The rest of the weekend seemed to fly by, and Monday was a bit of a different day, the team just working on some cold cases of theirs and catching up on reports.

The power went out for some unknown reason just before 2200 Monday night and, come Tuesday morning, in a less than ideal situation, the power still wasn't back on. Jethro only considered it unideal because there were definitely some groceries of theirs that were going to have to be thrown out. It wasn't a huge deal, though, and his team was definitely going to be amusing to deal with. They were all younger and more than a little dependant on technology.

Shannon didn't have work because the children were being kept home from school due to the unknown duration of the power outage as was dictated by policy. Kelly, although heading to work so that she could talk to her boss, likely was not going to be staying there either. Best guess was that the animal hospital was going to be operating with a skeleton crew given the situation and she'd get sent home. With cell towers down as well, though, Kelly couldn't just call her boss to clarify the situation.

Shannon and Kelly both found him in the attack, rummaging around for some of his older things that were probably going to come in handy.

"What are you doing?" Kelly asked with a chuckle.

He raised an eyebrow. "What does it look like?"

"Like you're throwing a bunch of stuff into old bags," his daughter retorted.

Shannon chuckled. "I think your father's taking a few things to work for his team to use today. The digital stuff is going to be less than dependable."

He smirked and waved a polaroid camera. "Hence this."

"Fair enough," Kelly said.

"They give me a hard time constantly," he said with a chuckle. "My turn to flip the script on them a bit."

His wife rolled her eyes. "Don't give them too hard a time."

"Never," he said, giving Shannon a peck on the cheek.

Getting into work, he quickly walked up to the director's office to get more information about exactly what was going on. Jethro'd then learned that there was apparently an explosion at a Potomac Electric Substation which had caused a cascade failure. The backup generators at NCIS were feeding basic lights, communications in MTAC and, of course, the autopsy freezers.

He'd also been notified that Agents David and McGee had managed to get themselves stuck in the elevator when they were trying to head home the night before.

"Begins with a 'C'," his Senior Field Agent said in jest, speaking into this orange safety cone that he had found to the two agents who were, unfortunately, still stuck in the elevator and having to deal with DiNozzo's humour, "rhymes with 'parade sailor.'"

"Cascade failure?" McGee guessed.

"Cascade failure," his Senior Field Agent confirmed. "God, you're good at this, McGee." Jethro had to shake his head at that. "So that chain reaction knocked out power in half the district. Pepco says they'll have it back online soon."

"Could not happen soon enough," Ziva said. "I'm sure Gibbs is feeling right at home."

"Well," DiNozzo said, enjoying the situation far too much, "you don't need electricity to use hand tools or drink a bottle of bourbon."

He walked up behind DiNozzo the younger man's laughter immediately seizing.

"He's right behind you, isn't he?" McGee clued in, presumably picking up on the rather abrupt manner the laughing had stopped.

"Yes, he is," DiNozzo confirmed before looking at him. "Boss, you know there's nothing wrong with the occasional cocktail."

Jethro nodded and then, walking with purpose, made his way over to his desk. "Grab your gear. Got a dead Navy Lieutenant... at an internet provider."

An apparent shootout at SwiftCast, the aforementioned internet company had left one of the perpetrators dead and a security officer wounded.

DiNozzo seemed a bit surprised. "So we're still...?"

"Working?" he retorted.

"Yeah," DiNozzo said while grabbing his gun and badge from his desk. "Of course we are. I didn't mean to suggest that I wasn't planning on being productive today."

Jethro didn't reply, just finished grabbing Ziva and McGee's go-bags before making his way to the direction of the stairs.

As he walked, he overheard the electrician radio his colleague "No go. Try patching the E-doors to the backup generator."

That suggestion had apparently worked because a second later, McGee was stumbling out of the elevator and thanking God.

Jethro eyed both of his formerly trapped agents with feigned annoyance and passed McGee his go-bag. "You're late, McGee." Giving the younger agent a small smile to show that he was kidding, Jethro proceeded to toss Ziva her go-bag.

Once they were at SwiftCast, Jethro had McGee and DiNozzo start to process the crime scene while he and Ziva both talked to two of the security guards. NCIS servers were down, so, for the moment, the name of Navy Lieutenant Emma Paxton was the only real information they were able to get off of their victim. The local LEOs had been able to identify her by a credit card they found in her boot.

"I was doing rounds when the alarm went off," the first security guard said.

"The next thing we knew," the injured guard said, "all hell broke loose."

"How many?" he inquired.

"Three I think," the first one answered. "Armed to the teeth."

"I tackled the woman," the second one said. "I was able to cuff her."

"She was wounded?" Ziva asked.

"No," the second one informed them. "She was fine when I left her." He got a funny look. "I think her friends shot her."

"They did not want to risk leaving someone behind who would talk," Ziva guessed.

"So... She's dead, 'cause of me?" the second guard said.

"Hey," the first one said to his coworker, "it was either them or us."

"What were they after?" he asked.

"I don't know," the second security guard admitted. "Last I saw them, they were heading into the farm."

"The farm?" Ziva questioned.

"Yeah," the first security guard said, "kinda the brains of the whole place. Real high security. Even we don't have access."

"Lucky for them," the second guard commented, "the power went out or I doubt they would have made it inside."

"Maybe not so lucky," Ziva said, eying Jethro. "I will alert Potomac Electric."

While Ziva was doing that, Jethro went to catch up with Ducky, DiNozzo, and McGee to see if they had anything yet from the body and scene.

"Boss, they call it the farm," McGee informed him without missing a beat. "As in the server farm. Connects the internet to internet users."

"Anything worth stealing?" he asked.

"Yeah," McGee said, "millions in proprietary trade secrets for one." Jethro shone his flashlight on the access panel at the door so his agent could get a decent photo. "We'll have to wait till they do a full inventory to see what's missing."

McGee took some pictures of the equipment and then the pair walked towards the main doors of the server room.

"That's the iris scanner," McGee proceeded to explain for Jethro's benefit. Although, he knew full well what an iris scanner was. Used one almost every day at work. "Controls the magnetic seals. Lock's uncrackable."

"Yeah," he said, "so they blew the power."

"Looks like it," McGee agreed.

The younger agent then pulled out his camera, starting to take more pictures of the damaged iris scanner and the area around it.

He was entertained when the camera had clearly died and his agent turned into a bit of a mess, looking like a lost puppy.

"The camera," McGee said. "Left it to charge overnight. Obviously, it didn't. I can... I can run back to the car, see if..."

More than a little amused, he pulled out one of the polaroid cameras he'd brought and passed it to the younger agent.

"Hmmm," McGee said as he flipped the polaroid camera around in his hand, checking the non-digital camera out with interest. "Wouldn't happen to have any food in there, would you, Boss? Missed dinner last night."

Jethro reached into the bag and pulled out a can of sardines to offer the younger man, which McGee quickly passed on.

Arguing, DiNozzo and Ziva came through one of the side doors. They had apparently found tire tracks from the getaway car as well as an eyewitness who could give them a sketch. Ziva had alerted the electric company of the possible connection as well as learned that the damage to the power is worse than they thought; the chain reaction had spread to the entire tri-state area. That meant that they could quite possibly be without power for days.

"So how are we going to run fingerprints through AFIS?" McGee asked.

"Or facial recognition software?" DiNozzo asked. His Senior Field Agent then eyed the polaroid camera in McGee's hand, confused. "What is that?"

"Or access our photos from our... digital... cameras?" Ziva added.

Reaching into the bag, Jethro pulled out two more polaroid cameras and passed them to Ziva and DiNozzo.

"Ah!" DiNozzo said, now realizing what McGee was holding. The Senior Field agent flipped the camera around, checking it out, before looking at the flashlight that Jethro was holding. "Want to switch?"

He rolled his eyes at the younger agent. "Here. I'll show you how to use it. Not that it's all that complicated."

Today was definitely going to be interesting.