that better than most. ‘OK,’ he said, grabbing his bag from the second bed. ‘I’m ready. Let’s go.’
Within three minutes, Lynn was ready with him at the door. Reaching out to touch the thin wooden partition, his hand stopped, and he reflexively put out his other hand to stop Lynn, a finger going to her lips to silence her.
He pressed his head closer to the door, listening, senses tuning to the world beyond the door.
The noise was coming from the stairs. Six pairs of feet, booted, heavy, as if each person carried something. It could be luggage of course, but it could just as easily be weaponry of some kind. There was a defined movement to the footsteps, a rhythm, a sense of cohesion that felt vaguely military.
He felt his old senses coming back to him slowly, crawling out of the veil they had been hiding behind since that day in the desert.
He sniffed the air, and smelled no cologne, no deodorant, just a faint hint of natural soap, enough to disguise the more potent smell of body odour.
And then he picked up the breathing – regular, even, paced, but slightly elevated, and not by the exercise but by anticipation.
‘Hit team,’ he said to Lynn finally. ‘Six men, armed, turning down the hallway now. We’ve got ten seconds.’
7
CERN, THE E UROPEAN Organization for Nuclear Research, is based near Geneva, Switzerland. Famous across the world for its search for the ‘God Particle’ at its Large Hadron Collider facility, the institution was originally founded in 1954 to unite Europe’s – and later the world’s – foremost nuclear physicists. Since then, its particle physics research has taken over to a large extent, and its discovery and then its creation of antimatter is both admired and feared in equal measure.
Many members of the general public were genuinely terrified when the collider – more commonly known as the LHC – was first switched on. Consisting of billions of particles being deliberately smashed together along miles of underground piping – sometimes as many as ten thousand per
second
– it was thought in some quarters that the device might create a black hole that would destroy the entire world in the blink of an eye.
Of course, no such thing ever happened, and the LHC has hummed away safely ever since, on a constant quest for the explanation of the beginnings of the universe.
Professor Philippe Messier considered the history of the LHC laboratory as he entered the elevator. He had just finished examining a damaged portion of the pipeline, which was getting the full attention of an army of engineers and machinists. Satisfied that everything that could be done was being done, he decided to check on the more important project, three hundred feet further under the surface.
Whereas the LHC was very much the public face of CERN, the project below – even though it had cost close to several
trillion
euros over the decades – was unknown by all but a handful of select people in the outside world, all part of the elite organization headed by Stephen Jacobs. The others – engineers, technicians, physicists, mathematicians, machinists, and hundreds of skilled and unskilled workers – were not part of the chosen, and would never be allowed to leave the facility. In a way, they were slaves to the machine, destined to work until they perished.
Messier smiled as he descended lower in the elevator, excited whenever he thought about the project. As the elevator came to a smooth stop, and the doors opened, the vast machine was revealed in all its glory.
Although it depended to a large extent on the power secretly generated by the LHC above, the technology that this secret device relied upon was more esoteric by far, unknown to the vast majority of the human populace. It was a gift from the gods, almost literally, Messier thought as he approached it.
Soon
, he thought as he neared it.
Soon
.
A shiver of excitement ran through him as he looked through the huge observation windows. Soon it
Within three minutes, Lynn was ready with him at the door. Reaching out to touch the thin wooden partition, his hand stopped, and he reflexively put out his other hand to stop Lynn, a finger going to her lips to silence her.
He pressed his head closer to the door, listening, senses tuning to the world beyond the door.
The noise was coming from the stairs. Six pairs of feet, booted, heavy, as if each person carried something. It could be luggage of course, but it could just as easily be weaponry of some kind. There was a defined movement to the footsteps, a rhythm, a sense of cohesion that felt vaguely military.
He felt his old senses coming back to him slowly, crawling out of the veil they had been hiding behind since that day in the desert.
He sniffed the air, and smelled no cologne, no deodorant, just a faint hint of natural soap, enough to disguise the more potent smell of body odour.
And then he picked up the breathing – regular, even, paced, but slightly elevated, and not by the exercise but by anticipation.
‘Hit team,’ he said to Lynn finally. ‘Six men, armed, turning down the hallway now. We’ve got ten seconds.’
7
CERN, THE E UROPEAN Organization for Nuclear Research, is based near Geneva, Switzerland. Famous across the world for its search for the ‘God Particle’ at its Large Hadron Collider facility, the institution was originally founded in 1954 to unite Europe’s – and later the world’s – foremost nuclear physicists. Since then, its particle physics research has taken over to a large extent, and its discovery and then its creation of antimatter is both admired and feared in equal measure.
Many members of the general public were genuinely terrified when the collider – more commonly known as the LHC – was first switched on. Consisting of billions of particles being deliberately smashed together along miles of underground piping – sometimes as many as ten thousand per
second
– it was thought in some quarters that the device might create a black hole that would destroy the entire world in the blink of an eye.
Of course, no such thing ever happened, and the LHC has hummed away safely ever since, on a constant quest for the explanation of the beginnings of the universe.
Professor Philippe Messier considered the history of the LHC laboratory as he entered the elevator. He had just finished examining a damaged portion of the pipeline, which was getting the full attention of an army of engineers and machinists. Satisfied that everything that could be done was being done, he decided to check on the more important project, three hundred feet further under the surface.
Whereas the LHC was very much the public face of CERN, the project below – even though it had cost close to several
trillion
euros over the decades – was unknown by all but a handful of select people in the outside world, all part of the elite organization headed by Stephen Jacobs. The others – engineers, technicians, physicists, mathematicians, machinists, and hundreds of skilled and unskilled workers – were not part of the chosen, and would never be allowed to leave the facility. In a way, they were slaves to the machine, destined to work until they perished.
Messier smiled as he descended lower in the elevator, excited whenever he thought about the project. As the elevator came to a smooth stop, and the doors opened, the vast machine was revealed in all its glory.
Although it depended to a large extent on the power secretly generated by the LHC above, the technology that this secret device relied upon was more esoteric by far, unknown to the vast majority of the human populace. It was a gift from the gods, almost literally, Messier thought as he approached it.
Soon
, he thought as he neared it.
Soon
.
A shiver of excitement ran through him as he looked through the huge observation windows. Soon it
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