Chapter 27: Power Down

"So how was work today, you're home early" Jade asked as Ethan and Nikki came in the door.

"There was a slight change of plans, we had to evacuate the lab, rush everyone out, the whole nine yards" Ethan responded.

"Oh that does sound serious, what was the cause?" she asked.

Ethan shrugged and said "I wanted to go home."

"OK, well welcome home."

Ethan looked up the stairs and said "I think I'm going to hit up the Internet real quick and find out what's going on in the world." He then started towards the computer.

"Ethan!" Nikki shouted. Ethan turned back around. "Ethan, aren't you forgetting to tell Jade something?"

"Well lets see.." He paused for a minute thinking and then said simply "No I don't think so."

Nikki groaned. "How about the visitor you brought home with you from work?"

"Oh yeah him, Jade dear, Slash the Clown is going to be living in our shed as part of a government initiative, no Psychopath left behind or some such, I know you don't support our president because he's a chimp but pressure at work and all, Slash needed a good home. And besides he promised to keep all our power tools in good working order."

Jade looked at Nikki. Nikki shrugged and said "Don't look at me, I wasn't aware till we were almost home."

Jade frowned. "OK fine but if he causes us any problems at all, you may have to take him out back and shoot him. It's the most humane thing we can do in such a situation." She began to turn back towards the TV and was startled by a scary face in the window. "Holy crap!"

Ethan said "See look at that face, what's not to love about Slash?"

Jade was about to answer but Nikki interrupted. "Well it really is disconcerting the way he licks that knife blade all the time."

Ethan just shrugged the comment off. "It's his special way of showing his affection." Ethan then continued towards the computer.

Jade made an aggressive shoo motion at the window and Slash seemed to sink out of view. She then turned to Nikki and said "Everything go alright at the lab today?"

Nikki frowned. "A lot of the same stuff, they have signs all over the place to help avoid the common problems that come up but there's some universal law that people will do the last thing they should. I think we had an issue with one of the walls which kind of threw Ethan for a loop but things seem to have settled down again. Did you know that the lab has full lethal defense mechanisms in place?"

"It is college, people can get out of hand sometimes especially when beer is involved" she responded.

Nikki nodded. Ethan suddenly commented aloud "According to this, Goggle's satellite service has received more then five hundred thousand visits to the satellite image of our home in the last couple days. Isn't that, oh hey look my favorite web comics got updated?"

Nikki and Jade looked at each other. "He really doesn't get it does he?"

"Nope"

Just then, the lights flickered a couple times on and off before stabilizing. Nikki asked "What's going on?"

Jade responded "The cats are building something on the roof and I think whatever it is might be drawing a little more power then the circuits can hold."

Nikki yelled towards the ceiling "Cleo, if you bypass the house power box and connect directly to the incoming power line, you'll fix your power consumption limitations. Moments later, Cleopatra came jogging down the stairs, rubbed against Nikki's legs a couple times, squeaked a meow at her and jogged back up the stairs.

Moments later there was a soft buzzing noise heard from the roof that seemed to build up to a constant loud rumbling. Jade asked "Ethan can you maybe investigate why our house seems to be getting so many hits on the satellite imaging service?"

Ethan looked up, "What, oh right yeah sure let me pull it ..." At that moment the lights went out through out the house for about 5 seconds accompanied by a whooshing noise from the roof. When the lights came back on, all of the rumbling and buzzing was gone. "Give me a second to reload the website." Ethan turned a couple seconds later and said "The satellite is apparently offline now, must be a problem with the website, though goggle is pretty good about keeping their pages active.

Jade walked to the window just in time to watch a falling star shooting across the sky and landing somewhere in the distance. She then said as she shook her head "I suppose its time to feed the cats." Moments later, all three came running down the stairs and followed Jade to the kitchen.