" Jonah screamed, but even he didn't know who at: God, the Green Lantern, Stiletta, her father, the warehouse's residents...perhaps his future self, dead in the past from causes unknown. The pounding continued until his arms ached and his throat felt raw, then the twisted chair fell from his hands and he collapsed against the dented wall. He slid down to the floor, a mixture of sweat and tears streaming down his scarred face. "How much longer, Lord?" he croaked. "How long do Ah have tuh wait 'til Yuh put me out of muh misery?"
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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 Nov 22, 2012 18:34:11 GMT -5
* * * Gazing Into the Abyss * * * The hallway leading to the living quarters was empty, which suited Jonah just fine. He didn't want to talk to anyone now that he was done playing watchdog, and he sure as Hell didn't want anybody staring at him. Over the years, he'd become accustomed to people's lingering looks in regards to his face, but he knew that the looks he got in this place weren't due to that. They all think Ah've gone 'round the bend, he said to himself, but they're wrong. Ah'm just tired is all. Hell, Ah'm over two hunnert years old, Ah've got every right tuh be tired. Near the end of the hall, he stopped in front of a metal door with HEX spraypainted on it, the bright red letters standing out on the bare steel like neon. Stiletta had done that for him after one too many incidents of Jonah entering the wrong room. It was embarrassing in a way: he could follow a week-old trail across hard alkali, but drop him in a corridor lined with a dozen metal doors and he was lost. Ain't muh fault, they all look alike, he thought as he entered the room. Don't like livin' in this coffee tin, anyhow. He didn't have much choice in the matter, though. He went where Stiletta went, and right now she wanted to be here with her friends, so here he stayed. Compared to the others, Jonah's room was quite bare. All he had was a bed, a folding chair with a small table, and a pile of clothes that stank of booze, sweat, and cigarettes. He'd grown up with very few material possessions, and tried to keep his adult life similarly uncluttered. Besides, most of the things he did want just didn't exist anymore, though he sometimes managed to find decent substitutes. Take the room's illumination, for example: instead of using the naked light bulb that dangled down from the room's low ceiling, he lit an old kerosene lantern he'd found in one of the storerooms. It was battered and rusty, with the enameled Coleman logo nearly obliterated, but Jonah was more comfortable with the soft glow it gave off than the harsh yellow-white glare the more modern fixtures supplied. At the moment, comfort was just what he wanted. The presence of the familiar, the stability of what he knew to be true. He tossed his coat aside and sat down at the table. Next to the lantern lay two items that, up until a month ago, he thought he'd never see again: his Dragoons. Jonah picked one up, feeling the heft of over four pounds of cold iron as it rested in his left hand. He let the smooth ivory handle slip into his palm, cocked the hammer, then let it fall back against the chamber. She's held up good, he thought, then spun the unloaded pistol by its trigger guard around his finger, first clockwise, then counterclockwise -- the move had no real purpose other than to show off how at ease a gunfighter was with his equipment. Jonah did it a few more times, occasionally stopping to take aim at a random target in the room. When he finished, he tucked the pistol beneath his belt, just as he used to do. Unlike himself, most gunfighters were right-handed, so finding a left-hand gunbelt was rare...although it appeared that he'd found one near the end. The belts he currently wore had come off his corpse, as had the Dragoons -- after he'd destroyed it, Jonah had asked the others to burn the remains, but he'd kept the guns and their holsters, just so he could have a small piece of home, albeit an impossible one. They shouldn't be here, he thought, Ah threw 'em away, lost 'em. Well, 'lost' wasn't the proper word: he knew exactly where they were, there was just at least fifty feet of water between him and them, not to mention a couple of centuries. He pulled the gun out again and looked at it. Did Ah go back fer 'em? No way in Hell Ah could've got 'em out, thet's why Ah didn't try the first time. But they're here, they were in muh hands, but they shouldn't be... The thoughts circled around his head in an endless loop, questions with no answers, building in speed until his hand began to shake, almost dropping the gun. His right hand shot out, and he held onto the Dragoon with a white-knuckle grip as he shuddered. He'd fought against it the whole time he'd been on guard duty, but now that he was alone, it overwhelmed him. Eyes shut, teeth bared, Jonah tried to ride out the wave of hopelessness that threatened to drown him. His whole life, he felt like the entire world was against him. Abandoned by his parents, scarred by his adopted Apache family, spurned by nearly every woman he'd ever given his heart to, beaten and shot by men that weren't even fit to breathe...the only thing that had kept him going through it all was the hope that, someday, he'd have something to show for enduring all that pain. He'd come out on top, he'd get the girl, he'd be able to walk down the street and have people look at him with respect and admiration. But now he knew where the end of the road led, and he couldn't even have his stupid little pipe-dream anymore. No respect for him, no hero's death, just eternity as a cheap sideshow attraction. Nobody even cared 'bout me enough tuh put me in the ground, he thought, and another shudder ran through him. After a while, Jonah opened his eyes and sat up straight, his mouth dry and a hollow ache in his chest. He needed a drink...just a small one, enough to steady his hands and wet his whistle. He placed the Dragoon back on the table, then went over and knelt beside the bed, searching for the bottle from the night before -- most of the remaining alcohol had spilled out when he'd dropped it, but there were a couple of swallows left, and he downed them in a flash. "Better," he said aloud, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Few more of those, an' Ah'll be right as rain." Unfortunately, he had no more bottles stashed in the room (none he could remember, anyways), which meant he'd have to scour the pantry off the kitchen for more...and the dinner hour was approaching. The place would be full of people. "Ah kin wait," he muttered, and began to drum his fingers on the floor as he leaned against the bed, the empty bottle dangling between his legs. "Ah ain't like muh Pa, Ah kin wait...Ah ain't desperate..." Jonah made it a full ten minutes before getting up off the floor and leaving his room.
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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 Nov 22, 2012 18:32:43 GMT -5
* * * Don't Know Much About History * * * Hal lay on his back, jaw clenched tight and eyes fixed on the ceiling. He wanted to tear off his gloves and scratch at the itchy spots on his face with his bare nails, but he'd been told that was a bad idea. "It just makes it worse," the young man they'd called Cutter said. "Soon as Vance takes care of your leg, he'll help you with that problem." Not soon enough, Hal said to himself, and tried not to think about how badly he wanted to scratch, or about the numerous bloodstains that were permanently embedded in the infirmary's concrete floor, or that the strongest thing they had as far as painkillers went was a local anesthetic. "I've almost got it," Vance said, holding down Hal's leg with one dark hand and using a medical clamp like a pair of tweezers with the other. "Little bastard's worked its way in deep. Lucky for you, it missed the femoral artery." Hal grunted in response. "Hang tight a bit longer, and the doctor will give you a sucker when he's done...okay, got it, flush it out." Vance moved his stocky frame out of the way so Cutter could bathe the wound with antiseptic. Both of them could clearly hear Hal grind his teeth. "You've been a real trooper, buddy," Vance said, and patted the Green Lantern on the shoulder. "Another couple minutes and you'll be all stitched up." "Great," Hal groaned. "Where's my sucker?" "I lied. We're all out." He held up the clamp, showing his patient the bloody slug. "You can keep this for a souvenir, if you want." "Consider it your fee." Vance chuckled, and Jordan heard a metallic clatter as the man put the clamp down on an instrument tray. Despite the surroundings, the medical equipment these people had surprised Hal: he was lying on an actual gurney, and he saw scattered about the room an array of items that looked like they could have come straight from any hospital, including what appeared to be a motorized wheelchair, though the wires hanging out of an open panel on its side told him that it wasn't available at the moment. "So, are you really a doctor?" Hal asked. He could occasionally feel a prick and tug as Vance put in the stitches. "First-year intern," he said, "but I've gotten a lot of on-the-job experience." "You should have seen what he had to do to Hex last month," Cutter added. "Dude was digging all around his guts for hours." "Um, Cutter, I don't think he wants to hear about that right now." "What? It obviously turned out good." "Actually, I do... nngh...I want to hear about it." Hal gestured for Cutter to step closer. "What happened?" "Same as you: scavs. Different guys, though, going by their clothes. Him and Stiletta were coming here for our little Thanksgiving shindig, and the fuggers gutshot him while they were still a few miles away. She got away and made it here, and we rode in like the cavalry." "Not that it really mattered," Vance said. "Hex had taken out most of them by the time we arrived." "Yeah, that's the best part: we find him, and he's half-past dead, but he's still got his guns up!" The young man made like he was drawing sixguns. "He's a fugging Terminator, you can't stop him!" Despite the pain, Hal had to smile. That sounded like the Jonah Hex he knew: totally unflappable, no matter what the situation. Then something else struck him. "You said this happened a month ago, around Thanksgiving." "Yeah, like a day or two before. Why?" Hal looked Cutter in the eye. "I'm going to ask you a very stupid question, but I want you to answer it as best you can: What's today's date? Not just the day, I want the year, too." "It's December twentieth, 2050," a voice said from the doorway. Hal lifted his head as best he could to see the blond-haired woman standing there. With the coat gone, he saw that she was dressed in what looked like a very skimpy unitard with thigh-high boots. As she entered the room proper, though, the lights reflected off the near-transparent bodysuit that clung to her skin, giving the appearance of bare flesh while covering her from the neck down. "Hey, Stiletta. You tranq your boyfriend?" Cutter asked. "Oh yeah, he's peachy." She walked over to the gurney and stood on the side opposite Vance and Cutter. "Well, how far away from home are you?" she asked Hal. "Excuse me?" The woman's abruptness was throwing him seriously off-rhythm. "You asked what the date was. I assume that's so you can get your bearings. Figure you can't be from as far back as Jonah, 'cause you two don't have the same taste in clothes." "Not even close. I'm about a half-century ahead of where I should be, and he's...I don't know, way the Hell off." "Wait a minute," Cutter interrupted, " this guy's from the past, too?" He looked at Hal. "So does that mean you really know Hex, or was all that bullshit earlier?" "Little bit of both," Stiletta said before Jordan had a chance. He glared at her, but she simply told him, "Never mind, I'll explain later." "Can we stop playing Twenty Questions for a minute?" Vance asked as he finished strapping down the bandage on Hal's wound. He'd cut open part of the leg on the Green Lantern's uniform to accommodate the gauze, and the black fabric hung over it in ragged flaps. "Let me finish checking him over, then you can chat all you like." He reached beneath the gurney and pulled a lever so he could ratchet the head of it up and let Hal sit at a 45-degree angle. "That mask made out of the same stuff as the suit?" he asked Hal. "Far as I know." "Your vision's not blurry or anything?" Vance gently placed his hand beneath Hal's chin so he could move his head. "Do you feel queasy at all? Having trouble swallowing?" "I feel kind of light-headed, but that's probably from the blood loss." "I'd say so." Vance pulled at the neck of the uniform for a moment, then let it fall back into place. "Okay, it looks like you've got just a minor case of acid burn from the snow. Your face will be a little red for a few days, like a sunburn, but you shouldn't scar or blister. Have to keep an eye on the burns around the gunshot wound, though, make sure it doesn't get infected." He picked up the bottle of antiseptic off the instrument tray and poured some on a gauze pad. "Here, dab this on wherever it itches." "Thanks." Hal pressed the gauze against his forehead and cheeks in turn. "You said this is from being out in the snow?" "It's mildly radioactive," Stiletta told him. "All the water sources are, to some degree or another. Just be glad it isn't raining, that'll strip flesh right off the bone if you're not protected." She plucked at the transparent sleeve of her bodysuit. Hal leaned back, still holding the gauze to his face. Seattle was in ruins, and the water table was hotter than Chernobyl. He could only think of one thing that could cause that. "Who dropped the bomb first?" he asked them. "Nobody knows," Cutter said. "Most people say Russia or China. My dad used to say somebody at NORAD probably spilled their coffee on a keyboard and made the whole system short out." "How long ago?" Hal asked, not really wanting to know the answer. "Five years." "Dammit." Hal closed his eyes, then slammed his fist onto the gurney and swore again, louder this time. He couldn't believe it: all the crises they'd overcome, all the near-misses, and it still came down to one idiot pressing a button. He took a few deep breaths, doing his best to calm down before asking his next big question: "Is any of the League left?" When no one answered, he opened his eyes and saw the three of them were looking at each other. "The Justice League...JLA. You know: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman...any of that ring a bell?" he asked. Still no reaction. "What about the Justice Society, the JSA? Or the Titans...any metas at all?" Hal sat up straight, staring at them. " Nobody survived?" "I think Jonah said he ran into some weirdo in New York called Batman," Stiletta said, "but the rest of that..." She shrugged. "Metas...you're talking about metahumans," Vance said. "Like those guys with the capes and the long underwear that used to fly around and beat the crap out of each other." His eyes widened, as if seeing Hal for the first time. "You mean you're one of those old guys?" "I'm not that old, but yeah." "My grandpa used to tell me about you folks. Which one are you?" "Green Lantern." "No foolin'?" Vance frowned. "No offense, but Gramps said you were a brother." Hal was struck dumb for a moment, then let out a short laugh. "None taken. There’ve been four men on Earth that have gone by that name...no, five." He'd almost forgotten about Alan Scott -- he wasn't Corps, but he'd come first. "Your grandfather must have been talking about one of my associates. He'd sub for me when I wasn't available." "Well, he must have the slot permanently if you're here," Vance said. "Speaking of which, how the Hell did you get here?" Hal gave them a brief rundown of the incident. "From what I was told about this Casimir engine," he said when he'd finished, "I'd say that the energy from the quantum vacuum, combined with what was siphoned off my ring, was powerful enough to rip a hole in space-time briefly and blast me and the engine through it." "Could it send you back?" Stiletta asked. "I don't know. Maybe if it was powered back up, but my ring's dead, so if that contributed, then it's no good. Besides, the engine's not designed for time travel, it's just a side effect. Another blast could knock me further ahead, or even further backwards...assuming it didn't kill me." Stiletta cursed under her breath, which puzzled him: why was she upset when he was the one out of time? "It doesn't matter anyways," Cutter said, throwing up his hands, "the thing's in the hands of the Slabberz now. May as well be on the moon." "The kid's right. If it's as big as you say, there's no way you could get in and out of their territory with it," Vance added, "and you sure as Hell can't reason with them." "Then I'll find another way to get it from them, or I'll find another way back to my time," Hal told them. "This isn't my first trip through the timestream. I've gotten back before, I can do it again." Stiletta looked over at Vance and Cutter, saying, "Is there any way you guys can clear out for a while? Me and the new guy have to talk." "About what?" Cutter asked. "About what a nosy little shit you can be," she answered. "Come on, guys, this is important." Vance regarded her for a moment, then said, "Okay, will twenty minutes do? I still need to clean up around here." "Perfect." The two of them filed out, Vance pulling the curtain over the doorway shut behind them. Stiletta grabbed a high stool from a corner of the infirmary and brought it over beside the gurney. "I'm not sure where to start," she said as she sat down. "Then let me," Hal said. "Do you know who Jonah Hex is? I mean who he really is?" She nodded. "He's a cowboy. Well, he says 'bounty hunter', but he's from the Old West, so it's all cowboys to me." "Do you know how he got here?" "It's a long story." "I'm not going anywhere right now." Her mouth twisted, then she said, "My father brought him here. About eight years ago, before the war, he'd been doing research work for the National Security Agency. Time travel research." She held up a hand. "Before you get excited, forget it, the equipment and the complex it was in got destroyed months ago. Nothing's left. Anyways, while my father was working on the project, he found out about the war, or at least when it would happen, so he rounded up as much tech and raw data as he could, and used the time machine to bypass the war." Stiletta's eyes wandered down to the floor. "My mom and I didn't know this, of course. He just disappeared. We'd heard about an explosion at the building he worked at, and we thought maybe he'd died, but nobody would tell us anything. Then all these people kept calling the house, and I'd see cars I didn't know parked down the street and following me to school..." "The government thought you and your mother knew something." "He didn't say a damn thing! He just left us to die..." A tear trickled down her cheek, and she brushed it away roughly, saying, "My mom sent me to live with her parents out on their farm in the country, just 'til the Feds laid off us. That's how I survived when the bombs hit: I was in the middle of nowhere. When I found out a couple of years later that my father was alive and living like a king off the tech he stole, I swore I'd kill him." She brought her head back up. "And I did, too. Me and Hex blew that whole damn fortress to kingdom come." Hal didn't like how calm she sounded about the deed, but he was in no position to judge. "That doesn't really explain to me how somebody like Hex got mixed up in all of this, though," he said. "It was one of my father's side-ventures. When he arrived here, he built another time machine and used it to steal more tech from the past, and later to stage reenactments." "'Reenactments'?" Hal echoed. "He'd grab people out of various time periods," Stiletta explained, "soldiers mostly, and set them up in artificial environments to have them fight battles. He'd keep them drugged up so they wouldn't know where they really were, and stick 'em in stasis tubes in between battles...if they lived. He did it to hundreds, maybe thousands of people, and him and his guests would sit back and watch as they killed each other, like it was a movie or something." "So one day he decides to grab Jonah Hex..." She nodded. "Jonah said he was in the middle of a bar when it happened. One minute he's facing down some scumbag, and the next..." She snapped her fingers. "They'd stuck him in a facsimile of the bar, but he figured it out pretty quick and busted out of there. He ran into me not long after that out in the wasteland, and we've been friends ever since." "Just friends? I thought Cutter said..." "He's just bullshitting. Everybody teases me because Jonah's always calling me 'darlin'' and 'sugar' and stuff. It's just the way he talks." She paused, then said, "I think sometimes it's not just talk for him, though. He'll give me a look or say something, and I think he's trying to say something else, you know? But it's too weird." "Because of where he's from?" "No, because I'm only twenty-three and he's pushing forty. I never went for older men." She waved a hand at the Green Lantern. "So, what about you? You said you're from the turn of the millennium, so how'd you run into Hex?" "Like I said before, this isn't my first experience with time travel. It happened roughly seven years ago, while I was on a mission with the JLA. We were checking out a strange power surge near the Grand Canyon. Turned out to be a trap set by a man that called himself the Lord of Time." "Not too full of himself, was he?" Stiletta joked. Hal smiled. "Some of us heroes aren't much better. Pompous name or not, he had the goods to back it up: he knocked me and my friends all the way back to 1878, and erased our memories somehow, to boot. I woke up alone in the middle of the desert, my brain half-baked from laying out in the sun, and who should happen to come riding along at that moment?" "Jonah Hex, king of the last-minute rescues." "Make fun all you want, that man saved my life. Unlike now, my ring was working back then, but I couldn't remember how to use it, or even what it was. Only time I could make the damn thing work was by not thinking about it, it seemed, like a reflex action. Hex kept me in one piece the whole time, helped me puzzle things out, even got me back together with my friends." He shook his head. "For the life of me, though, I can't think of what I might have done back then to tick him off so bad." "You didn't do anything to him, and that's the problem." "What do you mean?" She sighed. "You said you met him in 1878...you're sure that was the year?" "Yeah, Jonah told me so himself." "No, he didn't ...not yet. You see, Jonah told me when he got yanked out of the Old West, it was 1875...which means that Jonah Hex out there hasn't met you yet." She pointed towards the doorway. Green Lantern gaped at her as the information settled in. "That's impossible. I mean, it's possible, but...if he's here in the future right now, how did he get back?” "It gets worse. You get a look at that amusement park stuff on your way down here?" "I saw the horses, and that sign near the front entrance: 'This Is A Dark Ride'...that's what they used to hang up over rides like the Tunnel of Love at the carnival." "Marya...that's Vance's wife...she collects that stuff. When they moved into these warehouses three years back, they found one full of things like that, so she started to use them for decoration." Stiletta shrugged. "Everybody needs a hobby, I guess, something to take your mind off what life's like these days." She waved a hand vaguely towards one of the infirmary walls, saying, "There's an area off thataway where she keeps the unused pieces. She's got so much junk back there, she doesn't remember where it all came from. That's where we found it." "Found what?" "Cutter told you about Jonah getting shot, right?" Hal nodded, and she went on. "Well, with him all busted up and winter starting to set in, we decided to stick around awhile. So Jonah's off one day wandering around the place, and in one of the storage rooms he finds this statue...or at least it looked like a statue." She stopped for a moment, rubbing her hand over her mouth in a nervous gesture. "God, it almost made me sick when I realized what it was, especially with Jonah just sitting there in front of it. Someone...at some time in the past, someone killed Jonah Hex and had his body stuffed like a hunting trophy." "Are you saying Jonah found his own corpse? Here?” Stiletta nodded. "He looked...I mean, the body looked pretty old. The hair was all white, and the costume was pretty moth-eaten. That was the other crazy thing: it was dressed in this silly white cowboy outfit, with all this fringe and floral embroidery. You wanted to laugh when you saw it, but you couldn't, not when you knew what it really was. For God's sake, there were rhinestones on the back spelling out his name! It was ridiculous!" "Jesus Christ," Hal whispered, and looked towards the doorway, thinking of what Jonah had said to him earlier. "No wonder he reacted the way he did." He then turned back to Stiletta. "How did he take it? The same way?" "No, he was actually kind of happy at first. 'Guess it means I'll be goin' back home one day,' he told me. Of course, everybody else found out about the thing, and we had to do some explaining...I don't think any of us thought about how this might affect Jonah in the long run. I mean, on the surface, it looked like good news, finding out he wouldn't be stuck in the future forever. But to find out you're going to end up like that, and you don't even know how...it was like somebody handed him a book about his life, but they'd ripped out a bunch of chapters and left the last page: 'So they tossed Hex's stuffed corpse into a warehouse and forgot all about him. The End.' We don't even know when it happened, just that he's dead in the past but alive here. It didn't take long for that to start playing with his mind." She shook her head. "Nobody really noticed at first...well, we noticed, but he was still recovering from that gutshot, so we all thought that was why he seemed so shaky and pale some mornings. Vance started to slip him a few more painkillers, figuring that's why he wasn't sleeping, but it didn't seem to help." "He never said anything, not even to you?" "I honestly think Hex would rather shoot himself in the head than admit he has a problem with anything. That's the sort of guy he is: too macho for his own good. So a couple of weeks go by, and he still looks like shit, and now he's starting to smell a little boozy in the morning. Now we know something serious is going on, but he won't talk, won't even admit he's been drinking. Then one night, he wakes up the whole complex by screaming at the top of his lungs. He's not in his room, and we figure out it's coming from the storage area, so we head down there and Jonah...he'd ripped the statue off its base and was tearing it apart with his bare hands. God, it was awful. Whoever had stuffed the body had wired the skeleton together too and used it like an armature, so there were these splintered bits of bone sticking out. They'd cut up Jonah's hands and he's bleeding like crazy, but he wouldn't stop, he just kept yelling at the thing that he wasn't dead, and the look on his face...the whole time I've known him, I've never seen him look scared. Confused, yeah, and pissed off more times than I can count, but that night...I swear to God, I've never seen anyone so terrified in my entire life." She hung her head down. "After all the weirdness he's had to put up with since he came to this time, finding that thing finally drove him to the breaking point. He still has his good days, but they're few and far between. If you put a gun in his hand, he's the same old Jonah Hex like you saw earlier, but beyond that, all he does is drink and sleep...or at least try to sleep. The thought of what’s going to happen to him is eating him alive, but he still refuses to admit he has a problem." She looked up at Green Lantern again, saying, "If you really do know him, even though he doesn't know you yet, you've got to help me put him back together." "How? It sounds like I'm part of the problem." "That's true. Matter of fact, he wants me to throw you out. But I want you to stay and talk to him. Maybe if he hears something good about his future, it won't look so bleak to him," Stiletta said. "Better yet, if you find a way back to your time, maybe you could take him along, get him away from all this." "I don't think that would help at all. His home is the Old West, not now or a half-century ago. It would probably just set him more on edge." Hal sighed and leaned back, pressing the gauze to his forehead again. "And as far as telling him anything, I can't do that without possibly effecting the timestream. Remember, his future is in my past. If I say or do the wrong thing to him now, it could change what happened back then." "And what would happen to your past if you do nothing, Jonah goes crazy, and he never gets back home?" Stiletta leaned forward on the stool. "Face it, hero: if you want to make sure Jonah Hex is ever going to save your life, you're going to have to save his first."
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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 Nov 22, 2012 18:29:47 GMT -5
* * * Denial Ain’t Just a River in Egypt * * * "Congratulations, you succeeded in scaring the holy hell out of the guy, I think," Stiletta said to Jonah. The two of them had gone up onto the catwalk, where they could have at least a modicum of privacy. She knew that people were still looking up at them standing there, her and the "psycho cowboy". They were probably wondering why she hadn't taken his guns away, or how she could feel safe talking to somebody who always seemed like he was two steps from going off the deep end. Some days she wondered herself. Jonah hadn't said a word since she'd gotten him to holster his pistol, and his expression had become unreadable. The man had a poker face card sharks would kill to possess. Once they'd climbed up the ladder to the catwalk, he leaned against the rail and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. After snapping off the filter and tossing it to the floor far below, he produced a wooden match (she had no idea where he kept finding those) and sparked it with a flick of his thumbnail. Stiletta kept waiting for Jonah to light his thumb on fire doing that, but it never happened. As he smoked, he stared out at the cul-de-sac through the slots cut into the warehouse wall, not even acknowledging that he'd heard a word she said, but she kept talking anyways. "I know all this has been rough on you, but you can't keep flying off the handle like this." Stiletta gestured to the people below them. "They won't put up with it much longer...and I'm not sure if I can, either." She looked at his face for a reaction, which wasn't easy, since she was standing on Jonah's right side. It was mostly scar tissue, his eye wide and staring, and the flesh of his cheek burned through until you could see his teeth, one measly flap of skin still intact. She had no idea what had happened to him to cause that, and she was almost afraid to ask. "This isn't like...that other thing," she continued, "you can talk to this guy, he might be able to help you." "Get him out of here," Jonah replied, his voice low. "What?" "Patch him up, give him a coat, then kick his ass out of here." He took a final drag off his cigarette, then tossed it away like he'd done with the filter. "Use one of them emergency doors." "Dammit, Jonah, that's not up to you..." "Ah don't want tuh know any more," he told her, echoing what he'd said earlier. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes again, but this time, Stiletta saw the slight trembling in his hand. "Maybe you should go get some rest. I'll ask around, see if somebody can fill in until..." "Ah ain't no damn invalid, woman, so quit treatin' me like one, " Jonah growled, then lit his new smoke. It took a couple of tries this time. "Ah've got a job tuh do, just let me do it." She turned away from him, saying, "Fine, have it your way," then climbed down the ladder. When she looked back up at him, she saw that he'd picked up the sniper rifle that was kept up there specifically for watchdog duty -- he was checking the rounds like nothing had happened. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away, cowboy, Stiletta thought. I wish I could make you understand that. She shrugged off her heavy coat, stashed it in a locker near the motor pool, then headed down the hall to the infirmary.
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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 Nov 22, 2012 18:28:20 GMT -5
Issue Two; Story by Susan Hillwig, Cover by House Of Mystery
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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 Nov 8, 2012 20:57:11 GMT -5
Check out the letters column for more "Notes from the Road" and to leave your own comments!
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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 Nov 8, 2012 20:54:28 GMT -5
Notes from the Road: The Key It may seem hard to believe, but there are genuine, in-continuity connections between Jonah Hex and the Green Lantern Corps. The first came about in 1982 with the publication of Justice League of America #198-199, wherein Hal Jordan and a few other Leaguers traveled back to the 1878 to mix it up with Jonah and his Western buddies. On the surface, putting Hal and Hex together seems an odd pairing -- it’s made clear in the comic that GL doesn’t share Jonah’s “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” attitude -- but both of them also have a strict moral code, and are willing to break rules if it means helping folks out. Oh, and they both get scads of women. We can presume that Hal’s actions during their brief time together must’ve impressed Jonah to some degree, because three years later, when Crisis on Infinite Earths #3 comes out, he immediately stands down the minute he recognizes the Green Lantern uniform worn by John Stewart (for those too young to remember, Hal had quit the Corps right before COIE began). For an ornery coot like Hex to show Stewart respect simply because he bears the same symbol as Jordan is unusual, and it’s a shame that we get very little interaction between the two, because I’m sure the conversation would’ve proved interesting. It was that mix of shared history and implied respect of the Corps that made me decide to include Green Lantern in what would become “The Long Road Home”. But unlike the finished product, the original outline called for Kyle Rayner to be wearing the black-and-green togs. Green Lantern: Rebirth had just begun to hit the stands, and since the outcome was somewhat murky, I decided to go with the current GL and add a third ringslinger to Jonah’s checklist.
With the “guest star” decided upon, I then had to figure out how to get GL to 2050. Since most instances of accidental time-travel involve large amounts of energy, the best notion I had was an explosion of an experimental device -- in an early draft of the story, this was referred to simply as “the generator” -- plus I got this wild idea in my head that, in order to raise the difficulty level, GL’s ring would be non-functional for most of the story. Because I like to keep things in my stories grounded in reality somewhat, I contacted my friend Bill, a fellow comics reader and serious science junkie, and gave him a challenge: “I need an energy source that’s not only powerful enough to pierce the space-time continuum, but will also knock out a Green Lantern ring temporarily.” That’s when he told me about quantum vacuums and the Casimir engine, a theoretical device that doesn’t actually exist in the real world yet, but sounded like the sort of thing a scientist in the DCU could whip up.
Once we had a way there, I started outlining what would happen once our GL got to the future and came across Hex. The original plan called for Jonah to rescue Kyle from some fracas, after which Jonah would begin to fill Kyle in on where he’d ended up, as well as inquire about the two Lanterns he already knew. This version of Jonah was the usual badass that he’d always been, dominant and in control, with the added twist of the cowboy knowing more about the situation than the hero does for a change. This Jonah wasn’t exactly happy to be trapped in the future, but he was dealing with it, and had even become part of a ragtag community that had set up in an old warehouse, which was an elaboration on where we’d last seen him in Hex #18. It had been a while since I’d read any of that series, so before I got down to any long-form writing, I pulled out all the issues and skimmed them, making notes along the way. I also grabbed those two JLA issues so that I could integrate any necessary info from them.
And that’s when I realized my mistake. This one important fact, laid out before me plain as day. There was no way I could write the story in the manner I’d been outlining it, it was literally impossible. At the same time, though, the mistake I’d made gave the story a whole new dimension, one that required a casting change: Hal Jordan had to be the one to get tossed into the future, not Kyle Rayner. Hal’s previous experience with Jonah would be a major plot point, as well as an agitator for the bounty hunter, who most certainly wouldn’t be in control of the situation. For the story to work, Jonah would have to be on the verge of falling apart, knocked lower than we’d ever seen him before, all because of a long-running paradox in his life, one that got exacerbated by his stint in the future. Call it “Fleisher’s Constant”.
You’ll learn more next issue, but until then, let’s peruse the letters, shall we?
- 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 Nov 8, 2012 20:48:18 GMT -5
* * * It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood * * * For a moment, Hal wasn't sure which way was up: the wave of energy had knocked him backward, but it seemed to be taking forever for him to land. When he did, he heard the crunch of glass breaking and the hollow thump of metal beneath him. Hit a car, he thought as he lay there, eyes closed. Must have blown me clear out of the building. His back throbbed from the impact. Of all the things he'd missed during his hiatus from mortal life, that chew-up-five-aspirins, post-battle ache was certainly not one of them. He wasn't sure if he should try moving, but since no one appeared to be coming over to lend a hand, he didn't have much choice. In fact, his surroundings seemed eerily quiet: no shouts, no sirens, just a snapping sound like a flag in a high wind. He opened his eyes, white spots swimming in his vision. Once he'd rubbed them clear (no easy feat when wearing an eyemask), he lifted his head to take a look around, and soon saw why it was so quiet. He'd landed on a car, but it wasn't in the street: he'd been blown into a parking garage. Hal couldn't recall seeing any nearby when he'd arrived on the scene, but he hadn't really been focusing on the other buildings around STAR at the time. He also saw that power had been restored, but the lights within the garage were a bit low, and stuttered from time to time. With a groan, he propped himself up on his elbows. He was sprawled out on the hood of the car, head pointed towards the front grille and heels propped up on the roof. Good thing most newer vehicles don't have three-dimensional hood ornaments, he thought as he rolled off the car, it would have impaled the back of my head. As it was, his head didn't feel like it was in the greatest shape. Might have a concussion...that was one Hell of a blast. Hal leaned against the car and held his ring up to chest level. "Ring, physical status," he said. Nothing happened. "Physical status," he repeated, a little louder this time. When there was still no response, he looked down at the ring. To the untrained eye, it looked no different, but Hal could see that the emblem was dull, a much darker green than the band. He cursed under his breath. Just as he feared, the engine had drained all of his ring's power. Even the emergency charge and the distress beacon had been bled dry -- he didn't even have enough juice to summon his battery for a recharge. I don't believe this. I just got the ring back, and I'm already grounded. He rubbed his sore neck and began to cast his gaze around the dimly-lit garage, searching for the stairs. That was when he spotted the Casimir engine, charred but intact, leaning like a drunk against a truck about thirty feet away. Nearby was a good portion of one of the lab's walls and various other bits of equipment, some whole, others neatly sliced as if with a laser. He also located the source of the snapping noise he'd heard earlier: someone had tried to cover the naturally-open walls of the parking garage with sheets of plastic tarp. The corner of one had slipped loose from its moorings and was now flapping back and forth as the wind gusted through the opening, carrying flurries of snow with it. Either San Diego is having some unseasonably cold weather, Jordan said to himself, or I got tossed a lot further than I thought. He took a few steps toward the opening, hoping to get a good look outside and get his bearings, but stopped when he heard voices coming up the ramp leading to his level of the garage: “...finally caved in.” “Naw, this was a boom-boom, not a crash-boom.” “Might’ve went boom-boom if it fragged some cars. Tanks may be bled, but vapor can blow.” “You smell gas? You smell smoke? I don’t.” “If there ain’t smoke, then how do you know it was a boom-bbom?” “My ears know, man.” Deciding it would be a good idea to hang back until he knew who these folks were, Hal ducked behind the car, out of sight from the ramp. Unfortunately, the angle of the ramp meant that they'd see the engine and other debris when they reached the top. Not much I can do about that, Hal thought as he peered around the car's rear fender, waiting for whomever to come into view. Two men emerged from the lower level, both armed and dressed in outfits similar to those worn by professional motorcyclists: leather (or leather-like) jumpsuits, form-fitting and heavily padded at key points. They each had the word SLABBERZ and the outline of a coffin on the back of their jackets in garish red paint, but beyond that, they were like night and day. The shorter of the two had a shaved head covered in thorny tribal tattoos, and enough chains and studs attached to his jumpsuit to give a metal detector a seizure. His companion was a bit more subtle: aside from random-looking swipes of color on his sleeves and down the legs of his pants, his only outstanding feature was an old-style leather aviator helmet, complete with goggles, which he pulled up when he caught sight of the Casimir engine. "Holy...lookit this," the wannabe flyboy said, gesturing at the device. "What the Hell is it?" "Dunno. How'd it get in here is what I wanna know," the bald one said. That's what I'm wondering, Hal thought. Except for the loose flap of plastic and the ramp, the entire level of the garage was sealed up, with no way in or out large enough for the engine to have come through. The Green Lantern did have a theory, but as long as he was stuck in this building, he wouldn't know for sure. Flyboy stepped around the engine and approached the section of lab wall behind. "Kind of weird, all this stuff poppin' up out of nowhere." He ran a hand along the wall, which wasn't the brightest idea: with most of the support structure gone, the only thing holding it upright was good intentions, and the slight pressure of Flyboy's fingertips sent the whole thing tumbling down onto the vehicles behind it. A great cloud of plaster dust rose up, engulfing Flyboy and causing him to stumble backward in an effort to get away from it. Baldy started laughing at him until Flyboy ran straight into the engine, shifting it enough to make it slide it off the truck. Hal scrambled out from his hiding place and tried to put as much distance between himself and the two stooges as possible -- he didn't know how much energy the device might have still held, and he certainly didn't want to be nearby if it blew up. Luckily for all concerned, nothing happened, save for some of the charred outer housing cracking off when it hit the concrete floor. "You stupid fugger!" Baldy yelled. "You broke the thing!" Coughing, Flyboy said, "It was an accident! Besides, you don't even know what the damn thing..." He stopped as he caught a glimpse of the Green Lantern slipping behind a row of cars. "Hey, you! Get out here!" he shouted and brought up the rifle slung over his shoulder. Dammit, Hal thought, his back pressed against a vehicle. Most of the cars in the garage were familiar to some degree or another, but the sporty little number he was currently crouched behind had a body styling he'd never seen before, all impossibly-smooth curves and no discernible seams between the windows and frame. From this new hiding place, he could see a door marked STAIRS - LVL 3 not too far away. He could try and make a break for it, but without the ring's protection, he'd be risking a bullet in the back. Have to try a different approach. Slowly, he stood up and stepped out into the clear, hands dangling at his sides and turned palms-forward. Both of the men stood less than ten feet away, guns raised. Flyboy was carrying what looked like a high-powered hunting rifle, but Baldy's gun was more akin to a next-generation military weapon -- the only thing on the two-foot long, boxy object that distinguished it as being a firearm was the trigger and stubby muzzle. "What the fug are you supposed to be?" Baldy asked, gesturing with the gun. Hal was taken aback for a moment. This was a drastic change from the greetings he'd gotten earlier. "I'm Green Lantern," he told them. Flyboy laughed. "You're a green something, that's for sure." "Shut it," Baldy snapped at him. "That your junk back there, Greenie?" "Not exactly," Hal said. "Then you don't got no problem with us keepin' it?" "Depends. You tell me where I am, and I'll tell you if there's a problem." "You're in the middle of Slabberz territory," Flyboy said, "and that, in itself, is a problem. For you, anyhow." He nodded his head in the direction of the ramp. "Come along quiet, and maybe your problem won't get too big for you to handle." "Fine." Hal lowered his head, brought his hands up to shoulder level, and began to walk forward. When he reached the two men, they parted enough to let him pass. Unfortunately for them, Hal Jordan had no intention of going quietly: he clamped his upraised hands onto their shoulders, pushed himself upward, then slammed his bootheels into their knees. They both went down howling, Baldy clutching his right knee, Flyboy his left. Hal snatched up their guns and ran for the stairwell, tossing the guns as far as he could before banging the door open. He vaulted the rail in the narrow, windowless stairwell, going from the third to the second floor of the garage in one fell swoop, then ran over to the 2nd-level door. The handle was gone, but he tried to force it open anyways. It refused to budge. "Green..." a voice behind him muttered, "green angels...falling from Heaven..." Hal whipped his head around. It was even darker in the stairwell than it had been in the garage proper, and Jordan hadn't seen the man sitting in the corner as he ran past. Like the two upstairs, this man wore a leathery jumpsuit, though he didn't look like any sort of threat compared to them. Cradled in his arms was an old coffee can, from which a thick, reddish-pink smoke was billowing. "Don't go...don't go through there, angel...that way lies Purgatory..." "I've been in Purgatory," Hal told him. "Trust me, it doesn't look like a parking garage." "Fly, angel...fly back to Heaven!" The man waved a hand upwards, stirring up the smoke. A smell like burnt sugar coated the back of Hal's throat, making him gag. Suddenly, the 3rd-level door banged open. "Damn-near broke my leg, you green sumbitch!" Flyboy bellowed. "Gotta go," Hal said to the smoky man, then bolted down the stair, the man's singsong voice following him: "Green...means go...go to Hell..." As he reached the ground floor, he found more people sitting in the stairwell. There was more of that strange smoke as well, so thick that it refused to dissipate as he rushed by. "Jolly Green Giant!" a woman called out, giggling and pointing, her upper torso clad in nothing but strategically-placed vinyl strips. The door to the garage was open, but clogged with people who merely stared through Hal as he approached, dreamy smiles on their faces. The smoke, it's some sort of drug, he thought...and it was a difficult thought to have: his head was beginning to feel fuzzy, and objects in his vision were looking runny. If I don't get a breath of fresh air soon, I'll be just as dopey as them. He did his best to tighten his mental focus, then began to push his way through the throng until he made it out of the stairwell. The main level of the garage wasn't much better than the stairs: the smoke was more isolated, coming from only a few metal barrels scattered here and there, but the amount of people increased tenfold...and not all of them appeared to be in their own personal dreamland. Some were already looking in Green Lantern's direction in a way that didn't strike him as friendly, and things certainly didn't improve after Flyboy busted through the drug-addled crowd, yelling, "Outta the way, briq-heads!" He had a pistol in his hand, and took a pot-shot at Hal the second he saw him. Luckily for Hal, it went wild, but the echo of the gunshot caused others to pull out weapons, and none of them appeared to be of a mind to ask whether or not their visitor was similarly equipped. Well, this is turning out to be another typical day on the job, Hal thought, then turned and beat a hasty retreat towards what looked like the exit, bullets nipping at his heels. Unlike the third level, the open walls on the ground floor had been closed off in a sturdier fashion: a combination of patches of sheet metal, crumbling cinderblocks, and stacks of stripped vehicles lined the interior walls, leaving only the original entrance clear. A collection of massive ATVs and viciously-armored motorcycles stood nearby. Hal considered grabbing one, but he didn't want to waste time trying to start it, choosing instead to run out of the parking garage and into the snow-covered street. The buildings surrounding the garage provided him no clue as to where he was, other than the place was suffering from what most city governments termed "urban blight": shells of cars lay half-buried under snowdrifts, windows even in the tallest of high-rises (at least the ones still standing) were shattered, and as far as Jordan could tell in the gray daylight, not a soul could be seen for blocks. He tried to step only where the snow had been churned up by tire tracks to avoid leaving a trail, but that would only help him for a short while -- until he could find a place to hide and assess the situation further, he was a black-and-green moving target on a white field. He could hear people shouting behind him and the whine of engines revving to life. Better get under cover quick, Hal thought, sprinting through the blowing snow for another block before ducking into an open doorway and crouching down amongst shards of glass beneath the blown-out front window. The building was out of the garage's line of sight, so unless the gangbangers had the foresight to drive slow and pick out his footprints, they shouldn't be able to figure out where he went right off. For the next few minutes, all Hal could hear was the echo of shouts and motors bouncing off buildings. It was impossible to get a fix on where they were and how many. Quite a few passed right in front of his hiding spot -- there was no mistaking when the cycle-noise was only six feet from your ears -- but none seemed to pay it any mind. When the echoes began to fade away into the distance, Hal allowed himself the luxury of a deep breath and leaned against the wall. The leaden sky outside provided just enough light through the window for him to see a scorched countertop near the back of the room, as well as the remains of some tables and chairs. Painted on one wall, partly obscured by a layer of black grime and smoke damage, was the kelly-green Starbucks logo. Just my luck. First time I come in here when there's no line, and the counter-person's taking a break, he thought with a smile, then stood up and walked over to the counter, hoping to find some clue as to where he'd landed up. Obviously, the energy that the Casimir engine had absorbed, then let out in a blinding burst, was sufficient enough to have somehow teleported the Green Lantern to a point far beyond San Diego. Since it was still daytime in this place, it couldn't be anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. It'd also have to be someplace that would possibly have snow in June, as well as a large, run-down urban area. The only place that sprung to mind was Australia, but those guys in the garage sure didn't sound Australian. The numbers refused to add up. He kicked at a small chunk of masonry in frustration and watched it skitter across the floor, coming to rest against a twisted wire rack. Jordan had paid the rack no mind when he'd first looked about the shop, but now that he was standing closer to it, he saw the metal sign attached to the top, and the message still semi-legible upon it: Complimentary Newspapers Courtesy of THE SEATTLE TIMES It took Hal a moment to wrap his head around that. Sure, Seattle was infamous for its lousy weather patterns (he'd been witness to more than one bone-soaking downpour while visiting Ollie and Dinah back when the city had been their stomping grounds), but more than six inches of snow in June? The thought was ludicrous...unless it wasn't June anymore... The roar of engines grew closer again, temporarily snapping Hal out of his train of thought. He slipped behind the counter and waited for the noise to fade, but this time it became a low, steady thrum of idling motors. Didn't fool them for long, he thought as he listened to the gang members call out to each other, laying out a plan of attack to find him. Hal spied a door leading to a back storeroom behind the counter and decided to chance it. Anything was better than sitting there waiting for them. While the storeroom was in worse shape than the coffee shop proper, he managed to wade through the mess and pry open an emergency exit leading to an alley. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he headed off to the right, keeping the general direction of the garage to his back. His mind was racing along as well, filling with thoughts of not just where he might be, but when. Okay, let's say this is Seattle. That puts me about a thousand miles north of where I started. Fine, I can believe that, but I shouldn't jump to conclusions about being knocked into another time. What proof do you have beyond snow flurries, Jordan? He reached the end of the alley, skidding to a stop and pressing his back to the wall. Out in the street, he could see three bikes idling in front of a building across the way, but only one gangbanger was in sight, pacing on the sidewalk and toting more of that high-tech ordnance. Well, the guns these guys have is a good start, he told himself, along with the fact that they all seem to take fashion tips from Mad Max movies. And let's not forget that a few of those cars I saw earlier didn't look like standard Detroit rolling iron. If I'm still in the same time-frame that I woke up in this morning, then I have become seriously out of touch. No matter the where or when, Hal needed to get out of the area, and in one piece. That meant better transportation than just his boots. He saw a length of pipe lying at the mouth of the alley, picked it up, then waited until the guy turned away from him again. It was impossible to be noiseless with all that snow crunching underfoot, but Hal was quiet enough to get within six feet of the guy before he heard him and brought his gun up. Green Lantern rushed him and swung the pipe, knocking the gun out of his hands before he could get off a shot, then stepped to the side and delivered a blow to the small of the man's back. Hal stood ready to swing again, but the man was on the ground, cursing from the pain and in no rush to get up. Deciding that was good enough, Hal went over to one of the bikes and hopped on. While the frame was bulkier than he was used to, and the tires as broad as those found on a car, the throttle and brake appeared to be the same as motorcycles he'd ridden before. Once again, that was good enough. As he began to gun the throttle, the two missing gang members came out of the building. "Hey! He's down here!" one of them shouted, and the two of them opened fire on him. Hal peeled out, narrowly missing a bullet to the head, but one of the other shots sank into his right thigh, inches above his knee. The bike went into a skid, but Hal managed to correct it and continue down the street, fighting the instinct to take his hand off the throttle and clamp it over the wound. "It'll keep," he hissed through gritted teeth, "just get clear of these idiots first." He weaved down rubble-strewn streets and past husks of buildings until he saw signs (what few were still there) pointing the way to Interstate 90. He was familiar with I-90 from previous Seattle visits, and used the markers to orient his path in a roughly eastward direction, so as not to find himself possibly driving into Puget Sound. Meanwhile, the trail of bikers behind him seemed to grow every time he glanced back: just the two at first, then another, then three more, until he had nine hulking machines on his tail. He had a good lead on them, but as the remains of the city dwindled away to nothing, so did his hopes of losing them. Hal pressed on, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could last: the green of his boot was being buried under red, and the wound itself was beginning to itch and burn. He didn't take that as a good sign, especially since the exposed portions of his face were having a similar sensation. Maybe it's frostbite from all this snow blowing in my face, he reasoned. The uniform's insulated, but the cold's starting to cut through that, too. After what seemed like years of driving through endless white, Hal spotted a cluster of low buildings to the north. He opened the throttle a little more and made a beeline towards them. As he drew closer, he saw they were a collection of warehouses (though many had fallen in on themselves) encompassed by a high chain-link fence. A large, battered metal sign still hung from the fence, stating the place to be Maple International Shipping & Storage. The message spray-painted over the top of this held Hal's attention a bit more: YOU COME IN HERE, YOU WON'T COME OUT Considering how lousy his other options were, Hal decided to risk it and slid to a stop in front of the gate. It was padlocked shut and wrapped in multiple lengths of chain -- whomever wrote the message on the sign was serious about their "No Visitors" policy. The fence itself was roughly twelve feet high and topped with coils of razor wire, some of which had fallen away. He picked one of the clear spots and began to climb, relying more on his arms so as to take pressure off his injured leg. By the time he made it over the top, the bikers on his tail had passed into firing range, and they peppered the fence with bullets as Hal made his descent. He jumped off the fence with only four feet to go, then ran as fast as he could up the main roadway between the warehouses, pain ripping through his knee like a sawblade with every step. Once again, the need to find cover was paramount. Unfortunately, the warehouses that were still intact were also locked tight. As he moved deeper into the complex, Hal began to realize he was better off on the cycle -- all he'd succeeded in doing was corralling himself for a slaughter. That point became crystal-clear when he turned right after darting between two of the storage units and found himself in a cul-de-sac. A large, imposing warehouse stood before him, flanked by makeshift walls of corrugated metal, blocking off any exit save for the way he just came. Hal turned around to go back, but it was too late: five of the gangbangers were already coming in the same way he had, guns out and their desire to use them written all over their faces. "Fun time's over, Greenie," one of them said. "You made us waste a lotta juice comin' out here, so now we're gonna take it outta your ass." Hal set his feet and raised his fists -- if any of them even tried to touch him, they'd be walking away with his ring-print on their jaw. His right leg was almost numb, and he felt light-headed from the blood loss, but he was resolved to not stop fighting until someone put a bullet in his head. In fact, when the crack of a gunshot rang out, Hal thought one of the gang members had tried to do just that, but then he realized the noise had come from behind him. At the same moment, the head of the centermost man snapped back, and he fell to the ground with a thud, a neat bullethole between his eyes. The remaining gangbangers brought their guns up, cursing and yelling, "Where'd that come from?" in turn. "Well, lookee here," a voice called out from somewhere in the vicinity of the large warehouse. "Ah come up here fer a bit of peace an' quiet, an' whut do Ah find? A whole passel of skunks a-sittin' on muh front porch!" The Southern twang on some of the words was so heavy, they became almost unintelligible. "Whut's the matter, don't they teach y'all how tuh read no more?" "Listen," one of the men answered, "this bastard here attacked us on our own turf..." "An' now yo're on mine! 'Sides, Ah don't give a damn whut he done tuh y'all afore, all's Ah see right now is one unarmed man bleedin' tuh death an' the five of yuh...correction, the four of yuh loaded fer bear with nary a scratch on yuh. Figure Ah'm just givin' the fella a fair chance." "Fair chance?!? You son of a bitch..." The man began to take aim at the warehouse, but another shot rang out before he even had time to pull the trigger. His body landed right next to the first one. "Don't test me, boys!" The last word came out sounding more like "bo-ahs". "Ah didn't get all muh beauty sleep last night, an' Ah'm feelin' a mite cranky!" Hal stood stock-still the entire time, not wanting to give either party a reason to turn their attention back to him. Dear God, he thought, this guy sounds like he's enjoying all this. He began to wonder in whose hands he'd be better off. "Screw this," one of the remaining gang members said, "he ain't worth it." He took a few steps backward, then turned and bolted back the way they'd come in. The others hesitated for a moment, then decided to follow suit, leaving Hal to the mercy of the unseen gunman. He slowly turned to face the warehouse. Now that things had calmed down a bit, he could see a series of horizontal slots about eight feet above the hangar-like doors. He then realized the design of the cul-de-sac was quite intentional: anyone that came through the area's single entrance would find themselves running right into the gunman's line of fire. "Yuh all right, son?" the gunman called out. "I've had better days." "Ah know whut yuh mean. Y'all come on up tuh the doors an' we'll get yuh fixed up right as rain. An' don't worry, Ah've got yuh covered if'n them owlhoots decide tuh double back." Hal began to hobble over to the warehouse, thinking, Owlhoots? Who talks like that? It seemed a rather silly thought to be having in the middle of all this madness, but something about that phrase -- not to mention the voice that said it -- kept picking at his mind, refusing to go away. It was familiar somehow, a memory that he just couldn't dredge up. The doors slid open just enough to let two people out: a young man and a woman, both of them bundled against the bitter cold much better than Hal was. "Hey there, bud," the man said, "need a hand?" He then put Hal's right arm over his shoulders before the Green Lantern had a chance to say anything. The woman did the same on his left, and he let them all but carry him into the warehouse. As they passed through the entrance, Hal looked up and saw a catwalk stretching out above his head, and the underside of the gunman's boots. Hanging down from the catwalk was an old wooden sign declaring that This Is A Dark Ride. Hal couldn't agree more. The interior of the warehouse had been divided up with more of that corrugated metal, creating false walls. Crates and equipment were stacked up all over, and cables ran down from the high ceilings and snaked across the cement floor to provide light and power where needed. About a half-dozen people were gathered in the front hall, none of them looking anywhere near as rough-and-tumble as the ones Hal had seen in the parking garage. After one of them closed the door to the outside, the woman beside Hal said, "Somebody go find Vance, tell him to get down to the infirmary!" She and the young man (actually, he seemed only a year or two out of boyhood) began to steer Hal down one of the hallways, but he asked them to stop a moment. "There's at least four more of those guys out there," he told them. "I can see that you folks have your front door pretty well taken care of, but you might consider flushing them all out before they can regroup." "Ah wouldn't worry too much 'bout thet," Hal heard the gunman say directly behind him. "Fellas like thet, they kin be like big, mean dogs: all snarlin' an' snappin' at yuh, but soon's yuh show 'em yo're a bigger, meaner dog than they is, they run home with their tails 'tween their legs." Hal turned around, meaning to tell the gunman that you can't be too careful, but the Green Lantern found himself struck dumb when he saw who was now standing before him, thumbs hooked under his belt. The clothes the man wore -- a black shirt and boots coupled with pants and a long coat of the deepest midnight blue -- were out of character for him, but the Old West-style gunbelts crisscrossing his hips suited him quite well. They weren't the ones he saw the man wearing the last time they met, but that was no matter, nor was the fact that the man had to be at least a century out of his element. Hal was just glad to see a familiar face, even one as badly scarred as this man's. "Jonah Hex?" Hal said, then let out a laugh. "Of all the people...I must be dreaming." Jonah's brow furrowed. "Do Ah know yuh from somewheres, stranger?" "I know it's been a few years...about six or seven, from my point of view." Hal slipped free of the two people flanking him and took a few careful steps forward. "I wouldn't think you'd forget somebody like me, though. Or this." He held up his right hand, the ring facing toward Jonah. "Yuh better start talkin' sense soon, or Ah'll toss yuh back outside muhself." The anger in his voice was becoming plain, even under the thick Southern dialect. "You really don't remember? Come on, Jonah, it was back in 1878, near a little town in Arizona called Desecration..." Jonah's eyes grew wide. At first, Hal thought he'd succeeded in jogging the gunfighter's memory, then he realized the look was more akin to shock. Behind him, Hal heard the woman breathe, "Oh, shit." "Ah cain't know yuh," Jonah replied in a low, even tone. Now it was Hal's turn to furrow his brow. It wasn't so much what Jonah had said as it was how: not "don't", but "can't". He started to take another step, saying, "What are you talking about?" but his injured leg gave out before he could finish and he pitched forward, falling right into Jonah's arms. He stared at Hal for a moment like the Green Lantern was a live grenade, then his expression darkened, the unmarred left side of his face becoming almost as ugly and twisted as the scars and burns on the right. "Get the Hell away from me!" Jonah shouted as he pushed Hal to the floor -- the Green Lantern clamped his jaw tight as needles of pain jabbed into his gunshot wound -- then Jonah drew a gun and pointed it at Hal. Unlike the holster it sat in, the firearm was no antique: it was a .357 Magnum, a proverbial "Dirty Harry" gun. "Touch me again, an' Ah swear tuh God Ah'll kill yuh," he snarled. The woman stepped forward, putting herself between Jonah and Hal. "Put it away, cowboy," she said. "I don't think he can hear you, Stiletta," the young man said as he bent down to try and pull Hal to his feet. She ignored him and kept her eyes fixed on Jonah, staring him down from beneath a sweep of blonde hair. "Shooting this guy won't change anything, you know that. Now calm down, put the gun away, and we'll work on getting some answers." "Ah don't want no answers," Jonah said, neither his hand nor his eye wavering. If he'd pulled the trigger at that moment, the bullet would have passed through the woman's stomach and into Hal's skull. "Ah want this bastard tuh disappear." Hal climbed to his feet, leaning heavily on the young man -- the barrel of the gun tracked him the whole time. "Jonah, what the Hell did..." " Shut up. Should've shot yuh when Ah had the chance, but now yo're in here...yo're in here like thet...thet thing was..." He swallowed hard. " Ah don't want tuh know any more." "Cutter, get this guy out of here, fast," the woman ordered, never taking her eyes off the gunfighter. "No argument here." The young man tugged on Hal's arm and led him down the hallway they were originally headed to. Above them, suspended from the ceiling by cables, a herd of carousel horses hung in mid-gallop. Some were missing a leg or two, others their entire head. The surrealism of the entire day was becoming a bit much for Hal. Little did he know, the worst was yet to come. To be continued!
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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 Nov 8, 2012 20:44:28 GMT -5
* * * Fools Rush In * * * For years, STAR Labs had been the worldwide leader in independent scientific research, with over a dozen facilities dotting the world. Unfortunately, their research sometimes made them a magnet for trouble. STAR's San Diego location was no different, having recently been rocked by an earthquake that submerged a portion of the city, but the building had withstood any heavy damage, and they continued to carry on with their business. As to what sort of calamity could have befallen them now, Hal didn’t have a clue, but he intended to find out. Once he was close enough to get a good view of the streets below, Hal leveled out of his descent and skimmed over the buildings, his emerald wake the only illumination. People were leaning out of windows or standing in the streets, looking to each other for an explanation as to what was going on. As he streaked by, he heard a few shout his name...or rather, he heard them shout for Green Lantern. Either way, he was glad to be recognized. The closer he got to the lab, the more chaotic things became. Cars were locked in a near-standstill for blocks, and crowds had begun to grow behind barricades erected just outside of STAR by the police. Uniformed officers mingled with white lab coats in the eerie shadows cast by the red-and-blue flashers on the cop cars. The STAR Labs facility itself, a twenty-story structure of sleek glass and steel, was just as black as all the other buildings in the area. Hal touched down near the front entrance, where a wiry-looking tech was gesturing wildly at a sergeant. “Anything I can do to help?” he asked them. “Oh, thank God, somebody that might listen to reason,” the tech said, then grabbed Hal’s hand and started shaking it so vigorously, one might have thought he was running for office. “Dr. William Steveling, head of the Propulsions Lab. You’ve got to convince these folks to shut down the power.” “Looks like you’ve beat me to it.” The man’s wide eyes got a little wider. “Huh? Oh, no...no, trust me, the power’s still flowing, it’s just all going to the same place.” He waved a hand at the building. “That’s what my ring said, but I...” “There’s no time to explain it,” Steveling interrupted, “just switch off the grid!” The sergeant piped in with, “And I keep telling you, we can’t turn off the whole city! We have enough problems with the power in this state without trying to cut off all the juice at once. It could crash the whole system...assuming I could even authorize it.” The tech let go of Hal’s hand and turned to the cop. “You’d better try, or else we could lose a lot more than a few paltry circuit-breakers!” “All right, quit it!” Twin beams of green light shot out from Hal’s ring and pushed the two men apart. He then looked at Steveling and said, “If you want my help, you’ll have to tell me what exactly is going on. I can’t operate in the dark...pardon the pun.” “There isn’t time...” he started to say, then saw the look on the Green Lantern’s face. “But I guess I’ll have to make time. Have you ever heard of a Casimir engine?” Before Hal could say one way or the other, Steveling told him, “It’s a theoretical device that can extract energy from a cosmic source known as an electromagnetic quantum vacuum. This is an energy field that exists everywhere in the universe in equal, level amounts, virtually undetectable. If one could find a way to tap into it, you would have an unlimited, inexhaustible power source, capable of propelling spaceships from one end of the universe to the other, no solid fuel necessary. Just turn on the engines, let them draw in the energy, and let it go. Not to mention what we could do with something like that here on...” The Green Lantern held up a hand. “Let me guess: you managed to build one of these engines.” “Just a small one. We even managed to get around the problem of cycling the energy-extraction process. Without that, the engine would only be good for one use. The only problem is...we can’t get it to stop.” “You mean you can’t turn it off?” “Well, technically, it hasn’t even turned on yet, not fully. It’s still in the energy-collecting stage.” It was becoming clear now. “So this thing...” Steveling nodded. “When we tried to switch over the engine to test-fire it, something shorted out. It began to draw on the building’s power through the hookups for the monitoring equipment. We tried to shut down the circuit breakers here, but those failed as well. It’s drinking the city dry, and I’m not sure how much more power that engine can hold before...” He splayed out his fingers, mimicking an explosion. Hal glanced over at the barricades a scant half-block away. “How big a potential explosion are we talking?” He asked the tech. “Just the building, a few blocks...?” “I don’t know. At least a few blocks, probably. Possibly a few miles...especially if the engine is still getting any feed from the quantum vacuum. There could be a backlash through the entire field, flattening everything in its path. It’d be like lighting a match in a gas-filled room.” For a moment, Hal felt numb. Another city, another disaster, countless more lives wiped out in a blink...but this time he was here, not on the other side of the universe. His gloved hands tightened into fists. “Sergeant, I need you to start evacuating every building in the vicinity,” Hal said, “and keep going until there’s no one within a five-mile radius of this place. I don’t care if you have to drive them through the streets like cattle, just get them the Hell away from here.” The policeman began to say something, possibly an objection to being ordered around, but Hal cut him off with, “Do it, or I’ll hold you personally accountable for any lives lost tonight.” He nodded, then rushed over to a squad car and got on the radio. Hal turned his attention back to Dr. Steveling, saying, “Is everyone out of the building already?” “Cleared them out first thing. Luckily, most everyone had gone home for the night.” “Good. Now what floor is this thing on?” “Fifteenth, Main Propulsion Lab.” Hal’s eyes scanned the front of STAR Labs, counting floors, then he raised the hand bearing the ring. Emerald fire danced across the symbol carved upon it. “Not again,” he said under his breath, “never again.” With just a thought, he launched himself upwards until he reached the right level, then used his ring to make a portal into the building. At the same time, he ordered his ring to send out an emergency signal to the other Lanterns, relaying the pertinent information along with it. He wasn’t sure if any of them would get the message in time, but he had to try. Once inside, Hal was confronted with a steady, high-pitched whine that reverberated through the dark hallway he was standing in. He could feel a thrum running through the floor and up his legs as well. Jordan flew down the hall, following the directory plates on the walls to the main lab. The signs became unnecessary the closer he got to the lab. The doors stood open, and a bright white light poured out into the hall. The protective aura around Hal darkened slightly so it wouldn’t blind him as he entered the room. In the center of the high-ceilinged room sat Dr. Steveling’s “small” engine. Eight feet tall, twelve feet wide, and nearly was deep, it was flanked on either side by monitors and diagnostic equipment. Hal could see where someone had attempted to disconnect the machines from the engine in an effort to stop the energy drain, but obviously they had fled the lab before they could finish the task, and with good reason: along with the intense light being thrown off through the exhaust ports, the engine was producing erratic sparks of energy, arcing off the surface and burning whatever it touched. We’ll need to stop that first, Hal thought, and projected an energy shield around the device. That seemed to exacerbate the sparking, but at least it was now contained. He then began to slice through the remaining connections, lifting the engine out of the cradle it rested in as he did so. I’m going to have to cut open the walls to get this thing out of here, let it explode in orbit and hope that’s... Suddenly, Hal felt something tug on his arm. The engine dipped, but he managed to keep it in the air. “What the Hell...” he began to say, then felt another tug. He then realized the tugging was centered on his ring...and that the light pouring from the engine was taking on a greenish cast. The Casimir engine had found a new power source. Oh damn. “Got to get rid of this,” Hal said as he fought to keep control over the ring. Cracks were beginning to form on the engine casing, and the whine was getting higher in pitch. He tried to summon the energy to punch through the lab wall, but the ring wouldn’t obey. He’d have to fall back, switch off the beam and evacuate, lest the device bleed him dry. “No...no, I can’t do that,” he gasped. Hal forced every ounce of his will into the ring, strengthening the shield so as to contain the imminent blast. His arm ached from the effort it took to keep the ring’s energy concentrated on the task, and he clamped his left hand over his right wrist to steady it. “If I’ve got to die again...to save others...then dammit, I’ll die again!” Seconds later, the engine discharged, the unleashed power shattering the shield and engulfing Hal in an emerald firestorm.
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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 Nov 8, 2012 20:43:20 GMT -5
* * * How Soon Is Now? * * * He was a hero to some, a villain to others...and Hal Jordan wondered just how long it would take for him to sway the opinion of the latter. Be patient, he told himself as he hung in orbit above the Earth, a hazy green nimbus the only thing protecting him from the cold, crushing void of space. It hasn’t even been two days yet. It’s going to take time...for you and them. But Hal didn’t want to wait, he wanted his old life back, or at least as much as he could salvage. He’d taken a few small steps in that direction, contacting old friends of the “civilian” variety. For those that didn’t know of Hal’s double life, some half-hearted explanations had to be made, of course, but most were just glad to find out he was alive, and were happy to have him back in their lives. Ollie had been lending a hand as well, letting Hal crash at his home in Star City and just being there for moral support (“Us dead heroes have to stick together,” his long-time friend joked). And, of course, there was the Corps. After finally being freed of Parallax, they’d accepted him back into the fold, no questions asked. That had been the biggest morale-booster for Hal since he’d come back: being able to bear the symbol of Green Lantern once again. They didn’t have to take him back, not after Parallax had used Hal to dismantle the Corps, but they did...and it felt like he’d never left. When Kyle asked him to come to Oa and reacquaint himself with the new Guardians, however, Hal declined. “Let me think about it,” he said. “I want to get things in order down here before I start thinking of up there.” At the moment, zipping across the galaxy seemed to him like running away, a perfect excuse to ignore the fact that many of his colleagues, people he’d fought alongside for years, didn’t trust him. Few of them had said anything outright, but he could feel the tension when he ran into them, like his life had become an old-time movie serial, and Hal was the shifty-eyed stranger that just rode into town. Batman had been the most blunt about it so far: “Do you expect me to believe this? That you were influenced? Possessed?” Bruce said it in such a tone that it sounded like he was calling Hal a bald-faced liar without actually doing such. To a small degree, he could forgive the man’s lack of tact: it was Bruce’s way to constantly play devil’s advocate for the Justice League, cracking open silver linings to root out the clouds. “I don’t expect you to believe anything,” Hal had answered, “and quite honestly, I don’t care.” But that wasn’t completely true: deep down, it worried him that, for the rest of his life, the shadow of Parallax would eclipse the light he so desperately wanted to carry through the universe once again. He wished he could make everyone forget he’d fallen from grace, just snap his fingers and wipe out the whole incident. The irony was, if he'd still been possessed by Parallax, he could have done just that. But that creature was out of his soul now, imprisoned once again in the Central Battery on Oa, so instead he pushed himself harder than he’d ever done the first time he bore the ring, doing his best to show them all that, despite the past, he could be a hero once again. That was what brought Hal Jordan to his current vantage point: with the ring, he could scan the Earth for any signs of trouble. The fact that his position also placed him square between the planet and the JLA’s base on the moon wasn’t lost on him. Hal supposed that, unconsciously, he’d chosen the spot as a way to send a message to anyone in the Watchtower who doubted the Green Lantern’s intentions: I’m standing out on the front lines while you’re hiding away in a fortress. Who’s got the best interests of the world in mind here? Had it been Guy standing there instead of Hal, his fellow GL probably would have flipped the bird at the Watchtower’s long-range sensors for good measure. But Hal wasn’t interested in picking fights, he just wanted to do his job, and do it well. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,” he said aloud, gazing down upon the Earth far beneath his feet. Nighttime was beginning to cover the West Coast, the entire North American continent sparkling with clusters of light. Out of habit, his eyes traveled up the Pacific coastline, searching for a specific pattern of lights that wasn’t there anymore. Stop torturing yourself, he thought, and placed a white-gloved hand over his eyes for a moment. How do you expect others to forgive you if you can’t forgive yourself? It was the one old wound he feared would never heal properly: the loss of Coast City had been the beginning of the end for him, and it was the one piece of his old life that he could never retrieve. There had been some rumblings made by the government recently about rebuilding, but it wouldn’t be the same. You could replace the buildings, but not the people. With a sigh, Hal let his hand drop away from his eyes, glad that no one was there to see him at such a low moment -- the way he felt, he was sure his mask wouldn’t be able to hide his emotions. He then remembered that was why John stopped wearing his: to show people he had nothing to hide. “Sorry, friend, guess you‘re a little braver than me in that department,” Hal muttered as he looked back down at California. This time, however, his eyes were drawn further south, towards San Diego. Something about the light radiating from there didn’t look right. After a moment, he saw the discrepancy: they were dimming. Having spent nearly his entire life on the West Coast, Hal was familiar with rolling blackouts, but this wasn’t the same. The darkness was spreading out in a circular pattern like a blast radius, instead of following the layout of the power blocks. It moved slowly as well, almost imperceptible at first, but it appeared to be building speed. Bringing his right hand up, Hal said, “Ring, analysis.” At a glance, the ring Hal wore on his middle finger looked like an unusual class ring, perhaps one given out by a quirky fraternity. In a way, it was: the members had once stood 3,600 strong, but now only five belonged. No other frat, however, could boast of being in possession of one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. With two simple words, the ring scanned the phenomenon, processed the collected data, and delivered a response in the space of a heartbeat: [Rapid drain of city’s power supply in progress. Energy being redirected to location at epicenter of disturbance]. “Where’s that?” [STAR Labs]. Not good, Hal thought, then said aloud, “Ring, power check.” The ring paused a moment to assess its current charge, then replied, [Power levels at 98.71 percent]. “Once more unto the breach,” Hal said to himself, then plunged into Earth’s atmosphere like a falling star.
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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 Nov 8, 2012 20:41:43 GMT -5
* * * Night Terrors * * * Lord, don’t make me go through this again… He was back in the Red Dog Saloon like a day hadn’t gone by. He could smell sawdust and cheap whiskey, the sweat of tired cowhands and the fancy perfumes of soiled doves. The clink of glasses behind the bar reached his ears, as did the clatter of poker chips being tossed onto a table. The first time he was there, he’d barely noticed these things, but now they stood out like signposts in the middle of the desert, marking the way to places long gone. The comfort of familiar surroundings was overshadowed by the pain their loss gave him, but even that pain was nothing compared to how the sight before him made him feel. Jonah Hex stood at the bar staring at himself…his old self, dressed in Confederate gray and none the wiser that his life was going to be thrown ass-over-teakettle in less than five minutes. It don’t have tuh be, though. All’s yuh got tuh do is move, he tried to tell his other self, but the words wouldn’t come out. Just take maybe three steps tuh the right, an’ it might miss yuh. Old Jonah paid no heed to the silent advice, choosing instead to pick up the bottle on the bar and pour himself another shot. He looked lost in thought, probably wondering what he was going to spend his newly-acquired bounty money on. Five thousand dollars wasn’t a bad haul for barely one day’s work. It ain’t gonna be worth one red cent if’n yuh don’t move, yuh empty-headed fool! He reached out to grab a handful of his old, Rebel-gray coat, but it did no good: his hands passed right through it like it was of those fancy “hollergraphs” that gave him a headache to look at. Again, the other Jonah didn’t notice, just knocked back his whiskey and commenced to pouring another glass. Dammit, whut’s wrong with yuh? he wanted to scream. Do yuh want all this tuh disappear? Don’t yuh care anymore? “Jonah!” In unison, they both turned their heads toward the saloon door at the sound of their name, the same word coming to both their lips, though only one of them could be heard: “Emmy?” “Jonah, thank Heaven I found you!” Emmylou Hartley ran into the old Jonah’s arms, burying her face in his chest. Like everyone else in the saloon, she didn’t see the man standing barely two feet from her, dressed in clothes that had no Earthly reason for existing in 1875. He wanted desperately to be seen, though, to be heard. He wanted to be holding Emmy in his arms, not watching his ghost do it for him. How long had it been since he’d seen her? Six months? A year? A thousand years? He didn’t know anymore, the days of his life had become a blur. He wasn’t even sure if the feelings he still held for her were from love or loneliness, he just knew that where she was held more appeal to him than where he’d been hanging his hat as of late. “Ah’m glad yuh had better luck than me, sugar,” the old Jonah told her, cupping her chin in his hand and tilting her face up towards his. Even clad in a heavy rancher’s coat and spattered with mud like she was, Emmylou was still a pretty young thing. “Ah’ve been lookin’ high an’ low fer yuh, an’ y’all bustin’ in the door like thet is the best lead Ah’ve had in months.” “He’s after me, Jonah!” Emmy went on, as if he’d said nothing at all. “He’s…” The batwing doors of the saloon banged open once again, cutting her off mid-sentence. “That’s right, you pigtailed tramp, I am after you!” bellowed the grizzled man that stepped in, pulling leather as he did so. “And this time, there’s no place for you to run to!” Shoot him now, Jonah tried to tell his other self. Just shoot him, grab Emmy, an’ get the Hell outta this place! It didn’t make a bit of difference: same as the first time, the old Jonah thought he had the situation under control. Sure, he was certain this was the same man he’d seen robbing the local assayer’s office (and forcing Emmy to help him…she couldn’t be helping of her own free will), but there hadn’t been a man born that could outshoot Jonah. His father always said Jonah was the fastest Hex…but he also said that his son wasn’t the smartest Hex. “Look here, mister, Ah don’t rightly know just whut yer beef is,” he said, leaning back against the bar, “but if’n yo’re bound an’ determined tuh keep wavin’ thet gun around, Ah recommend yuh come back here when Ah'm in a more forgivin' mood." "To Hell with that!" The man cocked his pistol. "I'm gonna kill that woman...and if I've gotta kill you first to do it, then that's exactly what I'm gonna do!" Patrons began to dive under tables and head for the door. More than a few knew what Jonah Hex was capable of when riled, and didn't want to be in the way when the bullets started flying. "Don't, Brett...please!" Emmy sobbed, and made to grab the old Jonah by the arm. He shook her off and began to take a step forward, the cold killer's look coming to light in his eyes. "All right, partner," he said, "if bein' dead's the only thing's gonna make yuh happy..." Fer God's sake, don't let it happen again! Jonah leapt forward, trying in vain to push his other self out of the way, but it was too late. A strange red light materialized out of nowhere, striking the old Jonah square in the chest. He staggered backward a step as if he'd been shot, but the light didn't let him get far. It quickly engulfed him from the top of his Confederate officer's hat to the tips of his traildust-encrusted boots. Emmylou backed away, screaming, "Oh my God! What's happening to him?" Suddenly, the red light pulsed outward. The old Jonah had disappeared, carried away to a time and place that, even now, he could barely fathom. The light remained, however, obliterating everyone and everything in its path: the bar warped and caved in on itself, all the bottles and glasses behind it exploded like clay targets in a shooting gallery, the remaining patrons blew away one tattered shred at a time, and Emmy...she melted like a beeswax statue tossed in a furnace, her cornsilk hair turning black as the poor girl twisted in the wake of the red light's destructive wave. Only Jonah Hex remained unscathed as the light exhausted itself, sweeping away any trace of his old life. It left him nothing, not even shrapnel or ash, just a stark black plain. He stood there with his eyes squeezed shut, hands balled into fists, his tall frame shaking from anger and frustration. He'd failed...no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop it. "Yuh cain't change the past, boy," a voice said. "Just let it go." "No, there has tuh be a way. Ah'll find a way back someday. Ah'll stop it afore it even happens, Ah kin..." "Do yuh really think yuh kin change this?" The speaker was close to Jonah's face, the smell of formaldehyde wafting out with every word. "The past, the future...it's all been set in stone. Yuh cain't erase it, no matter how much yuh may want tuh. Face it, boy: yuh may be alive right now, but yuh've been dead a long, long time." "No, Ah ain't dead...Ah ain't dead..." "If'n yuh ain't dead, then whut the Hell am Ah?" "...don't want tuh die like thet..." Bony fingers dug into Jonah's arms. "Look at me, boy!" Jonah's eyes snapped open and faced the glassy stare of his own corpse, the leathery, preserved skin coated with layers of paint to give the illusion of life, but succeeding only in making the image more grotesque. The corpse's attire was just as bizarre as its visage: a white, spangled outfit more befitting a rodeo rider than one of the most feared and respected bounty hunters of the West. The fact that it was draped over such a gangly, desiccated body made the sight on a whole fall somewhere between laughable and horrific. "Don't fret too much 'bout it," the corpse told Jonah, smiling as well as its partly stitched-together lips would allow. “We all got tuh die sometime...even black-hearted sonovabitches like yerself." It let out a dry, barking laugh. "At least somebody found a good use fer yuh in the end!" "Ah won't end up like yuh!" Jonah roared, then reached up and started to claw at the corpse's face. His fingers pierced the flesh like it was made of tissue paper, spilling out wads of cotton and clumps of sawdust. The glass eyes popped out and rolled away into the black, as did the corpse's white ten-gallon hat. It kept laughing at Jonah as he squirmed in its grip, his hands ripping out tufts of silvery hair. He screamed at the mocking skull, but his words had long since become inarticulate, the sounds coming from his throat more akin to sobbing. The corpse tossed him to the ground, saying, "There ain't no use in denyin' it. It's already happened, an' it'll happen again." It spread its arms wide, gesturing to the wasteland around them. "Yo're always gonna end up right back here." Jonah shook his head. "No, Ah know whut's gonna happen now, Ah kin stop it afore..." "Yuh don't know a damn thing. Yuh don't even know how yuh got these back." The corpse's gloved hands dipped down and drew Jonah's old guns: ivory-handled Colt .44 Dragoons, lost long before he arrived in this godforsaken place. It pointed them at Jonah and thumbed back the hammers, telling him, "Yuh ain't never gonna know thet the end's come 'til it's too late tuh do anything 'bout it." Then the guns went off like a crack of thunder. Jonah raised his hands as if to ward off the bullets, but it was a futile gesture: one slug tore through his chest, bursting his heart, the other piercing him neatly between the eyes and blowing out the back of his head. Blood and gray matter sprayed everywhere as he fell back, the corpse still laughing while Jonah's body tumbled into the black with no end in sight...not until he'd fallen all the way to Hell... In the darkness of his room, Jonah Hex sat up in bed, barely managing to bite back the scream before it had fully left his mouth. His sweat-slick body trembled as he tried to push away from his mind the last clinging remnants of the nightmare. "Ah ain't dead," he whispered, the phrase having become almost a mantra for him over the past month. "Ah ain't dead...Ah ain't dead..." As he sat there, elbows resting on his knees and hands buried deep in his red hair, he wondered (not for the first time) if a man could die from lack of sleep. Once he felt more in control of himself, Jonah reached down and fumbled around for the wrist-chrono Stiletta had given him. He hated wearing the thing, and tended to leave it lying on the floor near the bed. When he located it, he pressed the tiny button to illuminate the watch face, read the time, then threw it across the room with a curse. Three hours. He had to get up in three damn hours to play watchdog. "No way in Hell Ah'm gonna be ready," he muttered, "haven't slept more'n twenty minutes at a shot." He knew of a solution, though he also knew that he'd been depending on it a bit too heavily as of late. He didn't have a problem yet, no sir, he was a long way from that. His father had a problem, but not Jonah, he was still in control, he'd stop as soon as the nightmares stopped. He reached down again, this time groping under the bed until he found the bottle wrapped discreetly in one of his shirts. The guy that had sold it to him called it everclear, but to Jonah, it was just high-quality moonshine. Bet if'n yuh proofed this stuff, the flame would be a brighter blue than on the Stars an' Bars, he thought as he took a long pull off the bottle, draining a quarter of it without pause. He leaned back in bed, coughing a little from the alcohol fumes. Ain't drinkin' tuh get drunk, he told himself, it's just tuh help me relax, get some sleep, thet's all. He took another swig, then another, not even taking note of how much of the stuff he was pouring down his throat. By the time the bottle slipped out of his fingers and clattered to the floor, Jonah had fallen into an alcohol-fueled stupor so deep the shrill beeping of the chrono's alarm three hours later almost didn't pierce it.
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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 Nov 8, 2012 20:39:05 GMT -5
Issue One; Story by Susan Hillwig, Cover by Joey Jarin
***From Jonah’s point of view, these events take place one month after Hex #18. For Hal and the rest of us, they fall between Green Lantern: Rebirth #6 and Green Lantern (vol. 4) #1***
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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 Nov 7, 2012 13:47:52 GMT -5
Issue #1 should be up tomorrow, and I'm trying for a bi-weekly schedule, give or take, wrapping up right around Christmas. Thanks for reading the preview...hope you enjoy the rest!
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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 Nov 4, 2012 13:42:44 GMT -5
Congrats, Charlie!
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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 Nov 4, 2012 13:41:14 GMT -5
Tipping my hat to DC2's new blood.
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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 Nov 4, 2012 13:36:21 GMT -5
Yeah, I poured a lot of my heart and soul into TLRH the first time around, since I figured it'd be the only Jonah Hex story I'd ever write (short-sighted me, eh?). Doing the re-edits, I've found very little that I want to change aside from a couple of punctuation errors and clarifying some sentences. That being said, there is some new dialogue in the upcoming issue #1, and you'll get some new scenes in #3 and 5 (for those keeping score, this is a 5-issue mini, plus the 0 issue). I'll let you guys figure out what's new and what's not.
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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 Nov 1, 2012 20:09:08 GMT -5
Check out the letters column for the first set of "Notes from the Road", and to leave your comments on TLRH#0!
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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 Nov 1, 2012 20:05:13 GMT -5
Notes from the Road: The Idea As with all great works, this story was partly inspired by a bout of depression.
In late 2004, I was six comics away from polishing off my Jonah Hex collection. This was a task I’d been working on for well over a decade, and had thought I’d never finish, but thanks to some recent lucky finds, my want-list was rapidly shrinking. Around the same time, I finished the first draft of my Western/fantasy novel, and the seventh (and presumed final) book of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series was released, so there was this definite vibe of “all things must end” bouncing around in my noggin, especially when it came to the perpetually-dying Western genre.
I’m not going to lie, I realize most folks think Westerns are silly or one-note. Hell, even I don’t read or watch every oater out there because my tastes are kinda narrow. It’s that realization that made me somewhat depressed back in 2004, for I knew that, once I acquired the last Jonah Hex comic on my list, there would be no more. Like many other comics companies, DC was fully vested in superheroes now, and the Western genre was a rare blip on the radar in the four-color world. The last time they’d trotted out Hex had been five years previous -- Shadows West, his third and final Vertigo miniseries -- and the results hadn’t exactly been glorious. There was no conceivable reason for DC to give him another chance, which meant not only would I never see a "new" Jonah Hex story, but also that a certain question would forever remain unanswered.
In 1985, DC launched the singly-titled Hex, an ill-conceived attempt to keep the character around in an era that could no longer support a Western book. Inspired by the Mad Max movies, they dropped Jonah into the hellish nuclear nightmare of 2050 and let him tough it out. It lasted for 18 issues, and in their rush to sweep the mess under the rug, DC neglected to return Jonah to his proper timeframe, an error made even more glaring by the book’s last page, which shows Jonah finding his own stuffed and mounted corpse in a rundown warehouse. Crazy as it sounds, the corpse was actually a long-established fact in DC history: in 1978, the Jonah Hex Spectacular showed readers Jonah’s demise and subsequent desecration. So we knew Jonah Hex wasn’t destined to remain in the future, yet we had no clue as to how or when he would get back to the 1800s. When Vertigo revived Jonah Hex in the mid-1990s, they ignored the conundrum completely, and doubt began to seep in among fans that Hex was even still canon (there are some who’d argue these days that the Vertigo version of Jonah isn’t canon either).
So there I was, getting bummed out over the notion that I’d soon reach the end of everything Hex, coupled with the deep-seated need to know the answer to something unanswerable. Then came the announcement only a few months later that Jonah Hex was getting a new series in 2005. I went from depressive to manic rather fast. This couldn’t be real, it had to be a joke...but it wasn’t. It was honest-to-God happening. No one knew what exactly we were going to get, but just the idea that we’d be getting something was mind-boggling. Despite my giddiness, I knew DC would very likely continue to ignore the whole “Future Hex” debacle, and considering that the series was now about two decades old, the likelihood of an official answer faded further into the background. So I decided that, before the new Jonah Hex series launched, I’d create my own answer, if only to assuage my own curiosity.
I was only vaguely aware of fanfiction at the time, so I didn’t know how far I could spread the nascent idea in my head -- I originally planned on posting the story bit by bit on the now-defunct DC Comics message board -- my main concern was coming up with a rock-solid solution to getting Jonah home, one that could stand up to whatever scrutiny fans might put it through. Lucky for me, I had nearly every single appearance of Jonah Hex in my possession, which meant I not only had access to his entire tenure in 2050, but I also knew that wasn’t his only brush with the future. For the sake of making this story more accessible to anyone unfamiliar with Hex or that particular series, I decided to include another character to act as a go-between, someone who -- admittedly -- has a wider fanbase, but also legitimate ties with Jonah’s past. Little did I realize that decision would prove to be the key to unraveling a twenty-year-old riddle.
More on that later...on to the letters!
- Susan Hillwig
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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 Nov 1, 2012 19:57:00 GMT -5
* * * The Day Before * * * “There, that’s the last of it.” Vance laid down the scissors and removed the bandages from Jonah’s right hand. “Can you flex your fingers?” Jonah didn’t respond at first, then, slowly, he did as he’d been asked. Vance nodded and said, “Looks good. The lacerations weren’t too deep, but you had so many I was worried about how well they’d heal.” “He’s had a lot worse, haven’t you, cowboy?” Stiletta laid her own hand upon Jonah’s shoulder -- he didn’t seem to notice. “One time, a guy smashed both his hands with a sledgehammer.” Vance’s eyes widened. “Was that here or...you know...back there?” “Back there,” Stiletta replied. “He told me about it months ago, when I asked about the funny scars on his palms. Then there was another guy who snapped half his fingers by stomping on them. Hard to believe he can still make a fist after all that.” She leaned a little closer to Jonah, saying, “You wanna tell Vance about what you did to those guys? I bet he’d like to hear.” Jonah said nothing, he just sat upon the gurney, with no expression on his pale face. He hadn’t shaved in days, and the bags under his eyes spoke of sleepless nights. “That’s all right, you can tell me later,” Vance said, gently picking up Jonah’s left hand and going to work with the scissors again. He examined the healing wounds with the same care as before, then said, “I don’t think we need to wrap them up again. Just keep your hands clean, okay?” He tried to look Jonah in the eyes as he spoke, but the man’s head was tilted slightly downward. “Let’s move on to your stitches, shall we?” Vance began to pull up Jonah’s shirt, then stopped when he saw what was underneath...or rather what wasn’t. “Where’s the bandage?” “No clue,” Stiletta said. “He must’ve pulled it off at some point. He was complaining yesterday about it itching.” Vance swore under his breath as he gave the stitches a closer look -- the wound across Jonah’s abdomen had nearly closed, though it was still an angry reddish-purple. “Fine, you can leave it off...but same rules as with the hands. If this gets infected, you’re going to be in trouble real quick, understand?” He swabbed the area with antiseptic, just to be sure, then let the shirt fall back into place. “Just sit tight for a few minutes, Jonah, we’ll be right back,” Vance told him, while looking at Stiletta and gesturing towards the back of the infirmary. Once the two of them had walked over there, Vance asked in a low voice, “Has he said anything today?” “Not a word,” she answered. “I don’t get it, he’s been fine all week. Red’s even got him scheduled for watchdog tomorrow. But today it’s been like dealing with a...” She bit her tongue, not wanting to say the first word that came to mind: corpse.“Post-traumatic stress can be like that -- good one day, bad the next -- and disassociation isn’t uncommon at all. Right now, his mind’s focused on the trauma, and we’re just background noise. All we can do is keep talking to him like normal, try to draw him back to reality. When he’s responsive again, we’ll have do our best to keep him from relapsing. Getting him back on watchdog duty will probably help.” Vance shook his head, saying, “I’ll admit, I don’t like the idea of giving him a high-powered rifle, but he seems to respond better in that kind of situation, like he’s falling back into an old routine. Was he ever a soldier, back where he came from?” “He’s mentioned something about a war once or twice, but I think it was a long time ago...for him, I mean.” Stiletta let out a sigh. “What about the pills? Any luck?” “Yes and no.” Vance opened a nearby cabinet drawer and produced a clear plastic baggie with a dozen pills inside. “A medico at Freepoint had some quetiapine...it’s an antipsychotic. Not what I was hoping for, but it does sometimes help PTSD and insomnia. Problem is, there can be side effects, plus it might take a couple of weeks before we see any results, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to get more.” “But it’s a start, right? If it can at least help Hex get some sleep, calm down the nightmares, maybe he can pull himself the rest the way out once the pills are gone.” “Maybe...or we might just make him sick as a dog for two weeks. And that’s another thing: he cannot be drinking while he’s on this stuff. It’s bad enough that he was getting drunk when I had him on the painkillers, but antipsychotics alter brain chemistry. If you...” “Ah ain’t crazy.” Stiletta and Vance both turned to see Jonah standing less than five feet away. The blank look was gone, replaced by one that bordered on anger. “Jonah, are you okay?” Stiletta asked. “Yuh think just ‘cause yuh know all thet fancy doctorin’, yuh kin get away with talkin’ ‘bout me like thet?” Jonah was glaring at Vance, completely ignoring Stiletta’s query. Vance blinked in confusion, then said, “I-I wasn’t referring to you, Jonah, I was talking about the pills. ‘Antipsychotic’ is a drug classification.” “We just want to help you,” Stiletta added, taking a step towards Jonah. She could see his hands were beginning to tremble, and that was never a good sign. “If you take the pills, you’ll be able to sleep through the night, and you’ll start feeling better.” “No, Ah won’t. Yuh said they’d make me sick, mess with muh brain...” “That’s what they’re designed to do,” Vance replied, then realized it was the wrong thing to say when Hex’s expression became more fierce. “Ah won’t let yuh poison me!” Jonah lunged forward and grabbed the baggie out of Vance’s hand. He then spun around, ran out of the infirmary, and headed for the communal bathrooms located near the sleeping quarters. As luck would have it, whomever was on honey wagon duty hadn’t emptied the tanks yet, so Jonah ripped the baggie open with his teeth and dumped the pills down into the mess that lay beneath one of the toilet lids. “What the Hell are you doing, Hex?” Stiletta yelled when she barged into the bathroom. “Gettin’ rid of thet snake oil.” He threw the empty bag into the toilet for good measure. “There...now they ain’t no good fer nobody.” Stiletta gaped at him for a moment, then went up and began beating him with her fists. “You stupid briq-licker! What’s wrong with you?” Jonah whirled on her and roared, “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with me, dammit!” Despite his furious expression, the fear dancing in his eyes was plain to see. “Why cain’t y’all just leave me be fer five goddam seconds? The both of yuh keep pokin’ an’ proddin’ at me like a couple of buzzards on a dead man. Well, Ah ain’t dead! Yuh hear me? Ah ain’t dead!” His voice had an edge of hysteria to it, and his hands now shook uncontrollably. Just then, Vance arrived at the bathroom door. Jonah stared daggers at him, then shoved past and headed down the corridor to his room. The doctor watched him go, unsure if he should follow, then went over to Stiletta instead, who was leaning hard against the wall. “What happened? What’d he do?” he asked. Stiletta gestured vaguely towards the toilet, and Vance said, “I’ll try to find some more. Maybe if we ground them up and slipped them in his food...” “That he hardly ever eats these days,” Stiletta interrupted. “Unless you plan on force-feeding him the stuff, which I’m sure will go over great with him.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do anymore...even I’m starting to lose sleep over this.” “Try to hang in there. It won’t do any good if you fall apart too.” Vance slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I just wish there was a way we could get him to talk about it, maybe we could convince him to not be afraid of what he found.” “Not be afraid? Jonah found his own dead body in the back of this stinking warehouse, and nobody knows how it got here!” Stiletta wiped a hand roughly at her cheeks, saying, “I don’t think there’s anybody on this planet with enough willpower to resist being afraid of something like that.” To Be Continued In Jonah Hex/Green Lantern: The Long Road Home #1!
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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 Nov 1, 2012 19:54:03 GMT -5
When I joined the staff of DC2 in late 2005, I had only one major fanfic under my belt: a team-up between a newly-resurrected Hal Jordan and a time-lost Jonah Hex called “The Long Road Home.” It was a labor of love, created to fill a gap in Jonah’s history that DC has taken great pains to avoid. I still get notes about it from Hex fans, some of whom (in the absence of a real answer) have accepted it as unofficial DCU canon. When I started up Weird Western Quarterly, I considered the story to be canon here as well, and planned to one day rewrite it to fit DC2’s unique continuity (the 3-part Justice League/WWQ crossover “Lead Us Not Into Desecration” was a DC2-ified version of some events referred to in TLRH). Two dozen issues later, WWQ is right on the edge of where that rewritten version would be dropped in...if I hadn’t already undertaken a certain other project.
In 2010, I started a direct sequel to “The Long Road Home” over in the Elseworlds section, called Jonah Hex: Shades of Gray. Unlike its predecessor, this one is ongoing, with nearly a dozen issues of its own already written and posted here on DC2. So all things considered, it now seems that rewriting that first story to fit DC2 continuity is unnecessary -- those who read my stuff on a regular basis are wise enough to figure out that some variation of it happened to my DC2 version of Hex as well -- and that it’d be best to simply bring the fic that started it all over here proper. Still, it didn’t seem right to just re-post a seven-year-old story on another site as-is, so DC2 will be getting a special “Extended Edition” of it, re-cut with some extra dialogue and scenes that didn’t make it into the original version, along with a “director’s commentary” of sorts in each issue’s letters column, explaining how certain elements of the story came together. This zero issue in particular is a brand-new prologue written exclusively for this site, and later on, I’ll tell you about what first inspired me to write “The Long Road Home” all those years ago.
Before we get to the lettercol, though, I have a little something to show you. See that old warehouse standing over there, all covered in snow? We’re gonna sneak inside. What we want is near the back, in the infirmary...yes, people live in here. When the world gets blown to Hell, you’ve gotta make do, y’know? Never mind that, you’ll find out more later. Just be quiet right now and watch...
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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 Nov 1, 2012 19:48:03 GMT -5
Issue Zero; Story and Cover by Susan Hillwig
This story is re-dedicated to the memory of Jonah Hex’s creators, John Albano and Tony DeZuniga.
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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 Sept 29, 2012 12:51:16 GMT -5
Loy!!! You're alive!!! (tackles him) Where've you been, you lil' bugger?
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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 Sept 10, 2012 12:56:26 GMT -5
Yeah, things have, once again, become sort of random around here (can't complain too loudly, I'm part of the problem). Don't let the laziness of old members discourage you, though. If you've got a story you want to tell, then don't be afraid to tell it!
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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 Aug 30, 2012 15:01:49 GMT -5
I really do apologize for the long wait between issues, but things have just gotten too busy around Hillwig HQ to churn them out any faster (yep, I can't even maintain a quarterly schedule anymore). I'll do my best to have WWQ#25 out by the end of the year, and after that...well, that'll be the last one for a good long while. Yep, you heard it here first: WWQ is going on hiatus, at least where it comes to my output. I do plan on pounding out more stories at some time in the future, and I'll gladly look at submissions from other writers in order to fill the gap, but I really do need to walk away for a while. More details will follow in #25's edition of "Trail Talk".
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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 Jul 19, 2012 23:29:17 GMT -5
Yay for DragonBat! Hope your new job pays well!
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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 Apr 30, 2012 12:10:34 GMT -5
I'm sorry, I just got the stuff with my credit cards straightened out this weeked, but never got a chance to chip in (my entire Sunday was spent helping friends move...my husband and I were the only ones to to show up, and we busted our butts for 12 hours straight). I'm glad you guys met goal and then some, but dangit, I wanted to toss in my share as well. Please let me know when the book's available for order, I would like a copy.
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