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.
I slipped into my body suit in record time, pulled on my stretchy red panties, yellow boots and gloves, and affixed my translucent visor over my eyes. I tapped the temple stem and my cape and buttons flew to my shoulders and snapped to my collar bones. I tried to lay my dress neatly over the front seat so it wouldn’t get too wrinkled, closed up the car, and flew right from that spot—up and around the apartment building and down the traffic-jammed street.
I hadn’t flown, especially in the winter time, for a while, and often with my Abyssinian Wolves hoody over my suit when just going back and forth to Ann Arbor. But with the plunging V-neck of my uniform exposed, let me tell you, I could feel the frigid air on my sternum. The chill, however, only added to the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
Mama was in danger.
I zoomed over Avie on the sidewalk below; she had started in a dead run in the opposite direction from where we had stood toward the police cordon, but found the sidewalks increasingly congested the closer she got to Woodward Avenue. I, however, proceeded swiftly past the police barricade and landed softly behind some parked vehicles, behind which officers had their rifles and handguns trained on my Mama’s Civix Savings and Loan.
A tall, handsome black officer with a mustache and bullhorn turned and saw me.
“Ms. Megaton Man,” he said, like I was already a trusted member of the team. He couldn’t take his eyes off my torso; I guess my nipples were pretty hard in the cold.
“What’s up, chief?” I said, ignoring his gaze.
The officer looked me in the eye, chastened. “Two gunmen tried to hold up the place, but it seems to have gone sideways,” he said, professionally. “Now we have a hostage situation—several employees and customers—and we’re waiting for our negotiator. But they’re stuck in traffic downtown.”
“May I?” I put my hand out for the bull-horn, like I knew what I was doing.
He surrendered it me. “What’s your plan, Woman of Molecules?”
“I have no idea.” I wondered if every costumed megahero automatically commanded the respect of local law enforcement. Somehow, in the Motor City, I doubted it.
I stepped around the squad cars and police van into the empty street; about a block of wide Woodward Avenue had been sealed off by a ring of similar vehicles, a remote TV van with satellite uplink, a S.W.A.T. team, and bomb-sniffing dogs. About twenty cops in bulletproof vests had their weapons trained on the plate-glass windows and doors of the Civix Savings and Loan storefront.
I put to bullhorn to my mouth. “Hey, in there,” I said; the sound echoed back from the plate-glass windows. “This here’s Ms. Megaton Man. I’m unarmed—I just wanna talk. I’m coming in there…if that’s okay with you.”
I handed the bullhorn back to the nice officer across the hood of a squad car, turned around, took a deep breath, and took a few cautious steps into the street, my focus on the door.
You could hear a pin drop as everyone held their breath.
Not two steps across the asphalt, I stepped into a frozen-over puddle in a pothole; the crack of the ice went off like a gunshot, reverberating between the buildings on both sides of the street; I flinched and heard two dozen police weapons cock their triggers.
I held my arms out and held my breath; luckily, nobody fired a shot. I let my breath out.
“False alarm, guys,” I said in a hoarse stage whisper.
I could hear various cops curse under their breath and question what a black girl, even one in a primary-colored uniform, expected to do in this situation.
I tiptoed the rest of the way across the roadway. Because of the way the afternoon sun was positioned in the mostly-overcast sky, I could only see a reflection of clouds in the plate glass windows and a shimmering brightness.
I could also see my own reflection as I got closer to the Civix Savings and Loan. The Ms. Megaton Man uniform my Grandma Seedy has created for me gave me confidence, and I relaxed—although I still expected the gunmen inside the building to take a potshot at me any second.
I got to the front door and reached for the handle. Slowly, I pulled it open. As I passed through the vestibule, I could see the scene inside the Civix Saving and Loan through the second set of glass doors.
Dana, dressed in her Domina uniform, stood over one gunman, who was lying face down on the travertine floor, the spiked heel of her boot grinding harshly into the back of his neck. A pistol of some kind lay in pieces, out of his reach.
Behind her, Mama was taping the wrists of a second gunman behind his back with silver-grey duct tape; he was also face down and she was kneeling on his back, while he swore profusely. Another weapon and a satchel half-full of money had been kicked across the floor to a carpeted area by the door of vault leading to the safe deposit room.
Across from the teller’s counter were desks where other employees and a few customers stood frozen, too scared to move.
I opened the doors and stepped into the lobby. “What’s going on here?” I said. “Dana, you’ve saved the day!”
“Fuckers pissed me off,” said Dana. Her street clothes, which she had evidently peeled off in a hurry, lay scattered on the floor, revealing her skimpy, black leather-thong costume, chrome-studded halter top and straps, and spiky-hemmed silk cape. Apparently, the sight of her striking figure discombobulated the gunmen, whom, thus distracted, Mama had conked on their head with a handy, small, red fire extinguisher, which still rolled across the floor. “Last time I take payment from a businessman for making him eat dogfood out a bowl in the form of a check.” She thumbed her red leather gauntlet at Mama. “Luckily, this old lady knows some killer kung-fu moves.”
“Mama!” I said, and ran over to her.
“Hey, Sissy,” she Mama, a big smile on her face. “Just be a minute.” She finished taping up the wrists of the gunmen and put a slab of duct tape across his mouth, shutting him up. She tossed the roll to Dana.
“Thank God for your friend,” said Mama. “I don’t know what the hell’s happening to this town anymore.” Mama stood up, straightened her skirt, and went over to her cowering employees and customers to see if they were all right. They relaxed and began filing out the door, Mama leading the way. Out the front door, Mama called to the police, “We’re cool,” and flashed them a thumbs up. The freed hostages filed out the door, mingling with police who came out from behind their vehicles on empty Woodward Avenue to greet them.
Dana yanked her gunman up to his knees and held him by the throat. She handed the roll of duct tape to me and I peeled off a length to tear off, to tape his wrists behind his back. But I needn’t have bothered; the cops swarmed in quickly with handcuffs and whatnot, and took the would-be robber off our hands.
“You’re a good guy, Dana,” I said. “You thwarted an armed robbery. You probably saved my mama’s life.”
“It was nothing,” she said, scowling. “If I hadn’t been in a hurry, I’d have used the automatic teller.”
We watched as the cops hauled the perps away.
“Thanks, Ms. Megaton Man,” said the handsome officer with the mustache, “and whoever you are,” he said to Dana, eying her suspiciously. He pulled a couple of business cards from his shirt pocket and gave me one. “Here, in case we need to…in case you need…if you have any other questions.” Tongue-tied, again his eyes lingered a little too long on my torso. He then looked at Dana, thought better of giving her a card, and put the rest back in his pocket. He turned to his fellow officers and began issuing orders to them to gather up the gunmen’s weapons and proceed to secure the scene.
“You’re being modest,” I said to Dana. “Domina’s not at war with society. You’re just going through some changes—it’s lonely being a Youthful Permutation, I imagine, in this cold, midwestern town. Especially during the holidays.”
“That’s not true,” said Dana. “I’m evil—I can feel it. I just don’t fit in your goody two-shoes world, Clarissa.”
“Come on, let’s talk,” I said.
We walked through the vestibule and back out onto the sidewalk. Avie had caught up with Mama, who was shivering in the cold, but they were smiling and laughing. “Our friendly neighborhood megaheroes saved the day,” Mama was telling Avie. They looked at Dana and me and smiled.
“You must be a megahero in another life,” Dana said to Mama. “You got guts. I see where Clarissa takes after you.”
“Mama, this is Dana,” Avie said. “She lives with the other Y+Thems and Avie at the church; she’s the only one you didn’t meet yet.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Mama. “Thanks for saving my employees and customers. It could have turned out a lot worse.”
“I don’t live at the church anymore,” Dana protested. “I almost forgot,” she said, reaching between her boobs. From the cup of her halter top, she pulled a folded check. “I need this cashed, if it’s not too late.”
“Let me take care of this for you, Dana,” said Mama. “And after that, you must have dinner with me and my daughters.” Mama darted back into the Civix Savings and Loan and quickly returned with Dana’s cash and street clothes in a spare grocery bag.
“You’ll excuse us,” I said. “Dana and I need to talk. We’ll catch up with you later. Mama, put on a coat before you catch cold.”
I took Dana by the arm and we walked around the block of storefronts to a vast, vacant expanse to the east of Woodward Avenue. This was the Michigan State Fairgrounds, used in the summertime to hold a large festival of agricultural displays, livestock, and horsemanship; a carnival with a midway; various music concerts; and at other times of the year antique car shows and traveling circuses. Being the week before Christmas, it was mostly a vacant field of snow-covered grass with a few closed-up rides and a few shut-down buildings, from what I could see.
We tread over the crisp snow and crunchy grass. I could feel the frozen air on my body where my bare skin was exposed—my torso and face—but Dana didn’t seem to notice the cold at all, despite wearing less than the equivalent of a bikini with a flimsy membrane of cape.
“You’re not a bad person, Dana,” I said. “That’s just not who you are. Just because you’re a queer woman of color, a bouncer at a lesbian biker bar, and a nude artists’ model…”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Don’t forget professional dominatrix and a freakish Youthful Permutation,” said Dana. “Let’s face it, Domina is just a misfit among you do-gooders.”
I was still holding her arm, patting it. “Dana, Detroit’s a tough town. It’s hard to feel at home. But you have friends, people who love you.”
“I don’t even fit in with my friends,” said Dana. “The other Y+Thems drive me crazy.”
“They’d drive me crazy, too, if I had to live in that tiny church residence with a gay saber-toothed tiger, a hairdresser who’s thinking of transition to a woman, the unwed mother of a Megaton baby, and a guy made of elastic. But don’t worry; you’ve got me right next door—or two doors down. And we have a lot in common.”
You’re not queer,” said Dana. “You’re straighter than a ruler; I could draw a line with you. Look at the chemistry you had with Officer Mustache just now. He was flirting with you so bad; I notice you carefully tucked his card into your panties.”
“I may give him a call,” I said. “Who’s keeping score? I don’t like the Q-word, any more than I like the N-word. It’s unkind, even when we use it amongst ourselves. But if it means anything, it just means being yourself. So, I like what I like; I’m not exactly like you, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
“How can you say that, after all the shit I wrote about you?” said Dana. “Do you know how many nights it took me, spreading that graffiti all over town, from here to Ann Arbor?”
“It pissed me off, I admit it,” I said. “But I guess I can overlook it, especially now that you’ve saved my mama’s life. Besides, it kinda got my name out there, gave me a reputation. It’s given me some street cred.”
We were in the middle of a field now; the neoclassical façade of the coliseum stood stark white against the cold blue and grey sky in the afternoon sun. Up the empty main avenue of the vacant fairground street layout, the white van of the Y+Thems motored up.
“We shouldn’t be lovers, Dana,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean we still can’t be friends.”
Rubber Brother parked the van and was bounding across the field now, followed by Soren, Tempy, and Kiddo, who had baby Ben Franklin Phloog strapped to her torso. “Ms. Megaton Man versus Domina,” he cried, his elongated body taking gangly, awkward strides over the snow. “There’s not gonna be an epic battle, is there? We heard about the commotion on the police band radio.”
“’Fraid not,” I said. “Dana saved the day—thwarted an attempted armed robbery in broad daylight.”
“Along with Clarissa’s mom,” said Dana. “I think she should join your group.”
Kozmik Kat, who had shot ahead of them all on fours, reached us first. He said, “Oh, shoot,” a bit disappointed. “I love a good cat fight.”
“Don’t expect us to take you back,” said Soren, scowling, his saber fangs glinting with menace. “One act of crime fighting doesn’t make up for your past bad behavior. You’re on your own, now, Domina.”
“Who’s asking to be taken back?” snarled Domina. “I hate that stinking little New Age church and you self-righteous weirdos.” For a moment, I thought the two of them were going to tangle.
In the distance, I spotted the Q-Wagon ambling up the road. The station wagon parked behind Y+Thems’ van. Out of it got Trent and Stella, with two-year old Simon Phloog in a puffy snowsuit running alongside.
As they approached us in the middle of the field, Trent explained, “We heard there was trouble on the radio.”
“What are you guys doing in Detroit?” I asked. “It’s an hour from Ann Arbor to here.”
“We visited my parents in Redford this afternoon,” said Stella. “We were heading over to Little Italy for dinner.” She pointed around the field. “Of course, after dark, we were coming here anyway to see the Christmas lights.”
I looked around the barren field. Spaced out intermittently were rickety wooden armatures, some more than a story tall, netted with chicken wire and strung with lights that weren’t illuminated. In the daytime, they looked like nothing, but at night, the fairgrounds became a drive-through park with a couple dozen displays that lit up and came to life, including Santa’s workshop, reindeer and sleigh, candy canes, present and bows, a menorah, a manger scene, and other holiday themes.
“The drive-through light show,” I said. “I forgot all about that. Aw, I loved that when I was a kid.”
Now I was especially glad there hadn’t been a megahero battle; it would have trashed Christmas for a lot of families.
I turned and looked at Dana. She wasn’t at all moved by the holiday spirit. Instead, she was wide-eyed as Stella approached. “The See-Through Girl,” she said, reverently. “I can’t believe it! I’m finally getting to meet her for the very first time. God, is she beautiful.”
“A Christmas miracle,” I said. “Stella, I’d like you to meet my friend, Dana. She’s a Youthful Permutation. You both have a lot in common—you both hate Rex Rigid.”
Right on cue, over the horizon, the Q-Mobile appeared. The flying car settled down in the field half a football field away from us. Bing Gloom—my old boyfriend Yarn Man—was at the wheel. With difficulty, Rex Rigid climbed out the passenger seat. The last couple of times I’d seen Rex was at the Ann Street house and at the custody hearing for Simon; each time, he wore a saggy brown suit. Now he was dressed in the orange and green duds and goggles of Liquid Man, which I imagined my Grandma Seedy had crafted for him to contain his sloshy, gelatinous metabolism.
“It should be here any minute,” said Rex, studying some kind of handheld remote-control device he carried in his palm, as he and Yarn Man marched to our spot.
“What should be here any minute?” asked Rubber Brother, who craned his distorted neck and looked around the fairgrounds. “Santa Claus himself?”
“Oh, no,” said Kozmik Kat. “Not that thing—it gives me the willies.”
Bing seemed unconcerned about whatever was on its way and greeted his former teammates—both Stella and Rex, who’d been on the Quartet at various times, and the Y+Thems, who were named after Yarn Man—warmly. He was glad to see Simon and tossed him up and down in the air, catching him softly in his padded red mittens, with the requisite, “You’re getting so big, Son of Megaton Man!”
The Youthful Permutations were not so happy to see Rex, their former employer, again. They last they’d seen him, he wore a metal skull cap and bossing them around from a throne-like wheelchair.
“You mean what I think you mean, Professor Rex?” asked Tempy, looking around the snow-covered field. “Now that you mention it, I’m feeling a shift in the temporal energies.”
Not far from where we stood, a circular impression began to form in the snow some eight feet wide. Over it began to crackle dots of energy, only a few at first but quickly becoming many. Fading in from nowhere, a spinning, glowing platter became visible, a chrome spindle gleaming in its center.
“The Time Turntable,” said Trent, who knew it only too well, having ridden on it several times as Megaton Man. “Woo! How the heck did you know it would show up in Michigan at just this moment, Rex?”
Liquid Man was still focused on his remote control, tapping it to get it to work properly. “This thing’s been on the fritz since I don’t know when, stuck on random access mode,” he said. “There’s no telling how many unauthorized interdimensional trips the Time Turntable’s taken these past few months. I downloaded the history—it’s been to a score of alternate realities, at least.”
“I told you in 1953 that crazy gizmo should have never been built,” said Yarn Man, who set Simon down. Who knows how many unauthorized interdimensional crossovers that blamed thing is responsible for over the years? It’s got a mind of its own.”
This could have explained at least some of the recent admixture between the Megaton and Meltdown Universes, and perhaps accounted for jungle girls and roof-runners appearing in Detroit. I watched Simon Phloog throwing snowballs at Bing. The offspring of Megaton Man and the See-Thru Girl, he was perhaps the most significant outcome so far of the ongoing fusion of Multimensions.
Avie and Mama, now dressed in her winter coat, crossed the field toward us. Apparently the police had taken Mama’s report, and besides it was after closing time now for the Civix Savings and Loan. Avie and Mama were halfway to where the rest of us stood when Daddy’s red pickup pulled in behind the parked Q-Wagon and Y+Thems van. Daddy spotted Avie and Mama and ran across the field, intercepting them before they got to us. I watched the three of them hug emotionally from a distance.
“I have it shut down, now, I think,” Rex announced, clipping the remote control to his belt. “The Time Turntable should be inert.”
For the time being, the platter had stopped spinning and glowing; there were no crackles of energy above the spindle.
“Great,” said Bing. “How do you plan to get it back to Megatropolis? If you throw it in the back seat of the Q-Mobile, we’ll never get off the ground.” He looked at Kozmik Kat. “Hey, cat—you ride it back.”
“Very funny, Bing,” said Koz. “I don’t like that thing when it’s working properly, let alone when it’s obviously malfunctioning. You think I want to wind up in the Forbidden Future again? No thanks, pal.”
Dana, meanwhile, had struck up a conversation with Stella. The former See-Thru Girl had already heard some of Dana’s backstory of misfortune—of being an abused orphan—from the Y+Thems over Thanksgiving; Stella now had a protective arm around Dana like a sheltering Earth Mother.
“If you’re looking for a place to stay,” Stella was saying, “we’ve got a spare bedroom upstairs. You might think about taking classes while you’re in Ann Arbor—that’s what I did. Plus, there’s an art department at Arbor State, and another art school that’s always hiring figure models; I get requests all the time, but I’m way too busy.”
“Woo!” said Trent, who was looking at Dana’s semi-nude form with a combination of fascination and horror. “But Stella, what about your policy about having megaheroes around Simon? As in, not having megaheroes around Simon?”
“Oh, Dana doesn’t want the life of a megahero,” said Stella. “Do you, Dana? She needs to get out of Detroit, away from all these bad influences.”
“Hello, I’m right here,” I said.
“I really do need a change,” said Dana, softening like I’d never seen her. She gazed at Stella as if she were an angelic being. “I need to get out of this city.”
“And if you don’t want to model anymore,” said Stella, “I’ll bet they’d love you at Border Worlds Used and Slightly New Books. That’s were Trent works.”
“Opposites attract, huh?” I said to Trent. “From what I hear, Domina nearly castrated the Original Golden Age Megaton Man. I can only imagine what she’ll do to a civilian male.”
Trent swallowed uneasily. All he could say was, “Woo!”
Rubber Brother and the Y+Thems discussed the happy prospect of the Nuclear Family taking Dana off their hands once and for all while Rex, Bing, and Koz considered how best to ship the Time Turntable back to New York. Koz retrieved a toolbox from the trunk of the Q-Mobile while Bing tipped the platter up on one side. Rex popped open a hinged panel and inspected some intricate wiring on the underside, presumably to see if he could make the necessary repairs right there in the middle of the Michigan State Fairgrounds.
I was getting cold, hopping from one foot to the other in the snow, watching Mama and Daddy still clutching one another. They both embraced the daughter they had created together—Avie—and for some reason, I felt left out. Or perhaps I just didn’t want to break up this tender scene for my half-sister’s sake. I didn’t imagine all the problems between my estranged parents were now resolved, but it was nice to think we might actually enjoy the holidays one more time as a reunited family, albeit momentarily.
Finally, Avie broke away from Mama and Daddy, who continued hugging, and marched toward me.
“What do you think?” I asked Avie. “Maybe they’ll reconcile?”
“I don’t know,” said Avie. “You know Mama. I think she’s more shaken up than she lets on.” After an attempted armed robbery and a hostage standoff, not to mention cracking two armed gunmen with a fire extinguisher in the skulls, I could imagine. “But even if it’s only temporary, it’s nice to see them show some genuine concern for one another.”
“I knew it,” shouted Kozmik Kat. “Just like clockwork!”
We turned in time to see a short circuit sparking where Rex had been tinkering. Bing dropped the Time Turntable back onto the snow as Rex rolled out of the way, just in time, like a waterballoon that had been tossed but refused to break. The platter was spinning and glowing again.
Rex crawled around in the snow; he had lost the remote control on his belt somewhere and was searching for it. He found it, and began clicking it.
“It’s no good,” Rex announced. “Something’s overriding my manual control.”
“Golly! That crazy gizmo really works!” cried Yarn Man.
Above the spindle, dots of crackling energy were forming. The hum of the pulsating vibrations grew louder, deafening. More dots of energy coalesced out of thin air, radiating an almost blinding glare; forms were taking shape.
“Somebody’s trying to cross over into this dimension,” said Rubber Brother. “Looks to be a couple of people!”
“Maybe they’re traveling through time, whoever they are,” said Tempy, rubbing his temples with his eyes closed. “Feels to me like one of them, at least, has been missing from our reality for a long time.”
“It’s a man and woman,” said Soren, whose fangs gave him a slight speech impediment that was only noticeable when he got excited. “And the woman’s got a tail.”
“Mama!” cried Avie, squinting and blocking the light with her hands while at the same time trying to see. “The lady looks like you! But why is she wearing cat ears?”
Sure enough, the silhouette of the woman, clearly outlined now, looked a lot like Mama’s middle-aged but still solidly firm body type.
“But the man,” said Daddy. “He’s as big as my pickup! Look at those bulging arms.”
“That’s no ordinary physique, that’s for sure,” said Rubber Brother. “Those grotesque, overly exaggerated muscles could only belong to one man—or one type of man!”
“The Original Golden Age Megaton Man!” cried Kiddo, clutching Ben Franklin Phloog in her arms. “The father of my child! I knew some day he’d come back to me! I just knew it!”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Beatrice,” said Dana. “That’s not the same costume that disappeared into the Interdimensional Rift during the Collision of All Conceivable Universes at Once Wars. This guy’s got a crew cut, and only one brass button on his belt.”
“It’s a Megaton Man, all right,” said Rex. “I’d know my own intellectual property anywhere. But it’s not the one I designed, or revamped several times.”
“Rex is right—that’s not Uncle Farley,” said Trent, who used to be Megaton Man himself. “It’s…it must be…Cousin Clyde!”
Although the blinding glow had stopped and the deafening hum had quieted, I could barely make out the two solid forms that now stood on the Time Turntable as the platter spun down. My visor had steamed up; there were tears in my eyes.
“A tie-dyed, psychedelic cat suit,” said Koz, unimpressed. “Do we really need another feline character in this town?” He shot a sideward scowl at Soren “Sabersnag” Sneed.
“So that’s the Mod Puma,” said Avie, turning to me and Mama. “Mama, that woman’s you—she’s you’re megahero alter-ego—from another dimension!”
“Alice, is Avie right?” said Daddy. “It sure looks like you, at least the part of her face not covered by the mask. But which Megaton Man is that?”
Naturally, my mama was too choked up to speak.
“Daddy, that’s my real, biological father,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks. “That’s Clyde Phloog, the Silver Age Megaton Man!”