Marked for Murder: Empaths in Modern Times

Selected extracts

[Published in 1996, Jeffrey Adler’s collection of essays detailing the lives and experiences of post‑Devastation empaths caused outrage upon release. Accused by critics of deliberately misrepresenting facts and of attempting to humanise the Black Death, Ashai has consistently defended his work as an unflinching depiction of the hardships empathic mimics face in modern society. Despite achieving cult notoriety, the book was a commercial failure, and is banned in Eastern Europe, the remaining nations of Africa, and thirteen US states.]

[]…Empath. Even the word itself is a misunderstanding. For that, we have to thank Nancy Ann Tappe, a New Age spiritualist who turned her attention to the copying of powers in the early 1970s. Nancy, an enlightened 70s woman with a long face and peroxide perm, had just cut her overlarge teeth on the study of “personality through colour” – a subject as elaborate as it was unscientific – and was, like many New Age practitioners, riding high on the supernatural now manifesting in the mundane world. Buoyed by conversations she’d had with various psychics, Tappe struck upon the theory that a person’s spirit attracted various colours, and that by learning to “embrace” one’s own colours and “resonate” on others’ frequencies, a person could learn to unlock secret abilities hidden deep within themselves. It was distinctly middle of the pack, as far as New Age theories go, and seemed destined to attract little more than the usual collection of free-thinkers and hippies – right up until the moment Nancy took to the stage at one of her book signings and announced that she had living proof that her theories were correct.

His name was River Otter. He was a spiritual teacher and shaman, descended from ancient Native American mystics, who had spent years wandering the New Mexico wilderness and opening his spirit to the wonders of the natural world. When he looked at you, his warm, hazel eyes could feel what you were feeling, and as he harmonised his emotions to resonate on your frequency he would unlock whatever gifts you supernaturally held inside. His revelation produced shock amongst Nancy’s followers, and interest in local papers – for indeed, readily and demonstrably, River Otter needed only converse with someone before being able to replicate their powers. Here, it seemed, was proof that Colorology was legitimate. Here was the first (claimed Nancy) of a new breed of human destined to bring enlightenment to the human race; beings so in tune with each other and so at one with nature that they would be incapable of war or exploitation and, as their numbers grew, would usher in the dawn of a new Aquarian age.

All of this, of course, was unmitigated nonsense. The person Nancy had discovered, through a friend of a friend’s sexual healing workshop and drum circle, was Joshua Fanning, a proximity-based empath, and although Joshua was a fan of Buddhist meditation, tantric sex and peyote, he was no more a new breed of enlightened human than he was Native American, having grown up to Irish parents in northern Illinois. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter. The gullibility train had left the station, and within a matter of months Tappe was appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson to show off “River Otter’s” astounding skills. Others came forward claiming to have similar abilities, and soon the ranks of Tappe’s “Empathic Mimics” swelled into their hundreds. Oddly though these “empaths”, as they were taking to be called, did not all seem to match Tappe’s initial description. Discrepancies arose. Some seemed able to replicate another’s powers only after making skin-to-skin contact, whereas others claimed to be able to utilise adopted powers long after the original holder had left or after their mood had changed. These were mere distractions, however, and waved away by Tappe, who claimed that the former must just still need a more tangible connection to feel that soul-fired resonance, and that the latter were clearly just so well in tune with each other’s feelings that they could carry on the empathising long after subject or emotion was gone. Nancy also conveniently ignored the fact that neither she herself nor any of her most ardent faithful were ever capable of mimicking another’s powers, no matter how emotionally in‑tune they studied to become. Also ignored was the fact that the majority of her new empathic flock seemed to be, ostensibly, otherwise normal people, who despite being purportedly transcendent neo-humans appeared to an outside observer to be no more enlightened, harmonious or emotionally well-adjusted than anyone else. But these criticisms and more were swept aside. The Colorologists bought a farm, formed a commune, and waited patiently in their delusion that one day their beliefs would sweep across the globe and usher in a utopia of power‑sharing and emotional harmony. There is still about a hundred people living there, and they no longer allow visitors access.

But this is all beside the point. Whatever became of her and her believers, Tappe’s theories were out there – and by the time they were debunked (by outspoken Canadian-American sceptic James Randi, along with two similarly clear‑minded empaths who he used to demonstrate that it was proximity, not empathy, that was the key to replication), it was already too late. The term “empath” was loose, embedded in the public lexicon like Chinese Checkers and the Koala Bear, becoming another one of those English language misnomers that seems destined to stay stuck in dictionary, never to come out…[]

[]…I am looking for a man named Bernard Hitchens, and I have been told to seek the home of his employer. Word of Bernard has reached one of my compatriots, a fastidious young man named William* whose brother Jackson* (names altered) attended a settlement negotiation where Bernard was present. You wouldn’t know if to look at him, reads the description, and I haven’t the faintest clue what that means.

It takes several disconnected phone calls and a mailed copy of my article in the Times before the assistant at the other end of the line finally lets me finish my introduction. Even after my identity is confirmed, there come clear attempts at dissuasion. I’ve got the wrong number. They don’t have access to staffing records. Those records are confidential. Bernard’s name is a bucket of ice-water tossed over every conversation, no matter how often I assure them I come in peace.

Finally, I get a call from the lawyer for Bernard’s employer. There follows a brief, brutal interrogation. What do I want with Bernard. What am I planning to write about. Do I work for one of their competitors. Would I sign an NDA.

I placate, I promise, I plead and I swear, and eventually, I get permitted an audience with Bernard.

It is a chill Wednesday morning. Waves of amber leaves wash across the roadways, and I drive up to an address in Atherton to find a security guard standing at the gate. There’s a curt introduction, and the gruff bearded man checks my identification and thumbs telepathically through my mind. He’s blank-faced and bleary-eyed, and eventually waves me through once he’s satisfied with the content of my memories. I’m given swift and certain directions, and park my bedraggled VW Beetle next to a hedge sculpture shaped like a horse.

A maid directs me to Bernard’s quarters – a quiet little cottage covered in climbing ivy a short walk from the main house. It’s a respectable sort of accommodation – not at all a shed out back – and I am surprised when a black man with short greying hair answers the door. This is Bernard. We shake hands, and it takes me several seconds to notice his “E”.

Bernard ushers me inside, offers me some coffee and biscuits. He moves at a quiet, measured pace around his hardwood, homespun kitchen, and his tattoo keeps sliding from underneath my eyes every time I go to look at it. I comment as such as he serves me.

“Reckon you’re not inaccurate,” he comments, and I can’t tell if he says it with laughter or sadness, “I don’t think mine was quite the skin tone the lawmen had in mind.” I can do little but concur.

We talk for several hours, and it soon becomes apparent that Bernard is a man of intelligence, if not education. He grew up in Atlanta with a mill-hand father and a mother who kept her apron strings taut; sensing, perhaps, the social change her son could be a part of if he stayed out of trouble and played his cards right. Superpowers, of course, were rather more unexpected than civil rights, but both made their arrival. We swap stories about the Year of Chaos, when we both were only boys, then discuss Bernard getting his empathy, which he says wasn’t a bad thing, at least at first.

“It was a party trick,” he admits, maybe the smallest bit sheepish, “Something to impress the guys. Wasn’t bad to have on the job site either; they needed someone to get to lifting, I get to lifting. They need someone to weld beam, I weld beam.”

He remembers reading about Tappe’s claims and feeling confused about it at the time.

“It sure sounded like me, like my powers,” he says, with a slight backhand grimace, “But then she’s going on about emotions, and I think ‘I don’t feel what Larry’s feeling. I just look at him lifting ‘half‑ton concrete and then go do that myself’. So I didn’t put my hand up. Didn’t seem to fit.”

With two trade certificates under his belt and a good map of local powers to dip in and out of, Bernard looked to open his own business, promising versatility and cheap prices with his “two-powers-in-one” approach. For ten years or so, it worked. He moved his parents onto a proper acreage. He ran ads in the local gazette. He’d just put on his fourth day labourer.

“Then Africa happened,” he tells me, and even now I see his face fall, “And it all just fell to bits.”

After that, everything changed.

“People started looking at me. Shouting at me. ‘Filthy’, you know, such and such. Old words. New ones. I honestly didn’t know what to make of it. I saw the same black sky. I was terrified, same as everybody else.”

He recounts a harrowing escape from attempted murder, two months after Klaus Heydrich’s death.

“These three boys, they pull up to my house. Shouting ‘a come out, throwing insults. One of them’s got fire in his palms, and he’s going around pouring it against the foundations. Another’s carrying a lamppost like he’s Babe Ruth, and third guy, he’s just running round the house in this constant, constant blur, trying to make sure I don’t go escaping. He’s the one that saved me really – I kept my eye on him real hard, then ran out the back with his own speed while he wasn’t looking. Wasn’t a crime, yet, to do that. Least not in Georgia state.”

In the space of three months, the life Bernard Hitchens had worked so hard to pull together crumbled into dust.

“I got registered. I got the mark.” He points to his face, the black of the ‘E’ only a few shades darker than his skin. “Thought if I obeyed the rules they’d protect me. Figured I hadn’t done nothing wrong.” He shakes his head. “Figured soon everything’d calm down, and most folk wouldn’t mind so much seeing as I wasn’t blood-based.”

His hopes were misplaced. With his mark in place, Bernard’s building work evaporated. The police wouldn’t rule out arson, and his home insurer wouldn’t pay out. People he’d called friends for twenty years started avoiding him on the sidewalk.

“I had two choices,” he says, “Go back to my Mama’s, or go out on the street. I couldn’t put this on them.” He steadies himself for a few moments, but doesn’t cry. “No sense dragging them down with me. I went out on my own.”

The next few years were a nightmare of cold nights, underpasses, and constant, persistent threat.

“There’s a hierarchy,” Bernard explains to me, “Among those with nowhere left. You’re with the locals, or you’re on your lonesome. You got people who’ll vouch for you and watch your stuff, or you’re easy pickings. There’s the same prejudices running amongst them that got nowhere left to go as are anywhere on Earth; maybe even more severely. They’ve got nothing else, just that community. Those last scraps of pride.”

Eventually, Bernard found himself in San Francisco, waiting patiently to die.

“It came down to this,” he says; “Either I had to go to jail, or I had to kill myself. Those were the only options. ‘Cept every time I thought seriously about one or the other of them, I thought of my old Mama, and her forcing me to sit and read the Bible every time I acted up. Every time I was in trouble. And I… couldn’t do it. I just kept heard her saying: ‘Bernard Hitchens; I raised you better than that’.” He pauses. “It’s odd. I don’t remember being unhappy. I just remember being… resigned. Like it wasn’t truly happening. Like I was waiting for my life to finish or arrive.”

Then one day, by sheer coincidence, it did. Bernard’s employer, an up-and-comer in what had a few decades ago become Silicon Valley, found the middle-aged tattooed man selling pencils on the street. He asked him about his story, took him out to lunch and invited him into his home, recognising the potential this mature empath held.

Sympathy meets exploitation.

“It’s no secret I’ve been saved,” says Bernard, “And I’m grateful.” Still, his eyes, and the gaps between his words, tell a different story. Of a man housed, perhaps, but never home.

“It’s not a bad deal,” he sighs. The autumn light is fading by now, and the a soft wind is rustling across the porch. “I spend most of my time here, on the manor. When Mr [BLANK] sends for me I go to meet him. Do what needs doing, then they drive me back. I don’t mind. It’s homely here.”

He’s non-specific about his work. “It depends on the day, what Mr [BLANK] is doing. Sometimes he wants me in like a security role, maybe super-strong and replicated so I can be lots of bodyguards at once, co-ordinated, you know? Other times it’s more covert – go invisible and psychic, keep an eye on minds without anyone knowing you’re there.” His mouth twitches into a frown. “Telepathy and technopathic – that’s another one. They have me be the middleman between their designers’ brains and the computer coding. Fries you by the end of the day that one – got all them thoughts churning, burning through. Then sometimes I help him travel; teleportation, you know, plus flight. Save them minutes getting him where he need to go. I don’t know.” Bernard shrugs. “It’s always interesting. He trusts me. And there’s always something new.”

Does he miss anything, about his former life? Bernard takes a minute to answer.

“Bars,” he says finally, “Going out with my friends. And baseball games – them too. Crowds, I think. Dating.” His face crinkles in a sad smile. “Sometimes. But I shouldn’t grumble. I got it better than many. Better than most.” He waves a hand out to beyond the window. “I got a garden, you know, my own little patch of crop. Plus Mr [BLANK]’s kids like me. Call me Uncle Bernie. Gives me hope, you know? For the next generation.”

A car pulls up in the front garden. It’s almost 11:00pm. Bernard lifts a glance out the window, and asks me to stay put. He walks off into the night. Not long after, he returns, having secured me a talk with his employer.

It’s a short conversation, in an antique-laden antechamber adjacent to an equally ornate study, and one that’s kept emphatically off the record. Bernard’s employer, for all that he’s aware of and consenting to my presence, is still keen to keep his identity under wraps, despite it being perhaps the worst‑kept secret in tech. Still, he doesn’t refuse to talk. It would be disingenuous, he claims, dishonest; he either believes hiring Bernard was a good decision, or he doesn’t. There’s room for discretion, but no middle ground. A man must have a code.

We speak for a time. He makes many logical claims about Bernard’s loyalty, about his usefulness, about not discriminating based on factors outside a man’s control. He stops short of condemning empath regulations, or saying he’d hire another Bernard on his staff. He’s a skinny, articulate, intense sort of a man, very passionate. He considers Bernard family, despite him sleeping in a separate house. He pays him a generous salary. He’s no more dangerous than any of his staff. Mr [BLANK] doesn’t talk with me so much as at me, and his speech strikes me as the sort one might spend a long time preparing in the shower…[]

[]…yet as far as minorities go, empaths are uniquely disparate. They have no inherent connection, no established culture, no coherent sense of persecution, identity or community. They are not gypsies, bound by cultural ancestry, or Jews, connected by shared faith. They are not the Irish, with a shared language, appearance or suburbs. They’re not even homosexuals, who not only manifest at a much higher frequency than empaths (1-in-20 to 1-in-10, by recent numbers, versus barely a fraction of that) but who are actively forced to seek out members of their own minority to facilitate their sexual desires. Empaths have no innate need for one another. They have no innate connection to one another. They are a minority scattered across race, location and generations with no real way of coming together, and a strong government interest in keeping them apart…[]

[]… which leads us, as a perfect demonstration, to the Bouhaniche affair. France, that passionate and socially-minded nation, has always been a hotspot of revolutionary fervour, and it should come as no surprise to anyone with even the slightest experience with French culture that eventually an empath movement for “liberté, égalité et fraternité” would arise. It was 1994; the dust had settled, somewhat, on the African Devastation, and a group of French empaths had decided it was time to make a stand. Clearly, theirs was a minority facing persecution – clearly, it offended even the most basic concept of human rights to tar an entire sub-group of people based on the actions of one man. A German, no less; Marat would have been rolling in his grave. The hypocrisy of responding to the acts of a renegade Nazi by branding alphabetical Stars of David into innocent people’s face’s was clearly untenable and, to the empaths, patently obscene.

At least, that’s how it was sold to the conspirators. A rag-tag diaspora of French empaths roped with various levels of enthusiasm into what was soon to become a plot, their ranks included politically minded gentry who’d managed to stay hidden on a relative’s country estate, ordinary disaffected workers, and homeless people enticed into the conspiracy with food and promises of a dry bed. One by one they were drawn in, and soon word spread across French intelligence that a sect of revolutionary empaths were plotting armed insurrection somewhere amongst Paris. The group, in turn, then got wind they’d been uncovered – that armed Gendarmes would at any moment burst in and arrest them all – and decided that if their movement was to have any chance of surviving, they needed to act, right there, right now. They would need to give up anonymity, to be loud and vocal and violent if necessary, even resorting to the sort of acts their prejudiced oppressors feared – anything, ultimately, to re‑claim their human rights. The call was sounded; the demonstrators armed themselves. Urging on their insurrectionary comrades they as one took out and to the city streets, where they were all immediately arrested.

Except, as it turned out, there were no demonstrators. Every one of these renegade protestors, all the revolutionary firebrands ready to tear down French society in the name of empath rights, were actually undercover police officers who had infiltrated the “movement” from different French law enforcement agencies. In a stunning and almost comical display of ineptitude, bias and failed communication, over a half dozen agencies, precincts and law enforcement departments had uncovered this “empath” movement and decided to send their best agents to infiltrate it – creating, unknowingly, an echo chamber of agents provocateur egging each other on to greater and greater treason. It’s not even clear, in hindsight, if there were originally any real empaths involved at all. Certainly by the time the Bouhaniche “activists” were gearing up to descend into active violence, all the actual, fearful and law-abiding empaths who had been roped into the so‑called “movement”, who had probably thought they were joining a lobby or reading group originally, had long since abandoned the “uprising” or decided to stay home.

The Bouhaniche affair, so dubbed for the empath revolutionary purportedly leading the whole thing (who was never identified, apprehended or in any way materialised), was a public relations disaster. The French government, who’d previously faced criticism for dragging their feet in passing empath-regulating laws, now looked like a bunch of incompetent morons scrambling to drum up threats where none existed. Footage of dozens of police officers confusedly trying to arrest each other became national news, and the numerous injuries and property damage inflicted in the ensuing chaos made France the laughingstock of Europe for at least the following fortnight. Indignant bluster and furious finger-pointing followed, and pages upon pages of ink were spilled about government incompetence, police accountability and the legality of entrapment. Several senior public officials lost their job and several affected businesses filed for civil compensation. Almost nothing was written about the actual issues faced by the empaths, and one would be forgiven for wondering if that was the furore’s side effect, or entirely its point…[]

[]…I meet Zac Carpenter* (not his real name) at his parents’ house in Oregon. His mother, a short, overweight woman in powder blue jeans and a magenta cardigan, greets me at the door, her thin black hair, almost greying, tied back in a lank ponytail. She shakes my hand with both of hers, a trembling in her bottom lip, then ushers me quickly inside and upstairs.

Zac, 28, lives in his parents’ attic. His father is a safety inspector for a mid-tier shipping company and his older sister a human resources manager in Salem. His younger sister is in her third year at college. None have cut contact with him, he informs me, but they don’t communicate much, as his father travels a lot for work. He’s under the impression that he’s not mentioned to their friends and co-workers. “The evil twin in the basement,” he jokes, referencing a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode.

Zac is a pale, gangly young man with a crop of unwashed blond hair and the half-chubby, half-atrophied look of someone who spends most of their days in front of a computer. He is blood-based empath (“the worst kind,” he says, half mockingly) and his tattoo is crooked and misshapen, the bottom prong of the ‘E’ longer than the rest. “The tattoo guy didn’t want to touch me,” he says, rolling his eyes as if he was telling me about a bad paint job on his car rather than a permanent facial tattoo, “I think he did it on purpose.”

I first met Zac several months ago on an online message board, the name of which he requested I don’t publish to avoid it being shut down. It’s a large site, though far from a household name, where a wide spectrum of boards and sub-boards constantly churn with new forums and topics. I’d gone looking for empaths – or empath supporters, or sympathisers, or whatever I could locate – and had found myself utterly bewildered and lost, overwhelmed by the endless rabbit holes of discussion burrowing off in every direction. It’s not just that where to find these kind of conversations is poorly sign‑posted; it’s that once you get there, it’s almost impossible to tell that you’ve arrived. The deeper one dives off the beaten online track, the more obscure, coded and self-referential the language used by the people communicating there becomes, to the point where you find yourself wondering if what you’re reading is still actually English. Luckily, after several very frustrating weeks I managed to stumble upon Zac, and once I was able to provide him with my credentials he volunteered to lead me through the pro-empath edges of the Internet.

“Mim,” he informs me, as we sit down at the computer in his room, a messy, low-ceilinged chamber with no windows or natural light. I carry a chair up from the downstairs dining room and sit alongside Zac as he clicks through. “Mim’s what they call us. Or if you’re pro-empath Mim+.” He uses the word “they”, despite his clear familiarity and presence within the forum in question. “If you use the word ‘empath’ that’s too easy to see. FBI and stuff.” I ask him if he wants me to keep the phrase secret. Zac shrugs. “It’ll change in a few weeks. People are always coming up with ways to say things. It’s like a game, kind of. Keeps things fun.”

Zac points out several key terms. In addition to Mim there’s Vibin, which is proximity-based empathy (“just out here vibin”), Nos (“short for ‘Nosferatu’, you know, like vampire”) which means blood-based empaths, and Hentai, which somehow refers to empathy based on touch (“it started out as gropers, you know, because they touch people. Then people started making octopus jokes and then it sort of… you know. Hentai”). There’s also the phrases “Godking” or “AA”, which are shorthand for Klaus Heydrich.

“I don’t really go in for that,” Zac says sheepishly. You can tell he’s somewhat embarrassed by the extent of his knowledge in this department. “Some people do, they get quite big on it. There’s a lot of racial stuff; ‘Heydrich did nothing wrong’, ‘nothing of value was lost’, that sort of thing. A lot of the n-word. Depends where you go, often they’ll get told to f*** off or the mods will boot them, but not always. I don’t think many of them are real empaths.” What makes him say that? Zac hesitates. “They always seem to be talking up the race stuff, and never much about actual empath things beyond a few talking points. I don’t know,” he shrugs, “After you’ve been on here a while you just get a sort of feel about this stuff.”

Zac scrolls through one particular comment thread and I see references to “the 26 glorious days” and “The Fourth Reich”. “More Heydrich sh*t,” he tells me; “The days are how long it was from when he came out into the open to when he was killed by Captain Dawn. The Fourth Reich is- well that’s pretty self-explanatory.”

How do most people he talks to feel about the Legion of Heroes and Captain Dawn? Again, Zac shrugs. “I think that’s one of the easiest ways to tell real empaths from the fake ones,” he says, “The neo-Nazis call them bootlickers and communists and him ‘the tyrant’ and Jewhound’ and stuff, but real empaths don’t really care. We didn’t like Heydrich. The Legion was trying to save the world, it wasn’t their fault. They didn’t do this to us.” He points at his face.

We find a thread discussing ways for a blood-based empath to steal a wide variety of powers. One commentor is claiming to be an unregistered Nos who has managed to scam his way into a janitorial role in a hospital where we can go through discarded bandages and bags of blood. “That’s all bullsh*t,” Zac reassures me, seeming very dismissive and unconcerned, “It’s just role-playing, someone writing up their dumb fantasies. They’re probably not even nos. People just type dumb sh*t to get attention.”

In a separate chat on a different forum, there’s a new post asking for assistance in “hitting” a particularly anti-empath Senator. “It’s time they learned who they’re dealing with,” it declares, “E-paths will never again be victims, rise up brothers, it’s time to take a stand!” The comments below are empty, save for one anonymous responder, who’s replied “Bouhaniche” and nothing more. Even as a relative newcomer to this space, I can tell something’s off. “Obvious bait is obvious,” Zac says, with an exaggerated smirk – yet the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “Probably FBI or someone looking to entrap some sucker.” He closes the tab. “We’ll leave that one very much alone.”

We click on. A bit further down, there’s a thread where a young empath has written in, worried about getting her tattoo. She’s thirteen, she tells these complete strangers, and her parents aren’t willing to take her – they told her they need to be working, and the tattoo parlour is in an unsavoury part of town. The outpouring of sympathy and support underneath the post is surprising and profound.

“Keep your head up little champion,” writes one anonymous poster, “You walk in there and hold your head high. I’m so proud of you.”

“It’s okay to cry,” says another, “I bawled like a baby when I had mine. Remember, they’re the ones making you do this, not you. You owe them nothing.”

“F*** your parents. One day they’ll look back and wish they still had you as a daughter.”

“This is the first step on a sh*tty path, but don’t you ever think you’re not good enough.”

“You got this.”

“Think of it like this: now you get to see who your real friends are.”

“There’s no challenge God gives us that He knows we cannot take.”

“Wear your best dress. Don’t be rude to the tattooist. The pain will pass. Have lunch and a big drink of water.”

“We’re here for you.”

“Take two Tylenol and give ‘em two middle fingers.”

“Endure.”

“I hope she goes okay,” remarks Zac.