It wasn’t large enough to get through yet, but he could clearly see the lab on the other side.
Walking over to it, Felix leaned down and stuck his head through the opening. On the other side of the portal were a number of lab techs. They were all staring at Felix.
“Oh, hey everyone. Could someone find me Felicia and Mr. White? I need to run something by them,” Felix said.
The closest tech slowly nodded their head in the affirmative, and walked away stiffly.
Leaning back out of the portal, Felix watched as it kept growing. Andrea squealed and ran over to it.
Then promptly stuck herself halfway through the portal. She was waving at everyone on the other side and trying to start conversations with them.
“Good work. With a bit of practice, I’m betting you can get this thing opened up rather quickly,” Felix said, looking to Kit.
She gave him a bitter smile and glared at him at the same time. “Happy to see you try. We could always swap if you like. You might find my own ‘shower thoughts’ interesting, too.”
Felix blinked, did his best to forget her comment, and looked back to the portal.
Would that I could, my dear. If I could make changes to myself, this would all be… so much easier.
That or I’d already be an extreme super villain.
Probably.
“Felix! You dumb asshat. What the fuck are you doing to my lab?” came a shouted call from the portal. “Move, ya dumb wolf.”
“Ah, the ever pleasant shriek of my employees who are so joyous to see me,” Felix muttered.
Andrea squeaked and was shoved bodily out of the portal. She landed in a heap on the ground.
Felicia’s angry and annoyed face was on the other side of the portal, staring up at him.
“What did you do!? You ignorant goat’s ball-sack. Do I need to ban you from the lab?” she shouted at him. “And you know Andrea isn’t allowed down here. Not after last time.”
“You weren’t responding to people trying to get a hold of you. If you want to blame anyone, look to yourself. Maybe I should put in an intercom down there to yell at you from whatever office I’m in. Did Ioana drag you to a closet or something?” Felix asked.
Felicia’s face turned a deep scarlet at the accusation, and immediately crossed her arms in front of herself.
“Well, I’m here. What is this… thing then?” she asked.
Ha. I was right about the closet? That’s actually funny.
“It’s a portal that Kit can open up. We got the idea from a different piece of technology doing the same. I want to see if you can do the same, or better. Did I mention the tech looked as if it were at least fifty years old?” Felix asked.
That should rile her up.
Felicia’s eyes opened wider and she snorted.
“Oh, I’ll build you a damn machine that’ll do this. I’ll build it and it’ll open a portal straight to your godforsaken asshole so we can shovel all the shit you spew out back in!” Felicia declared.
“Ah. Good. Think you can have it done by the end of the week? Or do I need to give up on your R&D department and have Lily recruit me a bunch of people who can make portals after I upgrade them with a super power,” Felix said. He put as much disdain into his voice as he could manage.
She was always the type to rise to a challenge. And Lily was her most hated rival it seemed.
“You keep the damned Princess to your own bed and away from me and mine. I’ll punch her right in her nethers if she comes down here, you hear me? Bah, I have things to do now,” Felicia said, turning her head to one side. If Felix didn’t miss his guess, she was already pushing her power towards the goal. “Going to need to get White on this with me as soon as possible. Betting this’ll end up being a tech special. Like the beds.”
“Anything I can he—”
“Fuck off and die,” Felicia said, waving her hand at him.
At least I know she’s that way with everyone. Actually, other than Ioana, I might be the person she treats the nicest.
“You can drop the portal, Kit, we’ve made the point. It may not be any of my business, but you might want to practice open and closing it repeatedly. Distance might be a thing, might not.”
Felix yawned abruptly and held a hand over his mouth.
Andrea clapped her hands together from below, staring up at him.
“I want one. So I can get into your room whenever I want. You and Lily always lock the door. I listen sometimes but all you ever do is talk,” Andrea said.
“Actually, can you open a portal to the break room? I think I’m going to need a candy bar or something. My tolerance level for things is rapidly diminishing,” Felix said.
“Don’t bet on it. It takes far more effort on my part than any of my other powers,” Kit said, not even trying to open another portal.
“I can make pancakes! They’re like candy!” Andrea shouted.
Chapter 8 - No Brakes -
Felix watched as the projector screen slid down from the ceiling.
One of Lily’s analysts turned off the lights as another one turned on the projector. A power-point presentation popped on an introductory slide.
“You know,” Felix said. “I’m not sure I actually meant to make a deck, but I’m impressed at the same time.”
Lily snorted and didn’t bother to look his way.
“Start when you’re ready, Jim,” she said. “Felix is just being ornery today.”
“Of course, right away,” said the man at the end of the table.
Murdering his stray thoughts, Felix took a quick look around the room. Miu, Andrea, Victoria, Kit, Lily, and two of her analysts were the audience. Though Andrea was working on her pad with a stylus, and clearly not paying attention.
Probably sorting my mail again.
Leaning over, he took a peek at what she was doing.
She was using a virtual coloring book.
I… didn’t I increase her intelligence? Repeatedly? Does she just enjoy coloring?
“—is a mock-up of the finished campus,” said the analyst.
Felix immediately pinned his attention on the screen. It wouldn’t do to miss this, especially since he was the one who’d asked for the information dump.
“Yeah, I appreciate that, but to be honest, I’d like to move on to the parts that we’re getting pushback on,” Felix said.
It wasn’t that the representation was bad, or even poorly thought out, he just didn’t care.
“That is, I… of course, sir, I’m sorry, sir,” Jim said. Holding up the control in both hands the analyst began flipping forward through the slides.
Slide after slide went by with depictions of the grounds. The areas around it. Expanding the campus into more of the surrounding territory.
Projections for land value and expected changes flashed by on graphs.
“Hm. My compliments to the reporting team. That’s quite a lot of data for only a day’s time to prepare,” Felix said, shifting in his chair.
Jim bobbed his head, though he didn’t change his attention from the slides.
Some twenty slides later he stopped.
On the screen was listed a set of bullet points with the title of “challenges.”
Ugh. Calling it challenges, opportunities, or whatever else it might be, is still calling it a problem. Just changing the damn word. Stupid fluffy corporate self-help crap.
“Ok, so these are our problems,” Felix said, emphasizing the word. “Walk me through them, and as you do, tell me what we’re currently doing to solve them.”
“Of course, sir. Ah… first is residency. The city put in a requirement that any business or corporation that wants to own land to the degree that we do, with the expressed purposes of education, must have a residency in the state,” Jim said.