Broken Symmetry

5. Spin Up

The Reichen run, as Kristin called it, was six weeks in the past. It was also the only run of the collider that had actually gone perfectly, ever since Reichen threatened to shut them down. Perhaps, Kristin had told Ray jokingly, there had been something to the idea of ordering the collider to behave itself. Since then, they had run the accelerator many more times, and as always, the beams kept disappearing.

Kristin and Ray stood on the hot grassy plain, studying the detector that should have picked up the beam they had run earlier today. After half an hour of examining the huge boxes filled with plastic scintillator, she turned to Ray and said, “Now do you believe my theory?”

Slowly, Ray said, “It does seem to be the only possible answer.”

“Only answer, you mean. Ray, you’ve checked my calculations. You know that I’ve predicted every single beam disappearance since the Reichen run. Either I’m the victim of the most improbable set of coincidences, or—” She shrugged. “Or I’m right. And I must be. The data proves it.”

Ray nodded. “I guess you’re right. Too bad.”

“Too bad?” Kristin felt stunned. “What do you mean, too bad? We’ve just demonstrated something that will shake the theoretical foundations of physics as much as relativity did!”

Ray smiled, bitterly. “Come on, let’s walk back to the car.”

In the car driving back to Waxahachie, he continued. “Kristin, I didn’t mean to belittle your accomplishment. Your theory will make a major impact, and you should be proud of that. But your theory also means that we’re going to have stop running the collider immediately.”

“What? Why?”

“Because if the beams are being diverted into another universe, who knows what damage they’re doing there? We’re sending antimatter beams into the unknown. If they’re interacting with the matter of an alternate Earth…” He trailed off.

Kristin swallowed hard. “I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think we have to worry too much about that.”

“Why not? You don’t care if we’re causing matter-antimatter explosions in another universe?”

“No! It’s not that at all. We don’t have to worry about the explosions hurting anyone, because for this phenomenon to be happening, our SSC would probably have to resonate with another SSC in the other universe. It’s inherent in my calculations.”

Ray nodded. “I see. If that’s the case, then our beams would be traversing the barrier between universes simply to go from our tunnel into theirs.”

“Exactly. The beams may be going into another universe, but only if there’s an SSC ring there.” She paused. “An abandoned one, actually.”

“Abandoned? How do you know that?”

“Because otherwise the energies of their beam would cause positive feedback with ours, and—and I don’t want to think about what that would do to our universes. It might bring them together, or blow them apart.”

Ray sighed. “An abandoned ring. How ironic.”

“Ironic?”

He was silent as they took a curve. “Louis Reichen called today, from Washington.”

“Oh. It’s not good news, is it.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No, it’s not.”

“That’s why you brought up the idea of shutting down the SSC back there. To soften the blow.”

“Yes. After all, if we’re going to have to shut it down anyway, I would rather there be a good reason behind it. And if it was harming people in another universe, that would be a good reason. But this—this is just stalled budget talks and political infighting. And we’re the ones getting the ax for it.”

Kristin didn’t want to ask the next question, but needed to know. “How soon?”

“They’re giving us half a year to wrap up any experiments that we might still be running. I got them to grant us that much.”

“And then?”

“Unless we can think of some way to get those beams back, that will be the end of the SSC.”

They rode the rest of the way back in silence.