On a pleasant September evening in 1950, Joe Spivak invited his son to take a walk in the park. "Let's consider this a fresh start, Spencer," he said. "After all, it's a new high school, a new school year, and ... well ... a good time for a fresh .... a new beginning." There was a pregnant pause. Then Joe continued: "You can't keep doing what you've been doing, Spencer. You have to realize that." His father waited for Spencer to respond. Spencer didn't. "You have a power, Spencer. You might even say it's a superpower. In fact, it is a superpower. That's the point, isn't it? You can hurt people with your superpower. You have hurt someone with your superpower. And it's not good to hurt anyone. You do agree with that, don't you?" "He started it, not me." His father sighed. "It doesn't matter who started it. You have to get that. It just doesn't matter. There are consequences to what you do. We have had to move because of what you did. Do you understand that?" "Yeah." "And do you understand why we have had to move?" "Yeah." "Tell me. Tell me what you understand. Tell me why you think we have had to move." "I would get into a lot more trouble if we didn't move." "Good. Good answer. What kind of trouble?" Spencer shrugged his shoulders. "Could you go to jail?" "Maybe. I guess so." "Could it be worse than jail?" "What's worse than jail?" "You ask the right question, Spencer. What's worse than jail? What's worse is that we live in a society that is nowhere near as free as this society claims to be. Someone like you, who possesses a superpower like yours, offers the ruling class a potential weapon that can help them not only consolidate their power over all of us, but maybe even expand that power across the world. You follow?" "Not really." "Not really? How about this? What if the ruling class decided to conduct scientific experiments to get a better understanding of your powers? What if they put you in a cage? What if they stripped you naked and probed your body and started carving you up, dissecting you to see what you are made of? What then? Then would you follow what I'm saying?" That was the day Spencer Philip Thomas Spivak decided to keep his superpower a secret. .............................................................................. In November of 2010, at the age of 77, Spencer Spivak feels agitated and apprehensive. He seeks counseling and therapy from psychologist Dr. Jack Spinoza. But can he trust Jack? First, Spencer seeks assurances of confidentiality. Then he takes Jack to a remote location and spits into the river several times. Each expectoration explodes on impact, eliciting a tsunami of fears of terrorism in the community and a rapid response from national security organizations, public and private. In the midst of this furor, Jack helps Spencer resolve his issues with his mother, Selma Spivak, who is 102 years old. Meanwhile, Jack's wife Linda, who is president of the Bephum County Probation Officers Union, is attacked by Nick Bickle, an agent from a private national security organization called the National Freedom Group (NFG, for short). Observing this event with a peculiar impartiality is Bickle's fellow agent, Wanda Lawanda. When the confrontation between Nick and Linda ends badly, Wanda declares herself a mole and offers to help Linda. Linda strip-searches her first; then she reluctantly accepts Wanda's help. Wanda immediately calls upon the Fury sisters, identical triplets of diverse ethnic origin, for assistance. Meanwhile, another of Dr. Spinoza's patients, Howard Basham, gets blamed for everything because his name sounds Arabic. Then things get complicated.