Lights Out

JP with Omni and Kronos

8.3.5 SW
19:30/21 SW-CP-Local Time
Crowning Point > Residential Hex

Meanwhile... the lights flickered a few times before shuddering out. The hum of the ventilation system slowly declined to a strange silence.

Nila Palmer batted her eyelashes at the realization of the silence, scanning the living room of her flat carefully with both eyes for any signs of further electrical failure. The silence felt oddly deafening.

Everything that was plugged into an outlet or hardwired into the electrical system was down. The only light she could see came from the twilight of early nightfall filtering between the vertical blinds along the balcony windows.

She stumbled around in the darkness for her Sutter-Lynk device in hopes of using it for more light. With a great amount of force she knocked her toe against a corner, the pain shot to her head in an instant. "Fuck!" Nila exclaimed irritated.

Across the hall, Bruce Jensen was cursing as well as he bumped into the sofa where Asahi Ogai had settled down to rest. Ogai sat up. "Now what!?"

Jensen felt around in the darkness for his handset and stumbled his way toward the hallway door.

"Marshal. We lost power. What's going on out there."

There was no immediate response. Jensen opened the hallway door and peeked. Then came the familiar voice of Hikari Roku. tzzt Power's out here at the Sci-Med Hex too. tzzt

"Do any of you have a torch?" Irving asked quietly. "I can look at the fuse box, try and get some lights on in here. So we can at least see around this flat."

“Got one somewhere around here…” Jensen replied as he headed for his bedroom.

“I can assist you if you need me. In the dark I can… see a bit better than most.” said Vera. Her eyes flashed for a split second like some wild animal on a savannah.

Ogai sighed at their latest misfortune, “I don’t like this.”

"I'd appreciate that," Irving smiled at Vera, almost forgetting she was an android for a moment. "That torch please."

Jensen returned with a light to Irving’s eyes. “Jeez, Ladon. What are you? The flashlight police? Here’s your ‘torch’.” he said, playfully mocking Irving’s British term as he handed it over.

Irving gave Jensen a stern look of disapproval and started to make his way down to the central breaker box of the building. Mounted on a wall they spotted a large breaker box. It was sealed so, with a screwdriver from his pocket, Irving started to try and pry it open.

"Damn thing!" he complained. It wouldn't give.

"Let me try." said Vera.

Irving reluctantly stepped back as Vera punched the breaker box with her strong synthetic fist and its door popped open. Vera's lips spread into a charming grin, satisfied with herself.

"Right..." said Irving. He got to work turning off all the main switches that provided power to each flat and then he flipped the master switch off and on twice before kicking each flat back on.

There was a muffled hum as the dim emergency lights kicked on in the basement and hallways. Something was still wrong. They returned to Jensen's flat.

"Well, that sure helped..." snarked Jensen, mostly just to break the tense silence after the effort failed to really solve their illumination problem.

Irving's PDAT bleeped with a personal notification for technicians to report to administration.

All other Crowning Point residents received a Sutter-Lynk broadcast from the Colonial Administration stating that the electrical towers had been effected by seasonal storm flies and they expected to have the power back online shortly. All non-essential personnel were still required to stay indoors until the lockdown was lifted and to send emergency requests through the admin server via Sutter-Lynk.