#136: Coup Détente

Mr. Megaton, Kozmik Kat, and I—followed by the chopper with Gene, Stella, and Avie—returned from Liberty Island to the Doomsday Factory. As we approached the roof, I noticed a caravan of headlights sweeping down the promontory’s gravel path; they were white vans from an ICHHL front company dubbed Incarcertory Consultants for Hardened, Lawbreaking Louts. They were whisking off Rose Shark and the Megatown Mobsters, presumably to the Civilian Reality’s version of the Criminality Clinic which, for all I knew, may have also been called the Criminality Clinic, too.

#134: Mr. Megaton

I hadn’t seen exactly what Stella had done, as my grandmother had been intentionally shielding Stella from the view of the Megatown Mobster guarding us. He wasn’t paying any attention to us anyway; he was too flabbergasted at the transformation of his boss—the President-Elect of the United States, Bartholomew Gamble—into the purple-clad megavillain, Bad Guy.

#133: Rex, Rose, and Mega-Bad Guy

We were screwed.
        Stella quickly slipped the unopened jewel case containing syringes and vials of Mega-Soldier Syrup back into her windbreaker; Avie and Seedy both rolled down their sleeves. No one, it appeared, was going to be transformed into a megahero.
        “You want I should grab their guns, Rose?” said one of the Megatown Mobsters.
        “No need,” said Rose Shark. “This is just a friendly visit. Besides, our next President of these United State believes in fostering the most deadly proliferation of firearms our nation and the world has ever seen.”

#132: The Megatown Mob

“Stella, what are you doing in Bayonne?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you drove ten hours straight all the way from Ann Arbor.”
        “Of course not,” Stella replied. “We flew.”
        “Flew? But Stella, you guys can’t fly. In this reality, you’re civilians, not megaheroes.”
        “On a plane, silly,” she replied.

#131: Banks of the Nile

It seemed to me as we watched the bank of surveillance screens in the darkened guard station that Gene Griffin was anticipating an assault on the Doomsday Factory from land, sea, and air to rival Operation Overlord on D-Day. Yet, despite his misgivings, he projected the brash confidence that we could handily repel the invaders from atop the promontory of Constable Hook for days and weeks, if not forever—just him, me, my sister, my grandma, my former housemate’s invalid father, and a stray black cat named Dr. Sax. Gene reminded me of Daddy, my adoptive father, with his take-charge attitude; Daddy, who could turn a leaky roof into the most insurmountable challenge our family had ever faced, yet certain we would inevitably triumph in the end. This is what turned me on about Gene.

#130: Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

“I’ve heard of political assassinations,” I said. “But a politician having a private citizen whacked—that’s crazy. You really think Bad Guy will try to have me rubbed out?”
        “Bart Gamble predicated his presidential campaign on Ms. Megaton as a menace to society,” said Glenn. “He’s already framed you as Public Enemy Number One, Clarissa, and he’s determined to get you out of the way long before he’s sworn in come January.”

#129: Ex Nihilo

One of the Transdimensional Transceivers appeared identical to the one I had seen in the Troy, Michigan headquarters of the Youthful Permutations team the Y+Thems. I lugged it over to the ringed table in the center of the floor; it was heavier than I expected. Rex followed, uncoiling an extension cord from the workbench he’d plugged into the wall.

#128: The Transdimensional Transceiver

“This is Ms. Megaton?” asked Rex, sizing me up through wire-framed spectacles. I must have seemed especially unprepossessing in my fat jeans and baggy hoodie; I felt his eyes going back and forth between my modest chest and my sister’s ample bosom. “Could have fooled me. She appears much more formidable in news photos and on television.”
        Thanks for talking about me in the third person!

#127: Return to Doomsday

Sunrise beat us to Bayonne, New Jersey the following morning, but only slightly. It was already daylight as Gene drove the white van up a gravelly path up Constable Hook, the promontory Avie and I had visited once before back in our reality. That time, we approached by air and from the east, in the flying Q-Mobile piloted by old boyfriend, Bing Gloom, also known as Yarn Man. This time, of course, we were climbing up the hill from the west. The sun seemed to rise anew as we reached the crest of the hill, casting the hulking old building in stark silhouette.
        “The Doomsday Factory,” I said.

#126: Docs and Cats

“I have a vehicle waiting outside,” said Grandma Seedy in a commanding voice to me. “There isn’t a moment to lose, Clarissa.”
        It crossed my mind that elements within the government might be using my grandmother as a ploy to kidnap me, but that seemed unlikely—and just plain paranoid. And yet, how could I be sure who was friend or foe in this alternate, Civilian Reality?

#125: Re-Election Day

When I got up the following morning, my first priority was to set my Ms. Megaton Man visor and buttons on the windowsill so they could recharge for several hours in the sunlight; after that, to find my polling place, the spooky St. Oriel Byzantine Church. It was a short walk from our West Forest apartment down Third Avenue almost to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. I made it a point to get my ass out of bed early and cast my ballot for the challenger to President Harry Foster Lime, whoever that might be. I couldn’t start my day unless I knew I’d done at least that much to defeat him, as had been accomplished in my own reality.

#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.”

#100: Dr. Sax

Next thing I know, I was back at the Inland Ocean Archeological and Anthropological Institute. The afternoon sunlight was still beaming through the windows on all sides of the top floor of the Wardell Building, through the stacks and stacks of rare books and manuscripts.
        I found myself seated alone, in the cross-legged position, on the oriental rug, barefoot in my athletic shorts and tank top. I looked at my hand; my class ring was still there; I reached over to my book bag—I knew I was back in my native reality because my butthole still hurt from my weekend with Trent. I fished out my wristwatch out of my book bag; the date hadn’t even changed; barely a few minutes had passed.

#99: They Pronounce the Doctor…Braindead!

I didn’t know what to expect when the Time Turntable began to materialize along the side fence in our Ann Street back yard. After all, at different times, I had seen Yarn Man, Kozmik Kat, Liquid Man, the Silver Age Megaton Man, and the Mod Puma appear or disappear on it. But those times all occurred in another reality—my native reality—not this weirdly alternative, civilian one.
        I knew even less what to expect from the oval opening of the Dimensional Doorway over the driveway—which, I hasten to add, appeared of its own accord, without the surrounding hardware, as an eerie, gaping aperture into a wild, unruly cosmic chaos.

#98: George Has a Gun

“Comic Coo-Coo Boo,” said Simon, who had been making Jackson Pollock compositions on the stainless-steel tray of his high chair with his noodles and spaghetti sauce. He was the only one of us able to gaze directly at the Cosmic Cue-Ball with his cyclopic, red-lensed goggles, while the rest of us were practically blinded.
        The incandescent orb looked just the way it was drawn in the comic books, but instead of harsh, black outlines, it burned as brightly as tungsten. The Orb of Great Power, as I’d heard it once described, hung in mid-air over us only briefly before it darted through the kitchen toward the open back door, stopping at the screen. Duchess, barking, chased after it; leaping up, her front paw came down on the handle of the screen door. Her weight carried her out of the house and onto the patio, and the Cue-Ball, sensing an opening, darted out into the back yard.

#97: Secret Identity

Daddy backed his red pickup into the driveway of the Ann Street house. I opened the passenger door, careful to unload my crutches first, then let myself out gently. My balance seemed much improved and my leg felt better, although something told me that if I tried to walk I’d still be rather lame.
        It was clear my perceptions had skipped forward in time once again. Judging from how the leaves on the trees and shrubs were turning, we were in the latter half of September now, at least.

#96: How We Lost the Farm

Let’s just say I half-convinced my grandmother, Dr. Mercedith Robeson-James, I was telling the truth. Of course, I couldn’t prove I was Ms. Megaton Man in some other reality, because in this one, I was only civilian Clarissa James. As such, I couldn’t fly or do anything megaheroic to demonstrate I once possessed megapowers. In fact, with a rod in my thigh bone, I couldn’t do much more than spin around in my wheelchair with my one good leg. But my knowledge of her own past as one of the thirteen Doomsday Factory scientists that had worked on the Atomic Soldier seemed to convince Grandma Seedy the alternate reality I described was at least theoretically plausible.
        She didn’t think I was completely crazy, in other words.

#95: Civilian Clarissa

Next thing I knew, I was back in Detroit, in my folks’ home, still in my accursed wheelchair. I was in the middle of the dining room off of the kitchen. Mama and Daddy were making a big fuss over me, about rearranging the first floor guest room, which they had been using as a TV den, but were converting into a temporary bedroom for me so I wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs while I convalesced.
        Avie was helping them, bringing down pillows and bedding from upstairs, after Mama and Daddy brought down the mattress and box spring.
        I called Avie aside.
        “Avie, I’m not supposed to be here,” I whispered.

#68: Will the Real Dr. Joe Please Stand Up?

We all looked in horror at my father, the Silver Age Megaton Man, to see what effect, if any, the blue gelatin capsule would have on him. Would it really neutralize his megapowers? Was the man who gave it to him really Dr. Joe, or was he Doctor Software, and the man who just entered the gymnasium the real Dr. Joe? And was the capsule a lethal dose of some kind of poison the arch-nemesis of all Megaton Men had prepared especially for him?
     “This Megaton Man is just as dumb as any of them,” said Kozmik Kat. “Silver Age or otherwise.”
     “Clyde? Are you all right?” asked Alice² with concern. “You look a little peaked.”
     Clyde began to swoon, and let out his trademark “Woo!” He stood outside the boxing ring now, but grabbed up at the ropes to keep his balance. “I feel dizzy, all of a sudden.”

#42: The Theoretical Unraveling of the Kitchen Sinkverse

Avie and I immediately wanted to whisk our newfound grandmother up Woodward Avenue to Eight Mile to reunite with our Mama, who hadn’t seen her mother in over forty years. But Grandma said she had to make an urgent phone call first. Seedy used my dial-up rotary phone and Avie, Charles, and I—and Audrey, who was still dressed in my Ms. Megaton Man uniform—crowded into the tiny kitchen of my garret apartment to give Grandma some privacy. I had a feeling it was some kind of official scientific business.