#141: The Manhattan Project

Trent Phloog’s third-person flashback continues … (Part 3 of 6)

The Marketable Universe, May 1976

Trent stopped on the busy midtown street and looked up at the granite office building. “It’s the correct address, all right,” he said, checking the street number against what was written on the back of the #10 envelope he pulled from his inside breast pocket. “But for some reason, these aren’t the offices of the Daily Polis, like that nice Mr. Greeley described.”
        Instead, the bronze plaque read,

The Manhattan Project
Est’d 1941
Most of the News We Can Fit, We Print

        “Woo!” said Trent. “Must have been one of those media mergers!”
        Trent straightened his tie, gripped his suitcase, and walked through the revolving doors (which barely accommodated his mattress-stuffed Robert Mitchum shoulders) and crossed the polished marble lobby. An aged, nearsighted security guard waved Trent through to an elevator that took him swiftly up to the busy City Room of the metropolitan newspaper.
        “Ain’t no ‘Peregrine Weiss’ here, pal,” said the paunchy bald man in shirt sleeves who looked over Trent’s letter of recommendation. “My name’s Rudy May. I’ve been city editor at the Project for the past two years, and I never heard that name.” He handed the letter back to Trent. “Somebody’s given you a bum steer, kid.”
        “I get it! An extra layer of secrecy,” said Trent. “Gosh, that Mr. Greeley and the fellows at the Pentagon sure are clever.” Trent winked at Rudy, but with his goggles on, it didn’t register on the grizzled editor. “Sir, it’s always been my dream to pretend to be a cub reporter at a big city newspaper—I’m willing to work my way up from the bottom. Isn’t there some lowly position you can give a young eager beaver like me?”
        Rudy rubbed the stubble of his five-o’clock shadow. “I suppose we could always use another cub reporter,” he said, “especially if you’re willing to work for nothing—making coffee for the next six months and performing only the most menial, humiliating tasks that have nothing remotely to do with journalism—and are able to withstand the verbal abuse and rough language meted out by hard-bitten, big-city newspapers types you’re likely to find in a city room like ours. C’mon, let me introduce you to our controversial columnist.”
        “You mean Lois Alamos?” asked Trent. “I’ve heard so much about her.”
        “Pamela Jointly,” said Rudy. “Again, I don’t know what wire service you subscribe to, kid, but you’re dropping names I’ve never heard of in this business.”
        Rudy led the way across the newsroom but halted halfway. He turned to Trent.
        “Let me ask you—do you always wear a blue cowl and brass goggles with a red cyclopean lens under your Fedora and Robert Mitchum suit? You’re not one of those costumed vigilantes or anything, are you? We have enough of those already in this crazy town.”
        “I wear special long underwear because I sunburn easily,” Trent explained, rubbing his cheek. “It’s certainly not because I’m Megaton Man, or any other nuclear-powered megahero. I’m just an ordinary, civilian cub reporter.”
        “Good,” said Rudy. “Just as long as you’re not one of them costumed vigilantes. I won’t abide costumed vigilantes working undercover using secret identities as cub reporters in my newsroom.”

On the other side of the City Room, a young, longhaired brunette in blue jeans was busy crafting a controversial column on a computer terminal. As Rudy and Trent approached, Rudy whispered, “Pammy’s one of those newly-liberated, younger-generation types that male chauvinists like me can’t stand. But we need the boost in circulation, so I put up with her controversial political provocations.”
        “Groovy,” said Trent. “I’m hip to that scene.”
        “Pammy, this is Chet Flume,” Rudy announced. “I expect you to break his spirit like we do all our young, aspiring cub reporters.”
        “Great,” said Pammy, who didn’t look up from her typing. She pointed to the wall. “Those five filing cabinets are filled with reference materials on the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, the history of American-Soviet tensions since World War II, and the Nuclear Freeze movement in Europe. I’ll need concise summaries of all of it, with everything footnoted. How many words a minute can you type, Chet?”
        “Type?” asked Trent. “I can barely print by hand in all caps!”
        “Find a spare desk and make yourself useful, Chet,” said Rudy. “I’ll have copyboy Preston Percy show you the ropes when he gets back from his break.”
        Trent located an unused desk covered with dusty files but otherwise unoccupied, set down his suitcase next to it, and sat down on a squeaky swivel chair. Over the stacks of files, he could barely see the back of Pammy’s head at her desk. He tried getting her attention by waving, but she didn’t notice him.
        Trent watched as Pammy picked up her empty “I [heart] NY” coffee mug, rose from her desk, and crossed the busy newsroom to the dot-matrix printer that was in the process of printing out her copy. Mostly, he was fixated on the seat of her faded blue jeans. As she waited for the printer, she poured a cup of hot water from a nearby coffee machine and added a Earl Grey teabag she pulled from her denim shirt pocket. She enjoyed the breeze wafting through the open window next to the printer and the sounds of rush-hour traffic emanating from the avenue thirteen stories below.
        At the same time, an aged janitor (he could have been the twin of the aged security guard in the lobby) was making his way through the rows of desks, emptying wastepaper baskets into a large, grey rolling trash container festooned with mops, brooms, and dustpans.
        “These hard-bitten, big-city newspapers types sure do generate a lot of wastepaper,” the janitor mused. “No doubt an expression of their toxic masculinity—and multiple rewrites.”
        Trent leaped up and grabbed his wastepaper basket the same time the janitor reached for it. “I can do that,” he said “I’m the new cub reporter, and I’m willing to work my way from the bottom!”
        Trent recited this ostentatiously, for Pamela’s benefit; but she was busy looking out the window and daydreaming provocative, controversial daydreams.
        (Did we mention the avenue was thirteen stories below?)
        The janitor refused to let go of the wastepaper basket and tried to wrest it from Trent. “What are you tryin’ to do, get me in trouble with the union?” he growled. “You young whipper-snapper! I’ve seen your type before—I’m not about to have my menial, humiliating chores usurped by the likes of you!”
        Just then, a skinny copyboy, overdressed in pleated slacks, dress shirt, patent leather shoes, a narrow tie, and mirrored aviators ran into the room. He had a sheet of paper freshly torn from a wire service teletype machine.
        “Stop the presses!!” Preston Percy shouted eagerly. “I always wanted to say that; really, I’m just back from my cigarette break.”
        The outburst startled Trent, who all of a sudden let go of the wastebasket. The janitor, who had been pulling with all his might, snapped backwards, crashing into his rolling grey trash container festooned with mops, brooms, and dustpans, which in turn shot across the busy newsroom like a bullet—directly toward the seat of Pamela Jointly’s faded blue jeans.
        Pammy, still gazing out the window, never saw it coming.
        Caroming off of her backside, the barrel pushed her out of the open window.
        Trent thought it odd that Pammy didn’t let out a scream. “Some liberated chick!” he surmised.
        “Pammy!” cried Preston. “She’s fallen out that open window again, Mr. Mayo!”
        “My controversial columnist!” cried Rudy, who saw the circulation figures for The Manhattan Project plummet before his very eyes. “Megaton Man’s been at the Manhattan Project for less than two minutes, and he’s already causing a chain reaction!”
        “Woo!” said Trent. “Quick,” he said to the elderly janitor. “Where’s the nearest broom closet?”
        “I’m not telling,” snarled the old man. “I told you, you’re not in the union!”
        Loosening his tie, Trent raced down the hall. Finding a door marked “Staff Only,” he dashed inside. In the span of a few seconds, he had shed his mattress-stuffed Robert Mitchum suit and wide-brimmed Fedora, and emerged as … Megaton Man!
        Confused staffers emerged from the conference room holding the Robert Mitchum suit, tie, dress shirt, socks, shoes, and Fedora Trent Phloog had shed.
        “Why did that guy just take off his clothes?” said a female reporter. “Is he a streaker?”
        Zooming out of the window, Megaton Man was a blur of red, yellow and blue. Chasing after Pammy, he caught the plummeting reporter halfway from the avenue.
        “Woo!” said Megaton Man. “I’m sure glad to meet you, Miss Alamos, at least before you became a splotch on Eight Avenue. I’ve read all your columns!”
        “You saved my life,” said Pammy. “But, who are you?”
        “I’m Trent Phloog, cub reporter—I mean, Megaton Man!” said Megaton Man. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood. But tell me, why didn’t you scream when you fell out that window just now?”
        “Roman Man usually catches me,” she said. “Really, it’s no big deal; I must fall out that window three times a week.”
        “You sure are a liberated chick,” said Megaton Man.
        As Megaton Man flew back up to the thirteenth-floor window with Pammy in his over-muscled arms, Pammy said, “Since you’re a fan, I’ll be interested in what you think about my latest editorial—on how megaheroes are compensating for their sexual inadequacies by wearing ridiculous costumes and adopting hyper-macho personas.”
        “Woo!” said Megaton Man. “Are you allowed to write such things in a family newspaper? You really are a controversial columnist!”

Next: The Quantum Quest Quartet
First Chapter | All Chapters | Latest Chapter

Archival Images:

Trent Phloog, Pamela Jointly, and Preston Percy at The Manhattan Project in Return of Megaton Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, July 1988).

Trent Phloog, Pamela Jointly, and Preston Percy at The Manhattan Project in Return of Megaton Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, July 1988).

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