And now, my latest attempt to paste in an excerpt from another chapter of long-defunct prose experiment I Am Empowered, a Year-One-ish first-person account from Emp in 140-character Twitter format detailing her earliest days as a superheroine.
Ah, good ol’ Joint Superteam Space Station 3. This begs a question that, as a mere civilian, has never been answered to my satisfaction.
My voice goes all low and conspiratorial. “Um, now that I’m an actual member of the Superhomeys—”
“An associate member,” Spooky interjects, sharply.
“—I gotta ask this: What exactly happened to the first two Joint Superteam Space Stations? That’s never been made public, as far as I know.”
(Officially—and tersely—the civilian population’s been told only that Stations 1 and 2 are “no longer in use by the suprahuman community.”)
“That’s classified,” she replies, no little satisfaction in her voice. “That’s information well above your pay grade, associate member.”
Pause. Then she clarifies, “Let’s just say that the previous space stations were a bit too fragile for the outgoing suprahuman lifestyle.”
Then I’m gripped by the sudden, tingling, overwhelming sense that someone’s standing close behind me. I whirl around, but no one’s there.
Then it strikes me that I’m feeling a phantom presence not just behind me, but simultaneously beside me, in front of me, above me, below me.
A peculiar but cozily pleasant sensation of warm amusement washes over me for a few oddly sweet seconds, then fades away.
The strange awareness gone, I realize that Spooky is staring at me, mouth twisted in a comical pout, arms crossed again in a huffy gesture.
“Congratulations,” she says, a clear note of reluctance in her voice. “You passed.”
Alarm seizes me. Did I somehow blunder into yet another opportunity for failure? “Um, exactly what did I just pass?” I ask, a bit whinily.
“Our team’s resident telepath just scanned your mind,” she says. “No camouflaged sleeper personalities or booby-trap psychoses detected.”
She adds, “You get the standard new-cape recommendation that you’d be well-advised—very well-advised—to seek therapy or counseling, though.”
Under my mask, my eyebrows arch high. Therapy or counseling as a standard new-cape recommendation? That is, to put it mildly, news to me.
Before I can stop myself, I blurt out in astonishment, “Does that mean other capes are just as messed up as I am? Really?”
“You may rest assured,” she says with a haughty chin-raise and downward nose-look at me, “that not all capes are as messed up as you are.”
I’m thinking, hey, at least I don’t parade around in an impractically slutty costume solely to mess with other superheroines’ heads.
Speaking of thinking, a sudden realization belatedly dawns me as I glance up at the d10’s bright shape streaking overhead.
I blurt once again, “Was I just mindscanned all the way from orbit? Is that even possible?”
“Yes, it’s possible,” the sorceress sniffs, “no-duhh” style. “The d10’s current orbit brings it within only 150 miles of us on each pass.”
Spooky, I can tell, does not subscribe to the maxim that there is no such thing as a stupid question, at least as far as I’m concerned.
“So, does that mean our team’s telepath lives on Space Station 3 full-time, then?”
That’s a reasonable conclusion-jump, given that I’ve never met—or even heard a single teammate mention of—said unnamed telepath.
“Of course,” she says. “The cognitive babble of a few million minds in close proximity proves overwhelming for Mindf**k, otherwise.”
Oh, that’s right. I spotted the supranym “Mindf**k” on an internal SuperHomeys org chart last week, listed in the “covert assets” category.
Not surprising that a superteam would keep its neurosurveillance resources secret from the wider supracommunity—and the general public, too.
I’m a bit creeped, though, by the idea of anyone peeking into the mess of my mind’s psychologically untidy and emotionally issue-strewn bedroom.
“We’re done, here,” Spooky announces, cloak whirling around her again in a blur of darkness and glowing sparkles. “Enjoy your Skinny Mini.”
The cape-swirl collapses into a glaring sphere of energy, which in turn bursts into a hundred twinkling motes of light, and she’s gone.
I heave another BIG SIGH and awkwardly tug my windblown hair away from my face as I shift into girly-mode to mull over what just happened.
What was the dealie with Spooky’s earlier flash of misery? Might she have, say, a little something going on with our orbiting Mindf**k?
Color me intrigued, not least by the many emotional and logistical complications posed by a suprahuman hook-up like the one I’m imagining.
Tough to imagine anyone in a love connection with a drama-intensive diva like Spooky, whose maintenance levels must be stratospheric indeed.
Tougher still to imagine a relationship with a telepath, which would be wildly stressful and difficulty-fraught for both parties, really.
If Spooky’s even a teensy fraction as screwed up as I am, overhearing the relentless emotional churn would drive a telepath out of his mind.
Plus, knowing that one’s psychological flux is being eavesdropped upon would make it only flux-ier still. Emotional feedback loop, y’all.
Then I flinch in surprise as the glowing light-sphere reappears in front of me, cape-swirl flails out of it, and Spooky emerges once again.
“Almost forgot,” she says. “You have an appointment tomorrow morning at the Purple Paladin Memorial Hospital’s Suprahuman Treatment Wing.”
Almost accusatory: “You’re overdue for your baseline medical evaluation. Report to the Diagnostic Lab on the 32nd floor at 7:00 AM sharp.”
Cloak-whip, light-ball, twinkle-twinkle, and Spooky’s gone again.
<JUMP AHEAD TO A NARRATIVE FRAGMENT OF EMP LOOKING AT THE HOSPITAL>
7 AM sharp
The civilian-accessible portion of the Purple Paladin Memorial Hospital is a modest, unremarkable, entirely conventional-looking structure.
Ten boring floors, yawnworthy box architecture. Red cross up high, ambulances out front. Overall, begs for the image tag “GENERIC HOSPITAL.”
The dullness quickly evaporates, however, once one looks upward and is visually assaulted by the Purple Paladin’s Suprahuman Treatment Wing.
The misnomered “Wing” utterly dwarfs the Memorial Hospital proper, looming overhead like a giant alien robot bent on crushing it underfoot.
Many times its parent building’s size, the Wing’s X-shaped colossus straddles it between the glass-and-steel arches of gargantuan legs.
(Except that the “glass” is transparent, nanowoven diamond and the “steel” is an exotic alloy vomit-formed by a mobile alien factory mech.)
The occasional medical-transport helicopter whup-whups-whups down onto the main Hospital’s rooftop helipad, dropping off a lone patient.
Meanwhile, hulking spaceships, blimp-sized flying beasties and ornate retrofuture airships constantly alight on the Wing’s landing pads—
—disgorging a steady stream of 18-wheeler-sized gurneys, wounded alien monstrosities, and limping giantcapes in acres of bloodied spandex.
<END OF EXCERPT, AND OF INCOMPLETE CHAPTER>
Wellp, if this actually worked, webcomic readers, I’ll try again with another excerpt from I Am Empowered down the road. Note that the original version of this chapter rolled on to a scene depicting Emp’s first scan by alien analytophore “Ginny” and our heroine’s subsequent lecture by Dr. Big McLarge Huge but, as I already ran excerpts of those scenes here, I’ll skip ahead to a new chapter next week.
Today’s Patreon update: Originally done as a means of scratching out more worktime to complete the long-gestating Empowered vol. 12, I've switched over to a Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday Patreon posting schedule that won't feature the fixed content format I previously used. However, my vast archive of years of Patreon posts—extensive Empowered previews, vintage con sketches, work stages on covers, "damsel in distress" commissions, life drawings & much, much more—remains available for Patrons' perusal.
-Adam Warren
