“Well I should,” Licia said, “I am the one who put him in that prison. How the hell did he get out?”
“Don’t know, but we are investigating. As I was saying, I want both of you on site ASAP. It’s a diner called Big Al’s right off of I-19 south of Tucson on the way to Nogales. What is your location now?”
“We are on Cornville Road a few miles west of I-17,” Licia said.
“Okay. Nik, what are your energy levels like?”
“Not so great, sir,” I said. “I haven’t been in the reactor for about a week.”
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Colonel Williams said as he laid out his plan.
Chapter 2
Piggyback Ride
Fall 2004, Central Arizona
Licia pulled the truck over and parked next to the road. There was a small bridge that drained water from a side canyon into Beaver Creek just behind us and that would have to do. We dumped the contents of our pockets under the seats. Licia locked the truck and put the keys under a nearby rock. We scrambled down the shoulder and under the bridge.
“Umm…” I began, eying my clothing and hers, knowing they would be burned off when we changed into our superhero forms. I didn’t say anything else, just pointed at my clothing and then hers.
“Boys’ side,” she said pointing to the far side of the culvert.
I went to the designated area, my back to Licia, took my clothes off, and changed into my neutrino form. “Ready?” I asked when I was done, keeping my back turned.
“Yes, let’s get moving.”
I turned and gasped. Not that I hadn’t seen her as Lightningirl before, but something about the intimacy of our outing and my inherent romantic nature amplified it for me. The cement walls were lit up brightly with the blue-white light of her coruscating electrical form. She was gorgeous: petite, well proportioned, and very feminine.
I walked over to her, the yellow light of my neutrino form mixed with the blue-white of her lightning form and danced on the cement walls. We walked to the edge of the tunnel, where she moved to stand on my feet and assume the “slow dance” position we had used when we had flown before.
“Sorry, that’s not going to work,” I said. With her fear of flying, I hated to break it to her.
“What?”
“I am going to need my hands. We’re not going straight up. I will need both my hands and feet to fly us.”
“Oh,” she said, her electric face scrunched.
I turned my back to her and squatted a bit. “Piggyback. It’s the only way.”
I was facing out of the tunnel and couldn’t see her. After a few moments of silence, I turned around. Her arms were crossed and a frown was on her face.
“You’re not messing with me, are you?” she asked.
I held up my hands. “No. God no. If we are going straight up I can manage that with my feet. But we are going to be flying like this,” I put my hand out so it was about 15 degrees angled up from horizontal. “I am going to need my hands to keep us steady.”
“Oh… Well… Wait. Why can’t you shoot those yellow jets out of other parts of your body?”
I started to laugh, imagining what other parts of my body to shoot jets out of, but cut it short when I saw her face. She was perfectly serious. “I guess I could, but I’ve never tried before, and I don’t think this is the time.”
She nodded, fear returning to her face quickly replaced by stony resolve.
“Okay then,” she said, waving for me to “assume the position.”
I went back to the edge of the tunnel and squatted. She hopped on my back, her arms wrapping tightly around my chest and her thighs clamping my waist. I put my arms down straight and pressed them against her legs holding them firmly against me.
As I was about to take off, it occurred to me why she thought I might be messing with her. We were in our quantum forms, which meant we were, to all intents and purposes, naked, which made this arrangement pretty intimate.
I took us up into the air quickly, angling us out of the tunnel and up at an angle slightly to the south. The idea was to limit our exposure to witnesses. Once we were up about five thousand feet, I took us past the Verde Valley and south to the large mesa that sits between the Verde Valley and the Phoenix Area.
There is a set of high-tension power lines that runs from the northern edge of Arizona, at Glen Canyon Dam, all the way south to Phoenix; that was our destination.
This area is high desert, with beautiful rolling hills and canyons. It is a magical area that I always love driving through.
Once I thought we were in the right place, I brought us down quickly, adjusting our trajectory as the power lines came into view. We didn’t know it then, but we were very close to where Casita de Soledad would someday be.
When we were about a thousand feet up, I felt my energy failing—the neutrino jets that were keeping us aloft started to sputter out.
“Woops,” I said as we suddenly started to drop.
“Got it,” Licia said as she removed her left hand from my chest extending it towards the power lines that were rapidly approaching. Electricity arced from them to her left hand and from her right hand into my chest.
Properly powered, I landed us gracefully next to the power lines. She got off my back, I turned to face her, and she directed the electricity into my chest. We did this for about ten minutes until I was feeling powerful enough to get us down past Tucson.
It wasn’t comfortable, the lightning bolt she was directing into me, but I enjoyed the moment because we were still alone.
~~~
“You okay?” I asked as we soared high above Phoenix. Her grip around my chest was a bit tight. Well no, to be honest, it was very tight.
“Uh huh,” she mumbled. It was what I have come to fondly call her yes-no. She said “yes,” but she meant “no.” It wasn’t the words, but the delivery. It’s often more subtle than that, but even a dolt like me could tell she wasn’t having a good time.
“Not too much longer,” I lied. Well, I guess the magnitude of the lie depends on how much is “not too much.” Clearly we were already past her limit, so any longer would be too much longer for her.
And I think maybe it was the mode of flying. When we had dealt with the meteor (excuse me, asteroid), we had flown straight up. For this we were flying almost horizontally. She was basically lying on me as I flew us. She had nowhere to look but down.
It took us about forty minutes to do the 250 miles. So we were going fast, but forty minutes is a long time when you hate flying. Even more so when you hate flying and you’re holding on to a controlled nuclear reaction with nothing to protect you but said nuclear reaction.
So yeah, she was holding on to me pretty tight. I can’t say that I minded in the least.
I could have gotten us there faster, but I thought nearly 400 mph was fast enough. This type of flight was new for both of us. I also kept I-17, then I-10 and I-19 in sight. Even though I had spent quite a bit of time studying maps after I learned how to fly, I wasn’t ready to attempt a straight, as the superhero flies, route. I don’t have any technological navigational aids, and I didn’t want to get lost.
“So, umm…” I began, speaking loudly so she could hear me clearly. “So, did you go to high school in Flagstaff?” I was trying to distract her.
“Yeah,” she answered without elaboration.
“Born there?”
“No. New Mexico. My dad moved us out when I was young.”
That was better. At least I got a sentence that time. “How come?”
“Construction. Flag was growing a lot back in the 80s, lot of opportunity for him.”
And so it went, soaring ten thousand feet above the Desert Southwest, the dry and rugged landscape passing below us. I did my best to distract her. When her answers got short I would change topics. For example, I learned that she doesn’t like ice cream (who knew that was possible?); is an avid rock climber (Flagstaff’s a pretty good place for that); loves to get pedicures
(she is a girl, I know, but an APS linewoman and rock climber—I wasn’t expecting that); and can’t stand romantic comedies (that was, given my romantic nature, a disappointment).
As we skirted to the east of Phoenix, Colonel Williams had cleared a flight path for us, I asked, “So why are you a vegetarian?” I had noticed this the night we had met at dinner at my folks’ house. That one act of perception had been important in our relationship getting this far.
“Is that a problem?” she countered.
“No, not at all. Just curious.”
She was silent for a while and I was about to change subjects when she said, “A failure to have compassion for one species of animal, but not for others.”
“What?”
“I love dogs. When we got to Flag, the family got a dog. He was a coyote-mix rescue from the reservation. I loved that dog: he played and howled and loved to tromp through the forest with me. His name was Jake—he adored me and I adored him. He saw me all the way through high school before his poor old body gave out.”
She was silent then, and I let it be for a bit. I knew I had just learned something important about her. This vegetarian backstory was clearly a big deal.
“So…” I said, trying to wrap my head around it. “Because you love Jake, you can’t eat cows?” I frankly didn’t understand, but that is as well as I could state it.
“Exactly,” she said. I could hear the smile in her voice. I dropped the subject, which was wise, considering that just because I said it didn’t mean I understood it. In love, it is often best to quit while you are ahead.
When we got past Tucson and were headed south above I-19, two Apache Attack helicopters showed up and escorted us in.
Chapter 3
A Sip of Fame
Fall 2004, Green Valley, Arizona
When we were getting close to our destination, it became obvious. The TV vans with their big satellite dishes on their roofs, the cop cars with their lights flashing, the dark green tents, and assembled military vehicles made it obvious.
The place the helicopters guided us to was about fifty yards away from “Big Al’s Truck Stop and Gas Station.” I liked it instantly upon seeing it. It was a relic from another era. One of those greasy spoon diners with a long bar you can eat at and a bunch of gas pumps out front.
It was like going back in time. Somehow this little place had survived and kept its character despite the homogenization of the commercial world.
“A little power,” I said as I positioned us vertically, arresting our forward motion, and started a gentle descent. I saw a power line close by and was running low on juice.
This was an important day for Lightningirl and me. This was our first tiny sip of fame, our first encounter with the media. This was the first time that we were being filmed close up.
When I saw the lightning arc from the power line and felt the power flow into me, I breathed a sigh of relief. I really had no grasp of what fame was like, or the crazy pressure it puts on you, I just didn’t want to screw up in front of the cameras. And, you know, I had good reason to worry about my landings. There were many craters that marked my poorer attempts.
~~~
No sooner had we landed than we were rushed into a big green army tent. We both tightened containment on our respective reactions (nuclear and electrical) so no one would be exposed to too much radiation and no electrical equipment would get fried. It wouldn’t work long-term but was good enough for a quick briefing.
“Any trouble getting here?” Colonel Williams asked, his angular face looking longer than usual.
“No, sir,” Lightningirl said.
“Good. Good. We don’t have much time. We need to get you two in there. Your priority is to keep Toxicwasteman from talking to the media.”
“What?” I was angry. Sure Williams was a military guy, answers to orders and all that, but I had come to rely on a shred of humanity always showing through. “Our priority is not the hostages? Not to save lives?”
Colonel Williams looked at me unblinking for a few moments, his hand worrying at his salt-and-pepper brush-cut hair. “Yes, lives are the priority, but you’ve got to keep in mind the big picture. If he talks too much about aliens, if it gets out, if people panic… Well, there are a lot more lives at stake than the dozen hostages in there.”
After the briefing, we made “The Walk.” It was a pathway made by military personnel and highway patrol through a thicket of media about twenty yards long.
As we left the tent, Williams shouted, “And don’t talk to the media!” The seemingly endless sea of cameras, microphones, and reporters were enough to make me never want to talk again. It was late afternoon but still the cameras’ flashes were going off, accompanying the shouts from the reporters. It was like this assemblage of oddly limbed, one-eyed cyclops following our every move.
I hated it. We both did.
And most of the questions they asked were just stupid: “How do you think Toxicwasteman escaped?” as if we would know; “How does it feel to be a national hero?” as if I could express the potent cocktail of joy and horror that make it up; “Lightningirl, what do you think about the trend of skirts getting shorter?” as if that had any relevance to anyone anywhere; and “Is that his… his… his thing there?” yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is the neutronic version of my genitals—sorry a costume is just not an option when you’re a contained nuclear reaction, as much as I would like it to be.
That last comment left me deeply humiliated and deeply self-conscious, and kind of was my first initiation to what fame was going to be like. Because that’s what it is like: walking around naked with people talking about you in intimate detail like you are not there.
Lightningirl and I were walking close together. The interaction between our two forms was evident and would be much speculated for months to come. I frankly found her electrical presence comforting as we walked down that very long twenty yards. I was beginning to hope for a meteor to go intercept, at least then I wouldn’t have my every move and facial expression analyzed.
Right at the end, just when I thought we would make it, I heard, “Neutrinoman, are you and Lightningirl together?”
I stopped and looked, my head seeking the source of the sound. Lightningirl kept walking as if she hadn’t heard (she, to this day, claims she didn’t, but I have my doubts).
When my eyes found the reporter, they stayed there. She was beautiful, but in that “too beautiful to be real” way that TV reporters often are. She had shiny black hair that cascaded over her shoulders in gentle waves, red lips, and green eyes. “Green” is not a fair way to describe them. Her eyes were luminous, as if lit by some inner light.
“Are you?” she asked, pointing a microphone towards me, the rapid fire clicking and flashing of the cameras overwhelming. “Are you together?” I would later find out that her name was Diane Madison, a reporter for WNN.
My mouth opened and closed several times in an embarrassing display of… of… Well, I’m not sure what aspect of myself was on display, but it was not pretty, and would be analyzed and talked about ad-nauseam, and make it, in full color, onto the front of several tabloids. It is one of those moments I wish I could change. I wish I could go back in time and just keep walking. It would really have saved me a lot of embarrassment and heartache.
I finally tore my eyes away from her and moved into the empty parking area in front of the diner.
“Are you okay?” Lightningirl asked.
“Uh huh,” I said. There I was with my own yes-no.
“What did she ask you?”
“If we were together.”
Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth and closed it several times. I kind of expected the conversation to continue, but it didn’t. She snapped her mouth closed and swiveled to the front door of Big Al’s. “I think we should face him together.”
Interlude 1
Diane Madison
Spring 2025, Casita de Soledad, Central Arizona
“Diane Madison?”
Licia asked. “You’re going to talk about her?”
I shrugged. “She has a part to play. Just a cameo here, but much more later.”
“Why? Why can’t you just leave her out?”
I was in the greenhouse with her pulling weeds. It wasn’t like I was contributing. Licia could easily suck the life out of them with her finger, but it gave me something to do, it gave us something to do together. Besides, the air actually had humidity in it—something in short supply in the desert—and I liked the earthy, loamy scent of the soil.
It’s a simple building, ten feet by fifteen feet, with long deep planters on either side, a flagstone walkway running between them, and glass all around.
“Because I am telling the truth with this story,” I said.
She stood up, wiping her hands on a small towel. The greenhouse was her domain. She was the master of the plants. It was full of overgrown tomatoes, peppers, even a dwarf banana tree. We got most of our fresh produce from it. We could get them with our supply deliveries, but these were better, and it gave her something to do.
“The truth, Nik? What about it? What good is it?”
I continued to have trouble articulating it, but in my heart I knew this was the right thing to do. “History matters, the true history. So much of what the public knows about us, about Toxicwasteman and the rest… It’s wrong. They are not living in the world they think they are.”
“And so what? The world is at peace, the aliens have been gone for years. What does it matter if they know every detail? What does it matter if they know about Diane Madison?”
I bit my lower lip and stood up myself. “It matters to me.”
“—that the whole world knows about what that woman almost—” she cut herself off, her cheeks flushing red, and turned away from me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know this process will take us back through it all, and for that I apologize. But I have to. Can you see that? I have to.”
She turned, her eyes narrow and her jaw set. “I don’t know that I understand, but I do see that you are determined. But know this, if your goal is to tell all of it, I will make sure that happens.” With that she brushed past me and walked out of the greenhouse, slamming the door behind her.
Neutrinoman & Lightningirl: A Love Story, Season 1 (Episodes 1 - 3) Page 10