The Power

  Later that afternoon, they send out the men in helicopters and soldiers on the streets, armed with guns and live ammunition. Tunde is there to film it when the women hit back. There are so many of them; they are so numerous and so angry. Several women are killed but this just sharpens the rest, and can any soldier keep on firing for ever, mowing down row after row of women? The women fuse the firing pins inside the barrels, they cook the electronics of the vehicles. They do it happily. ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,’ says Tunde in his voiceover report, because he’s been reading about revolution, ‘but to be young was very heaven’.

  Twelve days later the government has fallen. There are rumours, never substantiated, about who killed the King; some say it was a member of the family, and some say it was an Israeli assassin, and some whisper that it was one of the maids who had served in the palace loyally for years feeling the power between her fingertips and no longer able to hold it back.

  By that time, anyway, Tunde is on a plane again. What has happened in Saudi Arabia has been seen across the world, and the thing is happening everywhere all at once now.

  Margot

  ‘It’s a problem.’

  ‘We all know it’s a problem.’

  ‘Think about it, Margot. I mean, really think about it.’

  ‘I am thinking about it.’

  ‘We’ve got no way to know whether anyone in this room can do it.’

  ‘We know you couldn’t do it, Daniel.’

  That gets a laugh. In a room of anxious people, a laugh is a release. It wells up to more than its proper size. It takes a few moments for the twenty-three people gathered around the conference table to settle again. Daniel is upset. He thinks it’s a joke about him. He’s always wanted just a little bit more than his due.

  ‘Obviously,’ he says. ‘Obviously. But we have no way to know. The girls, fine, we’re doing what we can with them – God, have you seen the numbers on runaways?’

  They’ve all seen the numbers on runaways.

  Daniel presses on. ‘I’m not talking about the girls. We’ve got that under control, for the most part. I’m talking about grown women. Teenage girls can wake this thing up in older women. And they can give it to each other. Grown women can do it now, Margot, you’ve seen that stuff.’

  ‘It’s very rare.’

  ‘We think it’s very rare. What I’m saying is, we just don’t know. It could be you, Stacey. Or you, Marisha. For all we know, Margot, you might be able to do it yourself.’ He laughs, and that also gets a nervous little ripple.

  Margot says, ‘Sure, Daniel, I could zap you right now. The Governor’s office treads on a news cycle you agreed to give to the Mayoralty?’ She makes a gesture, splaying her fingers wide. ‘Pfffzzzt.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s funny, Margot.’

  But the other people around the table are already laughing.

  Daniel says, ‘We’re going to get this test. Bring it in state-wide, all government employees. That includes the Mayor’s office, Margot. No arguments. We need to know for sure. You can’t have someone employed in government buildings who can do that. It’s like walking around with a loaded gun.’

  It’s been a year. There’s been footage on the TV of riots in faraway and unstable parts of the world, of women taking whole cities. Daniel’s right. The critical thing isn’t that fifteen-year-old girls can do it: you could contain that. The thing is that they can wake up this power in some of the older women. It raises questions. How long has this been possible? How did no one know until now?

  On the morning shows, they bring in experts on human biology and prehistoric images. This carved image found in Honduras, dating back more than six thousand years, doesn’t that look like a woman with lightning coming from her hands to you, Professor? Well, of course, these carvings often represent mythical and symbolic behaviours. But it could be historical, that is, it could represent something that actually happened. It could, maybe. Did you know, in the oldest texts, that the God of the Israelites had a sister, Anath, a teenage girl? Did you know that she was the warrior, that she was invincible, that she spoke with the lightning, that in the oldest texts she killed her own father and took his place? She liked to bathe her feet in the blood of her enemies. The TV anchors laugh uneasily. That doesn’t sound like much of a beauty regime, now, does it, Kristen? Certainly does not, Tom. But now, this destroying goddess, do you think those ancient peoples knew something we don’t? It’s hard to say, of course. And is it possible that this capacity goes back a very long time? You mean, women in the past could do it, too, and we forgot? Seems like a hell of a thing to forget, now, doesn’t it? How could it have been forgotten? Well, now, Kristen, if a power like this existed, maybe we bred it out deliberately, maybe we didn’t want it around. You’d tell me if you could do something like that, wouldn’t you, Kristen? Well, you know, Tom, maybe I’d want to keep a thing like that to myself. The news anchors’ eyes meet. Something unspoken passes between them. And now the weather on the ones.

  The official line for now from the Mayor’s office, handed out on photocopied sheets to schools across the major metropolitan area is: abstinence. Just don’t do it. It’ll pass. We keep the girls separate from the boys. There’ll be an injection within a year or two to stop this thing happening and then we’ll all go back to normal. It’s as upsetting for the girls to use it as it is for their victims. That’s the official line.

  Late at night in a part of town she knows has no surveillance cameras, Margot parks her car, gets out, puts her palm to a lamp post and gives it everything she’s got. She just needs to know what she’s got under the hood here; she wants to feel what it is. It feels as natural as anything she’s ever done, as known and understood as the first time she had sex, as her body saying, Hey, I got this.

  All the lights in the road go out: pop, pop, pop. Margot laughs out loud, there in the silent street. She’d be impeached if anyone found out, but then she’d be impeached anyway if anyone knew she could do it at all, so what’s the margin? She guns the gas and drives off before the sirens start. She wondered what she’d have done if they’d caught her, and in the asking she knows she has enough left in her skein to stun a man, at least, maybe more – can feel the power sloshing across her collarbone and up and down her arms. The thought makes her laugh again. She finds she’s doing that more often now, just laughing. There’s a sort of constant ease, as if it’s high summer all the time inside her.

  It hasn’t been this way with Jos. No one knows why; no one’s done enough research on the thing even to venture a suggestion. She’s getting fluctuations. Some days she’s got so much power in her that she trips the house fuse box just turning on a light. Some days she has nothing, not even enough to defend herself if some girl picks a fight with her in the street. There are nasty names now for a girl who can’t or won’t defend herself. Blanket, they call them, and flat battery. Those are the least offensive ones. Gimp. Flick. Nesh. Pzit. The last, apparently, for the sound of a woman trying to make a spark and failing. For maximum effect, you need a group of girls all innocuously whispering ‘pzit’ as you walk past. Young people are still deadly. Jos has been spending more and more time alone, as her friends find new friends with whom they have ‘more in common’.

  Margot suggests that Jocelyn could come to stay by herself one weekend. She’ll have Jos; Bobby will take Maddy. It’s nice for the girls to have a parent all to themselves. Maddy wants to take the bus into town to look at the dinosaurs – she never gets to take the bus any more; it’s more of a treat for her now than the museum. Margot’s been working so hard. I’ll take Jos for mani-pedis, she says. It’ll be good for both of us to take a break.

  They eat breakfast at the table by the kitchen’s glass wall. Jos helps herself to some more stewed plums from the bowl and tops them with yogurt, and Margot says, ‘You still can’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘I could lose my job if you tell anyone.’

  ‘Mom, I know. I hav
en’t told Dad and I haven’t told Maddy. I haven’t told anyone. I won’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Jocelyn smiles. ‘It’s cool.’

  Margot suddenly remembers how much she would have liked to have a secret to share with her mother. How the yearning for it made even the grubby rituals of elasticated bands for sanitary towels or carefully concealed leg razors seem faintly lovable or even glamorous.

  They practise together in the garage in the afternoon, challenging each other, fighting and working up a little sweat. Jos’s power gets stronger and easier to control if she works with it. Margot can feel it flickering, feel that it hurts Jos when the power rises up and then suddenly shorts out. There must be some way Jos can learn to control it. There must be girls in her own metropolitan-area’s schools who’ve had to learn to control it themselves and could teach Jos a few tricks.

  As for Margot: all she needs to know is that she can keep it under control. They’re bringing in testing at work.

  ‘Come on in, Mayor Cleary. Sit down.’

  The room is small, and there is only one tiny window far up near the ceiling, letting in a thin strip of grey light. When the nurse visits for the annual flu shot, this is the room she uses, or if someone’s doing the staff review. There’s a table, and three chairs. Behind the table is a woman wearing a bright blue security tag pinned to her lapel. On top of the table is a piece of machinery: it looks like it might be a microscope or a blood-testing apparatus; there are two needles and a focusing window and lenses.

  The woman says, ‘We want you to know, Madam Mayor, that everyone in the building is being tested. You haven’t been singled out.’

  ‘Even the men?’ Margot raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, no, not the men.’

  Margot thinks about that.

  ‘OK. And it’s … what exactly?’

  The woman gives a faint smile: ‘Madam Mayor, you signed the papers. You know what this is.’

  She feels her throat constrict. She puts one hand on her hip. ‘No, actually, I want you to tell me what it is. For the record.’

  The woman wearing the security tag says, ‘It’s state-wide mandatory testing for the presence of a skein, or the electrostatic power.’ She starts to read from a card sitting next to the machine. ‘Please be advised that following a state-wide order from the Governor Daniel Dandon, your continued eligibility for your government position is dependent on your agreement to be tested. A positive test result need not necessarily have any bearing on your future employment. It is possible for a woman to test positive without knowing that she has the capacity to use the electrostatic power. Counselling is available if the results of this test are distressing to you, or to help you consider your options if your current position is no longer suitable.’

  ‘What does that mean,’ says Margot, ‘no longer suitable? What does it mean?’

  The woman purses her lips: ‘Certain positions involving contact with children and the public have been mandated as unsuitable by the Governor’s office.’

  It’s like Margot can see Daniel Dandon, the Governor of this great state, standing behind the woman’s chair, laughing.

  ‘Children and the public? What does that leave me?’

  The woman smiles. ‘If you haven’t experienced the power yet, it’s all going to be fine. Nothing to worry about, on with your day.’

  ‘It’s not fine for everyone.’

  The woman flicks the switch on the machine. It starts up a gentle hum.

  ‘I’m ready to begin, Madam Mayor.’

  ‘What happens if I say no?’

  She sighs. ‘If you say no, I’ll have to record it, and the Governor will inform someone in the State Department.’

  Margot sits down. She thinks, They won’t be able to tell I’ve used it. No one knows. I haven’t been lying. She thinks, Shit. She swallows.

  ‘Fine,’ she says, ‘I’d like it recorded that I’m making a formal protest about being forced to undergo invasive testing.’

  ‘OK,’ says the woman. ‘I’ll get that written down.’

  And behind her faint smirk, Margot can see Daniel’s face again, laughing. She puts her arm out for the electrodes, thinking that, at least, at least after this is done, even after she’s out of a job and there go her political ambitions, at least then she won’t have to look at his stupid face any more.

  They apply the sticky electrode pads to her wrists, her shoulders, her collarbone. They’re looking for electrical activity, the technician explains in a low, droning voice. ‘You should be perfectly comfortable, ma’am. At worst, you’ll experience a slight stinging sensation.’

  At worst, I’ll experience the end of my career, Margot thinks, but says nothing.

  It’s all very simple. They’re going to trigger her autonomic nervous function with a series of low-level electrical impulses. It works on the girl babies in routine tests now being run in hospitals, even though the answer is always the same, because all the girl babies have it now, every single one. Give them an almost imperceptible shock across the skein; the skein will respond automatically with a jolt. Margot can feel her skein is ready, anyway – it’s the nerves, the adrenaline.

  Remember to look surprised, she says to herself, remember to look afraid and ashamed and taken aback by this brand-new thing.

  The machine makes a low, buzzing hum as it starts. Margot is familiar with the schematics. It will begin by giving an entirely imperceptible shock, too low for the senses to register. The skeins of those little baby girls almost always respond at this level, or the next one. The machine has ten settings. The electrical stimulus will increase, level by level. At a certain point, Margot’s own aged and unpractised skein will respond, like calling to like. And then they will know. She breathes in, she breathes out. She waits.

  At the start, she cannot feel it at all. There is simply the sensation of pressure building. Across her chest, down her spine. She does not feel the first level, or the second level, or the third, as the machine clicks smoothly through its cycle. The dial moves on. Margot feels that it would be pleasant, now, to discharge herself. It is like the feeling, on waking, that one might like to open one’s eyes. She resists. It is not difficult.

  She breathes in, she breathes out. The woman operating the machine smiles, makes a note on her Xeroxed sheet of boxes. A fourth 0 in the fourth box. Nearly halfway there. Of course, at some point, it will become impossible, Margot has read it in the literature. She makes a rueful little smile at the technician.

  ‘Are you comfortable?’ the woman says.

  ‘I’d be more comfortable with a glass of Scotch,’ Margot says.

  The dial clicks forward. Now it is becoming more difficult. She feels the pricking at the right side of her collarbone and in the palm of her hand. Come on, it says, come on. It is like a pressure holding her arm down now. Uncomfortable. She could so easily throw this heavy, pressing weight off and be free of it. She cannot be seen to sweat, cannot show a struggle.

  Margot thinks of what she did when Bobby told her he’d been having an affair. She remembers how her body went hot and cold, how she felt her throat close up. She remembers how he said, ‘Aren’t you going to say anything? Don’t you have anything to say about that?’ Her mother would scream at her father for leaving the door unlatched when he walked out in the morning, or forgetting his slippers in the middle of the living-room rug. She’s never been one of those women, never wanted to be. She used to walk in the cool of the yew trees when she was a child, placing each foot so carefully, pretending that if she took one wrong step the roots would curl up through the earth and grab her. She has always known exactly how to be silent.

  The dial clicks on. There is a neat row of eight zeroes on the woman’s Xeroxed sheet. Margot had been afraid she would not know what a zero felt like, that the business would be over before it began and she would have no choice. She breathes in and breathes out. It is hard now, very hard, but the difficulty is familiar. Her body wants something, and she is de
nying it. The itch of it, the pressure of it, is across the front of her torso, down through the muscles of her stomach, into her pelvis, around her buttocks. It is like simply not passing water when your bladder asks you to. It is like holding your breath for a few seconds longer than is entirely comfortable. It’s no wonder that the baby girls can’t do it. It’s a wonder they’ve found any adult women at all with this thing. Margot feels herself want to discharge, and doesn’t. Just doesn’t.

  The machine clicks on to its tenth setting. It is not impossible, not even nearly. She waits. The humming cuts off. The fans whirr and then are silent. The pen lifts from the graph table. Ten zeroes.

  Margot tries to look disappointed. ‘No dice, huh?’

  The technician shrugs.

  Margot tucks one foot behind the other ankle as the technician removes the electrodes. ‘I never thought I had it.’ She makes her voice crack just a little at the end of the sentence.

  Daniel will look at this report. He’ll be the one to sign off on it. Cleared, it will say, for government work.

  She twitches her shoulders and lets out a little barking laugh.

  And there’s no reason now not to put her in charge of the programme rolling out this test across the major metropolitan area. Not a reason in the world. She’s the one who signs off on the budget for it. Who agrees the informational campaigns explaining that this technology will keep our sons and daughters safe. It’s Margot’s name, when you come right down to it, on the official documentation saying that this testing equipment will help save lives. She tells herself, as she signs the forms, that it’s probably true. Any woman who can’t stop herself from discharging under this mild pressure is a danger to herself, a danger, yes, to society.

  There are strange movements rising now, not only across the world, but right here in the US of A. You can see it on the internet. Boys dressing as girls to seem more powerful. Girls dressing as boys to shake off the meaning of the power, or to leap on the unsuspecting, wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Westboro Baptist Church has seen a sudden influx of crazy new members who think the day of judgement is coming.