Eventually they decided that it might just be okay to turn on the Collider again, but the scientists had to be very careful, and if it looked like something bad involving creatures with claws and fangs and bad attitude was about to occur, they were to turn off the Collider immediately and go and inform a responsible adult. The scientists were reasonably confident that this would not be necessary, as they had worked hard on what was thought to have been a source of potential weakness. The joints holding the machine’s copper stabilizers were discovered not to be strong enough to withstand the forces being unleashed against them—five hundred tons per square meter, or the equivalent of five jumbo jets at full throttle being pushed against each square meter—but now the stabilizers had been reinforced, and all was believed to be well.

But the changes and corrections that the scientists had made to the Collider had also enabled them to increase its energy levels. The energies involved in its collisions were measured in tera electron volts, or TeV, with each TeV being equivalent to a million million electron volts. When the first “incident” had taken place, the Collider was sending twin beams of 1.18 TeV each around its ring, giving collision energies of 2.36 TeV. The new, improved Collider was set to more than double the collision energy to 7 TeV, the first big step toward its routine capacity of 14 TeV.

Which was how the scientists came to be standing around looking at the switch with fingers crossed and lucky rabbits’ feet in hand while Professor Stefan inquired if anything had happened yet, and Professor Hilbert, his assistant, who was very curious about all of the Hell and demons stuff because it proved his theory that there were universes out there other than our own, sucked his pencil and wondered if he should confess that he was rather hoping the portal might open again nearby as he’d missed it last time.

“Nothing unusual,” said Professor Hilbert, trying not to sound disappointed.

Professor Stefan let out a deep breath of relief. “Thank goodness,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine from now on.”

The other scientists glared at him, because that’s just the kind of thing that people say before the roof collapses, the floor cracks, and everything goes to Hell in a handcart, in this case potentially quite literally, assuming someone had remembered to bring along a handcart, but Professor Stefan didn’t notice. Neither did he pay any attention to the fact that Professor Hilbert had sidled away, and had disappeared into a small room marked “Broom Closet—Janitor’s Use Only.”

“See,” said Professor Stefan, who just didn’t know when to stop tempting fate, “I told you there was nothing to worry about.”