#149: Hypothetically Speaking

The day before the Hypothetics conference, I got a small package in the mail. It was from Gene. The note read, “Consider this a belated birthday gift”—he’d missed it back in February—“and a congratulations on your presentation, which I’m afraid I’m also going to have to miss. About the gift: Whatever you do, don’t point it at your eye. Good luck.” Inside the padded envelope was a small, silvery, pen-shaped cylinder.
        “It’s too small to be a vibrator,” I said.
        “Get your mind out of the gutter, Sissy,” said Avie, who was reading a textbook for school. “It’s obviously some kind of writing instrument.”

#145: Fusion Jazz

Clarissa’s first-person narrative resumes …
        “You expect me to believe the Quantum Quest Quartet became the Megatropolis Quartet simply because all four people temporarily forgot their team name on the Fourth of July, 1976?” I said. “I assume they later recovered their memories. Why didn’t they go back to the original team name? Had they already filed paperwork that prevented them from changing it back or something?”

#144: The Flight of Dr. Braindead!

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

The Marketable Universe, July 4, 1976

Megaton Man and the Human Meltdown traded blows in midair over the Statue of Liberty, knocking the other back hundreds of feet with each one, and more than once coming perilously close to crashing into the monument. Still aloft, whoever was struck would blasted back, come to a stop, hover for a moment as they recovered, then fly right back at the other one to throw another punch in return. It was a very inefficient way to fight.

#143: The Bicentennial Battle of the Millennium!

Trent Phloog’s third-person flashback continues … (Part 5 of 6)

The Marketable Universe, July 4, 1976

The City Room of The Manhattan Project, nerve center of that great daily newspaper, was empty on the sweltering summer afternoon except for the lone figure of Trent Phloog. The unpaid cub reporter, his padded Robert Mitchum suit soaked in perspiration, snoozed at his desk, his snores in concert with the rattling sounds of the window fans and the smooth murmur of ceiling fans, neither of which did anything to combat the sultry New York City heat.

#142: The Quantum Quest Quartet

Trent Phloog’s third-person flashback continues … (Part 4 of 6)

The Marketable Universe, May 1976

Meanwhile, in a midtown skyscraper, a megahero team was scrambling to an alarm.
        “I’m afraid we’ll have to cancel our regularly-scheduled vacation to Bug-Eyed Island, See-Thru Girl!” announced a bulbous, sloshing, elderly man in blue leotards with a white “Q” on his chest. Rex Rigid’s bloated face stared opaquely at a bank of computer monitors arrayed from floor to ceiling, his gloved hands turning knobs and pressing buttons. “The Quantum Tower’s elaborate defenses systems have detected an emergency!”

#135: Night Flight

“Hey, wait a minute!” Kozmik Kat protested, his paws flailing about, as he tried to wriggle free from my grasp. “My powers are no good in a fight scene, Ms. Megaton.” But it was too late; we were already far out over water and ascending rapidly in the frigid night air.

#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.

#124: Melody Chrysanthemum

I supposed Preston’s last remark was intended to end our conversation, because he returned to his work stocking the bookstore shelves with an air that he was going to ignore me until I went away. I didn’t know what else to say, although I didn’t turn away immediately. But then I heard some familiar voices from behind me.

#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.

#93: Tripping With Doctor Messiah

The next moment we were standing in front of my old house on Ann Street in Ann Arbor. I could feel the hard, scruffy cement of the driveway beneath my bare feet. It wasn’t as disorienting as I’d expected, although for a moment I was slightly dizzy.
        “At least astral-projection across space is possible,” I said, as if I were informing Doctor Messiah. “But, am I really here?”
        Doctor Messiah stood on the sidewalk next to me in his bare feet, arms folded, a faint smile on his lips. “Why don’t you find out?”

#87: Those Chosen Few

In the parking lot outside the Big Yard, I spotted my father, Clyde Phloog; although he was in his civilian form and not his default Silver Age Megaton Man stature, he still seemed a head taller than everyone in the crowd. He was dressed in a sharp business suit and was snapping away with a self-developing film camera as Stella and I approached, triumphant, in our caps and gowns, clutching the scrolled mock-sheepskins we’d received on the stage.

#86: Apocalyptic Megachallenges

Flying back and forth from Detroit to Troy had been relatively easy for me, even in winter, because it was north and south, but Detroit to Ann Arbor was a different story. Arbor State University was due west, and often I’d often run into strong westerly winds, and in frigid temperatures it was even worse. My uniform offered thermal protection for most of my body, but the V-neck on my torso went down to the bottom of my sternum, leaving the center of my chest, neck, and face exposed to the wind. In late February, with highs in the twenties and lows below zero, I would really feel it.

#77: Schroedinger’s Cat

The Wilbert Dunlevy Himmelfarb Presentation Festival of Undergraduate Research is held every year in mid-to late March, depending on when spring break ends and Easter occurrs, on the main campus of Arbor State University. This year, it landed on March 21 through 23, 1984. Sponsored by the Albert Kahn School of Arts and Sciences, the festival took over almost an entire floor of the Modern Language Building, with programming running concurrently in more than two dozen classrooms. Drawing from all the satellite campuses including my own extension in midtown Detroit, the programming featured mostly seniors giving brief synopses of the senior theses they had completed during the fall semester, but ambitious underclassmen could also enter to showcase their research projects.

#72: Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner

Chuck Roast’s eyes opened instantly. He bolted upright, grabbing the cushions of the sofa. Holding one in front of himself defensively, he cried, “Who? What?”
     “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “What is the Human Meltdown doing back in America?”
     “I was recovering from jet lag, if you must know,” he said. “What are you doing...? Oh, that’s right. You used to live here.”
     Chuck rubbed the sleep from his eyes, set the cushion back in its place, turned, and put his feet on the floor. He relaxed somewhat, satisfied that I wasn’t immediately going to attack him.

#63: The Snows of State Fair Avenue

“Wait a minute!” cried Yarn Man. “How do we know it’s really the Silver Age Megaton Man and the Mod Puma the Time Turntable has brought back from another dimension—and not just a couple o’ crummy imposters?”
     The Mod Puma turned and glared at him. “Bing, how would you like the polka dots on your boxers to migrate up to your eyeballs?” Feline-like, she lunged off the turntable and into the snow, executed a few practice karate kicks with her taloned feet, and held her clawed hands stiffly in front of her face, ready to chop.
     Yarn Man grimaced and covered his groin with his red mittens. “That’s the real Mod Puma, all right,” he conceded.
     The psychedelic cat relaxed her stance. “I thought so,” she said.

#62: This Fairground, This Battlefield

I wasn’t wearing my Ms. Megaton Man uniform under my clothes for extra insulation as I usually did this time of year, since I was wearing my nice dress again to visit Mama. So, I had to race back to where Avie had parked her Pacer. There, in the back seat among the groceries and gifts, I had stowed my book bag, just in case. I stripped right there, in the parking lot behind Mama’s apartment building, hoping none of her neighbors happened to be looking out their back windows at just that moment to see her daughter turn into a megahero.

#58: Megahero-Free Zone

“Look, Mama,” said Avie, proudly. “Clarissa’s wearing a dress.”
     “What’s the occasion, Sissy?” asked Mama.
     “You mean besides having Thanksgiving dinner with our Mama?” I replied. Avie and I were helping Mama take the turkey out of oven in her tiny new apartment near Eight Mile Road. “I can be traditional when I want to.”
     “You didn’t have to get dressed up for me,” said Mama. “But you do look nice in a dress for a change. I don’t think I’ve seen you in one since high school.”
     “Clarissa went by the house to pick up her old clarinet,” said Avie. “Daddy told her she was dressing too much like a boy lately and that she should grab some of her old dresses out of the attic, too, while she was at it. Only, they don’t fit her anymore. So he gave her money to buy new reeds and a new frock.”
     “Avie can’t keep anything secret,” I said. I stuck my tongue out at my half-sister.

#48: Donna Blank, District Defender

I was in my sweats, shivering at the poor steam heating in my garret apartment, reading over the voluminous notes my advisor had scribbled all over my senior thesis draft, when suddenly there came a knock at the door. “Who is it?”
      “Jasper,” came the reply. “Jasper Johnson.”
     I let him in. Rubber Brother was nattily attired in a sharp business suit with a carefully-folded pocket handkerchief. “You look awful,” he said. “Are you feeling well?”