Neutrinoman & Lightningirl: A Love Story, Season 1 (Episodes 1 - 3)

by Robert J. McCarter

  This seemed like a distraction, but I encouraged him to continue, figuring that this may be valuable intel the military didn’t have. “The odds of one hundred coin tosses all coming up heads is astronomical,” I said.

  “Indeed,” Tom replied. “But, he doesn’t have to counter those odds. Just one 50/50 coin toss at a time. Child’s play. He’s doing a tour of the casinos of the American West right now, raising funds for our little endeavor.”

  “And he doesn’t get caught?” I asked. “Surely the casinos notice he keeps winning.”

  Tom nodded. “He’s careful, and he’s lucky. Real lucky. They’ve almost caught him dozens of times, but he always seems to slip away in the end.”

  “Chaosboy,” I said slowly, nodding my head.

  “Oh,” Tom began with a snort, “don’t bother trying to remember the details. The military knows. They’ve been trying to catch him for the last nine months. But the kid just keeps eluding them.”

  I blinked, trying to get my brain back on track. This was clearly an attempt to distract us.

  “I offered to call the kid Lucky, but he would have nothing of it. With his red hair, small stature, and Irish accent, he’s a little sensitive about being compared to a kiddy cereal character. He wanted to be called Chaosman, but I told him, ‘You’re barely out of diapers, kid. I tell you what, you choose. You can be Chaosboy or Ladyluck, either works for—”

  “Shut up!” Licia yelled. Her hand was still gripping mine.

  “Excuse me?” Tom asked.

  “Shut up. Who cares about Chaosboy or your ridiculous racial stereotype based solely on commercials for over-sugared cereals. If you are going to rattle on about something, tell us about this threat, tell us where the hell we are going, tell us something worth hearing.”

  As she spoke, the lights in the plane flickered. I don’t know if she did it on purpose, but it got Tom’s attention.

  “Right,” he said, looking at his watch. “I guess I should bring you up to speed.”

  ~~~

  What happened that day is a bit of a jumble in my mind. It was all so quick, and all so—

  Well, I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

  I was starting to detect a pattern here. “Here” being my life as a superhero. And the pattern is this: world-threatening emergency; little time; insufficient preparation; insufficient training; chaos ensues.

  Tom gave us the bullet: We were headed to Yellowstone National Park where the aliens were about to trigger the supervolcano that lies underneath the park.

  “Do you know about that thing?” Tom asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Well, it’ll put Krakatoa to shame. There is a massive amount of magma under there, and it’s under pressure. A well-placed nuclear blast, and boom! There goes the neighborhood.”

  “Can you be more specific?” Licia asked.

  “Sure,” he said with a grin. “Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho will be devastated, virtually wiped out. The blast will trigger earthquakes all along the West Coast. Ash will rain down all over North America, and the ash cloud will make its way to Europe and beyond.” He paused, his grin widening. “But, on the bright side, this will help with that pesky global warning, and probably send us careening in the other direction.

  “So, not exactly ‘world ending in an instant,’ but you can rest assured that the world will be so busy dealing with the aftermath of the supervolcano that they won’t see the next strike coming.”

  “Next strike?” I asked. “What is the next strike?”

  Tom shrugged. “Hell if I know. What I do know is that they won’t rest until we are either all dead or sent back to the Stone Age.”

  Interlude 2

  Agent Peters

  Spring 2025, Casita de Soledad, Central Arizona

  Agent Peters greeted us when we came down from our little vacation in orbit. He was a balding Homeland Security agent with a sour face.

  I sighed as we landed on our flagstone “launch pad” near Casita de Soledad. I really didn’t like Agent Peters and he really didn’t like me.

  He was standing there dressed in a suit, his arms crossed, his mouth twisted into a dour frown. He looked out of place on the rutted dirt road in the middle of the high desert. New spring grass, scrub brush, a few prickly pear cactus, and him in his suit. About ten yards behind him were three other agents, and farther behind was a black SUV they had arrived in.

  Agents were never cheerful after driving out. It was a long and bumpy ride. The pathway that led to our house barely qualified as a road.

  “Good afternoon, Agent Peters,” Lightningirl said after she had let go of me. “It’s lovely to see you again.”

  I saw his frown twitch briefly into a smile. Even Peters had trouble resisting her charms.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Lopez, Mr. Nichols,” he said. “Is there something Homeland Security should know about?”

  “Know about?” I asked, attempting to look as innocent as possible.

  “Yes, ‘know about.’ There must have been some kind of emergency to justify the unauthorized use of powers. The Quantum Metamorph Accord of 2020 clearly states that—”

  “I am familiar with the document,” I said, cutting him off.

  “Then you must be prepared with an explanation.”

  I stood there smiling. Lightningirl had gone into our little metal changing shed and come out as Licia dressed in a robe. “Why don’t you go change, Honey? I’ll fill in Agent Peters.”

  I smiled. She was dressed in a robe (we always kept robes in there) instead of the shorts and shirt she had been wearing before we went up. There is just something about a beautiful woman dressed in nothing but a robe. I knew it, she knew it, but I am not sure if Peters knew it.

  I hate the guy, I really do. It’s not his fault. He is really just a symbol, a representative of what I really hate. And that was how this world, this world that we saved, this world that we bled and died for… How this world treats us now. He’s a bureaucrat, making sure the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted. If it wasn’t Peters, it would be someone else.

  I took my time changing. Licia had walked away, so I couldn’t hear what she said, but I really didn’t need to. She was chatting him up about his wife and his baby daughter. Asking him how he was feeling, whether they were keeping his lupus under control. In short, she was being his friend. It came natural to her. Me, I couldn’t be bothered.

  I let my neutrino form go and put on the shorts that I had left there. Licia and the gang of agents were down the path a ways, headed for the house. There would be paperwork, of course. There was no way of getting out of that. But what were they going to do? Really? What could they do?

  We are officially retired, but that doesn’t mean if a big enough emergency came along they won’t want us to do our thing. Another asteroid, a rogue nation acquiring nuclear capability, a… Well you get the idea. We’re kept around “just in case.” We are their pet superheroes.

  Sure the paperwork would be a pain. Having to deal with the agents isn’t any fun. But seriously, what could they do?

  Chapter 7

  You Call That a Plan?

  Fall 2004, Above Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

  I helped Licia forward into the cockpit. It was filled with handles, levers, and glowing dials. I thought about my dad. He would have loved to see the inside of one of these.

  Outside it was dark and we were slowly circling above Yellowstone National Park. She didn’t look good, she was a bit green, a bit Toxicwasteman green. I know it was because of nausea, not because he had infected her or anything, but it kind of made me nervous.

  Actually, her weakness made me feel weak. Licia is strong and tough, as strong and tough as they come. But flying is kind of her kryptonite—I didn’t like seeing her that way.

  Don’t get me wrong, she was doing her best, enduring the thing that she hated so much. It was just that I wasn’t used to seeing her weak. You know how it is early in a relationship. You see the per
son as perfect, without flaws. That phase never lasts long, and sometimes relationships don’t survive the transition. But right then and there, I was seeing a brand new side of her. On one hand I wanted to protect and care for her (and I was doing my best at that), and on the other hand I found the revelation of her humanity a bit disorienting.

  “We need those raven eyes of yours,” Tom said as we entered the cockpit. “They had to excavate to do this. There are signs of it somewhere down there.”

  Tom got up and indicated for Licia to take the copilot’s seat. The pilot caught my eye, his face grim, his jaw set. His eyes flickered to a switch on the controls in front of him. It looked like we were transmitting audio.

  “Anything wrong?” Tom asked, his eyes searching mine. He must have seen something in my face.

  “So why won’t you let the military help?” I asked, trying to distract him. “Yellowstone is big, they could help search.”

  “You know them,” Tom began. “They would swoop in and overwhelm the place, giving us away. That we are in a C-5 circling above is bad enough. Besides, they are outmatched.”

  “Can you boys please shut up and help me look,” Licia said.

  The landscape below was bathed in dim silvery light from the crescent moon. I could see trees, grasslands, and the reflection of dark water down there, but not much else. Tom had the pilot circling an area called the “central plateau” away from the roads and the lodges.

  After a few minutes of silence, I asked, “So what is the plan once we find the excavation site?”

  “We go in,” he began, his eyes glinting in a way that made me scared. “We kick their asses. We save the day.”

  Great.

  ~~~

  Tom is crazy. Insane, genius crazy. As Licia and he scanned the land below, I watched him. I watched his eyes sweep back and forth. I watched his determined grin. I watched how his hand clenched the pilot’s seat as he leaned forward to get a better view.

  I know, I was supposed to be looking too, but I couldn’t. Something wasn’t right. This whole thing wasn’t right. It’s not that I didn’t believe him. After I saw that weaponized meteor, I had no trouble believing that the aliens were about to trigger a supervolcano. No, that wasn’t it. I just knew that there was more going on in that head of his. He made this sound simple, he made our parts in it clear and direct. But I knew this wasn’t simple. I knew his motivations were anything but clear.

  So I watched him. I positioned myself so that if he glanced back at me, a small shift of my focus and I was looking straight out the cockpit windows.

  “Something on your mind, Boy Scout?” he asked after about twenty minutes of this. He didn’t turn, his eyes still scanning the ground, his hand still gripping the back of the pilot’s seat.

  “You’re not telling us everything,” I said. I was a bit surprised that I had actually spoken it. But I guess I had been thinking it so long that it just leapt out.

  “Of course not,” he replied, turning, meeting my eyes for a moment and swiveling his head back to search the terrain below. In that moment his green eyes met mine, I felt fear deep in my core. It ran through me and I felt a cold sweat slither onto my body. I felt infected, like he had just given me the plague. I felt dread deep and black settle into my heart. For a moment, I was sure that I would not get out of this alive.

  “Got it!” Licia said, pointing out the starboard window. “There are signs of significant excavation down there. Where can we—”

  She cut herself off with a sharp intake of breath. I was looking where she was pointing and hadn’t seen anything, but I noticed the same thing she did: a flare of light in the darkness originating on the ground and heading our way.

  Simultaneously there was a beeping from the one of the cockpit panels. “We’ve got incoming,” the pilot shouted as he banked the plane to the port. I grabbed the copilot’s seat and hung on.

  “We can’t dodge a missile in this boat,” Tom said.

  “Gotta try,” the pilot replied as he watched the radar and continued to put us through sudden changes in our trajectory.

  I glanced at Licia. Her jaw was set, her hands gripping the arms of the chair as she continued to scan the ground.

  There was a sharp metal clang that reverberated through the plane, but no explosion.

  “Must have been a dud,” Tom said.

  “Thank God,” I began. “I thought we—”

  “We’ve got another one on the way,” Licia gasped.

  With a deep breath, I started shouting orders. I’m not sure where it came from, this wasn’t normal for me. But this was a crisis. I was a superhero. That’s what we do, right?

  “Tom, take over for the pilot,” I shouted. I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t know the pilot’s name.

  “We—” Tom began.

  “Shut up and do it,” I shouted. “You,” I said, grabbing the pilot and shoving him out of the cockpit, “find a parachute and jump. Tom, keep the plane relatively steady so he has time to get out. Once the missile is close, bank us hard to the left.”

  Tom didn’t say anything but nodded, watching the radar.

  I leaned over to Licia, her wide eyes meeting mine. “I’m going to get us out of this,” I told her. “Start drawing power from the plane, but not too much, and get ready to change.”

  The lights flickered as Licia did her thing. I scrambled through the cabin looking for food. I was underpowered and would need all the fuel I could get.

  Yup, that’s right. Disaster was about to strike, the object of my affection was scared to death, and I was on my hands and knees looking for food.

  I found a military energy bar (called a “HOOAH! Bar”), ripped off the wrapper, and shoved the whole thing in my mouth. I stood up just in time to see the flash of light as Tom banked us hard to the left. I was thrown to the floor expecting to hear an explosion, but none came. While I was down there, I found another candy bar.

  “It’s coming back around,” Tom said. “We don’t have long.”

  “Did the pilot get out?” I asked around my chewing.

  He shrugged. “There is a light here that says one of the hatches was opened.”

  “Good enough,” I said after I had swallowed one candy bar and was unwrapping the second. I touched Licia on the shoulder, “Draw every watt you can from this plane.”

  Tom looked up at me and our eyes met again. It wasn’t fear that I saw, but it was something related. He reminded me of a little boy on a roller coaster. His pupils were dilated, his mouth slightly open, and his eyes wide. He was enjoying this.

  Then the lights in the cabin flickered and then went dark as Licia turned into Lightningirl and drew all the power she could.

  I turned into Neutrinoman as Tom turned into Toxicwasteman. The cabin was then brightly lit by the mixing of our blue-white, yellow, and green colors.

  “I hope you can fly,” I said to Toxicwasteman. Lightningirl was now standing and I grabbed her, pressed my hand to the roof of the cockpit and let loose a neutrino bolt. The roof exploded and I flew Lightningirl and I up and out of the plane.

  We were maybe one hundred feet above it and climbing when the missile connected with the fuselage and the plane exploded.

  Out of the explosion I saw a flash of green appear. It was moving fast, and I couldn’t really discern its shape, but it had to be Toxicwasteman. He was falling like a rock.

  Chapter 8

  Do You Men Ever Grow Up?

  Fall 2004, Above Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

  So there I was, flying above the flaming wreckage of the C-5 we had just been in with Lightningirl clinging to me and our ally falling to the ground. We were in “slow dance” position, with her arms around my neck and my arms around her waist. I was pretty limited in what I could do.

  If I had been alone, I could have gone after Toxicwasteman, but I wasn’t. Lightningirl hated flying, and this day, still the day of our second date, had been full of the worst kind of flying.

  First riding me a
cross most of Arizona, then a helicopter ride, then a plane ride, only to escape the plane right before a ground to air missile destroyed it.

  Not fun for her. But I had to do something.

  “Hold on tight,” I said. I let the jets coming out of my feet go and we began to free-fall. I also let go of her waist with one arm, pointed my palm up, and sent yellow neutrino jets out of it to make us fall faster.

  “Ohh…” I heard her say as her grip around my neck became vicelike.

  We gained on the green form, but it was clear we were not going to catch up. Below us, Yellowstone, lit only by the moon, came into greater focus. It was rolling grassland dotted with shrubs. There were a few streams cutting through, dark pools of water, and tall lodgepole pines lining the tops of the hills.

  As we approached the ground and it became clear that I couldn’t help Toxicwasteman, I put my hand back around Lightningirl’s waist and resumed the jets from my feet.

  We both watched as the green form struck the ground and—

  Bounced.

  Like some kind of superball, he struck the ground and bounced straight up. He passed right by us and we could both hear his gleeful cackling. He looked mostly like his usual Toxicwasteman-self, except he was tucked in the fetal position, and his form was duller and somewhat translucent.

  “Jesus Christ,” Licia said. “Don’t men ever grow up?”

  I laughed. I was relieved that he was okay. Villain though he may be, we were on the same team right then and I felt responsible for him. And, yeah, turning yourself into a superball sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.

  “Woo hoo!” he shouted as he passed us on his way back down.

  “I mean, seriously!” Lightningirl shouted. “Do you?”

  I landed us gently on the ground and Lightningirl moved back a step. I was still chuckling. “Do you?” she demanded.

  “What? Do we what?”

  “Grow up. Do you men ever grow up?”

  I got where she was coming from. She had had a terrible time with all the flying. And here I was finally having some fun, and Toxicwasteman was making a racket as he bounced across the landscape, and we were there to stop a dire emergency. I got it. Her question made sense.