The God Particle

*BONUS BOOK*

CHAPTER ONE

Something was wrong. Jeanell couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but Dr. Harold Glenn hadn’t raised any dumb girls, no matter how blond haired or blue eyed they happened to be. But there wasn’t any use in trying to convince the rest of the team, and she’d tried her damnedest.

Brad Newton had coughed up that cocky smile. “With thirty million dollars on the bill just for this morning’s work? You’ll need more than just a hunch.” And that thirty was a fraction of the overall wealth at stake, and both knew it. And as much as Jeanell wanted to wipe that smarmy grin off his face, she prayed that he was right.

Colonel Kevin Reeves, retired, had been more sympathetic, but in addition to being a civic engineer of the highest order, he’d also been a high-ranking officer in the United States Air Force, and he wasn’t used to defying orders. A resolved frown dominated his dark chocolate face, no hair on that shiny bald pate.

Doctor Ali Chang, at thirty, about Brad Newton’s age and about three years older than Jeanell, had taken Jeanell aside before the testing. “Are you sure about this, Jeanell?”

“Well, no, Ali, that’s just the thing, I’m not.”

So, they went ahead with the test, not even ejecting the junior-most member of the immediate team, twenty-one-year-old Tony Mathers. Now that the needles on the radiometers climbed, Jeanell looked at the red-headed young man and knew he was reconsidering his anxiousness to stay.

The control room had an eerie stillness around them, the needles flickering silently behind their miniature glass windows.

Jeanell said to Ali, “Pressure on the IVE?”

“Five hundred per kilo,” Jeanell said.

Brad’s smile struggled to stay on his face, strands of black hair falling over his eyes as he glanced around the control room.

Blood drained from young Tony’s already pale face. “What is it? What’s going on?”

“Hold onto your balls,” Brad said. “No room in this industry for weaklings.”

Jeanell and Ali shared a worried glance. They knew what was at stake, how little power they had despite being the leading thinkers in their fields. No matter how wrong they were, the men wielded the real power. With their bluster and their arrogance and their childlike greed for power, they led all of them, and the rest of the world, up a blind alley, and straight into a black hole.

A red light flashed on the massive control board. Tony asked, “What’s that?” He sneered to repel Brad’s glower.

“There’s in ionic imbalance,” Jeanell said, “best I can figure.”

Brad repeated, “Best you can figure? And you’re the one who wanted to shut us down.”

“You’re the one who hired me.”

“And I’m the one who’s gonna fire you if this doesn’t work.”

Jeanell shrugged, fixing her black-rimmed glasses on her nose. “Then get out my severance pay, because it’s not going to work,” Jeanell said.

“No, no, no,” Brad said, his voice rising with his frown. “None of that negative thinking—”

“There’s too much radium in the collider,” Jeanell said.

Reeves said, “The amount is prescribed.”

“Then there’s a weakness in the collider! We have to—”

A loud, distant bang echoed in the near distance, muffled by earth and twelve-foot-thick concrete, but echoing in the vast, round, metal chamber, that was the key player in their efforts.

“Okay,” Tony said, “I gotta go.” He was already at the door, pulling at it.

Reeves said, “It’s locked, you know that. Stand down!”

Tony instinctively backed away from the door.

Jeanell, Ali, and Brad turned back to the control panel.

“All right, all right,” Brad said, “Fine, shut it down.” After a tiny pause, he repeated even louder and faster, “I said shut it down!”

But Jeanell could only turn, a cold stare on her pretty face. “Can’t.”

Ali’s almost rosy complexion went pale as she turned away from the control panel. She took off her glasses, black hair short and straight around her face.

Brad asked Jeanell, “What are you talking about, you can’t?”

“It’s a rupture, there’s nothing to be done.”

This time, it was Brad who rushed to the little door on the side of the control room, pulling at it with gritted teeth, black hair falling in front of his grimacing face. Doctor Beige shook his head. “The door is locked,” he hollered.

A buzzer rang out, loud in the little control room, a series of metallic blasts that nearly split Jeanell’s ears. She winced, shrinking into her shapeless white lab coat. Ali rushed to her and the two embraced. It wasn’t much protection, but there was little more to do.

Another muffled blast shook the control room, the walls cracking around them. Brad looked around, sweat collecting on his face as he panted in his stupefying helplessness. Brad rushed to Jeanell and Ali at the controls.

“I told you to do something!”

Jeanell shouted back, “And I told you there’s nothing we can do!”

“That’s bullshit,” Brad said, turning to the control panel itself. “I’m not just gonna sit here and die!” He idly flicked switches, one toggle after another with blinding and lethal speed.

Jeanell rushed to him, Ali right beside her. Jeanell said, “Stop it, you idiot!”

Ali shouted, “He’s released the God Parti—!”

But that was all any of them had time to say, or ears to hear. An explosion ripped through the collider, a massive force barreling toward the control room, like a living, breathing thing, a ravenous beast bearing down to devour them all. Jeanell and Ali clutched each other, Reeves ready to charge Brad to the death, if only he had the time.

But then it arrived.

It was a flash beyond light, a crash beyond sound, like the Big Bang itself, it was forever tiny and massively dark at nearly the same time. It threw Jeanell into darkness, her feet flying up off the floor. Ali was pulled from her, consumed by the event horizon.

As far as Jeanell was concerned, it was death itself.

***

Jeanell woke up with her head pounding and her mouth dry, eyes hard to pull open. Her face was sticky with sweat and dust, and her nostrils were caked. She’d lost her glasses and she looked around at the former control room, a blurred haze around her.

“Hello? Ali? Anybody?”

No answer, but even in the muddle and throb of her headache, Jeanell remembered her spare glasses, in the pocket of her lab coat. They were a little scratched up, but they’d suffice for the time being.

The room was barely lit by a few corner lights, the ones that had been rigged up for emergencies. And this was one of those.

Jeanell looked around to see Ali lying face down on the filthy floor, dust and debris scattered everywhere. It’s amazing we survived, Jeanell couldn’t help but think, remembering not to think too fast. She knelt to Ali and braced for what she might find.

Ali wasn’t badly hurt, just a bit bruised and scratched up. Jeanell gently slapped her face to rouse her. “Ali! Ali, it’s Jeanell! Are you okay?”

Ali began to stir, eyes flickering to life, head heavy on her shoulders. Jeanell said, “Oh, thank God!” Around them, Brad and Reeves rose to their feet, slowly and clumsily, coughing and wincing in stiffness and pain.

Jeanell got Ali to her feet, the two nodding that each was relatively unhurt. But Jeanell took a quick headcount. “Hey, where’s Tony?”

Brad winced, stretching his upper back and spine. “Dead, probably.”

Reeves said, “That’s your own man you’re talking about.”

Brad shrugged. “Collateral damage.”

Reeves flinched, wincing his disgust, his beefy body jutting toward Brad to assault him. But his military training stayed his hand, and Brad seemed to know he was in no immediate danger. Forever cocky, he looked around and added, “Isn’t that him?”

Reeves, Jeanell, and Ali glanced at the corner, Tony’s legs stuck out from a stack of dusty cardboard boxes. Jeanell and Ali rushed to Tony while Reeves glared at Brad.

The women pulled Tony up, stroking his face and smiling sympathetically. Behind them, Brad rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Tony? Tony, are you okay?”

Tony looked up from the floor, wincing in a daze to see the two attractive women, his superiors, fawning over him. He coughed, holding his hands out. “Ladies, please, there’s… there’s plenty to go ‘round.”

They chuckled and lifted him up, Jeanell saying, “Careful, he could be hurt.”

Tony said, “Why, Miss Glenn, I didn’t know you cared.”

Brad said, “Okay, okay, you two, knock off the meet cute routine. We gotta find a way outta here.”

Jeanell looked around too. She couldn’t disagree, but there were only the two doors, and Reeves was already checking one. Locked. So was the other. But the former control panel was pulled out, leaving the six-foot concrete walls on the other side badly cracked.

“Wait a minute,” Jeanell said, thinking aloud as she glanced around the room, thick with dust. “This dust I understand, from the explosion, but… where’s all the equipment?”

Ali looked at Brad, Reeves at them both. “They cleared it out after the accident,” he said.

Reeves said, “But who’s they? And why did they leave us here and take the equipment?”

Brad looked around, his cockiness entirely obliterated. “I… I don’t know.”

“And then they locked us in here?” Ali crossed to the doorways. “This equipment was built in; did they take it all apart piece by piece, while we’re all just lying here? No, that makes no sense at all.”

Brad said, “And what do you suggest, we woke up in a radium stupor and ate it?”

“You watch your tone of voice when you talk to me,” Jeanell said. “You’re not my boss anymore.”

“Oh, the mouse roars,” Brad said. “But you’re right about that, little mouse. In fact, as soon as we get outta here, I’m gonna sue your balls off.”

“Speakin’ of getting out of here,” Reeves said, “I think it’s about time we do just that!” He crossed to the fallen chair near the control panel. He summed up one of the doors as he made his approach.

Jeanell said, “You’re wasting your time.” But Reeves ignored her and smashed the chair into the door. It bounced back, falling out of his hand, leaving the door unscathed. Jeanell went on, “Told you. Just because I’m a woman, doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

Reeves said, “Just because I hit the door, doesn’t mean I wasn’t just trying to get the attention of whoever might still be out there.” Reeves bent down and pulled a hunting knife from a sheath strapped around his ankle.

Jeanell had to admit that he had a point, that she’d stepped out of line. They would need to work as a team if they were to make it safely out of that control room, and then back up to the surface.

And even that seemed unlikely.

But no answer came. Instead, a long, miserable silence filled the room. Realization overtook them one by one. Ali seemed the most resolved, as if she’d known it first among them, that she foresaw their terrible fate. Now, she walked quietly to the wall and leaned against it, staring off into space.

Jeanell said, “Ali, stay with me. This isn’t as bad as it seems.” No answer came from Ali but Tony spat out a contemptuous huff. Jeanell crossed to Ali just as she leaned against the wall, then slowly slid down, arms huddled in front of her, staring off into an imagined distance too terrible for words. “Ali, I need you to keep it together, okay?”

“Oh, leave her alone,” Tony said. “She’s right, we’re all fucked! We’re sealed up in here! That explosion killed everybody else on the compound, probably buried us under twenty feet of concrete and rebar! They’re never gonna get to us.”

Reeves said, “That’s enough, boy.”

“I don’t wanna die in here,” he said, a childish crack in his desperate voice. “I’m only twenty-one! It’s not fair, it’s not fair!”

“Fairness has nothing to do with it,” Reeves said.

Brad added, “Anyway, it’s perfectly fair. You wanted the job, you begged to watch, you get what you pay for. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

“I didn’t sign up for this!”

“None of us did,” Jeanell said.

Brad spat out, “Look who’s talking! It’s your fault we’re in this mess!”

“Me? You went ape-shit on the controls, released the God Particle! What were you thinking?”

“That explosion was going to happen anyway. It’s probably thanks to me that we’re alive at all!”

Tony shouted, “What difference does it make? We’re all gonna die in here!”

But he wasn’t interrupted by another shouting voice, or a flashing light, or a buzzing siren.

The doorknob started to turn and flicker. Jeanell’s heart jumped as all eyes fell to that door, and whoever was on the other side.