I heard her sniff and turned to look at her. Her eyes were moist and she had been crying. I felt that sinking feeling I feel every time she cries. It didn’t matter if it was a “good” cry or a “bad” cry (I usually couldn’t tell the difference), it always scared me.
“Honey?” I asked.
She looked at me and said, “Oh, don’t worry. It’s beautiful, it’s perfect. It’s a good start, and I am glad you are doing this. I am.”
“Why are you crying?”
“We were so innocent back then.”
I nodded; we really were. We had just saved the world and we were falling in love, but really, we had no idea what was about to happen.
She rose from her chair, hopped off the deck, and extended her hand to me. “Let’s go for a walk.”
We walked up a well-worn path that wound around our property and up onto a hill. From there we could see far: the flat top of the Mogollon Rim to the north; the undulating hills of the high desert we lived in; and the dips of canyons to the east. The grasses were a pale green with the first flush of spring, and the sky was a piercing blue. It was beautiful.
It was also isolating. I love the desert, with all my heart, but the life we were living, it was… it was isolated, yes, but worse, it was small. We had lived as large a life as we could, and now nearly as small a life as we could.
Licia had been right when she had asked me why I was writing this. It is more than just telling our story, setting the record straight. It’s coming to grips with my life, and where we’ve ended up.
Licia led me on and lost in thought, I didn’t notice as we approached the power lines. It was a major electrical artery, running from Glen Canyon Dam down to Phoenix. It was one of the reasons we had chosen this place for our “retirement.” Licia needed access to power.
Back from the towers, about fifty yards, was a cheap metal shed. Inside were a few hooks on the wall and nothing else. As we approached it, she saw the question on my face.
She shrugged, her shoulders playing with her long black hair, “It’s been too long.”
I nodded. It was a sweet gesture, really. To this day she doesn’t like to fly and after all we have been through, I can’t blame her.
We went into the shed, took our clothes off, hung them on the hooks there and walked a few yards closer to the tower where a flagstone circle, about ten feet in diameter, had been created. We call it the “launching pad.”
“Ready?” she asked, a smile playing about her lips. I was staring at her body and she knew it. Even after all these years I can’t help myself; she’s gorgeous. Part of it is natural and part of it is all this quantum morphing we do; we are aging slowly. It’s been over twenty years since we met and she looks about five years older.
I nodded, “Ready.”
She extended her left hand to the tower, fingers out. Electricity arced from the power line, meeting her fingers and her body. Her curves turn from flesh to electrical as she turns from human to q-morph, from Licia to Lightningirl.
I felt my body responding, without even thinking. I’d soaked up enough solar radiation to power my own transformation. I looked down as my white flesh turned into the swirling yellow of my neutrino form.
A white bolt of electricity arced from her extended right palm and hit me in the chest.
We were a bit out of practice, but we were much better at this than in the old days. It was intense but felt good. Felt familiar. I smiled.
We stood there for some minutes as she poured energy into me. I felt that old feeling of power coursing through me. God, how I had missed it.
When I was pulsing and glowing, she stopped the transfer and walked up to me. She delicately put her arms around my neck and gently stepped on top of my feet. I put my arms around her waist, pulling her close, and she giggled as our quantum forms pressed against each other. Yellow tendrils arcing from me to her as white tendrils arced from her to me. Our bodies dance in a positive feedback loop that makes us, together, more than we could possibly be apart.
I looked into her electrical eyes and she gave me a small smile and a smaller nod.
We surged into the air, the ground retreating below us.
I knew that they’d know, of course. That they’d want an accounting of our use of our powers. But right then I didn’t care, right then I was doing exactly what I needed.
Licia was right, it had been too long.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my super team of Beta readers; you have made this a much better book: John Bifano, Roni Hornstein, Chris Kalinich, Peter Klein, Michele Lytle, Gary D. McClellan, Linda Robinson, Aleia N. O’Reilly, and Eliot Schipper.
Thanks to the amazing Diana Cox who proofread for me. If you want her on your team, you can email her at [email protected] or visit her web page at www.novelproofreading.com.
The beautiful image of the Earth on the cover came from NASA’s Visible Earth project. Check it out at: visibleearth.nasa.gov
I began this story by dedicating it to my wife, and I have to end it by thanking her. She has brought so much to my life and I am so grateful. Thanks for always being there.
And most of all, thank you for reading!
Toxic Asset
Neutrinoman and Lightningirl: A Love Story, Episode 2
Having the right partner makes all the difference...
To Aleia, my Lightningirl
Prologue
Spring 2025, Three Hundred Miles
Above North America
Three hundred miles above the planet, Lightningirl and I floated as the Earth lazily rotated below us. Blue oceans, green and brown land, gentle wisps of white clouds.
Beautiful. Tranquil. Serene.
Lightningirl actually likes it up here. It doesn’t feel like flying, and the Earth is so far below that any fear of heights is… is… Well, you could certainly be afraid of heights up here, the perspective is dizzying, but it doesn’t feel like flying, which is why she enjoys it.
It is also peaceful, intensely so. And I needed peace. While we were up here, I didn’t have to deal with my problems down below. I didn’t have to delve further into my story which was growing harder to tell, and I didn’t have to deal with our current isolation in the high desert of Arizona.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” I signed to her, in an attempt to distract myself from my souring mood. With her coruscating electrical form she looked like a goddess floating there with the inky black of space above her and our planet below.
She smiled and beckoned with her electrical hand for me to come closer. “Come on over here, big boy, and I’ll tell you,” she signed.
In the early days, a little past the story I am telling you, we both learned a modified version of American Sign Language. It was actually the military’s idea. If we were going to be in situations where we couldn’t talk, or we needed to do so covertly, then sign language made sense.
We had drifted a few yards apart, so I jetted myself over to her. I overshot it a bit and ended up running into her. She grabbed me and we spun, intertwined, for a bit before I arrested our motion.
Our bodies did their energy exchange. Electricity flowing from her to me in the form of tiny tendrils of blue-white energy, while neutronic energy flowed from me to her in yellow tendrils.
Up here, it’s me feeding her energy, not the other way around. We were above the atmosphere, and I could receive solar radiation at full strength. It wasn’t the same as sitting inside a nuclear reactor, but it was nice.
As the Earth slowly rotated below and the sun shone above, I kissed her.
Kissing in our q-morph forms is… well, it’s different than kissing in the flesh. It is sharp and insistent. It is strong and passionate. It is not entirely comfortable. But then again, with our bodies that close, that entwined, our energies flowing, the entire feeling is sharp and insistent and passionate.
After a time (I’m not sure how long, but not long enough), Lightningirl
pushed me away. I could see the concern on her face. “Is the tank full?” she signed. “We should get back down to reality at some point.”
I hesitated. My tank was full—we had been up here close to a day, and North America was underneath us again—but I didn’t want to go back to reality. I wanted to stay up here with my superhero wife where it’s peaceful.
“Tank is full,” I signed.
“You ready?”
“No.”
She smiled. It was kind and gentle. I could feel the crisis brewing, though. This life of isolation was wearing on me. Writing our story was, admittedly, helping, but I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to be enough. “We should go,” she signed. “The longer they wait, the more upset they will be.”
I nodded. “And they will be waiting.”
I took her back in my arms and we slowly made our way down to the Earth.
Chapter 1
The Realized Romantic
Fall 2004, Page Springs Cellars, Arizona
It would be pretty easy to classify me as a hopeless romantic. And back then, back when Licia/Lightningirl and I met, I would have agreed with you. Ashley’s abrupt departure years earlier had stalled both my professional life and my romantic life, but I was still the same romantic fool I always was—with the scars to prove it.
But now, from the perspective of where I sit today? Nope, not in the least.
Am I a romantic? Yes, guilty as charged. But I am no longer hopeless. Actually, it’s really an annoying term isn’t it? Hopeless Romantic. It describes the person who constantly seeks love but never achieves it. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a hopeful romantic. Charging in time and again to let love (or the mere hope of love) kick your teeth in, seems to require hope.
So back then, I was actually a hopeful romantic. Now? Having been in a relationship with the same woman for several decades and still being in love? I am a realized romantic. Not that love doesn’t still kick my teeth in (metaphorically speaking, of course). It does. And it does it regularly. Sorry to break the news to all you romantics that are still hopeful—love, she’s a tough mistress.
Anyway, back at the winery nestled in the Verde Valley when we had our first kiss, back when our lips first met, back when a mere pressing of her flesh against mine could rock me to my soul, back when that phone call had interrupted the most perfect second date—I was crestfallen. I was having the time of my life and now some damn world-threatening emergency was interfering.
Licia, who no one would ever describe as a romantic (hopeless, hopeful, or otherwise), saw it on my face. I was still sitting at the picnic table after she had gathered our wine glasses and empty wine bottle, folded the red and white checkered tablecloth, and had taken it all ten paces towards the winery. She realized I wasn’t walking with her, turned around, and said, “It’s okay, Nik. We’ll have more time. I promise.”
She walked back and set the basket down. A romantic she may not be, but she was always perceptive.
“It was perfect… This was perfect,” I said, looking around us at the creek below, the vines above, the beautiful blue sky, and the oddly warm fall day.
Her brown eyes narrowed as she took a slow breath and let it out, pulling her silky black hair back into a ponytail. “Look. Let’s not give it up yet. They want us both down at Palo Verde, right?” I nodded. We had been summoned back to my home base—Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix. “So we’ll ride together. That will give us another two hours.” She ended the sentence with a dazzling smile, her hand resting on mine jolting me with a trickle of energy as our bodies did their thing.
My doldrums vanquished, I grabbed the basket and started running towards the large white building that housed the wine cellar below and the tasting room above. “Race you!” I shouted as I ran past her.
~~~
We stood in the dirt parking lot of the winery, the rolling desert hills of Arizona’s wine country rising up around us. We were looking at our cars. Mine was a beat-up 1990 Ford Focus that was a faded blue that might have been pretty before the Arizona sun bleached it out, and at this point might look decent if I washed it more than once every two years. Hers was a 2002 four-wheel-drive Toyota pickup. It was a shiny black, clean as could be, and beautiful.
We both stood there looking from car to truck to car. She was really being kind. It was obvious we should take the truck. But since we were still, officially, on a date, I kind of thought I should drive. She knew this, I knew this, but I just stood there, my mind mush as I tried to figure out a graceful way through this. Sure, the world might be ending any moment and we had been summoned by the powers that be. Sure, I knew that, but there I stood, my head going from left to right trying to find a way to preserve my dignity.
And this may be old fashioned, this desire to drive my date, but hey, what can I say? I’m kind of like that.
“Nik…” she began, “we’re kind of in a hurry.”
“Right,” I said, my head still going from left to right and back. “That sure is a nice truck.”
“Thanks.”
It made sense. I was paid a janitor’s salary, and she was a linewoman for the local electricity provider, APS. I lived at home; she lived alone. It made sense, there was a reason her vehicle was much nicer than mine. Except for the dirty part, of course—I just hate to wash cars (and make beds), the effort doesn’t yield results long enough to seem worth it to me.
Licia brought her hand to my shoulder and the tingle there jiggled my brain enough for something to occur to me. “We’re in a hurry, right?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“Well, then, we better take your truck. I am almost out of gas, and we definitely don’t have time to stop.”
“We definitely don’t,” she said, her voice suitably serious.
We both stood there for a few more breaths. I am not sure why. Maybe we were both afraid of what it meant. Man and Woman on a second date kiss for the first time. Man is the romantic one, Woman is the practical one. Emergency strikes and Man and Woman must think and act fast. They both get into Woman’s superior vehicle and ride off to save the day.
I was just not sure it was the right precedent to set so early in a relationship. Nevertheless, we got in, her driving, and went down Page Springs Road towards Cornville, heading towards I-17 and Phoenix.
We hadn’t gone very far when there was a ringing from her glove compartment. “It’s the batphone,” Licia said with a smile, “you better get it.”
Batphone? What was she talking about? I, of course, understood the reference. On the old Batman TV show, Commissioner Gordon had this special red phone that Batman called him on in emergencies.
I opened the glove compartment and there was a black satellite phone. Circa 2004, they were still pretty big. Licia must have seen the puzzled look on my face because she said, “You don’t have one of those? It’s military spec, encrypted, secure.”
I was still puzzled but answered the phone, “Hello.” Seems kind of lame, huh? Here I am answering the equivalent of the batphone and that is all I come up with. Hello—lame.
“Who is this?” the gravelly voice on the phone said. “This phone is government property and should be in the possession of Licia Lopez. Who is this?”
The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. After my lame greeting, I wasn’t about to comply. “Who is this?” I said, my lightning wit clearly on the fritz.
“This is Colonel Williams of the United States Army. State your name now or there will be consequences.”
“Oh. Hi, Colonel Williams. This is Nik, Nik Nichols.”
“Nichols? What are you doing with Ms. Lopez’s phone?”
“We were together when the call came in and decided to head down to Palo Verde together.”
“Oh… Um…” the older man stuttered. “What… What were you two doing together?”
I didn’t particularly like the question. Wasn’t the world ending or something? Hadn’t we received an urgent ca
ll? “Um… drinking wine, Colonel.”
“What? Really? You and Ms. Lopez?”
Now I was getting angry. “Yes sir, me and Ms. Lopez were enjoying an alcoholic beverage together. Isn’t there an urgent matter to attend to?”
“Yes… Well… We’ll talk about this later.” His voice resumed its normal authoritative baritone as he continued. “Put this on speaker since you’re both there.”
I did as ordered.
“Ms. Lopez, Mr. Nichols, we have a bit of an emergency. The situation has escalated since we called you in, and we need you on site ASAP.”
“Yes, sir,” Licia said. “Can you fill us in on the nature of the situation?”
“It’s Toxicwasteman,” Colonel Williams said. I saw Licia tense up and her knuckles go white on the steering wheel. “He’s escaped the Florence prison and commandeered a semi full of chemicals and got himself reactivated.” Just like electricity enables Licia to turn into Lightningirl and radiation lets me turn into Neutrinoman, Tom Tyree needs toxic substances to turn him into Toxicwasteman.
“I hate that guy,” Licia said through gritted teeth. “I just hate that guy.”
“We caught up with him,” Williams continued, “but he’s taken some hostages in a little place called Green Valley, south of Tucson. There’s a standoff. He says he will release them if he gets to talk to Neutrinoman.”
“What? Me?” I asked, shocked.
“Yes, Nik. You. Something is wrong with him. He’s been babbling about aliens and the threat from Arcturus. The media is going to be there soon, and we can’t have him scaring people.”
I was shocked. The colonel seemed more worried about him talking to the media than if he killed the hostages. And why would Toxicwasteman want to talk to me? And what, or where, the hell is Arcturus?
Back then I was clueless. Now, we all know that Arcturus is a star, the brightest star in the Boötes constellation, and the home system of the Arcturian Alliance.
“Licia,” he continued, “you know Toxicwasteman better than anyone, I—”
Neutrinoman & Lightningirl: A Love Story, Season 1 (Episodes 1 - 3) Page 9