The God Particle (15 page)

“Why would he be under pressure? Every investor should know it could take years to produce Higgs from the machine, if at all.”

“Sure, but why else would he act like that?”

“I don’t know. But it definitely seems odd to me. This place has been hemorrhaging money since we broke ground, he’s thrown it at anything and everything we’ve asked for, and now he’s watching his pennies? Something’s different. I get the idea he doesn’t trust me anymore.”

“He has to trust someone,” Larry points out. “He can’t run the show by himself.”

“It sounds like he trusts Samantha right now.”

Larry looks at him for a moment without saying anything. “What, you think he brought her here to replace you?”

“You heard what he said. ‘You’ll help her in any way possible.’ Sort of undermines my decision-making power a little, doesn’t it?”

“Well, I guess we don’t have much choice there. But if Sam’s luminosity improvements don’t help, I’m sure you’ll get your money. You always do.”

Mike smiles a little. “I hate the stupid games you have to play. I know he helped pay for this thing, I know he’s the reason we’re here, but come on.”

“He’s an armchair physicist,” Larry adds. “He’s the boss.”

Mike just shakes his head. “You know, I love it when people come to me, when they’ve read Greene or Hawking or Lederman, and tell me how much they enjoyed learning about physics. When they admit to spending a few hours trying to understand the fantastic world around them instead of watching a bunch of idiots vote themselves off an island. But with Landon, just because you know more physics than the average person doesn’t mean you’re qualified to run the goddamn accelerator.”

“You don’t have to convince me.”

“I know.”

“So,” Larry says. “What’s up with Kelly Smith?”

“I don’t know. You’re the stalker.”

“
I’m
the stalker? Didn’t I hear Eva tell you to call her?”

“You heard that?”

“Yep.”

“And I saw
you
talking to Amy Cantrell.”

Larry recoils, and Mike wishes he didn’t have to discuss this again.

“I’m not even supposed to talk to her off campus? Is this Nazi Germany?”

“Larry—”

“Anybody else could walk up and talk to her there. I don’t see what—”

“Larry, please. We’ve known each other a long time. I can’t command you to leave her alone away from work. I’m just suggesting it as your friend. Remember Rachelle?”

Larry looks away from him. At the floor. At the wall.

“You followed her home, man. You kept driving past her house. If I hadn’t—”

“Would you stop reminding me how you saved my ass? Please?”

“I just don’t want to see you make the same mistake. Landon is volatile, man. She goes to him, there might not be anything I can do.”

“All right. Fine. Can we move on to something else now?”

“Sure. I’m sorry.”

Larry relaxes a little. “So what about Kelly Smith? Did you call her?”

“Why would I call her? She said she wasn’t available.”

“And you told Eva you really liked her.”

“Okay, so tell me how those two things are related to each other.”

“The woman sat there with an open book in her hand and talked to you for
two hours
on the airplane. Available or not, she wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t like you.”

“She could be engaged. She could be married. She’s not going to divorce her husband just because she talked to me on an airplane.”

“She’s not married. Or engaged.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do. I see the news a lot. They fill in the gaps with those banal segues and sometimes a personal note or two. Over time you kind of get to know the people.”

“Get to know them? Larry, it’s their job to seem accessible on television. You don’t get to know anyone by watching them read the news.”

“So Eva thinks you’re the man but tells you to go after Kelly. But you don’t call her and you don’t put the moves on Eva, so you’re basically thumbing your nose at both of them. And this weekend you’ll be moaning about not having a date.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t call her.”

“So you
did
call. And?”

“And nothing. I sent an e-mail. On Friday night. It’s Monday. She hasn’t even read it yet.”

“Oh, boy,” Larry says, and stands. “This should be exciting.”

“Where are you going? Don’t tell anyone, all right?”

“Of course I won’t tell anyone. But I’ve got status reports to run. It’s Monday, remember?”

“Right. And Larry?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for talking to me. I appreciate having someone to vent to.”

“No problem, boss. Glad to be here for you.”

He watches Larry go and then turns to his computer, where he begins working on his own status updates. You can’t work for Donovan without being a PowerPoint expert, without the ability to summarize the weekly progress of your life’s work into terse bullet points and colorful pie charts and—

And it really bugs him, Donovan’s apparent shift in allegiance, his new conviction that luminosity is the answer, that Samantha is the key to finding Higgs. Mike isn’t stupid. Despite constant praise from his boss, despite the confidence Donovan demonstrated in him by hiring an intelligent but inexperienced physicist to head the super collider, Mike knows that in the end only one thing matters: success. Donovan will do anything to achieve his goals. No amount of money is too much to spend, no friendship is too sacred that it can’t be betrayed in order to secure his place in history—the great philanthropist who personally bankrolled a multibillion-dollar project to further the cause of science. Mike understands this. He knows what role he plays in this big-budget film, this special effects–laden project financed and directed by men who control money on the scale of nations. But to be summarily replaced by someone brought in from another facility, to have his work assumed like a qualify-friendly home mortgage, and for Donovan to be so fucking blunt about it . . . it makes Mike sick. He’s only spent his entire academic and brief professional life imagining a time when the structure of matter and energy is fully understood, dreamed of a world laid open and bare for man to understand and manipulate at will, a defined and logical universe governed by distinct, organized laws. He tries, really tries, to live a life where the pursuit of truth is paramount. It’s his dream to help write a small piece of the universe’s instruction manual, and now some asshole businessman wants to replace him. Never mind that it’s the same businessman who granted him this opportunity in the first place. The man has no appreciation of the magnificent universe that spawned him, has no concept of the miracle of sentient life, and—

A new idea occurs to him about the triggers. An idea that could make something happen quickly, to convince Donovan that he, Mike, is still a relevant entity, someone to keep around just a little longer. But he needs to see some data on the most recent rejection samples, so he switches over to e-mail and sends Larry the request. Then he goes back to his PowerPoint presentation, drawing text boxes and importing figures from Excel.

In the system tray, right next to the digital clock, an Outlook envelope appears. He clicks on it and finds a reply from Larry that says,

No problem on the rejection samples. I’ll get right on it.

I bet when you saw the envelope in your system tray you thought it was Kelly Smith, huh?

L

Mike laughs and calls up his smiling pie chart again.

6

Larry sits there for a minute, staring blankly at his computer. The report. Rejection samples.

Fantastic, then.

Stupid arrogant fuckface. Like it matters if I give you this report or that report. Like you’re really going to find Higgs. It’s
my
Grid, man. My software applications. And what killer apps they are, let me just tell you. Let’s chew on that for a minute, Mr. I’m Just Looking Out for Your Best Interests. Like with Carrie. Always looking out for me, you bet. Keep an eye on Salieri, just in case he goes a little crazy on you. Sure, I’ll send you a report. That’s what I’m here for. To send you fucking reports.

He hops on the Internet. Googles Kelly Smith. Here she is (in an elegant black dress) accepting an award during her stint in Phoenix. Here she is in Richmond, a little hungrier and less put together, dressed in a blazer and khakis. Here is her bio photo from Channel Eight in Dallas.

Larry doesn’t live in Dallas. If he didn’t watch so much TV, if he hadn’t reprogrammed his satellite dish, he would have never even heard of Kelly Smith. But aside from being a hottie, there must be something special about her if Mike is willing to e-mail her. If there’s a pickier man on the planet, Larry hasn’t met him. And if Mike is interested, then so is Larry. In fact maybe he’s sort of obsessed with her all of a sudden. Sure, he’s probably never going to meet her. Obviously he won’t. And even if he did somehow meet her, she would never consider him a romantic prospect.

But they never do, do they? Like Jillian with her note. Hey, Larry. I wrote this for you. Jillian was one of the starlets in tenth-grade history, and every day he smiled at her, he tried to dress nice for her. He used all his extra money to buy two expensive wool sweaters just like the rich guys wore. He wore them for Jillian. Sometimes he whispered her name under his breath.
Their
names under his breath. Because sometimes it was Staci Williams. Sometimes it was Kim Jones. He tried to dress like they wanted. He prayed for one of them to notice him. And one day Jillian handed him a folded-up note, and she told him to wait until after class, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t wait to read what she’d written him. He unfolded it when the teacher began reading from the textbook, when Jillian wasn’t looking, and the note said,
Larry you can’t wear a wool sweater with Adidas sneakers. I’m just telling you for your own good. If you don’t have penny loafers then you shouldn’t wear sweaters at all.
The words he’d memorized long ago. Branded himself with them.
And haven’t you noticed that guys wear their hair short now? This is 1987, not 1982. You look like Shaun Cassidy with those wings. And stop staring at me all the time. It creeps me out.
Right there at his desk he’d read it, because of course he’d believed the note to be admittance, not rejection. Even while he was reading it he kept thinking there would be some kind of invitation. Stupidly he kept reading to find an apology or
I’m just kidding
or something. But instead just a final insult.
I told my boyfriend and he said you shouldn’t stare at me anymore. He said you were a FUCKFACE. I didn’t say it, HE did. So I guess that’s all Larry. C-ya! Jillian. P.S. Don’t W/B!

These days his sights are set a little higher. The real starlets of the world are women on television and in the movies. He doesn’t bother trying to dress nice for them anymore. That never worked, and besides, these starlets live far away. But distance doesn’t stop him from dreaming about them. About Jennifer Love Hewitt. About Jennifer Aniston. Or Britney Spears. Or Shania Twain. So many gorgeous TV starlets. So many letters to write. So many chances to repay the favor. And here is Kelly Smith, she lives so close, she is so much more accessible than the others. He could watch her day in and day out if he wanted. Week after week. And still it wouldn’t matter because Mike will end up stepping between them. Just like Carrie.

He can’t let it slide anymore. What kind of man is he if he lets such a thing slide?

Samantha’s door is open when he approaches, her head hidden behind a massive wide-screen monitor. Larry clears his throat. She peeks around the screen, eyes framed by unusual and attractive glasses, and smiles at him.

“Hi, Larry.”

“Hey, Samantha. What’re you working on?”

“I’m evaluating your p-bar source. Why?”

“Oh, just curious. I finished my status reports a little early and thought I’d come by to see what you were up to. You’re sort of where the action is right now.”

“I hope you guys don’t think I’m here to take over your project,” Samantha says, rolling her chair away from the monitor so Larry can see her better. “I just want to help.”

Larry smiles. “I’m glad you’re here, actually. It’s going to be so exciting when we find it. Higgs, I mean.”

“I’m glad, too. But I’m not so sure Mike is happy to have me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“A conversation we had at the bar on Friday. He was pretty abrupt.”

“Mike’s a great guy,” Larry tells her. “He’s done a lot for me. But he gets kind of stressed sometimes.”

“If he doesn’t learn to be more of a team player, it’s going to cost him.”

“Cost him what?”

“Donovan wants this collider to be worth the money he’s poured into it, and finding Higgs will go a long way toward ensuring that it
is
a success.”

“Are you implying that Donovan might replace Mike?”

Samantha stiffens. “Not at all. But you know as well as I do that—”

“Because I’ve been kind of worried about him lately,” Larry continues. “Donovan’s been riding him, even threatened to pull him off the project.”

“If Donovan replaced him it could set the collider back six months.”