We all sat in a prim little circle, each with our legs crossed under our chairs, our ankles folded delicately over one another. My hands lay humid in my lap, as if they thought we were in a rain forest and not the foggy, chilled air of New London. My tasseled cap threatened to slip off the side of my head, where it sat tilted to the latest fashion. I twisted my hair into a ponytail, tucking it under my cap and lowering the brim. Then I took a final look around the room full of strangers, wondering which of them would help me escape, and which would try to kill me.
I attempted to catch each one in my stare. To intimidate them. To shame them. To plant a seed of panic that would manifest itself at the crucial moment and make me victorious.
Only one held my gaze. An old biddy, with tight, deep lines around her thin lips, smudges of dark lipstick seeping into the cracks. Her eyes, a watery, soggy blue, hardened onto mine. Not one blink broke the connection, and our eyes remained locked on each others as if glued into their sockets. I forced myself to tear my eyes away, suddenly disheartened by her stabbing gaze. I let my eyes wander back, speculative if she had grown bored and looked away, or if her eyes were still fixed on me. They were.
She took a breath, the way old people breathe, her nostrils flaring imperceptibly, her flat, dry lips open just enough to send a invisible wave of air across the room. As I took my own breath, I imagined that I was sucking in the air she had just expelled, and I fought the urge to hold my breath. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to complete my job. Only, dying was slowly becoming the more appealing option.
Then, she smiled at me. A cold, hungry smile, and I had a certain feeling that she had been a shark in her past life. The kind of mammoth-mouthed shark that ripped people to shreds on whim. I felt a surge of satisfaction well in me, a glee for my secret knowledge that every face in this room would soon bear an expression of horror and surprise.
I knew that to begin, I had to tear the smothering silence that had been choking everyone in the room, forcing itself down throats until we were all corpses propped up on chairs. I turned to the elderly woman, knowing she would not survive the day.
I smiled back and with impeccable sweetness and poise, said, “My, New London sure is quiet this time of year,”
My fellow ladies tittered in agreement, each bouncing into animation. Hats and caps were arranged, backs were straightened and bosoms rebalanced. One woman, with no eyebrows and a protruding chin thrust out like a weapon, opened her mouth to speak, but an oriental with revolving eyelash extensions beat her to it.
“True. I suppose we’ve gotten used to the labor noises from the Men,” she said, emphasising each word as if she were a talk show host and not a diplomat. “Though I shan’t say I miss their grunts and- you won’t believe what my help did. It broke my vase - yes, that vase, the antique Rachorshaft, the one that My Germany confiscated from that silly revolt in the south last year. And after it had shattered the vase, it had attempted to avoid punishment by throwing it down the disposal, as if I wouldn’t notice its absence.”
A ripple of tisking spread through the circle. A duck-faced women rolled her eyes and let out a hoarse cry.
“And of course you black-nailed it, am I right? In My Japan that is the minimal punishment for Men who get out of hand.”
“No, no, we must have some tolerance for Men.” The elderly lady said with a steely voice, and the whole of the congress silenced immediately; for a moment it as so eerily quiet I thought to check my hearing to see if I had gone deaf. “This what this meeting was called for, no?”
I swallowed and took the first word.
“I suppose as the higher sex we are morally obliged to show some compassion,” I remarked, trying to defuse any tone of empathy from my voice. “It is not their fault they were born with the shorter chromosome. Not their fault they were born inferior.It is our job as their creators and masters to take care of them.”
The Japanese diplomat nodded and knitted her bejewelled eyebrows together. “Thank you for getting to the point. I shall elaborate. It has taken centuries for us to gain management, and we must keep our hold firm. Think of the thousands of years that were wasted by their silly testosterone-fueled battles and petty fights. We can by no means let that happen again; we must treat them with a firm hand lest they try rebel and restrain us again. I say we feed their self dignity to smooth them down and give them a few more demanding jobs, perhaps even out of the labor spectrum,”
A Korean with gold-plated lips quipped up fiercely, “But we must not forget that they are not people like us. They cannot handle positions that requires intellect; give one Men a reason to feel proud and it will find a way to erupt the community with its idiocy, and then the country, and then the world, and the Peace of Femininity we have successfully accomplished will be for naught.”
I fingered the button hidden on the inside of my sleeve, thrilled by the sense of near mortality that came every time I made contact.
“I know none of us want to consider this possibility, but what if a time comes when Men break our peace?” I prayed that no one heard the quiver in my voice, or the way my hands twitched in the crevice of my lap. I held up a hand to the defensive mutterings that followed. “Just consider. A theoretical question, nothing more. If there was, to say, an upscale rebellion. An ambush, perhaps. Where would we be?”
“That question is irrelevant,” A dark-skinned tigress with shimmery designs snaking and slipping across her face said with curious distaste, “ as uprisings have been particularly quiet in recent months. But if there was, as you suggest in this theoretical situation, a massive mutiny in one of Our countries, then one of our fellow women would simply stretch out her diplomatic arm to manage the Men restore peace.”
I fought the desire to further the debate, but feared to, as any suspicion roused would leave the plan in shambles. Instead, I nodded demurely and kept my lips clamped.
A French diplomat from across the room raised a heavily pearled finger and spoke in a equally smooth, pure voice, “Think; an attack would not be so misplaced. What if these past months they - the Men - have been moving silently, laying low to avoid suspicion? Is it presumptuous to make reason that there is risk that they are planning an ambush right now?” she began gesticulating wildly, and a nail flew off and bounced off a reinforced window. “Of course, our intelligence source says otherwise, but they may as well be surrounding the building right now, waiting for their time to jump.”
I decided that she would be one of the ones I’d ‘escape’ with. One of the few who would survive.
There was uncomfortable shifting amongst the women. And then they burst out laughing, first in light chuckles but quickly escalating to full-blown snort fests. They gathered themselves one by one and mumbled sincere apologies.
The Frenchwoman calmed herself down and spoke again. “I apologize. That was bold for me to announce. There is no way, after all, for any source to know where and at what time we are meeting, because the only people who know are in this very room.”
“Ladies, enough with the conspiracy theories; Remember that there is a reason that we the dominant sex,” The gold-lipped Korean exclaimed, unaware of my men stationed a mere ten feet from the door, their weapons cocked and counting each second that walked by in unison, waiting for the click of the button that will change the world. “But make no mistake to think that Men know their place; I know that some of you feel that we have-”
She stopped. Turned around. And was met by the shiny metal body of a gun in the hands of a man. It - he - grinned.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said, and waved in a heavily armed line of troopers. “Perfect weather for a revolt.”
I could feel the panicked, darting stares of each woman in the room, each thoroughly searching the stoney, horrified faces of their trusted affiliates for a sign of betrayal as the truth began to sink in. They looked for the marks of a traitor. They knew this was rapidly turning into a game of kill or be killed. Escape or die.
I mimicked them, all the while wondering where this was going to end. The Korean diplomat let out a sound that could have bee mistaken for a gerbil being squeezed.
My sweaty finger was still pressed down on the button. When I released it, there was a small, circular imprint embedded on the tip of my finger.
It had begun.
