Summary:Nadia and Veronica discuss some of their latest science projects. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Nadia hadn't been seen around the RESCUE Campus for a while, something about important GIRL business and a geological survey, but today she has rather suddenly re-appeared. A short notice excitable call asking for a meeting outside and hours later the girl in question is here. She's wearing a black dress with white tights and matching shoes, plus a red ribbon in her hair.
As soon as Roni comes into view the teenager super genius will begin waving and jumping about excitedly, motioning towards an area of otherwise unremarkable land within the Campus complex.
A few markers have been pegged in the ground and a little microdrone is flittering back and forth between them scanning the ground with some kind of laser.
For as long as Nadia is reachable via the usual paths of the campus, Veronica rolls out to meet her. If it is necessary to go truly 'off-road', she will have to convert the chair to its bipedal walking format of an exoframe. But she comes when asked, always prepared to support both Nadia and especially GIRL.
"Good afternoon, Nadia. That looks like an enhancement on your original insectile microdrone design. What is it doing, just now?" Dr. Veronica Kelsey inquires curiously. Her smart glasses are recording the experiment in action for later review, just in case.
"Oh it's not doing anything exciting. Looking for pipes and cables under the ground," Nadia explains with an off handed wave. This particular area isn't totally off road but it's certainly not in heavy use. "The drone isn't really what I wanted to show you.. You might remember when I first started getting involved with things around here it was suggested a G.I.R.L annex of some sort could be located in the area? Well I've been considering it and I thought perhaps I could just relocate my entire building."
For most people the idea that a building could just be moved around wholesale seems a little silly. While the wealthy might think of it as a display of power and wealth bordering on the frivolous. But for a supergenius with shrink ray technology?
"I've come up with a way to isolate the basement and foundations from the surrounding ground, cut the building free and shrink it. Then it's just a matter of preparing the right size hole to drop it into at this end. All the excess material from here can then fill in the hole."
Veronica smiles. "Given we created this island, Nadia, you only had to ask. There should be a conduit over there running to the water filtration system. And another carrying power from the Foundry, through here, connecting below to the Proving Ground and then connecting with the Spire. If I remember correctly, the water conduit is down at twenty-two feet, and the power conduits are at nineteen. The uppermost of the Proving Grounds is at eighteen feet."
Apparently Roni has complete faith in Nadia's ability to relocate the GIRL facility here, if that is what she wants to do. "If we relocate GIRL, we'll need to add a user group to the security matrix for them, and issue badges for all of them." She has no problem with this, but it will mean changes for security. She'll want to run this by Ava before everything is said and done.
"Oh I'm sure that won't be any trouble. About the user groups and so forth," Nadia assures. "Even if there are a few conduits in the way I can relocate them. The water and power systems I have fitted are more than enough for our needs. If anything I may need to contribute an excess of power every now. The solar cells we've been working on for the roof are getting as efficient as it's possible to be without dramatically altering the laws of physics. And if that's not enough this close to the water I could probably work out an undersea thermoelectric generator cable and get it fitted in an afternoon."
She taps a few commands into the drones remote and it begins projecting an outline for where the building would fit.
"I don't know if you'll need me to do some sort of environmental impact survey first? Or do you have permission to build anything you like providing it doesn't actually impact the skyline or the river?"
"It is our own island." Veronica answers, honestly. "But we are still within city limits. So we have to abide by city ordinances and laws. We have to get a building permit. And probably will require an inspection certification afterward." she explains. "However, no environmental impact issues. And so long as we don't bring in anything taller than the Spire, that itself should not be an issue regarding skyline impact."
All of that offered, Roni asks more insightful questions. "Alright. So, we'll need to file that paperwork and get approved. There'll be some fees, but none of them should be too impactful. Do you have any idea how quickly you want to do this?" It will likely take a few weeks to get everything in order legally speaking. Such things generally do not move all that quickly.
"Technically the building already has a permit," Nadia points out with a grin. "But I'm sure they'll want to take special precautions regarding safety. Honestly the building itself has been re-enforced to the point you could do the move while bombs went off and it'd barely chip the paint on the sign."
She glances at the drone.
"I think perhaps I'd like to run a test using the earth here first. Just so I can confirm the theoretical side of the process will work. I wouldn't want to discover a flaw in the process midway through building shrinking but I'm a lot happier if something goes a little off plan when it's just soil. So a few weeks is more than enough time. I wouldn't want to rush your security vetting process either." She nods to herself. "Keep everything 'by the book'."
Veronica nods. "Fair enough. I'll send messages to the lawyers to get the permits started, and another to Security to start vetting and setup for the GIRL group and their badges." She smiles. "I look forward to watching the testing phases as they continue, not to mention the final installation." She rather likes getting to watch others SCIENCE. It's one of the reasons why she loves the idea of GIRL so much she insisted on supporting it as she has.
"If it all works according to plan it won't be very visually exciting," Nadia admits with a shrug. "One minute there will be some markers in the ground and the next it'll be a big hole in the shape of foundations. The trick is just to contain the reaction so that I don't shrink the whole island." She winks. "But that's not a serious worry as I won't be using nearly enough Pym particles for that volume of matter." Her brow furrows and then she adds "But we will need to work out a procedure for the trans-country portal testing. I doubt the on-site security will want us opening a gateway to L.A. without prior notice."
Veronica nods. "Right, because you're going to shrink the earth to move it out of the way for the 'growth' of the foundation. That makes sense. We could use drillipedes and ramblers to clear away an outline, isolating the earth you want to shrink?" she offers by way of a suggestion. After all, Nadia is not alone in doing this. "Why are we worried about a trans-continental portal? Is this about the relocation phase? Or is this one of the projects that is on-going at GIRL, and we need to account for it?" Roni has not necessarily reviewed all of the projects currently ongoing there; sometimes she gets behind, so it is best to ask questions rather than make potentially erroneous assumptions.
"I ran the numbers and an outline isn't really helpful," Nadia explains earnestly. "You see at some point the matter has to touch something else and the Pym particle reaction can chain along it. But with beacons installed at each corner I can project a field between them which will halt the reaction and 'cut' the section of Earth. Then we can just pick up what remains and revert it to normal back where GIRL is currently based."
She adjusts the drone projection and the building is replaced with arrows marking several key points.
"They would be good for driling to precise depths and getting those beacons in-situ though." She adds, talking a little faster as enthusiasm for the project grows. "Oh no the portal is just one of the projects we've been working on. The eventual aim would let us make a stable wormhole between any two points on the planet. The follow up to that is naturally into orbit and perhaps in twenty or thirty years time we should be able to reliably hit other planets. But that's more about power output and targeting calculations than the principles of the wormholes. We've got a lot of the foundational math for that underway."
Veronica nods. "Well, let me know if you want the drillipedes' help to get them into place." She's all for helping, especially if it avoids shrinking their whole damned artificial island.
"There's a huge part of me that wants to get into discussions with you about how you manage to contain something like that safely planetside given the gravitic outputs of a wormhole." Roni admits. Because gravity that strong here on the planet would threaten the seismic stability of the planet. That's bad. But she's pretty sure Nadia knows that as well as she does, and that she and whomever else is pursuing that project has a plan for this.
This is the problem when you get super-smart people together to chat; they can distract one another for days with the ooh-shiny of each other's latest ideas and research.
"Oh it's really not that complex over short distances," Nadia enthuses, not quite skipping from corner to corner but close to it. "If you angle the forces correctly they all cancel each other out. Like a sort of… hyperspatial cats cradle. You pull the threads tight at the edges and they form a pattern with a hole in the middle. Do it wrong and the portal itself breaks before anything planetary level dangerous can happen. It's as safe as getting on a plane really." She frowns. "Of course for intersolar travel you'd want to set things up in a lagrane point. No so much for added safety as to stop the gravity fields from influencing your vector."
"Interesting. I'd love to read through that math a few times. Not now, but later." Veronica offers honestly. Because she really is that curious. The fun part is that she doesn't doubt Nadia; the Russian woman is that damned brilliant, and Roni has seen more than enough evidence of that to maintain her faith. She just also maintains her intellectual curiosity. She may not be a particle physicist, but she's always eager to learn more and grow.
"A lot of the more unreliable elements have been improved upon with nanoscale engineering upgrades. For something that precise it helps that everything is honed down at an atomic level. Very precise… Does mean even a little dust can make you apparate four foot off the ground. We tend to keep a soft padded floor on hand whenever we fire it up." Nadia paces back and forth a few times, then nods. Seemingly to herself. "If it's a problem we can always relocate the portal to a more remote location for testing. The mid-term goal is for it to function as a cheap travel route across the continent. Make trains, planes and hyperloops obsolete. And that wouldn't be something we want on campus anyway. Too much work for security making this place a main passenger hub for the city."
"But that's all later problems. I'd be happy to bring the data over sometime if you want to take a look. Along with the preliminary results on the various nerve replacement experiments I've been running. I know it's taken a little longer than I initially suggested but the works coming along nicely now I've got more time to devote to it."
"I think testing here is just fine. My plan for your landing site will be to buy a building in Los Angeles or perhaps a bit north of there, and then set up the receiving site together. When time comes to establish a terminal for public access, we'll do that somewhere else." Veronica has no intention of making RESCUE campus open public access. And the press are not thrilled with that. But she's not budging, and the DoD and DARPA are backing her play.
"I will look forward to a chance to go over your research on both items later, when we get a chance." Her interest and curiosity in such is obvious, as are her reasons. "Regardless, just let me know what else we can do to help with the relocation. I'll get started on paperwork, and be in touch if there are any major problems."