Five Years to Go

**Five Years to Go** is the 5th chapter of *The Power (Novel)*.

## Plot

#### Margot

Before the big debate between Margot and Daniel, Daniel’s campaign manager, Morrison, gives him some encouragement. The debate starts, and Morrison notes that Margot seems to be getting the upper hand. At the commercial break, Morrison encourages Daniel to be more aggressive. As Daniel starts going for more of an attack, Morrison notices Margot tense up. She seems to be struggling to control her hands. Finally, when Daniel suggests that she doesn’t care about her daughters, Margot lets out a small jolt of electricity that causes him to stagger.

The rest of the debate continues as normal, and following the debate, Margot apologies for what happened. The polling suggests that people are appalled by what happened.

However, after voting day comes and the final votes comes in, it seems people actually did like her show of strength. Margot wins.

#### Tunde

Tunde, now 27, arrives in Tucson, Arizona due to a tip that something was happening there today. Tunde isn’t entirely sure why he’s here, and he thinks that perhaps after what happened in Delhi he’s been “running away from the story, not towards it.” Today, he finds a group of men who are protesting at a mall in the name of “Justice for Men”. It’s a viewpoint that has grown in popularity online, with someone going by “UrbanDox” who has been championing the men’s rights movement.

Then, there’s an explosion as a bomb goes off. The mall is on fire and the front of the building is gone. Tunde tries to save a pregnant woman who is trapped under some debris. The pain of it causes the woman to send spasms of energy out of her palms. As Tunde attempts to remove the debris, the woman discharges a jolt into a wire that sparks and causes a fire around her. Tunde has to leave her behind, grab his camera and run.

Afterwards, a group called Male Power claims responsibility for the attack, which also destroyed a women’s health clinic next to the mall. On television, two television presenters — Tom and Kristen — report the attack. However, Tom starts to get worked up about how men aren’t being protected and starts cursing at Kristen.

Tunde’s sister Temi, urges him to come home so he can meet a nice girl and settle down. Tunde thinks about how he travelled with a journalist named Nina for a while, but they eventually parted ways.

Then, today, Tunde gets an e-mail from UrbanDox asking to meet.

The logistics of the meeting are complicated involving showing up at a location and a blindfolded car ride. Finally, Tunde finds himself in a storage locker sitting across from a man in his mid-fifties. He’s a pale man with white hair and blue eyes. Tunde knows that he had a string of failed businesses before getting a law degree through night school and finally becoming a blogger, posting angry rhetoric that increasing amounts of men are paying attention to. Lately, UrbanDox has been posting about a gender war he believes is forthcoming.

Tunde listens to UrbanDox spout off about his conspiracy theories about how women want to kill all men, leaving only a few to carry on the human race. He encourages Tunde to join them, but Tunde is thinking about how he can sell this footage and make money off of it. UrbanDox then hints that perhaps he has some access to nuclear weapons that got misplaced when the Soviet Union fell and that he’s possibly planning some type of attack.

#### Allie

By now, Allie is 20 years old. In Bessapara, a boy named Christian who is a paraplegic from an childhood accident asks her for a blessing. This boy has been specifically curated for this televised event, chosen since he had mild enough nerve damage that Allie could cure it.

As the crowd watches, Allie places her hands on the boy and he is then able to move his legs. The boy cries. Allie knows that sometimes her healing lasts, but sometimes it doesn’t, but either way it makes for a moving spectacle. Afterwards, there is a plea for donations to support the Church.

After the event, Allie corresponds with Sister Maria Ignacia, who has been loyally holding down the fort back at the original convent. Allie has recently asked Sister Ignacia to ensure that all files on “Alison Montgomery-Taylor” disappear, and today she receives confirmation that it will happen. While it’s not specified who is handling it, Allie knows that the believer most likely to have the power and influence to accomplish something like that is Roxy.

That night, Allie and Tatiana have dinner. They talk about the war between Bessapara and Moldova which has spanned the last three years. Tatiana wants to do a large attack and achieve a decisive victory with the help of some Glitter to amp up everyone’s powers. Since Awadi-Atif has been arming the North Moldovan troops, Tatiana wants to utterly destroy them with just the power to send a message. She wants Allie/”Mother Eve”‘s blessing.

Allie considers her options carefully, knowing that it will be a tricky situation if Bessapara ends up losing. Still, Allie soon broadcasts as Mother Eve, extending her support for Bessapara in their war against the Saudis.

#### Margot

By now, Jocelyn has been photographed with Ryan, and news article have been published about a governor’s daughter dating a guy with

a skein.

Margot suggests Jocelyn to break up with Ryan, showing her reports that Ryan has been frequenting extremist sites and posting under a false name about planning terror attacks. Jocelyn insists that Ryan is a good person, but Margot tells her that the FBI dug up this stuff, hinting that the Department of Defence is vetting her for a possible senatorial run.

Jocelyn tearfully agrees to break things off with Ryan. Margot consoles Jocelyn, saying she understands that she’s frustrated about her fluctuations in power that make her abnormal, just like Ryan is abnormal. Margot reassures her that they can find some way to fix her.

#### Roxy

Roxy is on her way to Moldova when she gets news that her half-brother Ricky has been injured. She makes her way to Bernie’s wife Barbara’s house. There, she sees that Ricky is injured from the waist down. He tells her about how the night before, three women took turns with him, using their powers on him to force an erection for the fun of making him hurt.

Ricky knows who the women are who did this. Roxy calls around and quickly tracks the women down to a pub in Vauxhall. When Roxy leaves to go deal with them, her youngest half-brother Darrell wants to go, too. She takes two others she trusts with her, Danni and Viv.

She waits until the three girls leave the pub and makes her attack when they’re outside. She takes one of them out first, leaving her twitching on the floor. The girls know who Roxy is and tell her they didn’t know it was her brother. Darrell then takes a second one out with the barrel of a shotgun. Finally, the last girl, Sam, tells Roxy that Ricky had asked them to do it to him, wanting it to hurt. Sam manages to grab Darrell, but Viv kicks Sam out.

Roxy leaves the girls blinded in one eye and marks them all with scars on their faces.

Back at home, Barbara apologizes to Roxy for being unkind to Roxy when she was young (since Barbara disliked that Roxy was Bernie’s daughter with another woman), and she thanks Roxy for taking care of the situation with Ricky. Roxy shrugs off her comment. Barbara then tells her that there’s things Bernie hasn’t told Roxy about his business because Ricky was meant to take over, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

Barbara then gives Roxy three notebooks full of information about Bernie’s contacts — “Narcs. Bent coppers. Rotten doctors” — saying that it’ll be useful to Roxy in selling Glitter.

Later, as Roxy goes through the notebooks, she recognizes one of the names — Detective Newland. Roxy recalls that when she killed Primrose, he had told her that “Newland said you weren’t going to be home”, indicating that Newland was part of the plot to kill her mother. A little bit of research shows that Newland is now retired and living in Spain. When she mentions to Darrell that she’s going to track him down, he wants to come, too. Roxy understands that with Ricky out of commission, Darrell understands that she’s the family he’s got left and he wants to align himself with her.

They find Newland at his home and confront him. He starts pleading and crying. They force him to start talking about his arrangement with Primrose, saying that if he cooperates they’ll make it look like a heart attack instead of a suicide (in which case his life insurance will pay out to his family).

Newland then confesses that he never worked for Primrose. He worked for Bernie, and Bernie was the one who ordered him to give the information to Primrose. In other words, Bernie ordered Roxy’s mother Christina to be killed.

Back at home, Roxy and Darrell confront Bernie. Bernie says it wasn’t personal; it was because Christina got two of his guys caught. Bernie says he’ll accept that she’s going to kill him if that’s what she feels she needs to do. However, Roxy thinks about it and decides that she doesn’t want to continue the cycle. Instead, she tells Bernie that he’s going to retire and tell everyone that he’s handing the business over to her.

#### Jocelyn

By now, NorthStar camps are serving as funnel for girls going into the army and straight into active duty, with NorthStar camps collecting a “bounty” for each girl. It has made Margot Cleary popular with the army since it was her program.

Jocelyn is on night watch with a few other girls — Dakota, Hayden, Teegan and Samara — at NorthStar camp when the sirens go off. There’s never been a real attack before at the camp, but tonight there’s three men in black masks with baseball bats and bolt cutters.

There’s a scuffle as they men try to enter the camp, but the women manage to get the upper hand. Dakota wants to teach the men a lesson, but Joceyln isn’t sure what to do. Dakota then accuses her of being a “pzit” (an insult for a woman without powers, mimicking the sound of a failed electrical discharge). Wanting to prove herself, Jocelyn zaps one of the guys, killing him.

Two of the NorthStar people show up, Esther and Johnny. When Esther surveys the scene, she explains to Jocelyn what to say. She says that Jocelyn will need to tell others that she saw the guy reaching for a gun, creating a “clear and present danger”, which is why she used “proportionate force” to stop him.

Later, Jocelyn recites her story on the news. The news casters, Kristin and her new co-anchor Matt, also report on the war in Moldova, which the South Moldovans initially got the upper hand on, but the North Moldovans are currently winning with the help of the Saudis.

## Trivia

*(e.g. observations, cross-references, 'useless knowledge')*