I clacked away at my typewriter into the wee hours of the morning. In the background was the Warren Woodward University public radio station, WWWU, humming at a low volume on my cheap clock radio. It was so late the programming had gone from news to jazz to classical; they were now broadcasting some free-form art rock courtesy of a deejay who was also an editorial contributor to Detroit’s anarcho-primitivist underground newspaper, The Fifth Wheel. The sounds were hypnotically weird, and I was getting bleary-eyed.
Seated on the stool at my vintage drawing table, flattened out to support my portable typewriter, I looked over at my bed, under the oddly-angled attic roof of my garret apartment. There, Kozmik Kat was leaning against a couple of pillows stacked against the wall, scratching away at my paper with a red ballpoint pen.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m proofreading your senior thesis,” came the reply. “Man, learn to use a semicolon, girl.”
“I’ve had twelve years of public school and three—no, four—years of college,” I said. “You’re just a talking cat. What makes you think you can edit my paper? Do you know how much reading over a lifetime you have to do to gain literacy?”
“I’m a New York Public Library cardholder,” said Koz, shoving a sheaf of papers at me for my inspection. “Besides, who else is going to fix your copy and make sure you’re making sense?”
“Usually, Mama would read my papers back in high school,” I said. “Or Stella would read my papers when I lived in Ann Arbor. For a woman whose main megapower was turning naked with but a thought, she sure knew her adverbs.”
“Yeah, and are you on good terms with your mother at the moment?” Koz asked.
“No,” I said, looking through the corrected sheets. “Her and Daddy have split up…jeez, you’ve marked up every page.”
“And how about Stella?” asked Koz. “Let me answer that one: No. You’re sleeping with the father of her child—how could you be?”
“We’re not sleeping together, at the moment,” I protested. “Trent and I merely fooled around a couple of times…. Say, these corrections are pretty accurate; you know your stuff. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Koz. “I charge ten bucks an hour.”
“Where does a cat learn to read, anyway?”
“Where does a cat learn to talk?” replied Koz. “One picks things up here and there.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than help a struggling college girl make the grade?” I asked.
“As usual, no,” said Koz. “And that little Ben Phloog is a real handful. That church isn’t big enough to house the Son of the Golden Age Megaton Man. I shudder to think when he enters his terrible twos.”
“I’m surprised I haven’t heard from Preston yet,” I said. After out escapade in Ann Arbor, I’d been expecting the Secret Agent who headed the Ivy Covered Halls of Higher Learning to come and chew me out, which he invariably did whenever Ms. Megaton Man had overstepped her bounds. “Why hadn’t he shown up to read me the riot act—to scold me and tutor me in how megaheroes were expected to behave?”
“How do I know?” said Koz. “Maybe he’s a little intimidated of you, now that you’ve formed the New Detroit Crime Busters.”
“Yeah, right,” I said.
***
I had never asked to be a megahero and still hadn’t figured out what being Ms. Megaton Man all that was good for. So far, I’d mostly only run into other good guys and had yet to bust up even a typical petty crime. I teamed up with the Phantom Jungle Girl, Rubber Brother, and all of the Y+Thems, and our little intervention to rescue my friend and classmate Audrey from a fate worse than death was the closest thing to an adventure I’d had. In the bargain, we ended up springing a military-class killer robot with a conscience from a secret government facility underneath the Arbor State campus; at the same time, we had also inadvertently turned loose a monstrous megapowered behemoth on the world.
Audrey Tomita, it turned out, had just been assisting her boyfriend, Wilton Ashe, and we had happened along about the time they were ready to smuggle their creation out the door. Back in midtown Detroit, Audrey had shown up in class a few days later, and Wilton, a teaching assistant at Warren Woodward, a few days after that; but there was no sign of B-50, the Hybrid Man.
When I asked her about, you know, the killer robot she and Wilton had stolen away from a Pentagon-funded laboratory, she only replied with a “shh” gesture and a cryptic wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
As far as Mervyn Goldfarb, the man I’d seen explode after overdosing on home-brewed Megasoldier Syrup but had mysteriously returned from the dead working the night shift at Megatonic University, the wire services had reported scattered sightings of “a Big, Blue Bulky Guy” in various spots throughout the industrial northeastern United States. Koz and I had saved clippings from The Detroit Day and other newspapers for our manila-folder files.
I yawned and stretched. “Well, I probably won’t get a visit from Preston tonight,” I said. “He’s probably at some gay bar in Ann Arbor, if not in outer space. I’ll retype these pages in the morning—I’m too beat to continue. You better go back home, Koz.”
Home for Kozmik Kat at the moment was the church on the corner, the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City, where the Y+Thems and my sister Avie lived.
“You still haven’t told what had you so shaken up when you emerged from Megatonic University the other night,” said Koz. “Beating up a few robots should be nothing for Ms. Megaton Man after wrangling with the Human Meltdown, but you were crying like a baby holding Avie all the way home. What exactly did you see down there?”
“It was nothing,” I said. “My visor was just acting up. It shows me all kinds of things that aren’t there. It showed me your old home, for example—the Megatropolis Quartet Headquarters—when we visited New York City. And we know that skyscraper’s not there anymore because it was blown to smithereens by the old enemies of Megaton Man and the Quartet.”
“My goggles show me stuff, too,” said Koz,. “which is why I took the batteries out a long time ago.”
The visor Dr. Joe had issued to me was a lot more sophisticated than the goggles worn by Kozmik Kat or even Megaton Man; it used touch screens and retina scans and body heat and so on to display an array of information in front of my eyes. I didn’t know how they worked, completely, and they seemed to malfunction when it came to the Megatonic University layout it was supposed to have in its memory banks. But I knew my Ms. Megaton Man visor had also shown me things that were real, like the Partyers from Mars saucer, George Has a Gun, parked in Trent and Stella’s back yard. The Partyers had somehow rendered it invisible, but my visor was still able to penetrate their cloaking device and show it to me, even if I still couldn’t touch it.
“Do you suppose our eyewear can see into other dimension?” I asked. “You know, like realities that are one dimension away from ours?”
“Why would ICHHL give a megahero optics to see into other dimensions?” asked Koz. “What practical purpose would that serve? Isn’t one crazy reality enough?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe our eyewear was cloned from some alien technology. It looked like they were cutting apart robots from the future down in Megatonic U to learn their secrets. Maybe our eyewear was likewise copied, and even Dr. Joe and company don’t realize the full extent of what they can do.”
“Copying technology from the future change sounds dangerous,” said Koz. “Wouldn’t that course of history?”
“Sure, but Rex Rigid and Yarn Man must have altered history countless times just by riding the Time Turntable. Maybe every time someone travels through time or crosses into another dimensions, it changes history, or creates a new, alternate universe.”
“But then, reality wouldn’t make any sense,” said Koz. “There would be no logic to anything.”
“Reality never makes any sense,” I said. “Maybe every time something changes, it splits apart the universe a little bit more. What’s one more alternate reality when there are already infinite Multimensions?”
“This is why I hang around college campuses,” said Koz. “To partake of these egg-headed discussions at two in the morning.”
“I saw my sister Avie die,” I said. “The warrior robots that came after us shot her.”
“You what?!” said Koz.
***
It was true. Underneath Ann Arbor, in the corridor of Megatonic U, I’d watched warrior Bots gun down my sister—or I looked just the moment after it happened—and she died in my arms. That’s what had made me upset on the ride back to Detroit with Koz and the others.
“I saw what would have happened if you hadn’t held Avie back, Koz,” I said. “She would have run down the stairs after me, and gotten herself killed.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Gosh,” said Koz. “I didn’t realize. Your visor showed you all that? But, it didn’t really happen; Avie’s still alive and well. You know that.”
“But it did really happen,” I insisted. “Don’t you see? Maybe it didn’t happen in this reality, but my visor showed me what took place in another reality, one dimension away. It may not have happened in this timeline, but it really happened nonetheless. If I could travel to that world—maybe hop on the Time Turntable or something—in that dimension, my sister would be dead.”
“Just don’t go to that reality,” said Koz. “Stay in this one, where your sister’s still alive. Problem solved.”
“But, don’t you see? It’s just like in another reality, where my Mama never had kids—she became a crimefighter named the Mod Puma. It’s like when my Grandma disappeared from this reality during World War II, and our family always thought she was dead. Until two realities fused back together.”
“Now you’re making my head ache,” said Koz. “You’re convinced your sister is dead in some other dimension. But why should that bother you? In this reality, she’s safe and sound. Isn’t that all that matters?”
“I suppose so,” I said. “But in that other reality, I’m mourning the loss of my sister. It’s like…” I thought back to a long-repressed memory. “When I was a little girl, I was crossing the street near my Boswick-Addison neighborhood—crossing against the light. I got to the middle of the street, but a bus was coming down the lane I still had to cross. I couldn’t return to the sidewalk I had started from, because traffic was already coming the other way. So I was stuck in the middle. The bus driver must have seen me—maybe he didn’t care about a little black girl—and he made no effort to stop. The bus came within eight inches of running me over.”
“Is there a point to this anecdote?” asked Koz.
“Other than I shouldn’t be alive?” I replied. “It’s that every choice we make—every split-second decision—creates an alternate future. In one reality, I probably was run over; in another, this one, I lived. There must be countless moments like that—an infinite number of choices we make every day, even moments where a conscious decision is not involved—that spawn alternate realities. If there really are infinite Multimensions, then a million times every nanosecond, reality must be splitting off into countless alternate futures.”
“The mathematics boggles the mind,” said Koz. “But you can’t go through life mourning what might have taken place in every alternate reality. In this reality, you’re alive, and Avie’s alive. That’s all that matters.”
“I suppose that’s true, under normal circumstances,” I said. “But this reality is all fucked up. My Grandma was dead, and now she’s alive again; Mervyn Goldfarb was dead, then he came back to life. The universe where Megaton Man was America’s Nuclear-Powered and the universe where the Human Meltdown was America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero were separated for decades; now they seem to have fused back together. What happens in other realities does matter, or at least it could matter. My visor must be showing me the Megatropolis Quartet Headquarters, the Partyers From Mars saucer, the death of my sister, all for some purpose.”
“Thinking beings are always ascribing meaning to disparate phenomena,” said Koz. “Maybe you just have a goofy visor that’s showing you all kinds of nonsense. Besides, didn’t you say Wilton had devised some kind of Distorter device that had affected your perceptions?”
“Probably the same future technology as the Bots and my visor,” I said. “What better way to hide a killer robot—or a flying saucer or a skyscraper—than projecting an image from another dimension to cover your tracks.”
“Hmm,” said Koz. “I have a feeling if I turned on my goggles, I’d see an overworked college student and part-time waitress who was moonlighting as a debutante megahero—and completely losing her mind. Anyway, that story would make a lot better reading than this senior thesis on ‘Societal Planning in Midcentury Urban America.’ I’m going home and hitting the sack.”
***
A few days later, after I was done with an afternoon class at the Arbor State Extension, I decided to drop in on Hadleigh, Nancy, and Audrey’s apartment and see how they were doing—especially Hadleigh, who had been considerably shaken up by Audrey’s inexplicable disappearance. I hadn’t been by since Audrey had returned, and honestly, I hadn’t seen my friend and sometime lover Nancy for way too long.
As I walked along Farnsworth Street, past the Auroch Club, an old sketching society and gallery space across from the museum near the Self-Important Art School, I noticed I was being followed, by an older white gentleman I’d seen back by the Extension. As I turned the corner up Brush Street, I got a better look at him: short, bald, white-haired, mustache; neatly dressed in a light grey business suit; carrying a stiff, leather-covered briefcase. A lawyer or professor-type; not the usual kind of character who took an interest in a black girl walking a neighborhood east of the University-Cultural Center.
It was nearly November, so I had taken to wearing my Ms. Megaton Man uniform under my street clothes, and I had my visor, cape and buttons stowed in my book bag. I pulled these out now. After I turned the corner I was out of his sights; I took the opportunity to slip on my visor and dropped the buttons and cape behind the hedge of a fairly well-maintained house. After a few more paces, the gentleman turned the corner, too. After he passed the hedge, I tapped my visor, bringing my cape to life; if fluttered behind the stalker to get a better look.
I came to Hadleigh and company’s street, John R, named after a Detroit mayor, John R. Williams, and waited to cross. A bus was barreling past Peck Park; I hugged the curb and took the opportunity to view what my cape and buttons were showing me about my pursuer—not much more than the back of his bald head.
Unfortunately, while I was forced to wait, my pursuer caught up with me; he was a spry little fellow.
“Good use of your surveillance technology, Ms. Megaton Man,” he said. “I’d have done the same thing myself.”
“What are you, some kind of admissions counselor for the Self-Important Art School?” I demanded. “I’m not in the market for ceramics lessons.”
“Actually, it’s the Kirby Center for Visual Studies,” he said cheerily. “You should be more respectful. Some of our finest automotive advertising comes from dropouts of that fine institution, after they’ve flung pots of paint at oversized canvases for a couple of years.”
“Great,” I said. “You know who I am; why don’t I know you?”
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said, pulling a calling card from his shirt pocket. He handed it to me:
Finlay W. Greeley
Office 17a
The Pentagon, Arlington VA
“You must be one of Preston Percy’s pals,” I said. “I was wondering when he was going to get around to busting my balls.” I stuck the card in my book bag, along with my visor and reluctant cape, which I ordered back into hibernation mode.
“Preston does freelance work for us, from time to time; yes,” said Greeley. “We attempt to coordinate many of Office 17a’s clandestine activities with the Ivy-Covered Halls of Higher Learning. However, it has traditionally been a fraught and complicated relationship. Your unorthodox actions, Ms. James, only threaten to upset a delicate balance that we strive mightily to preserve between our two agencies.”
“That would be losing your breakthrough killer Bot and chasing off Big, Blue, Bulky Guy?” I asked. “Forgive me, but the street’s clearing, and this is my chance to cross.”
I ran across to the park; Greeley jogged to keep up. When he caught his breath, he replied. “Precisely…now, I’m sure you meant no harm, but the disruption you’ve caused, not to mention the expenditure of deploying the National Guard to locate the elusive Mervyn Goldfarb…”
“What about the disruption of my life?” I snapped, turning on the little twerp. “I never asked to be a megahero, or watch my sister get killed—even if it was just an projection from another dimension. I never asked for any of this—I was just a happy little coed in Ann Arbor.”
“I’m afraid your breakout moment was beyond our control,” said Greeley. “In fact, you’re something of a random element in all this. No one was expecting a ‘Ms. Megaton Man’ to emerge on what is already a complicated scene.”
“Just a nice, orderly progression of white guys, I suppose,” I said. “The Original Golden Age Megaton Man, the Silver Age Megaton Man, the Trent Phloog Megaton Man…and whatever Dr. Joe is cooking up at the moment out in California for the Next Megaton Man.”
“You do seem to be America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero by default, at the moment,” said Greeley. “Preston and I have discussed how our respective agencies might handle your case. And, we’ve mutually agreed to take a hands-off approach.”
“That’s very liberal of you,” I said, “accepting a bisexual African-American woman into the fold.”
“We flatter ourselves to think so,” said Greeley. “Speaking for Office 17a, we are willing to let bygones be bygones, if only out of deference to Dr. Robeson James…”
“Are you saying my Grandma Seedy interceded for me?” I said. “Otherwise, I’d be catching hell from you white guys?”
“Something like that, if you wish,” said Greeley. “In our collective view, it’s a matter of establishing some simple ground rules…”
I was about to deliver a diatribe on the subject of freedom, girl power, and a few other subjects that were on my mind when I noticed the old man had suddenly stopped talking; a look of abject horror crossed his face. He was staring off at something down the street.
I turned and looked; alongside the park, across from Hadleigh and company’s apartment, sat a white van. I could only see the front, but I imagined it had one of ICHHL’s phony front-names plastered along its side.
“Just one of Preston’s minions,” I said. “I suppose they’re going to lecture me next.”
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. James,” said Greeley abruptly. “We’ll have to continue our pleasant conversation at some future time.” He turned and darted back across the street, narrowly missing another city bus whizzing by. I watched him as he disappeared around the corner of Brush and Farnsworth, whence he had come.
I turned and strolled up to the white van—why did everybody, including the Y+Thems, favor white vans?—and peered into the darkened glass. I couldn’t tell if there was anyone inside, but I was sure somebody was there.
I walked along the side of the van. To my surprise, it was blank—no ICHHL lettering, like the Independent Contractors of Highland Hills and Lanes or somesuch—just bare, white paint. But it was obvious the van was on a stakeout.
I rapped on the back door. “What are you doing, interrogating Audrey in there? Or just eavesdropping, hoping she’ll blurt out where she stashed B-50 while fucking Wilton?”
The door opened; inside was the most handsome black man I’d ever seen outside of a movie. “Actually, we’re making sure nothing happens to your friends, Ms. James,” he said. “We’re a private security firm, so to speak. Devil’s Night is coming up, and you know what that means in Detroit.”
Inside the van, another man, white with a fringe of brown hair around a bald pate, sat in a swivel chair at a control panel; he had on earphones and was monitoring sounds. He was chewing a mouthful of gum. “And we have special equipment that filters out any sex sounds,” said the white man. “We’re not into that scene.”
“That’s Allan Jordan,” said the black man., “He’s a…distant cousin of Hadleigh’s. His codename is Clown, and he’s a Master of Disguise, although at the moment he’s doing a convincing impersonation of himself.” Allan waved and blew a big, pink bubble. “I’m Gene Griffin; I go by the codename Penetrator—used to be the Purple Penetrator back when I wore a cape and leotards, but now I’m just a garden variety bounty hunter and soldier of fortune.” He had the army boots, utility belt, and shoulder holster over a black tank top and khaki parachute pants to prove it.
“P-P-Penetrator, you say?” I said, tongue-tied like a school girl. “I’m, uh, Ms. Megaton Man.” I extended my hand and he took it; his was a big, manly hand.
It may have been one of the few times I was glad to be in the megahero business—a spy as good-looking as him could penetrate me any time.
“Oh, get a room,” said Allan between chews. “Audrey’s not home, by the way, Clarissa; none of your friends are, at the moment. They’re all in class.” He was watching some kind of radar screen.
“Oh, right,” I said. “Silly me, forgetting their schedule.” Actually, I had no idea what they’re schedule was; I was just too flustered by Gene to know what else to say.
“No ICHHL or 17a in the vicinity,” said Alan. “Let’s swing by the campus and hit a food truck for supper.”
“You got it, chief,” said Gene. “Nice meeting you, finally, Clarissa. I’ve admired your work from afar.”
My work? Did Ms. Megaton Man even have a career?
“Don’t be a stranger,” I said.
“I won’t,” said Gene, smiling as he closed the door. He must have crawled to the front of the van, because it started up and it motored down the street.