What took place on my virgin flight and immediately thereafter has been greatly exaggerated in the media, most notably in that aforementioned scandalous “novel,” Megasomething. If you believed everything in that account, you’d be persuaded I had gone on a tear with every student athlete returning to the Arbor State campus for late-summer training camps—and taken on scores of lovers besides. The precise number bandied about is one hundred and twenty-seven men and thirty-one women—which was totally made up. I should know, because I made it up.

Sure, I did my share of partying—I felt all kinds of excess energy to burn—but it wasn’t just with athletes. There were also a lot of good-looking gay guys who lived over on the west side of town, in Preston’s new neighborhood. Obviously, I wasn’t able to persuade every last gay guy in Ann Arbor to have sex with me, but you’d be surprised how many closet bisexuals abide among the denizens of bars like The Flame. What else was I supposed to do with my Megapowers—which I immediately equated with a hot, new body and newfound self-confidence—if not flaunt them unwisely? It wasn’t like Arbor State was a hotbed of criminality, or that the White House was likely to call on Ms. Megaton Man first should the world need saving. Nobody even new she—I—existed yet, save for the sexual netherworld of my progressive college town.

Honestly, I don’t know exactly how much sex I had over the remaining weeks of summer. Even less did I understand what rebellious streak in my psyche was driving me to it—first with Yarn Man and now with a world to whom I had hitherto been invisible. But before long, the home-made costume Stella helped me devise was virtually in tatters—except for the cape, buttons, and goggles loaned to me by Kozmik Kat. By the time Dr. Levitch arrived in Ann Arbor, I regarded it as a second intervention; at least, I was acutely aware I was in need of one. The irony was I would have to provide it for myself, since neither the good doctor nor Preston seemed interested in giving me a pep talk.

I stood in the living room wearing what remained of my costume as the rumpled doctor took samples of saliva with cotton swabs, listened to my heart beat with his stethoscope, and studied some strange, hand-held device. Preston was there, too, cigarette in hand; he brought along a garment bag, which was draped over the sofa, and a small, plain, brown paper bag. He sat nervously on the edge of the couch, cradling his cigarette.

As I say, this scrutiny was humiliating enough to make me realize that here I was, doing it again—falling into the same pattern of self-destructive behavior as I had last spring with Bing in the basement. I was ashamed of myself and fully expecting a lecture—but it never came. I suppose it didn’t matter, because I had already given it to myself.

“What is it, Doctor?” asked Preston, after the doctor took his readings. “Is Clarissa James now Ms. Megaton Man because of a sexually-transmitted virus?”

“I can’t exactly determine the cause of her—that is to say—emergence, Agent Percy,” said Levitch. “But I can tell you she has the exact genetic disposition we look for in candidates for the Megaton treatment, such as your Mr. Phloog. I know because we’ve screened thousands of individuals and only found a handful outside of the Phloog family. By an amazing coincidence, Clarissa shares most if not all of the essential genetic characteristics.”

“That’s remarkable, Doctor,” said Preston. “What are the chances that a complete stranger, living in the same house as Trent Phloog, would also turn out to be a candidate for the Megaton treatment? And then, not even need it; but rather just…break out with Megapowers on her own, as it were.”

“‘Breakout’ is a good term for it,” said the doctor. “So, tell me again exactly what transpired, Agent Percy.”

“Well, Doctor Levitch, I offered your latest batch of Mega-Soldier Syrup to Trent Phloog, after his last booster shot wore off. Naturally, he refused to take it; he didn’t even want to keep it around. So, I just left it. That was more than a year ago.”

“In the refrigerator?” asked the doctor.

“No, the medicine cabinet upstairs,” said Preston. “Why? Was it supposed to be refrigerated?”

“Never mind,” said the doctor. “What happened then?”

“This past spring, just a few months ago, a drug-crazed Bing Gloom—that’s Yarn Man—crashed in the basement; he was a mess. Looking for a cheap high, he found the booster shots upstairs and ingested them—we think he must have just popped the caps on those little jars and swallowed the stuff—a hypodermic would never have made it through that woolen hide of his.”

“And you, Ms. James, were—ahem—intimate with Yarn Man around this time?” the doctor asked.

“I was shacked up with Yarn Man in his hippie crash-pad, if that’s what you mean,” I confessed. “We were having constant monkey sex. I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth.”

“Did you ingest any of the Mega-Soldier Syrup yourself?” the doctor asked.

“I never saw the bottles after Preston showed them to Trent and took them upstairs,” I said. “But I ingested plenty of Yarn Man—if you know what I mean.”

“I see.” The doctor coughed nervously.

“What do you think, Doctor?” asked Preston. “Could the booster shots have somehow mutated inside Yarn Man’s metabolism into a sexually-transmittable virus, one that could have passed along Megaton Megapowers to Clarissa?”

“Anything is possible,” said the doctor. “I’m merely a chemist, as it were, not an epidemiologist. Unprotected sex, or the—gulp!—exchange of bodily fluids, by whatever means—could, under the right circumstances, I suppose, be sufficient cause. But, because of her metabolic predisposition to the Megaton treatment, young Clarissa here may have only needed some very little exposure to the Mega-Soldier Syrup to trigger an innate reaction. If Yarn Man drank the syrup, as you say, for example…”

“I could have swallowed some just from kissing him on the mouth,” I said, finishing the doctor’s sentence. “His spongy lips do tend to soak up a lot of moisture. After we sixty-nine, it’s gross—like a wet carpet.”

The doctor almost choked. Preston had to rise and slap him on the back.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been extremely oversexed lately.”

Preston took out his memo pad and made a note—no doubt scribbling down the word “Oversexed.” He asked the doctor, “Are you saying we needn’t worry about the scores of lovers Clarissa has taken on since her origin as Ms. Megaton Man, since her Megaton Megapowers aren’t likely to be contagious?”

“That’s a drastic conclusion to jump to, my dear Preston,” said the doctor, recovering slightly. “But it happens to be exactly what I’m saying. Ms. James is not likely to be contagious; still, it would be wise to keep a close eye on the Arbor State campus for the next few weeks just to be sure.” The doctor began to pace around the living room, pointing his finger into the air. “The Mega-Soldier Syrup was designed for Trent Phloog’s specific metabolic characteristics, yet we’ve seen Yarn Man and Clarissa each react differently—if we can indeed say that her reaction is in response to that stimulus. For other individuals, the symptoms might take more time to manifest.”

“Or they may not even know they’re Mega-strong,” I said, “unless a stack of firewood happens to topple on them.”

Preston wrote another note to himself in his memo pad.

“As for Ms. Megaton Man herself,” the doctor continued, “since Clarissa already had the requisite metabolic predisposition to the Megaton treatment, now that she’s been triggered, as it were, she may well remain Ms. Megaton Man indefinitely.”

“Why is that, Doctor?” asked Preston. “The booster shot only worked temporarily on Trent, then it wore off.”

“I have a theory,” said the doctor. “But it has less to do with Ms. James’ predisposition and more to do with the precise way Megaton Man lost his Megapowers.”

“You mean Trent swallowing the Cosmic Cue-Ball?” I said.

“Exactly, young Clarissa,” said the doctor. “Like many in the scientific community, I conducted an informal study of the Cosmic Cue-Ball—the Orb of Great Power—from a distance, as it were. Call it a little hobby of mine. That elusive object was sought by any number of people, for many years; little did we know Rex Rigid had it locked up in his Megatropolis Quartet Headquarters, keeping it all to himself without ever offering it up for scientific research, or so much as publishing a single paper on it himself. Never having analysed it under laboratory conditions personally, and only seeing the result—the Civilian Trent Phloog—I surmise that when Megaton Man swallowed the Cosmic Cue-Ball in Central Park, he was swallowing an object very much like a common, ordinary pill. That is to say, there was some mysterious active ingredient—a few molecules or even a mere particle of some unknown substance—that greatly inflated his Megaton Megapowers. This is what turned him into Gigaton Man for a short period of time—a Megabeing many times more powerful than Megaton Man already was.”

“That makes sense,” said Preston. “Judging from what I witnessed in Central Park.”

“You were there too?” I said. Of course, Secret Agent Preston Percy would have been there, too, along with every Megahero and Megavillain in town, for the Partyers from Mars landing.

“Yes,” said Preston. “I got to watch Megaton Man and Bad Guy—or rather Gigaton Man and Good Guy—clobber the heck out of each for hours. They wrecked all of Manhattan Island.” Preston began pacing as well. “But Doctor, whatever this active ingredient was, it wore off, didn’t it? Because Gigaton Man reverted to Megaton Man, then Megaton Man reverted to Civilian Trent Phloog.”

“But Megaton Man didn’t merely swallow the active ingredient in the Cosmic Cue-Ball,” said the doctor. “He also swallowed whatever buffering agent was surrounding the active ingredient—the white sphere that gave the orb its billiard-like appearance. It was only when that buffering agent dissolved in Megaton Man’s metabolism that the active ingredient could take effect, increasing his powers.”

“I get it,” I said. “It’s like when you take an aspirin that’s mostly chalk.”

“Precisely, young Clarissa,” said the doctor. “The white casing of the Cosmic Cue-Ball—the buffering agent, whatever it was—first dissolved in Megaton Man’s metabolism, allowing the active ingredient, whatever it was, to do its thing. Eventually, the buffering agent not only overcame the potency of the active ingredient; it went further, neutralizing Megaton Man’s Megapowers.”

“That must be a very powerful buffer,” said Preston.

“The only substance I know that could act as a buffer against such an extraordinary force,” said the doctor, “is Extanium—a particularly resilient, if inert and harmless, element.”

“And this stuff is still in Trent Phloog’s system, you say?” asked Preston. “That must be why the Mega-Soldier Syrup booster shot only worked for twenty-four hours.”

“And why further booster shots are likely to have less and less effect, over time,” said Dr. Levitch. “But Clarissa here has no such buffering agent in her system. If our hypothesis is correct—and she was directly exposed to just a few drops of the Mega-Soldier Syrup—it was enough to trigger her natural disposition to develop Megapowers. If that’s the case, she could well remain Ms. Megaton Man for the rest of her life.”

“Oowee!” I said. “That means I’m good to go!”

“Not so fast,” said Preston. “It also means you can slow down. There’s no need to behave as if you’re Megapowers were going to vanish any second.” He looked me up and down.

I, too, looked down at my soiled and frayed uniform; it had taken quite a beating in the short time since I had gained my Megapowers.

“What?” I said. I was still expecting a lecture.

nbsp; “Tsk,” said the doctor. “And you didn’t even fight any crime. For shame.”

But that was all either of them said on that score. They weren’t my family, after all, or even my friends. It was left to me to beat myself up over my past indiscretions.

Instead, Percy simply picked up the garment back draped over the sofa. “Take those rags off,” he ordered.

“What is that?” I asked as I took off my leotard.

“It’s your official, government-issued uniform,” said Preston. From the bag he removed a red, yellow, and blue facsimile of the costume Stella and I had devised—which now lay at my feet—and handed it to me.

I stood there, completely naked—it was just a doctor and a gay secret agent, so why be self-conscious?—and felt the fabric. “It feels thick and durable,” I said. “What’s it made of?”

Inside, a sewn-in tag in the back of the neck read,

C.D. Design Originals

Doomsday Factory—Bayonne, New Jersey

100% Quarantinium-Quelluminum

U.S. Patent Pending

“It should,” said Preston. “We use the original workshop that manufactured nearly all of the original-generation Megaton and Meltdown uniforms—and quite a few other Megahero costumes over the years—by hand. We were in luck; they still had a few yards of the original fabric left.”

I slipped easily into the blue body suit. “Where have I heard of Quelluminum before?” I asked. “Wait—isn’t that the stuff Rex Rigid was mixing up when he had that accident in his dorm room—the one that created Yarn Man and Liquid Man?”

“The very one,” said Preston. “Those Quarantinium fibers have been saturated with Quelluminum, making for a very durable, heat-resistant mesh. It’s virtually bullet-proof, too, although you won’t be needing that, obviously, with your Mega-skin; but any other material would likely burn off when you re-entered earth’s atmosphere.”

“You mean I can fly beyond the orbit of the earth?” I asked. I hadn’t tried that yet.

“You never know,” said Preston. “We’ll have to test you at some point; maybe we can drop you from the ICHHL satellite and see how you manage.” I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not.

I twirled around in the body suit in my bare feet. “This feels great,” I said. “Like the person who made it knew my body first-hand.” Next, I put on the government-issued red panties, then the yellow boots and gloves—which were so much better than the ones we had painted yellow; the polish we had applied had long since started to crack and chip off. Then I bent down and picked up Kozmik Kat’s cape, buttons, and goggles.

“You won’t be needing those,” said Preston, taking the items from me. “We can give them back to Kozmik Kat.” He turned and called out, “Koz! Where are you?”

Kozmik Kat’s voice called back from the porch. “What do you want?” The front screen door opened and Koz strolled in, dressed in his beret, white scarf, and mirrored aviators. He was carrying a copy of Tropic of Capricorn. “I was just getting to the good part, where—”

Preston tossed the cape, buttons, and goggles at the cat, hitting him in the whiskers.

“What?” Koz protested. “I don’t want these back.”

“Clarissa doesn’t need them,” said Preston. He turned to me. “You’ve got your own now.”

From the bag Preston pulled a slightly larger red cape with brass buttons. He held them out at arm’s length, then let go. I expected them to drop to the floor; instead, they hung, suspended in mid-air, floating and slowly fluttering of their own volition. The buttons even seemed to scan the room, like eyeballs.

“Cool!” I said. “My cape can fly by itself!”

“It’s the latest thing we’ve been working on,” said Preston. “Even Trent didn’t have equipment like this.”

I turned around and Preston attached the cape and buttons at my collar bones.

“There’s one last thing the Bronze Age Megaton Man didn’t have,” said Preston, grabbing the brown paper bag from the sofa. “You get to test these out yourself.”

From the bag Preston pulled out a translucent orange visor, shaped like a one-piece pair of sunglasses, and placed them on my head. Immediately, before my eyes, I began to seeing little typed messages and dials and viewscreens projected inside the lenses.

“It’s a computer read-out, projected in front of my eyes,” I said.

“The visor is networked with the buttons on your cape,” said Preston. “They function as cameras, among other things. It will take some time to get used to.”

“Does this mean I’m America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero now?” I asked.

“By default,” said Preston. “With Trent off-line and Uncle Farley now missing, you are—technically—our new Megaton Man, Ms. Megaton Man.”

“Small world, isn’t it?” I said. “To think I’m wearing a uniform made of Quarantinium-Quelluminum fibers, the development of which resulted in the horrible accident that left Bing Gloom—the man I lost my virginity to—a useless, hideous freak.”

“That is incredible,” said Koz. “Truly incredible.” In the meantime, Koz had shed his mirrored aviators and white scarf and put his cape, buttons, and goggles back on. He looked me up and down. “I suppose she’ll serve as an acceptable sidekick for the All-New Kozmik Kat.”

“Your sidekick?” I said. “More like you’re my sidekick. And what’s so ‘All-New’ about you?”

“I have a cool-looking new sidekick,” said Koz. “I think I’d like a saucer of milk now, Sidekick.”

I ignored this and turned to Preston and the doctor.

“Do you really think I’m likely to remain Ms. Megaton Man forever?”

“Perhaps,” said the doctor.

“What about Trent?” I asked. “As long as that buffering agent is present in his system, it’s unlikely he’ll ever become Megaton Man again.”

“I’m afraid so,” concurred the doctor.

I was a little sad to think that Ms. Megaton Man would never get to team up with Megaton Man.

“Then no amount of working out with a personal trainer is going to do Trent any good,” I said.

“I guess not,” said Preston. “All you get is a lame comic-relief cat.”

At that very moment, as Dr. Levitch and Preston prepped the new Megaton Man—me, with a “Ms.” in front of my new last name, which I thought was spectacular—in the living room, the old Megaton Man—Civilian Trent Phloog—was in the backyard, working out with Sampson McSampson, the “Body by Nuke” guy. The trainer had backed his massive semi into our driveway alongside the house, and had spread all sorts of heavy weightlifting equipment on the driveway in front of the garage and all over the back yard.

Koz and I went to the back door to watch all of this. Samson, a burly African-American guy who was almost as ripped as the old Megaton Man, wore a “Body by Nuke” T-shirt and hoisted a dumbbell that must have weighed half a ton with one hand over his head. He barked orders at Trent, who attempted to comply, but seemed to be making little progress.

Trent, still a skinny white guy with nothing like the physique of the former Man of Molecules, absurdly wore his Megaton Man uniform. Apparently, Samson’s idea was to grow Trent’s muscles right back into the baggy duds and fill them out from the inside. At the moment, Trent was endeavoring to do push-ups on an exercise mat spread over the part of the lawn where two summers ago he had burned a hole in the ground with his laser goggles. Since he was again wearing those same goggles, I was a bit concerned that in his exertions they might go off again and take the whole Ann Street house into an enormous sink hole this time.

“This doesn’t look very promising,” said Koz. “I guess we won’t be forming a Megaheroic trio any time soon. Not that I’d know what to do with a second sidekick.”

However, Trent’s struggles were not foremost in my mind.

As I stood at the back door, I realized my new orange visor was providing me with something akin to Mega-hearing—it was actually picking up and amplifying sounds and filtering out background noise, and through the stems sending the sound into my ears. Simply by focusing my thoughts, I found I was able to hear Preston and Doctor Levitch still conversing in the living room. Not that I’m a snoop, but I had a feeling they were still discussing me.

“Doctor Levitch, there’s still one thing I don’t understand,” said Preston. “From what you’ve told me in the past about the Megaton process, it involves bombarding the subject with enormous amounts of radioactive energy, in addition to chemical treatments. That being the case, a few drops of Mega-Soldier Syrup shouldn’t have been enough to trigger a response in someone unless they had already undergone the whole treatment. But Clarissa was never bombarded with radiation; even if her metabolism has the necessary prerequisite Megaton disposition, as you say, her reaction seems most extreme.”

“A brilliant observation, Agent Percy,” replied the doctor. “You’ve put your finger on the precise question I have been mulling over. One would expect an individual who merely had a metabolic predisposition to the Megaton treatment would still have to undergo the full treatment to gain Megapowers. A booster shot, in other words, would still need something to boost. Young Clarissa’s reaction is more like one would expect from an offspring—like Simon—whose parent had already had Megaton Megapowers at the time of conception.”

“What are you saying, Doctor?” asked Preston. “That Clarissa would have to be the daughter of someone who was already a—a Megaton Man?”

“The Megaton treatment, when fully implemented, changes the entire metabolism,” said the doctor. “The offspring of someone who has such Megapowers already would, in theory, be expected to manifest those powers. That’s why your Ivy-Covered Halls of Higher Learning organization is so concerned about the infant Simon, is it not? If Megaton Megapowers were already latent inside Clarissa, that could explain why the slightest exposure to the booster shot was enough for them to break out, to use your words.”

My thoughts reeled. Did this mean I was related to someone who had once been a Megahero, too? For example, was Uncle Farley—the Original Golden Age Megaton Man, a Megahero now lost in another dimension—my real father? And if not him, who else besides the Phloog family ever had Megaton Megapowers?

“Don’t look at me,” said Kozmik Kat, whose acute hearing also picked up the conversation. “I was spayed.”

“This is completely unproductive,” said Trent, picking himself off the mat and brushing off his baggy Megaton Man uniform. “All I accomplished this morning was sweating up a storm in this thing. Preston will have to get it dry-cleaned now, before I can put it back into storage.”

This seem the cure for me and Kozmik Kat to step out onto the patio.

“Why do you keep that old costume, anyway?” asked Koz. “I can’t seem to give mine away.”

“I tried burning it as soon as I arrived in Ann Arbor,” said Trent. “It didn’t work; this fabric is nigh invulnerable.”

“Hmm,” said Koz. “Sentimentalist.”

“Speaking of fabric, how do you like my new uniform?” I asked. I twirled around for Trent gaily.

“Is it any different than before?” Trent asked.

“Any different?” I replied. “It’s completely different. It may be Stella’s design, but it’s been completely made over in the same Quintuplet-Whatever fabric as yours.”

“Quarantinium-Quelluminum,” said Koz.

“Huh,” said Trent. “You look okay.” He went inside the house.

about my new orange visor. It’s so much more chic than those stupid cyclopic goggles he wears. ‘Is it any different?’…Men!”

“You look very nice,” said Samson, who has set down his dumbbell and was checking his clipboard. “Only your muscles aren’t big enough. Preston never mentioned anything about two workouts, but I seem to have to some free time…”

“I don’t need a workout, or big muscles,” I said. I’m already Ms. Megaton Man.”

“You don’t look strong enough to be a Megahero,” said Samson.

“Yeah, why is that?” asked Kozmik Kat. “Why aren’t you bulked out like Megaton Man, or the Original Golden Age Megaton Man? Or Mega-Yarn Man?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Why aren’t you bulked out, Kozmik Kat?”

“If you’re so strong, Ms. Megaton Man, catch this,” said Samson.

He put his foot under the bar of the dumbbell and kick it up in the air. I caught with one hand.

“Where would you like this?” I asked. “In the back of your semi, or up your ass?”

“I like a girl with some sass,” said Nuke. He made a mark on his clipboard.

Koz and I helped Samson put all the weights and exercise machinery back into his semi. If ever one needed a demonstration, it was clear from this that both Koz and I could lift fifty times our weight without breaking a sweat, while Samson McSampson had to exert himself.

I asked him if he’d be coming back to train Trent.

“I don’t see much point,” said Nuke. “He’s had five workouts over the past week and hasn’t responded at all. I already told Preston—this guy’s going to need to take the booster shot or forget it. I can’t just keep taking ICHHL’s money.” My daddy didn’t have such ethical qualms.

I explained to Nuke that for some very complicated reasons, booster shots weren’t likely to have much efficacy for Trent. “Although they looked like they worked for Nuke.

“I don’t touch that stuff,” said Samson. “What you see is one hundred percent natural, sweetie.” He flexed his biceps and wobbled his pecs at me.

“I’m not your sweetie,” I said. “You expect me to believe you worked in the lab that manufactured the stuff but you never used it yourself?”

“I was tech support for all the equipment,” said Samson. “I have a Masters in computer science; my job was to calibrate the instruments and update the software. I never had anything to do with the formulas they were working on, and I certainly never touched the end product.” He threw his clipboard into the back of the semi and pulled down the sliding door. “That would be illegal,” he said, with just a tinge of anger flashing in his eyes. “And if you make any insinuation to the contrary, you’ll be hearing from my lawyers.” He pushed down the handle of the door. “Besides, who needs all those crazy Megapowers, anyway? Flying around, fighting crime, saving the world—not me; I’m afraid of heights. You can have ‘em. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Nuke squeezed his bulky frame along the side of the house until he reached the cab of the semi and climbed in. He stuck his head out of the window and called back to us, “Good luck, Ms. Megaton Man. You’re gonna need it.”