Unexpected

Fail-Safes

I returned to my duties and started on sandwiches, which I went along to deliver at noon. There were definitely more people here than before. Where were they all coming from? Why were all these people coming to work under Loki? Didn't they know that they were bringing their own destruction and enslavement? Loki, the legendary trickster, a broken prince, a charming psychopath, something else entirely, whatever he was, he was certainly not doing anything good with this plan of his. But I wasn't going to think about that now that I had caught sight of Eric through the crowd. Selvig almost seemed to be waiting for me today as I came up to his work station with my huge platter of sandwiches.

"Penny! There you are! I have something neat to show you!" He said grabbing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before turning excitedly back to his work.

Rolling my eyes and grinning, I came up behind him, also with a pb&j in hand, "What?"

"The diagram for the basics of the harness!"

"Oh?"

"They're finished! All I need is the stabilizer, but see, here are the clamps to hold the Tesseract in place, the stabilizer, once I figure out what I need, will go here, here, and here-"He continued on for about half an hour explaining the whats, wheres, and hows of it, showing me on the diagrams for the bits not made yet and showing me on the actual machine for the rest. Listening as I ate my sticky peanut butter and jelly sandwich I tried to understand how everything worked and found to my surprise that some of it actually did make sense. Maybe listening to Selvig every afternoon was actually rubbing off on me. I understood basically how the energy was supposed to flow, how it would be converted into the portal, and how the mechanics of the harness and machine was to work. Although I was proud of myself for being able to understand, I was also worried because I also understood that this could actually work. If this worked, which with Eric's genius and the huge crowd of working scientists, was very possible, there'd be no stopping it.

"So... does this thing have any fail-safes?" I asked slowly, leaning forwards a bit towards the machine. I didn't like being too close to the Tesseract, but I was trying to take a look at something Selvig had pointed out on the machine as I asked.

"Fail-safes?" He came up beside me, bending in the same way.

"You know, what if something goes wrong and you need to turn the machine off?"

"Turn it off when it's making the portal? That would mess up everything." Selvig said looking at me in confusion, his big glowing eyes searching my face.

"But last time it made a portal, when Loki came through, didn't you say that it caused the entire base to collapse? What if that happens when this goes off ... at wherever Loki's planning it to go off... and the place collapses like that?" I asked, the picture of some city crumbling under the power of the Tesseract playing in my mind.

"Hmm" Selvig stood up and started shuffling through his pile of diagrams, "That's a good point..."

"Someone's showing interest in the plan." A new voice said from the other side of the machine. I hadn't noticed anyone coming up to us and I ended up jumping from my crouched position in fright only to see Clint standing there with his arms crossed. "I swear, Penny, you're far too jumpy.

"And you're far too stealthy!" I retorted with a laugh as my heart rate started slowing after its fright.

"Comes with the job." Clint's mouth twitched into a smile before he turned to Selvig, "How are things coming along, Doctor?"

Eric hadn't apparently heard him and Barton had to repeat himself before Selvig looked up and noticed him. "Oh, yes, yes, it's all coming together well, but now I have something else to think of."