#122: Real Time

“Nuts!” I cried. “Clarissa Too’s the Civilian; she belongs in the Civilian Reality—not me!”
        I rose from my seat; it was no longer a leather-upholstered side chair I had sat down in. Now, it was just a battered, metal folding chair. Gone was the luxuriant Oriental carpet and oaken desk. It was still obviously the same space I had entered with Clarissa Too and Michele Selket, because I could see the distant horizon of Detroit through the windows, but they were no longer there. The top floor of the Wardell Building no longer housed Inland Ocean Archeological and Anthropological Institute and its rare manuscripts and first editions in tall, elegant wooden bookcases. Instead, it was just a massive storage room, dusty and full of cobwebs, filled with utilitarian metal shelves stuffed with old cardboard boxes and rusty filing cabinets nobody ever visited.

# 121: Mistaken Identity

The December morning I had to turn in my final grades to the Urban Policy and Social Planning office was frosty and overcast, but as yet saw no snow. Clarissa Too and I bundled up in scarves and mittens. Underneath our street clothes, we wore our respective Ms. Megaton Man uniforms, she out of habit, me in case of an emergency, but also because that Quarantinium-Quelluminum stuff made for great thermal underwear. Still, because of the cold weather, Clarissa Too could really feel her thigh and was hobbling worse than usual.

#120: Will the Real Ms. Megaton Man Please Stand Up?

Introduction to Volume V: Real Time

Now is perhaps a good as time as any to consider where we are in this little epic saga I’ve been relating to you over several wordy volumes.

#119: I Lost My Powers In This World

“Oh, great,” said Preston Percy, snuffing out his unfiltered cigarette under the toe of his shoe on the pavement of the driveway. “Don’t tell me America just lost her New Nuclear-Powered Hero!”
        The secret agent walked out onto the lawn where Mama and Avie were propping up Clarissa Too.
        “Can you still fly?” he asked.
        “I can barely walk,” said Clarissa Too. “I feel like I did before I got my Megapowers, like in my Civilian reality.”
        “Try lifting that stack of firewood,” said Preston, pointing to the short stack of timber against the garage. “Wait; that’s no good. It’s not heavy enough. Try lifting the car.”