Power Panels

Claire and Leon head through the east storage room, into the upper waiting area. Going downstairs, they enter Chief Iron's office. Going to the backroom, they walk up to the caged off area, Leon inserting the electronic piece into the empty slot in the power panel. With a low buzz, some lights turn on, on the left side of the panel. Some of the wires have also lit up, but they all end shortly, going to other pieces where the wires aren't connected.

"It looks like we need to connect them to this spot over here," Leon states, tapping on a little slab with two lights, both turned off, "This blue piece looks pretty important, I think we need to get these two together into this piece and then connect this to the other end,"

Leon starts taking pieces out and rotating them. After a couple of tries, Leon finally gets the two trails to connect into the blue piece, then connects that to the other side, the lock on the door disengaging. Claire goes inside, grabbing the box off the desk and leaves.

"Ow!" Leon shouts as he pulls the electronic piece out, the panel zapping his finger.

"You alright?" Claire asks as she pulls the other electronic piece out of the box.

"Yeah, just shocked me a bit," He replies as he waves his hand to shake off the lingering sting. They go back into the office, exiting through the secret entrance and walking through the rain to the elevator. With the click of a button they descend once more into parking garage, hopefully, for the last time. Claire leans against the back wall, folding her arms, a troubled look on her face.

"Worried about Sherry?" Leon asks.

"Yeah, who knows where that man took her, and what concerns me the most is, why did he take her?"

"Maybe Ben will know something, he was investigating him after all. There must be some sort of connection...hopefully one that doesn't involve kids in general…"

"You've just made it a thousand times worse," Claire comments as she starts shaking her right leg.

"Yeah, sorry, I realized that, after, I said it…"

The elevator finally reaches the parking garage. They enter the jail, walking past the cells full of zombies still reaching out to try and grab them, and head over to Ben's cell.

"Finally, you two are back," Ben comments as they walk into view.

"Got a hot date or something?" Claire asks as she puts the electronic parts into the panel.

"N-No," Ben replies defensively, "I just, ran out of cigs, that's all,"

The panel doesn't light up.

"Are you kidding me?" Claire asks as she takes out the pieces, switching their positions. Still nothing.

"What? What's wrong?" Ben asks as he grabs onto the bars, trying to see what they're looking at.

"There's no power to this," Leon states, "We'll have to find the generator room and turn it back on,"

"Okay, well, hurry up," Ben says as he slumps back down into his chair.

"We're risking our lives to get you out, just so you know," Claire states, "You could at least say please,"

��Tch…" Ben folds his arms, and brings one leg up to rest on the other, his foot shaking impatiently, "...Please,"

"Thank you,"

Claire and Leon head back out into the parking garage, and go through the door leading to the other side.

"There," Leon states, pointing his flashlight to a window, a large machine on the other side of the glass, "That must be it, but, how do we get over there?"

"This way," Claire states, leading him down a hall going right. They go down it, making a u-turn to the left and entering the kennels, past the cages with dead zombie dogs. Going around, they enter back out into the hallway, continuing down it and making another left, where a shutter blocks their path. Leon pulls out the crank from one of his jacket pockets.

"How on earth do your pockets hold so much stuff?" Claire asks as he walks over and inserts the crank into a slot. Leon starts slowly turning the crank, the shutter slowly rising.

"Comes with, being a, guy, I guess," He responds between cranks.

"I shoulda brought my cargo pants instead of these," Claire mutters, "Had I known I would need to be lugging around a bunch of crap,"

"Why didn't you ask for a vest or something?" Leon asks as he finishes the last crank, pulling the crank out and putting it in a vest pocket.

"I," She tries to think of a valid reason, but can't, "Didn't think to," They walk down the rest of the hallway, a door to their right. Going through, they enter a large room that's made cramp from all the large machinery in it. Walking around large metal boxes surrounded by wire fencing, they go up to area they had seen from the other side of the glass. Looking out the window, they see a heavy metal door far off to the right, a red light glowing faintly above it.

A grey power panel sits in front of them, two little power gauges on it, both having spots on them marked in red and green. Below them are four switches, only the one on the left is flipped up. Leon flips a switch, and both gauges turn towards the right side, both by different amounts. He turns that switch off, and tests the other two, seeing what they do.

He turns off the left one, flips up the middle right one, and far right one, and turns the far left one back on. Both gauges go into the green zone, the machines suddenly coming to life, filling the room with noise. The light above the door outside turns green with a loud buzzer and the hall lights all turn on, scaring away the dark. They leave the noisy room and go back into the hall. They head through the kennels and head for the door back to the parking garage. They stop when they hear the heavy metal door creak open, shortly followed by a heavy footstep.