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

by Robert J. McCarter

  I nodded, still dazed by where I was, who I was with, and what I had just seen on the TV.

  “Do you need to sit?” she asked, taking my arm and guiding me to the table.

  When Chaosboy had told me that my secret was about to come out, I had believed him. It was kind of inevitable. Everyone knew I worked at Palo Verde. Everyone knew that Neutrinoman used it as home base. Starting with a list of employees and with a little effort, it was going to be found out.

  But, now that it was happening, I felt extremely disoriented. I didn’t sign up to be a superhero, and to this point, anonymity had been one of the only things keeping me sane, giving me a shred of a normal life. And now? I had no idea how I would cope with the world knowing who I was.

  “How about some cheese?” Dr. Cheese asked, sliding a plate towards me. The smell was intoxicating and a welcome distraction. “I made it myself,” he added. I pushed the plate away.

  ~~~

  The plan had been a simple one. The military was expecting Toxicwasteman or one of his people to contact me. When they did, I would agree to a meeting, learn all I could, and then alert the military to their location. They would swoop in and take them all into custody.

  Sitting there smelling Dr. Cheese’s cheese, reeling from the upcoming outing of me as Neutrinoman, I just had to laugh. It was such a simplistic plan. So easy. So logical.

  Except Chaosboy had given me a chance to warn my family. I knew I was supposed to be the hero and they were supposed to be the villains, but it was Toxicwasteman that saved the day when we last met in Yellowstone. He had used me as a pawn in his plan, but he had gotten the job done.

  But, what if he was using me as a pawn again? What if he had arranged for this little Diane Madison thing, this unmasking of a superhero?

  I was so confused. But sitting there with Dr. Cheese watching him nibble on pieces of cheese was not doing me any good.

  “What’s with the lab coat?” I asked him.

  “Huh?” he asked, pushing his round glasses back into position and brushing at his short grey hair. He was a chubby little dude, built like a fireplug.

  “You are always wearing a lab coat. What is up with that?”

  “Well, I am a doctor, after all,” he said with a sniff.

  “Yeah. Doctor,” Chaosboy said as he sat down and started eating the cheese. “Oh, man. Cheesy, you’ve outdone yourself.”

  “You were a podiatrist before the accident,” I said. “Why wear a lab coat now? We’re in a cave. There’s no one else here.”

  He pulled the white coat tight, monogrammed on the pocket was “Dr. Cheese.” He blinked rapidly, his eyes twitching around before meeting mine. “Do you really want to know?”

  I nodded. I didn’t know if I did, but staying trapped in my head was not a good thing.

  “Branding,” he said with a nod, before picking up what looked like a piece of Havarti. My mouth was watering. I was more than a little hungry.

  “Branding?” I asked.

  “Yes, branding. Depending on how all this turns out, there might be some value in my name and image. Endorsements, appearances, product sales. The lab coat is my brand. So I wear it, you never know when you might be seen.” His hand hovered over the plate of cheese—he seemed to be deciding between a piece of cheddar or another Swiss. “Are you sure you don’t want some?” he asked.

  I was worried about them poisoning me, but I was hungry, and the cheese did smell fantastic.

  “You know,” Tom began as he sat down beside me. “You really ought to consider branding yourself. You could be making a mint off of endorsements right now. Neutrinoman energy drinks, Neutrinoman comic books and movies. LoVE has a team of lawyers on retainer. If you were to join us, we could make all of that happen.”

  My hand darted out, almost against my volition, and snagged a piece of Swiss. It was amazing; fresh and sharp, rich and creamy. I rationalized that if they had wanted to poison me they already had. If Dr. Cheese had wanted to infect me he could have done it when we shook hands. “Wow,” I said, surprised when I heard myself speak.

  “No one does cheese like Dr. Cheese,” Byte said as she sat down on the other side of me. She placed a large tablet computer in the middle of the table on a stand. She smelled of roses with a hint of patchouli. I didn’t recall her having that scent on when we met. I found it a bit distracting.

  “Let’s do this,” Tom said. As I sat there eating some of the best cheese I had ever tasted, Tom and the rest of them made their pitch.

  ~~~

  The lights in the cave dimmed, seemingly of their own accord, with a single light shining from above on the table. This left the cave outside the circle of light dark and murky. On the tablet appeared the letters L. o. V. E. in 3D slowly rotating.

  “This table,” Tom began after clearing his throat, “is round for a reason. Like King Arthur of legend, everyone here has a voice. Everyone here contributes. Everyone here knows the plan. We have no secrets from each other.”

  Tom got up and slowly walked around the table. There were eight chairs, but only five us sitting there.

  He stopped behind Dr. Cheese, his hands resting briefly on the man’s thick shoulders. “Doc here is our medic and our chef. His enzymatic superpowers are useful in a variety of situations. He can cause destruction if need be, or get us through a door quietly and quickly. His enzymes can harm or help depending on our needs.”

  With a smile Tom moved to Chaosboy. “Chaosboy here is our luck. Everything, and I mean everything, goes better with him. He is our eyes and ears in the world, our talent scout, and the first one to join me.”

  He moved on to Byte, his hands caressing her hair before going to her shoulders. “Byte here is the nerve center of our operation. She can get us through any firewall, can disable any security system, retrieve for us any data, and takes care of managing our finances.”

  “I,” he began, standing behind his own seat, “am the brains of the operation, and sometimes the brawn. I keep us on mission and on task.”

  He then moved behind my chair and put his hands on my shoulders. “You, Neutrino, you could be our most powerful weapon. The aliens fear you, fear your power, and with good reason. We need you to save this planet. We, literally, cannot do it without you.”

  He sat back down. “Our mission is singular and focused: destroy the alien threat; save the planet; have a party.” After a dramatic pause he looked me directly in the eyes and asked, “Will you join us, Nik?”

  Interview, Part 1

  Late Winter 2005, WNN Studios, Los Angeles

  Nik’s Note: This interview took place shortly after the events described in this book. Diane Madison played a pivotal role in all of this, so I’ve interspersed portions of this interview to give you a taste of what she was like back then.

  She was beautiful—there was no doubt of that. But it was a beauty born of manipulation. The professional hair and makeup. The expensive, custom-tailored clothing. The perfectly manicured nails, the dazzling white teeth.

  Of course she looked that way. She made her living in front of a camera, and if you are in front of a camera everything is manipulated.

  She smiled at me and I hated her.

  Diane Madison. She was the one who told the world who I was and here I was in a television studio about to be interviewed by her.

  “Just relax,” she said with a red-lipped smile. “Just be yourself and answer the questions.”

  I grunted a reply as a short, round woman dabbed makeup on my face and a tall thin man attended to her. We were on the set of a state-of-the-art news studio in Los Angeles, surrounded by large screens that displayed the rotating WNN logo.

  “Give as complete answers as you can,” she continued. “You should be talking more than me, a lot more than me. So, no one or two word answers. Let your answers become stories.” I must have looked puzzled, because she elaborated. “Pretend the two of us are alone here. We’re sitting at a little round table in an Italian restaurant.” She sat behind an ornat
e glass desk, and I sat at one end of that desk. Nothing like an Italian restaurant. “Pretend we are on a first date, and you are trying to impress me.”

  My eyes widened and I held my hand up, batting at the makeup lady that was still fussing with my face. “Are you insane?” I asked.

  Her eyes grew narrow and she said to the makeup artists, “Midge, Al, can you give us a minute?” The tall man and the short woman nodded and walked away. “You were saying?” she said, prompting me.

  “This is not a date, and I don’t want to be here,” I said, letting my anger get the best of me. “You are the one that sat behind this very desk and told the world my identity, Licia’s identity. Do you have any idea what that has done, is doing, to my life? To my family? To her life? To her family? Do you think I asked for this? To have these abilities? To have this responsibility? Who the hell do you think you are to do this to us?”

  She smiled and nodded. Her face looking completely relaxed and natural, her composure rock solid. I hated her for that calmness. “I apologize,” she said smoothly. “You must know it was only a matter of time until your identity was revealed. Best that it was done by me, by a serious news organization, than by some gossip show or tabloid. We got our facts right, we—”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I said, interrupting her. “That I’m better off because you were the one?” I pulled the tissue paper that was still around my collar to shield my powder blue dress shirt from makeup stains. I stood up and said, “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Please,” she said as she stood up and placed her hand on my shoulder. Now I could see fear in that plastic face of hers, now she looked human. “Please, it’s okay. I will take good care of you, Nik.” Her green eyes were compelling and deep. They sang to me of compassion and understanding. Her hand on my shoulder was warm as she exerted a gentle downward pressure. I found myself back in a sitting position without remembering the act of sitting. Midge was tucking the tissue paper back around my collar and dabbing at my face. The bright lights of the studio were dazzling. Diane was beaming at me, gently nodding her head.

  I was such a fool.

  Chapter 5

  Time for the Truth

  Late Winter 2005, LoVE Base, Near the Grand Canyon

  I’m not sure what he was expecting. For me to jump up and down and say, “Yes, I will join your psychotic little band of villains.”

  I didn’t know Byte’s history, but everyone else at the table was wanted for multiple crimes. Dr. Cheese had done experiments on people with the orange incident and others. He had also destroyed a bridge in St. Louis and tried to extort millions of dollars out of the city. Chaosboy had taken millions from casinos—not that that bothered me much. And, Toxicwasteman had killed on his post-accident rampage.

  I’m not sure what he was expecting. I snagged another piece of cheese and looked back at him, chewing.

  Dr. Cheese cleared his throat as he pushed his chair back. “I better get started on dinner.”

  Choasboy excused himself, saying he had to service the helicopter (I hadn’t seen one). The lights in the cave came up and Tom, Byte, and I remained at the table.

  “I’ll need a little more than a dramatic speech,” I said.

  Tom nodded. “Just as you predicted,” he said to Byte. She nodded in return.

  “Predicted?” I asked.

  Byte nodded again, her blue eyes bright. “Oh yes, we liberated your psych profile from the military and fed it into my software.”

  I found myself staring at her, my eyes blinking continuously.

  “You’re here,” Tom began, “sitting at our table. It is time for truth. This is how I was able to predict your behavior during our last encounter. How I was able to use you to neutralize the enemy threat.”

  I was still staring at Byte, blinking. I started shaking my head slowly back and forth.

  “We know you value the truth,” he continued. “We know the military has you in an atmosphere where you know little. We would change that.”

  “How?” I asked, looking at him.

  Byte gestured to the tablet which showed a picture of an athletic Asian man. “Timothy Tran, code name Tornado. A storm chaser here in the States, he was caught in a class five tornado the day of the cosmic rays. He can now absorb the energy of a storm and release it at will. He was the one that provided the thunderstorm the day you went after the asteroid.”

  The screen changed to show a tall, handsome man with jet black hair. “Quinn Rask.” He was at the Large Hadron Collider facility when the accident happened. He can control his body on a molecular level. The military is planning on introducing him to you soon. They want to see if he can replicate your powers.”

  I tore my eyes away from the screen and met Tom’s. They were right, knowing the truth was something I valued, something that had been missing with the military. “And the aliens?”

  Tom nodded slowly, a small smile on his lips. “The aliens are bent on our destruction, but they are resource constrained.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it, Nik,” he said. I wasn’t sure how much I liked him using my real name. “If they had the resources to overwhelm us, they would have done it by now. They call themselves the Arcturian Alliance. Arcturus is a star light years away. That they are here is rather astounding. The amount of energy they must have expended to come here was tremendous. They are resource constrained.”

  I nodded, it was starting to make sense. “But why do they want to destroy us?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me.”

  “And what do your simulations tell you?” I asked, looking at Byte.

  She smiled, I think she liked the fact that I was catching on. “Not a bloody thing. We don’t know them well enough to simulate their psychology. But we have simulated their actions, which confirms that they can’t, right now, overwhelm us with force.”

  “If I had to guess,” Tom said, “they thought the asteroid would do the trick. They weren’t counting on you, my friend.”

  ~~~

  I have to admit I was tempted. Back then my work with the military was challenging and often frustrating, but things were good. The lack of information was a constant irritation. They knew more, they just didn’t tell me until I “needed to know.”

  That whole “round table” thing may have been all show, may have been because they knew enough about my psychology and were using it to manipulate me. Maybe. Either way, it was working. I liked the free exchange of ideas. I liked that information was actually flowing to me, that things were actually making a bit more sense.

  The three of us talked for another hour or so. I closely watched the interplay between Byte and Tom. She looked at him like… like I wanted Licia to look at me. It wasn’t clear to me what stage their relationship was in, but it was clear that there were feelings.

  “So,” I began after things had quieted down. “So, you have a psychological profile on me. How did you get it?”

  Byte shrugged and pushed her blond hair behind her ear again. “Since the accident, firewalls aren’t much of an impediment, really none at all.”

  “And you know a lot about me. About what would tempt me to join you?”

  Tom nodded and smiled. This new Tom was kind of freaking me out. He wasn’t acting crazy all the time. Sure there were hints of the Toxicwasteman I met at Big Al’s Truck Stop, but it was subtler, less obvious. The broad smile, the widening of the eyes at odd times. If I didn’t know better, he just seemed like a smart man, if a bit eccentric.

  “So everything you are doing,” I continued, looking at Tom, “everything you are showing me, even the way you are acting could be to manipulate me. This round table, that timely warning about my identity being outed, you suddenly acting like a sane man. All of it could be put on.”

  Tom smiled, and the wolfish smile freaked me out and made me comfortable at the same time. It was the old Toxicwasteman. It was my enemy. But the smile didn’t last long and he seemed perfectly
sane again. “You could be right,” he said with a sigh. He stood up and started pacing around the round table. “We are guided by Byte’s simulations. They are not always right, but they are always useful. And, of course we are trying to manipulate you. We want you to join us. That is truth and we only speak truth at this table. But what you see, how we act, that is real. Maybe I appear sane here because I am at home, I am among my people.” He stopped directly across from me and leaned on the empty chair. “We need you, Neutrino. We can’t defeat the aliens without you. Will you join us?”

  I narrowed my eyes and studied him. He seemed earnest. I believed he wanted to end the alien threat, but I worried at what cost.

  “Were you, in any way, involved in my identity being revealed?” I gestured to the screen we had seen Diane Madison on earlier.

  “No,” he said without hesitation. “We’ve known who you are for months. If we wanted to out you or hurt your family we could have done that. Easily.”

  I nodded and sighed. I found myself believing him. Hell, I wanted to believe him, that we were fighting the same enemy, in some ways on the same side. I was tired, and I was confused. “I… I need to think about this.”

  Chapter 6

  Eating with the Enemy

  Late Winter 2005, LoVE Base, Near the Grand Canyon

  Dinner was simple, but good. Dr. Cheese seemed to have a flair for cooking. The steak was unbelievably tender, the baked potatoes soft and fluffy, the green beans fresh and flavorful.

  I ate fast and kept my mouth shut, watching how everyone else acted. We sat around the round table in the middle of the cave.

  “How’s the planning going?” Tom asked Byte. “Did you get the details you needed?”

  She nodded while she chewed. “Everything looks good. Sims look good. But…” her eyes darted to me. “We’re going to need everyone to get in and out quickly.”

  Tom nodded. “It’ll be okay.”

  I let the exchange pass. Clearly there was something else coming down the line. The conversation turned to sports, and some bets were made on the upcoming Eagles/Patriots Super Bowl game.