Through the Looking Glass - SuperCorp

Chapter 1: The Shot Heard Around the Worlds

Security checked the trio in. It was always heavy, but today it seemed even heavier. That wasn't surprising. They were shown to the roof which was devoid of other people. The only things there were a large screen about the size of a movie theater, some kind of machine that was maybe ten feet in any direction, and a railed off platform with a laptop where Lena stood.

"Hey, we're the first ones here," Maggie said.

"And you were worried we'd be late," Alex smirked at her sister as she said it.

"You're getting a sneak preview," Lena said as she walked down the stairs from the platform and approached the group. Her hair was swept up onto her head and held back neatly. She wore a form-fitting dark blue dress that hung to her tight curves. "The others should start arriving in about an hour. Friendship does have its privileges. Hello, Kara." The two women hugged.

"Hi, Lena. Thanks so much for letting us come early," Kara replied with a bit of a bounce betraying her energy level.

Lena nodded, then greeted Maggie and Alex who both greeted her in return, though all in a much more subdued fashion.

"Well, since you're here, I assume you'd like a display?" Lena asked.

"Absolutely!" Kara said eagerly, pulling out her notebook and pen. "On the record?"

"On the record," Lena replied with a smile. "Come stand up front and watch that screen." Lena pointed to the screen on the wall as she walked back up the stairs to the platform and then started to push buttons on the device. The screen lit up, and Lena moved her hands to the keyboard near the device as she clicked away. "The sun, a source of free and renewable energy. A source of incredible power."

Kara looked up at those words. The earth's yellow sun was the source of her power. Lena wasn't looking at her though. The other woman kept clicking away at her keyboard as images formed on the screen. It showed the solar array in space, the panels that Supergirl had placed up there. They were open now, spread out and shining in the light of the sun like a sunflower collecting the light of the sun on an early, summer morning. Lena's voice pulled Kara away from the screen, and she began to write again.

"Solar energy is clean, and we like to think it's free, but it isn't. There's a cost to collect and store it, and that cost is negated by the limitations that go into how readily available access to the sun is. How many hours a day can you access sunlight? More during certain seasons than others, but some days not at all. Even the shadow of our planet gets in the way of collecting solar energy. No, solar may be clean, but it comes at a cost. The answer came in finding ways to mitigate that cost." Lena paused, smiling, waiting.

Holding up her pen, Kara asked, "And how did you mitigate that cost, Miss Luthor?"

"I'm glad you asked that, Miss Danvers. The solar collectors themselves have been repurposed from a prior Luthor Corp project that was deemed no longer appropriate for this company's goals. There was a cost in reusing them, but nowhere near as substantial as in would have been attached to creating something from scratch. Usually, a large portion of the cost of something like this is the actual launch, but Supergirl was kind enough to bring these space-bound and place them into orbit thus nulling the cost associated with the launch. This meant we were able to build and launch a full array of solar collectors for a fraction of the usual cost. Isn't that fantastic?"

"Uh..." Kara nodded, her brow furrowed over her pad of paper as she wrote furiously, then looked up. "So you're collecting solar energy in space? What are you going to do with it up there, fuel space ships?"

"No. Well, I suppose we could, but that wasn't the intention. You see, on the roof of this building we've created a receiving station." Lena paused, gesturing toward the machine on the platform. "We can literally beam microwave or solar power back here and store the energy. We're collecting low cost, limitless, clean solar energy and sending it back to earth where we can store it safely for use. The more storage stations we build around the world, the more places we can store it. We could send power to remote corners of the world that currently struggle to find sources of energy. This could be life altering, lifesaving, for some people."