Theo had swiveled the chair around as he'd sat down in it; his back was now to the open door. He wasn't aware that someone else had arrived until he heard a masculine throat-clearing. He rotated the chair and looked at Jacob Horowitz, a young grad student who worked with Theo and Lloyd. He had a shock of red hair and swarms of freckles.

"It's not your fault," Jake said, emphatically.

"Of course it is," said Theo, as if it were plainly obvious. "We clearly didn't take some important factor into consideration, and — "

"No," said Jake, strongly. "No, really. It's not your fault. It had nothing to do with CERN."

"What?" Theo said it as if he hadn't understood Jake's words.

''Come down to the staff lounge."

"I don't want to face anyone just now, and — "

"No, come on. They've got CNN on down there, and — "

"It's made CNN already?"

"You'll see. Come."

Theo rose slowly from his chair and started walking. Jake motioned for him to move more quickly, and at last Theo began to jog alongside Jake. When they arrived, there were maybe twenty people in the lounge.

" — Helen Michaels reporting from New York City. Back to you, Bernie."

Bernard Shaw's stern, lined face filled the high-definition TV screen. "Thanks, Helen. As you can see," he said to the camera, "the phenomenon seems to be worldwide — which suggests that the initial analyses that it must have been some sort of foreign weapon are unlikely to be correct, although of course the possibility that it was a terrorist act remains. No credible party, as yet, has stepped forward to claim responsibility, and — ah, we now have that Australian report we promised you a moment ago."

The view changed to show Sydney with the white sails of the Opera House in the background, lit up against a dark sky. A male reporter was standing in the center of the shot. "Bernie, it's just after four A.M. here in Sydney. There's no one image I can show you to convey what's happened down here. Reports are only slowly coming in as people realize that what they experienced was not an isolated phenomenon. The tragedies are many: we have word from a downtown hospital of a woman who died during emergency surgery when everyone in the operating theater simply stopped working for several minutes. But we also had a story of an all-night convenience-store robbery thwarted when all parties — including the robber — collapsed simultaneously at 2:00 A.M. local time. The robber was knocked unconscious, apparently, as he struck the floor, and a patron who woke up before he did was able to get his gun. We still have no good idea what the death count is here in Sydney, let alone the rest of Australia."

"Paul, what about the hallucinations? Are those being reported down under, as well?"

A pause while Shaw's question bounced off satellites from Atlanta to Australia. "Bernie, people are buzzing about that, yes. We don't know what percentage of the population experienced hallucinations, but it seems to be a lot. I myself had quite a vivid one."

"Thanks, Paul." The graphic behind Shaw changed to the American Presidential seal. "President Boulton will address the nation in fifteen minutes, we're told. Of course, CNN will bring you live coverage of his remarks. Meanwhile, we have a report now from Islamabad, Pakistan. Yusef, are you there—?"

"See," said Jake, sotto voce. "It had nothing to do with CERN."

Theo felt simultaneously shocked and relieved. Something had affected the entire planet; surely their experiment couldn't have done that.

And yet—

And yet, if it hadn't been related to the LHC experiment, then what could have caused it? Was Shaw right — was it some sort of terrorist weapon? It had only been a little over two hours since the phenomenon. The CNN team was showing amazing professionalism; Theo was still struggling to get his own equilibrium back.

Shut off the consciousness of the entire human race for two minutes, and what would the death toll be?

How many cars had collided?

How many planes had crashed? How many hang-gliders? How many parachutists had blacked out, failing to pull their ripcords?

How many operations had gone bad? How many births had gone bad?

How many people had fallen from ladders, fallen down stairs?

Of course, most airplanes would fly just fine for a minute or two without pilot intervention, as long as they actually weren't taking off or landing. On uncrowded roads, cars might even manage just to roll safely to a stop.

But still… still…

"The surprising thing," said Bernard Shaw, on the TV, "is that as near as we can tell, the consciousness of the human race shut off at precisely noon Eastern Time. At first it seemed that the various times were not all exactly the same, but we've been checking the clocks of those who've reported in against our own clocks here at CNN Center in Atlanta, which, of course, are set against the time signal from the National Institute for Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. Adjusting for slightly incorrect settings that other people had, we find that the phenomenon occurred to the second at 12:00 noon Eastern, and — "

To the second, thought Theo.

To the second.

Jesus Christ.

CERN, of course, used an atomic clock. And the experiment was programmed to begin at precisely 17h00 Geneva time, which is—

— is noon in Atlanta.

"As he has been for the last two hours, we have astronomer Donald Poort of Georgia Tech with us," said Shaw. "He was to be a guest on CNN This Morning, and we're fortunate that he was already here in the studio. Dr. Poort looks a little pale; please forgive that. We rushed him onto the air before he had a chance to go through makeup. Dr. Poort, thank you for agreeing to join us."

Poort was a man in his early fifties, with a thin, pinched face. He did indeed look pallid under the studio lights — as though he hadn't seen the sun since the Clinton administration. "Thanks, Bernie."

"Tell us again what happened, Dr. Poort."

"Well, as you observed, the phenomenon occurred precisely to the second at noon. Of course, there are thirty-six hundred seconds in every hour, so the chances of a random event occurring precisely at the top of the clock — to use a phrase you broadcasters like — are one in thirty-six hundred. In other words, vanishingly small. Which leads me to suspect that we are dealing with a human-caused event, something that was scheduled to occur. But as to what could have caused it, I have no idea… "

Damn it, thought Theo. God damn it. It had to be the LHC experiment; it couldn't be a coincidence that the highest-energy particle collision in the history of the planet happened at precisely the same moment as the onset of the phenomenon.

No. No, that wasn't being honest. It wasn't a phenomenon; it was a disaster — possibly the biggest one in the history of the human race.

And he, Theo Procopides, had somehow caused it.

Gaston Beranger, CERN's Director-General, came into the lounge at that moment. "There you are!" he said, as if Theo had been missing for weeks.

Theo exchanged a nervous glance with Jake, then turned to the Director-General. "Hi, Dr. Beranger."

"What the hell have you done?" demanded Beranger in angry French. "And where's Simcoe?"

"Lloyd and Michiko went off to get Michiko's daughter — she's at the Ducommun School."

"What happened?" demanded Beranger again.

Theo spread his hands. "I have no idea. I can't imagine what could have caused it."

"The — the whatever it was occurred at precisely the scheduled time for your LHC experiment to begin," said Beranger.

Theo nodded, and jerked a thumb at the TV. "So Bernard Shaw was saying."

"It's on CNN!" wailed the French man, as if all were now lost. "How did they find out about your experiment?"