I hadn’t seen exactly what Stella had done, as my grandmother had been intentionally shielding Stella from the view of the Megatown Mobster guarding us. He wasn’t paying any attention to us anyway; he was too flabbergasted at the transformation of his boss—the President-Elect of the United States, Bartholomew Gamble—into the purple-clad megavillain, Bad Guy.

But I could guess what had transpired: Stella had surreptitiously slipped a hypodermic needle and a vial of Mega-Soldier Syrup from her windbreaker, carefully drawn the yellow-orange fluid into the needle, and decided to jab one of us. She had several likely candidates to choose from. For starters, since the syrup had been derived from my counterpart Clarissa Too’s hemoglobin, it could have plausibly been administered to two relatives of mine who were present in the room. My sister Avril thought it would be cool to have megapowers, and my Grandma Seedy was spry for her age and I’m sure could still kick some ass.

For different reasons, I shuddered to think of either of them with megapowers.

It also seemed the consensus of everyone present that I could have used a bit more gumption myself as Ms. Megaton Man, since I wasn’t exactly the most aggressive megahero to be desired. So Stella might have been thinking of me.

I must have sensed what Stella was up to, because just before she did it, I thought to myself: It had better not be me; I hate needles.

And it sure as heck better not be my sister Avie, whom I didn’t want to see come to any harm.

I was about to turn and whisper a warning to Stella not to try any such foolishness. But before I could, Trent cried out “Woo!” and was already rubbing his shoulder. She’d administered the Mega-Soldier Syrup to him.

It made a certain amount of sense. After all, Trent was my second cousin, and Stella knew the Trent’s Uncle Farley had almost become the Original Golden Age Megaton Man in the civilian Reality—and became so in deed in my native reality. She sure wasn’t going to give it to her son, Simon, to create Megaton Boy. By process of elimination, it had to be Trent; Stella was nothing if not logical.

Maybe she’d had it in mind to give the shot to the father of her child all along, but had waited to arrive here at the Doomsday Factory first.

What she couldn’t have known was that Trent had already been Megaton Man in my reality. When he swallowed the Cosmic Cue-Ball, its active ingredient, the Mutanium Particle, had briefly boosted his megapowers to an outrageous level, transforming him into Gigaton Man, with the explosive force of a billion tons to TNT—instead of just a million, or a megaton.

But soon, the buffering agent, the Extanium casing that formed the white sphere of the orb, took over; it dissolved in Trent’s metabolism, absorbing not only the powers amplified by the Mutanium but also taking away his regular megapowers, leaving Trent Phloog an ordinary civilian.

Later, when Secret Agent Preston Percy surprised Trent with a booster shot of Mega-Soldier Syrup in Ann Arbor, Megaton Man’s powers returned, but only briefly—barely a weekend. Dr. Joseph Levitch, the man responsible for the Silver and Bronze Age Megaton Men, declared his syrup had lost its efficacy; no dosage was likely ever again to have any effect on Trent Phloog. Trent’s Extanium-infused metabolism by now had simply built up too much resistance to the drug. As if Trent Phloog ever wanted to be the Man of Molecules again!

Stella has just wasted a perfectly good dose of Mega-Soldier Syrup.

Then I realized: I was thinking of what had taken place in my timeline; the civilian Reality was an entirely different matter.

In this reality, Trent had never been Megaton Man; Megaton Man had never swallowed the Cosmic Cue-Ball; Extanium had never dissolved in his metabolism. This Trent he had no immunity to the Mega-Soldier Syrup whatsoever.

In this timeline, Trent Pflug was a complete megahero virgin.

And Stella had just pumped him full of Mega-Soldier Syrup!

***

The Megaton Mobster turned and glared at Trent, waving his Tommy gun. “I said, pipe down back there, and I meant it!” he growled, before turning his attention back to his boss.

I could see what was happening now out of the corner of my eye: Trent’s muscles began to double, triple, quadruple, and quintuple in size; his jaw became painfully distended; his hands swelled to nearly twice their normal size. His wrists and ankles remained impossibly skinny, but almost every other part of him rippled with newfound beefcake. His clothing shredded as his neck and back became a mushroom cloud of musculature.

“Aaargh!” Trent groaned, writhing in pain, buckling to his knees.

“Holy dogs!” cried Kozmik Kat. “They just juiced the white guy!”

Rex Rigid, who’d been admiring his work in the manly form of Bad Guy, must have sensed what was afoot. “What did you just do, young lady?” he snarled at Stella.

“There’s more than one way to make a megahero,” she replied, smirking. “The Old School way of radioactive bombardment, and the more modern way—Better Living Through Chemistry.”

“I’m glad she didn’t say, ‘Skin a cat,’” quipped Koz.

“Shoot him!” snarled Rex; he barked an order to the mobster. “Shoot him now!”

The mobster already had his Tommy gun trained on Trent, but was confounded and mesmerized by the transformation he was witnessing. He looked to Rose Shark and Bart Gamble to confirm the orders.

“Kill him, before it’s too late!” Rex repeated.

Simon, alarmed, ran to his father. “Are you sick, Daddy?”

The mobster tried to find a clear shot at Trent “The kid’s in the way,” he said. “You don’t expect me to …?”

“Blow them both away, you fool!” Rex shouted.

By this time, Trent had grown to enormous proportions; Stella had snatched away Simon.

The flustered mobster sensed he’d missed his chance; bullets weren’t going to do much on that over-muscled physique.

Rex leapt and wrested the Tommy gun from the mobster. “Here, give me that!”

By the time Rex could take aim, Trent had regained his feet; his clothing in shreds, he towered over the diminutive scientist. He crunched the Tommy gun effortlessly between his thumb and little finger, rolling it into a metal ball in the palm of his hand.

“Woo!” he said, astonished at his own feat.

“I may have been a little rash,” said Rex, trembling as he backed away from Trent.

Grandma Seedy, who had been clutching the spare yellow garment all this time, offered it to Trent. “You better put this on,” she whispered, “for modesty’s sake.”

Trent slipped into the glistening gold leotard effortlessly; unlike Bart’ purple cowl, which covered his cranium, this outfit left Trent’s blond hair exposed at the top. A red “M” became visible on his torso, the emblem apparently activated by body heat.

“What was the ‘M’ for?” asked Bad Guy.

“I suggested to your tailor ‘Malevolent Man,’” confessed Rex.

Pedro Dilletante Escobar, the fashion designer, admired his own handiwork, mused, “I’ll need to take it in here, let it out there.”

Rose Shark cast an appraising glance. “Needs a cape.”

My own red cape and buttons, having returned up the empty elevator shaft, waffled in mid-air; it would have been too comically small to join with Trent’s uniform.

Avie, wide-eyed, pronounced, “Kind of cute!”

Stella, visibly taken with the figure of masculinity she had made of the soft-bodied father of her child had become, declared, “Not bad.”

Simon said, “That’s my Pop!”

Gene looked at me. “Why aren’t you all big and muscly?” he said to me.

“Would you prefer me that way?” I replied.

“No,” he said. “I guess not.”

Bart Gamble watched all of this unfold with fascination. “I see I got my megapowers just in time. A lone megahero, Ms. Megaton, I might have been able to handle with executive orders. But a whole army of Atomic Soldiers—that’s a different kettle of fish. What the heck do you call yourself, Pal?”

“Mr. Megaton,” said Seymour, wheeling around in his wheelchair. “That’s what Elias planned to call his creation, wasn’t it, Seedy?”

“Something like that,” said my grandma.

“Feh,” said Rex.

***

“Woo!” said Trent, who suddenly sensed the predicament he was in, as all eyes were upon him.

“Apparently, you’ve been cooking up megaheroes in your little lab for some time,” said Bart Gamble. “A regular crime-fighting coup d’état.”

“That’s treason,” said Rose Shark, grinning.

“It’s our civic duty,” said Grandma Seedy. “To protect democracy from the likes of you.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Rex. “I don’t put my faith in chemistry—insofar as the Atomic Soldier’s concerned, at least. Just zap ‘em with energy, I say—the good old-fashioned way.” You’re the better-built prototype, Mr. President-Elect,” said Rose, flatteringly. “I’d put my money on you over the Golden Boy any day.”

“We’ll see how this Atomic Soldier stands up to battle,” said Bart, who glared at Trent. “What do you say, Mr. Megaton? Will you join me in my new Administration of Evil? Or would you rather die?”

Koz let out a groan. “Where do megavillains come up with such corny dialogue? And what criminal goes around saying, ‘I’m evil, I’m evil?’ Even Hitler didn’t think he was evil.”

“That’s right,” said Seedy. “He thought he was cleansing the world of evil, bringing about a Utopia. That’s what all deluded evildoers must tell themselves.”

Everyone took a step back as Bart and Trent, who found themselves on opposite sides of the ring table, skirted around it, under the skylight, eyeing each other.

“I will never join you, Bad Guy,” said Trent, picking up my name for him. “Clarissa is right—that’s a good name for you. You’re not my president.”

“Are you just going to stand there and let the two muscle-boy macho types go at it?” Koz whispered to me.

“Yes, I am” I said.

“But this is you’re show, Sissy,” said Avie. “You’re America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero.”

“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” I replied.

“They’ll destroy the Doomsday Factory,” said Seymour.

“That might not be a bad thing,” I said. “What good has come of it?”

***

Every time Bad Guy moved in clockwise around the ring table, Mr. Megaton moved in the same direction to keep the table between them; every time Mr. Megaton moved counter-clockwise, Bad Guy did the same.

Bart seemed so frustrated that for a moment he looked like he was going to smash the table or pick it up and toss it aside to get to Trent.

“A couple o’ chickens,” said Kozmik Kat.

“Am not,” said Trent. “I’m just being respectful of the President-Elect.”

“Bart Gamble’s the chicken,” taunted Avie. “He was about to beat up a girl; now he’s having second thoughts, now that’s he’s met his match.” She said to Trent, “Go get him, tiger!”

Stella let out a scream as Simon wriggled away from her; before she could grab him again, the boy darted under ring the table and began running around inside its perimeter again.

“Daddy, do I get a costume, too?” he asked.

“Not right now, son,” said Trent. “Maybe for Halloween.”

“Get out of there, you punk,” said Bad Guy.

“Don’t talk to my kid like that,” said Trent.

Simon had climbed up on the stool in the center of the ring table; Gene had to restrain Stella from going after him.

In a mad impulse, I flew over the table, grabbed Simon, and dove over the other side, a leap of more than twenty feet. Cradling him in my arms, we hit the floor rolling, me knocking over a couple of freestanding chalk boards and dizzy, but Simon unharmed.

A similar move the last time I’d visited the civilian Reality had gotten me into a lot of trouble; I’m not sure how to account for it, this instinctive urge I had to save this kid.

After we rolled apart, and I saw Simon was all right, I looked up to see both Bart and Trent making preposterous leaps at each over the table. I was still getting my bearings, but it seemed to me their massive, overly-muscled bodies moved in slow motion, colliding above the stool. Then, all at once, they hung frozen in mid-air, like someone had hit the pause button, as they gripped one another by the throat. Then, as if someone had hit play again, they swirled violently, their combined leaps rocketing them up through the skylight, sending down shards of glass.

Seymour marveled that two such bulky figures could actually fly. “These Atomic Soldiers behave in ways I never would have anticipated,” he declared.

“Don’t forget the mobsters,” Seedy directed.

Gene let Stella go and trained his weapon on the mobsters, as did Seymour. Stella ran to me, picking up Simon. “Thank you, Ms. Megaton,” she said.

“Don’t mention it, See-Thru Girl,” I said, responding with her megahero name that was only appropriate in my native reality. “I mean, Mrs. Megaton.”

Kozmik Kat dashed around the room at even greater lightning speed, relieving the gangsters of their Tommy guns before they knew what had hit them.

Avie marched up to Rose Shark, snatched her cigarette holder, threw it to the ground, and snuffed it out underfoot.

“There’s no smoking in the Doomsday Factory!” Avie announced. “Also, you and your thugs are under arrest.”

“Under what charge?” sniffed Pedro. “Mine could only be crimes of fashion.”

“We’re the President-Elect’s duly appointed entourage,” snarled Rose. “Seems like you’re the one in trouble, girly.”

“I’m sure we’ll find outstanding warrants for your arrest,” said Gene. “All of you.” Although it wasn’t entirely clear to what authorities or jurisdiction he planned to turn them over.

“They made me do it,” cried Rex, pointing accusingly at Rose and the mobsters. Although he was the first one Seedy tied up when she located some rope, Stella placing duct tape over his mouth for good measure.

***

Avie, Koz, my cape and buttons, and I ran up the stairs to the rooftop of the Doomsday Factory. Searchlights and sirens from the Port of New York and New Jersey had gone off as if there were some sort of air raid. Against the night sky, we caught a glimpse of two figure out over the harbor, now already half a mile away, grappling with each other against the skyline of lower Manhattan.

“Crap,” I said. “And we don’t even have a flying Q-Mobile in this reality.”

“You’re the only one who can fly, Ms. Megaton,” said Avie. “You’ve got to put a stop to this before Bad Guy and Mr. Megaton level the city.”

“Don’t I know it,” I said. Bad Guy and Megaton Man had done just that in my native reality.

I began shedding my street clothes. My buttons and cape flew to me, clamping themselves magnetically onto my uniform at the collar bones. Koz handed me my visor, which he’d grabbed downstairs and brought along. I placed it over my eyes. Immediately, computer screens with numerical information flashed before my eyes.

“Gosh, I wish I were going with you,” he said forlornly, as he gave an insincere salute.

“Oh, you are definitely coming with me,” I said as I grabbed Kozmik Kat by the scruff of the neck. “Back where I come from, megaheroes work in teams.”