Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya

at the children. He was astonished by the way Mrs. Hamilton had so quickly brought order and quiet to the crowd of children, who now looked up at him in anticipation. “To begin, I wonder how many of you are familiar with what it is we do here at the Lab?”
    Lily’s hand shot up into the air.
    â€œYes, Miss Winchester, but perhaps one of your other colleagues?”
    Abhijat waited for a long moment, but no other hands rose.
    â€œWell, then, Miss Winchester, perhaps you will provide an explanation?”
    â€œAt the Lab,” Lily began, “you’re studying elementary particles that are the building blocks of the universe,” sounding as though she were reading from a textbook, “as well as the forces that hold those particles together or push them apart. The particle accelerator and its detectors are like a giant microscope that helps you see these particles. Well, not really see them—they’re much too small to be seen,” she corrected herself, already beginning, Abhijat saw, to grasp the difficulty of explaining this work simply.
    â€œThank you, Miss Winchester. Very informative,” Abhijat said, a smile lingering on his face, proud of how carefully she must have listened to his own description of his work. “Now, will you all please come this way?”
    He led them in a long, wriggling line toward the Research Tower, the noise of the children, who had again resumed their chattering, rivaling that of the geese that eyed them suspiciously as they made their way past the reflecting pond, up the stairs, and into the atrium.
    Rose looked up toward the ceiling of the atrium, its interior walls lined with glass, reaching up to the heavens. While on the surface the building couldn’t have been more different, it reminded her, somehow, of the great cathedrals of France.
    â€œThe accelerator,” Abhijat continued, turning to speak to the children as they paused in the atrium, “of which I will give you an aerial view in just a moment, is, some believe, the most important instrument for physics that exists in the world today. Why? , you may be wondering. Because of speed. Because in order to answer today’s most pressing, most exciting questions in physics, one must have the fastest accelerator operating at the highest energy level. And here, at the Lab, we are fortunate to have just such an instrument.”
    The elevators carried them to the top of the Research Tower. On the highest floor, large plate-glass windows looked out over the prairie; from here, visitors could observe the surrounding land as it had been before the beginning of its transformation into farmland, into suburbia. The children lined up before the windows, noses pressed against the glass. Rose looked out over the great expanse of the Lab’s campus, thinking of how she had never before seen Nicolet from this height, so much of it visible all at once, arranged just beyond the borders of the Lab’s grounds.
    â€œThere, in the shape of a ring,” Abhijat said, “you will see the outline of the accelerator, which exists many feet below ground, four miles in circumference.” He traced the shape of the circle on the glass with his finger. “Looking out even farther, you will see how vast the campus of the Lab is. We are nearly seven thousand acres.”
    Rose looked out over the land she remembered as neighboring farms, prairie grasses now reclaiming the soil. The Nicolet Lily would grow up thinking of as home was so different from the Nicolet Rose had known—so different, she thought, as to be almost unrecognizable.
    â€œAnd now, may I please turn your attention to this exhibit—” Abhijat gestured at a large segment of metal tubing stretching the length of the hallway, “—which shows a replica of the magnets used to power the accelerator. Here at the Lab,” he explained, “we are searching for tiny parts of the world we believe may exist. To