The Amazing Adventures of the Sensational Squirrelman

Utterly Normal Issue Six!

I am known as… the Sentinel! I watch the world unfold, and see all that is, was and might be! I have witnessed the adventures of Matthew Mattheson, trapped in a body that is only vaguely his own, as he sought answers to his dilemma. I have watched him fight crime and carry on the work his predecessor began, believing himself to be suffering from some coma-inducing head trauma. But what of that predecessor? What of the mind that originally inhabited the grey guardian of Lower Uptown’s body? Let me cast my gaze out beyond the veil that parts alternities and watch the former Squirrelman as he enjoys his…

Adventures in Accounting!

Matthew woke up the way he normally did this past month, feeling refreshed and relaxed. He got up and showered as he normally did, made breakfast and listened to the morning news… a robbery in the North district, the mayor lying about doing something about street repair, the local baseball team doing as poorly as they ever did… the usual. All so refreshingly normal. No madmen bent on world domination. No alien invasions. No Nazi gorillas. No costumed criminals trying to destroy the city with giant robots or anti-human ray guns.

He still wasn’t used to his body – he kept stumbling into things, tripping, and stubbing his toes. The reflexes in this body were absurdly slow, and without his squirrel senses to warn him, he had been hitting his head and bumping into people. For the first week, he was a mass of bruises and contusions from walking into things and hurting himself. He was also incredibly out of shape – although not compared to most people he had seen in the past month. Comparatively speaking the body was in shape, but in comparison with the way his normal body was conditioned, he was woefully out of shape.

He had been convinced, at first, that he was trapped inside one of Doctor Dementia’s dream constructs, but slowly he had become convinced of only one possibility – that he had somehow switched places with one of his alterselves.

And an alterself from one of the most backward, primitive alternities he had ever heard of. They still had radio and internal combustion cars. They still had binary computer systems, and they had barely explored the Solar System. He had four remote controls for his home entertainment system! No one had invented voice activation yet! They had diseases like cancer and diabetes, which Matt had read about in history class, but had never heard of anyone actually suffering from. At least they didn’t have Random Mutation Syndrome or Alien Spores or technoviral cyberdex infection.

Even Action City wasn’t Action City – it was still Indianapolis, which he’d also read about in history books but never seen, since it no longer existed back home. He spent hours exploring the old city, the streets and avenues and boulevards that had existed before Crater Lake had been formed.

And there were other benefits as well. Mr. Accountant may not exist, but M&R Accounting was doing well enough for a small firm. Matt had forgotten how much he enjoyed the personal touch of non-business related accounting – the feeling that he was actually helping a person or family, instead of making more money for a big faceless business or corporation. He had studied it in History of Accounting and had enjoyed it, but nothing really compared with real life experience. And the tax forms were so ludicrously complex! If it weren’t for the odd flashes of memory that kept him informed about this world and his place in it, he never would have been able to muddle through them. He still felt a sense of personal triumph every time he successfully completed a tax form and found the loopholes in their red tape laden system, the multiple ways of saving money if you just had the eye to find them.

He got to the bus stop early and waited in the smoke and fumes of traffic. This world was so noisy and polluted it disgusted him that they allowed it to continue, like they enjoyed wallowing in their own filth. But he was stuck here until something happened to bring him back, since there was no such branch of physics as alternity physics in this alternity. He had figured out, after several hours at his computer, how to use the internet, and had searched and searched all the university web sites for information about possible exploration of alternate dimensions, only to find it was almost universally part of some English Department class studying science fiction.

Since he was stuck, he put up with it as much as he could.

And his stamp collection was exquisite! It had grown and evolved and been added to over the years since the alien invasion and the explosion of weird energies that had turned him into Squirrelman. And had even branched out into coin collecting, which he had never had time to explore. He had so much time on his hands now that he was only leading one life that he often found himself opening a binder at random and losing hours upon hours in quiet contemplation of his stamps and coins.

When he got to his stop he disembarked with a pleasant “See ya tomorrow,” to the bus driver and headed into M&R Accounting. He saw Stretch – Ron, Ron, he reminded himself - over in the kitchenette making coffee.

“Hiya Ron,” Matthew smiled.

“Morning Matthew,” Ron called. “Sleep well?”

“Like a baby,” Matthew answered, setting his briefcase beside his desk and booting up his computer. In the entrance, he heard the door open and Ron greet Mandy.

That was the other thing that was definitely a benefit of this alternity. Mandy was still alive. It had taken losing her to realize that he loved her… and then he’d had to fight her zombified body… It was horrible, what had happened. But not as horrible as having never had the nerve to tell her how he felt.

He had been determined to do so since arriving here in this alternity, but he had discovered an odd sense of hesitancy that he hadn’t felt since he’d become Squirrelman. Squirrelman had enough confidence for two or three normal men. Matthew, it seemed, was not nearly so confident. But he would ask her out tonight, and confidence be damned.

He spent the day quietly working on personal accounts, calmly adding and subtracting, keeping the books for some small businesses and helping real people earn their savings and put away for their retirement. He didn’t need to administer a staff of twenty, he didn’t have to meet with huge corporate heads to keep them happy with his services. All he had to do was add and subtract.

By the end of the day he was tired but felt an odd sense of accomplishment. He was content. And he had one thing left to do today. Ron had left for home, but Mandy had stayed late to help Matthew finish up on one last account.

Matthew took a deep breath and called, “Mandy?”

She popped her head into his office with a smile. “Yes, Matthew?”

“We’re about finished here,” he said. “Do you… um…”

She stepped fully into his office, and looked at him inquiringly.

“Man, who would have thought this was going to be so hard?” he muttered to himself. He looked up and smiled at her. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Mandy, do you want to grab some dinner?”

Mandy smiled back and said, “It’s about time you asked me that, Matthew Mattheson.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while,” Matthew admitted. “It’s taken me a while to work up the nerve.”

“So I noticed,” Mandy asked. “What made you finally do it?”

“I realized that if I didn’t there was a good chance I would never get the chance,” he said. “You… haven’t answered the question, Mandy.”

“You’re right, I haven’t,” Mandy answered without answering. “I want you to know that I’ve been waiting a long time for you to ask me that. Especially this last month, it’s been pretty obvious you wanted to ask me. I want to know why you’ve waited this long to ask me.”

“I… Well, aside from the obvious employer, employee thing, I guess… I mean, I didn’t know how I felt about you, until I lost… I mean, until I thought about what life would be like without you. I didn’t like imagining it. Not a bit. And so I thought… well, I knew I had to ask you, because if I didn’t I’d always regret it.”

She stepped forward and went to him, leaning down and kissing him soundly.

“Well, let’s hope you never have to find out,” Mandy said. “The answer is yes.”

Yes, this alternity has benefits, alright, he thought as her soft lips caressed his own.

A few days passed. Mandy and he dated twice during the week that followed, and although he really wanted to progress to a more physical level he was intrigued by the slow dance they were playing. In his own alternity, he and Ragdoll had gone all the way almost right away – in a world where you took your life in your own hands just going to the store for milk – because aliens could invade or demons could pop through the floor or some psycho in a bad costume could use you as a human shield – you didn’t waste time with dating and slow progression, the build up and tension of sexual desire. So he was contented to go slow in this world… it was kind of nice.

One day at lunch, he and Ron were coming back from seeing a client and stopped for a corner hot dog and soda.

“So… no more dreams, Matthew?” Ron asked around a mouthful of hot dog.

“Dreams?”

“Yeah, you know, Squirrelman dreams.”

Matthew stopped chewing and looked at his partner and friend.

“Squirrelman dreams… no,” Matthew said, his mouth half full. “No more dreams about Squirrelman.”

“Good,” Ron nodded. “I was getting worried about you pal.”

“Yeah, I was getting worried about myself,” Matthew agreed.

Squirrelman dreams. This alterself had been having dreams about him. That explained a few things. He’d never really understood alternity physics, but trans-alternity telepathic contact wasn’t completely unknown. It certainly explained why he’d been having those unexplained headaches… he’d thought they were stress related.

And he had certainly had enough stress back home. Running a company that was just starting to be big enough to attract the big fish, he’d been pulling double overtime by day, and going out at night to patrol his turf. His press had become pretty bad, mostly because he was taking out his frustrations on the perps and enjoying it. Okay, maybe he’d been a little harsher than was necessary… and the whole thing with Ragdoll… she had suddenly gotten serious, exchanging real life names and all that just at a moment when he didn’t need something else to tie him down, some other responsibility to fill his life with. He had enough to do.

He supposed that this alterself had seen his life as boring and uneventful. He saw it as a nice easy going existence, with no real stress. No one was trying to kill him on a regular basis. Crime was pretty well controlled by the police, who didn’t need the help of costumed crimefighters to help deal with costumed criminals. No aliens had invaded, unless you believed the fictional television shows he saw on science fiction channels. No demons. No psycho serial killing nut jobs with spider fixations. All in all, this life was pretty easy. And pretty good. It felt like he was on vacation every day.

And if his alterself was having dreams about Squirrelman… it certainly explained where his alterself had gone. If Matt Mattheson was here, then Matthew Mattheson had to be there. Matt hoped his alterself was enjoying himself. He was self aware enough to put himself in his alterself’s shoes and saw how Squirrelman’s life could seem exciting and desirable. So if they had traded places… who had traded them? It couldn’t be a fluke accident… someone had to be behind it all. But who?

“Matthew.”

Ron’s voice pulled him out of his musings.

“Sorry, Ron,” Matthew smiled. “Sort of got lost there.”

“I noticed,” Ron smirked. “Have a nice trip?”

Matthew smiled.

“I’ll let you know if I ever get back home,” he said, clapping his friend on the shoulder.