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

by Robert J. McCarter

  “Do we really need another greenhouse?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied flatly, her hands on her hips.

  I let out an involuntary sigh. Her lips pursed. “It’s going to take a while,” I said.

  She shrugged. “We need to keep busy.”

  “I guess I’m at a good stopping point with the writing. The boy has got the girl. Peace has come… for a time.”

  She nodded and then bit her lower lip. “Are you sure you want to keep doing this?”

  “Doing what?” I asked.

  “Telling our story, the real story. Like you said, it’s a good stopping point. People will know a lot more than they did. Maybe it’s enough.” I paused. It was a good question, and she leapt into that silence. “It is tarnishing your reputation a bit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you took credit for defeating the aliens at Yellowstone and it was Toxicwasteman.” She held one finger up. “You admitted to being involved with LoVE and robbing that train,” she raised another finger. “And the details of our reluctance to harm the aliens will be out in the open if you publish the last one. Do you really want the world to know the ‘real’ story?”

  I paused. On one hand I was irritated, because this line of questioning appeared to be a tool to get me involved in building the new greenhouse. On the other hand I was even more irritated because she had a point.

  Our position in the world was no longer what it once was, but what would the world think, what would happen if they knew the truth? If they really saw the full frailty of their heroes?

  “It’s a fine romantic adventure the way it sits,” she said. “Can you let it go?”

  “There is so much more to tell,” I began, my eyes meeting hers. “While what we have now is a romance, I want to go into what happens after ‘happily ever after.’ What happens when our hero and heroine hit hard times, what their love looks like as it deepens and grows. And besides, there is the whole war to cover and how we ended up here.” I gestured to the parched land around us.

  She had been patient these last few months as I wrote. She had supported me and helped deal with the complex emotions that had arisen. Our eyes met and while it was clear she wanted this greenhouse, there was also compassion there. She wanted what she wanted, but it looked to me like she thought I needed a break from rooting around in our past and was smart enough not to come right out and say it.

  And she was (as usual) right. Taking an honest look at a tumultuous life is not for the faint of heart. This story is a marathon, not a sprint. There’s time for this greenhouse and time to finish the story.

  “Okay,” I said, and she rewarded me with a smile. “But I want to talk about the future while we do this.”

  “The future?” she asked.

  “Yes, the future. This life we live.” I held my arms up and spun around looking at the beautiful, but isolated, place we lived. Rolling hills, wild grasses, prickly pear cactus. “This is our home, our ‘fortress of solitude,’ but I don’t think it’s going to be enough for much longer.”

  She smiled shyly and nodded.

  “So,” I began, “let’s get started.”

  Acknowledgements

  Here we are. It’s taken a lot longer to get these done than I had hoped, so thank you for reading along.

  And by “here,” I mean we’ve arrived at the point where you can clearly see where this story is going. New superheroes falling in love and trying to save the world. Getting used to powers. Fame. Complicated lives. Doing what must be done while keeping a hold of their humanity.

  I’m so happy to be telling this story. There’s a ways to go and I’ll hope you’ll keep following along.

  I’ve had a lot of help getting here.

  Many thanks to my super team of beta reader: John Bifano, Roni Hornstein, Chris Kalinich, Michele Lytle, Susanne One Love, and Aleia N. O’Reilly.

  Thanks to Diana Cox, my proofreader, for making me look good. (www.novelproofreading.com).

  A special nod to my love, my partner, and my wife, Aleia. You always inspire me.

  Fasten your seat belts, folks. There is a lot more Neutrinoman and Lightningirl coming soon.

  Off Book

  Neutrinoman and Lightningirl: A Love Story, Episode 2

  Want more of the adventures of Neutrinoman and Lightningirl? The following is a sample of Episode #4.

  Chapter 1

  Sarah Speaks

  Late Winter 2005, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, Arizona

  The video was grainy, but clear enough. It showed a picture of the alien Sarah dressed in a silver jumpsuit, like when I had rescued her. The classic The Day the Earth Stood Still look. She looked good, the cut on her forehead was healing well, her long blond hair was pulled back, her blue eyes intense. The audio was crisp and clear.

  This video had been received by mail, sent to Diane Madison at WNN on a little thumb drive. The world hadn’t seen it yet, but Diane was going to air it this evening.

  Licia, Colonel Williams, General Marcus, Jennifer Johnson, and I were in a hushed little room at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. A small conference room with a table, chairs, and the video gear. We had been called in with the highest priority, Licia and I driving down from Flagstaff. It was a week after she agreed to be my girlfriend, just twelve days since the Battle at Palo Verde when she quit the program. She only came because Williams asked her personally.

  “I am known as Sarah,” the tall alien began on the video. She looked nervous. Behind her was a flat white wall, no clues whatsoever to her location. “I represent the Arcturian Alliance. I am no one, but I will speak for you and all will listen. This is our way.”

  The room was dead quiet, all eyes fixed on the screen.

  “Your planet has been classified as threat. We have been listening and watching you for sixty Earth years. We have been studying you. You are an immature and violent species. The Arcturian Alliance has determined that extermination is required. Several attempts have been made and have failed.”

  The meteor attack and the “Incident at Yellowstone” came leaping to mind. I wondered if there were others.

  “None then spoke on your behalf. I speak now.”

  General Marcus caught my eye and gave me a small nod. Releasing her had been my idea, and it had caused a major fight between me and the general. This video was starting to sound like Sarah was keeping her end of the bargain. That we did the right thing.

  “I have been to your planet. I have witnessed the kindness and compassion of the yellow one. When we fought he saved me. I am no one but he saved me, he saved others, he fought for my release. So now I speak on your behalf and hostilities will stop.

  “While I speak, while the council listens and debates, there will be no more attacks by the Arcturian Alliance. This is our way.

  “Look in your hearts, people of Earth. Find compassion for one another. Stop your wars and fighting. Stop putting the needs of the individual over the whole. Stop killing each other. This is your chance to change, your one chance. Once I speak, once they listen, the decision will be final. We will either leave you be or we will destroy you for the sake of all.

  “Look to the yellow one. Be more like him.

  “I am called Sarah. I am no one, but because of the yellow one, I speak for you.”

  The video ended and Jennifer turned on the lights. The room was silent, all eyes on me. Colonel Williams rubbed his salt-and-pepper hair and shook his head. General Marcus had this faraway look on his round face. Jennifer just stood there, her arms wrapped around her just like she was cold.

  I am the “yellow one” and what Sarah just said made my heart pound hard in my chest. She was asking the world to be more like me. She was holding me up as example. It’s too much. I wanted to bolt, to run away. To leave all this behind and just have a normal life with Licia. I didn’t want to be the hero.

  Under the table, Licia grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. Her brown eyes were compassionate as she
looked at me. Peace had come, but for how long? And if Diane Madison outing me wasn’t enough, I now had an alien telling the entire world to stop fighting and to look to me as example.

  It was too damn much.

  Chapter 2

  What Happens in Vegas…

  Spring 2005, US-95, Northwest Arizona

  I have come to know and understand the beauty of the desert. It’s not a flashy beauty like the tropics, it’s a quiet beauty, deep and abiding, entirely mysterious.

  Quinn Rake, my new q-morph partner, drove my 1990 Ford Focus down US-93 in the northwestern corner of Arizona between Kingman and Las Vegas. It’s a long lonely stretch of desert with plentiful cactus and craggy hills in the distance.

  Spring had come and with it hope. After Sarah’s video, the full truth of the alien attacks on our planet had come to light. The governments of the world had even started releasing details they had about previous alien visits: Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 (it wasn’t a weather balloon); the Rendlesham Forest incident in 1980 (alien ships did land in England); Japan Air Lines flight 1628 in 1986 (alien ships seen over Alaska); the Phoenix Lights in 1997 (not airplanes); and more.

  I had done more interviews and had become a celebrity. I was dealing with paparazzi when I was out in the world and then with endless training when I was with the military.

  This “speaking” Sarah was doing was of an unknown length with a decision making process we couldn’t fathom. Everyone was worried the attacks would resume. Just because Sarah implored us to “stop killing each other” and had promised that “we will destroy you for the sake of all” if they perceived the need, didn’t mean we could change.

  The US was still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Middle East was a disaster, and fighting terrorism was a major pastime here since 9/11. There were no shortages of humans killing humans.

  The threat of annihilation often made us less logical, not more.

  I stared out at the dirt and sage brush whipping by me. The signs of spring were not overt in the desert, but they were there. Growing green grasses, instead of the usual brown, the lighter green of new growth on the sage brush.

  “Are you going to be this pensive the whole trip?” Quinn asked, his blue eyes boring into me as we roared down the two-lane road at ninety miles per hour, the fastest my little Ford could manage.

  I looked at him and smiled, but it didn’t work very well. I only managed a grimace. As much as I liked Quinn, I finally had some R&R and was spending it with him instead of Licia on our crazy “off book” mission. The military thought we were going to Las Vegas to blow off some steam. In truth we were going there in search of Chaosboy. Since our “little heist” on the train I couldn’t stop thinking about him, about how he could bend probabilities with his will, about how he left a wake of chaos and bad luck for others in his wake, about how blasé he was about collateral damage.

  An alien threat. Overwhelming celebrity. Chaosboy and the damage he could cause. I had reason to be pensive.

  “Because if you going to be big wet blanket, then I think we should turn around now,” he said. Quinn had this odd accent that is impossible to place. He said it is because of his Army brat upbringing, spending the first sixteen years of his life in five different countries in Europe, and his French mother.

  I took a deep breath and tried to shake it off. Quinn was still staring at me as we roared down the road. It made me nervous, but I understood that it wasn’t dangerous for him. Quinn is a q-morph--quantum metamorph--like Licia and I. But unlike us his powers are always present, like Chaosboy and Byte.

  During the day the cosmic rays hit, he was working in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Upton, New York. He was inside the collider inspecting some of the sensors when the collider accidently was triggered. The Collider is a 3.8-kilometer track where ions traveling at relativistic speed (a significant portion of the speed of light) collide so physicists can study the primordial form of matter that existed shortly after the Big Bang. Those particles went through Quinn’s body and mixed with those cosmic rays turning him into the q-morph he is today.

  He doesn’t have a single superhero name like most of us do. Actually he has a lot of superhero names, but no one knows that they all belong to him: The Hammer, Stretchman, Jumper, and others. Actually, he’s the reason that most counts of the q-morphs created that day in 2003 are too high. He can control his body at a molecular level and in reality is each of those q-morphs.

  And this is why I didn’t need to be worried about him looking at me while he was driving down a two-lane highway like a maniac. In his normal form, a handsome and muscular 6’4”, he has the best reflexes on the planet and amazing peripheral vision. He could look at me and still drive safely.

  But this isn’t his natural form. I think it’s the body he wanted to have when he was young. He was in his late fifties when the accident happened, but he looks like he’s about thirty now.

  “Come on, Nik,” he said. “We need to have some fun. We’ve been cooped up for weeks.”

  “We’re going to Vegas for a reason,” I said.

  “Yes! To gamble and drink and chase women--”

  “To find Chaosboy,” I said, interrupting. “To stop him.”

  Quinn was silent, his eyes turning to the road, the smile melting off his face. He ran his right hand through his jet-black hair in a gesture I have come to understand signals nervousness for him. His hair was slicked back and perfect as always. The gesture was completely unnecessary.

  “How do you know he is there?” Quinn asked quietly.

  I sighed. We had been over this. “Chaosboy has a fan club, a private group on Yahoo. I’m a member.”

  “And how did you get into group?”

  “Byte got me in last month.” Byte was Tom Tyree’s (aka Toxicwasteman) tech guru. She was a q-morph that could control the Internet with her mind and is part of LoVE (League of Villains Extraordinaire).

  “Chaosboy and Byte are both part of LoVE,” he said slowly. “Why would she do this thing?”

  I shrugged, but I suspected why. There was something Tom and his gang wanted me to do. I knew that Byte had probably run one of her computer simulations, known that evidence of Chaosboy being close might draw me out. I knew that they were probably manipulating me, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted to have a serious conversation with him. That I wanted to bring him in.

  The time I spent with LoVE changed me. I no longer doubted that we both had the same goal (eliminate the alien threat, save the world) but it was their methods that disturbed me. I had also come to believe that LoVE was approaching the problem in ways far more innovative than the military.

  So maybe this was some convoluted way to get me to do something, but it was in alignment with something I wanted to do. So be it.

  “And what will we do with this Chaosboy if we catch him?” Quinn asked.

  I stared back out at the desert again, trying to catch more signs of spring, the light green of new growth, the color of a blooming cactus. In truth, I didn’t know.

  I wanted Chaosboy stopped but how far would I be willing to go to do that?

  ~~~

  Licia didn’t know what we were up to. She thought we were just out for some fun, some male bonding, cutting loose time. And oddly, she wasn’t hurt that I was spending time off without her. Well, that wasn’t not odd for her, but odd for other women I have known.

  She had been rather withdrawn since she left the program ten weeks ago. At first she tried to go back to her job at Arizona Public Service (APS), but since the world knew who she was and what she looked like, crowds would gather when she was doing dangerous work on high-tension power lines.

  She had a fan club, and members of it would roam Northern Arizona and tell others of her location if they found her. Crowds would gather.

  Lately Licia had been holed up in her little cabin backing the forest south of Flagstaff. Taking long walks, wearing a blond wig and dark glasses so her neighbors didn’t recognize her, t
rying to have something of a normal life. But there was no “normal” for us anymore.

  “You thinking of her?” Quinn asked. We were past the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead and were headed down towards Boulder City and then Vegas. From here we could see the sprawl of Vegas laid out over the flat desert below.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I could help if you like, I could--” he said and I knew what was coming.

  “No… please, Quinn. That would just make it…” I trailed off because it was too late. Quinn was morphing, the strange sound of it emanating from his side of the car. It’s a disturbingly organic sound: kind of like a cross between flowing water and a cricket chirping. His jet black hair suddenly started growing long, his features changing, his limbs thinning and his body grew shorter. From the bulky 6’4” frame of Quinn Rake to the lithe body of Licia Lopez. Or at least a close enough reproduction to be completely unnerving.

  He got the body proportions right, but the face wasn’t quite there. The cheekbones were too high, the eyes a bit too big, the lips puffy. And his blue eyes were still there instead of Licia’s brown. When Quinn changed, for some reason his eyes didn’t.

  “Hey, big boy,” Quinn-Licia said. “Don’t be sad. I am right here.” The voice was feminine but definitely not Licia. It takes Quinn a long time to get good at another form. It takes a lot of practice. He wasn’t that good at Licia.

  “Stop it.”

  “But hey,” she-he said as she-he looked down at her-his chest, “I’ve always thought these were a little inadequate.”

  The clicky/squishy sound resumed and Quinn-Licia went from a B-cup to a D-cup, her breasts swelling under the black tank top. “That better. You like?”

  I looked away. That weird face, that strange voice, it was just too much. I stared at this abandoned western-themed casino, built to look like an old fort, as we passed it. I didn’t want that nightmare version of Licia to stick with me. And for the record, I have never found anything about her physicality to be inadequate.