Stark Industries, Tuesday

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

With the portal reliably working if not completely up to the power levels she needed yet, it was time for Jessica to focus on one of the other aspects of her search for her home Earth. She still had the device from the fight with Verna that let her determine the coordinates of somebody's home dimension. In theory, that would help her cut through a lot of fine tuning. In theory.

The difference was that while Verna spent plenty of time going from world to world, Earth-001 was still her home base. She could get a better reading from there. Jessica had been in Fandom for months, and Fandom was weird. There was so much noise in the readings that she was having to really work on the data to get a good signal.

Sometimes even inter dimensional exploration came down to staring at a computer screen.

Anyway, Starks was also open.

Comments

[imafuturist]

"Why is Portalocity suing me?" Hello, Tony. Nice to see you.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Because you're enabling me to build that thing," Jessica said, gesturing to the portal as he looked up. "They're arguing about local rights to the manufacture of portal technology in Fandom. And I'm arguing screw them."

"It's possible I didn't say 'screw,'" Jessica noted. "Is the lawsuit going to be a problem for you? We're going to win it. You can't call dibs on interdimensional travel."

[imafuturist]

"Which is why my lawyers are somewhere between thrilled and very concerned for their own sanity," Tony replied. "Just wanted to check it wasn't something I did for a change."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Well, you did hire me and okay this plan," Jessica said. "So it is at least a little bit your fault. Mostly mine, though."

[imafuturist]

"If Pepper asks, I wasn't involved." Like she'd believe that.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"So noted," Jessica said. "Fyi, once I get a couple power issues worked out and clear out some of the noisier noise from my dimensional data, I'll be ready to give it a real test. Any chance you have some kind of probe drone that can scout ahead to make sure I'm not accidentally stepping onto a volcano world or something?"

[imafuturist]

"Sure, I'll get to work on that this week." He paused, thinking it over. "I'll make a few just in case."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Probably a good idea," Jessica said. "Just make sure they're not going to spread any kind of disease, okay? Reed Richards did that once and... it went badly."

[imafuturist]

"...I'm honestly not surprised by that."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"He's also responsible for a lot of things that probably would surprise you," Jessica said, looking back at her data. "Fortunately, it sounds like my version of the guy is the outlier. The psychotic little outlier."

Whose work with inter-dimensional travel informed everything she had done on this project. She never said he wasn't brilliant.

[imafuturist]

Well, he and Tony did build a prison in the negative zone together. So.

"That'll always be weird if you ask me."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"That makes sense because he's a little weird," Jessica said. "There's actually a decent chance that whatever is happening with my world is his fault. Like, 15 percent odds that he played a part."

[imafuturist]

"...no, that also sounds like my Reed. The other odds are on 'science', 'magic', 'aliens', or 'the X-Men.'"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Our X-Men barely exist, and we've done well with aliens," Jessica noted. "The best odds are something I can't even imagine from another dimension. We just dealt with a Galactus Event from another universe last year."

[imafuturist]

"From another universe?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"We never figured out how it crossed into ours, but we managed to send it to the N-Zone where it will eventually starve," Jessica explained. "And the only casualties were New Jersey and several of our best and brightest. It's a little rough to call that one a win, but at least the world was saved."

"You can probably see why I don't want to believe the planet is actually gone after that crap."

[imafuturist]

"Because it's survived worse," Tony agreed. "And I'm trying to be upset about New Jersey. Trying."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"I hate to admit, but the jokes help," Jessica said. "Until I remember the lives lost. But man, if it had to happen to one state... of course it was Jersey. I hope Galactus got indigestion from it."

[imafuturist]

"He probably ended up trying to pop the collar of his pink armor."

That's right. His version had pink armor.