Two decades of life gone, excised from his memory.
He wanted to scream, to shout, to protest the unfairness, protest the loss,
demand an accounting from the universe -
But he could do none of that; he had no control. His body continued its slow,
painful shuffle to the bathroom.
As he turned to enter the room, he glanced back at the old woman on the bed,
lying now on her side, her head propped up by an arm, her smile mischievous,
seductive. His vision was still sharp --he could see the flash of gold on the third
finger of her left hand. It was bad enough that he was sleeping with an old woman,
but a married old woman --
The plain wooden door was ajar, but he reached a hand up to push it open the
rest of the way, and out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a matching
wedding ring on his own left hand.
And then it hit him. This hag, this stranger, this woman he'd never seen before,
this woman who looked nothing like his beloved Michiko, was his wife.
Lloyd wanted to look back at her, to try to imagine her as she would have been
decades younger, to reconstruct the beauty she might have once had, but --
But he continued on into the bathroom, half turning to face the toilet, leaning over
to lift the lid, and -
--and, suddenly, incredibly, thankfully, amazingly, Lloyd Simcoe was back at
CERN, back in the LHC control room. For some reason, he was slumped in his vinylpadded
chair. He straightened himself up and used his hands to pull his shirt back
into position.
What an incredible hallucination it had been! There would be hell to pay, of
course: they were supposed to be fully shielded here, a hundred meters of earth
between them and the collider ring. But he'd heard how high-energy discharges
could cause hallucinations; surely that had been what had happened.
Lloyd took a moment to reorient himself. There had been no transition between
here and there: no flash of light, no sense of wooziness, no popping of his ears. One
instant, he'd been at CERN, then, in the next, he'd been somewhere else, for -what?
--two minutes, perhaps. And now, just as seamlessly, he was back in the
control room.
Of course he'd never left. Of course it had been an illusion.
He glanced around, trying to read the faces of the others. Michiko looked shocked.
Had she been watching Lloyd while he was hallucinating? What had he done? Flailed
around like an epileptic? Reached out into the air, as if stroking an unseen breast? Or
just slumped back in his chair, falling unconscious? If so, he couldn't have been out
for long --nowhere ear the two minutes he'd perceived --or surely Michiko and
others would be looming over him right now, checking his pulse and loosening his
collar. He glanced at the analog wall clock: it was indeed two minutes after five P.M.
He then looked over at Theo Procopides. The young Greek's expression was more
subdued than Michiko's, but he was being just as wary as Lloyd, looking in turn at
each of the other people in the room, shifting his gaze as soon as one of them looked
back at him.
Lloyd opened his mouth to speak although he wasn't sure what he wanted to say.
But he closed it when he heard a moaning sound coming through the nearest open
door. Michiko evidently heard it too; they both rose simultaneously. She was closer
to the door, though, and by the time Lloyd reached it, she was already out in the
corridor. "My God!" she was saying. "Are you okay?"
One of the technicians --Sven, it was --was struggling to get to his feet. He was
holding his right hand to his nose, which was bleeding profusely. Lloyd hurried back
into the control room, unclipped the first-aid kit from its wall mount, and ran to the
corridor. The kit was in a white plastic box; Lloyd popped it open and began unrolling
a length of gauze.
Sven began to speak in Norwegian, but stopped himself after a moment and
started over in French. "I --I must have fainted."
The corridor was covered with hard tiles; Lloyd could see a carnation smear of
blood where Sven's face had hit the floor. He handed the gauze to Sven, who nodded
his thanks then wadded it up and pressed it against his nose. "Craziest thing," he
said. "Like I fell asleep on my feet." He made a little laughing sound. "I had a dream,
even."
Lloyd felt his eyebrows climbing. "A dream?" he said, also in French.
"Vivid as anything," said Sven. "I was in Geneva --over by Le Rozzel." Lloyd knew
it well: a Breton-style crêperie on Grand Rue. "But it was like some science-fiction
thing. There were cars hovering by without touching the ground, and --"
"Yes, yes!" It was a woman's voice, but not in response to Sven. It was coming
from back inside the control room. "The same thing happened to me!"
Lloyd re-entered the dimly lit room. "What happened, Antonia?"
A heavyset Italian woman had been talking to two of the other people present,
but now turned to face Lloyd. "It was like I was suddenly somewhere else. Parry said
the same thing happened to him."
Michiko and Sven were now standing in the doorway, right behind Lloyd. "Me,
too," said Michiko, sounding relieved that she wasn't alone in this.
Theo, standing next to Antonia now, was frowning. Lloyd looked at him. "Theo?
What about you?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
Theo shook his head.
"We all must have passed out," said Lloyd.
"I sure did," said Sven. He pulled the gauze away from his face, then touched it
against his nose again to see if the bleeding had stopped. It hadn't.
"How long were we out?" asked Michiko.
"And --Christ! --what about the experiment?" asked Lloyd. He sprinted over to
the ALICE monitoring station and tapped a couple of keys.
"Nothing," he said. "Damn."
Michiko blew out air in disappointment.
"It should have worked," said Lloyd, slapping an open palm against the console.
"We should have got the Higgs."
"Well, something happened," said Michiko. "Theo, didn't you see anything while
the rest of us were having --having visions?"
Theo shook his head. "Not a thing. I guess --I guess I did black out. Except there
was no blackness. I was watching Lloyd as he counted down: five, four, three, two,
one, zero. Then it was like a jump cut, you know, in film. Suddenly Lloyd was
slumped over in his seat."
"You saw me slump over?"
"No, no. It's like I said: one instant you were sitting up, and the next you were
slumped over, with no movement in between. I guess --I guess I did black out. No
sooner had it registered on me that you were slumped over than you were sitting
back up, and --"
Suddenly, a warbling siren split the air --an emergency vehicle of some sort.
Lloyd hurried out of the control room, everyone following. The room on the opposite
side of the corridor had a window in it. Michiko, who had got there first, was already
hoisting the venetian blind; late-afternoon sun streamed in. The vehicle was a CERN
fire truck, one of three kept on site. It was racing across the campus, heading
toward the main administration building.
Sven's nose had apparently at last stopped bleeding; he was now holding the
bloody mass of gauze at his side. "I wonder if somebody else had a fall?" he said.
Lloyd looked at him.
"They use the fire trucks for first aid as well as fires," said Sven.
Michiko realized the magnitude of what Sven was suggesting. "We should check
all the rooms here; make sure everyone is all right."
Lloyd nodded and moved back to the corridor. "Antonia, you check everyone in
the control room. Michiko, you take Jake and Sven and go down that way. Theo and
I will look up this way." He felt a brief pang of guilt at dismissing Michiko, but he
needed a moment to sort out what he'd seen, what he'd experienced.
The first room Lloyd and Theo entered contained a downed woman; Lloyd couldn't
remember her name, but she worked in public relations. The flatscreen computer
monitor in front of her showed the familiar Linux 2009 three-dimensional desktop.
She was still unconscious; it was clear from the massive bruise on her forehead that
she'd pitched forward, hitting her head on the metal rim of her desk, knocking
herself out. Lloyd did what he'd seen done in countless movies: he took her left hand
in his right, holding it so that the back of her hand was face up, and he patted it
gently with his other hand while urging her to wake up.
Which, at last, she did. "Dr. Simcoe?" she said, looking at Lloyd. "What
happened?"
"I don't know."
"I had this --this dream," she said. "I was in an art gallery somewhere, looking at
a painting."
"Are you okay now?"
"I --I don't know. My head hurts."
"You might have a concussion. You should get to the infirmary."
"What are all those sirens?"
"Fire trucks." A pause. "Look, I've got to go now. Other people might be hurt, as
well."
She nodded. "I'll be all right."
Theo had already continued on down the corridor. Lloyd left the room and headed
down, as well. He passed Theo, who was tending to someone else who had fallen.
The corridor made a right-hand turn; Lloyd headed along the new section. He came
to an office door, which slid open silently as he approached it, but the people on the
other side all seemed to be fine, although they were talking animatedly about the
different visions they'd had. There were three individuals present: two women and a
man. One of the women caught sight of Lloyd.
"Lloyd, what happened?" she asked in French.
"I don't know yet," he replied, also in French. "Is everyone okay?"
"We're fine."
"I couldn't help overhearing," said Lloyd. "The three of you had visions, too?"
Nods all around.
"They were vividly realistic?"
The woman who hadn't yet spoken to Lloyd pointed at the man. "Not Raoul's. He
had some sort of psychedelic experience." She said it as if this was only to be
expected given Raoul's lifestyle.
"I wouldn't exactly say 'psychedelic,' " said Raoul, sounding as though he needed
to defend himself. His blond hair was long and clean, and tied together in a glorious
ponytail. "But it sure wasn't realistic. There was this guy with three heads, see --"
Lloyd nodded, filing this bit of information away. "If you guys are all fine, then join
us --some people took nasty falls when whatever it was happened. We need to
search for anyone who might be hurt."
"Why not go on the intercom, and get everyone who can to assemble in the
lobby?" said Raoul. "Then we can do a head count and see who's missing."
Lloyd realized this made perfect sense. "You continue to look; some people might
need immediate attention. I'll go up to the front office." He headed out of the room,
and the others rose and entered the corridor as well. Lloyd took the shortest path to
the office, sprinting past the various mosaics. When he arrived, some of the
administrative staff were tending to one of their own who'd apparently broken his
arm when he fell. Another person had been scalded when she pitched forward onto
her own steaming cup of coffee.
"Dr. Simcoe, what happened?" asked a man.
Lloyd was getting sick of the question. "I don't know. Can you operate the PA?"
The man looked at him; evidently Lloyd was using a North Americanism the fellow
didn't know.
"The PA," said Lloyd. "The public-address system."
The man's blank look continued.
"The intercom!"
"Oh, sure," he said, his English harshened by a German accent. "Over here." He
led Lloyd to a console and flipped some buttons. Lloyd picked up the thin plastic
wand that had the solid-state microphone at its tip.
"This is Lloyd Simcoe." He could hear his own voice coming back at him from the
speaker out in the corridor, but filters in the system eliminated any feedback.
"Clearly, something has happened. Several people are injured. If you yourself are
ambulatory --" He stopped himself; English was a second language for most of the
workers here. "If you yourself can walk, and if people you're with can walk as well,
or at least can be left, please come at once to the main lobby. Someone could have
fallen in a hidden place; we need to find out if anyone is missing." He handed the
microphone back to the man. "Can you repeat the gist of that in German and
French?"
"Jawohl," said the man, already switching mental gears. He began to speak into
the mike. Lloyd moved away from the PA controls. He then ushered the able-bodied
people out of the office into the lobby, which was decorated with a long brass plaque
rescued from one of the older buildings that had been demolished to make room for
the LHC control center. The plaque spelled out CERN's original acronym: Conseil
Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire. These days, the acronym didn't actually
stand for anything, but its historical roots were honored here.
The faces in the lobby were mostly white, with a few --Lloyd stopped himself
before he mentally referred to them as melanic-Americans, the term currently
preferred by blacks in the United States. Although Peter Carter, there, was from
Stanford, most of the other blacks were actually directly from Africa. There were also
several Asians, including, of course, Michiko, who had come to the lobby in response
to the PA announcement. Lloyd moved over to her and gave her a hug. Thank God
