It was some kind of weapon. It was how they intended to trigger the supervolcano. The realization came crashing down on me.
Me exploding down their hole had been plan-A, this was plan-B.
I needed to stop them. I had to stop them. But I was weak and stripped of my powers. Those energy bolts had taken everything I had. Licia was still unconscious, and there were no power lines close enough to change me, even if she were conscious.
I closed my eyes trying to will myself into my neutrino form, but it was no use. I couldn’t do it.
I watched helplessly as the ship rose several hundred yards into the air and positioned itself directly over the crater where the hole had once been.
The whining became excruciatingly loud. The glowing at the bottom of the ship became a bright yellow. I began to run. I really can’t tell you why. It wasn’t logic that drove me but instinct. I think I was hoping that the beam would activate me and I could somehow stop them.
I ran as fast as I could, ignoring the pain of the rocks biting into my feet, ignoring the cold, and ignoring the fact that I was leaving Licia there naked, injured, and helpless.
I ran, but fatigue hit me and my feet could not do the job. I fell and slid face-first along the rocky ground coming to a painful stop. It was too late. I had failed. This really was the end.
Chapter 15
Be a Hero
Fall 2004, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
As the whining became louder, the yellow glow became brighter, I slowly and painfully got to my feet. I didn’t bother looking at my injuries, it didn’t matter. I slowly stumbled forward, but I couldn’t imagine that I could traverse the several hundred yards in time.
My breath caught as the saucer began to wobble—that couldn’t be right. I saw a flash of green fly away from the round form of the ship as it listed to the right and headed towards the ground.
The whining sound that had been the energy buildup went up several octaves and the ship exploded in a yellow fireball, the remnants of it plowing into the crater.
I threw myself to the ground as flaming debris and exploded earth flew all around me, some small pieces impacting with my naked flesh.
The flash of green I had seen impacted the ground and bounced—Toxicwasteman. I shook my head in confusion. What had happened? Unlike when he jumped out of the plane, he didn’t bounce much, but was soon walking resolutely towards the prone form of Licia.
I cried out her name as I got to my feet, ignoring my injuries, and ran towards her.
Toxicwasteman stopped and leaned over her.
“Don’t!” I cried as I ran.
He smiled and slowly stood up, watching me. I could hear the fire of the wreckage burning behind me and smell the acrid smoke it was belching out.
As I got close, I stumbled across one of the prone bodies of the blond-haired aliens and fell. I was still about ten yards away from Toxicwasteman and Licia.
The smell of burnt flesh overwhelmed me. My glance strayed to the corpse as I rose. There was a large hole in his chest where my neutrino bolt had landed. I wanted to vomit, but there was nothing in my stomach.
I pushed down the nausea and got back to my feet. “Don’t touch her,” I said, my voice coming out ragged and frayed.
He looked me up and down like he had done when we had met in the diner. This time my nudity didn’t embarrass me. I didn’t care.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” he said as he squatted down, his green toxic hand reaching for Licia.
“No!” I cried. I surged forward throwing my hand out and a small neutrino bolt leapt forward and sailed through the air towards his head.
He looked up in time and tiled his head to the left, the bolt sailing past. “Now that’s better,” he said, “that’s what I want to see.”
“Step away from her.”
“Or what?”
I laughed. It was really a pitiful sound, all manic and crazy. “Or I kill you and everyone and everything you love.”
“Okay,” he said not moving.
“Okay? Okay what?”
“Tell you what,” he said, standing and moving a small step away from her, “I’ll give you a free shot, do your worst.”
He was toying with me, like a cat with a mouse. But it was all I had. I had no idea how I had thrown that neutrino bolt before, I had no idea if I could do it again.
“Come on, do your worst,” he taunted. “Take me out. Save your lady. Be a hero.”
Here is the time in the story where the hero pulls from a reserve he didn’t even know he had and though badly outmatched defeats the enemy.
Sorry, I hate to disappoint you, but that is not what happened.
I thrust my arm forth again, but another bolt was not forthcoming. I leaned down and grabbed a fist-sized rock and threw it at him. It connected squarely with his chest and bounced off and rolled on the ground. The rock was smoking from his toxic touch.
He made a move to step back towards Licia, and with a guttural scream I charged him. He sidedstepped me and I went sprawling on the ground.
When I looked up, he was no longer Toxicwasteman but Tom Tyree. He stood there tall, gaunt, and naked, slowly nodding his head.
“You’ve got guts,” he said. “It just might be enough.”
I rose to my feet and launched myself at him again. His hands caught my head and threw me aside.
I was trying to get up again when he pushed me down and squatted in front of me. “Enough, Boy Scout. Enough.”
“You let her be,” I growled, “or I will—”
“Yes, yes, I know. You will kill me and everything and everyone I love. Got it.”
That brought me up short, and I just sat there silently chewing on air.
“I had to be sure,” Tom said.
“Sure?” I asked.
“Yes, sure. While I would love to kill that lightning-throwing witch, I think it would destroy you, and I can’t have that.”
Another explosion occurred behind me, and I turned and saw the conflagration that once had been the alien spaceship.
“I told you I wanted to be a hero,” he said.
“You did that?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Yes, my dear Boy Scout, I did. I must say, I enjoyed it.” His grin was too wide, revealing too many teeth.
“Why?” I asked.
“I told you. This is my world. My world! I hate those little grey bastards, and I will do whatever it takes to protect this planet from them. Will you?”
The pieces fell into place. Tom had been something of a double agent and had played both sides of this.
“You needed the aliens to think I was defeated so…”
“So I could get on that damn ship and destroy it from the inside.”
“But…”
“Look,” he said, his hand painfully gripping my shoulder. “I don’t have time to spell this all out for you, but I need you to pay attention. Are you listing, Mr. Neutrino?”
I nodded, meeting his eyes. I hated him, but I didn’t really have a choice, so I listened.
“You must take credit for this,” he nodded, indicating the wreckage.
“Credit?”
“Yes. The aliens are scared of you. If they think you did this, if they believe you can breach their ship’s defenses, they will back off and lick their wounds. They will give us some time.”
I nodded, it made sense.
“Can you do that, Boy Scout? Can you tell a lie for the greater good?”
“Yes… I can. I can do that.”
“Good. Now let’s hope you have what it takes to really defeat them.”
“What?”
“You know what the difference between you and me is?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I will do whatever it takes to defeat these bastards. I will kill, I will lie, I will steal. I will do whatever it takes to save the planet, will you?”
“Of course,” I said.
He snorted, “Oh really. I saw you
turn green when you saw one of your victims. What if that was an innocent bystander, could you do that? Could you kill a single innocent if that is what it took to win this war?”
“I—”
“How about a hundred? A thousand? A million?” His wide eyes glinted, his voice a serious growl. “Can you stomach the collateral damage? Can you sacrifice what needs to be sacrificed?” He looked at Licia and then back at me. He shook his head and stood up. “I hope you can.” He backed up a step and turned from Tom Tyree into the green form of Toxicwasteman.
He was crazy, that much was apparent. I heard the dim thump of helicopters in the distance. Having been transformed with the help of that neutrino mutated rat, my hearing, even in my human form, is better than normal. I doubted he could hear them, so I tried to stall him. I didn’t think he should be loose on the land. “Why didn’t you just tell us what was going on?”
He laughed. “You’re not a very good liar. It had to look good. You had to be truly defeated for me to get into that ship.”
“What will they try next?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I have no idea, but know that they will try again and again and again until they are all gone.”
The sound of the choppers was getting louder. He would be able to hear it soon. “Why are they trying to destroy us?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter? I didn’t bother—” He cut himself short as he looked towards the sound of the approaching helicopters.
He leaned down again, his green face coming close to mine, the smell of it acrid and vile. “We will meet again, you and I. And when we do, I want you to remember what I did here today, and maybe more importantly, what I didn’t do.” He glanced at Licia briefly before his crazy eyes met mine again. “Our methods may be different, but our goal is the same. We are on the same side, you and I.”
He rose and walked several steps away. “Toxicwasteman, wait! Let’s talk to them together. If you want to help…”
“Isn’t that leash your masters at the military have on you already too short? Mark my words, if it isn’t too short today, it will be someday. You are welcome to come join me when it is.”
“Toxicwasteman, please,” I said, slowly getting to my feet. “You can’t outrun a helicopter. We can all talk.”
“You know, I don’t think I like that name,” he said, his grin returning to his face. “Too many syllables, doesn’t fall trippingly off the tongue. From now on, I am Toxic.”
With that, he positioned his palms parallel to the ground, and green smoky flames came shooting out of his palms and his feet as he leapt into the air.
I stood there gape jawed watching him fly to the north while helicopters became visible to the south.
“I didn’t know that bastard could fly,” Licia said, her voice weak.
I rushed over, got on the ground, and pulled her body to mine. The sun was starting to warm things up, but it was still cold and our teeth where chattering. “You’re alive. Thank God you’re alive.”
She clung to me with a fierceness that was surprising and welcome. I felt tears run down my cheeks as I clung to her. “I was so afraid that…,” I said. “I am so glad you are okay.”
“I don’t know if I would go so far as to say that I’m okay,” she said. “But, I will be.”
“Licia… I… We…” I stammered.
“Hush, Nik. Hush. Just hold me.”
Chapter 16
Aftermath
Fall 2004, In flight above Wyoming
My jaw clenched and unclenched as I watched her. It was obsessive, I know, but I had almost lost her, I couldn’t help it.
The thump-thump of the helicopter was like the sound of my beating heart as I stared. They had put her on a stretcher, a neck brace holding her head in place. They had offered me a stretcher, but I refused, taking a blanket and leaning on a medic as I hobbled my way to the helicopter.
I hardly felt the prick as the medic inserted an IV and started hydrating me. They were talking to me, saying things, but the words made no sense. They offered food, but I brushed it away so I could watch her.
She was asleep, her eyes closed, her broken arm braced, an IV dripping fluids into her bloodstream. Her face looked relaxed, almost normal. The beauty of that face made my heart ache.
I realized my jaw was hurting and tried to relax it, but I couldn’t.
It was shock, of course. I was in shock. I didn’t know it at the time, I didn’t feel like I was in shock. I just felt… Well, what I was feeling was complicated. My physical pain was receding (I think they must have given me some pain killers), but my emotional pain was unchecked.
I was scared about what had almost happened, terrified to my core. And the thought that represented that terror in my head, was “I almost lost her.” It wasn’t anything about Yellowstone turning into one big supervolcano and decimating much of my country and affecting the entire world. It was about her. It was about the thing most important to me. The thing I could touch. The thing that was real.
I was ashamed too. I hadn’t stopped this. Toxicwasteman had, and I had just been a pawn in his plan. He had used me, but worse, much worse, he had used her.
I was angry, furious, seething about what he had done. I felt hate sharp and hot in my gut, and I felt guilty about it at the same time.
And lastly, I felt like throwing up. Not from my injuries, but from the vision of the dead alien that I had killed.
I was vaguely aware that the land below us had changed. There were buildings and an airstrip. I didn’t care. I watched her.
The medic that came over and injected something into my IV was like a fly. I waved my hand when she got between me and Licia, but otherwise her presence meant nothing to me.
The world spun briefly as consciousness fled. A distant part of me realized that the medic had drugged me and a small part of me knew that was a good thing. But, I fought it, keeping my eyes open as long as I could, staring at her.
~~~
I woke up in a hospital bed. The room was small and clean, with a window letting in sunlight. I had bandages covering my numerous cuts and abrasions. My body hurt all over, but otherwise I didn’t feel too bad.
In a chair next to the bed was Jennifer Johnson. She’s one of the main scientists that work with me and a good friend. She was asleep, her head tiled awkwardly against the back of the chair, her curly black hair spilling across it.
“Jennifer?” I said, finding my voice.
She roused herself, blinking. “Nik,” she said with a sleepy smile and a yawn. “There you are.”
“Licia?”
“She’s fine. She’s in the next room recovering.”
I struggled, trying to push myself up in the bed. I found that I had a lot less energy than I thought, and my muscles screamed at every move.
“Slow down, big boy,” she said, her smile gentle. “She’s fine.”
“I need to see her.”
She looked at me, her eyes narrow and then nodded. “Lie back down, let me get a nurse.”
A few minutes later I had been unhooked from my IV and had painfully moved myself into a wheelchair. Jennifer pushed me into the next room.
Licia Lopez was asleep, her arm in a cast. I stared at her face and felt… God, this is hard. It’s hard to explain these emotions. We were so early in our relationship, but out there in the battle, out there when it looked like there would be no tomorrow, it became clear to me that I loved her. And not in some small way. I LOVED her with a passion that I didn’t know I was capable of, a passion that eclipsed anything I had ever felt before.
I stared at her face. The long dark lashes, her smooth, light brown skin, her jet-black hair arrayed awkwardly. I drank her in like I was in a desert and looking at her was water. I felt my heart in a way that I had never felt it before: both tender and hard at the same time. I had no idea that love was like this, that you could feel like this.
It was painful and glorious at the same time.
“She’s okay,” Jennifer whispered. S
he had squatted down next to me.
“What are her injuries?” I asked.
“A concussion, a broken arm, broken ribs, lots of bruises, cuts and abrasions. She’s fine, Nik. I swear to you she is fine”
“I… I love her.”
Jennifer smiled and nodded, “I know.”
“How?”
She chuckled. “Everyone knows, Nik. It’s the most obvious thing in the world.”
“Do you think she knows?” I asked. I mean, I was just figuring this out, what if she knew and didn’t feel the same way?
Jennifer smiled back in response. Of course Licia knew, she was a woman and women are better at this feeling stuff than men.
We stayed there for a long time until I started dozing off and couldn’t resist being taken back to my own room.
~~~
It was like a scene from some Steven Spielberg sci-fi movie: helicopters flying overhead, tents teeming with military personnel, scientists in white coats with odd-looking instruments. They ran around the landscape of Yellowstone like ants searching for food and bringing it back to their nest.
Licia looked tired and drawn, but she was on her feet. I was tired too—no reactor time yet, which is what I needed to feel better. They had flown us out here after several days in the Francis E. Warren Air Force infirmary.
Williams and a few others were debriefing us. They were taking Licia’s statement first. I had mostly tuned it out. This place made me feel numb. I had trouble concentrating. My ears perked up when she started talking about what happened when I was in the hole.
“They changed their weapons,” she said. “They were shooting those purple balls of energy at Nik. I got grazed a few times by them, and they didn’t hurt me at all. After he left, they changed them to shooting these pale orange balls of energy. Those hurt, those sucked what little energy I had. The first one hit my right arm, it went numb.”
Williams nodded and asked, “And Toxicwasteman?”
She snorted, but it wasn’t derisive or humorous. It was a defeated I-told-you-so kind of a sound. “He started firing his green balls of goo at me, but they all missed. He wasn’t fully focused on me, he kept glancing back to the hole. It was clear he was with them.”
Neutrinoman & Lightningirl: A Love Story, Season 1 (Episodes 1 - 3) Page 15