War

“Sarah Clark, please enter the seventh door on the left.”

Sarah sat there for a moment staring into space, as she’d been sitting in the chair for so long she couldn’t actually feel her legs anymore. It took her thirty seconds to realise that her number had finally been called. She’d been waiting eighteen years for this moment, and she was finally getting the thing that would make her an adult, her Power. She’d no longer get called a child and looked at with pity by those who were only a few months older than her just because they’d turned eighteen and got their Power.

Jumping to her feet, she dashed down the corridor, counting carefully, not wanting to mess anything up at this stage. Looking around when she got to the door, she wasn’t sure if she should knock or just go in, she stood there indecisively until she heard a voice from inside yell for her to come in.

The man at the table beckoned for her to come and sit down, pushing documents across the table towards her. “Before we start, this is the non-disclosure agreement and contract. Please read it carefully and press the bell,” he indicated a bell set into the tabletop, “when you have fully read it. If you have any questions, these will be covered prior to you signing.”

All Sarah could think was he sounded so bored, she’d literally been counting down the hours to this point, and he sounded like he’d rather be anywhere but here. “So when do I choose what my Power will be?” She had assumed she’d just be discussing with someone the pros and cons of the Powers that were on her shortlist, which was scrunched up in her pocket. She hadn’t been prepared for the massive pile of papers that were sitting there.

He sighed deeply before replying, “That’s all covered in the non-disclosure agreement and contract, as I’ve already stated.” He really emphasised the word already, “I will return when you ring your bell.” Before she could ask any more questions, he was on his feet and out the door leaving her to stare at it as it slammed shut.

“I was only going to say that I was excited, but I guess you don’t care.” She looked pitifully at the closed door, then turned her face down to the table. She spread the papers out, her heart sinking when she saw there must be at least 200 pages to read. She skim read them first to see if there was any mention of choosing her Power. When there wasn’t, she sighed deeply and started from the front. It was heavy going, and every paragraph had to be initialled, some of it she didn’t really understand that well, but the gist of it seemed to be she had to swear faithfulness to her Government, and if she renounced this at any point, she would lose her Power. There was also an agreement that she couldn’t disclose anything that had been stated in this room, or she would lose her Power, and this would all be monitored by the implantable chip that was the host of her Power. She grinned to herself as she signed each sheet, she couldn’t understand what the big deal was, as she just wanted a cool Power and to stop the older kids condescending looks. She slammed her pen down, rang the bell and rocked backwards in her seat. She was ready to choose.

The same bored man walked back in, “Any questions?”

“No, all seemed pretty clear. Can I choose my Power now?” She was bobbing eagerly in her seat.

With another sigh, he handed her another piece of paper, “This is a list of the currently available Powers.” He put it down on the table in front of her.

Sarah looked down at it with a frown, “But I thought I got to choose?”

“You do get to choose, but from this list, you will have 2 hours from now to make your decision.” He cleared up all the rest of the

paperwork and made his way towards the door. She managed to get her question out before he left. “But, no one said I could only choose from a list. I thought I could choose anything.”

Another big sigh exited the man, “No, you choose from the list. The non-disclosure agreement also covers how you choose your Powers, so you may not discuss it after leaving this room, or your Power is forfeit. The Government likes the nation to remain balanced, so we can’t have every person having the same Power”. He looked down at his watch. “You now have one hour fifty-eight minutes,” and slammed the door.

She pulled her crumpled list out of her pocket, and smoothed it out on the table, and pulled the list she’d been given, so they were side by side. She glanced between the two. None of the Powers she’d wanted were on the official list. Where was the super speed? The invisibility? The flying? She screwed her list up into a ball and threw it across the room with anger, she’d spent eighteen years making that list, and now the day was here, and it was useless. Each Power she’d chosen she’d spent hours going over the pros and cons of and none of them were on there. NONE. She grabbed the pen and started from the top, crossing out the ones she knew she definitely didn’t want. It took her the whole time to get to her final decision, and even then, she was stressing she’d chosen the wrong one, but super vision was the best of the lot, so she finally pressed her bell.

It was seven years since Sarah had signed her contract to the Government in exchange for her Power, she shook her head, thinking back to how stupid and naive she’d been, but in the last few years, her eyes had finally been opened.

She’d started to notice that the awesome Powers were reserved for a select few. Those from Powerful families that had ties to the Government were the ones who could leap a tall building with a single bound or lift a truck with one hand. The average person got something that was much less exciting. She’d kept quiet all this time, watching things happen around her, watching the Government become more Powerful. She’d seen the last elections cancelled and not spoken up through fear, fear of losing her place in society, and fear of losing her Power. But today finally, on her 25th birthday, she’d plucked up the courage, it was time for her to speak out. She took a deep breath and pressed the record button on her webcam.

“Good afternoon, I don’t know how many of you will be watching this, but for me, it is enough that I am finally managing to say something. We, as a society, are broken. I can’t be the only one who has noticed that we are being encouraged to increase our debt, which is to the Government since they took over all the banks in 2018, we are told to spend, spend, spend; that we need the latest gadget to be a good citizen. But all we do is increase their hold over our lives.

It is drummed into our head that we are nothing without our Powers, but if we want to keep them, we must remain faithful to this corrupt Government. We cannot.” She heard the first blow to her front door, her head turning away from the camera to face the noise, and she started to tremble with fear, She’d thought she would get more of her speech out before they came for her, but she’d known they would come, no one spoke against the Government, “So today I have chosen my path, I have chosen my freedom, even if I have chosen something that will end my life.” She heard the door give way, and the footsteps pounding towards her, she took a deep breath and turned to face those coming for her, she screamed in shock as something was pulled over her head blocking out her vision, her scream was cut off when she felt the sharp prick of a needle in her neck, and she slid into unconsciousness.

Sarah rubbed the scar on the back of her neck and thought back to that day seven years ago, the day that she had announced to the world that she rejected the Government, the same day the rebels had grabbed her before the Government could and had removed the chip from the back of her neck that contained not only her Power but also contained a tracking device and a small microphone designed to listen in to all the conversations she’d ever had.

“Happy birthday Sarah” Her best friend Emma greeted her with a hug, “How are you feeling?”

“Old!” Sarah laughed sadly. With all the rebels had been through since she joined them, she felt decades older than her 32 years.

Emma laughed and slung her arm around her friend’s shoulder. “Me too, have you got your speech ready?”

“Yeah, let’s do this” Sarah took a big breath and walked into the hall, waiting for a hush to fall over the room.

“Good afternoon. I have an announcement to make. After many years of work and experimentation, we have finally perfected the jammer. We can effectively disable the chips and the Power they provide to their hosts.” She had to raise her voice to continue with her speech over the growing excited chatter in the room. “We can now level the playing field, we can now take on the corrupt government and try and reclaim our country; this is the moment you have all been waiting for, today we go to war.”