m_findlow

Title: Blackout
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Torchwood team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,344 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Amnesty and Challenge 161 - Power at beattheblackdog
Summary: The team are forced to deal with an unexpected blackout.

'Goddammit!' Jack cursed, standing up from his desk that had suddenly been plunged into darkness. He waited a moment, expecting the red emergency lighting to kick in. When it didn't, he rounded the desk and made towards the door and the hub beyond.

'Uh, what just happened?' Jack asked, before uttering an 'Ow!', wincing as his leg found the sharp corner of a desk in the dark. He stopped in case there were more obstacles in his path he couldn't see. 'Ianto? Gwen?'

'Ow! That's my foot!' came a cry from Tosh.

'Sorry, sweetheart,' Gwen apologised. 'I couldn't see it.'

A burst of light issued a few yards from Jack's position, bringing everyone into sharp relief. Ianto had somehow found a torch.

'Let me guess, you keep one in your desk drawer?' Jack mused.

He shone the torch up towards his face, making sure Jack could see his smug little grin. 'Always be prepared.'

'Fuck!' Owen swore, tripping up the last step from the medical bay and landing hard on his knee just as Ianto turned to illuminate the spot for him. 'Thanks for nothing,' Owen grumbled, using the railing to pull himself upright.

'You're welcome.'

'Okay,' Jack interrupted, setting his hands on his hips. 'So, we're all accounted for. Now bigger question, why are we in the dark?'

Tosh already had her PDA in hand, investigating. Its pale glow lit up the small frown on her face. 'City wide power outage,' she reported.

'But that shouldn't affect us,' Gwen replied. 'We've got backup generators.'

'I'd say based on when this data showed the outage beginning that we've been on generator power for at least the last seven hours.'

'So, what are you saying?' Gwen asked, leaning over to look at the screen for herself. 'The whole city has been without power for hours and were only just finding out about it now? It still doesn't explain why we don't have power.'

Tosh turned around. 'Ianto, would the generator have been fully fuelled?'

He nodded. 'Of course.'

'Then based on the amount of time that's lasted and our regular power requirements,' Tosh said, doing a mental calculation, 'I'd say our generator has simply run out of fuel.'

Jack made an incredulous little sound, folding his arms as he carefully leaned himself against what he assumed was the wall. 'Seriously?'

Owen grabbed a chair, dragging it across the concrete before sitting on it backwards. 'Secret organisation that fights aliens and our backup power doesn't even outlast a power outage. Fat lot of good we are.'

'Well, to be fair,' Tosh said, getting her back up, 'if we'd known about the outage, we would have switched off anything we didn't need so that the generator would have enough power to keep only our critical systems operating.'

Gwen leant back against her own desk, just barely visible in the limited light. 'Isn't that kind of important to know?'

'An alert for when we switch over the backup generator would be helpful,' Ianto agreed.

'What about the weevils down in the cells? Aren't they electronically locked?' Gwen threw a worried look at Jack. 'We don't have weevils on the loose down there, do we?'

'Manual locks should have activated,' he assured her. 'We never left anything to chance when it comes to keeping things locked up. Any loss of power automatically triggers a deadbolting system. It's worked a charm for over a hundred years.'

'So long as you're not on the wrong side when it does,' Owen replied, smirking. 'Then you're just weevil chow.'

Jack nodded. 'We can go and check to make sure.'

Tosh shook her head, still studying the PDA. 'There must have been a glitch in the system that didn't alert us to the switchover. The generator would have been good for twenty-four hours otherwise. More than enough time to tide us over.'

'So, we just go and get more fuel for it,' Owen said. 'Not like there aren't a hundred petrol stations in this city. Sounds like a job for Torchwood's general support officer.'

Ianto held a well deserved eye roll in check. 'And how do you propose we pay for it? Power is out all over the city. Think they'll just take an IOU? Or maybe they've got one of those old credit card machines with the carbon copy paper they could swipe?'

'Cash, then!' Owen exclaimed. 'People still take cash.'

Ianto gave an impatient sigh. 'The generator takes two thousand litres. Are you going to spot me a few hundred quid or would you like me to go rob a bank first? That should be a lot easier since they won't have security cameras that work.'

Owen huffed. 'Fine. So we'll just sit here in the dark like mushrooms, shall we?'

'Unless you have a better idea,' Ianto replied, his tone terse.

'Easy, you two,' Jack said. 'Tosh? Brilliant ideas on what we can do?'

She nodded. 'The data on our servers is still active, it's just a matter of having computing power to monitor the incoming rift data and pass it through our systems looking for any signs of trouble.'

'Power going out all over the city might be a good one to start with,' Owen muttered.

'We've got our phones,' she continued, ignoring Owen, 'and a few portable chargers. If we distribute processing power between them, each phone responsible for one or two key analytics programs, then we'll still have good visibility. In order to preserve what little we have, we'll have to shut off all other non-essential applications.'

'By non-essential you mean?' Owen asked.

'I think your Twitter feed will survive without you,' Ianto quipped. 'Not to mention your Instagram, Facebook, Tinder...'

'If you say Grinder I'm coming over there to smack you,' Owen warned.

'Good idea, Tosh,' Jack said intervening once more. 'And I've got this,' he said, flipping open his vortex manipulator, letting the small display glow bright blue. 'Never runs outta juice. We're officially contactable from here to the edge of the solar system.'

'Now that's what you call decent phone coverage,' Ianto quipped.

'Must be chaos out there,' Gwen mused, 'what with no power and all. People will be going mental. You've seen how bad it is at the shops the day before a bank holiday.'

Jack reached across and put a hand on her shoulder. 'Unless it's alien, it's not our headache,' he confirmed for her. 'It'll give the blues and twos something to do. Restoring public order.'

Gwen narrowed her eyes at him. 'You sound pleased about that.'

He shrugged. 'Their moment to shine. Or not.'

'And what are we supposed to do down here in the meantime?' Owen asked. 'Can't very well finish autopsying that Barcan Slothir. Mind you, it's stinking up the place like nobody's business.'

'Bag it and freeze it,' Jack replied. 'It'll have to wait.'

'The freezing part might be a bit tricky,' Ianto added.

'Oh, yeah,' Jack said, coming to the same realisation. 'Damn that's annoying. Anything else we've got in deep freeze that's gonna be a problem, Owen?'

'If we keep them sealed, the freezer units should stay cold enough to preserve whatever samples we've got,' Owen replied. 'Worst comes to worst, we can drop a bit of liquid nitrogen around the units to keep them cold a bit longer.'

'Good. I think we'll be okay. Anything else we need to worry about?'

'Ice cream in the kitchen freezer might not make it,' Ianto replied. 'But the pizza in the fridge will live.'

Jack perked up at that, pushing himself away from the wall. 'We have ice cream?'

'I wasn't advertising it,' he replied.

'Well, we'll have to do something about that,' Jack announced. 'Can't let good ice cream go to waste.'

'Weevils first, sir. Ice cream party afterwards.'

'Just so long as we don't have to play cards again to kill time,' Owen begged. 'I don't care how dark it is, I'm not playing Go Fish.'

Jack chuckled. 'Not even Naked Go Fish?'

'No amount of darkness is going to get rid of that image.'