Someone does show up at John’s room, but it’s Zoe. “Did Macon send you?” he wonders, gun pointed at her chest. She says she came on her own. He eventually lowers the weapon and presses her up against the door, kissing her. It gets hot fast, and in the afterglow, she chuckles about how much better it was “not in my truck.” He shares that he’s pretty sure everyone — including her and Hal — is lying to him. “When I tell you what I know, everything changes,” she says. “I can’t do that.” She asks him to leave town, but he says no way. So she leaves, and as her truck pulls away from the motel, a red beam from above locks onto the vehicle and blows it to molecules of smithereens.
Hal immediately is on the scene, flying up to grab the weaponized satellite and bring it back to the parking lot. Then he creates a massive, green, protective bubble around the whole structure. The satellite belongs to a company owned by Hector Hammond, the owner of a nearby slaughterhouse, but John thinks that’s too easy a solution. As they drive to the slaughterhouse, Hal asks how John is doing, given that his most recent hookup has been vaporized. “I’m handling it,” the younger man says. Hal notes that death is part of the gig, and that he should “avoid real relationships from here on out. Keep people at a distance for their own safety. Lonely f**king job.”
And off that really depressing sentiment, the men walk into a super high-tech facility where all of the workers don’t seem to notice they’re there — even when directly addressed. John and Hal find their way to Hammond’s office, and the first thing the man says is John’s parents’ address: He threatens to blow it up if he’s not alive at the end of their interaction. Hector says he’s been privy to all of their conversations at the motel, and plays John’s chat with the Guardian so everyone in the room can hear. Awkward!
Hammond says he’s the Manhunter, but Hal doesn’t believe him. He asks Hammond what color Abin Sur was, elaborating that Abin was the pilot who gave Hal his ring and who dropped Hammond off on Earth before he died. Hammond claims not to remember. Hal calls him a “smokescreen for someone else, a decoy.” And using some intel Sinestro gave him about Manhunter hearts (which have an undetectable flaw when alive, but crystallize when dead), Hal scares the man into admitting that he’s human, after all. Hal forces Hammond to stop the countdown to blowing up the Stewart family home, and then they get to the bottom of things: Hector Hammond is really Hector Gutierrez, whom the Manhunter offered tech to help his community and family in exchange for providing a front. And when Hal demands to know who the Manhunter is, Hammond says, “Isn’t it obvious? Will Macon.”
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