The highway was thick with rush-hour traffic. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes jockeyed for position and seventy miles per hour, their drivers seeming to be only vaguely aware of the others around them. In the distance, incredibly-tall buildings could be seen, gleaming bright in the late-afternoon sun. As they drew closer, a large sign came into view beside the highway:
Welcome to
COAST CITY
“The City Without Fear”
“This is it,” Mike said as he angled the car towards the proper exit. “Where exactly do you want me to drop you off, Jonah?”
“Ain’t rightly sure.” Jonah absentmindedly rubbed the spot over his heart as he stared out the window. The ache was still there, throbbing in time with his pulse, and he still wasn’t sure why. Perhaps something had gone wrong the last time the ring put him back together, though he couldn’t imagine what, as everything else about him seemed normal...well, as normal as Jonah seemed to be these days. “Any chance we could ride around the city fer a spell?”
“I suppose.” Mike gave him a sideways glance, saying, “Please tell me that you haven’t been bullshitting me all this time. You really do have friends here, right?”
“Ah’ve got one friend, but he doesn’t know Ah’m lookin’ fer him. Been a real long time since we spoke last.”
“How long?”
By muh count, ‘bout a hunnert an’ thirty-two years, Jonah thought, but he didn’t tell Mike that. Instead, he asked in as casual a tone as he could muster, “Y’all come into the city much?”
“From time to time.”
“Yuh ever see Green Lantern?” Again, Hex tried to sound casual.
“Once,” Mike answered. “But that was in the
old Coast City, before it had been destroyed and rebuilt.” He paused, then said, “It’s kind of creepy down here.”
“Come again?”
“What they did in some areas.” They were driving on the surface streets now, past buildings that were just beginning to show signs of weathering. “They tried to replicate some of the old landmarks...you know, put them in the same places they’d been before? I understand what they were trying to do, but...”
“It’s like they’re tryin’ tuh raise the dead,” Jonah said tonelessly.
“Oh, I don’t even want to talk about
that incident. Abby’s still having nightmares.”
Mike guided the vehicle around a corner, pointing them towards downtown, while Jonah continued to stare out the window. Since he was unable to remember Hal’s last name, the only way he’d be able to find the man he sought would be via his Green Lantern identity. With that in mind, Jonah had been trying to use his altered vision to his advantage by keeping his eyes peeled for any flicker of green in the sea of gray that stretched out before him. Since Hal’s ring ran on willpower, he should theoretically be bathed in that emotional hue constantly, but so far, the only flashes of green Jonah had spotted were from some rather average-looking folk passing by -- Jonah stared hard at each of their faces, but he didn’t feel even the slightest twinge of recognition, nor did he see the proper sort of ring upon anyone’s hand. He began to suspect that this might take longer than he thought when he suddenly caught a glimpse of a brilliant surge of green light spilling out from behind a row of buildings. Jonah sat up so fast that his seat belt immediately locked and pinned him to the seat. Cursing and slapping a hand against the belt release, he said to Mike, “Stop here!”
“What, in the middle of the street?”
“Do it!”The forcefulness of Jonah’s command took Mike by surprise. He hit the brakes, setting off a cacophony of car horns behind them, then watched as Jonah wrested free of the seat belt's grip and picked up his satchel from the floor of the vehicle. “I’m beginning to think Tom was right about you,” Mike said. “You’re a bit of a whack-job.”
“Ain’t rightly sure whut thet means, but Ah reckon it ain’t complimentary.” Jonah popped open the car door, saying, “Ah’m gonna let it slide, though, ‘cause of the way y’all helped me.” He then got out of the car, oblivious to all the blaring horns and profanities being lobbed at him. “Take good care of them horses, y’hear?”
Mike hadn’t even begun to form a reply to that when Jonah slammed the door and took off running towards the light. He dodged vehicles until he reached the sidewalk, then barreled through the knot of pedestrians that had the misfortune to get in his way. A few were knocked to the ground, but Jonah didn’t care: he was within a hair’s-breadth of finding Green Lantern, and
nothing was going to stop him.
As he got closer, Jonah noticed the green light never wavered, and it occurred to him that Hal might be involved in a battle somewhere behind those buildings. It certainly would explain the brilliance of the light, yet he couldn’t hear anything that sounded like trouble coming from that direction, nor did the people nearby seem concerned. Nevertheless, Jonah snaked a hand down to his satchel and felt around for one of his Dragoons, ready to whip it out and use it should the situation arise.
He rounded a massive marble-covered building and bolted into the open area beyond...then stopped, confused. He was standing in the midst of a large public park, made up of numerous islands of grass bordered by cobblestone paths. A few statues were scattered about, including a huge three-dimensional replica of Green Lantern’s symbol, which appeared to be the source of the green light.
But why kin Ah see it? Jonah thought.
It’s just a statue, not a livin’ thing. He approached it, and as he felt the warmth of its light wash over him, he realized that, while the statue as man-made, the light itself was pure willpower, a construct from Hal’s ring. That’s why it wasn’t merely a blob of white like every other bright object he looked at, though he still couldn’t fathom what the purpose of the thing was, other than to trick him into running pell-mell across the damn city.
Other people milled about the park, some of them pausing to look at the giant lantern like Jonah, or perhaps they were more interested in the four human-shaped statues that flanked it. To Jonah’s eyes, the statues wore rather strange attire, save for the one dressed like a sailor -- the outfit hadn’t really changed at all in the past century -- and it was only after he saw the words “NO FEAR” engraved upon the lantern and took into account the general appearance of the whole area that Jonah finally made sense of it all.
It’s a war memorial, he reasoned silently,
like the one Ah saw in Paradise Corners. The sailor’s obviously a Navy man, an’ the other fellas...well, reckon the Army’s uniforms must’ve changed an awful lot over a hunnert-odd years. As for the lantern’s presence in this tableau, Jonah took it to be a show of solidarity on Hal’s part, a sign of respect from one peacekeeper to another. He recalled how the Green Lantern had once described himself as being like a Texas Ranger, which meant -- to Jonah, at least -- that he was a lawman of unique caliber, and it reassured him to see that Hal wasn’t just blowing smoke.
The bounty hunter was still ruminating on this when a child’s shout caught his attention: “Look, Mom! Green Lantern’s here!”
Jonah whipped his head around to see a little boy running to the far side of the park while a young woman chased after him. The boy soon stopped before a man dressed in long underwear who bent down to shake the boy’s hand -- such a friendly gesture wasn’t out of character for Hal, but the thick orange glow that surrounded the man certainly didn’t seem right. Jonah made a beeline for them, and the closer he got, the more sure he was that this man wasn’t who he appeared to be.
“What’s your name, my little Lantern buddy?” the man asked the boy.
“Jeremy Collins!” The boy didn’t seem to notice that the Green Lantern before him was skinny as a rail beneath his poorly-sewn spandex costume, or that his mask was held in place by an elastic band. “I waved at you when you flew over our house last month. Did you see me?”
“Of course I saw you. It’s my job to watch over everybody.” The man grinned and put his hands on his hips in an effort to look heroic. “Say, I bet you’d like an autograph, huh?”
“Yessir!” The boy looked ecstatic the man led him over to a cart that reminded Jonah of a small drummer’s wagon. Loaded on top of it and hanging off the sides were a vast array of trinkets emblazoned with Green Lantern’s symbol: shirts, buttons, masks, postcards, even tiny figures like toy soldiers. Now Jonah understood what the orange glow was about.
As the man wrote “Green Lantern” on a picture of the genuine article, Jonah strode up to him and grabbed him by the front of his cheap costume. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” the man said.
“Ah think Ah’m about tuh wallop somebody fer makin’ money off a good man’s name,” Jonah growled.
“You leave him alone!” The boy struck Jonah in the leg with his small fists. His mother wisely pulled the boy away, but not before the boy loudly declared, “He’s a superhero, and he’ll kick your butt!”
“Ah seriously doubt thet.” Jonah flashed a wolfish grin at the faux Lantern. “How ‘bout yerself, skinny-britches? Think y’all kin kick muh butt?”
The orange glow slowly leached away to yellow. “Look, I-I don’t want any trouble. I’m just trying to make a living here.”
“Not off’n them, yuh ain’t,” Jonah replied, nodding towards the mother and her son, both of whom were now a good distance away and were quickly getting further. “Y’all remind me of a fella Ah met once. He was sellin’ picture postcards of dead outlaws, an’ Ah set him real straight on how Ah felt ‘bout thet...an’ those weren’t even fellas Ah
liked.” Jonah pulled the man close and said, “So how do yuh think Ah feel ‘bout y’all dressin’ up in them longjohns an’ playin’ at bein’ a fella Ah actually got an ounce of respect fer?”
“Oh God,” the man groaned, “you’re one of those hardcore fans, aren’t you?” He tried to draw himself up a little straighter as he said, “Listen, if you’ve got a problem with what I do, take it up with the city. They’re the ones who gave me the vendor’s license to do this, same as all the other GL cosplayers. Heck, I know a couple of guys who dress up like Green Lantern and Sinestro, then act out a fight in front of City Hall five times a day on Saturdays. They rake in a lot of cash, believe me.”
“An’ the real Green Lantern lets y’all get away with it? Or does he get a cut of the take?”
The man scoffed. “What does Green Lantern need with money? I heard he lives for free up on the moon with the rest of the Justice League. He only comes down to Earth to bust heads, y’know?”
Thet cain’t be right, Jonah thought.
It don’t fit with the Green Lantern Ah know. Hal had struck him as being a bit uppity, what with his fancy ring and his “no killing” rule, but he knew from listening to Hal talk about Coast City oh so long ago that the Lantern cared for the place far too much to live apart from it. Wherever Hal hung his hat, it was most certainly down here amongst his people, not up in the stars. That was why he wore a mask and kept his real name secret, just like John Tane used to do in Mesa City...and that town only held a thousand people at most, not the millions that supposedly lived in Coast City. “So, if’n he don’t live down here,” Jonah asked, trying to follow the thread of the man’s reasoning, “how in blazes do y’all let him know when yuh need him?”
“I dunno, I guess the cops got a way to call him up. Or maybe it’s the National Guard that does it.”
“There ain’t no way for regular folks tuh get his attention?”
“Sure there is.” The man smirked. “Put on some weird outfit and rob a bank. I bet he’d find your crazy ass real quick.”
Jonah fell silent, still clutching the front of the man’s costume, then suddenly shoved the man into his souvenir cart -- both the man and a good amount of the merchandise were soon laying on the ground. “Hey, come back here!” the man yelled as Jonah walked away at a brisk pace. “If I ever see you in this park again, I’m gonna shove that ugly hat of yours down your freaking throat, you bastard!”
“Mommy, Green Lantern said a bad word!” a little girl passing by with her parents said.
The man turned towards them and gave his best apologetic smile, but it obviously wasn’t cutting it.
I think it’s time to call it a day, he said to himself.
