My friend Nancy, who was waiting on other tables, stopped and stared at us; she must have thought she was seeing double. She must have assumed the other me, Clarissa Too, was really me, since Clarissa Too still had her burgundy tresses, while Tempy had shorn mine off, down to the dark roots. “Clarissa, you never told me you had an identical twin sister,” she said, thumbing at me.
I’m not sure Clarissa Too knew who Nancy was, but she played along. “What do you expect?” she said. “I have identical twin Mamas, as you can see. It runs in the family.”
Nancy ran her fingers through my new, stubby, short coiffure. “I like the ‘G.I. Joe Life-Like Hair’ look,” she said. She then excused herself and ran off to wait on another table of customers.
The face of African-American anchorman Ferd Pile appeared on the television screen. “It is eight o’clock in the east, where polls have closed,” he announced. “And I’m told we’re about to call another state. This is a big one—Pennsylvania, with twenty electoral votes, a key battleground in this campaign.” Ferd was listening to someone talking to him through his earpiece. “Yes, we are about to call it … KNN has called the state of Pennsylvania … not for Harry Foster Lime.”
“Oowee,” I said. “That makes the President’s reelection chances a whole lot more problematic.”
“And now we turn to expert analysis from our election expert, controversial columnist Pamela Jointly,” said Ferd. “This certainly makes the President’s reelection chances a whole lot more problematic, doesn’t it, Pammy?”
On the tube, Pammy’s face appeared. She had been making appearances throughout the evening as a special correspondent, owing to her sudden fame from interviewing the lot of us in primetime the night before.
“It certainly does, Ferd,” said Pammy. “Up until just a few days ago, President Harry Foster Lime was leading in Pennsylvania—which is a commonwealth, not a state, strictly speaking, by the way. However, recent revelations have rocked his base of support, who as we know are a suspicious, cowardly lot. Now, he’s going to have to run the board through the Midwest, where he can expect to run into the famous Blue Wall—which would spell disaster for his racist, redneck, misogynist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, xenophobic, uneducated, and utterly ignorant and regressive party.”
“Why has Harry Foster Lime’s base of support seem to have fled him, in his hour of need?” asked Ferd gravely. “The exit polling seems to suggest that your interview last night with the Silver Age Megaton Man may have tipped this election to Harry Foster Lime’s opponent.”
“That’s right, Ferd,” said Pammy, equally gravely. “There’s nothing that racist, redneck, misogynist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, xenophobic, uneducated, and utterly ignorant and regressive voters hate more than hypocrisy. Once they realized America’s White Nuclear-Powered Hero was in a relationship with a black woman, and saw that Harry Foster Lime might not be as racist, redneck, misogynist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, xenophobic, uneducated, and utterly ignorant and regressive as they are, they got confused; in any case, they apparently decided to stay at home and sit this one out. Or maybe America is not as backward, xenophobic, and closed-minded as we thought—who knows? The American electorate has proven itself to be irrational, unpredictable, and otherwise ignorant time and again.”
“That is a truly penetrating political analysis,” said Ferd. “Thank you, Pamela Jointly.”
Turning away from the TV, I said to Clarissa Too, “So, you’re really going to stick around in this reality for a while?”
“I don’t see why not,” she said. “I kind of like the idea of spending some time in a world in which Ms. Megaton Man is not the only Megahero.”
“But who’s going to do your homework back in your home dimension?” I asked. “Aren’t you also a grad student at Warren Woodward University?”
“I’m really not all that into school,” said Clarissa Too. “I’ve been thinking of taking some time off. “After I broke my leg and was confined to that wheelchair all that time, I like being physical again—and now that I’m a Megahero. I enjoy being impervious and taking bodily risks. Besides, if I change my mind, I can always go back to the exact point in time I left, and pick up where I left off.”
“You can do that?” I asked.
“You did it,” said Clarissa Too.
“Yes, but …” I began. I wanted to explain that I had had the help of Doctor Messiah on my excursion to her reality. But then I remembered I was talking to an organism that had gotten a jolt from the Cosmic Cue-Ball itself. Maybe she really could do all those things that she mistakenly believed I could do. “Oh, never mind,” I said.
“I think it’s a good move for Clarissa Too,” said Mama. “The Troy+Thems have been wanting a Ms. Megaton Man—any Ms. Megaton Man—on their team for the longest time.” She cast a judgmental side glance at me. “Besides, Clarissa Too can look after your sister. I don’t like Avie doing all that Wondrous Warhound stuff without a back-up. And with the Silver Age Megaton Man stepping down as America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero, a new administration’s going to need a new Megaton Man of some sort.”
“I thought Alice Too was keeping an eye on Avie,” I said.
“I’ve decided it’s time to move back to New York,” said Alice Too. “I realized last night I miss Clyde too much; I need to be by his side—if only to keep him from saying stupid things in public. He should have never gotten mixed up in presidential politics in the first place.”
“I’ll say,” said Mama. “After seeing a reactionary performance like that, I’m beginning to appreciate what I had with Cray, despite his many fallibilities.”
“What’s my father going to do now, if he’s not going to be America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero any longer?” I asked. “It’s going to kill him.”
“We may end up going back to our old dimension,” said Alice Too. “Somewhere where a mixed-race couple won’t get hassled, like this backward reality. It all depends on how this election turns out.”
“Who is Harry Foster Lime’s opponent, anyway?” asked Clarissa Too.
“You mean the person you endorsed last night on national television?” I asked. “You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t,” said Clarissa Too. “Do you?”
“Now that I think about it, I guess I don’t,” I said. “Who is Harry Foster Lime’s opponent? That’s a good question.”
It was clear by midnight that Harry Foster Lime would not serve another term as President of the United States. And along with him was ousted the Presidential Megahero—my father, Clyde Phloog, the Silver Age Megaton Man. In the days that followed, Ms. Megaton Man Too, who had publicly declared herself for Lime’s opponent, was invited to fly to Washington, D.C. to meet the President Elect. She flew under her own power, of course. She also met with my Grandma Seedy at monumental neoclassical ICHHL headquarters on the Potomac; Seedy measured Clarissa Too for a new Megahero uniform made from the same Quarantinium-Quelluminum material as mine, an identical facsimile that would replace the fraying costume the other Grandma Seedy had created for her from ordinary fabrics in the Civilian Reality.
Avie and I watched all of this in various nightly news reports.
“Isn’t this exciting?” said Avie. “You’re going to be America’s Next Nuclear-Powered Hero, finally and officially. Preston Percy should have made that happen years ago, when you first got your powers. Instead, you were upstaged by that reactionary father of yours, who had to suddenly reappear after years being lost in another dimension. America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero always has to be some white dude. It’s racism, pure and simple.”
“But that’s not me on television, Avie,” I pointed out. “It’s the me from another reality who’s having all those experiences, meeting all those people. I’m still just a plain grad student at Warren Woodward University, remember?”
“But it’s almost you,” Avie replied. “You were the first Ms. Megaton Man, and Ms. Megaton Man is now the first African American to hold the honor as Presidential Megahero. It’s recognition that’s long overdue.”
“You still don’t get it, Avie,” I protested. “That’s not me meeting the President Elect. That’s not me posing with the Devengers—I mean the Doomsday Revengers—and the newly reconstituted Megatropolis Quartet. That’s not me making an East Coast media blitz and visiting ICHHL headquarters in their monumental neoclassical building on the Potomoac. I’m still right here.”
“It’s the next best thing,” said Avie. “It’s the best of both worlds—you get to finish your education, and Clarissa Too gets to establish your Megahero career on the national stage on your behalf.”
“But what happens when she returns to her own dimension?” I asked. “She’ll have had all of these experiences, these memories of meeting all these people, all sorts of fabulous adventures—and I’ll have to fill her shoes. See how she’s sharing a laugh with the President Elect and the First Lady Elect? How am I supposed to know what they were laughing about? Someday the President is going to ask me, ‘Do you remember that joke I told you when we first met?’ And I won’t be able to remember.”
“Oh, don’t fret about things like that,” said Avie. “When the time comes, you’ll just fake it.”
“I just don’t like the idea of Clarissa Too filling in as Ms. Megaton Man for me,” I said. “That’s my intellectual property. I don’t like not being in control of it.”
“But you weren’t using your Megapowers—you said so yourself,” said Avie. “You don’t have the time.” She put her arm around me. “Don’t worry; Clarissa Too’s not going to do anything you wouldn’t do.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Clarissa Too had a mind of her own.
My uneasiness made for poor sleep over the next few nights. My dreams were filled with images—of me as Ms. Megaton Man battling Big, Blue Bulky Guy and some Megavillains dressed as old-school baseball players. In my most disturbing dream, Alice Too and my father, Clyde Phloog, said goodbye to me before stepping on the Time Turntable and disappearing.
The morning after that last dream, I got a phone call from Jasper Johnson, a.k.a. Rubber Brother, from the Megatropolis Quartet Headquarters in New York. “I just thought you should know, Clarissa,” he said. “Last night, the Mod Puma and the Silver Age Megaton Man left this dimension—I think for good.”
I didn’t know if I was more disturbed that they hadn’t bothered to say goodbye to me—they had done that before, when they left Ann Arbor—or that I already knew they were gone from my prescient dream. In any case, it wasn’t a surprise.
“How’s Clarissa Too getting along out there?” I asked. “She didn’t happen to get into it with Big, Blue Bulky Guy recently, by any chance?”
“Funny you should mention that,” said Jasper. “The two of them had an epic battle just the other day over in Bayonne, New Jersey. Apparently she wasn’t aware that he’d become a good guy now in the interim, joining the Doomsday Revengers and everything. She must have mistook him for a Megavillain—nearly wrecked the entire Port of New York and New Jersey before the Lens, Colonel Turtle, and the Angel of Death could restrain her and straighten her out.”
“That’s weird,” I said. “I had a dream about that happening.”
“It was also in the news and on all the networks,” Jasper pointed out.
I sighed. “I’ve been too afraid to turn on the TV,” I confessed. “Tell me, Jasper—who are the guys in the retro baseball uniforms? I had a dream about them, too.”
“The Bronx Bombers,” said Jasper. “Yes, Ms. Megaton Man got into it with them as well. They’re not bad guys, really —just kind of a fun-loving Megapowered street gang that could use some adult supervision. Sounds to me like Clarissa Too is communicating to you telepathically, Clarissa, by delayed overnight dream download.”
“Good Lord,” I said. “Is that a thing?”
I got off the phone wondering whether Jasper was right. It was like I still had the psychic connection with the other Ms. Megaton Man Too that I’d established while I visited her reality—and while my astral self had inhabited her body. It certainly seemed like she was transmitting her daily experiences to me every night through my dreams, in my sleep.
“That’s better than transferring them to you during the day, when you’re trying to concentrate on your school work,” said Avie, when I told her about it. “I guess you won’t have to worry about being left out of the loop about what Clarissa Too is experiencing in this reality.”
Later, I asked Mama whether she and Alice Too had a similar psychic link—maybe every Counterpart was similarly linked across realities. “I don’t think so,” said Mama. “But I do sense that she’s in a good place. I told her to write when she gets back to her old reality.”
I didn’t think you could send letters across the Dimensional Divide, but Mama said she was keeping an eye on the Multimensional Transceiver at Troy+Thems headquarters.
“I wish I had some kind of psychic tape recorder to keep track of all this stuff,” I said. “I’m afraid my head is going to explode.”
“I’m sorry they killed your story,” I said to Virginia Vega when we met a few days later at Schnelli Deli for pastrami sandwiches. “I wasn’t aware that there was a rule at The Cass-End that student reporters can’t cover their teachers.”
“That’s okay,” said Virginia, smiling. “This is way better now—instead of spilling your secret that you’re really a Megahero to the whole country, I get to be Ms. Megaton Man’s confidant in the news business. Which means I’ll be able to feed you tips on stories happening all over the world, so that you can intervene.”
I didn’t see what good that was going to do, being that Virginia worked for a university student newspaper and I wasn’t even the Ms. Megaton Man who was active at the moment. In case of a real emergency, I had no sure way of getting any tips I received to Ms. Megaton Man Too for her to act upon—I had no idea whether the psychic link worked both ways. But I said, “That’s great, Virginia. Ms. Megaton Man needs somebody in her corner like you.”
Then she surprised me by pulling a manilla file folder out of her book bag, spreading its contents counter between our orange trays. “At the Cass-End office, we get all the major newspapers from major cities across the country,” Virginia explained, “as well as other college and university student newspapers. I’ve made a file of clippings of all of Ms. Megaton Man’s exploits in recent weeks for your files—I’m sure you’re too busy to keep track of it all yourself.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Virginia,” I said, examining the clips. I was astonished anew about the detail of the coverage, and how remarkably familiar it already was. Not only had I—that is, Ms. Megaton Man Too—battled Big, Blue Bulky Guy and the Bronx Bombers, but I’d also rescued a sunken nuclear submarine off the coast of Maine, kept a Boeing 747 from crashing at La Guardia, and broken up a violently racist rightwing paramilitary militia group in Cumberland, Maryland. Not to mention all the incredible fracases she’d gotten into as part of Ms. Megaton Man’s home team in the Midwest, the Troy+Thems.
“Girl, you certainly get around, I’ll give you that,” Virginia remarked. “You must travel at near the speed of light, or else you’re able to manipulate temporal reality.”
“Temporal reality—that belongs to another character,” I said.
But Virginia was right. Clarissa Too apparently was able to fly a lot faster and at greater distances than I had ever tried. Compared to this Ms. Megaton Man, I was just a sluggish, sedentary, scholarly, stay-at-home bookworm. The girl was kicking my ass.
“Where do you find the time?” asked Virginia. “With all your own teaching responsibilities as well as your own grad school studies, you have to be working at least two full-time careers.”
“Beats me,” I said. “I sometimes wonder myself.”
Next: Never Even Kissed a Girl
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