Elio held up a hand, not at all surprised. “They’re locking down the facility and putting up all the lead barriers to reducethe spread of radiation. You geniuses took out one of the cooling bays.”
“It can be stopped!” Tyler said and turned to Milo. “It can be stopped, right?”
Milo grimaced at the doors and looked back in the direction of the rows of tanks, hoses, and monitors. “There has to be a fail-safe but with this wing of the cooling system disabled… It might not be enough if the fail-safe isn’t initiatedsoon. The collider could overheat by just a few degrees in a few minutes and experience a catastrophic failure.”
They looked at Elio and he nodded, pale and flushed. “He’s right. This entire facility will blow up like an atom bomb if the collider isn’t slowed down immediately.”
“I’m calling my mom,” Brad said as he whipped out his phone.
“Nein!” Elio slapped it out of his hands. “That does us no good and that’s not how you want her to remember you.” He turned to Milo and cupped his cheek. “I’mso sorry! I would never put you in this kind of danger!”
“I know!” Milo kissed him and pressed his forehead to Elio’s. “Let me think!” he whispered, seeing all the hoses, wires, and monitors.
Find a way in and manually decelerate the collider.
He nodded and stole one more kiss, borrowing some of Elio’s strength and bravery. “I have an idea,” he said before turning and pushing his way past Tyler and Bryan.
“Where are you going?” Bryan asked as they jogged after Milo with Elio, Brad, and the rest of the Mean Guys on their heels.
“I interned for Professor Holberg at NASA,” he said as he turned the corner and hunted for a monitor that wasn’t glitching and flashing a warning message.
“Good for you? How does name dropping help us?” Tyler asked, making Elio swear as he played with the piercing in the bridge of his nose.”
“Holberg designed the cooling system you monkeys just broke.”
Chad gasped and pointed at Milo excitedly. “That’s great! You can call Professor Holberg and ask him how to fix it!” he suggested but Milo shook his head as he used a generic administrator password to access the operating system’s coding remotely.
“That would be difficult since he’s dead.”
“Damn it!” Chad whispered and retreated. “I’m out of ideas.”
“It does appear that there’s a fail-safe but it hasn’t initiated yet,” Milo reported as he checked the accelerator’s speed and temperature, grimacing. “It’s not going to be soon enough,” he predicted, swallowing as acid itched the back of his throat. His fingers were shaking but Milo ignored them, orienting himself with the layout of the collider’s operating system and laughed in relief when he found the file to access the decelerator. “I can slow it down and initiate a shutdown!”
“I knew you could do it!” Elio gave Milo’s shoulders an encouraging knead while he entered the command to shut down the accelerator and launched the fail-safe.
Milo went back to the collider’s dashboard and checked the speed and temperature and laughed, it was already below half-speed and cooling quickly. “It’s okay! We’re going to be okay!” he said and spun, leaping into Elio’s arms. “I did it! We’re going to be okay!”
“You did it! I love you so much, Milo!” he cried, elated as they kissed.
Breathless, Milo leaned back in Elio’s arms. “You love me?”
Elio nodded. “I do. I was afraid that it was too soon before, but I thought we were all about to die and had an epiphany.”
“Right! That was…” Milo looked around at the Mean Guys and the equipment around him, lightheaded and suddenly nauseous. “I didn’t really think about it while it was all happening but that was a close one,” he said and Elio caught him when his legs gave out.
“I’ve got you!” Elio put an arm around Milo’s waist and they turned when the doors opened and the team from the Energy Department and the RHIC scientists spilled into the bay.
“Elio! Milo!” the young Black woman in the lab coat said as she ran to them. “We could see everything that was happening but we had no way to talk to you.”
“I’m so sorry, Felicity!” Elio said as he pulled her into a tight hug with his free arm and kissed her forehead. “Thiswas nothow it was supposed to go.” He threw a threatening glare at Brad. “You should stay very far away from me and keep your mouth shut. But I am so sorry, to everyone else,” he said as looked around them.
One of the bearded men in a lab coat stepped forward, raising a hand. “The fail-safe had been activated from our end. It would have shut down the accelerator in a few more seconds but that wasincredible. I would have shit my pants. I knew it was going to be alright and I still almost shit my pants,” he said with a stunned laugh. “I don’t know if I could have done that and I’m in charge of this thing.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” Milo didn’t care. He had never been more relieved in his life. Although… “Hold on. Felicity? You’rehisFelicity?” Milo asked as he pointed at Elio and the young woman as he quickly connected the dots. “You set this up?” he yelled at Elio but he shook his head.
“Notthis!” he flailed around them and in the direction of the collider. “We were supposed to go to thecontrol roomand I was going to make youthinkI broke something,” he explained and Felicity nodded quickly.
“You were supposed to go to the simulator. It was set up for a scary fake meltdown but those jerks got loose and went off script,” she said as he sneered at the Mean Guys, then winced at Milo. “It wasn’t supposed to bethistraumatic, but it’s nice to finally meet you. Elio’s told me so much and that was amazing, Milo!”
