“Shouldn’t it be the Positive Woman?” asked Avie. “If the Negative Man stopped being a man, he might have stopped being made of anti-matter as well…”

“No, he was still made of anti-matter,” I replied. “I mean she. He’s a she now. She just switched genders. Or sexes. Or whatever you want to call it. I mean, he switched…into a she.”

We were all sitting around Wilton Ashe’s bookish apartment on Ferry Street at Cass Avenue—Avie, Wilton, Audrey, and I. It had a big bay window open to the south, and was crammed with all kinds of houseplants and bookshelves. It only had one bedroom but it had a nice-sized kitchen and living room. The walls were white and everything was open and bright. The sky was clear and blue and the steam heat cranking from the radiators almost gave the illusion of spring or summer, even though it was still winter.

This was the first time I’d been to Wilton’s apartment; I knew it was on Ferry, but for some reason I had thought it was on the other side of Woodward, closer to where Audrey, Hadleigh, and Nancy lived. But here he was right next to the Warren Woodward campus. I was curious to see how a Warren Woodward University graduate student lived on a teaching assistant’s stipend, since I was going to become a grad student myself in the coming fall. And it was pretty doggone nice.

Wilton and Audrey were snuggled together on the futon, and Avie and I each sat on cabana chairs; we were all sipping herbal tea around a faux antique coffee table. It was a bit strange seeing Wilton and Audrey so close together; on campus, as student and teacher, they always kept their relationship so hush-hush. Later, when I saw them camped out at Megatonic University on cots, everybody had been in a rush to clear out of the place before we were all killed by robots. But now, at home, they seemed relaxed and affectionate, and I was happy for them.

Naturally, Wilton and Audrey were all obsessed with what had transpired the last time I’d been up in Troy. Both had been teammates with Andre Revell, now Andrea Revell, although they couldn’t believe the sudden transformation.

“Let me get this clear,” said Audrey. “So, the only thing that’s different about the Negative Man is that he’s a woman now…I mean, she’s a woman mow.”

“Right,” I said.

“How do you know Andre’s still made of anti-matter?” asked Wilton. “If he switched sexes, couldn’t he just as easily have switched polarity, or whatever you call it? I don’t know the proper term; I’m an engineer, not a physicist.”

“He pulled off his fake skin and showed us,” I said. “The section over his hand is like a glove. I mean, she-her; you know what I mean. It was like looking at a film negative—light was shadow and shadow was light.”

“Wait a minute,” said Avie, trying to digest this. “If her body is made of anti-matter, and if the only thing protecting her from coming into contact with positive matter is the fake skin Rubber Brother made for her—or him when he used to be a him—wouldn’t he explode immediately if he took off his glove? Taking the entire Metro-Detroit area with him…her?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” said Wilton. “Back in the day, when we were together in the Detroit Crime Busters, the Negative Man used to pull off his skin all the time. His real body was made of anti-matter, all right. But it was more like a slow burn.”

Audrey picked up the thread. “It just kind of heated up,” she explained. “The molecules on the very outer layer of his anti-matter skin would start to burn off, slowly at first, releasing enormous amounts of energy. But it wouldn’t cause an explosion, at least not right away. Sure, if he were to leave it off long enough, for an extended period of time, it might be problem. But you have to understand, it’s a very painful experience, a weapon of last resort. If his anti-matter body were exposed indefinitely, I suppose it would completely evaporate. In any case, Andre never left the skin off for long. He’d just expose his hand or his arm only long enough to burn through the hull of a steamship or whatever, and then he would put the skin right back on. Got us Crime Busters out of a lot of scrapes that way.”

“When were you guys in the Crime Busters, anyway?” I asked. I had about a million questions about the other unidentified megaheroes I’d seen in the strange photograph in Doctor Messiah’s study. But Wilton kept changing the subject.

“Oh, we were just kids, really. High school interns. That was a long time ago…”

The seventies wasn’t that long ago. I was particularly interested in the guy in bandages and the black cat. But I could hardly get a question in edge-wise about the past; the other three were too intent on grilling me about the present.

“So, Andre Revell is now Andrea Revell,” said Avie. “That should make Tempy happy, if he secretly had a crush on her all this time. I mean, him. At least they’re opposite genders now.”

“Except they’re the completely wrong genders, as far as Tempy is concerned,” I said. “Tempy’s a she, now, too, and she isn’t into women. Tempy was heartbroken that Andre is now Andrea, more depressed than ever. And, well, I’m not sure if the Negative Woman is still hetero or not, but I don’t see the two of them having much future together.”

“Is he, I mean she, still going to go through with transitioning to a woman?” asked Audrey. “Tempy, I mean?”

“He tells me surgery isn’t necessary for him to become a woman,” I said. “Especially after seeing Andre and Andrea, he doesn’t feel he needs it. He’s always felt like a woman on the inside and he says he’s going to remain himself. Only now he’s going to live life more openly as a woman.” Then I corrected myself. “I meant, she. Did I say he? Oh, it’s so confusing.”

“Was Kav-Tempy especially secretive about this?” asked Audrey. “I mean, the impression I have of the Y+Thems, from what little time I’ve spent around them, is that they’re all pretty non-gender-conforming? Soren Sneed—Sabersnag—is gay; Dana—Domina—is a diehard lesbian; Beatrice—Kiddo—the unwed mother, is the only one who’s straight. And she’s celibate now, pining for the lost Original Golden Age Megaton Man, if I have that right. Kav Kleinfelter—Tempy—has always been a gay hairdresser with some undefined ability to manipulate temporal reality…”

“You wouldn’t believe how homophobic some of those megaheroes are,” said Avie, “especially in New York. Tempy and Soren both told me stories of some of those macho creeps while we were living together in the church residence. Part of Yarn Man’s problem with being team leader was he just couldn’t deal with “a bunch of queers,” as he called them. And Chuck Roast was really mean to Tempy when they were back in the Brooklyn Navy Yards, referring to him as “a faggot” behind his back all the time, and even openly; Soren had to come to Tempy’s rescue more than once. And Soren himself was too terrified to come out of the closet, a fact of which he’s really ashamed of now.” Avie grew bright red as she recounted this information, some of which was new to me. She seemed more infuriated imagining the cruelty Chuck Roast inflicted on others than when he actually assaulted her. “The Human Meltdown just burns me up,” she concluded, fists clenched.

“Is Tempy going to dress any differently, now that she identifies as a woman?” Wilton asked me. “I mean, those Y+Thems always wore unisex uniforms, didn’t they?”

“He’s basically happy with his appearance,” I said. “I mean she. She already has more beautiful hair and wears more make-up than I do. She also has been polishing her nails—clear polish, I noticed this the last time I was in his beauty shop—for a long time. She says now she’s going to grow out her nails and sport some different colors, and wear a frock more often as a civilian.”

“Kav often wore a peasant skirt in the church residence,” said Avie. “Didn’t I ever mention it? I suppose I never thought anything of it. It always looked very comfortable.”

“Come to think of it, I did see Kav in a dress, once,” said Audrey. “At the Ditty in the City street fair. He was working the face-painting booth for kids. I didn’t think anything of it, either.”

“Is he going to wear a bra and, you know, false boobs?” asked Wilton.

“I don’t know,” I said, exasperated by all the questions. “I don’t speak for the transgender community. Why don’t you ask him—her—yourself?”

“Oh, no,” said Wilton, blanching. “I don’t want to pry. But is he going to change his name?”

“Nope,” I said. “He’s still going to be Kavanaugh Kleinfelter. He says he got the name Kavanaugh from a spinster aunt of his.”

“So all he’s really changing is the pronoun—now his is hers and he is she,” said Audrey.

“I asked him about that,” I replied. “He said either gender was fine. He’d answer to whatever; he’s not really hung up on pronouns. But I’m going to make a conscious effort to call him a her from now on. I think that’s the most respectful. Even though I keep reverting, as you can tell.”

“What about the Negative Woman?” asked Wilton. “How do you know for sure she’s a woman now? I mean, a female?”

“Well, she sure looked like a woman to me,” I said. “Shapely hips, nice-sized breasts, longer hair. She was even wearing some light lip gloss and a touch of rouge, from what I could tell. The Negative Man went through the Dimensional Portal an eight-foot-tall man and came out an eight-foot-tall woman.”

“Yeah, but how can you be sure?” Wilton persisted.

“For Christ’s sake, Wilton, I didn’t give her a gynecological examination or anything,” I exploded. “But I’m reasonably sure the genitalia changed along with everything else.”

“Gender doesn’t reside in your gonads,” said Avie. “It’s all up here,” she said, pointing to her head.

I almost threw a pillow at her, curvaceous girly-girl that my sister is. But I didn’t want her to spill her tea in Wilton’s well-kept apartment.

“Yeah, but did she give herself a gynecological examination?” asked Wilton. “I mean, just as a practical matter, she’s going to have to buy woman stuff now…”

Now Audrey was becoming exasperated. “You mean tampons and contraceptives? You can use the appropriate words, Wilton.”

“I’m just sayin’,” said Wilton. “If I went through some Dimensional Portal and came back a different sex, the first thing I’d wanna do is check my pants and see if my junk was all still in order, even if I was a tranny.”

Audrey smacked Wilton on the shoulder. “You’re an idiot.”

Avie was counting on her fingers. “Have we mentioned every possible derogatory word in the non-heteronormative lexicon?” she wondered.

“All I can say is the bulge in her trunks was definitely gone,” I said. “Andre definitely had a big bulge; it was one of the first things I noticed about him. Whereas Andrea definitely has more of a groove now. I can confirm that much.”

“There; are you satisfied?” Audrey asked Wilton.

“What was her state of mind?” asked Avie. “Andrea must have been shocked at such a sudden conversion.”

“She was stunned just going through that Dimensional Portal and back,” I said. “But when she recovered, she wasn’t shocked at all about being the Negative Woman. That’s the funny thing; she seemed completely non-plussed. Rubber Brother and Tempy and me were all like, ‘Are you okay, Andre? You look different.’ And Andre was like, ‘Why are you calling me Andre? My name’s Andrea.’ And she just picked herself up and dusted herself off and we all got back to work. Although it was a bit awkward, let me tell you.”

Avie looked skeptical. “The Negative Woman didn’t notice she had been the Negative Man just a moment before? What about all her memories? She must still have a lifetime of memories of being a man.”

“Nope,” I said. “Jasper even quizzed her about it. All Andrea Revell could ever remember was being a woman all her life. It was like Andre Revell had never existed.”

“That’s hard to believe,” said Jasper.

“I was skeptical, too,” I said. “I asked her, ‘Don’t you remember meeting me just an hour ago, and how I kept flirting with you while we moved computer banks together?’ And she said, ‘That didn’t strike me as odd; Jasper mentioned that Ms. Megaton Man was bisexual, in case I was uncomfortable. I’m not.’ She added that she wasn’t interested, but thanked me for the compliment.”

“Maybe Andre has always thought of himself as a heterosexual woman, like Tempy,” said Avie.

Wilton looked horrified. “No…that would mean the Negative Man was a closet homo—I mean, sexual—when we were teammates. And he was always a straight arrow.”

“Another bigoted slur,” said Avie. “You’re a homophobe, Wilton.”

“I am not!” said Wilton defensively.

“Big homophobe,” said Avie. “A transphobe.”

“That’s not even a word,” said Wilton.

“It is now,” said Avie. “I just coined it. Mark the date.”

Audrey laughed and winked at Avie. “She’s got you dead to rights,” she said to Wilton. “You’re insecure about your own masculinity.” She nudged him in the ribs. “Although you have no reason to be.”

“I just think the Negative Woman remembers always being the same as she is now,” I said. “She just doesn’t seem to notice this big, massive change everyone else does.”

“Maybe it’s not such a big change,” said Audrey. “If it doesn’t bother him, it shouldn’t bother us.” She elbowed Wilton again.

Avie said, “Maybe this alternate reality the Negative Man stepped into…maybe everyone there is the opposite gender from what they are here. Maybe the Negative Man in our dimension just traded places with the Negative Woman in the other dimension.”

“That’s just what I was thinking,” said Wilton. “Maybe if the Negative Woman went through the portal again, he’d come back the Negative Man. Has anybody thought of that?”

***

Clearly a good deal of Wilton and Audrey’s interested in what had transpired in Troy was due to the fact that they’d been involved with the Detroit Crime Busters in the seventies, and were now excited by the prospect of a new megahero team starting up, one that wouldn’t necessarily be limited to Youthful Permutations. Whether or not Wilton and Audrey were planning to bring the Hybrid Man robot known as B-50 out hiding to join the new team I couldn’t pin down; for that matter, they were even more tight-lipped about where they had stashed B-50 after they broke him out of Megatonic University, and even how they had managed to get out of those tunnels. It was just as well; if I had known any of this information, Secret Agent Preston Percy would have probably wheedled it out of me by now.

All I did know was that a new team of megaheroes was forming in a refurbished headquarters just north of Detroit. The three remaining Y+Thems were to be the core members, and there were at least as many auxiliary members now, including Rubber Brother, the Phantom Jungle Girl, and presumably the Negative Woman. Plus, there was my sister wanting to join the group as the Wondrous Warhound. All of this, oddly, made me feel a bit left out, even though Ms. Megaton Man had a standing invitation to join the group as a full member at any time.

But the biggest question to my mind was who did they expect to fight? Troy was smack-dab in the middle of the Midwest, while all the megaheroic action, as everyone knew, was on the eastern seaboard, along with the lion’s share of megavillain activity, too. Sure, there were a couple retired megaheroes in Ann Arbor—my old friends Stella Starlight and Trent Phloog; but no evildoers seemed much interested in metropolitan Detroit…

The more I reflected on this, however, the more I realized this wasn’t necessarily the case. Yes, the Y+Thems had left Brooklyn to be out of the clutches of Bad Guy and Liquid Man, the group’s original underwriters. And so far, that strategy seemed to have succeeded. Although Rex Rigid—Liquid Man—still seemed obsessed with the destinies of both his former wife, Stella, and her child, Simon, even though a local judge had established Trent’s paternity while at the same time revoking Rex’s. Then, there was some outfit called the Arms of Krupp that tried to off both father and son, who only managed to survive the onslaught because of Ms. Megaton Man…

Also, I had to remind myself that the Partyers from Mars were probably still in the neighborhood. Camped out for the longest time in Stella and Trent’s back yard, waiting for Megaton Man to cough up the Cosmic Cue-Ball he’d ingested into his metabolism, their saucer was no longer parked behind the garage, last time I checked. For all I knew, they could have been on the other side of the galaxy by now, but I suspect they weren’t…

Last but not least, there was Megatonic University, a laboratory now being run by a couple of crazies in whom my Grandma Seedy seemed to have blind faith; Dana Dorman, former Youthful Permutation, was also now living in Ann Arbor…

I had occasion to broach this subject with Pastor Enoch one day while I was helping out with the Eats on Feets program run out of the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City food pantry. After all, he had provided housing to the Y+Thems when they first relocated from Megatropolis, and he seemed to be up on megahero issues. What did he make of all this underground activity going on in and around Detroit?

“A massive arsenal always draws the attention of the enemy,” he said cryptically. “A build-up, even of positive energy, always attracts its opposite. There is always good and evil in the universe; the quantities of darkness and light fluctuate but in never waver; the cosmos always maintains a balance.”

“Are you saying that by establishing a megahero team in Troy, the megavillains are now going to come out of the woodwork?” I asked.

“Tension and release,” said Pastor Enoch. “Tension and release.”

He was tasting a giant cooking pot full of chili as he said this. After slurping a wooden spoonful, he announced, “Needs more chili powder.” That was as much as I could get out of him.

Later, I had occasion to draw out Doctor Messiah on the same subject. Our art history class was wandering through the Detroit Fine Arts Museum, and the two of us found ourselves alone with the Rembrandt. Again, he had those weird photographs on the walls of the Crime Busters, and even though he wasn’t overtly a crime fighter himself, he was something of a local history buff. What did he make of costumed characters amassing in Troy?

“Light and darkness,” said the professor. “Clear, obscure. Rembrandt was a master of chiaroscuro. That’s what that word means.”

“You mean that ol’ Remmy was using oscuro to bring out the chiar part,” I ventured. “One can’t exist without the other. That makes sense.”

“You put light and shadow next to one another and you have art,” said Doctor Messiah. “Baroque art, but art nonetheless. It’s how we see.”

It was for moments like these that college kids pay all that tuition.

“So, the more light gets shone on Troy,” I said, “the deeper the shadows will become.”

Doctor Messiah smiled at me mischievously. “Don’t be so sure you are on the side of the light, Clarissa,” he said. “We all have chiaroscuro inside our souls; that’s also why we respond to art. We also carry within us both male and female,” he said, although I hadn’t brought up the subject of gender. “We are all human.” He gazed at the painting for a several moments, frowning crossly. “Also, I’ve always felt Rembrandt was terribly over-rated.”