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The Mirror Game. (excerpt)

Otherspace is cold. Cold and dark. You don't feel anything else, but you feel the cold. Time doesn't really pass, at least not in the way it does back home. That's why I look so good for my age. When the adventure's over and Captain Atom un-says the magic word, I snap back into realspace and pick up where I left off. The problem is, while I've been away the rest of the world has kept on moving.

Once he had to fly out to the Kuiper Belt to find a radioactive asteroid that doctors needed to cure an alien disease and save the life of a young girl. The round-trip took about two months. When I came out of Otherspace I'd blown four work deadlines, the gas had been cut off and Janie wouldn't return my calls. I knew he was taking his time out there, but there was nothing I could do about it. Captain Atom does what needs to be done and I learn to live with the consequences.

While I'm waiting, I tell stories to myself. Sometimes I make them up. Other times I try to remember things that have happened to me. Still other times I tell myself stories about Captain Atom. The Captain Atom stories are partly true and partly made up. I've never seen him in action. We've never met. The last time I saw him was just before the wavefront hit us, and he wasn't Captain Atom then.

The complete version of this story is available in HEAT 7, available at all good bookstores and also via their web site.