"So is it a generator?" asked Eric.
Dave scratched his head. "Honestly I'm convinced that it is, but remember, I was an office worker before this. Office types are pretty damn useless in the real world."
Eric pointed past Dave, causing Dave to turn around. "Maybe that will help?"
On the wall, near the door where they walked in, was a massive schematic showing the wiring of the room.
Dave pointed to the schematic on the wall and some instructions on the side of the generator. "Looks like they provided enough instructions to make this place idiot proof."
"I hope it is for our sake," said Eric.
"Well, let's look at this schematic," said Dave reading. "Look, you can control which areas get power. This is convenient. You can see that there are switches for the main doors of the shopping part and there's a switch for the rear docking doors. If we turn off all the switches, other than what we need, then it should be good."
"Do you know what switches needed to be turned on?"
"They are numbered on the schematic," noted Dave.
Eric pointed to the console below the schematic. "And here are a lot switches with numbers."
Dave grinned. "You can't seriously think that it's that damn easy?"
Eric shrugged.
"There's really only one way to figure it out," said Dave looking back and forth between the console and the schematic. The switches on the console were large paddles, just the sort that you'd expect to carry a lot of current. Dave pushed the various switches back and forth until he was happy.
"That should be good," said Dave. "Now comes the generator."
"Do you think that it's fuelled up?" ask Eric.
"I hope so, but if it isn't then I'm sure we'll figure something out."
Dave took a moment to read the instructions on the side of the generator.
"Does it make any sense?" asked Eric.
"It's mostly a bunch of warnings. If I understand it correctly, then pushing this green button starts it, and the red button stops it."
"That's it? Shouldn't we have to manually crank something?"
"I've never done something like this before so I'm not going to pretend to really know how this works. We might as well try to fire it up."
"What if something goes wrong?"
"Then it goes wrong and we'll have to find another solution. Maybe we can block the entrances with the trucks?"
"So what should we do when we start it?"
"I really want to make sure Sid is okay, but we just have to trust him to successfully close off his area. What we need to do is go back to the store doors, open one, go outside, hit the door button, jump back inside and lock the door again. We need to do that for all the main entrance doors. Once those roller doors are down then we can run around to Sid and check how he's doing. Once we get all the docking area doors closed then we'll get back here and power off the generator."
"Got it."
"Okay."
For a moment, Dave felt some sense of doubt, but he then reached out and pressed the green button on the side of the generator. It was a really idiot proof system. The generator, whined and coughed for a moment before starting up. Dave could hear the generator steadily settling into a smooth rhythm.
Dave was a little alarmed at how loud the generator was. "Let's go," shouted Dave.
Together the ran out of the room and out into the hallway. They ran into a nearby stairwell and up to the ground floor. They ran a short way along the hall and emerged in the shopping centre.
"I'll go this way," said Dave pointing to the right.
Eric nodded and ran to the left.
Dave ran, his breath catching in his chest. As an office worker who spent his days sitting on his bum he wasn't the fittest. And all the walking and bicycle riding that he did over the last few days seemed to not have done anything for him. He felt that he had the stamina of a brick.
Dave reached the entrance doors, unlatched one and jogged outside. He flipped up the cover for the door switch and pressed the down arrow. Dave looked up as he heard the door slowly moving above him. Dave ducked inside, closing the door behind him and locking it firmly. The outer roller door made a crashing noise as it reached the walkway and stopped. Dave spent a moment listening but it seemed like the door had automatically turned its motors off after slamming into the ground.
Dave immediately dashed back towards the middle of the shopping centre. Dave had not even gotten half when when he saw Eric returning to the intersection and turn into the branch that they had both not picked. Dave heard Eric running towards the final entrance way. Dave got to the intersection and watched Eric in the distance operating the outer roller door that he had just run to.
As he waited Sid arrived. Dave was rather surprised but then again, after starting the generator Dave and Eric had to run from the generator in order to reach their respective doors, while Sid was already near the doors that he was responsible for. It only made sense that Sid would finish before Dave and Eric. It's easy to get caught out by how the imagination will fail to predict the future.
"How was it?" asked Dave.
Sid gave a thumbs up. "Easy as hell. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to tell when you turned the generator on, but that thing is loud as bloody hell."
Dave frowned. "That isn't good. We need to turn the generator off as soon as possible."
Sid pointed towards Eric. "Eric's done."
"Good, let's not wait for him and get going."
With Sid following, Dave backtracked to the generator, running the whole way. A little out of breath, Dave pressed the red button on the generator. In a few moments there was silence.
Sid was looking about the room, obviously this was his first time here.
"You really notice how loud that
