Failure Frame Light Novels & Stories

I smiled as brightly as I could. All three of them weren't too glad that I wasn't about to join them, but they finally left the set, like almost everyone else. There were only few technicians and my assistant left. Suddenly I saw one of the head lights hanging on the ramp strangely flickering. I walked closer to see what was going on. “Hey! I think there is something wrong with that light!” I shouted pointing at the place right above my head.

Even from a distance, I could see the red strobe of emergency lights flickering across the windows. Paolo’s phone buzzed again. He answered, listened, then met my eyes. “Main power just failed again. Backup’s running, but cameras are down.” “Then someone’s inside.” “Or the system glitched.” I didn’t reply. We both knew which answer was more likely. The car stopped at the outer gate. Two of my men were already there, scanning codes into the panel. When they saw me step out, they straightened instantly. “Status?” I demanded.

“Are the emergency lights supposed to come on?” “They should.” But they didn’t. Damian moved toward the wall where the control panel sat. The beam of his phone followed him. “Backup generator probably failed,” he said. Evelyn crossed her arms against the sudden chill. “How long will it take to restart?” “Hard to say.” The storm outside intensified slightly, rain beginning to tap softly against the building’s windows. For a moment, neither spoke. The only light in the room came from Damian’s phone. It cast long shadows across the rows of cabinets.

Emergency red lighting clicked on, bathing everything in a dim, bloody glow. My heart slammed against my ribs. “No, no, no—” I whispered. Small spaces have always terrified me. I dropped my bag. My breathing turned shallow and fast. Adam pulled out his phone and pressed the emergency button. A crackly voice answered. “Mr. Kane? We see the fault. Repair team is already on the way. Should be thirty to forty-five minutes max.” “Make it faster,” Adam said, his voice calm and commanding. I couldn’t wait forty-five minutes. I stumbled forward in the red gloom and threw myself against him before I could think.

Chapter 98: Diamonds Were Universal Reese It was a little after nine when I finally decided to call it a day. My back ached, my shirt was soaked with sweat, and my head throbbed from twelve straight hours of chaos. I was fucking spent. Frank, one of my best workers, had fallen off a ladder yesterday while installing new lighting fixtures above the main bar. He crashed straight through a glass table. The shard that sliced into his neck had been millimeters from severing an artery. If Marcus hadn’t been right there to apply pressure and call the ambulance, Frank might not have made it. The image of all that blood still haunted me.

I was about to speak, to tell him I only wanted to lead him on, hoping he would let go of the shares when suddenly, a bright surge of light started to come toward the car. I looked at the traffic light and realized in horror that it'd turned green. Before I could say a word, the car coming toward us crashed against Damien's car and darkness took over at once.

Don’t answer. Thirteen minutes before that. My eyes darted to the rearview mirror empty road. My pulse eased for a second. But then the truck lights flickered. A hiss of static filled the truck, like an old radio struggling for signal. The dashboard screen glitched, green lines distorting across the digital display. My chest locked tight. Rule 3… If the lights go out, pray they come back. The headlights cut out. Instant black. The kind of dark that suffocated. The darkness swallowing me whole.

Beneath the streets, the massive transformers of Substation 42 groaned, their cooling oil boiling in a fraction of a second before the automated safety breakers three blocks away tripped in a cascading phase fault. ​The tactical spotlights exploded. The night-vision optics on the agents' helmets flared with blinding, white-hot feedback, overloading their digital sensors and rendering them completely useless. ​Absolute, suffocating darkness slammed back into the vault. ​Screams of confusion and pain ripped from the federal team as the agents tumbled over one another in the pitch black, momentarily blinded by the retinal burn of the arc flash. ​"I can't see! My eyes—the NVGs are fried!"

The coffee went cold and neither of us moved to replace it. The grid at Singapore was different from any grid I'd stood on before. The floodlights turned everything flat and bright. Shadows didn't work the same way under artificial light everything was equally lit and exposed. Just the circuit, barriers and sixty-three cars lined up on a city street waiting for lights out. Hoffman was beside me on the pole. He glanced across once and nodded professionally. I nodded back. James on the radio. "Emily. Turn five. Early throttle. Everything else you know."

But my mind was far far from here. "Drive," I said to the driver. "To where ma'am," he asked innocently. "I said drive... just drive!" I yelled at him and immediately he started the car engine and drove. ********after some minutes of driving. "Why did you stop? Do you not understand what I meant when I said JUST DRIVE?" I yelled out of control at the driver and I could see the fear in his face. "Ma'am, I can't move forward any longer. The traffic is really bad." he grumbled.