“Hey, wait a minute!” Kozmik Kat protested, his paws flailing about, as he tried to wriggle free from my grasp. “My powers are no good in a fight scene, Ms. Megaton.” But it was too late; we were already far out over water and ascending rapidly in the frigid night air.

More amazing was the fact that I was out over the water, too—me, who hadn’t flown under my own megapower since last summer. But I guess being a megahero is like riding a bike; I had lifted off from the roof of the six-story Doomsday Factory, crossed the gravelly road and rocky shoreline, and was easily a thousand up and feet over the Upper Bay of New York.

Below, the lights of the Port of New York and New Jersey, with its cargo container ships and gantry cranes, was coming into view.

“Suit yourself,” I said to Koz. “I’m heading for the Statue of Liberty; if you don’t want to come along, go back to Bayonne.”

I let go of him; he screamed, “Nooooo!” as he quickly dropped fifty feet. “I can’t fly!”

Then, to his amazement, Kozmik Kat realized he could fly. Still dozens of feet above the loading docks, he recovered his bearings.

“Hey, this is pretty cool,” he remarked, zooming back up alongside me. “We make a good team, you and I. Now, where’s the trouble, Ms. Megaton?”

“Straight ahead, remember?” I said. “Mr. Megaton and the President Elect of the United States are clobbering one another.”

“Oh, right,” said Koz. “But, where are they?”

Cats have excellent night vision, but even Kozmik Kat was having trouble locating the two men in tights battling in a vast, pitch-black sky.

“I’m having trouble tracking them myself,” I confessed. “They were there just a moment ago. I know, because we were following them.”

But all we could see now were searchlights combing a starless night sky.

***

We both sped along in almost total darkness now, the only the light emanating from New Jersey half a mile behind us and Manhattan several miles ahead in the distance; this provided meager illumination, just enough to ripple on the reflective surface of the water a thousand feet below us.

Then, I caught a brief glimpse of the two Megabeings as a stray beam caught them; they were scurrying after one another like two birds trying to chase the other off. Already, they were nearly a mile out over the bay; the searchlights from the New Jersey shore found it difficult to track their herky-jerky movements. Mr. Megaton and Bad Guy were constantly darting into the light, only to be punched or thrown out by the other again.

I tapped the temple of my visor out of habit; computer readouts appeared in front my eyes telling me my elevation, velocity, distance from land, and so on. The visor somehow locked onto to the two distant figures of Mr. Megaton and Bad Guy and kept them in view even when they disappeared to the naked eye, as if targets in an aerial combat simulation.

Evidently, I was patched into the same computer network that helped me navigate my flights back in my own reality, although I wasn’t sure how this was even possible in the civilian Reality, where my visor shouldn’t be linked to anything.

“My visor must be picking up wireless waves from my home reality,” I reported to Koz. “The basic geography’s still the same, although a few of the manmade structures are different.”

“My goggles are pretty amazing too, ,” said Kozmik Kat sarcastically. “Although they’re not computer-enabled, they show me intermittent glimpses of Mr. Megaton and Bad Guy beating the living daylights out of each other, dead ahead.”

The searchlights from the shore had converged now and were locked onto the figures of Mr. Megaton and Bad Guy. They were almost over the middle of the Upper Bay, equidistant from the Statue of Liberty, the gantry cranes and cargo container ships of the port, and the skyscrapers of New York. It occurred to me this was almost the exact spot where I had tangled with the Human Meltdown in my reality.

We were still hundreds of yards away from the battle but closing in fast.

“What do you propose we do?” asked Koz. “You’re not thinking of trying to pry them apart, are you? I can see how that might cut into my nine-lives thing. I say we let them tire themselves out first, then pick up the pieces.”

Picking up the pieces, in this case, would likely mean dredging two drowned Megabeings from the water, a thought I didn’t particularly relish; those two bulky, over-muscled bodies didn’t look to me like they could let fly, much less float. Yet there they were, trading jabs as well as verbal barbs.

“As long as we can keep America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero and the President-Elect of the United States them away from Lower Manhattan or Newark, at least no civilians will be endangered,” I told Koz.

“Maybe they’ll talk themselves to death,” said Koz. “Are you digging their crazy chatter?”

***

It was eerie how quiet it was over the water, the evening traffic of New Jersey and New York a muffled rumble in the distance. Hundreds of feet above the water, sound waves didn’t even have the ground beneath our feet to reverberate against; the voices of the two combatants, Mr. Megaton and Bad Guy, seemed muffled and small in the thin, breezeless air.

“Your evil schemes will never prevail, Bart,” Trent Pflug shouted while recoiling fifty feet and recovering from a sock in the jaw delivered by Bad Guy. “America will never accept a megavillain president.”

“What are you talking about?” replied Bart, who hovered in place while rubbing his own black eye, dealt to him by Mr. Megaton. “I already won a fair and square by a landslide—and through intricate rigging. The Electoral College and swearing in are mere formalities; your brand of heroism is doomed, Mr. Megaton. Your only option is to join me—or die!”

“It will never be the latter,” said Trent, his farm-boy diction having drastically improved since gaining megapowers. “America is the land of the free and the home of the brave; it will never accept the tyranny of a dictator.”

“You overestimate the intelligence of the average voter, Mr. Megaton,” said Bad Guy. “They don’t want democratic representation—or equality and fair play, for that matter. Americans are far too craven and selfish for that. They want a cheap, two-bit banana republic strong man—like me—to appease their baser instinct. The power elites have systematically dumbed-down the populace for decades—swapping science education for Bible superstitions and fairytales. Critical thinking has been subverting through relentless Madison Avenue advertising and mindless Hollywood entertainment. The working classes are convinced their miserable destinies to be aligned with those of the billionaires who exploit them—who couldn’t care less whether they lived or died, had clean water or air, or minimal healthcare coverage.”

“You’re leaving out stoking the flames of racism and homophobia,” added Trent.

“That goes without saying,” said Bart. “The American dream is a lottery ticket that never pays off, a carton of cigarettes that gives you cancer, and a girly magazine.”

I wished Avie could have been here; this was actually a reasonably lofty discussion for a fight scene.

“How dare you,” said Mr. Megaton, “impugn girly magazines. It’s … un-American!”

“The point is, it was all set up for the likes of me, don’t you see?” boasted Bad Guy. “For years it was milquetoast politicians with faithful wives and two-point-three kids who never said ‘Darn.’ By the time I came along, the electorate was looking for a loudmouthed, narcissistic braggart who boasted he could get the job done—even if he was a total incompetent. All I had to do was walk right in and set up shop. Government is nothing more than the same strong-arm racket and immigrant patronage scheme it was in the days of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall; America’s been a crooked country since before Plymouth Rock. And if you believe that ‘City on a Hill’ bullcrap, you’re nothing but a damn a fool.”

“I’ll always believe in truth, justice, and the American way, Bad Guy!” exclaimed Trent. “And the sanctity of girly magazines!”

The figures raced toward one another again, colliding with terrific force; all Koz and I could do was keep at a safe distance of a few hundred feet away.

***

It was disorienting enough, after so long away from being Ms. Megaton Man, to be floating hundreds of feet in the air in almost pitch-blackness, except for the glaring searchlight beams that occasionally glanced off the struggling figures of Mr. Megaton and Bad Guy. It was a sense of weightlessness and irreality, almost like being on the moon or outer space, accompanied by a talking cat.

But then I heard behind us, coming from the direction of Bayonne and the promontory of the Doomsday Factory, the sounds of the whirling rotors of a helicopter.

“A Bell 206L Longranger,” said Kozmik Kat of the approaching chopper. “A good getaway vehicle; it seats seven.”

“How do you know so much?” I asked. “You’ve only been cognizant for like—what? Days?”

“I avail myself of my public library card,” said Koz.

The chopper projected its own searchlight beam, which it projected onto the Mr. Megaton and Bad Guy. Making a broad circle around us, we could make out the words:

Intercept Copters – ’Heli-Heavy Lifting, Inc.

Sure enough, it was the vehicle ICHHL had provided for our escape from the Doomsday Factory, in case we needed it. Now Gene Griffin was using it to end this showdown with Bad Guy-but how exactly did he plan to accomplish that?

More astonishing than the appearance of the chopper was seeing Stella Starlight in the cockpit. After it circled behind us and established a hovering, stationary position, she took the controls from Gene while he took aim with a sharpshooter’s rifle pointed outside the open side window.

“Stella developed an antidote to the Mega-Soldier Syrup, along with the syrup itself,” Koz explained, “ in case she needed to counteract the effect of the drug itself. He must have a dart loaded up and ready to go.”

“What does he plan to do, de-power Bad Guy in mid-air?” I said. “At this height, it will be tantamount to murder.”

Gene was trying to get a bead on Bad Guy, but was having trouble. For one thing, the battle between Mr. Megaton and Bad Guy kept shifting around, and presumably Gene didn’t want to hit Trent by mistake. For another, even though the winds were calm, Stella proved to be a bit nervous and an unsteady hand on the controls.

Finally, me and Koz kept getting in-between the chopper and the battle.

Trent was now showing signs of tiring. Bart Gamble, a tough thug to begin with, was already a pit bull of muscle; amped up with radioactive energy, he was a more-than-even match for Mr. Megaton. Also, he was a dirty fighter.

I lost sight of Trent momentarily as a kick to his crotch evinced a “Woo!” from him and sent him careening off into the blackness, outside the spotlight from the New Jersey shoreline.

“Oof,” said Koz sympathetically. “That’s gotta hurt.”

I could feel the blow myself in my ovaries.

Bad Guy grimaced and glowered, clasping his hands over his head and waving them like a boxing champion in the searchlight beams. Floating in mid-air, he failed to notice he was now alone, offering a clear target for Gene.

“Get out of the way, Stupid!” shouted a bullhorn from the chopper. It was the voice of Avie, my sister, who’d come along for the ride. “Drop down or something!”

What the hell was she doing here? That’s all I needed—one additional thing to worry about.

Bad Guy grinned as he turned his attention to the chopper—another target for his malevolence. “Heh, heh,” he laughed, as he began flying toward Koz and me, as well as the chopper. He planned to knock it out of the sky, killing the three people aboard.

I managed to cut Bart off; his frame was massive, even moreso than Samson “Nuke” McSampson, the closest thing to a megahero I’d ever seen up close. Bad Guy crashed into me and miraculously, I stopped him; he attempted to brush aside my slight frame, but remarkably, I wouldn’t budge. Instead, I punched him square in the snot locker.

Bad Guy was stunned. Blood running from his nose, he whelped like a simpering child:

“You brote my nose! You brote my nose!”

He shouted and swore at me, feeling his probiscis delicately through his purple-gloved fingers.

“I struck the President Elect of the United States!” I said to myself, shocked. “We’re all going to jail for sure!”

***

What happened next was a blur, it happened so fast. I heard the rifle shot go off, even above the deafening rotors; I winced my eyes shut as I felt a piercing jab in my arm. Gene, apparently, had taken his best shot with the Mega-Soldier Syrup antidote but somehow missed, hitting me.

My brain clouded with darkness; I felt myself plunging toward the frigid, murky bay waters below me.

Is this how it ends, I wondered? Losing the megapowers I never asked for and falling to an ignominious death in a civilian Reality so far from home?

“Snap out of it, Missy!” cried Kozmik Kat. He’d clamped onto my arm, his sharp, megapowered talons about the only thing that could pierce my Quarantinium-Quelluminum uniform. “You can go through your romanticized death-throes some other time; right now, Bart Gamble’s in trouble!”

Gene hadn’t struck me at all; instead, it was Bart who was reeling, a syringe dart in his bulldog neck. His Pedro Dilletante Escobar-designed costume, although very chic, was made of conventional stretch purple lamé, nowhere near as protective as my uniform. He plucked the empty syringe out of his muscled neck, looked at it dumbly, and flicked it off; it dropped out of sight, toward the water below.

“Is it going to work?” asked Kozmik Kat. “Rex amped up Bad Guy with plutonium, not a serum. Is an antidote injection capable of countering that?”

“You mean you haven’t had time to study mad science since you’ve become Kozmik Kat?” I asked. “I expected you to already know the answer.”

“No, but I can see Bart’s in trouble,” remarked Koz. “He’s losing buoyancy!”

Koz’s claws were still piercing my skin. “Leggo my arm,” I yelled at Koz. “You’re snagging the fabric! No wonder Yarn Man hated you as a sidekick!”

“A man made of yarn?” asked Koz, intrigued. “What a wonderful idea for a megahero!”

He let go as I dove like a dive bomber after the plummeting body of the President-Elect of the United States.

I somehow caught up to Bart and grabbed him from behind under his arms; I began to pull upward, slowing his fall. We were still hundreds of feet over the water, with no ships anywhere in sight, but still hurtling at a velocity likely to kill a civilian—even a civilian as tough as the now-megapowerless Bad Guy.

I groaned as I struggled against Bart’s weight, managing to slow his fall, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

“Koz! Help!” I screamed.

In my home reality, Kozmik Kat and I had been able to halt a plummeting Q-Mobile; but in this reality, Koz was still high above me.

Suddenly out of the darkness emerged the golden figure of Mr. Megaton. Sufficiently recovered from the groin-punch he’d endured, he grabbed Bart under the right shoulder; between the two of us, Trent and me, we were able to slow Bad Guy’s fall and come to stop several dozen feet over the water.

Bart, shaken up by the ordeal, on top of losing his megapowers, was dizzy and speechless.

***

The battle had shifted over the water to such an extent that Liberty Island was now the nearest land mass to us. Trent and I airlifted the pliant form of Bart Gamble, President-Elect of the United States, over the waters of Upper New York Bay toward the Statue of Liberty. It wasn’t easy work; by the time we made landfall, we were both fairly winded.

What had possessed us to save Bad Guy? I pondered this silently during the long flight to shore. I suppose it was some innate instinct us good guys have—even though the rat tried to kill my sister and I thought about dropping him in the drink so he could drown.

The National Park was only open during daylight hours; the tourist crowds brought by ferries from Lower Manhattan by way of Ellis Island had long since returned home. But the island wasn’t uninhabited; a television camera crew had lights set up and was shooting locations shots of a reporter south of the statue’s base. Apparently, they had been intrigued by the flailing searchlights over the bay and had watched the entire battle unfold, even though their most powerful telephoto lenses could barely pick up Mr. Megaton Man and Bad Guy as more than tiny specs. They watched Mr. Megaton and me as we landed, followed by Kozmik Kat and Gene, Stella, and Avie in the helicopter, their cameras trained on us all the while.

The reporter was none other than Pamela Jointly, a complete stranger to Trent Pflug in this alternate reality, but still recognizing a good story when she saw one.

“Good Lord!” Pammy exclaimed. She described for her tape-delayed audience, “Megaheroes just saved the President-Elect of the United States, who must have fallen out of that helicopter without a parachute while wearing a peculiar purple, skin-tight costume. What do you have to say about megapowered costumed characters now, Bart Gamble?”

Bart, who was still sluggish from both losing his megapowers and his harrowing fall, was unresponsive, and barely able to sputter an indistinct “Homina, homina, homina”; it was Kozmik Kat who leapt to the microphone.

“I think I can speak on behalf of the President-Elect,” exclaimed Kozmik Kat, “by saying that the Gamble administration will be the most megahero-friendly White House in U.S. history. Either that, or we’ll throw him out of a helicopter again.”