The Eidolon (21 page)

When I pull past the dark, wooden globe and into the ATLAS car park, I see Rene walking towards the entrance, his helmet under his arm. He waves as I pull to a stop and blows a long whistle as his eyes glide over the bike. “This is yours?”

“Borrowed, for a little while.”

“It’s a beauty! Maybe I could take it out for a ride sometime?”

“Sure.”

Rene’s eyes are still on the bike as he walks beside me. When he tears them away, he says, “Listen, we are all going out for a drink tonight in Geneva. Why don’t you come with us? Eight o’clock in Lacont’s Bar, Rue De-Grenus.”

“Oh, I don’t know...” I’m uncomfortable about getting too close to people. It’s like inviting the Grim Reaper to a christening.

“Oh, come on. It’s a bit of fun. All visitors are obliged to come out on a Friday night – you can get to know the whole team.”

Exactly.
“Well, I’ll see...”

“Oh, come on, make the most of it while you’re here.”

I might draw more attention to myself by not showing up. “Alright, I’ll be there. Just for a while.” I swipe open the entrance and hold the door for Rene.

I
SCAN THE
control room for Professor Stiller and see him on the other side of the room, in discussion with a woman whose back is to me. His eyes dart towards me briefly.
You’re going to have to speak to me sooner or later, Professor; we’ve got four days left.
I lower my eyes and walk to my work station. The atmosphere is charged, even more so than yesterday – anticipation tinged with anxiety. Even Jack looks swept up in it. His eyes twinkle when I sit down at the station next to him. “Sleep well?” he says.

“I’ve slept better.” I scan the data on my console. “Did you get any confirmation from Fermilab about what they found?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it. I’ve got my own sources.”

“Good morning!” Professor Von Clerk’s voice rises above the chatter. “I know we are very keen to get started as this is our last chance to test, before the experiments begin on Monday.” A few whistles and applause come from the crowd. “I’m sure you’d rather be here all weekend, but we have to give the engineers a chance to play.”

The tests begin again. The hydrogen atoms are released into the source chamber, stripped of their electrons, and the proton packets fed into LINAC 2. The PSB acceleration goes smoothly, reaching 1.4 GeV easily. They reach the point of transition, the point when they can go no faster and so gain mass, and pass into the SPS successfully. Four minutes later, they’re all travelling, clockwise, round the main ring. After a tense wait, that seems to go on too long, signals confirm that the proton packets have travelled the full length of the collider. We repeat the process, this time feeding the packets counter-clockwise into the LHC ring. A cheer goes up when the signal from the last packet crosses the finish line.

If I don’t plant the worm, the next time we do this, the beams will cross and the particles will collide.

I glance at Professor P. Stiller again.

Jack leans across and whispers, “I could see if I can get you his number, if you like.”

I snort and feel the heat rising in my cheeks. “I think I’ve met him somewhere before, that’s all.”

T
HE MORNING WEARS
on and my patience wears thin. Stiller won’t look at me. During a lull in activity, I see him leave the room and I take my chance. “Anyone want a coffee?”

“Black, no sugar,” says Jack.

“Black, lots of sugar,” says Rene.

I get up and walk out to the atrium, but instead of going to the coffee machine, I turn left into the office corridor, my heart hammering inside my chest.
Professor Rumsden
on the first door,
Professor Liebenberg
on the second. On the third, the lie:
Professor P. Stiller.
The door is ajar and creaks a little as I push it open. I pause, and take a deep breath.

A whiteboard scrawled with equations sits against one wall next to a small red armchair, a bookshelf lined with physics tomes against another. There’s a group photograph on the wall, taken at the entrance of ATLAS. He’s behind the desk, rifling through some files, frowning through his round specs. He freezes when he glances up, his hands poised holding a sheaf of papers.

“Professor, do you have a minute?”

He stares at me, then sets the papers down slowly. “Of course. Come in.”

I walk into the office and we stand there awkwardly for a moment, facing each other, not quite knowing where to begin.

“My name’s –”

“I know who you are... Robert.” He swallows and I can’t tell if he’s going to smile or cry. “We need to talk.”

Footsteps come from the corridor and a woman who looks to be in her sixties knocks at the open door and peeps round.

“Come in, Florence.”

“Sorry to disturb you, Professor, but can you sign this mandate?” She hands him a piece of paper, which he scans before scribbling a signature at the bottom.

“Florence, this is Robert Strong. He’s a visiting physicist from the UK.”

“Oh, yes,” she says and holds out a hand. “Nice to meet you. In fact, I’ve got some papers I’ll need you to sign as well – just a few admin details – when you get a minute. I can bring them up to now if you like.”

“No, that’s okay,” I step out into the corridor. “Where’s your office? I come by later.”

“Just along the next corridor on the right.”

“Okay, thanks. See you later.”

“Hey, Robert!” Rene’s voice calls from the other end of the corridor. “Where’s our coffee?”

“Just a minute!”

I look back at my father, who’s leaning over the desk, drawing something on a piece of paper. He hands it to me. “Meet me there after the shift. We can’t talk here.”

I take the paper, glance at the map he’s sketched, and fold it away.

“You better go now.”

“Y
OU ALRIGHT
?”
ASKS
Rene when I reach the coffee machine.

“Yeah, fine,” I say as casually as I can. “Just having a look around.”

T
HE TESTS RUN
smoothly for the rest of the day, and I do my best to engage with them, but it’s difficult to concentrate. I can hardly believe I’ve finally met him.

Jack leans towards me and whispers, “You okay?”

“Alright, everyone,” Von Clerk’s announces, before I can say anything. “That’s it for the day. See you all on Monday for a 9am launch.” The chatter bubbles up around the room.

I force a smile at Jack, reach down for my rucksack and join the crowd heading for the exit.

“Eight o’clock, tonight. Remember?” says Rene as we reach the car park.

“Eight o’clock.”

He grins as he walks off, eyeing my bike. I take my time putting on my helmet, waiting for the crowd to clear, then check the map my dad gave me and set off.

Exit through the main gate on the French side, along the highway, then turn right up a long bumpy farm track between gentle rolling green fields. On the left, further up the hill, is a small white church, gravestones barely rising above the overgrown grass surrounding it. Beyond, a few houses are scattered around the hillside.

I pull up to the church beside a tired looking silver Volvo. He’s sitting on a bench at the edge of the small cemetery, overlooking the hillside. A buzzard lands on the eaves of the church, its beak hooked, the arc of its head smooth as a shepherd’s crook. It peers down at me as my boots crunch on the gravel.

My dad looks up, watching me approach. I sit down beside him and look out over the land. The grass is mossy and tufty and sprinkled with boulders. Sheep are grazing on the lower slopes, and in the distance, the buildings of CERN jar a little with the serenity.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he says.

“
You
can’t believe it? Until last week, I thought you were dead.”

“I know. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.” He turns to face me. “You look just like her.”

“Does she know?”

“No.”

“Why did you do it? Why did you make us believe you were dead?”

“When I first graduated, I got a post with a private UK company working on ways of refining plutonium extraction for power. It turned out that the company was a front for the Soviets’ weapons research. When I found out, I resigned. We’d almost completed the research and they weren’t prepared to see me walk out. It turned nasty – they knew all about you and Marion. When the threats started, that’s when Victor Amos showed up.”

“What did he do?”

“He gave me a way out that kept you safe. But it was a high price. If the Soviets were to believe I was dead, I couldn’t let anyone know – not even your mother.”

“But what about afterwards? The cold war ended years ago.”

“ORB kept telling me there were still threats. Soviet defectors, spies and scientists were being quietly bumped off for decades without anyone noticing.”

“But you could have found some way to let us know you were still alive.”

“Too risky. At least, the way it was, she had a chance to move on. You both did. Anyway, circumstances kind of overtook me.”

“What do you mean?”

He glances in my direction, but doesn’t meet my eye. “I suffered from depression. I was committed to a psychiatric unit for eighteen months after I tried to take my own life.”

“What?”

“There didn’t seem any point. I’d lost you and your mother, I was living a fake identity, a fake life. I was no one. Besides, I was already dead.” He sighs and pushes a pebble about with his boot. “It couldn’t have been easy for you, Robert. I wish I’d been there for you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t.”

“So am I.”

We sit there together, lost in our memories.

“You really think the experiments are dangerous?” I ask eventually.

“There’s increasing evidence that we’ll create strangelets, although the Council would deny that they would cause any harm. But we haven’t tested the ring at these high energies. If we do produce strangelets and there are any structural breaches in the ring, any at all, then they could interact with normal matter. And that would be it. Game over.”

Sweat gathers in the nape of my neck. I wish more than anything that I’d never known anything about all this.

“What convinced you to do this?” he asks.

“There are a lot more papers out there with three sigma results than I realised. Then I found a paper by Thorpe which the Council refused to accept.”

“Ah.”

“I went to see him in hospital, to talk to him about it, but I could only speak to his wife. She told me he was convinced, before.”

“How is he?”

“It’s CJD. He’s not going to get better.”

He looks out over the tranquillity, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “Poor bastard.”

He turns to me. “So how are we going to do this?”

“I need to get into the Operator’s Room in the Computer Control Centre.”

“Do you have security clearance?”

“Not yet. I met Helena Standford the other day –”

“Don’t expect any favours from her. Leave the clearance to me. I’ll see what I can do.”

“There’s only one person on duty there at a time, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“I’ll need a distraction. Something to get them out of there while I plant it.”

He nods, considering. “Okay. I’ll meet you tomorrow to discuss the details. Not here. A friend of mine has a small fishing boat up in Versoix, and the weather’s meant to be good all day. We could take the boat out on Lake Geneva, maybe catch some fish.”

“Sounds good. Where is Versoix?”

“It’s only about ten kilometres northeast of the city. It’s easy to find. Probably best if we go separately.”

“Okay.”

He gets to his feet. “I’ll be there about one o’clock, at the docks.”

“Alright, see you then.”

I watch as he gets into his car and drives away.

A gentle breeze picks up from the slopes and ruffles the blades of grass. I close my eyes and let it wash over me. A million leaves move with the wind and the birdsong hushes to stillness.

When I open my eyes, I’m not alone.

At the other side of the cemetery, beyond the moss-covered headstones, a man is sitting on a bench. A little dishevelled, in a long dark brown coat, his hair matted and black. His face is shadowed in stubble and lopsided, his mouth and eyelid drooping on the left. He gets up and walks with an odd rolling gait, making his way out to the fields.

Shit.
Did he hear us? I get to my feet and cross the cemetery, but there’s no sign of him. Just a buzzard, sitting on a fence post, which flaps into the air as I approach. Where the hell did he go?

I make my way to the bike, and glance back. The sweeping branches of the larch trees at the edge of the forest bob gently in the breeze.

Chapter Eleven

I
THINK ABOUT
going home and drinking a lot of whisky, but decide against it. I said I’d be there and I can’t afford to arouse any suspicion, and I could use the distraction. At ten past eight the bar is crowded, the din of many conversations fighting against the europop that blares from the speakers dotted around the room.

“Robert! Over here!” Rene is waving at me, his arm sticking up above the crowd of heads. I squeeze my way through, apologising in pidgin French as I go. I recognise a few faces from ATLAS in the corner.

“You made it!” Rene’s unbounded enthusiasm hasn’t sagged an inch. “I didn’t think you would come out, you know. It’s a good place, no?”

“Yeah, it’s a good place. Pretty busy.”

“What would you like to drink?”

Everything
.

“Antoine is just going to the bar. HEY, ANTOINE!” he bellows, before turning back to me.

“A Grolsch, please.”

“And a Grolsch for the new team member! So, you enjoying it so far?”

“Yeah. It’s great.”

“Good.” He turns to the man to his right. “Hey, Frank, this is Robert Strong, from Romfield Labs.” Rene leans towards me and says in a low voice intended to be overheard, “Frank’s the one I beat in the squash championships.” He grins and Frank looks unimpressed. “I’ll just give Antoine some help with the drinks.” Rene bounces off into the crowd.