Chapter 46: Piecing it Together in Dublin
As Liam drifted to sleep on the small bed, he hoped that he'd wake from his nap to find myself back in the States, the whole thing just a crazy nightmare. Instead, he woke to find Fanny flopped on her stomach on the other bed, maps spread out in front of her. It looked to Liam like she was trying to look busy rather than actually doing anything.
On the other hand, Jake was the picture of concentration, intently reading a webpage on his laptop. His hair was more tousled than usual, his eyes rimmed in red and bloodshot from hours of looking at a computer screen.
Liam stretched his arms above his head and breathed deeply. He wasn't in a dream after all. His daughter's life depended on his belief in their outrageous story.
"Jake, you found anything interesting?" he asked.
It took Jake a minute to register a voice from the outside world. He slowly turned and ran his hands through his shock of now jet-black hair, pausing as if to collect himself.
"Well, I don't know if I'm getting anywhere with this, but I have an idea. It's a bit off the wall."
"Off the wall? More off the wall than our best friend disappearing into another dimension?" asked Fanny.
"Okay, well maybe not that off the wall. Okay, check it. Dughall's supposed to want to get to the Netherworld, right?"
"Yeah, that's what Hindergog said."
"Sure but what's he after? I mean, why does he want to go there?"
"That's the mystery, isn't it nub?"
"Don't be short with him Fanny."
"Yeah, work with me on this. What I'm saying is we have to know what this guy is after. What does he think he can find in the Netherworld?"
"I don't know. Hindergog didn't say anything about what the psychopath wanted."
"But the story he told had clues."
"What kind of clues? What do you think he's after, Jake?" Liam asked.
"Well he was power hungry, that much we know. And he clearly didn't care who got hurt in his quest for power, so we know he's dangerous."
"Yeah, but Jake, we don't know what's in the Netherworld really. We may have to wait for Emily to come back to answer that," Fanny said.
"That's what I was thinking too, but then I started to think about what Dughall might think he'll find there. You know it doesn't matter what he'll actually find there, only what he thinks he'll find."
"Okay, that's riveting, but we don't know that either."
"I think we do have some clues about that. Dughall heard the story of the well from that guy that he killed – what was his name?"
"Cormac," offered Fanny.
"Yeah, Cormac. Anyway, according to Hindergog, Cormac told Dughall all about the Sacred Well and the portal and the torc. And then there was the pixie ... "
"Macha?"
"Yeah, Macha. Sounds like she knew a lot. She probably told him things too. He probably knew a lot about the Netherworld, or at least what people thought was on the other side of that Well."
"That's some good deduction, but I'm not following what you think that tells us about why Dughall wants to enter the portal," Liam said.
"Yeah, or how you think he's going to do it. He doesn't have the torc you know. Hey, you know, come to think of it, if he doesn't have the torc, he can't get through the portal, so what are we worrying about?"
"Ah, you see, that's just the question I had. We know he wants to go to the Netherworld and badly. And if Hindergog and those in his world are so worried, they must know something we don't and that must mean there's another way in."
"Right, some other portal," said Fanny.
"Or, a way to create a portal," Liam said.
"Exactly Mr. Adams! That's what I'm thinking. And here's the biggest clue that Hindergog gave us. He mentioned a large machine being built by humans."
"We build a lot of big machines," said Fanny.
"Yeah, but not many of them have any capability of opening a portal to another dimension. There may, in fact, be only one ... "
"The super collider!" Liam shouted.
"That's right. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN."
Jake and Liam locked eyes for a moment while the truth of what they'd said passed between them. The butterflies in Liam's stomach and the chills up his spine told him that they were onto something.
"Okay, would one of you like to let me know what we're talking about?" screeched Fanny.
"Mr. Adams, you do the honors?"
"Sure, Jake. Well Fanny you may have heard of atom smashers before."
"Nope. Doesn't ring a bell."
"Oh, okay. How to explain this? Well scientists – physicists mainly – build these giant machines called colliders or atom smashers so that they can do experiments on the nature and structure of matter."
"Still not following."
"They smash atoms together Fanny to see what happens," said Jake.
"All right, you don't have to get all testy with me."
"You should pay more attention in science class."
"You should stop being such a nerd."
"Okay, stop fighting you two. Fanny, atoms are extremely tiny, but they contain a lot of potential energy. Our understanding of atoms is what enabled us to build atomic bombs."
"Oh, those kind of atoms."
"Well, everything is made of atoms and atoms are made of smaller bits of stuff. Particles. And when you collide these particles you get massive amounts of energy and observe what comes out of the collision. That's what scientists are doing at the LHC. They want to see what is produced by the collision of particles at near the speed of light."
"But if they do that, won't it make an explosion like a bomb?"
"No, they aren't colliding whole atoms, only subatomic particles. There won't be bomb-size explosions, but when they smash the particles the mini explosions produce even smaller bits of matter. And that's what they're studying, those mini bit particles."
"I sorta get what this collider thing is doing, but what does this have to do with Dughall?"
"Well, if Jake's theory is right, and I'm betting it is, Dughall may be trying to use the LHC to create his own portal."
"Not following," said Fanny. "I thought this thing was smashing particles. They plan to open up a doorway to another dimension with this machine?"
"Well no, that's not in the plan. I don't think anyone is even theorizing about that," Liam said.
"It's a long shot, but it's all we've got. Fanny, remember the static electricity we felt at the portal?"
"Yeah. It was like we'd been rubbed with a giant balloon."
"And remember the silvery mist we saw?"
"Jake, I'm not a science geek like you. Just spill it already."
"Okay, here's what I'm thinking. The static electricity and the silver mist are both related to mega amounts of electromagnetism."
"Yes," Liam said. "That's right. And where is there more concentrated electromagnetism than anywhere else in the world?"
"The LHC," offered Jake.
"What do magnets have to do with the colliding thingy?"
"It's complicated Fanny, but essentially the collider uses immense magnets, five stories high, to accelerate the particles through a massive circular tube twenty-seven kilometers around. The magnets both accelerate and bend the particles around the huge circle to get them to great speeds before they collide."
"Yeah, so the most powerful superconducting magnets ever built are at the LHC."
"And so you think Dughall will use these magnets ... "
"To open a portal," said Jake.
"But how?" asked Fanny.
"That I don't know. Do you have any ideas, Mr. Adams?"
"Well, first of all, I don't see how he'd get anywhere near the LHC. I mean this is a huge compound with hundreds, if not thousands, of people around all the time. And the collider itself is a mile underground. And it's not like you just flip a switch and turn the magnets on or off."
"Yeah, I was reading about it," said Jake. "It takes weeks to cool it down enough to operate at full power."
"Exactly. It has to be super cooled to -271° Celsius to be operational. And there's a whole command center with many people and oversight. I just don't see the possibility of Dughall being able to use the LHC in any way."
"We may not see how he'd do it, but we can bet he'll try to find a way," said Fanny. "Mr. Adams, you weren't there to hear Hindergog, but from his story, one thing's for sure. This Dughall guy is pure evil and he's smart. If there's a way, he'll find it."
"I agree with Fanny," said Jake. "We have to assume he'll find a way."
"So we don't actually need to know how he's going to do it. All we need to do is make sure he doesn't get anywhere near the LHC," said Fanny.
"You're right Fanny. You know what that means?" Liam asked.
"Road trip," said Jake.
"Exactly. You guys up for another road trip?"
"As long as we're not walking," said Fanny.
Jake was already packing his laptop.
Liam knew they had to go to CERN, but it meant leaving Emily – or at least the place where she was last seen. He felt doubt about whether he was doing the right thing, but he knew he had to do something. Sitting around a small hotel room with Fanny and Jake wouldn't bring Emily back.
By late afternoon, they were on a plane to France where they would get a train to the small town on the Swiss/French border that was the headquarters of CERN.