It was late when the doctor finally spoke to me and Pammy in the waiting room. She told us what Stella had experienced were known as false contractions; she hadn’t gone into labor yet; her membrane hadn’t even ruptured. In other words, her water hadn’t broken. It might still be another seventy-two hours before she went into real labor. The way Stella had been overdoing things lately, this came as no surprise. The stress and strain she’d put herself under to get ahead before she’d have to take time off from school had brought this on, I guessed. Not to mention Trent Phloog reverting to Megaton Man—the father of her child—again, thanks to Secret Agent Preston Percy’s booster shot. Still, the doctor said they wanted to keep her overnight, just in case.

After the doc left, Pammy turned to me and said, “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on things.” She’d already called her department and canceled her lectures for the following day. “There’s no sense in you falling behind too, Ms. Dean’s List. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

This was Pammy at her most maternal, and I was glad to see this side of her. But I also felt a little left out. My friends all had this bond I couldn’t share. They were all white, they were all Megaheroes—or at least they all knew Megaheroes, or secret agents, and wrote controversial columns and stuff. Which remind me: Preston Percy, whoever he was, might still be out there—might even try jabbing me with a needle.

It was a short walk from the Medical Center back to Ann Street, but I walked briskly. As I did so, it started to sprinkle.

By the time I got home, it was raining steadily—thunder, lightning, the whole business. I got inside, shut the front door, and realized we had left the place unlocked. Ann Street was safe, but still—it occurred to me this would be my first night alone in the house. Maybe Preston Percy had come back—he could be hiding in a closet. No, I thought; he had already come out of the closet. I wondered if I should run to campus, if I would be safer at the library. But the rain outside was torrential; there was no question I had to stay put.

We never had done much drinking at home, with Stella being pregnant; but I knew Pammy kept a bottle of wine on the back of a shelf in the kitchen. I got it down—a fairly decent Cabernet Sauvignon, I was told—nothing too special although I’d have to replace it. But it was for a worthy cause. I chugged the first glass. The uneaten fish sticks and fries were still on the table, completely inedible now. That was okay, I wasn’t hungry; I swept them into the wastebasket and set the dishes in the sink. I grabbed the wine bottle and glass and moved to the living room.

I was feeling more relaxed—on an empty stomach, the wine went straight to my head. Then I remembered the shopping bag full of comics. They were still behind the TV, where I left them after attaching the rabbit ears. I pulled them out and spread them on the coffee table. A lot of them were just kids’ stuff—funny animals and romance comics and jungle girls and westerns, stuff Daddy had picked up in the little family-owned party stores around Detroit. Most were coverless, and Avie and I had read them a million times. Toward the bottom of the bag was a handful of Megahero comics published by the Gamble Comics Corporation.

Some of these comics featured readily recognizable knock-offs of real Megaheroes that lived in New York. I wondered how the publisher had obtained permission to use not only their names but apparently their secret identities. One comic was called Youthful Mutant All-Death Team-Up—it was more recent than the rest and still had a cover. An older one without a cover—a campy one from the 1960s—was a spoof of real Megaheroes—Mugging Strong-Man being a transparent riff on Megaton Man. In the story—a senseless farce, really—the Simpler-Era Mugging Strong-Man visits the Quibbling Quarrelsome Quorum in another dimension, and runs off with their girl member, the Tie-Dyed Tabby, whose Civilian identity was feminist and African-American civil rights worker Aline Janes. The whole thing was played for yuks, but I could imagine the highly-charged interracial hanky-panky being way ahead of its time. Beside the similarity to her name—Alice James—the drawings even kinda looked like my Mama, minus the psychedelic catsuit.

Then, at the very bottom of the shopping bag, there it was: a real comic-book issue of Megaton Man.

Maybe it was because I was getting blitzed on my second glass of wine, or maybe my mind playing tricks on me—talking animals, singing cowboys, and phantom jungle girls were all swimming in my head by this point. But this comic book struck amazingly close to home: “Trent Phloog, the Civilian secret identity of Megaton Man,” read the text, “lives in an off-campus communal house with three women who pretend not to know his secret…”

Where in the world had they gotten this? No wonder we were at the mercy of needle-jabbing secret agents. We were just sitting ducks on Ann Street.

I noticed the storm beginning to trail off, and the night grow quiet. Then, momentarily, I heard footsteps clomp up onto the wooden planks of the porch. Suddenly, there was a pounding.

I jumped down off the couch and tried to hide under the coffee table; all I succeeded in doing, however, was knocking over my wine glass; that was going to leave a stain on the carpet. Slowly, I crept up, climbed on the couch, and tried to look out the window, but I couldn’t see who was at the front door. If it was Secret Agent Preston Percy, was he waiting with a needle—to turn me into some over-muscled monster-woman?

I looked around for a baseball—we kept a baseball bat handy in Detroit; then I remembered I was at my parents’ house. I grabbed Pammy’s tattered copy of Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, copyrighted 1965; it wasn’t too big, but as a handy blunt object it would have to do. I approached the door; I could hear heavy breathing on the other side along with the persistent drip of the gutters.

I opened the door. It was Yarn Man.

“I told ya we had the wrong address,” said a cat who stood on his hind legs at his feet. In his paw was a slip of paper, soaked by the rain. “This is a seven, not a two.”

“Quiet, cat,” said Yarn Man. “Excuse me, miss, but is this the house where Stella Starlight lives?”

“Yes, it is,” I said.

“Is she home?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. “She’s kind of at the hospital right now, about to have a baby.”

“Oh, good!” said Yarn Man. “We’re not too late.”

“But it’s a false alarm,” I said. I explained that they were false contractions, and that they were keeping her overnight for observation.

“Even better,” said Yarn Man. “Isn’t it great, Kozmik Kat? We haven’t missed the birth of the Son of Megaton Man.”

“Big deal,” said Kozmik Kat, who—I forgot to mention, wore a red cape with brass buttons and goggles. “It’s not like you brought a gift for the baby shower. We’ve been wandering the rails for weeks.” That’s when I noticed Yarn Man’s hobo bindlestiff over his shoulder. “We’re just a couple of freeloaders looking for a place to crash now. But we don’t want to put you out…”

“Speak for yourself, cat,” said Yarn Man, who was sore at being be so described. “I happen to be Megaton Man’s best pal.” Then Yarn Man looked at me kind of funny. “You remind me an awful lot of a girl I used to know…”

“Don’t mind Bing, Miss,” said Kozmik Kat. “He says that to all the ladies.”

“No, I’m serious,” said Yarn Man. He scratched his orange forehead under his double-green with –it had a red tassel. “We used to have a colored girl on our team, back in the old days…”

“He means African-American woman, Miss,” said Koz. “Pardon the political incorrectness. Bing Gloom has been Yarn Man since the Punic Wars—when dames were broads and black people were, uh, non-white. Believe me, I have to listen to nostalgic anecdotes tinged with the casual racism, sexism, and homophobia of his generation all day long—for some reason he’s prejudiced against cats, too.” Koz snagged the fabric of Yarn Man’s leg with his claws and tried to pry him away from the porch. “Sorry to disturb you, Miss; we’ll just be on our way. Hope you have a pleasant evening.”

“Don’t leave,” I cried. “I mean, visiting hours at the hospital are over now.” Frankly, I was spooked about the possibility that Preston Percy might still be in the neighborhood, with a hypodermic needle with my name on it. “Won’t you come in?”

“In that case,” said Yarn Man, “I don’t mind if I do.”

“I’m feeling a bit peckish myself, come to think of it,” said Kozmik Kat, pushing his way past Yarn Man’s legs. “Is that fish I smell? I’m feral, and not averse to scavenging.”

Now, if you read that trashy novel Megasomething, you might have the wrong impression about what actually happened next. According to that—shall we say—sensationalized account, Yarn Man was attacked by a sex-starved college co-ed—me—who jumped him, smothered him with passionate kisses, dragged him up to her room, forced him to make mad, passionate love to her, and tied him up with kinky restraints to her iron-tube headboard—forcing him to make more love to her.

That is more of less what actually happened—but there were a few other important details. Like the fact that we actually polished off the rest of the bottle of wine, and made out of the couch first, and…

Okay, this still isn’t substantially different from the account you’re already familiar with. But I don’t want you thinking I’m that kind of girl. You understand the context, don’t you? I mean, I had just witnessed my one housemate revert to Megaton Man, and my other housemate go off to have his Megahero baby. And when’s a girl supposed to lose my virginity? Where was my saxophonist to triple-tongue staccato notes on my reed? I already mentioned how scared I was, being in that house alone. For all I knew, Preston Percy had already snuck inside put something in that wine, knowing that I was vulnerable…

At least now you’ve heard my side of things.

The next morning, I was a little hung over. I went down to the kitchen, washed the dishes, and straightened the place up. Then I heard footsteps on the front porch; it was Pammy and Stella, who’d been released from the hospital. “What a pretty kitty,” I heard Stella say. Then I realized—Kozmik Kat must be sitting out on the swing. Worse still, Bing—that’s Yarn Man—was still tied to my bed posts upstairs. There was no time to do anything about it; at least the cat was playing dumb.

I asked Stella how she was doing; fine, fine, it had all been a dry run, as it were. Pammy made some coffee and Stella sat down at the kitchen table; I took a dish of milk out for the cat and set it down on the porch, giving him the “Shhh” sign with my finger to my lips. “Mum’s the word,” he said. He was busy reading old comic books.

Meanwhile, Megaton Man had returned, and was coming in the back door just as I got to the kitchen. “Not much happening around here, I see,” he announced. “Just another day on Ann Street.” He sat down at the head of the table, in full costume, and poured himself a big bowl of cereal. “Everybody, I have something to tell you. Clarissa, if you’d care to have a seat; this concerns you, too.”

I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down.

“I’ve been keeping something secret from you,” said Megaton Man. “This may come as a shock; you see, I’m really Megaton Man.”

“Trent, no!” I said.

“Who would have guessed?” said Pammy.

“Yes, Clarissa, Pammy, lovely Stella,” he said, putting up his hand. “I always was, or had been. It was necessary to hide the truth from you for your own protection. But now I’m Megaton Man again, and, for the time being at least, it looks as though I will remain so for the foreseeable future. At least until this booster shot wears off.”

Apparently, when Secret Agent Preston Percy showed up on the front porch yesterday, he jabbed Trent in the arm with a hypodermic needle, full of a newly-developed Mega-Soldier Syrup, to counteract the inhibiting effects the dissolved Cosmic Cue-Ball was exerting on his Mega-metabolism. This all sounded like complete gobbledy-gook to me, but the fact remained that here he was—Megaton Man, in the overly-muscled flesh, eating fiber cereal on Ann Street.

“If you like, we’ll just go on as if nothing were any different,” I said. “We’ll just pretend we don’t know your secret identity.”

“Thanks,” said Trent. “You’re a real friend, Clarissa.” At least, I think that’s what he said; his mouth was full of cereal and bananas.

He tried to tell us what had transpired since we’d seen him take off yesterday afternoon—some adventure involving a trip to a secret Fortitude of Solemness or something in the Arctic Circle and on some orbiting government killer satellite. I couldn’t follow it any of this any more than I could follow the plot lines of those crazy comics I had tried to real while inebriated. His adventure wasn’t over; he didn’t know how much longer before the booster shot might wear off. He said he had to track down some leads before it wore off—I could see from Stella’s expression she had heard this song before—which, regrettably, meant missing the birth of his own child. But Megaton Man had only a small window to find some evil corporation named Gamble that he claimed was exploiting his likeness.

Gamble? That name rang a bell.

I ran out to the front porch; Kozmik Kat was sipping his milk, reclining on the swing.

“Here, gimme that Megaton Man comic book.”

“Hey!” the cat protested. “It’s just getting interesting.”

I met Megaton Man in the back yard, just about to take off. I should him the comic book.

“The Gamble Comics Corporation,” he said, reading the address in the indicia. “That address is in Megatropolis. I just may pay a visit to their offices of publication. Thanks, Clarissa.”

“Any time, Megaton Man.” I gave Trent the thumbs up. I was glad I could help America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero.

I was still beaming when I walked back into the kitchen. Stella was standing up from the kitchen table; her khakis were soaked between her legs. “Did you spill something?” I asked.

“No,” explained Pammy. “Her water just broke.”

We got Stella to the hospital, and it was a long afternoon. I popped some major ibuprofen for my hangover, and end up dozing off on Pammy’s knee in the waiting room. I awoke with a start.

“Yarn Man!” I cried.

“What?” said Pammy.

I had left Yarn Man tied to my bed, and I think locked in my bedroom. “Oh, nothing. Just a weird dream.”

I needn’t have worried; not long after, in strode Kozmik Kat and Bing—Yarn Man. Kozmik Kat had apparently climbed up the drain spout and into my bedroom window to perform a daring rescue his woolen partner. “In truth, Yarn Man could have easily snapped the cord used to restrain him,” Koz later confided in me. “He was having the time of his life.”

Bing smiled and gave me a thumbs-up with his big red mitten. Pammy had met Yarn Man at least once before, during the Doctor Software episode. But she had never met Kozmik Kat before; she looked at me with an expression that said she could put two and two together.

The doctor came out and told us Stella had delivered a bouncing baby boy, and that we could come and visit the mother and child.

“The Son of Megaton Man!” said Bing.

“How did you know it was going to be a boy?” I asked.

“How could it be otherwise, with a manly man like Megaton Man?”

Pammy groaned. I couldn’t wait to introduce Bing to my sister Avie.

In Stella’s hospital room, a male doctor with buckteeth was checking her with a stethoscope while a blond-haired little baby—wearing not only a diaper, but a red cape with brass buttons and goggles – flew around the room.

I don’t know if Stella was on anything, but she seemed blissfully happy, and relieved.

Momentarily, Trent walked in, in his normal, Civilian form. The booster shot had worn off, and he was Megaton Man no more. He seemed dashed that he had missed the actual delivery of his child, but relieved that Stella was okay and that the baby was healthy. Trent was accompanied by a sharply-dressed man in a suit wearing mirrored aviator glasses; his sandy mullet hair was swept back into a long shag in the back.

“Hello, Preston,” said Pammy icily. This was the mysterious Preston Percy.

“Hello, Pammy,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “I see you got our official government-issue maternity gifts—ICHHL spent quite a lot on developing those goggles, cape, and buttons, for all the use their likely to get before he grows out of them. Dr. Levitch, how’s our patient?”

“Ms. Starlight is resting comfortably, now that the nurses have administered a sedative,” said Levitch. “As for bouncing baby boy, I’ve summoned a specialist of my acquaintance—a certain Dr. Quimby—who will be arriving from New York.” The nervous little man spat out his words between coughs and throat clearings. “He’s expected within the hour.”

“Great,” said Yarn Man. “We just have to make sure the Son of Megaton Man doesn’t wreck the hospital until then.”

“His name is Simon,” said Stella. “That’s my father’s middle name.”

This was the only thing Stella said. She was more than a little out of it, and I noticed Trent was a bit weary himself.

“So, what happened in Megatropolis?” I asked.

“Everything worked out,” he explained. “I had another knock-down, drag-out fight with Bad Guy”—how Bart Gamble managed to return to the mortal coil was never explained—“which I guess I won, and Rex Rigid—Liquid Man—found a way to successfully boost my Uncle Farley, so the Original Golden Age Megaton Man is America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero once more.” Since the scheme to bring Megaton Man in from the cold was no longer necessary, Trent was free to return to Civilian life.

For the next hour, Baby Simon lifted heavy pieces of equipment over his head and performed other amazing feats – I imagined Preston Percy keeping mental notes of the damage; Pammy took real notes in her reporter’s notebook.

Finally, the nurses returned. “Dr. Quimby—ahem—is here,” Levitch announced. That seemed to be Yarn Man’s cue to help the nurses wrestle the baby to the ground—it was still flying about the room with no sign its energy had diminished. They kind of netted it in a blanket; it squirmed but didn’t cry or anything, and whisked it away. The cat, Preston, and Pammy followed the doctor, nurses, and Bing down the hall with the baby Megahero and disappeared.

That left Trent and I alone in the room with Stella. We pulled up a couple chairs next to each other at the foot of the bed and just watched Stella, who dozed off.

I took Trent’s hand; he squeezed mine gently in return. We must have dozed off as well.

Next thing I know, the nurses returned with the baby. He was quiet now, and docile as a lamb. The goggles, cape, and buttons had been removed, and he was swaddled in a grey blanket. Stella, aroused, sat up and took the baby in her arms. Her drowsy smile could only be described as beatific.

The nurses whispered to me and Trent, “Visiting hours are over. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.” We got up, and kissed Stella on the forehead. “Do you have a name for him yet?” I asked.

“Simon,” she whispered. “My father’s middle name.”

Out in the waiting room were Bing, Kozmik Kat, Preston, and Pammy. There was no sign of Dr. Levitch, let alone the mysterious specialist, “Dr. Quimby.” Preston held the goggles, cape, and buttons, now sealed in a plastic bag, at arm’s length, like they were dangerous weapons. “You have no idea what the government spent, developing these little suckers,” he said, taking a drag on a cigarette. “But I guess he would have outgrown them eventually. Besides, without Megaton Man and the See-Thru Girl forming a full-time Nuclear Family, they’d be a little bit off-color in a Civilian household.”

“I’d like to have those, for the archive,” said Pammy, who took the bag and slipped it into her purse. “Not that I’m sentimental; but Stella won’t want any part of them when she comes to herself; she’ll probably remember this evening as a dream, if at all. Whereas my curse is to remember everything. As our mentor taught us: Always hang on to any tangible evidence.” I didn’t catch the reference at the time, but Preston seemed to understand. “Maybe I’ll get them bronzed one day for the mantelpiece.”

Bing—Yarn Man—had tied up his bindlestiff and was prepared to hit the road. “Clarissa, ya ain’t going to believe this,” he said, “But me and the cat have just been called back to New York. Looks like Liquid Man—and a revamped Original Golden Age Megaton Man—are getting the old band back together.”

“You mean the Megatropolis Quartet?” I said. “But your headquarters…”

“Professor Rex is trying a different Megahero team model this time,” chimed in Kozmik Kat. “He’s starting a Youthful Mutant franchise—all those tortured teen Megaheroes with angst in need of guidance.”

Bing smiled and brushed my cheek with his fuzzy red mitten. “Missy,” he said to me, “You were the best tonic a man made of yarn could ever ask for to tide him over his mid-life crisis.” He couldn’t really kiss me with those knitted lips, but he slipped me the tongue as we hugged our last goodbye. It went on a bit too long; reluctantly, I had to pull away. “Bing!” I whispered. “Not in front of my friends!”

I don’t think anyone but Pammy noticed. Trent and Preston were conferring. “We’ll be in touch, Man of Molecules,” said Preston.

“No, we won’t,” said Trent. “I’m a Civilian now; next time you come anywhere near me with a trench coat, I’m going to sock you in the jaw.” He rubbed his shoulder, presumably where Preston had jabbed him with the needle.

“Sorry about that,” said Preston said. “Dr. Levitch is working on some different—less painful—ways to administer the Mega-Soldier Syrup; that stuff is awfully time-consuming to manufacture. It all depends on how long your retreaded Uncle Farley can last, and whether he can hold out until the next Megaton Man comes online. Until then, you should consider yourself on call, in case we should ever have need of you again as America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero.”

“I told you, I’m through with that business,” said Trent emphatically. “I’m the Civilian father of a Civilian child now, with a Civilian partner.”

“It’s easy to become a Megahero,” said Preston. “It’s not so easy to get out.” He turned to me and introduced himself. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Clarissa James,” I told him.

“Ms. James,” he cautioned me, “you don’t have the proper security clearance to have witnessed any of this. But as long as they remain Civilians on Ann Street, I guess we’re not violating any protocols.”

“That’s good to know,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to be violating any protocols.”

It seemed that Preston Percy was also on his way back to Megatropolis to monitor the new team of Youthful Mutants, and was giving Yarn Man and Kozmik Kat a lift. “You guys ready to go?” said Preston.

And just like that, the man made of yarn who took my virginity—and his bindlestiff—and his sidekick talking cat, and a random secret agent—were on their way back to New York.