#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.

#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.