You Don't Want Help, Do You?

Chapter Five: Outdated Education

Gregory brushed himself off and shined his flashlight over the small room with the red tanks, the breakroom as he moved through it, the wire room, and the vat maze. Silence hung so thick and heavy, the only reassurance he had not gone deaf was through his own footsteps.

The metal door blocking him from the room he could not enter before now opened itself.

Racks of technology filled the place, littering the walls and settling on shelving units. A generator with a dark disk where the light should glow stood close to the door. A large cable ran out from it toward the kitchen. He found an inactive panel of buttons, switches, and a wide monitor. None of the buttons glowed any color to signal even the faintest hint of life. The doors of the cabinet held shut beneath it. When he approached the generator nearby and tried to turn it on, he was able to flip the switch up with a hard thunk and then back down again, but nothing happened.

He turned back to the panel and opened the cabinet doors, finding another inactive generator. How was he supposed to turn on the lights if the generator wasn't working?!

...well, maybe they needed batteries?

That was dumb. Generators filled batteries. They couldn't be solar powered, like a whole bunch of houses and buildings he'd seen. They would need sunlight, and currently they were underneath a four-story-tall mall. It couldn't be wind power because, again, they were inside. Well, cars had batteries and gas fuel. The fuel made them drive. Maybe he needed fuel.

Gregory checked the room for gas canisters. He had to assume fuel was going to be in gas canisters. All the movies always depicted gas being in those tall, square, red canisters with the yellow and black caps at the top corner.

He sighed and left that room. Wait... a forklift! Forklifts ran on fuel! There had to be gas canisters around here!

Gregory searched the place more thoroughly. Finally, near a forklift and next to a stack of giant crates, he found a whole bunch of fuel canisters. There had to be a good two dozen at least!

The first dozen and a half he picked up were empty.

He eventually managed to pick up a full one and marched right back to the power room and refilled the generator. He had to fiddle with the cap on the generator and on the gas canister for a little bit before figuring it out. After a few exploratory button presses and random poking, the generator's red light glowed. He flipped up the switch.

The generator growled to life.

The panel and most other technology within the room glowed and whirred. Dust puffed out of the technology and vents they choked.

Gregory laughed and shut the doors beneath the panel. He immediately went to inspecting it further now that the panel glowed and labeled itself.

A plate labeling the grid's function as lights overshadowed the grid. A screen between the plate and grid stated "POWER USAGE: 00/33" and "TIME UNTIL NEXT RESET: 0:55". Beside that was a little red warning sign. Since he couldn't see any error messages, he ignored it.

"BASEMENT 2:" stamped before the first row of four buttons: "PARTS AND SERVICES", "EDUCATION MAZE", "UTILITY TUNNELS", and "PARKING GARAGE". There was "BASEMENT 1", which included the kitchen and loading docks. "GROUND LEVEL" included the front area and "DAYCARE THEATER".

Finally, on the last row, "BALCONY EAST", "BALCONY WEST", "EL CHIP'S", "EAST ARCADE", "WEST ARCADE", and "BONNIE BOWLING" showed.

Gregory hummed. He needed to be smart about this. Obviously, he couldn't risk turning on the entire mall. For one, that would include the Daycare. Moon could still be out hunting down the rabbit lady, and if Gregory turned on the lights, Moon would become Sun. If he turned on all the lights and Sun was outside, what was stopping Sun from finding Gregory? Moon easily found Gregory. Sun probably could, too.