Afterward, Maya did remember: Lorna awakened her X-Gene at sixteen, so she'd probably only just become a mutant. What really surprised Maya was that this girl seemed to genuinely have something wrong upstairs. Rumor had it she had "pendulum sickness"—bipolar disorder, a type of mood disorder, the kind that runs both manic episodes and depressive ones. Whether she'd had it before, or been driven into it after they locked her up, Maya couldn't say.
And that nurse just now—the practiced efficiency, the total indifference to superpowers going off in her face—all of it said this psychiatric hospital had problems. Big ones.
With that in mind, Maya left Lorna's room and got back to searching. Her target today was Liz; Lorna was just a fluke. Once she'd gotten to the bottom of Liz's situation, she could think about the others.
As Maya's Super Senses spread out, sure enough she picked up plenty more mutant kids—the older ones eighteen, nineteen, the younger ones seven or eight. Powers all over the map, some strong, some weak. Feeble ones like Lorna got fairly ordinary rooms; the ones with real threat level were kept in iron cages.
At the same time, Maya caught wind of Liz...
"How's it going? That Liz Black girl—we hit her with a triple dose of sedative and the anomalies still haven't stopped?"
A voice reached Maya's ears. She stretched her Super Senses into the surrounding rooms—still no sign of Liz.
"Haven't stopped. The spatial blades on her are involuntary—a kind of emergency self-defense..."
While they were still talking, Maya had already dug Liz's room number out of a file.
Ten minutes later, Maya couldn't help marveling. "No wonder this hospital's out in Queens. There's no empty lot in Manhattan big enough to put up a dozen-odd buildings like this."
When she found Liz, the girl was in a ragged blue-and-white striped hospital gown, sleeping peacefully, her expression serene. Thinking back on the doctors' exchange, it was almost certainly the sedative. Maya ran a full-body scan over Liz with her Super Senses, found nothing seriously wrong, and let herself relax.
Now she had to figure out how to handle this.
Charging straight in to bust her out was the worst option—a last resort, only when there was nothing left to try. It wasn't that she feared exposure or anything; the one doing the rescuing was Spider-Man, and worst case she'd just swap personas in a few days. Batman had a nice ring to it—might even net her a fat pile of Influence. The real problem was Liz. Saving her couldn't be only about the moment; the aftermath—where Liz went next—was the real headache. You bust her out and then what, she just becomes a fugitive?
Maya thought it over, then quietly slipped back to the office where she'd overheard the conversation...
Two hours later, Maya opened her eyes, sighed, and muttered, "Now this psych ward's the one running a normal operation. Doing research on the sly, using 'treating mutants for mental illness' as cover—collecting mutant blood and tissue, observing their powers, running experiments on them. Even if the political winds shift later and mutant-rights campaigns kick off, as long as the classified research files never surface, the hospital can always wash itself clean. A private hospital, all right—thorough. They've already planned around a political reckoning years down the road."
Maya pulled her Super Senses back from that cabinet of classified experiment reports, thought about it, and decided to head back and talk it over with Stick and Matt first. She had an organization behind her now—no more going it alone.
But as she was running across the rooftops, she suddenly heard gunfire from a street nearby. She thought for a second, then decided to go take a look—she'd finished what she came for, so exposure wasn't a concern anymore, and if she hurried over she might save a few people.
"Get back, you damn pigs! Back off, all of you, or I put a bullet in this hostage!" A robber in a Spider-Man mask—the exact same model as Maya's—was shouting.
His two partners were dressed the same, each hauling a big bag. From the Franklins scattered across the ground, you could guess the bags were stuffed with colorful American cash.
By the time Maya got there, she could see the police were badly outmatched. One squad car, total. Two patrolmen crouched behind the doors with service pistols, up against three robbers—armed with automatic rifles, no less, and holding a hostage.
If she hadn't shown up, those three would've gotten away clean. Too bad they'd not only shot and hurt someone, they'd had the nerve to knock over a supermarket wearing her mask. If that wasn't asking for it, what was?
Nothing more to say, then. Maya crept around behind the robbers to the third floor of the building at their backs, dropped Shadow Escape, and dove straight down. In midair—pew-pew-pew—three Chakra Surgical Bullets apiece.
Bang-thunk! Three thuds. All three guns hit the ground.
"Aagh, my hand, my leg—I can't feel them—who—" The lead robber holding the hostage went sprawling, screaming.
"Oh God, it's Spider-Man! How'd he get all the way out to Queens?" The other two had caught on.
Thud! Crack!
"Aah, stop hitting me—isn't Spider-Man supposed to not hit people?!"
"Aah, my ribs are broken!"
"Ugh... my..."
Three minutes later, Maya dusted off her hands, refreshed, and stood up. Feeling the crowd's uneasy, startled stares, she knew her style tonight was a little off-brand. She didn't bother explaining—just pointed at the moaning employees inside the supermarket. "Are you going to call an ambulance, or wait for them to bleed out?"
That snapped everyone back. Spider-Man rarely hit people these days, sure, but back when he'd first started out he'd handed out plenty of beatings; it was only after he got that sci-fi pistol that the violence had gradually tapered off.
"Wait—Spider-Man, please, wait!"
Maya turned. It was the hostage from a minute ago. The white man—pushing thirty—pulled free of the woman clinging to him and sobbing, hurried to Maya's side, and said, voice shaking with feeling, "Spider-Man, I'm a fan of yours. I—I can't thank you enough for saving me. My name's Ben Parker. I really am a fan—you're a superhero!"
Maya went still, then probed. "Hello, Ben. And this lady is...?"
"Oh, this is my wife, May Parker! May, come here—Spider-Man's asking about you!" Ben Parker said, elated.
Right. Now Maya was sure—no coincidence of names. These two were the famous Uncle Ben and Aunt May.
Facing the couple's thanks, Maya kept her face grave, her voice firm. "There's no need to thank me. With great power comes great responsibility—this is simply what I ought to do."
Grandstanding complete, Madam President fired a thread of web from her waist and—fwip—swung away.
"With great power comes great responsibility..."
Uncle Ben murmured it to himself, looking half-dazed.
---
N years later, Uncle Ben sat on a patch of grass in the setting sun, holding his nephew's hand. "Ah, the years catch up with a man. Back in my day, I actually spoke with Spider-Man once. He saved my life, and he said to me, 'With great power comes great responsibility.' I've kept those words as my motto ever since—and today, I'm passing them on to you. That line is the Parker family creed, an heirloom for every Parker to come... And you know, a lot of people still miss Spider-Man. Look—there's that new cosplayer lately. Except he never lived through that era. Ugly Spider-suit aside—doesn't he even know Spider-Man wore ODM gear at his waist? Ah, speaking of ODM gear, there's an old set in our storage shed too—bought it when I was young..."
Little Spidey: ??... I'm a cosplayer? My red-and-blue Spider-suit is ugly? And—should I dig that old case out of the shed and clip it on my waist too?