I looked at her, my face serious. “I hope not.”
She looked back at me, her face first a blank mask, then she gave me a deep frown, her fists coming to her hips. She shook her head, turned away from me, and started walking away at a rapid pace.
“Where are you going?” I called.
“Alien hunting,” she called back. “The excavation site is this way.”
~~~
So, if you were making a movie of this little adventure, now would be the time for a slow motion shot of our heroes walking confidently across the otherworldly landscape of Yellowstone.
Lightningirl, slighting to the front and in the center, her jaw set, her shoulders back, exuding confidence.
Toxicwasteman, to the right. His arms swinging, his hands balled into fists, on his face a crooked grin.
And Neutrinoman, me, to the left, pace quick as I try to catch up, on my face a look of… of… well, embarrassment.
And this is where they would have to inject a little Hollywood into the situation. It’s not that I didn’t tell the truth—in many ways I hoped to never grow up. I hoped to remain childlike (not child-ish) with a sense of wonder at the world. I hoped to be able to smile and laugh even when the fate of the world rests on my shoulders. Frankly, to me, it seemed like a necessary survival skill in the business we were in.
What I wanted to do was to talk to her. To make sure I hadn’t made some horrible mistake, but I didn’t. It wasn’t time for that—yeah, I know, totally obvious.
“What’s with the bouncy-boy routine?” Lightningirl asked as Toxicwasteman and I pulled up next to her.
He shrugged and said, “No big thing. I can manipulate the chemical composition of my q-morph form. So I can bounce if I need to. Much better than going splat, I must say.”
She nodded once, dismissing the matter. “Any idea what we should expect?”
“None,” Toxicwasteman answered. “At this point you two know as much as I do.”
“So, they’re drilling down intent on placing a nuclear device to trigger the supervolcano?” she asked.
“That’s the size of it.”
“Any idea how many of them we will have to deal with?” she asked.
“None.”
“Okay. Here’s the plan. Toxicwasteman and I will deal with whatever defenses we come across. Neutrinoman, you get down that tunnel and deal with the bomb.”
“Right,” I said. I had no idea what to do with a nuclear bomb, but now wasn’t the moment to bring up any doubts.
We walked for some minutes in silence. If this was a movie, something would have happened already. Actually, right after the slow-mo walk sequence all hell would have broken loose with explosions, lasers, and awe-inspiring heroics.
But, this is not a movie.
Lightningirl stopped, holding her hand up. “Do you hear that?”
“What?” I asked.
A quizzical look came over Toxicwasteman’s face. “I feel… In my feet, I feel this rumbling.”
Lightningirl nodded and I started to hear what she was mentioning. It was a low rumble, quickly gaining in volume. Soon I could feel it in my feet too.
I jetted up about ten feet so I could get a better view. It was still dark, but the moon shed enough light for me to see what was happening. “Stampede!” I yelled.
Chapter 9
Everything in Slow-mo
Fall 2004, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
We were there to fight aliens, not buffalo. What I saw was a wall of them heading for us, the sound of their flight getting loud.
I came back down to the ground and said, “Buffalo stampede. They’ll be here in about thirty seconds.”
Lightningirl and Toxicwasteman both looked at me. Was I in charge now? “Okay, here’s the plan,” I said before I had one. “Umm… Each of you grab an arm and I’ll fly us above them.”
“Can you do that?” Lightningirl asked.
I shrugged. “I’ve only flown with you before.” The rumbling grew louder and Lightningirl nodded. I grabbed her arm with my left hand. We did one of those forearm to forearm grips. I did the same with my right hand with Toxicwasteman.
The sound was now deafening and it seemed like we were in the middle of an earthquake. I slowly jetted us up into the air. It wasn’t easy. Toxicwasteman weighed more than Lightningirl and I was having trouble keeping steady. I really needed my hands. I got us into the air at about ten feet and held us there kind of wobbling as the buffalo began to pass below us.
So a few interesting things happened then, besides the wobbling, ungraceful flight.
First, I have described extensively how Lightningirl’s body and mine interact with the exchange of our energies. When I grabbed Toxicwasteman’s forearm, there was an odd exchange of energy too. It didn’t happen until we touched, but it sure happened.
So, I am a contained nuclear reaction, he is a contained chemical reaction. Where our flesh met, I felt pain, sharp and intense. When I could spare some attention, I looked down and saw green veins against my yellow form as his chemical reaction crept into my q-morph form, and I saw yellow veins of my nuclear reaction creeping into his green form. Our eyes met and I knew he wasn’t liking the feeling either.
The second thing, which I almost missed because of what was going on with Toxicwasteman, was Lightningirl. As the one hundred or so buffalo passed below us, small tendrils of electricity passed from the animals and flowed into her outstretched left hand.
I did a bit of a double take, because it is often the other way around, but I was sure. She was drawing electrical energy from the buffalo.
And it had its effect. Those that passed near her slowed down and became docile. A few, those that had passed directly below, even stopped and laid down.
The pain in my right arm was becoming intense as the green veins made their way past my elbow. I angled my feet and slowly and unsteadily moved us past the remnants of the stampede and landed us.
Lightningirl continued to draw energy from those buffalo that were close enough and more and more of them lay down.
After I let go of Toxicwasteman, the veins stopped progressing, but the pain did not end. “What the…” I began, staring at my arm.
“It seems we don’t mix so well,” Toxicwasteman said, looking at his own arm. From his clenched expression, it was clear he was in pain too.
Lightningirl came over and looked at both of our arms. “Oh my,” she said. “Look, we don’t have time for this. Buffalo don’t just start running around in the middle of the night—the aliens started that stampede, they know we are here.”
Toxicwasteman and I nodded in agreement.
“Toxicwasteman, you are with me,” she continued. “Let’s double-time it now. Neutrinoman, you hang back about five yards, let us take the brunt of their defense. You focus on finding that bomb and… and taking care of it.”
I nodded.
The three of us ran forth towards battle. Another fine opportunity for a slow motion montage.
Chapter 10
I Am the Bomb
Fall 2004, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
It took us a while to get to the aliens, but Lightningirl seemed to have an unerring sense of direction (another raven-like quality she acquired during the accident). In some ways it took us too long, that battle-ready edge was a bit dull by the time we found the first one.
He was ready for us. Tall, blond haired and blue eyed, he looked just like the prison guard that Toxicwasteman had described, the one who had tried to recruit him.
He stood there in the moonlight, leveling some sort of gun at us. The horizon to the east was starting to lighten, and none of us had trouble seeing him.
Now, I’m not that much of a gun guy. I mean, I know how to shoot a gun, but it wasn’t any kind of hobby of mine. This thing, though, didn’t look like any kind of gun I had ever seen. It was big, like a grenade launcher, with a metallic barrel and large tube snaking to some kind of backpack. Bullets, I could handle—whatever th
is was, though, I had no idea.
Lightning stabbed out of Lightningirl’s right palm as she continued to run. The blond man, the alien, went down, his body shaking violently as we ran past him.
I guess I should better set the stage in regards to our battle preparedness, or lack thereof. You see, we hadn’t had any tactical training yet. The military had spent time getting us used to our powers, and what they could do, but hadn’t trained us yet on how to deal with the kind of situation we were in. This explains, to an extent, the quality of the upcoming battle.
The next wave of defense was three of those blond guys hidden behind low rocks shooting at us.
These guns didn’t shoot bullets, or grenades, or explosives. They shot purple balls of energy. And, in retrospect, I kind of think that the weapons had been created quickly just for us. The look of the backpack and the tube that connected it to the barrel of the gun looked inconsistent and a bit jerry-rigged. I think the meteor was supposed to do the job—they weren’t expecting to come down here and fight us.
So about thirty seconds after the first guy went down, a scintillating ball of energy struck the ground to the left of Lightningirl. The earth exploded and knocked her off her feet, and sent Toxicwasteman reeling to the right. I was struck by the flying earth, but not harmed.
“Go!” Lightningirl shouted. “The excavation is about twenty yards ahead.”
She slowly rose to her feet shaking her head as two more balls of energy erupted with a whoosh and headed right towards me.
I wanted to stay, I wanted to make sure she was okay, but that would have been stupid. I jetted up into the air and the energy balls struck the ground where I had just stood, clods of dirt and rock flying.
Toxicwasteman was shooting green balls of… of something. Some sort of chemical. I saw the first one strike the rock in front of our closest assailant. It exploded, throwing the man back. He didn’t move.
Lightning was stabbing forth from Lightningirl’s hands at the other two positions.
“Go!” Toxicwasteman shouted as he ran forward, more green balls shooting out of his hands.
In the distance I could see about a dozen more armed men heading towards us. They didn’t look like aliens. They looked more like refugees from the Swiss ski team. Tall, athletic, blue eyed, and handsome. They wore what looked like brown fatigues, designed to blend in with the environment.
Four balls of energy heading towards my elevated location convinced me to get moving. I surged up and forward, quickly spotting the excavation site.
Large, low mounds of earth stood piled around an eerily round hole about eight feet in diameter. I didn’t see any equipment of any sort. What had dug this hole? Where did the aliens stay when they weren’t trying to kill us?
The aliens had stopped advancing and were all shooting at me. Dozens of balls of energy leapt from the ground towards me. My flight path became erratic as I dodged them. Just as I was nearing the hole, one grazed my arm.
My entire left arm became numb, and the neutrino jet that was coming out of my hand stopped. I listed to the left, but was able to compensate with my feet and my right hand.
I increased my speed, heading for the hole at a sharp angle, sharper than I would have liked, but I didn’t want to get hit again. I was beginning to think these weapons had been designed especially for me.
Just as I was about to enter the hole, another purple energy ball caught me in the legs. They became numb too, and I lost all control of my flight. My momentum, though, took me right into the hole. I crashed off the side and started my long bouncing fall down. It went on forever; the hole must have been at least 10,000 feet deep.
The fall was jarring and very disorienting. I pulled in my numb limbs, grabbing my legs with my good hand, and focused on maintaining my neutrino form.
I fell for a minute or two before I came to an abrupt stop at the bottom of this thing. I looked up, the mouth of the hole was a tiny pinprick of light. The round hole around me was bathed in yellow from my neutronic reaction.
I tried to push myself up with my good hand, but failed, and flopped to my left.
I felt a stabbing pain in my back. As if I were flesh and had fallen on some something long and sharp. As the pain increased, it started to burn with a fierce intensity and I began to feel myself radiate with power.
This wasn’t right. I hadn’t been in the reactor for a week. Lightningirl had powered me up some earlier in the day but not this much. The power surged through me and the numbness in my limbs fled and the lingering pain in my right hand from when I had touched Toxicwasteman intensified, and then left. I stood up and watched as the scintillating yellow of my right arm became brighter and the green sizzled away.
I looked down—things were now well lit. On the ground were the remnants of a metal canister that I must have lain on when I felt the pain and the power begin. On the side of it were the remnants of a symbol. A yellow circle with a black dot in the center and three black pie-slice shapes. The symbol for radiation.
As revelation began to dawn, as my power built further, the earth under me shook and the hole above me exploded.
I hunkered down as earth rained down on me and the aliens sealed the hole, burying me.
One thought kept going through my mind over and over:
I am the bomb.
Interlude 3
Super Problems
Spring 2025, Casita de Soledad, Central Arizona
“Take your pill, babe,” Licia said. The agents were gone, finally, and I was headed for the kitchen. I was starving.
“Okay,” I said cheerfully. I hated the pill, but much less than what usually followed. I was hoping she wouldn’t remember to say it.
“And no cheese, not for twenty-four hours at least.”
There it was. The cheese moratorium. There is no food, no beverage, and very few other things in this world that I love more than cheese. And, it was exactly the kind of food I wanted after being my q-morph self.
“Seriously,” Licia said. She had followed me into the kitchen and was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed, her robe opened a bit more than when the agents had been here. She was now using her feminine wiles on me. I can’t say that I minded.
“Come on,” I said. “I am starving. I thought those suits would never leave.”
“We’ve got some leftover stir-fry; that will work better.”
In a marriage, it is important to pick your battles. Licia’s jaw was set. It was clear she was ready to go to war on this one.
“Just one piece,” I said, holding my thumb and forefinger close together.
“No! I don’t want to have to live with the fallout. Take your pill, wait a day, and then you can have some cheese.”
I sighed and shook my head. I started pulling the leftovers out of the fridge and made a show of taking my pill.
“So, are you going to write about this?” she asked. The smile on her face was impish and mischievous.
“About what?” I asked.
She laughed. “You know damn well what I am talking about. If you want to give everyone the real story of being a q-morph, you can’t leave this out.”
“Oh, yes I can,” I said as I loaded two plates with food, and put one in the microwave. “Besides, not all q-morphs have this little… issue. You don’t.”
“Thank God. If I did, we’d end up blowing the place up after a long change like we just had.”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “It would be nuclear.”
“Seriously, are you going to write about it?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t think the headline will sell papers. ‘Extra: Superhero and his super-flatulents.’“
“That’s too high-brow, how about: ‘Superhero and his super farts.’“ Licia tried to keep a straight face, but it wasn’t working. Her laughter rang out as I pulled one plate out of the microwave and put another one in. “How about: ‘IBS, not just for mortals anymore,’“ she added.
“It’s not my fault,” I said, a
bit hurt.
“No one is saying that it is.”
And it really isn’t my fault. As Neutrinoman, I am a controlled nuclear reaction. That reaction will consume anything that is not the essential “me.” That includes all the healthy colonies of bacteria in my gut. And that reaction is radioactive. So, just like going q-morph can kill off a virus in my system, it also kills off all the good microorganisms too.
“Super-farts? Really?” I said, laughing. “Are you sure you’re a girl? I thought girls weren’t as enamored with fart jokes as guys.”
“I’m special,” she said, loosening her robe, letting it open more, forming a V all the way down to her belly button, threatening to open wider. “And I am sure I am a girl, aren’t you?”
“Hmm… Maybe I should check,” I said. The microwave dinged, our food was ready, but I didn’t care.
Chapter 11
Overpowered
Fall 2004, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
It makes sense. What would be the best possible fuel for a controlled nuclear reaction? Plutonium, or some other type of radioactive isotope. What had the aliens done? Maneuvered me down a deep hole and given me enough power that I would have no choice but to explode, triggering the supervolcano.
I had to admire the plan. After I exploded I would be spent, and would not be able to escape. In one stroke, they would eliminate me and devastate the world.
While I admired the plan, it pissed me off. As the power coursed through me, the stone and dirt around me began to melt, the chamber I was in growing larger as molten rock pooled at my feet. I couldn’t contain the power. I couldn’t stop the reaction.
Did they think a few thousand feet of earth could keep me down here? Did they think that I was stupid?
With a feral scream, I flew straight up, the rock and dirt melting around me as I flew.
I passed through all 10,000 feet in a matter of seconds, bursting from the ground, rock, dirt, and molten earth exploding around me.
Neutrinoman & Lightningirl: A Love Story, Season 1 (Episodes 1 - 3) Page 13