“This is Ms. Megaton?” asked Rex, sizing me up through wire-framed spectacles. I must have seemed especially unprepossessing in my fat jeans and baggy hoodie; I felt his eyes going back and forth between my modest chest and my sister’s ample bosom. “Could have fooled me. She appears much more formidable in the papers and on television.”

Thanks for talking about me in the third person.

“These are my two granddaughters,” said Seedy, stepping between Rex and us protectively. “Of whom I am very proud. This one’s Avie, and this here’s Clarissa. Now, Rex, you behave yourself.”

“No one ever said the Atomic Soldier should have big tits,” said the butch woman in slacks and a blazer. “But I confess the impression I had of you was more girlish; you must have cut your hair.” She said this to me as she ran her fingers through her own nearly-white brush cut.

“It’s a good disguise,” said the chain smoker with pop-bottle lenses, as he lit another cigarette. “We don’t need Ms. Megaton advertising herself right now.”

Realizing no one had made introductions, the genteel college president-type stepped forward. “I’m Glenn Franklin Stevens,” he announced, and introduced his colleagues: Delbart Goodman, the agitated, spitting, chain-smoking professor with pop-bottle lenses; Brenda Marlowe, the butch woman in slacks; Agnes Crafton-Ingram, the regal lady with gloves and a chiffon wrap, and Orson Mercury, the seated, portly gentleman.

These were all names I recalled dimly from my research into the origins of megaheroes in the microfilmed newspaper archives of Arbor State University a couple years earlier. All of them were PhDs in physics or chemistry or engineering or all three; most had gone on to distinguished careers in my reality. Along with my grandmother, Mercedith Robeson-James, and Seymour Starlight, who had accompanied us, they accounted for seven of the original scientists who had spawned the megahero movement in two diverse realities.

Missing were Hyacinth Anders Racine-Revell, too infirm to make the trip from Washington, D.C., and Elias Levitch, who I knew had died from radiation poisoning during the Project Megaton experiment in both realities. No explanation had been offered for his absence Kendall Forrester, another principal organizer of the project. Also missing was the Thirteenth Scientist, Willard Helveticus Brainard, the man who tinkered with the Mutanium Particle and split the universe in two, and ever after pursued the orb known as the Cosmic Cue-Ball through time and space as Dr. Braindead. But I don’t think anyone looked forward to him showing up.

“Oh, yes, and Rex Quimby Rigid,” said Glenn, referring to the man who had stood pondering the chalkboard. “That completes our little party.”

I already knew Rex Rigid, of course, from my native reality as the sloshy ex-husband of the much younger Stella Starlight; because of his chronic impotence, that version of Rex had never been able to consummate their marriage. This version of Rex was the same age, obviously, which is to say in his early sixties, but slighter in build and more slender and firm than the bulbous Mister Waterballoon I was familiar with. This Rex, too, possessed the same lascivious gaze that made a young woman wish she were an invisible girl. But whereas the decrepit Liquid Man from my reality, whom Yarn Man had unkindly nicknamed “Phil Flaccid,” was all bark and no bite, Rex Too had a generally more virile air about him, and I daresay a certain dangerous charm. Here was a dirty old man, I thought, who seemed like he might be able to get it up and therefore more than harass a woman with idle, lewd comments.

“I’ve already met Professor Rigid,” I said, “at least in my reality. And about Winnie Wertz, I’m happy to tell you…”

Rex let out a loud, rueful laugh. “Professor!” he yelped. “Seedy, is this your way of mocking me? By telling your granddaughter to call me ‘Professor’? You well know I didn’t even finish my college degree—not after destroying my reputation with the Atomic Soldier fiasco.”

Apparently, the failure of the Burly Boy, Girly Man experiments left Rex Rigid so devastated and discouraged, he’d abandoned his wunderkind career in science entirely.

“No, young lady,” he continued. “I’m a shoe salesman from Schenectady.” He added insistently, “And I’m not bitter about it at all!”

“That’s a shame,” I said, feeling sudden sympathy for him. “In my reality, Professor Rex was responsible for a number of wonderful inventions.”

“Like what, a rubberized heel?” jibed Brenda. “The little worm.”

I pushed up the sleeve of my hoodie. “No, like the Quarantinium-Quelluminum fabric of my uniform, and the Time Turntable, and the Tachyon Particle Disruptor …”

Rex, who had been convinced I was mocking him, approached, dubious, to stroked the fabric on my arm. “You must be joking.”

“Not at all,” I said. “This is the stuff worn by every megahero from the Human Meltdown to Megaton Man, in my dimension.”

“Flexible, durable,” Rex noted to himself. “Slippery when wet, yet repellent and breathable. How did I invent it? What is the formula?” he demanded. “I need a sample of this.”

I didn’t tell him the accident that resulted in this miracle fiber also left him the sloshy, bloated Liquid Man, or transformed his Crosstown College buddy Gerald “Bing” Gloom into the permanently insulated Yarn Man.

“This stuff’s nigh-indestructible,” I said. “You can try, but I don’t think you can pull so much as a thread out of this uniform.”

Someone located some scissors and Rex tried cutting a patch from my sleeve; I didn’t want him to damage my Ms. Megaton Man uniform, but I so no harm in letting him try since I knew it wouldn’t work. Sure enough, he broke the scissors and failed to leave a mark.

“So, you really just get all your powers from this otherworldly, bullet-proof suit,” surmised the portly Orson Mercury. “And yet the media makes you out as able to fly and lift enormously heavy objects …”

“No, I can do that, too,” I assured him.

“Ha! Then lift me!”

“I’m not a trained monkey,” I snarled. “I’m not here to prove anything to you.”

Orson chortled. “Well, if you’re shy about it …”

By this point, I was getting a bit perturbed at all these self-pitying losers who thought they’d failed at their mission to create an Atomic Soldier. Or, as Megaton Man used to say, I was pissed. I walked over to where he was sitting, all three-hundred some odd pounds of him, yanked him in his chair away from the round table, and hoisted him—chair and all—above my head.

“Put me down!” he screamed. “If you drop me, I’ll break every bone in my body!”

I set him back down gently. I felt a twinge in my lower back; this had been my greatest physical exertion in several months. “Damn,” I muttered to myself. “I’m going to feel that tomorrow morning.”

“Very impressive,” said Brenda admiringly.

Delbart Goodman glared at me through pop-bottle glasses. “Yes, yes, all very impressive,” he said. “But what is all this business about you being from another reality?” he demanded “I understood that you had become Ms. Megaton after you came into contact with Willard’s Mutanium Particle …”

“The Cosmic Cue-Ball,” affirmed Avie. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

“That was Clarissa Too,” I explained. “My Counterpart in this reality. She got her Megapowers from a jolt of energy from that thing, whereas I inherited my Megapowers.”

I skipped the part where my personality—my astral self—happened to be inhabiting her body at the time.

“Inherited?” asked Glenn Franklin Stevens, the college president. “From whom?”

“From my father, the Silver Age Megaton Man, of course,” I said.

“But there is no such thing as the Silver Age Megaton Man,” said Seymour Starlight, who wheeled toward us in his wheelchair. “There never was any Megaton Man at all—or for that matter, a Human Meltdown, the one I worked on. The Atomic Soldier was a complete failure.”

“Maybe in your reality,” I said. “But not in mind. I don’t know how to break it to your folks, but in an alternate dimension, you were successful beyond your wildest dreams.”

***

I realized I was talking to a group of elderly scientists who had lived their entire lives believing their Burly Boy, Girly Man experiments of 1940 had ended not only in failure, but disaster—with one of their own dead, along with two test subjects. Their subsequent careers in the sciences and academia had no doubt been diminished as a result, except for perhaps the college president.

More importantly, the civilian Reality had progressed in ways completely different than my own native reality. Most notably, there had been a complete absence of megaheroes in the civilian Reality until the body of Clarissa Too, my Counterpart, came in contact with the Cosmic Cue-Ball, triggering something deep in her molecular structure that turned her into a Megapowered being. Because she happened to be wearing a Halloween costume my Grandma Seedy had designed according to my description, and because I’d been telling everyone—to no avail—that I was a megahero called Ms. Megaton Man back in my own reality, Clarissa Too adopted the truncated name Ms. Megaton, and began a career of fantastic exploits in her world, while I returned with my Astral tour guide, Doctor Messiah, to my own.

Now, for reasons I couldn’t begin to explain to my hosts, Clarissa Too and I had traded places. Even so, in a roundabout way I had been the byproduct of their experiments. In my reality, they had succeeded in creating the Original Golden Age Megaton Man, and later the Silver Age Megaton Man; therefore, when I was conceived, I already had the potential for Megapowers, unbeknownst to me, embedded in my DNA. Megapowers, it turned out, that only needed a traumatic catalyst to become manifest. But I didn’t even try to explain all of this to them.

Even less could I explain how Willard Helveticus Brainard, the Thirteenth Scientist, by tampering with the Mutanium Particle back in 1940, had split reality in two in my timeline, creating two timelines into which his twelve fellow scientists separated into two teams of six. Each was able to succeed in their respective dimension in creating an Atomic Soldier: in one, the Original Golden Age Megaton Man; in the other, Major Meltdown. The introduction of those two megaheroes into their respective timelines ushered in a host of other megaheroes and assorted costumed crimefighters, essentially creating two competing megahero Universes: the Federal and the Timeless. Much later, for reasons that were completely unknown to me, those two realities had begun fusing back together, into an Everything-But-the-Kitchen-Sink-Verse.

But none of this had occurred in the civilian Reality, where I was presently marooned. Instead of splitting reality, Willard the Thirteenth Scientist had simply disappeared along with the Mutanium Particle, and the Burly Boy, Girly Man experiments simply failed to yield an Atomic Soldier. The civilian Reality had been completely without megaheroes until Willard and the Mutanium Particle—the Cosmic Cue-Ball—unexpectedly reappeared, transforming my lame Counterpart, Clarissa Too, into Ms. Megaton, until she swapped places with me.

“Look, I can’t begin to explain to you, let alone convince you all, you’re not failures,” I said. “I’m not sure I understand it myself, since I wasn’t there; it’s all past history to me. Suffice it to say, it doesn’t matter that I’m the Ms. Megaton Man from another reality who inherited her powers rather than the Ms. Megaton who touched the Cosmic Cue-Ball. The point is, in my Timeline, your experiment succeeded, with vast implications for my timeline, and untold repercussions across the Multimensions.”

“Like talking cats?” said Seymour truculently.

“Don’t forget my Quarantinium-Quelluminum fibers,” said Rex. “Did I pronounce that correctly? I plan to file a patent.” He was making notes in a pocket notebook.

“Sure, or …” I said, looking around the room.

If this had been the Doomsday Factory in my reality, or the Quantum Tower, there would be other inventions lying around. But here, there were only chalkboards.

Then, off to one darkened corner of the spacious floor, I noticed a table covered in a sheet near a work bench. Under the sheet appeared to be small pieces of equipment, the outline of which seemed vaguely familiar.

I walked over to the table and reached for a corner of the cloth. “What are these?” I asked.

“Another of my genius inventions from my wunderkind days,” said Rex proudly.

“Yours and Winnie Wertz’s,” added Grandma Seedy. “I remember the two of you toying with those devices while the rest of us adults were busy working out mathematical formulas and logistics. You were wunderkinds, all right, but with the attention spans of children.”

I pulled back the cloth, raising a cloud of four decades of collected dust, to reveal some seven tabletop devices of roughly the same shape and size, although with slightly different configurations. Each was smaller than a breadbox; circular video screen figured on one end or side of each, with a camera lens, microphone and antenna mounted in various places. Along the side or bottom were various dials. Coiled behind each were cloth-covered power cords. One of them looked exactly like the model I’d seen at the Troy+Thems headquarters in my reality.

“Transdimensional Transceivers,” I said. “Able to communicate across the Multimensions.”

“Prototypes,” said Rex. “Winnie and I were not even teenagers in 1940, and only slightly less bored than Willard at the stuffy proceedings of the Burly Boy, Girly Man scientists in this room. So we made several models of mostly my idea. Although Winnie helped a little.”

Winnie helped a lot, would have been my guess. I had visited her lab in the Forbidden Future and seen all the wondrous androids and other technologies she’d created. If anything, Dr. Winifred Wertz was twice as brilliant as Professor Rex Rigid.

“Bloated walkie-talkies,” said Orson dismissively. “Capable of intercepting little more than garbled transmissions from broadcast airwaves. I remember you two wasting a lot of time with them. Like Willard and his particle, at least they kept you wunderkinds out of trouble.”

“But they worked,” said Rex. “Or they would have, if we’d had the means of testing them.”

“Why couldn’t you test them?” I asked.

“Simply because they were designed to communicate across dimensions,” Rex replied. “Since both Winnie and I were confined to the same dimension, we could never try them out properly.”

I realized that inside these little gizmos was a primitive form of the same circuitry that was used in the Time Turntable, the Dimensional Doorway, and much later, the Heteroreality Helmet.

“Do they still work?” I asked. “I mean, do any of these still function if you plug them in?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Rex. “But you’d need to have another Transdimensional Transceiver in another reality in order to communicate.”

“No problem,” I said. “Where’s an electrical outlet?”