Prologue
________Warning, Particle collision in progress, said an electronic female voice over an intercom in the small white room. The group in white coats stood around the monitor staring anxiously at the glowing screen, Particles entering main chamber, accelerating, Today was day that they were going to test out a new theory, Particles approaching light speed, Only a few more seconds…
________The Screen flashed with several swirling lines spreading out like from a single nucleus in the accelerator. Only a few months ago this is where the experiment would have stopped, but as science progresses, so must procedures. As you dig deeper, you sometimes must augment what you already have.
________ Magnets returning to power, said the same female voice. The lab coats crossed their fingers, some started to sweat, Quarks reacting to magnetic pull, accelerating, A collective sigh of relief swept through the room, only a few more seconds, then repeat, repeat until you get to a final result.
________The screen lit up, and instead of spiraling lines, these were direct, straight forward, and clustered, Particles detected, magnets activated, another Held breath, Particles reacting.
________This process repeated itself several times, Each time, the particles collided and each time there was a different explosion like result, until… Unknown particle detected, magnets activating… no reaction. The scientists’ eye’s widened. One started typing furiously on the keyboard, after one final clack the female voice chimed in once more, Beginning extraction. The group shuffled over to the window in the side of the room where a small glass sphere sat. There was a whirring of magnets and machinery and a small hiss sounded before anxious silence.
________One Scientist brought up a magnified display of the sphere on the monitor. It was a very small image, they needed to invent magnification powerful enough to see something several times smaller than an atom, but what they saw was breathtaking. A cluster of small, glowing orbs, several million at least, floating in the vacuum, “Gentlemen,” One Lab Coated Man said almost cautiously, as if his speaking of the discovery might cause them to disappear, “We have possibly discovered the most elementary of all particles, the foundation by which all matter is created.” The Men returned to staring in awe at the glass sphere, not paying attention to the monitor, where those small white orbs started vibrating.
The Serpent
________A Man in a blue jumpsuit shuffled quietly along the white tiled hallway. He sighed as he looked at his digital watch, 1:34, He wished that that was PM, but, to his displeasure, it was AM, The job Was long and Monotonous, but it was better than nothing He supposed. He mumbled quietly to himself though the pristine halls that crisscrossed in the Laboratory above the American Particle Accelerator
________It took several years just for congress to pass it, but finally, the long awaited time has come. American scientists have developed a theory, but when they proposed it to CERN in Switzerland, they denied it without second thought. Good old American pride pressed up to the government to pass the law and construction was to begin immediately. It was placed eight stories below the surface, and stretched seventeen miles in a huge circle underneath Vermont. It took twenty five years, but the American Particle Accelerator was fully functional in the year 2033.
________As the Janitor looked ahead, it seemed that the monotony would be broken. A man in a white coat walked up to him, “Hello Mister…” He glanced down at the Janitor’s name tag, it wasn’t rare to have people forget his name, “Young, will you come with me for a few minutes please?” Young leaned his broom against those sterile white walls and followed.
________The full name of the Janitor was Samuel Young, and his working at the APA was rather ironic. Samuel was one of those chosen few Catholics left in the world. The majority of these days’ Christians, if they could so be called, were more concerned with how science had been advancing since the new millennium. With a surplus of household inventions, such as one of mankind’s dreams from the twentieth century has even been achieved, the hover car. Because Congress passed the anti-smog act, which inhibits cars that emit more than practically any polluting emissions from being made or driven, it’s completely electrically powered. It flies by using four engines stationed at four corners of the cab which run propellers that rotate a full ninety degrees from liftoff to full forward.. It had revolutionized the world’s transportation, crowded polluting streets are forgotten, and man has now inherited the sky, spare a select few.
________Samuel and his family are of that few. They are the modern Amish, trying to live in the past. They use electricity, but are trying to deny the modern advancement of science. They’ve denied the modern electric engines, so they walk or ride bikes everywhere they go. They go to church every Sunday, and lead very respectable, albeit close minded, lives.
________And yet, Mister Young is working in the world’s most scientific facility, on the cutting edge of the majority of the discoveries, a textbook definition of Irony. He was forced to quit his former job as a school teacher when he was forced to teach the evolutionary theory to his class. He looked for more work, but everywhere was developing in leaps and bounds. Soon he was down to two options, let his family starve, or work for the newly opened APA. He took on the Janitor’s job, he was allowed to use a broom and mop, it paid well enough, he would just have to tune out the blasphemy going on below him.
________Samuel entered a room with a single table, the man in the coat sat down on the further side and gestured for Samuel to sit in the open chair. Sam inhaled and sat down, The sterile smell was almost enough to make him gag, he enjoyed clean, but even this was too much. He looked down on the table where a small glass marble sat. Sam just let it be, there was probably worse going on in other overly-clean rooms.
________ “Now Mister Young,” The Scientist began, “All I need you to do is focus all of your attention on that marble.” Sam looked up, puzzled, “ I know it is a strange request, but I will leave the room for a few moments, and I need you to just concentrate on the marble.” He stood up and offered an incredibly forced smile then walked out through the door. Sam was a little confused at first, but then decided to play along. He stared at the marble intensely, and thought only about the marble. He focused on the colors, the pattern inside, the smooth texture, minus one small scratch barely glistening in the artificial light. There was complete silence until, click, one small little shutter sounded and broke Sam’s concentration. The Door opened again and the same scientist said, “That will be all Mister young, you may continue with your work.” Sam stood up and shuffled back into the hallway to retrieve his broom. He looked back at his watch, 1:43, Just one more area then he could go home.
________Sam went down the hall and pressed the elevator’s call button. There was a chime and the doors opened. Sam pressed the down button and began the decent into his personal hell. This elevator lead down into the Accelerator chambers. Sam despised this place, just being near it was horrific enough. All the experiments going on down here, transcending into God’s territory, it was sick. He always saved cleaning this place until the end. It stretched seventeen miles eight stories beneath the state of Vermont, so Sam only had to check a portion of it, mainly for scratches and to get rid of anything strange, but there usually wasn’t so it wasn’t too hard a job.
________The door’s chimed and opened into an artificially lit white cavern with a metallic tube running along the wall about six feet in diameter. It was pure aluminum so spotting much of anything on it wouldn’t be too hard. Sam lazily walked along it’s length, keeping his eye on the spot next to him, if he looked down, the tube looked straight, even though it was a circle, it was so large that it was like the curve of the Earth and it got a little disorientating.
________Sam shuffled along until he got to his end marker the collision area, about twelve feet in diameter, it was the place where the particles came crashing together at nearly the speed of light so that man can look through God’s eyes into the a world they were not meant to see, Damn them all to hell. He lazily brushed his hand along the cool metal, hardly paying attention to what he was supposed to be doing.
________Sam was just about to turn to head to the elevator when his fingers brushed something odd on the supposedly smooth aluminum. He went back to look again, and sure enough, there was something very wrong. He picked up his walkie-talkie and contacted the main desk, “H-hello?”
________“Yes Mister Young?” He was the only employee who still used these things, so they were forced to keep one sitting at the desk, “What’s the matter?”
________“I need someone to come down to the Accelerator and look at this.”
________“Of course, we’ll send another maintenance officer to your location immediately, where are you exactly?” Wouldn't need to ask this if he wore his homing chip.
________“At the collision chamber, and I need a scientist, this isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before.”
________ “As you wish Mister Young.” The man sitting behind the desk sighed and contacted one of the researching staff, it was probably just some new invention designed for cleaning that he’s never seen before, He pressed a button for the intercom, “Andrew Sheernan please report to the collision chamber, Andrew Sheernan, collision chamber.” It was funny, this brand new facility still uses an old fashion intercom. Science is flawed in that it never progresses evenly.
________ “This is so strange,” Mumbled one of the many members of the researching staff of the APA. He stared on the glowing screen of a monitor. Recently there had been a discovery, no, not merely a discovery, more like an unveiling of the truth. After using an experimental procedure, the staff at the APA had discovered an unnamed little orb, the basis of all matter. That in itself would have been monumental, but there was more. When the group of researches focused on these orbs, they began to move, and vibrate, and react to thought. So They had a team of researchers focus on a marble one at a time and viewed it under the extreme magnification, and these little orbs began to cluster in and around the glass, but only in small groups that can be counted on one’s hands. But only using the researching team would be biased, so they went out to the other staff and brought in one Janitor who sat and stared at the marble like he was told to, they got it on the screen and were expecting the small cluster that they normally see, but instead, dozens, if not hundreds of these little unnamed orbs swarmed the area. There was no logical reason why this should have happened, it was a complete conundrum. It was almost irritating, why did this lowly man who denied all modern technology had more control over these elementary particles than some of the smartest minds in the world, it didn’t make sense.
________“…Andrew Sheernan, collision chamber.” The Researcher looked up from the screen when he heard his name. It’s probably for the best, I’m getting a headache. He made his way to the elevator trying to relax from the stress. It was so puzzling and he had no idea why it happened.
________Andrew from an early age always loved Mathematics and Science. It was always intrigued him to find out how things worked. From Toaster ovens to The Atom. Once out of high school he studied quantum physics in college which intrigued him even more. A theory states that an electron when no on is trying to measure it acts as a wave, but the second you begin to consider measuring it, begins acting like a particle. The seemingly random world of the infinitesimal was almost addicting to Andrew, and he had to learn more. He took the Job at the APA for just that reason, and it has definitely paid off.
________The Elevator doors opened to reveal the collision chamber and a man in a Jumpsuit standing in front of it. As Andrew approached the situation he could see the man staring at the metal completely wide eyed and shaking, “Sir,” He grabbed his shoulder which seemed to break him from his delirium, “I’m Andrew Sheernan, I was called down here, what do you ¾” He stopped short when he saw what the man must have been looking at. On the Metal there was an impurity, a dull spot about eight inches long and three inches tall, but that wasn’t what was strange. The dull spot, every few minutes, would quivers and shake and ripple. Andrew ran his fingers over it, making it quiver again. It didn’t feel like metal. It was soft and warm, like skin.
Reply
