The first thing that happens when the lights go out is that someone always asks "where did the lights go"? For the visitors to the Macy's in Tacoma Forge New Jersey on the eight day of May, the exclamation was no different. It was an eight year old boy playing in the racks of the fur coats while his mother ignored him who asked first. She didn't know the answer.
Rose didn't either, and yet that was nothing new. Since she had joined the Doctor each day brought a brand new species, mystery, adventure to her door. Frankly, losing lights in a Macy's was so mundanely usual that she almost didn't pay attention to it. Almost.
The second person to ask who turned out the lights was the afternoon janitor. Only recently being promoted to the daytime hours, his night-owl ways being curtailed with the birth of his new son, the janitor assumed that one of his staff had made the mistake. They had been testing his patience all week, and pushing his boundaries to see how far he would bend- and if he would break.
The salesgirl at the Donna Karan scent counter asked the same question. But not inquisitive or exasperated; her tone was far different. She sounded panicked, shaky. Her coworkers knew almost nothing about how she spent the other three days of her week- but in that moment they knew something very bad had happened to her in the dark. And that this second she was very afraid that it would happen again.
The lights flickered back on momentarily, but that moment was just long enough for the security systems to kick in- which meant nothing more than the registers wouldn't ring and the doors wouldn't open. Standard operating procedure is what the techies would call it at the next regional meeting. And for many of the shoppers that day in Macy's it was entirely that- just a modern hiccup in a technological world. But for a few, the moment the lights went out and the computers froze, the standard operating procedure was changed.
And Rose was about to find out just how different things could be.
