Harry strapped on his bicycle helmet and took his customary deep breath before plunging into the pre-dawn that lay between him and PCs or Bust!  Another day of doing battle with the recalcitrant Tandem computer and all the arcane procedures that bristled around it like barbed wire.  The commute had become more onerous since the company had moved him out to the new Hellengone facility out by the old nuclear power plant.  Harry sighed again.
    "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ...," he mumbled.
    He wished he could fly away like a bird.
    "Creeps at this petty pace from day to day ..."
    Or a superhero!  Yeah, that was it.  Wouldn't the gang be surprised to see him crashing through the front window unscathed, setting off that annoying alarm, winking, flying off again.
    "Till the last syllable of recorded time ..."
    He could do whatever he wanted!  Ride the winds wherever he chose!  No more pagers going off at 2 a.m.  No more of the desperate drudgery, the ponderous bureaucracy, the tyranny of the bottom line.
    "And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death ..."
    Why couldn't he have an interesting and meaningful existence?  Why couldn't it be he as well as anyone else?  Why not a well-placed nuclear accident?  Now that he had to pass by the old Twin Towers anyway.  Maybe he could acquire the fantastic powers of some noble insect.  Spiders had been done, of course, but what about an ant?  The powers of an ant transferred to a human being!  They were strong little buggers!  Strong and industrious!  And they could really keep a straight line!  But they couldn't fly, except maybe during swarming season.  Better reconsider that.  But how about a bee?  Not only could they fly, but they were just as industrious as ants, and they could sting and make honey!  Yeah, but it was one sting and yer out with them.  Wasps!  Yeah, they didn't die after one sting! Waspman!
    Speaking, or thinking, of the Twin Towers, there they were, just coming up on the right.
    "Wonder what that green glow is," Harry mused.

    "Shovel that plutonium in there!  Whattaya think this is, state government?  Time is money!"
    "But we're not supposed to do it that way, Sir.  It's against regulations."
    "Whattaya doin' readin' that stuff, anyway?  Waste of time!  Time is money!"
    "Um, it's supposed to be very dangerous, Sir.  Caused that accident in Japan, you know."
    "Yeah, but they're stupider than we are!  We don't make dumb mistakes like that!  Haven't had an accident yet ..."

    It hit Harry like a wall of oatmeal.  Down he went in a tangle of derailleurs, handlebars, and radioactive discharge.  And at just that moment, a scavenging cockroach blundered in.

    The clean-up crew looked like a platoon of antlike alien invaders, each in identical safety gear.  That was what made the other insect-like intruder seem so out of place.
    "Hey, Joe!  I thought they'd evacuated four city blocks.  So, who's that?"
    "Yeah," said Joe.  "I was wondering about that.  Since the radioactive pollution extends for miles, how come only four blocks, Bert?"
    "Hey, you don't want to panic people unnecessarily."
    "Unnecessarily?"
    "Look, you're getting off the point.  Who's that?  I mean, what's that?"
    The six-foot cockroach had only now come into full view.  "I am Manroach!" he roared.  "Still possessed of my roach's body and roach's soul, but, thanks to this freak nuclear accident, I have acquired all of the powers and attributes of a man!"
    What?  Oh, you thought Harry ...  No no no no no.  It's roaches that are impervious to radiation, not humans.  Harry is dead as a post.  But back to our story.
    "So, what human characteristics do you have?" asked Joe.  "Other than the ability to hold a conversation?"
    "That's man, not human.  I'm selfish, greedy, violent, lustful, and unable to make a commitment.  And I never ask for directions.  Then there's my size, of course.  I'm as big as a man, but I'm still flat enough to scoot under doors!" replied Manroach modestly.  "Did I leave anything out?"
    "Here!  I happen to have a can of Raid," Bert offered.
    "Hah!" scoffed Manroach.  "Your puny poisons have no effect on me!"  And he grabbed the can, ripped off the top with whatever it is that roaches use for teeth, and drank down the contents.
    "Bert!" squeaked Joe.  "Do you happen to have that AK-47 handy?"
    "Well, of course," said Bert reassuringly.  "Always carry it in the back of the pickup."  In a twinkling, he was spraying the roach creature with automatic weapons fire.
    "Hah!" repeated Manroach, seizing Bert's assault rifle.  "Your puny weapons have no effect on my Super Chitin!"
    "Are you chitin me?" blubbered Bert.
    "Hah!" said Manroach again.  It was his favorite word.  "Puny" was second.  He poked Bert in the eye and Joe in the nose.  Then he smashed in Bert's windshield with the butt of the AK-47.  With that, he took wing over the comatose city.  Had anyone not been down with radiation poisoning, they could have witnessed a massive winged form toting an assault rifle silhouetted against the moon like a Halloween witch.

    Like every superhero, Manroach needed a secret identity.  And you must admit that a six-foot roach is pretty hard to hide.  Fortunately, Manroach was blessed by his nuclear creator with Super Business Savvy.  He knew just the job in which he could disappear...

    "The lobbyist for Twin Towers Nuclear to see you, Senator."
    "Ah, yes, yes!  Come right in, Mr. ... Roach, is it?"
    "Yes, Sir.  But you can call me Manny."
    The senator extended his hand.  "Mighty, uh, creepy grip, you've got there, Manny!  What can I do for you?"
    "Hah!" said Mr. Roach. "Twin Towers would like to open another facility on the South Side."
    "So soon after that unfortunate accident?" asked the senator uncertainly.  "That's sure to draw fire from the radical left."
    "Oh, everybody's too busy right now with their cancers and radiation sicknesses to take much notice," cajoled Mr. Roach.
    "I don't know," wavered the senator.  "The voters can be pretty squeamish when it comes to massive doses of radiation..."
    "Hah!" said Mr. Roach. "Their puny sensibilities have no effect on me!  Anyway, here's $20 million."
    "That does cast a different light on things," laughed the senator.  "So to speak.  I'll see what I can do."
    The senator watched as Manny Roach skittered away down the hall.
    "There's something peculiar about that one.  Did you notice?" he asked his aide.
    "Of course!" she said.  "It's as plain as the nose on your face.  His tie's too wide."
    "You can always spot it!" said the senator admiringly.  "Those people may own my sorry ass, but they have no fashion sense."

    And so, by day, Manroach disappeared among the masses.  Never was secret identity so cunning, so ingenious, so impenetrable.  Clark Kent?  Gimme a break.  Any idiot could see past the phony glasses.  Bruce Wayne?  Get real.  But who could pick Manny Roach out of a swarm of feeding lobbyists?  He could easily have led a wholly respectable and productive life by his society's standards.
    But that was not the way of the Manroach!  By night, he emerged, consuming whole supermarkets full of food and leaving rubble in his wake.  Sometimes, he would run down the freeways, gleefully provoking 20-car pile-ups.  (Hah!  Their puny vehicles had no effect on him!)  Semis were his specialty.  They made such a satisfying, crunchy sound, he said.  Flying up to the windshield and hovering usually did the trick. At other times, he would simply saunter up to someone's window and peer in, or slip under the door.  He said he enjoyed seeing "that look."
    Not surprisingly, the armed authorities attempted to stop this menace.  They were singularly unsuccessful.  Then they were plurally unsuccessful.  Bullets bounced off his back.  Explosives were without effect.  He laughed at poisons.  Nuclear weapons only made him stronger.  However, sinister forces were gathering in the laboratories of the nation.  It was not long before these forces developed a fiendish weapon to test our hero's mettle.  But that is a story for another time...

                        Coming soon:  Manroach vs. the Giant Sandal

Postscript:  In the days following the emergence of Manroach, a peculiar event occurred.  There were no eyewitnesses to tie this event to our story,  but one night, someone broke into the PCs or Bust! Hellengone facility and chewed the insulation off every wire in the place.