“I saw you shoot yourself up with the homemade Megasoldier Syrup you cooked up in your bathtub and sold to unsuspecting college students as a steroid shortcut to megaheroic physique,” I said, “Your musculature puffed up to the size of Megaton Man—then you exploded into bluish slime all over the alley next door!”
The look of confusion gave way to a look of horror. An incredulous “Who…?” was all the late Mervyn Goldfarb could muster.
“What I don’t get is how you can still be alive,” I said. “Did you somehow coalesce from vapor droplets?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, young lady,” said Mervyn, setting his magazine back on the rack. He was agitated now, but was visibly trying to remain calm, as if her were talking to a crazy person—me. “I’m a postdoc in the Society of Fellows,” he said soothingly. “You mean you’re back at work at Megatonic University?” I demanded. “They would take you back, after your criminal activity?”
“You know about…?” Mervyn’s expression now was one of wide-eyed horror.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash at the back of the store. One of the clerks who’d been restocking the shelves had upset a little hand-truck stacked with books, creating a commotion. In the split-second my attention was diverted, Mervyn had disappeared from right in front of me.
In the time it took me to look around, Mervyn had dashed out the front door and was crossing State Street on a southerly trajectory, narrowly dodging vehicular traffic. “Shoot!” I said—well, that’s not really what I said. “Wait! I wasn’t going to arrest you or anything! I was just going to question you—I just need to know what’s going on!”
I ran out the door and across the width of the sidewalk only to have to pull up as a massive bus rattled up State Street, cutting me off. Once it passed, I scanned the opposite side of the street; Mervyn wasn’t to be seen. If he had entered one of the bars or shops, a door would still be swinging closed, but none were moving.
“He could only have gone into McNichols Arcade,” I reasoned, bounding across the street in the direction I had last seen Mervyn headed. The arcade was a long row of swanky shops—a kind of street unto itself—under a glass roof with pillared portals at each end; it was where Stella Starlight, the former See-Thru Girl, shortly after I’d met her, had immodestly changed into a newly-bought Abyssinian Wolves T-shirt behind a potted tree.
I ran into the arcade and slowed to stop after a few dozen feet. There were only a few pedestrians, and no exiting the Maynard Street side; again, none of the shop doors were swinging closed, so I had no way of knowing if Mervyn had entered any of them, or which one.
I stuck my head into a couple—a swanky jewelry shop and an upscale hairdressers—and asked if they had seen a crazed man on foot run in. The employees looked at—a wild-eyed black girl herself—with alarm. I gave up the search as fruitless, and ran to the Maynard Street side. I looked up and down the street; there was no sign of anyone running away. If only I had Kozmik Kat with me, or my cape…
Then I remembered I’d left my duffel bag with the cashier back at the bookstore. I hastened back through the arcade and across State Street to retrieve it, all the while contemplating my next move. Mervyn had evaporated, just like the bluish slime that had exploded all over the alley; the question wasn’t how he’d evaded me, but where he was heading. “Megatonic University,” I said to myself. That was where he’d been employed, and when I mentioned it, it triggered his panic. “He must have gone underground.”
My first and only visit to Megatonic University had been with Kozmik Kat a year earlier, when he had trailed the cape to Main Street, a few blocks from State, and a kiosk that led to a stairway that spiraled far underground. There, we had come across a dank, medieval complex of tunnels where secret experiments had been conducted in the postwar years—including Dr. Joe Levitch’s later generations of Megaton Men.
My first impulse was to tear off my civilian clothes and don my cape and visor, which were in my duffel bag, and fly the few blocks over to that kiosk; but I didn’t know where I could change, and I didn’t want my primary-colored uniform to create a spectacle in mid-day Ann Arbor. Besides, I was confident I knew where Mervyn had gone, so I just hoofed the few blocks over to Main Street.
I located the flyer-covered kiosk in front of the shoe store; mid-morning pedestrian traffic was thick up and down Main Street, with shoppers and bags, moms pushing strollers, and students racing off to class. Worse, there were benches across the street where people sat waiting for a university transport shuttle. I didn’t want to be observed prying open the hidden doorway in the kiosk, which might inadvertently lead the more curious and adventuresome civilian members of the public into danger.
I had to bide my time and pretend I was waiting for a bus, or for some friend to come along. Dressed as I was, I wasn’t conspicuous, but I had to wait for some large vehicles to rumble past, and for pedestrians on my side of the street to thin out or be window shopping for shoes or otherwise distracted from little old me. Timing it just right, I was able to deftly open the door, slip inside the kiosk, and close the door behind me, all in one swift motion.
A light came on over my head. I descended the spiral stairs swiftly. This time, lights followed me down the stairs, evidently set off by motion detectors. The steps under my feet were cleaner than my last visit; there were no cobwebs and the musty smell and cold clammy air was also gone. Fresh, climate-controlled air was being ventilated through the stairs. When I arrived at the bottom, some hundred and fifty feet below street level, the medieval cobblestones and dank, creepy passageways were nowhere to be seed. Instead, the floor was tiled, and fluorescent lights illuminated the painted walls of tunnels that still radiated in every direction, but could have been found in any windowless federal office building.
I walked down the largest passage and quickly came to a guard station. A security officer, a big African-American woman, sat behind a desk watching a bank of closed-circuit video monitors. I looked up and noticed for the first time cameras mounted ever few dozen feet or so on the walls, just below the dropped ceiling.
“I like what you’ve done to the place,” I said. “Last time I was here, it was like the catacombs of Rome; now it’s just an air-conditioned nightmare. A bit antiseptic, but way more hygienic and modern.”
The guard looked up from her monitors, a flash of recognition crossing her face. “Good morning, Miss James,” she said cheerily. “Visiting Dr. Joe today?” She looked around on her desk for her schedule ledger.
“I was just in the neighborhood,” I said. “But is Dr. Joe in?” “Sure,” said the guard. “Right down the hall.” She held out a visitor’s name tag for me. “We’ll have a permanent ID badge for you next time,” she assured me.
I fastened the sticker to my shirt and walked in the direction she pointed. I came to some swinging doors, like those you would find in a hospital ward, and passed through. On the other side, sure enough, was Dr. Joe, surrounded by burbling test tubes and percolating beakers of chemicals, in a thoroughly state-of-the art lab.
The last time I’d visited, I’d been blasted by a yellow light and woke up strapped to a wooden table in a combination medieval dungeon and alchemist’s lair. Admittedly, I didn’t have my complete wits about me, but it was a far cry from the sterile surroundings I now observed. “Decided to join the twentieth century, have we, Dr. Joe?” I said.
Joe Levitch looked up from his microscope and clipboard. “Clarissa, my dear,” he said. “Did we have an appointment? Is it time for another check-up already?” He searched the pockets of his white lab coat. “Oh, dear, where did I put may daily planner?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said. “I spotted Mervyn Goldfarb in the bookstore—you remember Mervyn Goldfarb?—and thought I might find him here.”
“Mervyn Goldfarb, Mervyn Goldfarb,” said Dr. Joe. “I’m afraid I’m terrible with names.”
I reminded him that Mervyn had been fired by Megatonic University and had gone into business for himself, bootlegging Megasoldier Syrup that had caused an outbreak of overly-muscled jocks all over the Arbor State campus, an epidemic that at one time had been attributed to my promiscuous sexual activity.
“It’s entirely possible that someone named Mervyn Goldfarb is employed down here,” said Dr. Joe. “But the name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“It would be highly unusual,” I said, “since I watched Mervyn shoot up and explode a year ago.”
“Oh, my,” said Dr. Joe. “Megasoldier Syrup is not to be trifled with.” “You’re telling me,” I said. “Is it possible he could have somehow reassembled, after exploding into blue goo?”
Dr. Joe reasoned that it was more likely the case of mistaken identity. “Maybe it’s a Mervyn Goldfarb from another dimension,” I speculated. This theory left Dr. Joe even more dubious.
I explained to Dr. Joe everything I had learned about split universes, Mutanium Particles, my Grandma Seedy, Partyers from Mars, and how the Megaton and Meltdown Universes seemed to have fused back together. This left Dr. Joe even more perplexed.
“I’m afraid I never had the pleasure of meeting your grandmother,” said Dr. Joe. “I’ve met only a few of my father’s contemporaries. My own eruditions have led me down quite a different rabbit hole than the scientists of the original Atomic Soldier generation.”
“But you agree that two separate universes have fused into one,” I continued. “In the Megaton Universe, my mother was…well, my mother; in the other, Alice James was the Mod Puma, and she never had children. There could be any number of similar cases in the world right now, were people have doubles. I think I saw Mervyn Goldfarb’s double from another dimension…”
At this, Dr. Joe blanched and swallowed hard. For some reason, I had hit a nerve. “Doubles?” he said. “As in twins?”
“Counterparts,” I said. That had been the term Colonel Turtle had used when my sister Avie and I had visited the Doomsday Revengers headquarters in New Jersey. “In every dimension, a person might have a counterpart—a person just like them who led a very different life. I don’t have a counterpart, since the Mod Puma never had children; but this Mervyn Goldfarb may have a counterpart—one that never manufactured illicit Megasoldier Syrup and therefore never exploded in that alley by the bookstore. You might have a counterpart, Dr. Levitch…”
Dr. Joe turned completely white and looked like he was about to pass out. He reached for his work bench and found his way to a stool. I helped him sit down. “What is it, Dr. Joe? Is it something I said?”
“I’ll fine, my dear,” he said after a few moments. “It’s just that scientific speculation sometimes makes me light-headed.”
After a few moments, he caught his breath, and his normal color returned. Assured that he would be okay, I said, “Do you mind if I have a look around?”
“I doubt if you’ll find your Mr. Goldfarb in this lab,” he said. “I mean throughout Megatonic University…”
“Ah. Well, there are a number of delicate research projects going on at the moment; I’m not sure you’ll be able to access them with only a visitor’s badge. Unfortunately, I don’t have time at the moment to escort you on a tour…”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just take a peek around on my way out.”
I bid Dr. Joe goodbye and exited the lab, leaving him to recover his composure and tend to his chemistry set. Outside the swinging doors, I found myself in a long corridor again. I walked in the opposite direction from the guard station and soon found another node that branched off into several different hallways, all illuminated by crushing fluorescent light. Still wishing I had Kozmik Kat to help me search, I suddenly remembered I had something better: my visor, buttons, and cape. I remembered Preston Percy showing me how these devices contained a computerized, schematic layout of the entire complex in 3D that could be used to navigate my way through the labyrinth.
I pulled the visor out of my duffel bag and put them on. Tapping twice on my visor, a digital readout appeared in front of my eyes; from the duffel bag, my red cape and brass buttons fluttered out and hovered in midair in front of me.
“Find Mervyn Goldfarb,” I ordered the cape. It immediately sprang into action, flying down one hallway. After a few feet, it suddenly stopped, changed direction, and flew back toward me, then flew down another. It stopped again, changing its mind several times.
“Mervyn Goldfarb,” I said. “Cape, you saw him explode in the alley—remember?”
After flying circles around me for about half a minute, I ordered it to stop. “He’s not down here, is he, cape?”
The cape fluttered side to side, in a motion indicating “No.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Maybe he doesn’t work here at all. Still, it’s really amazing how this place has changed in only a year…”
Just then, at the far end of one corridor, a saw someone drive by in what appeared to be a topless golf cart. I could have sworn it was Wilton Ashe. It was only the quickest of flashes, but he seemed to look in my direction, and even from that distance, his eyes seemed to widen as he sped along.
“Wilton!” I called out. But there was no response. It reminded me of that time in Detroit, walking up Cass with Audrey, and Wilton pretended not to recognize us. “Find Wilton Ashe,” I ordered my cape. The cape nodded.
This time, though, it flew into walls, first bouncing off one then ricocheting into another.
After a few moments, I ordered it to stop. “Was that Wilton?” I asked. The cape nodded in affirmation.
“Then what’s the problem?” I demanded.
The cape just sort of shrugged as it hovered in midair.
I tapped my visor, calling up the schematic diagram of Megatonic University. For some reason, the holographic image appeared garbled, flickering wildly. Two completely different layouts alternated before my eyes. A blue dot, which I took as representing Wilton Ashe, appeared and disappeared on the diagram, but in entirely different places thousands of feet apart.
“He can’t be in all those different places at once,” I said. Suddenly, the blue dot disappeared, replaced by a red dot. Only, this one didn’t change places; as it flickered, it appeared in multiple places simultaneously.
My visor flashed, “Mervyn Goldfarb.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “There can’t be five, ten, fifty Mervyn Goldfarbs existing at once! Which is the real Mervyn Goldfarb?”
For several minutes, the alternating schematics continued to flicker, but after a while all the red dots, one by one, disappeared.
“Now he’s gone altogether,” I said. My cape nodded. “There must be some sort of glitch in the system. Or maybe that sneaky Preston Percy double-crossed me, and corrupted the file remotely.”
There was another possibility: that the entire underground network of Megatonic University had been physically reconfigured from a year ago.
I considered for the moment running through every hallway myself and barging into every top-secret lab. Even with security in place, how were they going to stop Ms. Megaton Man? Then I realized that Megatonic University was as big and sprawling as the Arbor State campus a hundred and fifty feet above. Not only would I be disturbing—possibly wrecking—untold billions of dollars in government research; I’d also be completely tuckered out.
“Let’s forget it, cape,” I said. “We tried our best.”
That’s when an alert flashed on the screen of my visor:
Advising Meeting in Ten Minutes!
By the time I’d clambered up the spiral staircase to Main Street and raced along the sidewalks of downtown to the Modern Language Building at the center of campus—and found the right floor—more than twenty-five minutes had expired. When I got to my advisor’s office, she was in a grumpy mood. “I don’t have time now to go over this with you now,” she said, handing me a sheaf of papers. “But my notes should speak for themselves. It’s a pretty fair first draft for a proposal, Clarissa, but you’ll see I made a few suggestions.”
My printout was covered with myriad of self-sticking yellow notes and little red flags. “Thanks,” I said.
“Get a draft to me by the end of October,” she said. “You can just mail it.” After she’d read it, she explained, her assistant would call and schedule another in-person meeting, probably before the end of the semester in December. “Keep up the good work,” she said. “And next time, try to get here on time.”
I shoved the manuscript into my duffel and made my way out of the building. My back still ached from the projectile I’d diverted to save Trent and Simon’s lives, and I was pretty exhausted from hardly sleeping a wink, not to mention climbing up and down all those stairs and running back and forth across downtown Ann Arbor. I didn’t feel like flying back to Detroit—besides, as Ms. Megaton Man, I was afraid I might encounter some nemesis and thereby destroy my proposal and my advisor’s irreplaceable notes. So I just took a bus back to Detroit and napped on the way. When I awoke in downtown Detroit, I momentarily wondered if the past twenty-four hours had all been a dream. But as I looked over my advisor’s notes, as well as the notes I’d taken from microfilm from the Meltdown and Megaton Universes—and as I removed a tiny sliver of shrapnel from my hair—I realized I hadn’t been dreaming.
But what did it all mean?
Next: Dana Dorman, Two Doors Down
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| One of the earliest concept sketches of Ms. Megaton Man's detachable cape, 2013. |
All characters, character names, likenesses, words and pictures on this page are ™ and © Don Simpson 2020, all rights reserved.
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