ic [Gorgon] The Final Frontier (IC) (GM)

[Avenger Assembled]

September 20, 2011

The Lab

With the Gorgon's announcement, it became transparently obvious to everyone at the Lab that their time was up. They had to get a team out to the Gorgon now and throw mortal science in the face of the all-conquering space god in order to save all of humanity from the threat in the sky. And so it was that, mere hours after the Gorgon's announcement, the Lab crew was working feverishly on their planned insertion into Gorgon space in order to gather the sample nanite packages that just might give them the information they needed to bring down the mighty Gorgon once and for all. Of course, since she had turned out to be an body with the dimensions of the Earth itself, now cleaving her way through the Kuiper Belt on a course directly for Earth. She was 40 astronomical units away, having appeared in the middle of the belt thanks to her gravitic warp, and would be close enough to Earth to begin its conquest in just seven days.

[Avenger Assembled]

Though he wasn't scheduled to be part of the space mission, Citizen was there on Miss Americana's behalf, the lovely heroine having been temporarily distracted with a project of her own. "She's building a dimensional projector," he explained shortly. "For mass evacuation, if it becomes necessary." That was all true, but it was hardly necessary to dwell on _what_ was being evacuated to another dimensional axis: namely, Sharl's home city and the technological systems necessary to maintain it. "She'll stop by if necessary. All right, do you guys have a ship built?" he asked with a glance over at the members of the group not spaceworthy. "I guess you can probably get a Pegasus from the League and soup it up in a hurry if necessary..."

[Raveled]

For some unvoiced reason, the half-dozen brainy heroes who had chosen to confront the Gorgon directly had congregated in the hanger at the top of the Lab. The three-story space was open at the center, but there were side cubbies to let engineers tweak designs before flight. Jessica Parker was in one of those, mostly in her armor; one gauntlet and her helmet were retracted. On the workbench in front of her was a number of blue-and-white armor sections suspiciously similar to Ironclad's own design, but more more brief: a pair of kneecaps, some boots, gauntlets, pauldrons and faulds, and an odd-looking bubble helmet with a number of slack, flexible metal appendages trailing out the back. A jumpsuit on a hanger was folded over a chair, as the young genius worked on a bulky-looking backpack contraption.

She glanced up as the odd young man walked into the huge room. "Too slow," she said, raising her voice to project over the open space. "Even factoring in that the Gorgon is coming here, we'd be weeks in transit and weeks coming back. If we do fail," she added, her tone determinedly upbeat, "the League will need to know ASAP in order for back-up plans to have any chance succeed." Jessica walked over and picked up the jumpsuit, tugging on it with her bare hand. Even taking into account the elasticity of the fabric, it had obviously hadn't been sized for her. "So Supercape's going to 'port us over and 'port us back once we're done. I understand Dark Star was going to come originally, but he's been tapped to help with the evacuation last I heard."

[Supercape]

Supercape strolled in to hear the last words of Ironclad. He was holding a cup of Earl Grey, and dressed in his "Superlab" costume variant. His magnificent white cape had transformed into an equally brilliant white lab coat. The same blue and white costume underneath, and a mask over his eyes.

"Ah yes, a nice bit of quantum entanglement" he smiled. "I have been tracking our nemesis, the undefeatable and impervious planet sized destroyer of all life..." he continued.

"What? me? pessimistic?" he smiled a little wanly. He did look a little pale.

Is this even possible? he asked himself. Well...stiff upper lip and go down fighting...tally ho and all that. You never know, we may just find a way out of the pickle!

"*Ahem*" he continued, aware his little witticism was rather macabre. "Anyway, I can certainly entangle us right to the planet....er I mean target. I confess exactly what we do once there is another matter altogether..."

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"Take a sample,"[/bg] Dragonfly noted, briskly, fully-armored and working on a number of small metal bracers, all steel and glass - her gauntlets had deployed a number of small, articulated tools that she was using on the exposed wires and mechanical parts. [bg=#555555]"Maybe take direct action if possible. Probably not possible. More important to gather information, nanites for study - scientists, heroes, but not heavy-hitters, not equipped to fight something that large."[/bg]

She gestured vaguely with one tool-deploying hand; each of the little tools made an absurd little gesturing motion too. [bg=#555555]"And teleporting, yes. Faster in general. Not that hard to exceed speed of light constraints - teleportation, spatial diffraction, change the speed of light. But even if we cut travel time down far enough, would take too long to build. Gorgon is...ahead of schedule."[/bg]

[Heritage]

Dr Estelle de Havilland approached the group, wearing her labcoat over her usual blue-and-silver jumpsuit; lately she'd been wearing the coat a lot, more as a security blanket than anything else. Since the announcement of the Gorgon's arrival, she'd felt particularly useless; unlike many of her Lab partners, her brain moved at normal human speed, and organic chemistry didn't jump to the front of your mind when you thought of skills and knowledge bases best to counter an interstellar threat of global proportions.

Mostly she'd been doing 'facework', speaking on the Lab's behalf to various media outlets and governmental bodies, assuring the public as best she could that the Lab was working day and night to tackle this seemingly insurmountable problem; she felt a bit like a TV weather girl, but if it freed up better heads than her's then it was not a wasted effort. When she wasn't on camera she was on the phone, calling in every favor she had, every celebrity, politician and scientist to obtain money, supplies and transportation for the less fortunate residents of Freedom who might have difficulty being evacuated. She maxed out every credit card she had ordering blankets, MREs, water and first aid kits for distribution to aid stations up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and still she felt like she hadn't done enough.

So it was a weary Gossamer who slowly made her way to the gathered super-scientists; she hadn't slept well for several days, but snuck in a nap whenever she could. Exhaustion could be a deadly enemy in a crisis situation, and she feared letting down both her coworkers and the entire human race. Drinking coffee from a large Thermos, she waved at the others; the rings under her eyes were quite clear.

"Hello, hello." A slender golden tendril pointed at the suit 'Clad was working on. "That's it then, I take it?" It was clear what the structures on the back of the helmet were for; she was suddenly struck with a wave of claustrophobia at the thought of wearing it, and her stomach did a little flip. Then she noticed the young man standing there with whom she was unfamiliar.

"Forgive my rudeness, I don't believe we've met." She extended her hand. "Dr Estelle de Havilland, also known as Gossamer. A pleasure."

[Raveled]

Jessica raised her head and gave Gossamer a wave. "Yes, this is the space suit I made for you. It should help keep you, ah, together in deep space." She flourished the jumpsuit dramatically; it was all white, a stark contrast to the deep blue of the armored sections. "This is the pressure suit. Combined with the surface tension from your skin, it should act to self-regulate your internal pressure in a vacuum." She hung the jumpsuit up and picked up the helmet. "There's an internal radio that should let you connect with all of us, activated by chin controls. Although thinking about it, you can probably use your hair for that, but either way." She turned the helmet around, picking up one of the loose metal tubes. "Your hair goes in here. They should extend to your maximum limit, and keep the entire system sealed." The helmet went back on the table and the young genius indicated the backpack. "That contains your CO₂ scrubber and reaction mass. You won't be going very fast, but you should be able to do more than just swing from place to place within the Gorgon. Which is a good idea, since we don't want to upset it more than is necessary. Although maybe it wouldn't feel that -- you don't feel bacteria in your guy, do you?"

Jessica realized she was babbling and shut her mouth sharply. She took a deep breath and let it out, smiling wanly at the group and taking a deliberate step away from the workbench. "We're just waiting for Torque and Protectron, right?"

[Dr Archeville]

"I am here, Friend-Ironclad," the strange robot's flat voice announced as it re-entered the room. In its left hand was a gray package, rectangular, about the size of a hardback book, "and I have assembled the emergency repair kit for Friend-Gossamer's suit." In its right hand, held out some distance from its body, was a basket filled with smaller packages, about the size of a paperback book and in an assortment of colors, "I have also fashioned these containment units for procuring the nanites; within each are the magnetic 'bottles' Friend-Dragonfly created, as well as more standard extraction tools and containment vessels, constructed of different exotic materials, in case the nanites of Cosmic Entity 31966 are able to overcome the magnetic containment field."

Observation: Goals of Cosmic Entity 31966, colloquially referred to as 'the Gorgon,' are superficially similar to my own -- to preserve as much organic life as possible.

Analysis: Its 'preservation' is that of a taxidermist.

Conclusion: It is therefore to be opposed, as I would oppose any tyrant working to 'improve the populace,' such as the strange fish-man who usurped ArcheTech's satellites three months ago.

"In what other way may I be of assistance?," it asked after setting the items down.

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"Yes,"[/bg] Dragonfly immediately replied, holding a finger into the air. [bg=#555555]"Robot. Artificial sensors. Very useful. Difficult to test without relying on human sensory input; too limited a data point. Easier to fool. Different mechanics at work, limitations, special properties...."[/bg]

Even as she talked the inventor heroine got up, taking up one of the bracers and affixing it to the chair she'd been sitting on. Her suit rather unceremoniously came to life, power flowing through its systems...and, oddly, the systems of the bracer, which blinked on for a moment and then disappeared. So did the thing it was attached to.

[bg=#555555]"Can you sense the chair?"[/bg] she asked, in a tone that was a lot more clinical than disappearing furniture probably warranted.

[Dr Archeville]

Observation: Stress of imminent attack is causing a reversion of Friend-Dragonfly's social skills.

Hypothesis: Skills will return to prior levels after post-crsis recreation/stress release with organic superheroine Jill O'Cure.

"An excellent suggestion, Friend-Dragonfly," the strange robot said as she set the test up. Protectron stood motionless as it stared at the chair, eyes unwavering as it winked out of sight.

Performing scan...

Chair not detected along visible light spectrum

Chair not detected along infrared wavelengths
Chair not detected along ultraviolet wavelengths

ERROR internal radar inoperative

ERROR internal sonar inoperative

It stretched out one hand towards the chair, and rested it on the back. "Tactile sensors appear to be only means to penetrate cloaking field."

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"Good,"[/bg] Dragonfly nodded, frowning. [bg=#555555]"Good enough, anyway. Immaterialism causes more problems than it solves. Don't have time to make sure you all don't disassociate from this dimension complete. Bracers."[/bg]

She gestured at the items she'd been working on, and the chair to go with it. [bg=#555555]"Made...suit revisions. Kludge. Short-term. Can disguise us from anything but physical force - tactile sensors. Don't touch anything you don't want to. Bracers help suit track you, disguise you without hiding anything else - disappearing walls not subtle - but won't work as well if you break line of sight, won't work at all if you get too far away. So don't."[/bg]

[JackgarPrime]

High up in the sky once dominated by the sight of the approaching destroyer, a being who calls that very sky home floats, staring up into the space that may very well come crashing down on his world in a matter of days. Victory, his flesh face still holding on to an awful orange scar around the jawline, manages a smile. Raising a hand to the heavens, Victory moves his hand as if he were toasting with a wine glass.

"Keep a spot open for my up there, lady. I'm coming for my dance. Just you wait."

Victory looks back down, his artificial arm opening a holographic screen. It files through entries, before stopping on a particular series of numbers. The signal connects, and after several seconds of a ring, he gets a visual. It seemed as if his contacts were already getting themselves ready in their personal hangar, judging by the surroundings. Knowing they'd be able to see him as well, Victory deploys his mask, keeping his wound concealed for the time being.

"Hey there, kids. Looks like you're planning a little field trip. And you could probably use one more chaperone."

While Victory's mouth is concealed, his eyes are crystal clear through his visor. And they show the weird mixture of fear and excitement that any of his fellow pilots used to know all too well...

[Raveled]

Jessica walked over and picked up one of the metal-and-glass constructions, slipping it onto her armored hand and testing the fit and feel of it. Sensibly, there were adjustable clasps a good distance from any of the working bits, and even one-handed it was a snap to fit the device to her own hand. "Very nice, Dragonfly," she complimented the other inventor. "This makes it even more important that we touch the Gorgon as little as possible."

She opened her mouth to say something else, but at that moment the Lab's communication system intruded on her personal noosphere. She opened up the link and used her armor's holoprojector to let everyone view the call. "I don't see the conflict of interests," she said to Victory. "I suppose we can fit one more on our strike team."

[Avenger Assembled]

Supercape's teleport took the heroes, some spacesuited and some not, deep into the depths of interplanetary space. They were out past Pluto, near the edge of the solar system, far enough that solar heating was no threat to many of their members. Behind them stood the universe, vast and impersonal, an awesome cascade of stars like nothing visible from anywhere near Earth. The galaxy was a comfort and curse all at once, a promise that the universe would go on whatever happened to them. Even if one little world's light was snuffed out by the thing they rode. And a thing it was; the sheer, incredible scale of the Gorgon this close was awe-inspiring, larger than any work of man and easily dwarfing even the great galactic structures of the Grue. The plain of grey they stood on, the 'mouth ridge' of one of the serpents, was easily as large as New Jersey, the vast, dizzying bulk of the serpent nearby that seemed to go on and on as it reached into the stars above showing them just how large the Gorgon was.

She was no worm boring into the side of the Earth: the Gorgon was nearly as large as the planets she transformed! They were only a few dozen kilometers from the nanite storage site pinpointed by long-range scans: it was a few thousand meters down if they tried drilling straight through the skin; it was a few dozen kilometers if they took the long way around and tries to go into the nanite injector through the business end.

[Fox]

Dragonfly had the concealment (she refused, even to herself, to actually call it a 'cloaking device') on before they finished teleporting in, her helmet's inside display showing the status of each of her companions' controlled distortions.

Not that she was keen on telling them she was hiding their presence by twisting space around and through them, of course. That made people nervous, for some reason.

She turned her gaze to the incredible, planet-sized Gorgon as soon as she was sure her somewhat slapdash suit modification was actually working, taking a moment - several moments - to just take in the incredible distances at work here. Seeing long-range signals was one thing, but this....

She snapped herself out of it and brought her wings online, four blades of neon blue flashing to life behind her and carefully rotating her body to gaze below their feet and down the length of what took her a moment to realize had to be a snake's mouth. fast way - not subtle - long way - slightly more subtle - more dangerous? - hard trade-off - not actually sure what others are capable of in a fight - mmh

[Dr Archeville]

Observation: Cosmic Entity 31966 is...

... processing...

... processing...

... processing....

Protectron was also dumbstruck by the sheer enormity of the Gorgon. It knew, as Dragonfly and the others did, on a technical/academic level, just how big it would be, but actually being on it was as big a shock to it as it was to the others. For a few picoseconds, the emotional subroutines governing fear kicked in, but Protectron quickly deactivated them -- it knew what had to be done, and had the digital clarity of mind to do it.

Observation: Cosmic Entity 31966 is a planetary threat to all organic life.

Tactical Analysis: Drilling through skin would be a more direct route to theorized location of nanite storage units, but damage to surface may be detected and met with resistance.

"Suggest we go in through the injectors to reach nanite cache. Less chance of being detected than burrowing into 'skin' of Cosmic Entity 31966."

[Supercape]

"Tally ho then!" said Supercape, weakly. "Never forget, gentlemen, and ladies, and, errr, non-organics, that you are Englishmen, even if you aren't..."

By Nelson's Column! he swore to himself. Lets hope this won't be out Waterloo...

"Going undetected is our best - and dare I say it, our only - chance, I fear. And if we encounter resistance from this monstrosity, I fear its resources are unimaginable. I am sure it has some version of antibodies if its detects us. Discretion may be the better part of valour here, if we need to escape, let us do so - to somewhere lifeless initially to avoid decontamination. But with that in mind, let us proceed...."

[Raveled]

Ironclad stared out at the gray, metal expanse all around her, stretching to the horizon -- indeed, it was the horizon. Her mind wasn't prepared to accept something so overwhelming, so uniform and unmarked. On Earth, such an expanse would have been broken up by the creations of man, or at least by living things colonizing the open ground. Here there was nothing, nothing as far as the eye could see, and it reinforced that Gorgon was master of its own domain in a way that mere earthlings could scarcely comprehend.

The young genius teetered on a metal edge, trying to understand that she was standing on a face bigger than North America, but she just couldn't. It was too big an idea to wrap her head around. So she approached it from the other side; the Gorgon became a hostile planet, on route to impact Earth. They had to take some samples and figure out a way to reroute it. THAT was something she could grab ahold of and understand.

Firing her thrusters in little burps in order to stabilize herself in relation to the monster below, she nodded at Protectron's plan. "The sooner we're out of here, the better," she said. "Let's find the quickest route down there and get what we came for."

[JackgarPrime]

After being transported, Victory's various monitoring systems take a few moments to adjust after the teleportation. Even with the potency of Supercape's teleportation abilities, the sensitive equipment that make up much of Victory's body always does a bit of glitching out after transport. Fortunately, the life support is not one such system.

As his vision clicks back in, his eyes are met by a sight he's quickly grown fond of. The stars in front of his eyes float by, the many celestial bodies being quickly scanned by his analytical systems, miniature readouts of each known star and planet blinking down in the corner. He turns it off, so he can see the stars for what they are. And even with his mask on, Victory takes in a deep breath of his artificial air, as he tends to do when he finds himself out in space.

And then he looked down....

"A lifeless part, eh?"

Victory's analytical readouts switch back on, as he gets back to business.

"A big lady like this might be just a bit out of the normal definitions of alive. But still, there has to be some dormant sections. The question becomes this: Do we all go in as one big group, or smaller individuals? And if it's the latter, we'll have to map out some sort of rendevous point. Not that we know exactly what's in there...."

[Fox]

Dragonfly shook her head. [bg=#555555]"Should stay together,"[/bg] she advised, though her voice had an odd echo to it - she still hadn't gotten around to putting a proper communications suite into her suit, and lights faintly dancing behind the lenses of her helmet betrayed how she was cheating her way around that limitation. [bg=#555555]"Strength in numbers, can't guarantee concealing field over large distances or loss of line of sight, need to stay near Supercape for emergency retreat, if needed. Agreeing with Protectron and Ironclad - head for the mouth, stay close, stay quiet. Figuratively. Not actually making sound anyone else can detect, no sound in space anyway unless Gorgon provides its own surface atmosphere. Possible. Seems to have the mass."[/bg] focus [bg=#555555]"...anyway. Leave burrowing or splitting for plan B, C."[/bg]

[Avenger Assembled]

Slowly, they made their way down the impossible vastness of the serpent's face, the sheer scale of the awesome monstrosity of the Gorgon making it necessary for them to use powers and science alike to get where they were going. Even for Victory, as fast in the air as anyone alive, this was a significant trip. Finally, after nearly an hour in flight, they came to the lip of the snake's mouth and began the journey inside a maw large enough to swallow a city and more.

Space was supposed to be silent, but as they got closer, they all became conscious of a vibration from somewhere deep inside the snake, a low, deliberate hum that seemed to be a natural product of its function. They were deep in the maw of the snake now, with its mouth between them and any fast escape. As they approached the vast nanite depositer, about where a snake's venom gland should be, static on their respective commlinks turned out to be transmissions: an alien language none of them had heard before coming from the depths of the Gorgon.

[Raveled]

Ironclad tensed up as soon as they arrived on the Gorgon, but she began to relax when minutes passed without anything happening. Before long they were at the lip of the snake's 'mouth' and were just about ready to descend into the depths, to retrieve the all important nanite-materials they had come for. The young genius took one of the magnetic containment bottles from Protectron and was in the process of checking it over when she sensed the transmission coming from the Gorgon! Or maybe not the creature itself, but certainly from a place within it.

She didn't understand what language was being spoken, but perhaps someone else would? Neon blue lights bled from her mask as she connected to her allies in turn, transmitting the same message to each. "Do you understand what they're saying," she whispered each time, even though the volume of the words would hardly matter. "It's like nothing I've ever heard."

[Fox]

The hard metal and glowing lenses of Dragonfly's helmet disguised a rather rapt curiosity at the intruding transmission; not rapt enough to keep her from maintaining their concealment (and doing another check to make sure it was actually working), but she did pause for just a moment, tilting her head as she tried to focus on the sound and feel of it.

[bg=#555555]"No,"[/bg] she replied, quickly catching back up and glancing toward what she could only assume, given the diagrams, was roughly the Gorgon's center of mass. The scale made it hard to pinpoint, exactly - something as big as this being was a little confusing to her suit's normally stellar tracking and measurement suite. [bg=#555555]"Don't recognize it. Language, certainly - pattern, syntax, repeating sounds. Not one that I know. Very strange. Hopefully standard broadcast, or message in preparation of already-planned attacks...not 'intruder alert' equivalent. Should record, decode later. Valuable information at best, insight into language at worst."[/bg]

[Supercape]

Supercape drifted to a halt in the dim recesses of the Gorgon, his uncanny senses reaching out across the vastness for any disturbance. But it was beyond a chasm - the distances were truly enormous.

"Well I'm sure its a language" he said, unhelpfully. "Load of mumbo-jumbo to me, though. Like nothing I have ever heard...alien, I dare say...although that's no surprise..."

"I guess it time to pinch some of those Nanites. From a wall, or deeper in...."

[JackgarPrime]

Victory was maintaining a very careful level of heat and sound in his jets, keeping them burning as low as possible while still keeping his body floating through their descent into the mind-bogglingly huge entity. Fortunately, at its scale, a little extra heat from a source Victory's size is more like a slightly warm speck of dust. He figures he should be okay unless he has to really kick up. He'll just have to make sure that he keeps his feet on the ground whenever possible. Unfortunately.

When the transmission hit, Victory had to give the side of his helmet a little tap. It seemed like some static, but he was definitely able to make out....something. A manner of speech far outside his own comprehension. But it definitely sounded intelligent.

"It's definitely a language, but I don't think she's trying to actively speak to us in any way. She clearly speaks all earth languages, if her first broadcast was any indication. And it doesn't sound angry or have any alarms. I think we're okay. I'd say we dive in further."

Victory readies himself to continue, but he makes a log in his recording software of the broadcast. He also marks this spot for future backtracking, and calls it "North" for his navigation computer's purposes.