Chapter Seven
Eli eventually went back to her ship while John traveled to Jefferson's house. It was Thursday afternoon, and everybody was discussing the Carnival on Saturday. It was a good idea for Eli to tell him about the Destroyer because it gave him time to read up on the birth rates. At first, he didn't quite understand why he needed four years of Lantern training when Hal Jordan only had a few days. But now that humanity was on the line, he understood why he had to be a diplomat within the Green Lantern Corp.
John sat in Jefferson Pierce's living room to discuss the events that occurred with his now deceased partner. He felt a little dismayed by how Inspector Henderson treated him in the matter. In addition, he didn't have a true understanding of why the Lantern Corp chose him over all the other humans on the planet. He didn't feel like he was anything special.
Jefferson poured John some whiskey, and then said, "It's a great honor to be chosen for the corp. How many Lanterns are there from Earth?"
"I'm not sure," he said calmly. "Now that I'm learning another universe existed before this one, I believe the Lantern Corp might be over a million years old. At one point, Earth was a major player in the universe."
The old man laughed for a moment. "How old is the Green Lantern Corp?"
"Like I mentioned before, we're the newest iteration of the corp, but my ring has a history that goes back a million years. I'm not sure how I feel about some of the history. The whole idea of good guys and bad guys loses its meaning when looking at the history."
"What do you mean?" Jefferson asked with a grimace.
"There was a war over the Kryptonians. The Guardians of Oa hated them, tried to destroy them over a million years ago, and it eventually resulted in the destruction of their world. Apparently, the reason the Kryptonians didn't escape their world was that large robots called Manbots kept them from leaving."
"You're saying the Guardians are responsible for the destruction of Superman's homeworld?" He asked.
"It's in the ring's history," he said, "I guess I could be interpreting it wrong. I don't know."
John's sister Lynn decorated the home with a certain style that gave it a noticeable, positive feel, a serenity that he loved. Every item in the house had its place. The couch was congruent with the love seat and the love seat was congruent with the coffee table. John's apartment was the exact opposite of Jefferson's home. Nothing match. It was one large, uncomfortable room of incongruity.
They were the only people in the house, and he needed some advice about his next move. The scent of cedarwood flowed through the air. He had a vapor unit on the coffee table that masked any odorous smell. "In a few months, I'll be heading to Oa," John said with a smile. "I can't imagine going to another planet, but it's going to happen."
Jefferson stood up and walked over to his wine cabinet. He pulled out a bottle, two crystal glasses, and shared another drink with his brother-n-law. "Something must be happening within the human race, John," Jefferson said calmly, "We've gotten a slew of humans with powers beyond the norm. It happened with the advent of Superman, and now we have aliens coming out of the woodwork. I think Earth needs a new Lantern since Hal Jordan disappeared because we have aliens of royal blood seeking refuge from hostile takeovers of their planets."
"What's with these other metahumans?" John asked. "How about Black Lightning? Where is he from?"
"I don't know. Possibly the cosmos," he said. "But now we have this young Vulcan calling for a new Justice Corp to keep an eye on the sky. This Vulcan guy wears a complete mask over his face, and everything about him is completely hidden. He's saying humanity must change her ways or the gods will wipe us off the map."
"He sounds like a loon. I heard part of his address to the United Nations, and the leader of South Korea tried to order him to take off his mask. It resulted in a complete shutdown of the event, but Vulcan said, 'I'm here to save humanity from itself.' He then walked out of the room," John said, "But what if he knows something the rest of us don't?"
"It's highly possible," Jefferson said, "I saw the newspaper article that more people are dying than being born these days."
John looked at his brother-n-law for a second, and now that he had time to truly think about what Eli told him, he felt nervous and scared-and apprehensive. "Eli told me she analyzed the atmosphere and a disease was in the atmosphere that's killing humanity."
"Was she serious?" Jefferson asked.
"Yes," he said, "Moxians don't appear to have much of a sense of humor. But I sensed she had great consternation about what she found out about humanity. She said some kind of being from the future judged humanity and sent a representative back through time to kill off mankind for its misdeeds."
"I don't know if there's any validity to that," Jefferson said, "We're trying to do better, but we've had setbacks."
John laughed. "Are we trying to do better? American children are killing each other. Corporations are poisoning our air and water. Children are walking around with lead poisoning. I fear we're savages compared to the rest of the universe."
"We've hit a lull in our thinking, but given time we'll pull through. We always do," he said, "What are we doing so bad that a being wants to destroy us?"
"Not embracing our humanity," John said, "Not seeing that we're all human beings is the greatest sin in the universe.
Later in the evening…
When John left out of Jefferson's house, he watched a tall, dark-skinned couple with a baby looking at the sky. The man smoked a nice pipe with a strong, cinnamon aroma, but his style of clothing wasn't with modern times. Something about them wasn't exactly right. It was like they saw an old movie from the fifties, and decided to emulate it. They had an extremely nice house, a manicured lawn, and a fancy, nineteen-fifty-seven Chevy car parked in the driveway. The dome light in the automobile flashed red, and the Lantern thought that was odd. The man looked across at John, waved, smiled, and then walked over to his luxury, old-fashioned car. Everything seemed off, manufactured, and a sham, but at the same time, John was in his feelings about the sickness that plagued humankind.
"That's strange," he said to himself. "It's not every day that I see people so free from social constraints that they wear clothing sixty-something years out of date." He had only worked on the Freeland police department for a little under a year and didn't know everybody in Freeland. He grew up in the town but didn't have a clue about the strange couple, with the strange car, and the cute baby. When he walked over to his car, he saw the black sports car rolling down the street, and it stopped in front of the fancy house. He didn't notice how much muscle the car had on it. He could feel the power from the engine as it rolled up beside his vehicle. Immediately, the couple went into a defensive position when the strange man stepped out of the car with face paint and dressed in all black. He was dressed in gothic attire.
"JJ, is that you?" John screamed from across the street.
Immediately, the kid turned to see John, and said, "I remember you. How are you doing?"
"Pretty good," he said, "It's nice seeing you."
"You too," JJ said.
