On a rooftop in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Kilowog meets Green Spectrum. He tries to call him green—a newbie.
Specs has been playing superhero locally for about a year, dealing with bullies and assholes. Before that came about a year spent mostly alone, trying to understand what was happening to him and learning some control. Blue comes naturally. Green is easy to use.
The Ring looks like something Kilowog knows. It is a construct, a manifestation and a focus for Spectrum’s power. No ring chose him; he has not claimed one. He taps the emotions directly—or they tap into him. The Ring makes working with Kilowog a little easier, but it does not make Specs a Lantern.
“I’m not a fucking Lantern!!”
Kilowog starts trying to train him. Green is supposed to be the easiest, provided he can control it. To Green, making a construct is doing the thing, and doing the thing is easy.
Kilowog keeps going on about what a Lantern has to do.
“A Lantern has got to…”
“I’m not a fucking Lantern!!”
It takes weeks to get Kilowog to believe him. The training continues over months, with Kilowog still trying to make a Lantern of him.
On Oa, Specs meets Guy Gardner as part of his welcome to the Corps. He also meets the Green Lanterns’ record keeper, whose interface becomes an inspiration for Gaze’s computer interface.
The Ring is a construct, but it functions as a Ring: communications, scans, and answers. Specs uses those functions as the Green Lanterns use theirs.
Near the Central Green Lantern Battery, he slides back to Blue. His proximity nearly overpowers the Battery. That is what finally gets Kilowog to believe he is not a Green Lantern.
New friends, familiar colors
Among his new contacts, Specs explains the hues he knows and the testing he has already done. He calls them the Sliders; he slides from one to another. He can describe what he does without being able to explain where it all comes from.
Aya learns about ReRunts. Blue already knows how to do them from his time exploring alone, and the name catches on through Aya.
The Lanterns find Green Spectrum and the other color names confusing to use in a room full of Lanterns. They do not know any other Pattys. Blue shows them Rainbow Brite, and Green becomes Patty, as in Patty O’Green. Emerald Star and E-Star are also names they use.
They love having Blue around: double power, no charging needed. Some of the Lanterns also know how quickly Gaze or Sin might appear if Kyle Rayner turns up in his civvies, and they pick on Spectrum about it. It is never mean. The teasing sits somewhere between big-brother familiarity and people from different galaxies whose idea of weird is not his.
The Guardians ask about the newer and outer hues Specs has accessed—hues that are not fully understood. They have questions about how he can do it.
“I just can.”
They know of Ultraviolet through John Stewart. They ask Specs to demonstrate it.
“No.”
Flat. Unwavering.
“Why, may we ask?” asks a Guardian.
“Cause some shit ain’t yo business, bitch!”
Aya and Green work on constructs. She is powerful, but constructs are still new to her. Her constructs tend to be very real: she works through how a thing functions and makes the thing.
Patty tries to teach her to let it be. The thing is the thing because she Wills it to be; it does what it is meant to do because she Wills that, too. He does not need to understand all the internal mechanics of a gun for a gun-shaped construct to work like one. He pretends, and light takes form.
For the work he needs done without the light, he has a guy for that.
Aya makes a large hammer. The construct is hollow, but it holds the strength of the strongest metals.
Then a twig, with a slight bend.
“But it’s a twig.”
She says it over and over.
For about ten seconds, she makes it work like a laser gun.
The twig goes “pew pew”.
It is difficult for Aya, but she enjoys the challenge. There are nanoseconds she might shave off formulating a construct before she makes it. Patty keeps playing pretend.
IndiKid has a different problem: he cannot go Green and remain IndiKid. None of Patty’s things has worked as a Green token.
Aya has something that can.
Aya gives IndiKid one of her old chest symbols: strong metal through which her Green life energy once pulsed.
She has seen the idea in one of Blue’s ReRunts. She breaks the symbol in half, like a best-friends necklace.
Aya keeps half and works it into her current body. Looking closely enough—machine-close—there is a seam. It bugs her, but it reminds her of Indi.
IndiKid keeps the other half, clipped at his waist off to one side, like a badge that becomes visible when a jacket is pulled back.
It works. IndiKid can tap Green. When he tokenizes it, most people would notice only a green glow beneath his cape or jacket.
When he receives it, IndiKid can articulate what it is like for an AI to experience emotions it is only beginning to learn about. He can guide Aya by channeling her own language. They become best friends.
The Green he tokenizes from Aya makes very detailed, relatively small, fully functional tools. A hammer can feel light and still smash. A twig can go pew pew, for ten seconds.
After months of training, Patty explains what working in Green feels like.
“It’s … well… it’s dull… I mean… it’s not bad… it’s just, it’s just… you just do the thing… doing the thing isn’t hard, you just do it! You’ve been trying to get me to be a Lantern for months! It took me weeks to get you to believe I wasn’t a GL and it took sliding back to Blue and nearly overpowering the Central GL Battery due to proximity just to get you to believe me! I mean, seriously, why do you guys imagine your shit breaking!!! Just don’t let it break, it’s not hard!!!!”
Kilowog hates the conversation.
Good question.
He would never say it aloud.
For months, Kilowog works with Patty and watches him, without noticing that not once—not a single time—has a crack appeared in any of his constructs. Green does not notice either. Why would he notice the absence of something he would not let happen, because he did not Will it to happen?
Guy is a new flirt as well as a new contact. He has a story for Sin about someone else to talk to.
“There’s a guy, he was a Lantern, but he wasn’t… he’s Green, but been around for ages… maybe talk to him… he’s not had it easy, lost a lot, got kids… that’s a long story… but good guy.”
As Guy tells the story, Sin pops away and Blue comes out instantly.
Alan Scott is the next lead.
