‘How long do you think we’ll be able to run the collider for?’ Tom enquired.
‘The thermal shields are effective for about ten hours,’ replied Jed. ‘After that, the collider reaches critical temperature and the system automatically shuts down, dumping the beam’s energy.’
Whilst Jed went through the initialisation sequence, Tom powered up the laptop he had retrieved from Charles’s office. He found the programme he was looking for — aptly named ‘Armageddon’, presumably by some smart alec at NASA, and opened it up. The red line that they had seen earlier had continued its steady progression south, but had increased its speed; it was now travelling at thirty miles per hour. Tom did a quick mental calculation: seventeen days until total polar reversal. He checked the figures in the last column; over the last twenty-four hours, there had been a continuous acceleration.
‘Primary particle accelerators activated,’ said Jed.
The notification drew Tom’s attention back to the schematics Jed was studying on the screen in front of him.
‘Seventy… eighty… ninety… one hundred per cent. Primary accelerators at maximum capacity. Releasing the beams now.’
Jed keyed in an instruction on the console and the image changed from a diagram of the collider to a series of scrolling numbers. ‘That’s odd.’
Tom could tell by the intensity on Jed’s face that something wasn’t quite right. ‘What is it?’
Jed pointed to a column of figures that were increasing in value. ‘That’s the temperature generated by the collider. I wouldn’t have expected to see anything like those values until nearer the end of the run.’ He pressed some more buttons on the keyboard and the screen changed again, this time to a line-graph showing an upward trend. ‘Looks like we’ve got a wee gremlin in the system.’
‘What’s happened?’ Tom’s concern was apparent in his voice.
‘Somebody, mentioning no names, seems to have manually deactivated the thermal shields.’
‘How’s that possible?’
‘There are override panels dotted around the length of the tunnel. Maintenance use them all the time whenever they’re working on a section. I should have checked they were fully operational before releasing the beam. That’s the protocol. Sorry.’
Tom was at odds with Jed’s calm demeanour. ‘What are we going to do about it?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Jed. ‘Without the heat shields, the system will reach critical temperature in a matter of minutes and the failsafe will kick in. Then we’ll have to find out which panel that bastard has pressed and reactivate it. It’s an inconvenience and a waste of our time, but nothing more. The problem is, if he keeps doing it we’ll never be able to operate the collider long enough to generate a magnetic field. We’ll have to find him. Why don’t you call our friendly local Sheriff and ask him to send his boys round?’
Tom placed the call and told the Sheriff what had just occurred. At first he was sceptical, but eventually agreed to send in a posse to search the tunnel for any signs of Deiter. When Tom had finished, he put the phone down and turned to his friend. Jed’s face was ashen.
‘Houston, we may have a problem.’
CHAPTER 39
The core temperature had already reached the point at which an automatic shut-down should have occurred and was still rising.
‘Why hasn’t the fail-safe triggered?’ Tom asked anxiously.
‘Ya cunning bastard,’ Jed said to himself and then looked at Tom. ‘Looks like our wee gremlin has also been buggering around with the fast kicker magnets.’
Tom recognised the terms, but couldn’t place their significance.
‘They redirect the beam into the dumping tunnel,’ Jed explained.
Tom remembered from his days as a student: the beams themselves are made up of two hundred and eighty trillion protons squeezed into a stream much thinner than a human hair. Each hair-thin beam of protons that races around the collider contains as much energy as an express train going at over two hundred kilometres an hour. During any one cycle, there would be thousands of these, smashing head-long into each other. When it is time to shut the machine down, that energy, which is so concentrated that it could liquefy anything directly in its path, must be safely disposed of.
The fast kicker magnets deflect the beam into a straight, six hundred metres long, tunnel that runs at a tangent to the collider. Like throwing the points on a rail track, it directs the beam from its circular path into a siding. Once inside the tunnel, other magnets cause the beam to spread vertically and horizontally so that, when it hits the dump, its destructive energy is dissipated over a larger area. At the end of the tunnel is a cylinder of graphite composite, eight metres long and one metre in diameter, encased in steel and concrete, which is designed to absorb the beam’s energy. The beams smash into their target with the sound of one hundred and fifty kilograms of TNT exploding.
‘So, what happens now?’ Tom asked.
‘If we can’t dump the beam, then the system won’t shut down,’ Jed replied.
‘And if that happens?’
‘The temperature within the core continues to rise, until… boom! We create our own personal black hole, right here on Long Island.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘We need to realign the magnets so we can dump the beam. But somebody needs to stay here to monitor the system.’
‘Okay, you stay here and I’ll sort out the magnets,’ Tom volunteered.
‘No way, wee man,’ replied Jed. ‘That nutter’s still on the loose. I’ll have more of a chance against him than you.’
‘Look,’ said Tom beginning to lose patience, ‘we could debate this all night, but the fact is we’re running out of time…’ As if on cue, an alarm bell sounded. ‘You know the system better than I do, so you should stay,’ Tom shouted over the top of the ringing.
Seeing the logic in Tom’s argument, Jed reluctantly agreed and fished the electronic pass key out of his pocket.
‘The magnets are located at the entrance to the dump tunnel, Sector 4H,’ Jed shouted in reply. ‘You’ll need to gain access to the tunnel via the inspection chamber. Once you’re in, set the computer coordinates to thirty degrees, then get the hell out. You’ll have three minutes before the system resets and dumps the beam — and, believe me, you won’t want to be on that station when the train passes through.’
‘Got it, 4H,’ Tom replied. He took the pass from Jed and headed for the door.
‘And watch out for that feckin nutter,’ Jed shouted after him, but he had already gone.
He made his way cautiously into the service tunnel that ran concentric to the collider, his faculties on high alert. If Deiter had any sense, he would have set the collider to self-destruct, then escape to the border as the Sheriff predicted. But Tom knew that Deiter wasn’t the sensible type; his obsession to stop them slowing the polar reversal down overrode any cognitive reasoning.
He climbed into one of the golf carts used by the maintenance crew and set off in the direction of the dump tunnel. He had a vague recollection from his student days at the complex where it was located, but the signage was so clear it didn’t take him long to find it.
The vacuousness of the deserted service tunnel belied the crisis that was unfolding in the accelerator ring just feet away from him. The alarm bells had been silenced, but he knew that that was no indication of a catastrophe being averted; they had probably just got on Jed’s nerves.