One day I woke up with superpowers and unfortunately, it had nothing to do with my bank account. You might think that waking up with superpowers would make life easier, but no. You're thinking of wealth.

When I started out, I had no mentor, no guidance, no YouTube videos. There was no handy little user's guide and that's what I'm here to fix.

Waking up with superpowers is scary, don't let anyone tell you differently. Your body is going through...changes. It's a frightening journey that ends with your death, but that's pretty much life, right?

Say you woke up with the power of flight, that do anything for you? Seems supersimple, right? Downright basic. But there are dangers to corporeal flight that most people don't consider. Most people, they get flight and they want to go above the cloud layer right away. More important is to stick your landings first; crawl before you can walk and all that. Remember, the higher you go, the less oxygen is available. What if you get picked up by air-defense radar and fighter jets are scrambled to your location. Can you outpace a jet? Missiles? High-caliber rounds? These are just some of the dangers of corporeal flight. Stay safe out there, Icarus, remember the sunblock.

Ugh, Bombast. He's all over the place now, you can't turn around without hearing one of his exploits. He's one of those average-Joe superheroes, started out just like you or me. Heir to a vast lunar-shipping fortune, small loan from daddy, renounced it all forever so he could see the world, then came right back to his vast fortune after a few months slumming it. Only now he's seen how the world really works and when he sits on the beach of his immeasurable ocean of resources he can't think of a single way to help anyone else other than to dress in a costume and go running around at night.

I subscribe to this podcast and Bombast's people are the principal investors so you never go a whole day without hearing what he's up to, even if he's just pushing products.

That's one thing he got right: Marketing, Branding, and Public Relations which we'll go over in Chapter 4.

The thing about being ultra-wealthy is you are no longer fighting for our world, you're in your own world fighting for your own causes. If you have more money than you know what to do with, and you actually want to fight crime, try lifting this nation out of poverty. Bankroll politicians who represent the majority of the people rather than wealthy, self-interested superassholes like yourself.

I listen to a lot of other podcasts that explore the scientific link between crime and poverty. Part of the gig, ya know?

Before I've had my coffee, the police scanner sounds like a manic parakeet. I've got a list, sort of an infographic that details all the police codes, which I study while listening. I live in a big city and there's usually something going on; bank robberies are commonplace, illegal arms deals twice a week at midnight down on the docks, top-secret government intel being smuggled here or there like clockwork; that type of shit. Mostly boring but every once in a while...

Every device I consult, everywhere I look, the news is the same. Last night near the docks, a complex of warehouses was reduced to glowing radioactive slag. These things happen, I suppose.

Turns out, last night's black market arms deal got a little heated. They're still investigating, but it's clear from early reporting that Bombast lost a lot of expensive toys in the fight. 

There's a flurry of speculation about whether or not Bombast is still alive and it doesn't help that his podcast this morning is detailing the importance of his inclusiveness. Every second he doesn't appear in front of a group of cameras to show he's still alive, people grow more and more sure he's dead.

Right now, I can see crews of workers in hazmat suits carefully walking among the wreckage waving around Geiger counters. News correspondents are framing this disaster in terms of Chernobyl percentages, like, "Our experts tell us the fallout is equal to .00001 percent of the Chernobyl disaster."

So I don't know about you, but that makes me feel totally safe and not at all doomed. Apparently, the restricted area, or Exclusion Zone, will be one and a half miles, once they're done looking for whatever might be left of Bombast.

One of the workers is seen running back toward the others waving his arms, his suit leaving a trail of smoke as it melts off him.

Before I can dress for work, Supersam is doing a press conference, making mouth-noises, but all I can hear is the Bombast podcast explaining a particular device he used that night to ensure the fallout and affected area wouldn't be larger than it is.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

How the fuck would they know, the site looks like a melted black candle.

I head out the door. I'll be late for work again.

Allow me to set some terms for you, dear reader, to avoid confusion. I believe there is a difference between being rich and being wealthy. I believe everyone should have a shot at life-changing wealth, but world-changing wealth?

If you have so much money that you can change the world, then you are responsible for the way the world is now. So here's the big secret about why you can't be a superhero just because your super-rich. If you're rich, and I mean filthy stinking rich, like, lunar-getaway rich, then you're probably part of the problem.

The reason life is shit is that someone somewhere is making a metric fuckton of money off it. For-profit prisons keep our incarceration rate the highest in the world. Defense contractor companies like Raytheon make sure we always have boots on the ground somewhere. The reason we don't have access to free public health? How else would those poor struggling insurance conglomerates keep their record quarterly profits growing?

A small group of real-life Lex Luthors is killing the world and everyone in it and we're supposed to wait around until fixing it becomes profitable?

This isn't to say wealthy people don't have struggles, they do. But their struggles are different. Our struggles occur closer to the edge of life and death. To be born poor in America means your appendix is a looming death sentence. Any day it could burst and kill you while you weigh the pros and cons of ambulance vs Uber.

They worry about the cost of jet fuel or paying their employees just enough to keep them where they're at. We worry about the cost of food, water, medicine, and shelter. We worry about slipping on the stairs and twisting an ankle because any missed work could mean eviction or starvation.

These aren't the struggles of the wealthy and if you're wealthy you may not understand them. Wealthy people don't seem to have any idea how to help non-wealthy people, so this book isn't for them. This is for people who woke up one day with a supernatural ability that changed their lives and not always for the better.

This is a guide for those of us without a guide because when I started my journey, this book didn't exist.

So if you're ultra-wealthy and you've got more money than you know what to do with; and you can't think of any way to help people other than to dress in a costume and go running around at night; if you've got a bunch of bullshit gadgets and sci-fi gizmos; if you've got a fucking mini-jet turbine sticking to the back of your fucking 'supercar'...

Then please be sure to send any unused money to:

Everhard Longfellow

2237 Secret Lair Hideaway

Tycho crater, the Moon

Basically, there is no magic number, no critical mass of wealth that leads to superhuman abilities, just a superhuman ego.

Money doesn't by you superpowers, you gotta get bit by something radioactive, or be involved in a secret experiment gone wrong, or a secret experiment gone right, or be from a planet that no longer exists, or be bombarded with cosmic radiation that would normally kill someone, or find a symbiotic parasite that hitched a ride on a meteor, or be the next step of evolution with mutated genes and shit, or be part of a top-secret government super-soldier program, or find a mythical ring, amulet, or some other talisman that bestows the wearer with the powers and responsibilities of an Elder God, something like that.

We'll talk more about that in Chapter 3: Mythical Objects and Where to Find Them.

Right now, I need to find a way to use my powers to keep my day job.

#

Work was slow, everyone was glued to their devices for the latest news on the incident by the docks. No one noticed me slip in the back. Sometimes I feel like my only real power is to go unnoticed.

"See the news?"

Jerry snuck up on me. I glanced at him, but he was staring at his phone.

"They're saying the site is so dangerous, they won't rebuild, just turn it into an abandoned memorial or something." His eyes seem large as they reflect the light from his phone.

"They think he died?"

"Oh, for sure, but it's pretty obvious he faked his own death."

"Why would he do that?" I ask, but I'm barely interested in what Gary thinks. I'm watching the crowd on the floor, studying faces.

He's droning on and on about how Bombast's enemies will get overconfident and make mistakes thinking he's gone.

I swear some people think this is some kind of fandom. I bet he's wearing Bombasticles.

He glances up from his phone just in time to catch me staring at his crotch, so there's a lesson for you: don't let something like that happen. Now Terry thinks I was window shopping. He walks away and I'm sure that's what he's telling everyone.

The boss comes down onto the floor, barking orders and waving his arms around. I pretend not to be watching the TVs, which are playing soundbites of Supersam's press conference on a loop.

"Never lose hope, never lose faith. When all seems lost, look to your heroes..."

By the way, dear reader, this is actually terrible advice. All of Simpesam's catchphrases sound like this. He's all about truth, justice, and the American way, but these days it just reminds me of that drinking game, Two Truths and a Lie.

"That's not a drinking game," Sharon says. She's suddenly behind me with a crate to unload. "At least, it doesn't have to be."

"Was I talking to myself again?"

She laughed. "Yeah, when you're not checking out Craig's junk!"

Ugh, my kryptonite is names. Susan doesn't even stick around to help with the lamithium couplers, she just walks away laughing at me.

I glance at the TVs. Bruce Lame, the billionaire who is the money behind, the money behind, the money behind Bombast, is taking an unexpected extended vacation and the shareholders are having a meltdown.

Too soon?

So that's lesson one: don't be just wealthy. To call yourself a superhero, to take on evil and villainy, is to step in the ring with monsters. It's not something you can buy your way into; it's not pay-to-play.

And the stakes are high. You put your life on the line every time you leave the house with your underwear on the outside of your pants.