I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it.
~~~
I bet you know what’s coming. Robby did. My parents did. All my friends did. But me? Totally clueless. They tried to whisper it to me, saying she was changeable, “like the wind.” But I was just a fool in love and told them that’s what made her so great.
Ashley and I were a couple for exactly three years and five days. In May of 1998, she was done with me. Just like her skiing adventure. One day we were in love and she couldn’t be happier. I had been shopping for diamonds, trying to figure out when to pop the question. And the next day she had gone all mercurial and was moving out.
“Why, Ash?” I asked her. We had both graduated and were living in a slightly less crappy apartment. I was working as a manager for a car wash (kinda using my business degree, but hoping to move up to corporate soon) and she had been through six different jobs since school, the last one as a graphics designer building websites.
She shrugged and kept stuffing clothes (not folding mind you) into her Neiman Marcus luggage.
“Is there someone else?” I asked, feeling like I stood on a high precipice, my stomach falling out of my body, sweat stinging my back, my nose full of her lilac scent.
She snorted and gave me a twisted grin that said, Are you nuts? You know me. My reasons aren’t like other people’s. I am not one of the common people.
I begged. I pleaded. I cried. She left.
To this day I can’t stand the scent of lilacs.
~~~
It’s funny (as in ironic) but I used to call her “Ash.” No one, surprisingly, had ever done that. She thought it was cute. She liked it. After the tides changed and she left me, I felt like she had left me as a little pile of ash. The Nik that existed before then—not totally together but happy and having a general idea of where he wanted to go—was gone. All that was left was the desiccated remains of my emotional self. (And yes, I am being dramatic here. I was young. I had just lost what I thought was the love of my life. I was feeling very dramatic.)
I quit my job at the car wash, took a year off to “hike” through Europe—I spent most of my time in pubs—and then just drifted. I took uninspired jobs, had uninspired relationships, and just let the years fly past.
Earlier in this story, I wasn’t honest. I wasn’t telling the truth about why I was drifting. Why I was thirty and unattached. Why I had really settled for a janitor’s job at Palo Verde. It wasn’t as if I was still grieving the loss of Ashley (I wasn’t that lame). It was just that her departure took away my momentum at a crucial time and I hadn’t gotten it back.
And here’s what’s really ironic (as in funny): without Ashley and her abrupt taking-the-wind-out-of-my-sails departure, none of this would have happened. Neutrinoman, the war turning out like it did, Licia, me and Toxicwasteman. None of it.
Because of her I eventually became a janitor. Then I became Neutrinoman. Then I met Licia. Then things changed, boy did they change.
Chapter 5
Meteorite in Sight
Fall 2004, Verde Valley, Arizona
I’d like to say that my subsequent actions in regards to the flaming demon of a meteor were taken with confidence and awareness. But, alas, I cannot. They were done with fear and trepidation, and a complete lack of confidence in the result. I am told, however, that it doesn’t matter, and that I looked very confident.
I was pretty sure Lightningirl and I could survive this. We could both get out of the way quick enough: me flying and her going fully electrical. But I feared for the entirety of the Verde Valley. A meteor that big could do a lot of damage. West of Flagstaff is Meteor Crater. It’s about 4,000 feet across and 600 feet deep and was caused by a meteor that was only about 150 feet in diameter, nothing like this monster.
I leapt skyward, jets of neutronic energy thrusting me forth. I flew on instinct, faster and surer than I had before.
I also loosened the control on my neutronic reaction—kind of like they do in the reactor: I, metaphorically, raised the control rods all the way up, and at the same time strengthened my containment of the energy.
I am told that I became brighter and brighter until my light rivaled that of the sun.
I didn’t put up a shield, or shoot neutron bolts, I just let my reaction grow stronger, my body grow hotter. I ran straight into the meteor, gave it a heartbeat (not that I had a heart at the time) and completely let go of containment.
I knew there might be some radioactive consequences to this, but it was better than total oblivion for those below.
I could feel the rock melting around me. I heard an explosion. I saw that I was falling, but couldn’t do anything about it, my resources were spent. I noticed bolts of lightning jabbing up and striking all around me.
When one of the bolts impacted me, I felt myself come back to life, just a little bit. As I fell, with the remainder of the meteor all around me, I stabbed out again and again with neutrino bolts, reducing more of the rock to vapor.
~~~
“Are you okay?” Lightningirl asked, looking down at me as I lay in the small, smoking crater I had made in I-17 when I landed.
“Zzzz,” I began. I was desperately short of energy, close to turning back to flesh—which would be quite inconvenient—and dazed from the expenditure of energy and force of my landing.
She moved to the edge of the crater and squatted down looking at me. Her left hand was extended out, with electricity arcing to it—she was drawing energy from the power lines that ran along the highway. As she drew closer, sparks flew from her to me, giving me a sip of energy and clearing my head.
“Zap me,” I said, clearly this time.
She stared for a moment, her scintillating electric head forming a smile, her shoulders shrugging. “Okay. You asked for it.”
She extended her right hand towards me and lightning arced from her to me. It was potent, and uncomfortable, and exactly what I needed.
When I felt myself come back (or rather when I couldn’t stand it anymore), I rose, held my palm up and shouted, “Enough.”
She relented, stepping back far enough so our spontaneous energy exchange ended too. She stood higher than me (I was still in the crater), her left hand still drawing energy from the power lines.
“Thank you,” I said. I looked around at the destruction. The area was pockmarked from the small meteorite impacts; there were some small fires burning, I heard sirens, and saw a few people coming out from under the bridge. “So, how’d we do?”
She smiled, “Not bad.”
Her smile seemed familiar. With a start I remembered where I was going before all this began: Licia and the winery.
“So, ahh,” I began. “Nice meeting you. I gotta fly.”
With that I leapt in the air and flew back towards my car.
~~~
I didn’t have much time, I knew it. That jump start Lightningirl had given me wasn’t going to last long. I aimed myself directly at my destination and got as much momentum going as possible.
And good thing too. Once I was halfway there, I felt the neutrino jets coming out of my feet begin to falter and I had to take them down to a minimal level. I used my momentum and began a somewhat controlled descent back towards my car.
When I was about three hundred yards away and one hundred feet in the air, the jets cut out completely and I fell. I managed to hold onto my neutrino form long enough that my impact into the ground was nothing more than jarring.
I crawled out of the little crater naked and made my way back to the car. I ran low and fast, trying to cover my private parts and keep an eye on the highway. It was, thankfully, devoid of traffic, and I made it to the car without being seen.
First, I run away from the car like a madman, and then a little while later I sneak back without any clothing on. See why I was glad there were no witnesses?
I was starving and dehydrated. My neutrino form uses everything in me it can for fuel: food, water, even my waste products. Depending on how much energy I expend, it
can consume some or all of it. This time was all, and my physical condition was not good.
I crawled into the backseat, grabbed the gallon jug of water I keep back there and a granola bar and started to refuel. Once something was in my belly, I put on the spare set of clothing I had stashed and got into the front seat bringing the water with me.
I felt ill and exhausted, but I was somewhat functional.
I fished the rest of my stuff out from under the front seat. When I pulled my phone out I saw I had two text messages.
The first text message was from Palo Verde: “Your presence is required ASAP. Urgent.”
The second was from Licia: “I’m okay, I hope you are too. Given the meteor incident, we will have to reschedule.”
I laughed, the “meteor incident” was an interesting way to describe it. Understated and factual. I was even more intrigued.
.
Chapter 6
My Kingdom for a Costume
Fall 2004, I-17, Central Arizona
You know how in all the comic books and superhero movies that somehow our superheroes, despite their devastating superpowers, always have some convenient high-tech material that they can use as a costume? How no matter the force or the gyrations our superhero goes through, the costume somehow survives without a scratch. Shoot Superman and you discover that not only is he the man of steel, but those bullets don’t even do a thing to his blue tights.
Well, that’s just not the way it is. I have asked, whined, begged, and pleaded to no avail. It just isn’t possible. The force of my neutrino radiation and emissions is just too powerful. So I have to live with it (or rather, without it).
I have to strip before each change, or watch my clothes turn to ash, and deal with it on a janitor’s salary. That’s right folks, Neutrinoman used to shop for clothes at Goodwill and Wal-Mart. And I have to come out of a change naked and often in the most embarrassing places.
Because of this I started drinking less beer and working out more. My neutrino form looks like me, and well, if I am going to be parading around naked (even as a scintillating yellow nuclear reaction), I want to look good.
So why, you might be asking yourself, am I rambling on about costumes and clothes when the largest meteor in the last 50,000 years almost decimated part of my home state?
Well, it is simple really: the same is true of Lightningirl. Her lightning body will burn clothes off just as easily as my neutrino body.
Which means the curves I saw as we fought together were her curves.
And they were nice.
And I’m a man, so I do tend to notice these kinds of things.
Besides, my classic rock radio station had been interrupted by news coverage of the event, and they kept mentioning us, but boy did they get a lot wrong.
They reported my actions pretty accurately but not Lightningirl’s. Eyewitnesses reported that she attacked the crowd with lightning (which she did, just to get them out of danger, and she didn’t hurt anyone), and that she attacked and chased off Neutrinoman after he had saved the day (she had saved me from exposure of both my secret identity as well as my lily-white flesh).
The news was obsessed with it. “What is wrong with Lightningirl, has she changed sides?”; “Has Neutrinoman met his match?”; “Neutrinoman Saves, Lightningirl Lashes Out.”
I shook my head chuckling. She must be pissed.
~~~
Maybe I should back up a bit.
There is a lot of inaccurate information about what happened to us when the cosmic rays hit and the accidents happened. And that is to be understood; there just isn’t a lot we really know.
So here is what we do know.
All three factors (accident, cosmic rays, and animal bite) combined to make us the morphs we are today. The same basic formula happened to the twenty-one superheroes and supervillains created that day, although the last factor is variable (not everyone was bit). For example: Toxicwasteman was created during a chemical spill at the Hillington chemical plant in Tucson. He wasn’t bitten; he smoked genetically modified tobacco, and that was his third element.
In all cases, that third piece is taking something external into your system proximal to the event.
Okay, so that is the general creation formula.
The results actually vary quite a bit. Lightningirl and I are what are classified as quantum-metamorphs. Meaning we change at a quantum level into a different form when we manifest our superpowers. We are literally not biological, not human, when it happens. Our consciousness is there, our memories (usually), but not our bodies. I am a nuclear reaction, she is an electrical reaction.
The others morphed on a quantum level, but only once and permanently. They are referred to as quantum-biomorphs. In other words, they always have their powers, are biological, and usually don’t change form. For example, Dr. Cheese always has his enzymatic superpowers ready to wreak havoc.
Whether quantum-metamorphs or quantum-biomorphs, we are all quantum-morphs and are called, for short, q-morphs.
~~~
I listened to the news the whole way back. They didn’t know any more than I did. I wanted to know how the meteor ended up smashing into us with so little warning; don’t we track near-Earth asteroids?
How can something like this just happen?
I would like to say that my mind stayed sharply focused on the problem at hand, but it didn’t. It kept wandering back to, what I perceived as, the two intriguing women in my life: Lightningirl and Licia.
It sounds trite, right? A catastrophe was just averted and I was thinking about girls. Well, a woman… she was no girl.
My mind bounced back and forth between the two topics all the way down to Palo Verde.
When I got to the guard’s station, they waved me through and there was a golf cart waiting for me.
I got in, and the driver, an army corporal, whisked me past two sets of cooling towers and into a squat brick building not far from reactor number three.
This was Neutrinoman headquarters. I am not sure what it used to be, but after the accident the building was taken over by the military and it is where I spent most of my time when I was here.
There was more security here—I actually had to show my badge—and I was hurried into the situation room. It’s a large area on one end of the building with monitors and a few whiteboards on the walls, lots of people milling about, and a big table in the middle.
There was the usual assemblage of scientists and military. What was surprising was seeing Colonel Williams saluting and taking orders from someone else. Usually he was in charge of the place.
The army general being saluted was a big man with snow-white hair and three stars resting on each shoulder. Williams waved me over and introduced us. “General Markus, this is Nik Nichols.”
I took his proffered hand and shook it. His hands were big and he had a firm grip. “We have a hell of an issue here, son,” the general said. “That meteor that you stopped was a baby compared to what is coming.”
I opened my mouth to speak but was distracted by one of the large LCDs on the wall. It had a graphic showing the Earth and a large object heading towards it. Below it was a countdown timer: 72 hours, 34 minutes, 10 seconds.
The general followed my gaze to the LCD monitor and said, “It’s a planet killer, son. Now let’s get down to business. We need to know everything about your encounter with this monster’s little brother. Everything.”
So I told him, not that there was much to tell. I heard about the meteor coming in, changed, and with Lightningirl’s help, fought the thing.
He was particularly interested in how I destroyed the large meteor.
“So you exploded it from the inside?” the general asked.
“Yes sir. But, I don’t think I can do that for this one. It is—what?—several thousand times the mass?”
The general nodded. “Sorry to tell you this, son, but you are the best chance we’ve got.”
“What? No space shuttle standing by with a crew of scr
appy oil rig workers?” I asked with an ironic smile on my face.
The general looked puzzled. “Excuse me, son?”
“Armageddon… You know, the movie? Came out a few years ago. Bruce Willis. Big asteroid headed for the earth…”
His mouth set, he stared at me and then shook his head. “Can you tell me anything else? Anything at all?”
“Well,” I began, “after I landed, rather ungracefully, I had Lightningirl zap me. I was out of energy, and she gave me enough to get me back to my car before I was completely out.”
The general’s green eyes got big. “Williams!” he yelled. “Williams! Get Lightningirl in here. Now!”
My heart leapt into my mouth. She was coming. She was coming here.
Chapter 7
Into the Void
Fall 2004, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, Arizona
So, can Neutrinoman survive in the void of space? That was the question the scientists went about determining, as I was shuffled to and fro trying to keep focused on the task at hand, but being distracted by one thing: Lightningirl. I was going to meet her. I was going to know who she really was.
I was excited, but frankly feeling a little guilty. Licia… what about her? Superhero she may not be, but she was a hell of a woman. And our first date was preempted by that damn meteor. I wanted to call her, double-check that she was okay, but Jennifer Johnson, one of the scientists there, was guiding me to reactor number three.
Reactor number three is mine. Well, it does provide power to the area, but it is mine. It has been adjusted for the use of Neutrinoman.
“God, you look awful, Nik,” Jennifer said as she walked with me down the long corridor. Jennifer Johnson looked like one of those nerdy types in the comic books. You know the ones. Nerd glasses, hair up, nasally voice, loose-fitting clothing. The one the hero never notices, until one day she lets down her hair, takes off her glasses, and boom… she’s a world-class babe.
She looked like that. She’s African American with intelligent brown eyes, curly jet black hair pulled up in the back, and full lips.
Neutrinoman & Lightningirl: A Love Story, Season 1 (Episodes 1 - 3) Page 3