18648/Just chillin' in space. Wish you were here.

Just chillin' in space. Wish you were here.
Date of Scene:	22 July 2024
Location:	Meeting Room - GIRL Headquarters
Synopsis:	Vivian and Felicity meet at GIRL HQ. They also use some GIRL tech to take a little trip into space, as you do, so Viv can tempt Felicity with the delights of super science. It's a pretty strong sales pitch.
Cast of Characters:	Vivian Vision, Felicity Smoak

---

Vivian Vision has posed:
Vivian Vision is not typically one to call a meeting. You'd think being a super advanced AI she would /love/ scheduling in time to do work. But sadly not. It's easy enough to get a reputation for being unfun when you talk people out of making a doomsday weapon. Or ask them to submit cost benefit plans for their work so you can decide who gets what funding. A task that's in many ways easier while Nadia is busy doing her science thing, because she did rather like to give the go ahead for anything cool, but in other ways is harder.

Because her Great Aunt is the big name behind GIRL and the donors loved her.

But with Earth increasingly connecting itself to the rest of civilisation there is an increasingly large amount of things people have to get sorted. Like cleaning up space debris and making sure no rogue asteroids will hit the planet any time soon. Humans can't keep relying on alien superheroes to punch the rocks! If nothing else it'd be nice to let them all have a weekend or two off every now and again.

Which is why she's reluctantly sent out some invitations. Not for everyone at once. A member by member basis. So she can have optimal time to review opinions, gain insight into solutions, and make sure there are enough snacks and beverages to go around.

Rather than some big formal office she's selected the main meeting room as the venue. A nice rounded table where everyone can sit as equals. Because that's the GIRL way. Co-operation, mutual respect, and saying SCIENCE like it's written in all caps with a ! at the end.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Click. Click. Click. Click.

Felicity's approach is not subtle or quiet, but if she noticed or cared about the way her heels echoed on the floor, she showed no sign of it. There are many beings that float, fly, or otherwise move stealthily enough around to sneak up on a Kung-fu master (or perhaps even a semi-sentient AI). However, Felicity Smoak is not one of them. She never has been. She never will be. It's just not in her DNA.

"Hey, John? Deep breath, Buddy... it's gonna be okay. I'll call him. Right after my meeting."

She's got a phone pressed to her ear, a purse dangling over her shoulder, and her sheath dress makes it obvious that she means _business_.

"I don't know. It's Oliver. What am I, his keeper?"

Beat.

"Don't answer that."

Felicity sighs.

"I have to go in. I promise, as soon as I get out, I'll call him. It's fine. I'm sure he's off being a Queen somewhere." Pause. "Not like... _being_ _a_ _Queen_. Although, I'm not saying that's out of the question, you know? There are some days where -- " Pause. "Right. Yeah. I'm on it. Call you as soon as I know something."

And then she hangs up and dumps the phone back into her purse, pushing through the door into the conference room with a wide smile.

Vivian Vision has posed:
Todays meeting is pretty light on details. At least on paper. And the current venue is... Well more a formality before the /meeting/. Hush hush. Not because GIRL is secretive, which it most assuredly isn't, it's because ideas tend to happen suddenly and progress at breakneck pace.

"Ms Smoak! It's wonderful to see you here in person," she says brightly. "I appreciate you're very busy and I know your time is valuable." She motions at some forms to sign. Waiver forms. Legal declarations. "And as a more recent member of GIRL you might not be quite as aware of our more... unusual achievements. But I give my personal guarantee it'll be worth the trip."

She motions at the boring bit. Paperwork. "Just some forms to confirm you've never had any lasting effects from dimensional anomalies and you're in good physical health. All totally routine." Weirdly for a place like GIRL? It really is routine.

She gives some time all the boxes are ticked. T's crossed and dots put on the i's. Plus time for drinks and snacks to be sampled. It's important organics remember to eat and stay hydrated.

And then they're off. Into the exciting realms of... the meeting room /next door/. Which seems to have a big door in the middle. Literally the centre of the room. Going nowhere.

"This is a long distance transportation portal," she explains. "It's perfectly safe. And also likely the longest step you'll have made in your entire lifetime."

She giggles. Maybe she's starting to understand why her Great Aunt always seemed to be having so much fun. It's enjoyable getting to show off!

Of course it shows it's safe better if she just goes through. Stepping into a swirly energy vortex. And vanishing!

Well not quite. The portal in question leads to the Kuiper belt. Where GIRL threw a really unique party. Vivian having fired up the gravity generator and life support to bare minimum levels. A low thrum of machinery echoes through the domed structure. And the view? Well it'd be a terrible pun to say 'Out of this world' but. It's pretty gosh darn spectacular. A clear dome looking out into the void. Lit up by occasional flashes as tiny rocks hit the defensive forcefield.

"Well, what do you think? Pretty cool huh?"

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"Hi!"

Yes, even at thirty-four years old, Felicity has the awkward enthusiasm of a high school Mathlete being introduced at the homecoming dance. Her brightly painted lips are tugged into a broad, friendly smile, and she reaches up to adjust the frame of her two-tone glasses just to give her hand something to do.

"Oh! Um, just Felicity is fine." She still had a hard time letting her _employees_ calling her 'Ms. Smoak,' though she forced herself to accept it. Probably because Oliver told her to, somewhere along the way.

Her eyes are shifting to the paperwork. "...Lasting effects?" It's more of a sincere question than a sign of fear. She had, in fact, had some residual sickness and disorientation from her last round of interdimensional teleportation. But, that had been entirely against her will and... a year ago? Plus, the guy from the Fantastic Four only showed up and tried to kill her the once because she still had whatever funk Mojo had put on her. So, it was probably fine.

Shifting her purse behind her elbow, she signs the required paperwork and follows along to the portal, which she hesitates in front of.

"Oh! We're... that's a... portal." Her smile thins. "Let me just..."

She fishes around in her bag and pulls out a phone.

>> To OLIVER: Hey. So. Remember that meeting I told you about at GIRL? Yeah. There's a portal. I'm sure it's fine. Text you when I get back from... wherever.
>> To OLIVER: Btw, John's looking for you. Love you. <3

Then her phone goes back in her bag and she's following through as cheerily as she can manage, giving that she's literally stepping into the unknown. And when they get to the other side? She's pacing around, looking up through that dome with wide-eyed wodner.

"Woah. Uh... chances I can get one of those doors put in our penthouse? I could _totally_ see this being my new office..."

Vivian Vision has posed:
"Felicity," Vivian repeats with a nod. "Oh it's largely a formality. If you were releasing any unknown radiation we'd have picked it up by now." And chances are there would have been some sort of alarm going off. A nice friendly alarm. as much as an alarm can be friendly given it's main purpose is to alarm people.

"The gateway technology was made by one of our members for inter-city travel," she explains. "But compared with the hyperloop system they're currently a little... impractical. They're vastly quicker for long distance travel. But the materials needed for each gate and the complex calculations and power requirements to keep them going." A little shrug. "I'm sure you can imagine plenty of reasons to just take the time needed for a hyper-loop trip."

Weirdly, given the distances involved, Felicity will find she still has phone signal at full bars. At least so long as Viv stays near the gateway.

"We might dig out some office space," she muses. "So the idea behind the meeting. Well it's not very glamorous if I'm completely honest. It's just now we're interacting with other galactic civilisations more. It kind of feels like we should begin taking proper care of our solar system. Which has all kinds of trash, including wrecked alien tech that probably needs safely decommissioning, and it seemed like we could..."

She gestures around at the big open space. Which likely still has a stage. Complete with dancefloor and sound system.

"Do something with the space," she tries not to wince at the unavoidable pun. "Set up some sort of research lab. It'd be a safe location to test out some AI controlled drones for capture of debris." The last thing anyone wants is a failed test adding even more junk to the local Earth orbit! "There's plenty of resources locally we can process given sufficient time. And we'd also be able to sidestep all the problems around using the Atlantic Starport."

Not that the G.S. Tereshkova is parked there. It's too valuable to be left so far away!

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"Inter... _CITY_ travel? Because..."

Felicity's pointing one painted nail up at the dome with her eyebrows lifted above the rim of her glasses.

"So, let me get this straight. We're on a floating Discotec-a-roid in _space_," obviously she'd already noticed the dance floor, sound system, and stage. "And... the plan is to become galactic garbage collectors?"

It's super simplistic. But then, so was getting her in the first place. Other than that unfortunate trip to Mojo's amphitheater, which she was half-convinced was just a dream for the longest time, Felicity has never actually been to space, before. Somehow, she expected it to be a bigger deal. Like, strapping in, rockets going off, a ship shaking and the feeling of imminent death...

But here she was, staring up at the view from God knows where exactly, except not anywhere near home.

Oddly enough, the presence of a STARSHIP sitting there does more to make her feel reassured than to make her even more nervous. At least if the teleporter failed, there was some way of them getting back home.

"Do people know that there's... a _door_ that leads from somewhere in space to New Jersey? Because, from an IT security standpoint, that's a pretty big back door..."

She shakes her head. One problem at a time.

"Okay, hold on. Let's go back. Let me get this straight. You want to use your asteroid base to develop a new fleet of drones that will autonomously find and collect space debris, likely prioritizing the most hazardous pieces, and bring them back here for proper disposal?" Her eyes drift to the side, her mind clearly off on another tangent.

"...Or reverse engineering, if we're talking about actual alien tech," she mutters more to herself.

She grins, though, and looks back at Vivian with a little shrug. "I'm _totally_ in. I have this algorithm that controls my drones remotely. It uses remote sensing to automatically feed landscape features and recognizable objects to a real-time 3D rendered recreation that I project on a holographic..."

Her voice trails off. Likely because she realizes she's talking about code she developed for Team Arrow that she was _planning_ to move over to SmoakTech and just... hadn't quite made it around to it, yet.

"I just mean... I already have a place to start." And hopefully that makes makes her look more excited than guilty.

Vivian Vision has posed:
"It started out as a teenagers science fair project," Vivian points out helpfully. "She's very talented. But as I said it's not really practical for their widespread deployment just yet. Always room for improvement. Plus if we get them durable enough to survive in a gas giant we can use them for exotic material collection." A beats pause. "I predict eventually we will get them well shielded enough for use inside a star for energy generation."

Some of these plans are /long term/ goals. But in theory? Technically achievable.

"Doctor Pym had a gateway to an infinite number of parallel universes in his private lab," she admits with a chuckle. "As for security? Felicity we've all seen retro TV shows like Stargate. There are physical and electronic safeguards. Plus anyone with the technology to fly unobserved to this location, hack the portal, and sneak into an extremely high security facility. Chances are they could simply fly over Earth and land on the White House lawn unless a Kryptonian decided to stop them."

There is also a legally distinct mechanical mechanism they seal over the inactive portals. Even if no-one uses the 'official' name outside of the documentation...

"Well yes that is rather one of the goals," she concedes. "Not everything is going to be treasure. Some will just be rocks with dangerous orbits. Most of it really." Her head tilts. "You and Harper should geek out over drones sometimes. She builds her own. You'd probably have a lot in common!" Except for the CEO stuff. "Ideally, while I am not averse to our alien members helping, I think from a..." She pouts. "Geopolitical standpoint we need to use Earth tech as much as possible. Things which regular people can service and maintain. As I think eventually the drones would, practically speaking, be best located much closer to Earth. Perhaps on Tony Starks space station?"

She glances around the space. "Is it weird I can picture it already?" She gestures up and the dome, her holographic projection systems triggering, and she projects mining drones and short range space vehicles zipping around. An entire constellation of domes, antennae, and docks. "Of course," she adds after a long moment letting the projections play out. "The dance floor will have to stay."

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity raises her hands defensively.

"I'm just asking," she assures. "I work around people who I still have to tell to turn it off and back on again, so portals to another stellar body aren't exactly tech I deal with on a day-to-day basis..."

Her heels click, still pacing the room. She's an anxious sort. Or, at least, she likes to move when she's thinking. It gives her feet something to do while her hands are busy gesticulating while she talks. No wonder she's so thin. She must burn a tremendous amount of calories.

"Oh! I saw that in the paper!" Pause. "...Do people still call it the paper?" She shakes her head. "The space station, I mean. I sort of brushed it off because 'Neat,' but it's not like I had any use for a space station, you know?"

Her eyes lift back to that clear dome, looking out into the space behind and the way the forcefield ripples energy when another chunk of rock hits it.

"I... guess I need to go back and read that article again."

Her attention soon turns towards the holographic display, though, and she smiles.

"God, I wish I had that... but, honestly, everyone around me is probably glad I don't. Most of it would be _super_ inappropriate."

She freezes, hands coming up again.

"I don't mean lewd. Well, I mean.. not most of it. I just... don't necessarily need everything I think about everyone I talk to broadcast for public consumption, you know? Especially when I'm trying to start up a business..."

And she's rambling again.

Right.. dance floor. She nods, gesturing at it in agreement.

"Obviously."

Vivian Vision has posed:
"Welcome to GIRL at it's most elemental," Vivian teases. "Where the improbable is a typical Tuesday and the impossible we save for Thursdays. To give everyone Friday to wind down for the weekend."

And really compared to some of the tech available it's quite normal. Except the forcefield Valeria made. And the artificial gravity. Okay 'normal' isn't the right word.

Perhaps after a while you just become comfortable with the miraculous!

"I think when it's printed on paper people still call it a paper. I get all my news online." Obviously. "Oh it's not a gadget the projection is simply... Me. I can manipulate photons within a sphere around me big enough to hide a small aircraft." She pretends shock at Felicity being unintentionally smutty. "Well don't worry," she teases after a long moment feigning scandal. "I promise I won't tell anyone about your internet search history."

A wink.

"I can devote different parts of my mind to thinking about different tasks," she clarifies. "The part of me operating the holographic systems is dis-entangled from the part of me which is planning the next meal I'll cook. Or the date I'll go on. Book I'm reading and you get the idea." AI multitasking. Such an unfair advantage. "Anyway I didn't turn on many of the systems needed for long term survivability. No food or water on site for example. So we probably should return back to the GIRL HQ sooner rather than later. Normally I'd offer to turn the gravity off for a little, but I expect you'd prefer some zero G training first to avoid bouncing into a solid surface!"

Felicity Smoak has posed:
"Yeah. That's sort of how my brain works," Felicity says, hands coming up and rotating fingers in opposite directions. "...except, opposite."

Because, instead of either everything happening on different threads all at once, or everything happening one at a time on the same thread... in Felicity's brain, everything happens all at the same time on the same thread, and she just deals with all the collisions in the way that causes the least amount of chaos.

Wait. Zero-G training? Nobody said anything about Zero-G training...

"And... probably a different outfit."

There's probably some superhero out there that does all her Zero-G stuff in stilettos and sheath dresses, but sort of like the quiet thing... that's just not Felicity.

"Oh! Wait... Oliver's never going to believe this..."

Fishing around in her purse, Felicity swipes open her phone in selfie mode and quickly nabs a picture with the dome in the background. It only kind-of looks like a space station. You can't really see anything out the dome except for black, given that her face is illuminated.

Whatever. Close enough.

She taps the photo to send it with the message, "Just chillin' in space. Wish you were here."

Then she dumps her phone back into her purse and re-shoulders the strap, heading back towards that portal home. "Alright. Oddly enough, I do need to get back and check in with Oliver, but this is _definitely_ a project I can get behind. So, count me in."

Vivian Vision has posed:
"Oh yes we have to get our newer members fitted for space suits," Vivian says. Bumping a fairly low item on her priority list up a few tiers. "The suits and the zero G training are /precautionary/. But I for one would feel a lot more comfortable if everyone knew how to get around to fix the artificial gravity machine if it fails. Rather than rely upon everyone being naturally talented at a brand new skill in high stress situations."

Better to learn a skill you don't need. Than to need a skill you could have learned but didn't.

Also it's cute if everyone has neat matching outfits! They're not really a super team. So aside from couples in matching outfits there's limited options for everyone to dress to a theme. Unless you count dinosaur onesies for sleepovers.

A wry grin at the selfie. "I better not tell my girlfriend I fired up the space party portal without her," she admits. "Harper is so hyped about working on spaceship parts. She'll want to come out here and turn the gravity off. Stick some tunes on the stereo. And literally bounce off the walls."

Probably there is a cooler way to phrase playing music in space, but poor Viv isn't the right kind of cool to know it.

"I'm sure GIRL as a whole will be on board with getting this place into more active use!" Once they've finished having FTL space adventures. "And I'm very glad you're willing to be involved. Gosh I wasn't looking forward to having to code all the AI needed.. As a synthetic lifeform it'd have looked far too much like I was the next Ultron."