You were supposed to switch off one sector, but you shut off the whole grid to the entirety of South Newgle. Now the government is really going to be on our asses.
I flipped the A switch. That was the only switch labeled A.
Was that the emergency master board you were playing with?
Acros hesitates to say anything.
Acr—
Yes it was okay? How else did you expect me to turn off the power gracefully.
Bloody hell...
You could of done it yourself if you knew what you were do—
Well guess who works at the power station.
With me doing that, I won't be working there.
You could—
Yeah! Yeah I could've done a lot of things okay? You think I'm going to get into the control room with me being a technician with five months of work? Real fu—
Mike... did you at least get the stuff you wanted to?
Yes, but no.
What you mean "but no"? I'm risking my en—
Shut up and let me finish.
I got some information. It was a very short window, about fifteen seconds. Luckily those bastards had some files with out names on it in the root folder. Unfortunately, those files have a file extension I've never seen before, and all conversion and decryption algorithms failed.
I don't speak nerd. Use real words.
It means I can't open the files.
Great...
Get this. There's this one, unencrypted file, and its only contents are 1-m^?FD"6KGY3-:D`C$o6=sA/6pitE0iW".87QF[:/Ol,0hjB66?IHk<b-)[83'dRGt0YhAT_!U=(5Z_9l<sA;GMCLBN&)D3B/lnDb`)A9^Xf=%G5e2/RV/F>?2. So maybe that means something.
Those dipshits wouldn't keep important information unencrypted right? So let's just ignore it.
You're probably right.
This doesn't make sense. Why would they keep the control room to the power private, but allow access to an emergency switch board.
It's in case of an emergency. Any senior maintenance or technician will have access to it in case they need to shut the power down. It's a destructive action, meaning it will fire a piston to physically cut the main power line.
So that's why those slowasses haven't turned on the power yet.
Yes
(╯︵╰,) omg guys!
What?
｡･ﾟﾟ*(>д<)*ﾟﾟ･｡
oml. WHAT IS IT!
(>_<) My phone isn't getting service.
That's because all the power was cut.
Do how long do you think it will take until the power is restored?
At least a few days. We've never had to cut all the power. Bringing it back online will require a lot of work since the tools that help restore our partial outages require power too. It's kind of a chicken and egg problem.
Mike's phone starts ringing.
One sec. This may be important.
He takes out the phone from his duffle bag.
!!! That looks like its from the 200s.
Yeah it's me. Yeah... alright... I'm sorry... yes sir... yes sir... it won't happen again. Yes sir. Yeah everyone's safe. Yeah... alright bye.
Who the hell was that?
Why do you gotta ask so many questions.
Why does he get service, no fair!! I want service too. (︶︹︺)
She snatches it.
It's a satellite phone... Don't worry about it.
Aw... No apps.... ~What a piece of Garbage!~~ (￢_￢;)
How did you get your hands on a satellite phone? Those things are only given out to government officials and other important people. And yes, I am going to worry about it.
Just... just give us a week or two more. We have something big going for us pretty soon. Trust me.
What is that something?
I promised him not to tell any of you but... we may be moving.
Who the hell is he?
Across the rest of the country, there were troubles everywhere.
Oh, would you look at that.
Jacob never turns off this very specific light in his house. It's gotten to a point that he's rigged the internal wiring to not depend on the light switch, and just run. He didn't implement it perfectly, so switching the switch makes it go dimmer, but today it's off. Completely.
So no work?
Sick.
Well I guess I should make some breakfast—
Jacob just realized he cannot cook anything without power. A slight oversight, yet he had planned for it: Good ol' Cereal.
You know what sucks, Fred.
what?
THIS (punch) DOOR (punch) NEEDS (punch) POWER (punch) TO (punch) OPEN.
wait. it needs it? Like, no manual opening option like they used to.
YES. WE'RE STUCK HERE FOR WHO KNOWS HOW LONG.
chill...
Fred grabs a box of crackers out of a cabinet, and puts his hand out towards her with some.
here, have some.
I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING—
crackers!
He puts the cracker in her mouth, due to her incompetence to see it in low light rooms.
WHAT THE FXCO6RBFK.
:)
Alice can only wake up on time for school when there is an alarm clock, except the outage eliminated hers.
Mom, what time is it?
Still in bed, no one else heard the question. Her parents are up in the living room. She slowly gets up. One of the hardest things for most people is seeing stuff indoors. It's easier in houses like Alice's as there are windows to the outdoors which lets in some natural light, but in an apartment it's nearly pitch black.
Anyone?
Heya sweetie
Sup sis. You may have noticed the power's out. Get this: The whole city is down.
oooo wow.
I just want to be able to use my phone.
You're always on your phone! Since Alice is up, let's play a board game!
ewww
Yes! Game Night! Let me get a glass of water and I'll be ready!
Alice goes to the kitchen to get a class of water, but she can't get any due to the outage.
Mom, do we have any water bottles.
Sadly, no.
Aww ... I need some!
Ahahaa. Yeah we're kind of screwed for a bit sis. Don't worry, you get to be with me!
Unlike the apartments with digitally locked doors, the Grey family still had a traditional door that used a physical lock and key. They could go out and try to buy water, but with all infrastructure down, it wasn't going to happen.
The J was still open. Just no one visited today. Power was available here, as the J was one of the few places in the world to be self powered, using a generator.
Actually, someone visited.
Yo... What? How's this place be running?
Bought a generator. Long ago. Back when power was harder to buy, I decided to make it myself. Invested bunch of gold in one. Nowadays you can use the nations power for far cheaper than this here thing costs to run, but I like it my way.
Huh, wow. Might bring my boys here later; Our work is out today.
Would be happy to serve.
His so called "boys" never came back at any point in the day, and the J served no one else. Some would call it a waste, but others would call it "never accepting defeat."