“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “What is the Human Meltdown doing back in America?”
“I was recovering from jet lag, if you must know,” he said. “What are you doing...? Oh, that’s right. You used to live here.”
Chuck rubbed the sleep from his eyes, set the cushion back in its place, turned, and put his feet on the floor. He relaxed somewhat, satisfied that I wasn’t immediately going to attack him.
“I’m separated from my estranged wife, if you must know,” he said. “Turns out during my last visit to America she finished her mystery novel and found a publisher in London. Now she’s working on her second one…and I was just getting in the way of her ‘creative process.’”
“Estranged from your wife,” I said. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Look, she and I have an understanding, or so I thought….” He eyed me warily, saw that I was unlikely to fall for his bullshit, and decided to drop. “What do you plan to do, bust my ribs again?”
“No, I’ve had enough rib busting to last me a while,” I said. “Although I have half a mind to kick somewhere else. After what you pulled with my sister…”
I heard footsteps descending the stairs behind me. It sounded like Stella, and sure enough it was.
“Hi, Clarissa,” said Stella. “You know my half-brother, Chuck?”
“I sure do,” I said with disgust. “I met him a year ago in New York.”
I sure had; when we visited the Y+Thems headquarters at the Old Navy Yard in Brooklyn, Chuck Roast, the Human Meltdown, took my sister on a joyride in the Q-Mobile and attempted to rape her. I kicked his ass all along the Jersey Shore, or above it, in midair—clear back to Lower Manhattan. After that, he flew off, but I knew I’d injured him in his side. Presumably, he had found his way back to Paris. That had been over a year ago now.
“Really?” said Stella. “All the times you and Avie talked about the trip, you never mentioned it.”
I never took my eyes off Chuck. “Why don’t you head back to New York?” I said to him calmly, coldly. “I hear Rex and Bing are getting the old Quartet back together.”
“No dice,” said Chuck. “I understand Liquid Man and Yarn Man already have a nuclear-powered hero lined-up, and that would be one nuclear-powered hero too many. I never particularly got along with Megatons. Besides,” he sneered, “I’m spending some quality time with my older sis and her little toddler, my nephew, if you don’t mind.”
“Your nephew’s half Megaton,” I said.
“He’s half Meltdown, too,” said Chuck. “I hope to be an influence on the little reactor.”
That was a horrible thought. A womanizer and an attempted rapist…
“I’m a Megaton, too,” I said. “Stella, could I have a word with you?”
Chuck stood up, angrily, like he was about to slap me, but held himself in check. “Ah,” he said with disgust. He turned and walked around the coffee table to get around me. Stella moved out of the way as he marched to the front door. “I think I’ll take an afternoon walk around campus. Never know…might strike up a conversation with some pretty, young coeds.”
That was even a more horrible thought.
Chuck grabbed his coat from the front closet and was out the door, the screen door slamming shut. Through the picture window, I watched him disappear down the sidewalk along Ann Street.
“If you’re looking for Trent and Simon, they’re not here,” said Stella, straightening the cushions on the sofa where Chuck had been snoozing. She looked at the clock on the wall. “In fact, Trent should be picking up Simon from daycare just about now…”
“Daycare?” I said.
“Yes, we started him in daycare this semester,” said Stella. “It’s just down a few blocks on Ann Street. Arbor Harbor Daycare and Nursery School.”
“How long does Chuck plan to be in town, if I may ask?” I asked.
Stella made an expression like it was none of my business, but answered, “I hope he stays at least until Simon’s birthday. That would be April First. Why?”
“Look, Stella, I didn’t tell you this before…” I looked at the sofa. “Can we sit down?”
Something about Stella’s body language told me she didn’t want to have this conversation, but she said, “Sure.”
We sat on the sofa and I recounted the events of over a year ago, how Chuck had behaved not only with my sister, but had womanized his whole time in the States, according to the Y+Thems, and what we had seen with our own eyes. The Human Meltdown had exploited his position as team leader to prey upon—and drive off—most of the female members of the team Bad Guy and Rex Rigid had put him in charge of.
“I didn’t tell you this before because I thought, well, he’d gone back to Europe and it wasn’t a problem anymore. At least, not my problem. I see now that was a bit selfish.”
Stella looked away from me, searching for words. “What you’re describing, I could imagine my own shitheel of a father doing. But my brother Chuck? My little brother? There must be some kind of misunderstanding…” She glared at me. “How could you tell such a lie, Clarissa?”
“Ask Dana,” I said. “She’ll confirm everything I said.”
“Dana did mention something,” said Stella, still glaring at me. “How your sister acted provocatively toward my brother the whole time you were in New York…”
I felt face turn red, my collar burn with anger. It figured Dana—who’d spread lies about me, had already sown lies about my sister as well, no doubt all a part of her scheme to bond with Stella.
“I thought you said you didn’t know we’d met your brother in New York,” I said.
“I never said that,” said Stella. “I said you’d never mentioned you’d met him…you and Avie were too ashamed of yourselves to bring it up.”
I was shaking with rage now; I had to make a real effort to control myself.
After a pause, I said, “I’m not asking you to believe me, Stella. Just…keep an eye out. I don’t imagine he’d harm Simon in any way, and Dana has already proven she can take care of herself…”
“Of course my brother wouldn’t harm anyone,” Stella snapped. “He’s nothing like my father.” She stood up. “I hope you weren’t planning on sticking around for dinner.”
That was my cue to hot-foot it out of there. Out on the front porch, I threw on my coat, slung my duffel bag over my shoulder—I would have left it at the house but I knew I wouldn’t be welcomed back inside any time soon—and marched down the front path and along Ann Street sidewalk. A few blocks west, after that weird disjointed intersection along State Street where the two segments of Ann don’t align, I came to the Arbor Harbor Daycare and Nursery School.
The building had once been an elementary school. Of midcentury modern design, it had a glass vestibule at the front door with a U-shaped driveway leading up to it. Most of the parents by now had picked up their little ones by car, or if they lived in the neighborhood, had walked them home. Trent, who had just come from work at the downtown Border Worlds Used and Slightly New Bookstore a few blocks away on foot, was just picking up Simon at the front door.
Trent stood outside on the sidewalk chatting amiably with a young woman with wavy auburn hair. She was white and about my age, one of the junior child care workers who oversaw the kids. She was handing Simon over to him, presumably, but was taking a bit too long and chatting a bit too amiably. I thought for a moment she and Trent were going to kiss goodbye until he turned and saw me walking up the U-shaped driveway.
He did a doubletake, hastily thanked her, and said goodbye.
“So long, Simon,” she waved, as Simon and Trent marched down the sidewalk toward me.
“Bye, Ingrid,” said Simon, waving back. He had some kind of crayon drawing on Manila paper in his hand. “Hey, Aunt Clarissa,” he said as soon as he saw me. He ran toward me to show me the dinosaur he had drawn.
“Wow, that’s really good,” I said. “You’ll be as good an artist as my sister Avril soon.” I picked him up to carry him. “Oof! You’re getting heavy!” I looked at Trent, who had caught up to us. “Ingrid, eh?”
“She’s a nice girl,” said Trent, blushing but not looking me in the eye. “She’s an education student at Arbor State, comes into the bookstore a lot. Anyway, Simon really likes the kids and teachers here.”
We turned and started walking back toward their house.
“I should warn you…” said Trent.
“About Chuck Roast?” I said. “Don’t worry, I already ran into him. I think I scared him off. He’s prowling the campus now, looking for young prey. Maybe we should warn your little Ingrid.”
“Don’t kid around,” said Trent. “I’m not at all happy about it. I never got along with Chuck, even before your allegations.”
“Allegations?” I said. “I saw what he did with my own eyes. I beat the living…”
I remembered I was still holding Simon; I set him down on the sidewalk.
“I believe you,” said Trent. “I just wish, in times like these, I could turn back into Megaton Man. Just long enough to beat the snot out of Chuck.”
“You might be able to, you know,” I said. “That’s why I came to talk to you. Dr. Joe gave my father some capsules….”
“The ones that turn Clyde back and forth between his civilian persona and the Silver Age Megaton Man?” said Trent. “I know about those. Dr. Joe developed some for me. I didn’t want anything to do with them, after that booster shot Preston stabbed into me against my will. But when Chuck showed up, and I changed my mind.”
“You tried them?” I asked. “And…?”
“And, no go,” said Trent. “It seems my metabolism has built up a resistance to the Mega-Soldier Syrup now, in any form. They made me feel a bit peppier, briefly, but it didn’t bring back the grotesquely over-muscled physique everyone knows and loves, and which I hate. In fact, Chuck just made fun of me and I got so mad I punched a wall. I nearly broke my hand.” He took off his mitten to show me his bandaged appendage. “Looks like I’m stuck being a civilian.”
I wasn’t surprised, honestly, although I was disappointed. After all, Megaton Man had swallowed the Cosmic Cue-Ball, an even that left him reduced to the powerless civilian form of Trent Phloog. As Polly, the elfin Partyer from Mars had told me the previous fall, the Orb of Great Power was a single particle of Mutanium wrapped in a sphere of pure Extanium, the most powerful buffering agent in the universe, and a billiard-sized amount of it had completely dissolved in Trent’s system. No wonder that no amount of Megasoldier juice Dr. Joe cooked up wouldn’t work anymore.
“The only reason I mention it,” I said, “is because Preston told me Clyde and Alice Too will be splitting Ann Arbor soon and heading for Megatropolis. I just thought maybe, for protection, it would be good to get your megapowers back in a pinch.”
“They’re already gone,” said Trent. “Clyde and Alice stopped by the other day to say their goodbyes.”
“What?” I cried. “My dad left and my mama from another dimension left without telling me?”
“I think they just went to check out the new headquarters,” said Trent. “They said they’d be back in about a week or two. You know Stella, she’ll have to throw them a little going away party.”
At least they could have stopped by Detroit to say goodbye to Avie and me.
I said, “That leaves Doctor Software and Grady in the Megatonic University lab by themselves…”
“What are you talking about?”
I explained how my Grandma Seedy had talked Doctor Software, Megaton Man’s arch-nemesis, into working for government-sponsored labs deep underground beneath Arbor State University, instead of throwing him back in prison.
“Wait a minute…Doctor Software is working in a secret lab deep under the Arbor State University campus, and this is the first you’re telling me about it?” said Trent. “He’s only the most dangerous evil genius this side of Bad Guy.”
“I didn’t want to worry you,” I said. “Besides, I thought the Silver Age Megaton Man and the Mod Puma would be around indefinitely to keep an eye on things.”
“Well,” said Trent resignedly, “as long as it’s temporary. Everyone deserves a second chance, I suppose.”
“I guess I should trust my Grandma Seedy’s judgment,” I said. “If she thinks Doctor Software and his evil nephew can reform…besides, you guys have Domina to protect your household, in case of a mishap. Where is Dana, anyway?”
“Dana got some job at some lab somewhere on campus,” said Trent. “She had also been palling around with Alice Too quite a bit…”
We both looked at one another.
“You don’t suppose…” said Trent.
That Domina has joined forces with Doctor Software? If they had, there was no telling…
“Oh, nuts,” I said, looking at my watch. “I’m supposed to wait tables tonight back at the Union Stripe in less than hour. I also wanted to get my baroque city planning homework finished before I went to bed…” There was no time for me to check in on the Megatonic University labs and see what that unholy threesome—Dana Dorman, Joseph Levich2, and Grady Grinnell—might be cooking up.
By this time, we had walked back to the Ann Street house and down the driveway around to the back yard. I kissed Trent on the cheek and Simon on the forehead as they went into the house. I declined to go inside, considering had gone with Stella. But I did want to check one thing before I left Ann Arbor.
Behind the garage, I pulled my visor out of my duffel bag and looked for any sign of the Partyers from Mars saucer, the George Has a Gun. But I couldn’t see anything now except snow-covered grass—not even an outline of a round shape. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Parsec, if you’re there, keep an eye on things for me, huh?” I called out into the empty space. “I can’t be in two places at once.”
I pulled off my civvies, clapped on my cape, stood for a moment in my Ms. Megaton Man uniform. I slung my duffel bag over my shoulder and took off for Detroit.
Next: The Whistleroar of the WondrousWarhound
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“About Chuck Roast?” I said. “Don’t worry, I already ran into him. I think I scared him off. He’s prowling the campus now, looking for young prey. Maybe we should warn your little Ingrid.”
“Don’t kid around,” said Trent. “I’m not at all happy about it. I never got along with Chuck, even before your allegations.”
“Allegations?” I said. “I saw what he did with my own eyes. I beat the living…”
I remembered I was still holding Simon; I set him down on the sidewalk.
“I believe you,” said Trent. “I just wish, in times like these, I could turn back into Megaton Man. Just long enough to beat the snot out of Chuck.”
“You might be able to, you know,” I said. “That’s why I came to talk to you. Dr. Joe gave my father some capsules….”
“The ones that turn Clyde back and forth between his civilian persona and the Silver Age Megaton Man?” said Trent. “I know about those. Dr. Joe developed some for me. I didn’t want anything to do with them, after that booster shot Preston stabbed into me against my will. But when Chuck showed up, and I changed my mind.”
“You tried them?” I asked. “And…?”
“And, no go,” said Trent. “It seems my metabolism has built up a resistance to the Mega-Soldier Syrup now, in any form. They made me feel a bit peppier, briefly, but it didn’t bring back the grotesquely over-muscled physique everyone knows and loves, and which I hate. In fact, Chuck just made fun of me and I got so mad I punched a wall. I nearly broke my hand.” He took off his mitten to show me his bandaged appendage. “Looks like I’m stuck being a civilian.”
I wasn’t surprised, honestly, although I was disappointed. After all, Megaton Man had swallowed the Cosmic Cue-Ball, an even that left him reduced to the powerless civilian form of Trent Phloog. As Polly, the elfin Partyer from Mars had told me the previous fall, the Orb of Great Power was a single particle of Mutanium wrapped in a sphere of pure Extanium, the most powerful buffering agent in the universe, and a billiard-sized amount of it had completely dissolved in Trent’s system. No wonder that no amount of Megasoldier juice Dr. Joe cooked up wouldn’t work anymore.
“The only reason I mention it,” I said, “is because Preston told me Clyde and Alice Too will be splitting Ann Arbor soon and heading for Megatropolis. I just thought maybe, for protection, it would be good to get your megapowers back in a pinch.”
“They’re already gone,” said Trent. “Clyde and Alice stopped by the other day to say their goodbyes.”
“What?” I cried. “My dad left and my mama from another dimension left without telling me?”
“I think they just went to check out the new headquarters,” said Trent. “They said they’d be back in about a week or two. You know Stella, she’ll have to throw them a little going away party.”
At least they could have stopped by Detroit to say goodbye to Avie and me.
I said, “That leaves Doctor Software and Grady in the Megatonic University lab by themselves…”
“What are you talking about?”
I explained how my Grandma Seedy had talked Doctor Software, Megaton Man’s arch-nemesis, into working for government-sponsored labs deep underground beneath Arbor State University, instead of throwing him back in prison.
“Wait a minute…Doctor Software is working in a secret lab deep under the Arbor State University campus, and this is the first you’re telling me about it?” said Trent. “He’s only the most dangerous evil genius this side of Bad Guy.”
“I didn’t want to worry you,” I said. “Besides, I thought the Silver Age Megaton Man and the Mod Puma would be around indefinitely to keep an eye on things.”
“Well,” said Trent resignedly, “as long as it’s temporary. Everyone deserves a second chance, I suppose.”
“I guess I should trust my Grandma Seedy’s judgment,” I said. “If she thinks Doctor Software and his evil nephew can reform…besides, you guys have Domina to protect your household, in case of a mishap. Where is Dana, anyway?”
“Dana got some job at some lab somewhere on campus,” said Trent. “She had also been palling around with Alice Too quite a bit…”
We both looked at one another.
“You don’t suppose…” said Trent.
That Domina has joined forces with Doctor Software? If they had, there was no telling…
“Oh, nuts,” I said, looking at my watch. “I’m supposed to wait tables tonight back at the Union Stripe in less than hour. I also wanted to get my baroque city planning homework finished before I went to bed…” There was no time for me to check in on the Megatonic University labs and see what that unholy threesome—Dana Dorman, Joseph Levich2, and Grady Grinnell—might be cooking up.
By this time, we had walked back to the Ann Street house and down the driveway around to the back yard. I kissed Trent on the cheek and Simon on the forehead as they went into the house. I declined to go inside, considering had gone with Stella. But I did want to check one thing before I left Ann Arbor.
Behind the garage, I pulled my visor out of my duffel bag and looked for any sign of the Partyers from Mars saucer, the George Has a Gun. But I couldn’t see anything now except snow-covered grass—not even an outline of a round shape. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Parsec, if you’re there, keep an eye on things for me, huh?” I called out into the empty space. “I can’t be in two places at once.”
I pulled off my civvies, clapped on my cape, stood for a moment in my Ms. Megaton Man uniform. I slung my duffel bag over my shoulder and took off for Detroit.
Next: The Whistleroar of the WondrousWarhound
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