maskormenace | 02

Good evening, everyone. I hope you're doing well.

If we haven't met before, I'm David Xanatos, founder and CEO of Xanatos Enterprises. I have a couple of things to discuss tonight, so please bear with me.

Firstly, I'm happy to announce that I've taken over the role of Director at Xavier's School for Imports outside of Heropa, filling a more financial-oriented role with the always-capable Robert Callaghan as Headmaster. Import youth of all ages who would like to learn more about controlling their powers or who simply want a student body filled with people like them are welcome to enroll at any time, and we're always hiring for teachers and staff positions.

Secondly, I'm looking for science-minded individuals to collaborate with myself and Tony Stark in the design and construction of a state-of-the-art, multi-billion-dollar research facility near De Chima. The sole stipulation is that any discoveries made there be made available for others to build on, for the advancement of all.

I'll be happy to take any of your questions in the meantime.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A way home would be nice. [A short laugh.] But that would require access to the porter, which we don't have. Shame, isn't it? It must be an amazing machine.

I've longed to study it myself. Something that could so easily reach across dimensions... it's more like sorcery than simple science.

The reach, I can make sense of. The amount of control it's able to exert is a great deal more elusive. Two months of thinking about it, and the only thing I've managed to develop a vague understanding of is its ability to generate its own exit point.

[Trying to understand time travel is pretty close to literal torture.]

That always seemed fairly sensible to me, actually. We know that time and space are effectively linked, and it would seem a little silly for us to assume all universes are running concurrently. If you can adjust an exit point's space, surely you can adjust its time.

Well, yes, but that's too superficial to be of any help. When I say I've developed an understanding of how a portal might generate an exit point, I mean I could probably build a portal capable of just that.

[But compared travelling across dimensions with full control over location and time, that's easy. He sighs, rubbing a thumb beneath an eye.]

I got far fewer headaches when I built laptops for a living.

I think the network's on the fritz, Alistair. Because I thought I just heard you say you thought you could build something like this.

[Said completely congenially, of course. Well now. This is interesting.]

Probably, with a few billions of dollars, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. We do use porter's to travel across the cities, after all.

[Granted, theirs were made from the original porter, while he pioneered portal technology. Not quite the same.]

An intradimensional device would be significantly simpler than the ones that bring us here in the first place. Without taking them apart in the first place, we'd have to guess.

Have you ever made something like that before?

'Something like that', yes. I'm not exactly sure where it reached. It wasn't somewhere within our universe, that I'm certain of.

But it was a mistake, and a failure. They were supposed to function like the portals - porters here do.

Can I ask what went wrong?

Human error.

That's unfortunate. We are, after all, so very fallible creatures.

Indeed. Only a fallible creature would think to try again. It's very tempting, the thought of sampling each universe, but I'm told we don't retain our memories when we're returned home, and that's the only place I have the resources to achieve such a thing.

A shame, really. I could do a lot with the knowledge I've garnered here.

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