“Where would you like to start, Mr. von Hessen?” One of the suits asked and Milo’s interest refocused and honed in.
“The control room!” Elio declared as he rubbed his hands together. “That’s where the real scientists play, isn’t it?” he said with a cocky grin, then winked at Milo. “Why waste time?”
“Give us a few moments to warm up the collider for a demonstration,” the young Black woman in the lab coat said as she left with the other lab coat and one of the suits.
“Right this way,” another man in a suit said as they were led down a hallway and through a set of double doors.
Hector fell into conversation with the men from the Department of Energy and Elio hung back with Milo, no longer interested in the tour.
“What are you going to do in the control room?” Milo whispered but Elio shook his head and tapped his lips.
“Nothing. Don’t make them suspicious.”
“Psst!” Brad hissed and whispered “von Hessen!”
They turned and Brad and the Mean Guys were waving and pointing at a sign.
“Let’s go!” Brad urged but Milo shook his head quickly.
“No! Wecannotgo near that part of the collider!” he whispered and turned to Elio for help. “Eli!”
His eyes were wide and distant and he licked his lips, nodding faintly. “We cannot…” he said faintly, then gave hishead a hard shake. “No. The control room. We’re going there first.”
“You’regoing there first,” Brad replied with a childish snort and gestured for the others to follow. “I want to see the actual collider, not a bunch of monitors and keyboards.”
“No, no, no!” Elio went after them, looking nervous. “We have to go to the control roomfirst!” he whispered and swore when Tyler grabbed the bay door and stuck out his tongue at them.
“Fucking cunt!” Elio spat as he ran to catch up.
“Wait!” Milo looked for Hector but he and the men from the Energy Department had turned a corner. “This is so bad!” he groaned and went to help Elio.
Milo threw the door to the bay open, then whimpered at the brightly lit rows of cooling tanks, surrounded by pumps, hoses, and wires, quickly orienting himself as he hurried along. He skidded when he reached the end and looked down the long gray corridor, gasping when he spotted the Mean Guys and Elio next to the two massive silver rings of the accelerator. The rings were 2.4 miles in circumference, making it hard to detect their curve when you were standing next to them. Each ring was nine-feet wide, resembling a pair of giant water slides, and made a loud whirring sound as they accelerated to nearly the speed of light.
“We should go back,” Milo shouted as he joined them but there were dismissive grunts and sneers.
“You should go back,Mild,” Brad mimicked and pushed up his invisible glasses.
Elio rubbed a knuckle against his chin, then pointed at Brad. “We’re going to have a talk about this later. But right now, we’re taking our arses to the control room.”
“Calm down!” Tyler told them, gesturing for everyone to lower the tension. “We won’t touch anything and we’ll only be aminute,” he said and smirked at Elio. “Thought you had a pair, von Hessen.”
There were oohs and high fives and they pushed at each other as they skipped away. Brad eyed Elio up and down, then smirked at Milo. “I bet you think you’re special now but he’s just using you.”
“Fuck off,” Elio said and dove at Brad like he was going to attack, making him flinch and shuffle back. “Milo doesn’t want me to sink to your level, but I'd drag your arse outside if he wasn’t here. You’d be shitting teeth for the next week if it weren’t for him.”
“Get over yourself, von Hessen,” Brad replied with a superior lift of his chin, then spun when they heard a loud yelp and a crash as Chad fell to the ground, holding a ripped-off keypad.
“Dummkopf!What did you do?” Elio screamed and ducked when a siren sounded overhead and the bay and corridor filled with red, flashing light. He took off, to strangle Chad or assess the situation.
“Oh, no, no, no!” Milo went after him, then gasped at the cracked monitor on one of the cooling tanks and the dangling hoses. “This is so bad!” He looked around, his hand clutching his forehead as the monitors around them blipped and more pumps began to sputter and hiss.
“I’m out of here,” Brad said as he ran the other way.
“You—!” Elio shook his head, snarling as he followed.
“No!” Milo started to go after them, then turned and pointed at the rest of the Mean Guys. “Let’s go, butdo nottouch anything else. Do you hear me?” he asked them. “I’ll sic Elio on you,” he added and they all nodded quickly.
They made their way back to the bay door and Brad was panicking as he beat on it. “It’s locked!”
