Rubberman's Exodus- the blackout falls upon Citizenry

First draft of the section where the inevitable blackout strikes, and the Citizenry section has to deal with it...
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Shrieks flooded the air in Citizenry. They knew the lights would dim, except those for the gardens, not now, gardens and all, darkness reigned.

"Cody?" Leena called out to her favourite, who she knew was still in the room.

"Leena, you okay?"

"Yeah. Must be everywhere, I hear a fuss out in commons."

"Bet some of those idiots are thinking this is the wrath of the Great Actual," Cody said, remembering the past rashes of zealotry that plagued Citizenry.

"Oh, no doubt he's involved in some way," Leena said, "but we don't need people freaking out over it."

"Yeah well, a bit of freaking out is maybe called for," Cody said with a hint of a tremble in his voice. "It wasn't supposed to be like this!" Indeed, the Citizens had never known such complete darkness. Yelling could be heard, though it sounded to be mostly confused yelling. People calling out to each other. So far nothing too horrible sounding.

Leena had found her way over to Cody, and gave him a hug. "I'm gonna go be leadrly or something. If you hear me hit a wall, try not to laugh too loudly."

"You're go...? Leena, the walkway is a heck of a drop to the Commons floor!"

"There's a railing. I'm only going that far."

Already, a couple of people could be heard walking up the walkway ramp to come see Leena, but she made it to her destination before they got to her. She faced out into the vast darkness, facing out across Commons, and called out, "Hey Citizens! It's Leena! How's it going?"

"How's it going?" Cody critiqued quietly.

"Can't see!" came a reply from a voice further down the ramp.

"It's dark!" came a voice from below.

"Ev... everyone remain calm!" Leena called out. Hearing the voices from unknown people that she couldn't track made her realize how vulnerable she was in the dark. If darkness like this had happened in more dangerous times in Citizenry, it would have been very, very bad. If any Citizens were inclined to behave very badly... this was the time to do it. "Citizens together!" she screamed out an old rallying cry.

"Citizens together!" Came a reply from the dark, then another.

Leena screamed out again, as she began carefully walking down the ramp. Replies of "Citizens together" came back in greater and greater numbers. On her way down the ramp, she pumped into a few people, and gently nudged them to come with her.

Before long, Leena was at the bottom of the ramp, with Cody by her side, and an unseen mass of rallied Citizens around her. The chant had fallen apart as the people down closer together talked in more normal volumes.

"People?" Leena called out. They knew her, and gradually hushed to hear better. "Kay, first of all, I love you people. Everyone safe?"

Agreeable mumbles came from every direction, punctuated by a "What's going on?" from someone.

"Don't know!" Leena said, "I guess the dimming thing went a bit extreme. I gotta talk to Messenger, which means I gotta get to the communication device which is in the the Grand Elevator loading bay."

A flurry of questions without answers came to Leena, to which she answered "I don't know yet" and variations thereof, which pretty much continued all the way to the Grand Elevator. Actually navigating there was an exercise of bumping into people, people's shacks, and a big garden box or two. A few surprised yelps from smacking into things, and Leena began to sense when she was close to something big. Things just sounded a little different. The ambient sound of Commons and its people were blocked, or reflected in ways she could navigate if she took things slow.

When she got to the loading bay, she found the communication box easily enough, careful not to change any of the knobs that she wouldn't be able to see to re-tune. A careful hand found the power switch and click! The unit's little lights came to life. Static began monitoring for Messenger. She got the handset, hit the button, and called, "Messenger, this is Citizenry. It's Leena. We're all kind of... a little freaked out right now. Everything went dark. You said dim. This is totally dark other than the communication box's lights." She let the button do the allow the static to resume, and give Messenger a chance to reply.

None came.

"Messenger?" She tried again. Murmurs of worried Citizens around her surged a little. "Shh," Leena requested of them.

"Messenger. Talk to me."

Silence.

"Lenth? You out there?"

Silence.

"Actual?”