This version of Chapter 1 was originally published on 11 August 2007. It is included here for reference, so the reader can see how a writer develops his work.
Genevans playfully call her The Peck on the Cheek. To Dr. Michael Riley La Bise felt more like the bite of a snow-leopard, for in his hurry to get to work he had foolishly left his hat and gloves in the caravan. The bitterly cold northeast wind chilled his thin body and numbed even his over-excited mind as he cycled through a cheerless dawn breaking over gently rolling, grapeless Swiss vineyards.
When he reached CERN’s Meyrin site his hands were so cold he could hardly grip his badge to show the security guard. He parked his bicycle and hurried into the glass-fronted office building, eager to get warm and start work. The ATLAS Control Room was already abuzz with excitement. This happened on the first run every spring and the start-up of the 2012 season, was no exception. Dozens of visitors crowded around the wide curving desks, eager to help the resident scientists and engineers trouble-shoot problems.
Nobody greeted the short, scruffy, balding Irish scientist as Michael walked, silent as a shadow, beneath the blue translucent windows that stretched all the way down one side of the long narrow room. He avoided all eye contact and his colleagues ignored him as usual. Even the visitors made no attempt to speak to him, as if somehow they couldn’t see him. Michael walked to his own desk near the emergency exit at the far end of the room and looked across at the Run Co-ordinator, trying to assess how the night shift had gone.
The Co-ordinator, Bulgarian engineer Danny Kissov, was obviously exhausted. His normally well-groomed thick brown hair was dishevelled. Large pouches of tiredness hung from his eyes and sagged over his sallow cheeks. His chin was propped on his cupped hands, his elbows planted firmly on his desk as he stared fixedly at his computer screens trying to work out why the Transition Radiation Tracker wouldn’t come on-line. Behind his chair four or five of the visitors were frowning over his shoulders making unhelpful suggestions.
Danny had been working hard all night to help the ten principal scientists to bring up each of the ATLAS sub-detectors one after another, difficult and intensive work, requiring enormous concentration. He was under added pressure from these visitors, but he couldn’t ask them to leave. Their universities had paid for and built the sub-detectors. They had a right to be here, even if they did make his job more difficult.
And there had been something else niggling away at the back of Danny’s mind all night, distracting his attention, adding to the pressure, although by the time Michael arrived Danny was so tired that he had almost forgotten what it was.
So Michael Riley sat and began to prepare for the day’s work, Danny Kissov continued to investigate the TRT problem, and the first time the two men communicated was about three hours later, just before nine o’clock, when a message flashed up on one of Michael’s screens:
Message from dkissov
Are you ready to bring up the Muon Spectrometer
now?
Reply Cancel
Michael clicked on Reply and typed Yes. He knew that all the other sub-systems were already live. Danny only had to activate Michael’s Spectrometer and ATLAS would be ready to start collecting data. Michael and Danny worked together for half an hour to bring the Spectrometer on-line, communicating electronically without a spoken word passing between them. The Spectrometer was almost fully functional when, just after nine thirty-four, Michael saw something odd.
He was monitoring the Trigger and Data Acquisition System when he noticed the rate of data production dramatically increase. Instead of getting around 200 events per second the Spectrometer began generating over 12,000. This rate lasted only for a few milliseconds and might not have been very significant had the rate returned to normal, but it didn’t. It came down off the peak and settled out at around 2,000 events per second, ten times more than expected.
Michael stood up. Danny was talking to the new Run Co-ordinator, Seline Soubise, who had just arrived to take over from him. He obviously hadn’t seen the problem. If he had there would have been pandemonium. Michael quickly sat down. He was intensely curious about this unusual and unexpected phenomenon and decided to investigate the cause without saying anything to Kissov, guided by some physical insight which warned him to act cautiously.
He began to search the Transient Data Store for high energy events. It took him only a few seconds to find what he was looking for. He stared at his screen, unable to believe his eyes, his mind racing.
La Bise finally dropped at about nine o’clock but she left a high fog hanging across the broad plain between the Jura Mountains and the Alps like a cold grey blanket. The pale spring Sun set about trying to lift this chilly coverlet and by nine thirty it was thin enough for him to shine down on Geneva, promising to bring some fine spring sunshine later in the morning.
But this prospect did nothing to improve the temper of the attractive woman who was gazing out of the rear window of a cream BMW as it drove through the expensive suburbs of northern Geneva. Even the extravagant torrent of blonde curls which cascaded around her handsome face could not conceal her simmering rage. Her Excellency Brigit Fitzpatrick, the Irish Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, was unable to work.
Since coming to Switzerland in February Brigit had been gradually drowning in international implementation schemes, coherence policies, United Nations declarations, regulatory frameworks and piles of other documents which she never had time to read properly. Now, two months later, this rising tide of paperwork was threatening to completely overwhelm her. Her plan had been to spend this short journey browsing through a few more boring regulations, but she was unable to concentrate because of the musical accompaniment emanating from the front of the car. Her eye-catchingly low-cut vermilion jacket heaved as she gazed out of the window and issued a loud and elaborate sigh of frustration.
The fourteen-year-old girl in the front passenger seat, snub nosed and ginger haired, was making so much noise that she failed to hear the warning. This was Brigit’s daughter by her first marriage, Catriona O’Brien. She was holding a copy of the Tribune de Genève, on the front of which newspaper was a picture of Kieran Gamble, Ireland’s great hope for next month’s Eurovision Song Contest. His beloved dark smouldering eyes had ignited in her an irresistible urge to sing his new song ‘Don’t worry my darling, My love will see you through,’ at the top of her voice.
This cacophony was soon accompanied by the tapping of the steering wheel, the humming of a bass harmony and the indulgent smile of the driver, Catriona’s step-father and Brigit’s second husband, balding bespectacled Sam Fitzpatrick. He was prevented from actually singing only by his intense concentration on driving on the right-hand side of the road, for him a novel experience, and having to find his way to CERN without a map. He was looking out for the Carrefour hypermarket where he needed to turn right onto the Route de Meyrin.
Lost in their music and the traffic, neither of them noticed the long sigh that issued from the back of the vehicle, a sigh which should have conveyed not only exasperation but danger. This warning having failed to reinstate silence, Brigit next rattled her papers, then coughed rather loudly and eventually she resorted to screaming “For God’s sake Catriona shut up! How can I work with you making that bloody noise?” For a senior diplomat Brigit still had some rough edges but they were part of her charm, or at least that’s what the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs had thought when she persuaded him to appoint her as Ambassador. A silence descended on the car and Brigit resumed her reading.
Catriona managed to swallow the angry words which rose in her throat. Since she and Sam had arrived in Geneva last Saturday she had argued with her mother every single day. This morning she had promised Sam she would try to avoid all arguments for the rest of their holiday and the best way to do it, she decided, was not to speak to her mother at all. We’ll be going home soon, she kept telling herself. She couldn’t wait to get back to Dublin.
“She’s just excited, Bee,” Sam said soothingly. He was the great peace-maker.
Catriona breathed deeply and began humming ‘Don’t Worry’ quietly as she tried to calm her beating heart, which wasn’t easy as she stared down into Kieran’s beautiful eyes. She couldn’t read the newspaper of course–it was all in French–so she plugged in her earphones to play his latest album, but the battery was flat.
She sighed and looked out of the window. Sam was driving up a long straight road. It had almost stopped raining and the sky was turning blue leaving just a froth of high spring cloud above the snow-capped peaks of a mountain range that stretched right across the horizon ahead of them. She remembered what her best friend Aislyn had said when she told her she was coming to Geneva: “I suppose you’ll be going skiing,” as if skiing was some sort of punishment. But really she had been green with–
“Oh, by the way Sam,” Brigit said. “I forgot to tell you. I’ve cancelled your flight back.”
The car swerved and Sam narrowly avoided hitting an oncoming bus. “Cancelled the flight?” he gulped when he had regained control. “Why’s that?”
“I need you here. You were right, Sam. This job’s too much for me. You’ve got to stay here and support me.”
“I’d love to stay and help you, Bee,” he said, “but I don’t think my school would–”
“Your school?” Brigit’s tone was colder than the snow on the distant mountains. “Surely you’re not putting a class of eight-year-olds before the interests of Ireland are you, Samuel?”
“No of course not but–”
“Good because I called your school too. I told them you’d broken both legs skiing and would have to stay here resting for the next three months at least. I’m sure you don’t want to make me out to be a liar do you? You can write to them later to hand in your resignation.”
