Rather than think about the upcoming spring semester and the courses I’d be taking or teaching, I spent the evening pondering the conference paper I promised myself I’d write, the abstract for which had to be submitted by the end of January if I wanted to be included in the program at the end of March. My thesis advisor, Dr. Dolores Finch, had recommended the opportunity to me back in August, but I had procrastinated on the extracurricular project all semester, though it lingered in the back of my mind like a sword of Damocles over my head. Now with the semester and my foray in the civilian Reality over, I finally had some free head space; it was now or never.

I read over the flyer I’d grabbed at the office to remind myself the theme of the conference, hosted by the Hypothetics Studies Society: “Postmonohistoricism and Transaltern Surrealities: Anti-Contemporaneity in a Post-Narrative World.” Oowee, those hypo studies scholars sure can lay the jargon on thick. Being in the more utilitarian and unfashionable academic backwater of urban social relations and policy planning myself, I felt like a complete clod in comparison, in over my head and lacking the requisite hifalutin vocabulary. But Dolores said I should give it the old college try …

I located my Statue of Liberty blank book where I left it, on my milk-crate bookshelf next to my gently used copy of the Zane Hancock Guide to Linguistic Criticism and Hypothetical Terminology, fifth edition. At least I wouldn’t have to do any research, thank God. Since the past summer, my two trips to the civilian Reality, my visit to the Forbidden Future, and other experiences since becoming Ms. Megaton Man two and a half years ago would be sufficient background to theorize about “Hypothetical Multimensionality.” But I was sure going to need Zane to beef up the buzzwords.

In my case, my topic wouldn’t be hypothetical at all; it would be my own musings on how I thought the Multimensions worked. After all, I had considerable experience hopping dimensions and timelines, viewing and visiting alternate realities, and communicating across the Dimensional Divide; that had to count for something. On the other hand, practical experience as opposed to intellectual theorizing might be grounds to disqualify my paper.

I pushed such doubts out of my mind and began filling the blank book with stream-of-consciousness notes, ramblings, and makeshift explanations to myself, along with several outstanding questions I still had—about the split universe, how it rejoined, how alternate realities seem to spin off willy-nilly, and how dreams, daydreams, fiction, and lies interrelate. I spilled my guts and emptied my head of everything: reappearing skyscrapers, Time Turntables, Dimensional Doorways, Heteroreality Helmets, Cosmic Cue-Balls, Burly Boys and Girly Men, Mega-Soldier Syrup, and teams of Youthful Permutations. I even meditated on Winnie Wertz’s theory, the Tragic Realization of Temporal-Dimensional Travel, and why it might only apply to artificial, technological means, not to mystical-astral travel.

I just channeled everything in my mind and downloaded it into my blank book. When I needed a break, I skimmed through Zane. I like to think in lucid moments some of the terminology, like “a priori,” “heuristic epistemology,” “praxis,” and “always already” made sense to me.

I don’t know how long I went at it but it was way into the wee hours of the night before I conked out on the living room sofa.

***

When I awoke the next morning, Avie still hadn’t come home. I fed Dr. Sax again, brewed a pot of coffee, and continued making notes. I didn’t bother taking a shower or changing my clothes; I reveled in my funk, as all grad students and ecstatic hermetic visionaries do. I continued filling up the blank book all morning; it was nearly two-thirds full. I read some of it back; it actually seemed to make sense. Maybe I’m a genius.

Now, I’m not much of a stylish writer in the best of times; my workmanlike verbiage is only good enough for scholarly papers and the like. But this felt more like a diary or a journal combined with creative writing than a typical academic writing project. Obviously, I was drawing on my own subjective experience—what I knew and what I believed—rather than referencing authoritative sources. It probably would be rejected for the conference, I was convinced; but it didn’t matter. None of the great thinkers we studied in school—Plato, Vico, Kant, Hegel, Simmel—wrote to get published or pad their curricula vitae.

I made up my mind to tell the honest truth. I didn’t plan to give away the secret identities of any of my friends in the actual paper, but in my notes I used real names whenever I could recall them and tried to be as factual as possible. I knew if I tried using pseudonyms or code names at this stage I’d only get confused later on; I would wait and turn the whole thing into a Roman à clef to protect the innocent in the final draft. I just hoped my little Statue of Liberty blank book would never fall into the wrong hands in the meantime.

I wasn’t sure I was equipped to explain how the Multimensions worked, even to myself, let alone be able to boil it all down to a concise hypothesis I could convey to anybody else. In fact, there were moments I doubted what I was writing would ever make any sense to anybody. The history I knew of my reality since Dr. Helveticus Brainard had split it into respective Megaton and Meltdown Universes was spotty at best. Even less did I understand how or when the two megaheroic realities began to reintegrate. But I was pretty sure they had; after all, a Megaton and a Meltdown had hooked up and produced an offspring, a Megaton-Meltdown. I knew him as little Simon Phloog, the son of Megaton Man and the See-Thru Girl.

***

The phone rang. I looked at the clock; it was already afternoon. It was Avie.

“Mama and me are going up to Frankenmuth to look at ornaments and stuff,” she said. “We were wondering if you wanted to come along.”

“No, I’m into this thing I’m writing,” I said. “You two have fun.”

“Do you need anything? How’s your hip, by the way?”

“Oh, I’m fine. This is your regular old sister, by the way. Clarissa Too went back home to the civilian Reality. You’ll have to make do with me for the holidays.”

“Oh,” said Avie, disappointed. “I’m going to miss her. But Mama will be so thrilled to have you back for Christmas!”

“Don’t tell her,” I said. “I want it to be a surprise.”

I gave Avie a list of groceries she could pick up on her way home.

We hung up. Before I could return to my notes, the phone rang again.

“Oh, and we also need some more cat food,” I said.

“Uh, this is Trent,” replied the voice on the other end. “How’ve you been?” He explained with Christmas Eve was coming up, Stella would like everybody to come over; Simon especially was looking forward to seeing everybody again. “We were wondering if you and Avie had any plans.”

“I’ll have to ask her, but I’m sure we’d love to,” I said. “By the way, this is regular Clarissa you’re speaking to, before you go getting any ideas.”

“Oh, that’s great,” said Trent. “All three of you can come, just like Thanksgiving.”

“Sorry, my counterpart’s gone home to the civilian Reality,” I said. “Only it’s not so civilian anymore.”

I couldn’t tell if Trent was disappointed or relieved, but he insisted, “That’s fine. But just a reminder—no megaheroes; Stella’s being very strict about that.” Then, after a pause, he added, “Wait, Clarissa Too didn’t tell you about …”

“I’m afraid she did,” I replied, laughing. “The back room of a used bookstore, Trent? Jesus Christ.”

“Woo! Is nothing private?! That’s not what I was after, Clarissa, honest.”

“No worries,” I said.

I assured Trent I would discuss Christmas Eve with Avie and that Mama was most likely free as well, and that I would leave my Ms. Megaton Man uniform in the closet.

“Come to think of it, I need to do some Christmas shopping myself in the next few days,” I added. “I’d like to get my sister a guitar.”

“I didn’t know she played music,” said Trent. “I thought she just did theater.”

“She’s very talented musically,” I said. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“But sure, there’s Grinnell’s in Ypsilanti, and a few other places we could try,” said Trent. “I’m free Monday; that’s my day off.”

“I’m sure you are,” I said.

“I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?”

“Nope.”

***

When Trent pulled into the alley behind the apartment, Simon was in tow, just to demonstrate this would be a purely platonic outing. “Aunt Sissa!” he cried, as I hopped into the car.

We drove out to Ypsilanti; at Grinnell’s, I picked up a beat-up old country and western guitar—it looked like the very one Avie Too had played as Melody Chrysanthemum. We also shopped at a few other places and stopped a burger place; Simon was jonesing for some French fries and a shake.

Over lunch, I told Trent I was working on a paper based on my extracurricular experiences.

“About being a megahero?” he asked.

“Bigger than that,” I said. “It’s about how all these alternate realities work. How you can get to them on the Time Turntable or the Dimensional Doorway, but you can also sometime access them in your dreams or by meditation.”

“You should really talk to Stella,” he said. “She’s the speculative quantum physicist, or her dad, Seymour—he’s a practical physicist. Or Imelda, she’s the psychic. I’m not sure how much use I’ll be; those discussions go right over my head.”

“What I really wanted to ask you was when the two realities fused back together.”

“Which two realities might those be?”

“The Federal and the Timeless,” I said. “Megaton Man is from one reality and the Meltdowns are from another.”

“They are?” said Trent. “I guess I remember you mentioning that. Honestly, I never paid that much attention.”

I explained what I knew about Helveticus Brainard’s attempt to split the Mutanium Particle, which had resulted only in splitting reality itself apart, and the subsequent origins of the Original Golden Age Megaton in the Federal Universe and Major Meltdown in the Timeless.

“Then there was the Silver Age Megaton Man—your cousin Clyde, my father—and Junior Meltdown, followed by the Bronze Age Megaton Man—you—and the Human Meltdown—Chuck Roast, Stella’s brother. Didn’t you ever wonder why the Megatons and the Meltdowns never heard of each other for all those years, when each of you were supposed to be America’s Nuclear-Powered Heroes? Then, all of a sudden, you existed in the same reality.”

“Yeah, that always kind of puzzled me,” said Trent. “We originated in two separate realities? That would explain a lot about my relationship with Stella. But how did they fuse back together?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“Search me,” said Trent. “I never heard of the Human Meltdown when I was growing up, but I just thought that was just because I came from a small town.”

Trent had a point; I had never heard of superheroes outside of comic books before I went to school in Ann Arbor.

“They fused back together, all right,” I said. “The living proof is sitting right next to you, eating French fries and sipping a vanilla shake.”

I saw that I was getting nowhere recounting what little history I knew, so I decided to take another tack.

“When did you first meet the Human Meltdown?” I asked. “Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” said Trent. “How could I forget? It was on the Fourth of July, 1976.”

“Bicentennial Day?” I asked. “You mean the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence?”

“Yep,” said Trent. “That’s when I met the Megatropolis Quartet for the first time. I’d never heard of them before; it struck me as strange, how they kept referring to ‘New York City’ all the time—I’d never heard that term before, either.”

I pulled my Statue of Liberty blank book from my bag and got out a mechanical pencil.

“You better tell me the whole thing, from the beginning,” I said. “I’m taking notes.”

“Okay,” said Trent, wiping ketchup and vanilla shake from Simon’s lips and fingers. “But first, this fella’s going to need more French fries and another vanilla shake.”

After Simon was resupplied, I took up my pencil and book again.

“Okay,” I said. “Let ‘er rip.”

What followed from Trent’s mouth was an origin story the Hypothetics Studies Society never wanted anyone to hear.