I squinted up at the solar panels on my roof. They looked like regular, unassuming solar panels. They functioned correctly, as evidenced by the two years of perfect power my wife and I had since we moved into this house. Gritting my teeth, I reached my hand up and angled it towards the panels. Forced myself to think back to the previous day, when I was standing outside a company offering commercial energy monitoring and used my powers for the first time to stop a car.
What was I thinking? What was I feeling? The solar panel began to steam beneath the force of my gaze. I clenched my fist harder, and both my hand and the panels glowed red hot. A sudden cacophony of noise erupted from my house. The television, which had been left at a low level playing the news, turned to full volume and exceeded its regular maximum brightness. My speaker, which wasn’t even turned on, began playing music. The toaster popped. My wife screamed as the fridge exploded. I kept my fist clenched until our neighbours started poking their heads out of their windows to see what the commotion was. Then, I raced inside to assess the damage, soothing my wife’s confused screams.
Had I really just overpowered our whole solar system with my newfound abilities? If I could do that, what would my limit be? 300KW? 400KW? What about a 500KW solar system? Instead of focusing on the damage I had accidentally just caused inside my house, all I could think about was all the potential benefits my abilities had. I could completely change the world. I was my own source of clean, renewable energy. What if there was a way to give my powers to other people? I could fix so many problems. I could fix climate change. But how would I convince other people, and tell them without shocking them? The last thing I wanted was to become some sort of poster for something I barely understood myself.