Don't Get Close by Matt Miksa

Author:Matt Miksa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

CHAPTER

20

A PETITE WOMAN RAN toward the Crown Vic at top speed just as Tag and Michelson pulled into a parking space. Directly ahead, Fermilab’s main building rose from the earth like a concrete volcano. Gray storm clouds laced with pink morning light billowed up from the Illinois plains, creating an ominous plume around the imposing edifice. Raindrops speckled Tag’s windshield.

“Hurry! You’ve got to come inside,” the woman shouted. She flapped her arms with each bounding stride like a goose struggling to lift off. Tight springs of black hair made a magnificent, bouncing halo around her head. If not for the woman’s wall-to-wall smile, Tag would’ve considered reaching for her sidearm. Instead, she opened her door and stepped into the drizzle.

“We’ve got eight minutes, max. Let’s go, I don’t want you to miss this,” the woman said.

“We’re here to meet Dr. Alex Torres,” Tag said.

“Yep, you’re looking at her. And I know who you are too, but we can slap palms and bump gums later. Let’s boogie.”

“You’re the director of Fermilab?” Michelson asked. “I expected—”

“A man?”

“Someone older,” he clarified.

“The most powerful tech company in the world was started by twenty-year-old man in a cheap hoodie. I’m a thirty-year-old woman in a very expensive hoodie, and yet I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten that reaction. Now, come on—we can still make it if we scoot.”

Before Tag could respond, Dr. Torres had already begun fluttering back toward the building. Trotting along in her oversized hoodie (which didn’t look all that expensive to Tag), Torres appeared like a child racing through the schoolyard during recess. And Tag noticed that Torres wasn’t wearing shoes. One of the nation’s leading particle physicists had just sprinted through a soggy parking lot barefoot. Tag grinned at her partner, and they followed the woman inside.

The swooping sides of Wilson Hall converged at a glass ceiling, resembling a futuristic cathedral. Inside the soaring atrium, fifty-foot oak trees grew from a maze of brick planters. Birds chirped in the lush canopy. A wiry man with silver sideburns met them at the door. He held out a pair of well-worn black flats.

“She can win the Nobel Prize, but she can’t keep track of her own footwear,” he said with a vaguely European accent that Tag couldn’t place.

Dr. Torres’s glasses fogged in the air-conditioned space, and she wiped them clean with the back of her wrist. “You’re a lifesaver, Max.” She hopped on one foot to slip on each shoe. “Have they started yet?”

“No, but it’s just a routine diagnostic test. Another dry run. Dare I say, nothing to get excited about.”

“There’s nothing routine about smashing protons, my friend.” Dr. Torres scrambled across the tile, waggling a finger above her head. “We’ve been waiting six months for this.”

Max turned to Tag and Michelson. “You’ll each need one of these to access the lab.” He handed them yellow ID badges printed with the word Visitor. “An escort is required at all times while you’re on the premises. My schedule is impossibly full, so you’ll have to do your best to keep up with that one.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.