The God Particle (22 page)

“The rejection sample,” Donovan says. “That’s where you look at a small number of discarded events to see if you’re throwing away anything interesting?”

“Exactly,” Mike says, as if they haven’t gone over this a thousand times before.

“What you’re saying is that you found money in the trash.”

“So to speak.”

“And no one around here ever noticed anything like this before?”

“Well, when you told me to make something happen, I—”

“That’s just it, Mike. When I said to make something happen, I didn’t expect it to be in two days. That seems awfully convenient.”

“I know. But like I’ve told you before, this is a tricky process. No matter how powerful the machine is, for something as elusive and unstable as Higgs, deciding which events to evaluate is difficult. There are a billion collisions per second, Landon. Only certain events trigger the computer to record them for further analysis. We’ve written millions of interesting events since we began operation, and hardly any of them have been consistent with the expected Higgs decay modes.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten why the decay modes are important.”

Mike wonders what goes through Donovan’s mind when he explains these ideas to him. Because it can’t be physics.

“We detect many particles based on their charge or energy or both. But some are so short-lived that we can’t really ‘see’ them directly. Instead, we have to infer their presence based on other particles that emerge from their decay. This is how it is with Higgs. We’ve basically been looking for decay modes that have a certain signature.”

“Okay,” Donovan says with a gravity that suggests the concept is clearly beyond his grasp.

“And sometimes, when your back is against the wall, you come up with a radical idea. That’s what Larry and I did.” It’s amazing how easily these words come out of his mouth. Misleading Donovan to protect Larry and (if Mike is being honest) his own reputation as the spokesperson for the project. “What interests me the most is that we may have been producing Higgs for several beam runs and not known it.”

“Several?”

“Landon,” Mike says. “This is how it goes. You keep refining the process until it works. It’s science. It’s meticulous. It creeps forward for a while and every so often a little luck or insight comes along and we leap.”

“So when can we announce it?”

“Not for a while,” Mike says. “We have to be sure. We have to reproduce our results.”

“Why are you coming to me now if you’re not ready to announce it?”

“Because you said to produce something. You were very clear. So I thought you should know about this.”

“But if you have evidence from the rejection sample, that means you’ve produced it already.”

“Yes, but—”

“I agree that you must be absolutely sure,” Donovan says. “So we’re not going to announce definite discovery. But I want some press for this. I want the world to know that we’re on the verge of a Nobel-worthy discovery. So we’ll send out a press release, and then later—after we collect more data—we’ll have a press conference to clarify the situation.”

“Landon,” Mike pleads. This isn’t what he expected. He can’t go to the media with this fabrication and unverified evidence. “You can’t do that.”

“I know I can’t. But you can.”

1

Kelly is sitting at her desk on Friday afternoon, idly clicking through news portals as miniature guests are interviewed on a miniature
Oprah Winfrey Show
floating at the top right corner of her computer screen. In a few minutes she’ll be leaving for Huntsville. A three-hour drive will put her there by four o’clock, giving her a full six hours to shoot a story about tonight’s execution and set up live shots for the ten o’clock newscast.

She finally tires of reading the same depressing bites of news and clicks over to e-mail. Where she again reads Mike’s last message, the one in which he invited her to the super collider. They haven’t written each other since then. It’s only been three days, and it’s not like they’re dating, so three days shouldn’t seem like that long. But it does.

What’s the big deal, anyway? Driving out there isn’t the same as falling in love with the guy. If she wants to take it slow, honor her memory of James, then fine. But it’s not like she’s cheating on him.

So she’ll reply to Mike when she gets back from Huntsville. No, she’ll call him. Pick up the phone and hear his voice again, talk about something other than science or spirituality, just have a freaking regular conversation. That’s what she’ll do. There you have it from News 8. Kelly Smith Says What She Means.

A few minutes later she closes out her open programs, spends a few moments synching to her Palm Pilot, and then gathers her briefcase and blazer. Ted walks up just as she’s getting ready to leave.

“Hey, Ted. Guess I’m going to take off now.”

“Sorry you’re having to drive all the way to Huntsville for this new idea of Jeff’s.”

“Me, too.”

“And sorry you have to make the trip with Karl. All he ever does is complain.”

“Like any great photog,” Kelly jokes. “But I’m not driving with him, anyway. Makes me carsick to ride in that van for so long, so I’ll just meet him down there. In fact I better get going if I’m going to be on time.”

“Have fun,” he tells her. “This could be your Emmy.”

“Right,” she laughs.

“Hey, you never know where a story might lead.”

2

Her Lexus smoothly devours interstate as she drives southward, through suburban Ferris (where some enterprising but not particularly inventive soul has painted
Save
on the city limits sign, so that it now says
SAVE FERRIS
), and then toward the speed trap community of Ennis. After Corsicana twenty miles later, the rest of her drive will be more than a hundred miles of empty Texas prairie, a stretch of sensory deprivation that should provide her with ample opportunity to imagine a visit to Olney.

She passes tractor trailers and rusted pickups and SUVs. She tries to imagine what the rest of her life might look like. She imagines what would happen if she fell for Mike just in time for her agent to secure her a network job in New York or L.A. Would she go or stay? It’s not like Mike can find a job at another twelve-billion-dollar particle accelerator. And anyway, is there any point in staying together in the first place? Does she plan on getting married? Starting a family? Does some kid really want her as a mother? She can’t even keep track of her car keys without an electronic beeper. How is she supposed to balance a crazy career and make time for Mike and be a mother? Her own mom made it look so easy, but she didn’t work outside the home, so maybe that was the secret.

Or maybe she, Kelly, needs to grow up and stop being a female automaton. She doesn’t have to keep skipping the senior prom forever.

Her cell phone rings when she’s less than fifty miles from Huntsville.

“Hello?”

“Kelly. It’s Karl.” Her photographer, who is likely already in Huntsville, wondering where she is.

“Hi, Karl. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m about twenty miles outside of town. You hungry?”

“Not really,” she says. “But I should probably eat a little something before we head out to the prison. It’s going to be a long evening.”

“Yeah, it is. Well, hey, I was going to stop somewhere, maybe Dairy Queen. I didn’t know if a skinny girl like yourself would be down for something like that.”

“Anything is fine with me. You want to find a place and then call me when you get there?”

“Sure. Okay.”

“All right, Karl. I’ll talk to you then.”

“Hey, Kelly. One more thing.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Didn’t I hear you talking about some guy you met on a plane a couple of weeks ago? Some physics guy?”

The only time she remembers discussing Mike at work was during a staff meeting this week, when she suggested to Frank the idea of doing a story at the NTSSC.

“Did you?” she says.

“Well, maybe Frank or someone mentioned it to me, asking what we might shoot if we ever went out there. From what I understand, there isn’t much to see at a super collider. It’s a giant underground tunnel.”

“Right.”

“Right, so I was just talking to Malvin, you know, one of the other photographers?”

“Yes, Karl, I know Malvin.”

“Right. So he’s getting ready to head out there today. To Olney. I guess they just issued a press release. Some kind of major discovery, apparently. I guess Ted is going to do the story, and he mentioned this guy, Mike somebody—”

“McNair?”

“Yeah, that’s him. I thought maybe you’d be interested to know—”

Kelly shivers a little as icy rivers of excitement rush down her spine. “Karl, thanks. I appreciate you telling me this. McNair is the guy from the plane. I should be doing this story.”

“Yeah, but you’re here in Huntsville tonight, and—”

“And I’m going to call Frank right now. I should be doing this story. I may not come to Huntsville, Karl. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

“But Kelly—”

“I’ll call you back.”

3

Frank doesn’t answer either one of his phones, of course. Considering the generous amount of time he spends in his office, taking into account that his cell phone is mounted to his belt and thus always on his body, Kelly doesn’t quite understand why she can never get his bald head on the phone. But finally, after dialing his office number six times in succession, Frank picks up and growls into the phone.

“Mitchell.”

“Frank, it’s Kelly.”

“Hey, you in Huntsville yet? I just talked to Karl a couple of minutes ago.”

“Almost there,” she says. “As a matter of fact, I just spoke to Karl myself. He told me about the super collider story, that you’re sending Ted out there.”

“Right. What’s up?”

“Frank, this Mike McNair, this is the guy I told you about at the staff meeting. When I brought up the idea of doing a story about the collider?”

“Oh, yeah. Well, looks like you were the visionary on this one. I’ll have to tell Pearson so we can get your stock up with him.”

“Well, if you want to raise my stock, you should let me ditch this Huntsville story and go to Olney. I know this physicist. I can probably get an exclusive from him.”

“Kelly, I can’t pull you off a special assignment that Pearson specifically wanted you to do.”

“I think he would understand if I get an exclusive from McNair and really nail this thing.”

“Or he might fire you for insubordination.”

“Not if you give me the okay.”

“So you want him to fire me instead?”

“Come on, Frank. You know this execution story is bullshit. The guy murdered his entire extended family. There are barely any protests. The thing in Olney is something different. From what McNair told me, his collider is poised to make the biggest physics discovery in decades. Plus there’s the whole angle of it being a private venture, taken over by some shadowy consortium after the government cut funding for it in the early ’90s.”

“But people don’t give a shit about science unless it’s health. Or a fucking meteor shower, and then we let weather handle it.”

“But this story is in our backyard, Frank. And if McNair is even half right, the networks are eventually going to pick it up. It sounds that big. And if we get in early . . .”

“Karl is already in Huntsville.”

“So am I. I’m just pulling into town. You call off Ted, let Karl and me go up there, and I promise you I’ll get this story.”

“Are you sure about the exclusive?”

“The guy asked me out, Frank. I’m sure I can think of something.”

Frank laughs. “You’re a heartbreaker, Kelly.”

Kelly decides Frank can think whatever he wants if it will buy her passage to Olney.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Get Karl, and you two head up there. As soon as you’ve made contact with McNair, I want to know about it.”

“It’ll take me a day or so to script the interview and record it,” Kelly says.

“That’s fine. We can air it on Sunday, I guess. Assuming Jeff hasn’t fired both of us by then.”

“It’s still a story in the field,” Kelly points out. “Just like Jeff wanted. Only this one is actually worth something. I promise you won’t be sorry.”

“I hope you’re right,” Frank says.

Kelly tries to imagine Mike’s reaction when she arrives in person, and finds herself hoping the same.

4

It’s a Friday night party in Olney, Texas.

The press release went out in the afternoon, and shortly afterward physicists and technicians began pouring out of the NTSSC like electrons from an incandescent wire. The various bars and restaurants and honky-tonks filled up quickly, but of course Eva’s is always the place to be. And it happens that the owner of this particular establishment, upon hearing the good news, reserved a couple of tables for her favorite customer and his friends. Which is how Mike comes to spend the evening there, apparently drinking away his uncertainty, and also how Larry, who came at Mike’s request, stands at his side, wondering what the fuck he’s doing here.

Because Mike has been trying to act like it all didn’t happen. After managing to convince Donovan with his story, and after (even more miraculously) dodging questions from team leaders surprised by the announcement, Mike has simply ignored the confrontation about Carrie. As if the confrontation didn’t happen. As if Carrie herself never happened, as if it was all a big lie fabricated by Larry.

“ ‘That’s what
I
did,’ ” he mocks, whining, under his breath. “ ‘
I
met her at the party, and
I
brought her back to the apartment. You were watching television, remember?’ ”

Fuckface liar. As if Larry had nothing better to do than watch television. Implying that Larry wasn’t the one who had sex with Carrie, that instead of squirming on the bed with her, he was the one who opened Mike’s door and peeked in. Implying that it was he, Larry, who later found their sex tape. Implying that it was he, Larry, who copied the tape, who would get himself off watching Mike thrust himself in and out of her.

After a while he can no longer endure standing there, so he begins to move toward the bar, where maybe he’ll talk Eva into handing over the entire bottle of Crown.

Larry loves the sardine-can density of bodies in a nightclub, because it allows him the freedom of seemingly incidental and yet luxurious contact with all manner of gorgeous women. Because if such women are in his path they can’t really protest. The bar is there, he is here, and anyone knows the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, even if his definition of straight varies according to the location of that hot blonde and this choice brunette and that woman who from the side looks remarkably like Kelly Sm—

And he is upon her, has already placed his hand on her shoulder to gently move her aside, when Larry realizes the woman, is, in fact, Kelly Smith. She turns and Larry smiles. It seems necessary to add some kind of verbal explanation, to point out that he was just trying to work his way to the bar, but the singularity and enormity of the moment paralyzes him. And still his hand remains on her shoulder. It seems somehow glued there, or perhaps held in place by some as-yet-undiscovered force—not the strong or the weak or the electromagnetic, or even gravity, but some sort of pull exclusive to humans, the nearly supernatural attraction experienced when two members of the opposite sex are perfectly meant for each other, when their personalities lock like atoms joined in a covalent bond. Her prismatic hazel eyes examine him, forensically, and the part of his mind that mediates social encounters screams,
Say something! Anything! My God she is more gorgeous in person than on television!

“Hello, Kelly.”

“Hi,” she returns, a prepared smile on her face. “Have we met?”

His hand, finally, pries itself from her shoulder. “No. But I’m in Dallas pretty often, and I’ve seen you on the air. Are you here to do a story about Higgs?” He waits briefly for Kelly to answer, but before she can open her mouth he adds, inexplicably, “Or to see Mike?”

Her eyes widen at this unexpected turn in the conversation. “Do you know Mike?”

“I report to him directly,” Larry says. “We’re pretty good friends. He told me he met you on the plane.”

“He did?”

“He did.”

Kelly appears to digest this information. Her eyes seem lively to him, searching, as if she is looking through him, looking into his mind and finding herself trapped in the colorless abyss.