Perilous_Hive Mind_A Prequel Novella by Janet Edwards

Author:Janet Edwards [Edwards, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wallam-Crane Press
Published: 2017-09-13T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

I was lucky that my right elbow and hip took the brunt of my fall, so I didn’t hit my injured head. I lay where I was for a moment, expecting the lights to come back on, but they didn’t. I got to my feet, groped around to find my dataview, and used its glow to guide my way out to the corridor. That was pitch dark as well, except for the lights of other dataviews emerging from rooms.

I heard Margot’s voice making the obvious remark. “It’s not just the lights in my room then.”

“Why did the lights go out?” asked the nervous voice of Casper.

“It’s a power cut.” Linnette was clearly trying to reassure Casper, but she sounded even more nervous than he did. “Don’t you remember that we had a power cut three years ago? The lights were out for at least two minutes, and then suddenly came back on again. They’ll do the same thing this time.”

“Good,” said Casper. “I don’t like it being so dark.”

Everyone gathered into a group, and waited restlessly for the power to return.

“Power Services usually fix things faster than this,” muttered Preeja, from somewhere behind me. “Don’t they know that our power is out? Should we call someone and tell them?”

“Power services have lots of monitoring systems,” said Atticus. “They’ll know we have a problem.”

“I expect they’ve started their Carnival parties early and can’t be bothered to help us,” said Reece.

“They have to help us.” Linnette’s voice held a trembling note of panic now. “The Hive can’t leave us in total darkness like this.”

“Power Services will already be working to fix the problem,” I said. “Ignore Reece. He’s just trying to frighten us.”

“I’ve no idea why you’re all so scared of the dark,” said Reece. “I like it. I suppose that’s because I’m a naturally brave person and you’re all cowards.”

I heard a groan that I thought was from Atticus.

“The power could stay out for hours,” added Reece. “Maybe even …”

“Shut up!” half a dozen voices shouted in unison.

“I’m just being realistic about … Ow! Who kicked me?”

There was another massed shout. “Shut up!”

Reece reluctantly went quiet. Several more minutes went by, with the tension steadily mounting. I wasn’t scared of the darkness, but I was getting increasingly worried by the length of this power cut.

Three years ago, the power had gone off for two minutes. We found out afterwards that the power failure was caused by a teen in corridor 15. He’d been attending advanced sessions in electrical systems, did a little experimenting with the systems in his corridor, and took out all the power across corridors 1 to 20. That triggered an alarm in Power Services, and they rapidly got the power back on, though it took two days to stop the lights flickering in corridor 15.

I didn’t dare to say it when Reece had already frightened everyone, but such a slow response from Power Services must mean something serious had happened. I was wondering if I should volunteer

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