Can’t Be More Than Seven Months Left

**Can’t Be More Than Seven Months Left** is the 7th chapter of *The Power (Novel)*.

## Plot

(Illustration depicting male genital mutilation, referred to as “curbing”. The description explains that it’s still practiced in some places. The process ensures that men cannot have an erection without being stimulated by a skein. Another consequence of the process is that men who have been “curbed” cannot ejaculate without pain.)

#### Allie

Allie is concerned that Roxy seems to have disappeared as of 8 weeks ago. Allie is in contact with Darrell, who appears to be concerned (though he’s just pretending of course, since he knows exactly what happened to Roxy). Meanwhile, Tatiana is paranoid and wonders if Roxy’s disappearance is because Roxy has sold them out. Allie doesn’t believe this, but instead notes how unstable and unpredictable Tatiana has become.

One night, Allie goes to Tatiana and uses her powers to adjust the neurons in Tatiana’s head to make her more pliable. She then tells Tatiana to sign some papers handing over more control of the country to the Church.

#### Darrell

Near the Bessapara border, Darrell has now taken over the Glitter business, but he’s having problems with the U.N. blocking their shipments. Darrell’s implanted skein that he took from Roxy is still healing, so he can’t use it yet. The women don’t know that Roxy’s gone yet, but one of the women working at their warehouse reminds him that here he needs a female guardian and if his is missing, then he needs to be appointed a new one. Darrell insists that Roxy’s just taking a vacation.

On the phone with his dad, Darrell and Bernie talk about how they haven’t seen any sign of Roxy in two months. They also talk about their plans to sell skein transplants to others.

#### Jocelyn

Jocelyn is still in Bessapara. After the attack on NorthStar, Margot sent Jocelyn to a therapist to work out trauma regarding the attack. However, Jocelyn hasn’t disclosed the truth of what really happened to the therapist because the therapist works for NorthStar and she doesn’t know if it’s safe to talk to her. Instead, they talk about Ryan. Ryan managed to get back in touch with her and has continued to insist that he had never posted or said any of the things that Margot claimed he did. Jocelyn knows that her mother has a habit of lying so much nowadays, so she believes Ryan.

Meanwhile, online Jocelyn has been reading various accounts of the atrocities in Bessapara where men are being raped and murdered and having experiments performed on then. Someone named Tom Hobson has been reporting on it and how the U.S. is stationed there so that Margot Cleary can export Glitter to be sold at a markup in the United States. Jocelyn thinks about how getting doses of Glitter has finally helped her to regulate her powers instead of having the abnormal highs and lows and other women don’t seem to experience.

Tom Hobson has reported that one of these Glitter manufacturing centers is near where Jocelyn is based. Jocelyn leaves to go check it out. She wonders if she might find something incriminating against her mom there that she might use to get her mother to leave her alone.

#### Tunde

The weeks after Bessapara’s new rules, things began to change, but slowly since there was no one to enforce the new laws. Then, Tunde starts hearing tales of awful things happening. Tunde notices he’s being asked for his papers more and more frequently. Tunde gets wind of particularly awful thing happening in the mountains. Apparently the warlords there blinded girls who got their powers when everything started, and now apparently they’re getting their comeuppance. Tunde decides to head out there to report on it.

By the eighth week, when Tunde doesn’t have a properly signed document from his guardian permitting him to be out shopping, Tunde is turned away. In week ten, Tunde passes by a dead man tied to a post with a sign indicating that the man is a “slut”. Tunde photographs it. Later, he starts to suspect he’s being followed. Soon, he sees a woman who seems like she means him harm.

Tunde runs away from the woman and into the village, asking for help. He makes his way into an apartment building where he finds an empty room with an outlet. He plugs in his phone and uses it to send out emails to people he knows, asking them to contact the embassy to help get him out of Bessapara. However, one of the first responses he indicates that the person thinks it’s a joke.

He then sees that Nina has published a story about Bessapara. On further inspection, it becomes clear that she has taken the materials he sent her for safekeeping and published it all under her own name and that she plans to publish an entire book using on his materials. Tunde also sees that an obituary for him has been published. It’s believed that he died in a car wreck since his suitcase was found in the charred remains of an accident. Tunde recalls that it was a suitcase he’d left behind in the hotel. Tunde pieces together that they must’ve had him declared dead after realizing he’d fled from the hotel.

Before he can do anything further, Tunde hears the sound of people coming after him. Tunde runs away from the apartment building and into the woods. That night, he sees a group of a women and men naked and having sex in the woods as the women hurt the men with their powers and the men enjoy it. One of the men wears a crown and is brought forward and killed. When Tunde awakes, he doesn’t know if he dreamed it or not.

Tunde knows he needs to find a way to prove he’s alive and find a way out of the country. However, he gets ambushed by some women and wakes up in cage. He recognizes that his captor is Roxanne Monke.

#### Roxy

Roxanne recognizes Tunde from his videos. Tunde asks for Roxy’s help, but she says she’s on the mend and that she doesn’t have much influence here. The camp is all women and smells like rotting food and rotting flesh. Roxy says that the women here are “mental” — they hunt men, let them be “king” for a few weeks, then they kill them. He pleads for her help, though Roxy says her plan was to lay low around these women and not cause trouble.

Still, Roxy bargains for Tunde’s life with a bag of Glitter that night. The negotiations are easy since they don’t care that much about him anyway. When they get away from the camp, she cuts him loose. She admits that she was betrayed by her people and that she’s still sorting out what to do next.

They end up staying at a refugee camp. People know Roxy and are respectful towards her. The other English-speakers at the camp talk about how around Bessapara, men without proper documentation are being rounded up for “work detail” and disappearing.

The third night there, Roxy wakes Tunde up to let him know that the camp is being attacked. As Tunde heads for the nearby forest, Roxy watches as women descend upon the camp, lighting it on fire and rounding up the young men. She hides and watches powerlessly as the women attack and torture one man as he screams until he’s dead. Roxy sees that the violence here is senseless. These women don’t want anything other than to do this “because they can”.

Roxy and Tunde hide in a tree nearby to get some sleep, but they are awaked when a woman dressed in combat gear starts burning the tree as they look for people hiding in trees. Roxy and Tunde haven’t been spotted yet. Tunde tells Roxy to give her a small zap, but then he realizes that Roxy hasn’t used her powers at all and remembers the scar on her collarbone.

Instead, Tunde tosses a film canisters at a nearby oil drum to try to distract the woman into going somewhere else to look. Roxy and Tunde make their escape as the woman is distracted and the others she’s with surround the oil drum. To Roxy and Tunde’s dismay, it turns out there were two young children hiding in the oil drum (which Tunde hadn’t realized). Roxy and Tunde have no choice as to keep running away as they watch the group of women descend upon the crying children.

Roxy and Tunde travel some distance and find a deserted rail station to rest in. They talk about what has happened to them and the betrayals they each experienced. They sleep together and find comfort in one another.

## Trivia

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