Rainbow Factory Quality Control

Chapter 2: Power Out

...Then roared his frustration to all within earshot.

After a few minutes, Wally composed himself and started searching his desk for a flashlight. No luck. His phone would have to do. The Rainbow Factory was abnormally dark when the power went out. No emergency lighting (he would need to work on that) and no windows. He used the flashlight on his phone to find his radio and toggled the switch. "Maintenance come back."

Static.

"Maintenance, come back," he said a little more firmly, and sighed when still only static greeted him. "Frickin great..." he mumbled. Barnaby had suggested that Wally try to curb his cursing as it wasn't "professional" and he needed to at least try to act the part. He snagged his white labcoat and white hard hat from the hook next to the door. He hated how the hat would flatten his hair down, but he didn't want to risk stumbling around in the dark facility and then run into some pipe or low hanging processing line."I hope the dumb doors still work." Wally stepped out of his office and swept the phone from side to side. He couldn't quite pin it, but this place was even more creepy in the dark. He continued to the break room at the end of the hall and looked out of the large windows to the production floor. Distantly he could see flashlights or phones creeping around in the dark, someone had the idea to walk around with a flask of Pure Orange from the lab to use as a lantern. Wally lifted the radio to his lips again and called for Maintenance one more time.

Only static.

"I'm going to eviscerate that entire department when I get more people in here," he closed the break room door then rested his hand on the knob. Using the "shortcut" method to get around the Factory took some effort but he was getting the hang of it. He still wasn't able to rapid fire doors the way QC could. "Maintenance..." he whispered, then opened the door. The first time didn't work, so he closed the door and tried again. This time he closed his eyes and thought about that dusty little shop, the smell of grease and spilled oil with an underlying tone of coffee. A mild dizzy feeling took hold and when he opened the door again he was greeted by the Maintenance shop.

The inside was brightly lit from many flashlights that had been converted into lanterns. The Maintenance crew stood around a table with a few large blueprints spread before them. They were a mixed bunch of different species and races. A couple of humans, a Pony, Puppets, and some guy that looked like he was made of solid rock. They pressed greasy fingers (or hooves) onto the paper and argued over which transformer blew and where.

"I'm tellin' ya! It was the main in the parking lot, its the only one that can knock out everythin!"

"That one only affects the amenities, this was one of the bigger ones deeper in the plant."

"Even the back up systems are down, has to be one of the main connective ports or even a supplier."

Wally cleared his throat and the arguing stopped. "Gentlemen?"

"Oh hey Boss," the rockman spoke up. "Didn't see you there."

Wally came forward with his hands behind his back and looked down at the blueprints. He couldn't make heads or tails of them. "Is there a reason none of you are answering the radio? I called several times."

The maintenance crew all exchanged glances. "We didn't hear the radio..." All of them nearly simultaneously went for their respective radios to check for activation. They then tried contacting each other. "The radios are down..." the crew exchanged glances one more time then pointed at the same section of blueprint with shouts of "Thats it!" or "A-ha!"

Wally remained quiet while they had their moment. "So you know whats wrong?"

"Yeah, its one of the connection banks near Receiving, blows all the time, doesn't always take the radios with it though. We'll go check it out, see if it can be fixed or if we need to swap out some parts."