After another night of foraging, Orion stood in front of the mirror again, looking back at him was his latest creation, a perfectly dressed Wall Street businessman. According to the news anchor-man most of the transportation system from Central Park down to the bay was still shut down, but the Pennsylvania and Grand Central stations were operating normally. He needed to find a means of getting to Penn Station without using a taxi or the subway. The hotel foyer was full of guests queuing to check out as he stepped from the elevator, all bemoaning the fact that their visit to the Big Apple had been ruined. A group of guests stood in a huddle around a police officer and the hotel manager, reporting the ransacking of their rooms overnight. The officer was writing the details into his notebook while explaining that from his experience there was little chance they would see their belongings again. He returned the notebook to his tunic pocket and after making some suitably concerned comments made his way across the foyer and out of the hotel entrance.
His police car stood with its two nearside wheels mounted on the sidewalk and its lights silently flashing. The Gatekeeper followed the officer, carrying his pilot’s case and wearing a gabardine raincoat he had dragged from a sofa in the foyer as he passed through. The sidewalk in front of the hotel was strewn with luggage, the rain-soaked owners desperately trying to hail the non-existent yellow cabs. Orion followed the police officer across the sidewalk towards his patrol car and, as he approached, the officer opened the rear door of the car like a chauffeur inviting a VIP into his limousine. Orion got in and the car sped off, crossing the Broadway intersection with its lights flashing then, one block later, turned north into Crosby Street.
31
Hadron’s Large Collider
Anubis relaxed into Axel’s body and let it drive the BMW to the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, CERN, complex. The journey from the apartment to the car park outside the Electrical Engineering building took just over fifteen minutes. The border crossing was open with no guards to be seen and the morning traffic along Route-de-Meyrin was flowing freely across it. The CERN complex straddled the border between France and Switzerland, but the majority of the tunnel that housed the Large Hadron Collider’s accelerator lay one-hundred metres below the surrounding French countryside. The seven square kilometre site contained over a thousand buildings housing the offices, workshops, laboratories, meeting rooms and lecture theatres used by the ten thousand scientists and support staff that worked there. In the Engineering Department alone were over four hundred engineers of every discipline, whose job it was to keep the huge underground machine running day and night. There was no logic to the layout of the complex, CERN had evolved over decades and had spread like an invasive weed as the project had grown.
As Axel walked, head bowed, through the corridors towards his laboratory, nobody noticed him. His desk was strategically placed, hidden away behind the tall racks of test equipment next to his workbench. Seemingly oblivious to Anubis’ presence, Axel went about his normal morning rituals. He opened his briefcase and, taking out his lunchbox, stored it away out of sight, in the second drawer of his desk. He went to the end of his workbench and reset the electrical isolator that provided it with power. In unison the equipment in the racks and on the bench came to life, some bleeping and humming their greeting, others flashing lights and displaying start-up messages. Axel returned to his desk and, opening the file drawer, removed a small electric kettle, a jar of coffee and a mug carrying a picture with the caption Heidelberger Schloss printed beneath it in an ancient Germanic script. He had grown up in Heidelberg and studied electrical engineering at the university there. In the summer he would take the lunchbox prepared by his mother and walk up to the castle that overlooked the city. His favourite spot was a bench seat in front of the castle’s shattered Powder Turret, blown apart by the French general, Mélac, in 1693.
While he waited for the kettle to boil he switched on his computer and stared into the blank screen as the software loaded. Almost immediately a ping sounded and the new-mail icon started flashing. He was about to move the mouse pointer when Anubis felt two hands gently grasp Axel’s shoulders. Unseen lips placed a tender kiss on the top of his balding head, then a second on the rim of his ear. Now cheek to cheek, the unseen admirer whispered, ‘I missed you last night. I thought you were coming over.’ Surprised that the voice was masculine, Anubis took control and turned Axel’s head to look into the face that was being so intimate. But as he turned, the features were now too close to be discerned and, before he could do anything, Axel’s lips parted to accept his lover’s kiss. The intensity of the attraction was obvious. Axel’s heart was racing and his growing penis pushed against the zip of his jeans. Patti had been right, Axel was gay, Anubis thought, as he waited for the lover’s face to be revealed. Suddenly Axel was pulled to his feet and the pair embraced and kissed again, their arms now tightly wrapped around each other. Anubis had had enough and was about to take control again when the boiling kettle automatically switched itself off. The lover released his embrace and backed away, ‘See what you missed?’ he said, raising his hand and caressing the side of Axel’s face. Then, in a whisper said, ‘I do love you, Axel.’
Anubis looked at the security badge hanging from a thin, metal chain around his neck; it read, Dr. Brian Bingham – Engineering Director. Doctor Bingham looked as though he should still be at school. He was in his early thirties, tall, thin, clean shaven, with a childlike face and permanently flushed cheeks. ‘You really must stop making coffee in the lab, darling. You know its prohibited, if you get caught, you’ll get fired. And we don’t want that, do we?’ Axel ignored the comment and removing the top from the jar, shovelled a heaped teaspoon of coffee into the mug. Dr. Bingham tutted and shook his head in irritation before changing the subject, ‘Don’t forget, it’s my presentation this afternoon. I want you there on time, it’s important. And have you rehearsed what you’re going to say?’
‘Do I have to speak?’ Axel pleaded like a child wanting a day off school.
‘Yes, you have to speak. This is the first meeting of the Atlas Three development team and I want all the section leaders to introduce themselves… and that includes you. Remember almost half the new project team are going to be fresh graduates and they’ll need a lot of hand holding. Oh yes, and that Scheiße, Williams, from the High Energy Physics Group at Cambridge is flying over.’
‘Wasn’t he the one that voted against your appointment?’
‘That’s the one! He was the only panel member who didn’t want me to head up the project.’
‘But you’re brilliant! There’s nobody better to run Atlas Three than you.’
‘You’re biased, darling. Rumour has it he just didn’t want a faggot in charge of the project. Anyway, I’ve got to go and set up the lecture theatre for this afternoon.’ He stopped and paused thoughtfully, ‘Am I going to see you tonight?’
‘I hope so. Come to the flat. We can get Chinese take-away and a bottle of wine.’
‘The wine sounds good, let's get two bottles. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need them.’ With that he bent forward, kissed Axel on the cheek, and walked out of the laboratory.
Although Anubis was keen to take control of Axel’s body and get on with the task of producing trihadronite, for now he was happy to relax and let him go about his normal duties, just being himself. The experience was like watching a reality TV show and, by the time Axel returned to eat the contents of his lunchbox, they had visited almost every engineering department in the complex. The only disappointment was that Axel went to enormous lengths to avoid contact or interaction with his colleagues. Most of the time he walked with his head bowed, restricting Anubis’ view to the tiled flooring of the corridors and offices they visited.
Dr. Bingham’s project meeting was due to start at three p.m., but it wasn’t until two fifty-nine that Axel slid through the doors of the Main Auditorium. Dr. Bingham was standing at a lectern positioned at the front of the stage arranging his notes. He glanc
ed up as Axel entered, his mouth cracking into the merest of smiles. The auditorium buzzed with polite conversation as Axel made his way, head bowed, down the central aisle to his reserved seat on the front row. Dr. Bingham looked up, ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ he called out in a strong voice. He waited for everybody’s attention. ‘Welcome to Atlas Three!’ His audience erupted into cheers and enthusiastic clapping. He held his hand up and waited for silence. ‘It has taken a long journey to get us here today, and there were times when I thought it would never happen, but here we are, on day one of a project that will design and build the most advanced and sensitive particle detector ever conceived... Atlas Three!’ More cheers and whoops came from the excited younger members of his audience. He held his hand up again, ‘I would like to welcome all the new faces I see before me into our family, the Atlas Three family. I would also like to welcome Professor Williams from the High Energy Physics Group at Cambridge University, without whose ground-breaking research in temporal physics, this project would not have been possible.’ Professor Williams stood and acknowledged his introduction, bowing to the audience with a broad, conceited smile. As he sat down again his smile changing to a smirk as he glanced towards the lectern.
Ignoring Williams, Bingham picked up the projector’s remote control and pressed a button to display the first of his slides. It showed a satellite picture of the countryside around CERN with an overlaid circle marking the path of the subterranean tunnel, which extended north, almost to the town of Cessy. ‘The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC as we call it, is the largest machine that mankind has built on this planet.’ He advanced his presentation slides one by one as he spoke, ‘It is housed in a circular tunnel, three point eight metres in diameter and with a circumference of twenty-seven kilometres, buried one hundred metres below us. And, as its name suggests, the purpose of the LHC is to collide hadrons, which as most of you will know are composite sub-atomic particles. Until Professor Williams’ research, only physical hadrons such as protons could be used in the LHC, but with his discovery of temporal particles, a whole new area of research has been opened up.’
The next slide displayed the interior of the LHC tunnel, through which ran a large, blue pipe, assembled from sections bolted together. Bingham used a laser pointer to highlight the parts of the picture that were of particular interest as he spoke, ‘This pipe-like structure contains the super-cooled magnets that accelerate particles to almost the speed of light. Each section is known as a dipole and is fifteen metres long and weighs in at over thirty tonnes. It may look just like an ordinary pipe, but that belies the complexity of its interior. As you can see from this slide, at its centre are two smaller tubes; it is through these that the sub-atomic particles are accelerated, but in opposing directions. Travelling at almost the speed of light, these contra-rotating streams of hadrons are smashed into one another, exposing the most fundamental building blocks of matter. These collisions take place inside detectors housed in a series of manmade caverns the height of ten-storey buildings set at points around the tunnel. Atlas is the name given to a series of general purpose detectors, the first of which was used to discover the Higgs Boson in two thousand and thirteen. Atlas Two successfully detected the first sub-atomic Dark Matter particles under the guidance of the late Professor Yano.’ Anubis chuckled to himself; if only they knew the significance of Dark Matter, and the part the LHC would play in its enrichment.
As the final slide appeared, Dr. Bingham left the lectern and, walking to stand next to the screen, pointed at the image, ‘This, ladies and gentlemen, this is what we are going to build. It will be fifty-two metres long, thirty-one metres high, weigh over eight thousand tonnes and contain close to five billion sensors. With it, we will be able to resolve particle positions to within less than a picometre and we hope, if Professor Williams has got his numbers right, to detect temporal particles entering this universe from other dimensions. But, to do this, we need a totally new type of detector, the Atlas Three detector!’ The audience spontaneously got to their feet, clapping and cheering as Bingham returned to the lectern smiling. He stood, acknowledging individuals for several minutes before raising his hand. The excitement subsided as his audience took their seats again. ‘For the benefit of the new members of our family, I am going to ask each section leader to introduce themselves. Remember their names and faces, these are the guys you will be reporting to, my eyes and ears on the ground!’
The afternoon continued with short presentations from each section leader. Axel gave his talk with a confidence that surprised Anubis; his section of four engineers would be responsible for testing the sensitivity of the integrated tri-poly-silicon detectors which would lie at the heart of Atlas Three. As Axel spoke Anubis scanned the tiered seats in the lecture theatre for the perfect host. If he was going to modify the new detector to produce trihadronite, he needed an avatar with influence, access to money, and an authority that wouldn’t be challenged. His gaze kept coming back to the same two faces, Dr. Bingham and Professor Williams. Each time he looked, Bingham returned his glance with a loving smile. Williams, on the other hand, immediately looked away. By the end of Axel’s presentation Anubis had made up his mind, Dr. Bingham would make a perfect host. But Professor Williams would have to go; his aggression towards Bingham would be an unwanted distraction. As Axel returned to his seat, Dr. Bingham thanked him and shook his hand in a business-like way, as he had with every section leader. But with his back to the audience, he mouthed a kiss to Axel and whispered, ‘See you tonight.’
Anubis was sitting at the dining table studying the Atlas Three designs on Axel’s laptop when the door intercom buzzed. Bingham’s face was looking out of the display as Axel pressed the door release button, saying, ‘Come up, hun, the door’s open.’ He pulled the apartment’s door ajar and returned to the laptop to finish studying the proposed superconducting system for the detector’s magnets.
A few minutes later Bingham came through the door wearing a soaked raincoat and matching beige bucket hat. He was carrying two plastic carrier bags, one with Chinese writing, the other with the necks of two bottles of wine peeking out, ‘Hi, lover,’ he said, ‘I thought I’d save time and pick something up on my way over.’ He closed the door and walked past Axel into the kitchen, dripping water from the sodden raincoat laying a trail across the living room floor. He took off the raincoat and draped it over one of the kitchen counter stools, then started to unpack the contents of the carrier bags. He paused; Axel hadn’t moaned at him for making the floor wet. He was very particular about his apartment and was always scolding Brian for being an untidy guest. It was the only thing they ever had cross words about.
‘What’s so interesting?’ he called out as he arranged the food containers onto a tray - no reply came. ‘Red or white wine, I got both.’ Silence came from the living room. ‘I thought your talk went really well this afternoon, not too much crap, nice and short.’ Brian placed wine glasses and chopsticks on the tray and carried it into the lounge. ‘I’m opening the red,’ he said as he unscrewed the wine bottle’s cap and filled both glasses. He turned to Axel, huffed and said, ‘For God’s sake, Axel, stop working and give me some attention.’ He walked over to the dining table and, as he slowly closed the laptop’s lid, whispered into Axel’s ear, ‘I’m here, remember me, your lover!’ Anubis said nothing as he reopened the laptop. Brian huffed again, ‘I know what you need,’ he said, grabbing Axel’s wrist and pulling him to his feet. He turned and led him into the bedroom like a mother taking a reluctant child to bed.
Facing Axel, he undid his shirt buttons one by one then, sliding the shirt off his shoulders, dropped it onto the floor behind him. He fell to his knees and pulled at the belt around Axel’s waist, fumbling in his rush to undo the buckle. The zip on the jeans jammed halfway down and he tugged at it frantically until it opened. With his hands inside the waist band he slid Axel’s jeans and boxer shorts to the floor, unable to take his eyes off what had been revealed. But, as he started to massage the already-erect pen
is, Anubis reached down, grabbed his wrist and pulled him to his feet. Brian smiled into Axel’s eyes and wrapping his arms around his shoulders, kissed him on the lips. The kiss was long and intense. Anubis stood motionless waiting for it to end and then, playing the role of Bingham’s lover, he undressed him dispassionately. Brian stood compliant and love struck, gazing into Axel’s eyes. Suddenly, as they stood naked in front of each another, Anubis lunged forward wrapping Axel’s arms mercilessly around Bingham’s torso, pushing him backwards onto the bed.
At first the asphyxiating embrace thrilled Bingham, who was usually the dominant partner in their sex games. With his arms locked by his side he tried to force his hand between them, attempting to grab Axel’s erect penis, but with every move the embrace tightened. Soon he was fighting for breath. ‘Okay darling, you’ve won! Stop it and just fuck me!’ he wheezed. The reply from Axel was to tighten his grip even further. Now Bingham started to panic, writhing around and thrashing his legs against the bed. ‘FOR GOD SAKE, AXEL, STOP!’ At that point Anubis pushed his essence through the wall of Axel’s chest and into Dr. Bingham’s torso. Immediately the embrace was released and Anubis rolled Axel off his chest and onto the bed next to him. He turned Brian’s head and looked at Axel who lay in a trance. Looking from this side of his eyes, Axel looked quite handsome and Anubis began to understand why Bingham had found him so attractive. But their relationship would have to end. Firstly, Anubis preferred sex with the female of the species but, more importantly, their association could interfere with his plan to produce trihadronite. He reached over Axel’s chest and slid his left hand behind his head. Axel was lying motionless, staring at the ceiling. Anubis placed his other hand on Axel’s chin and then tensed Bingham’s biceps, ready to wrench the head around and snap the neck. He paused, having second thoughts; maybe it was too soon to terminate the relationship. After all, Axel had access to every department in CERN. And the people working there were so used to him walking about, he was virtually invisible. He took his arm back, got off the bed and dressed himself, taking one of Axel’s clean shirts from the wardrobe. He shook Axel by the shoulder, snapping him out of his trance, ‘Hey! Wake up, the food’s getting cold and I’m starving.’
Creation- The Auditor’s Apprentice Page 28
