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replace the units as needed. It was a time-consuming chore, but necessary to the larger goal of producing useful results, and if working at CERN had taught Paul anything, it was the importance of patience. Physics experiments required years of intensive preparation and observation.
    At the top of the stairs, he moved out onto a scaffold erected across the top of the barrel. The tedious but exacting job of removing the endcap disks to get at the cathode strip chambers helped him get his mind off the perplexing riddle of Lauren Hayes, and he was soon lost in his work.
    “ Paul!”
    The shout startled him, kicking him out of autopilot mode. He looked over the edge of the scaffold to see Lauren, gazing up at him, hands on hips in what might have been either a stern or flirtatious pose. “Yes?”
    “ I said, do you want to break for coffee?”
    “ Coffee? So soon? We just got started.”
    She rolled her eyes. “It’s nearly eleven.”
    Eleven o ’clock? He really had gotten lost in the work. “Sure. Be right down.”
    He set down his tools and hopped to his feet, but suddenly felt lightheaded. Darkness descended on him like a storm cloud and he barely had time to kneel down before the world dissolved completely in a haze.
    Head rush . I stood up too quickly.
    He stayed down, waiting for his blood pressure to normalize, but with each passing second, his connection to reality seemed to slip further away. He had no sense of his body anymore, didn ’t know if he was still kneeling or if he had collapsed in a senseless heap.
    Then, just as quickly, he was drawn back to consciousness by someone shaking him gently, calling his name. “Paul? Paul are you all right?”
    The voice was achingly familiar. It sounded just like….
    He opened his eyes and jerked as if touching a live wire.
    Lauren? It was Lauren, but how could that be?
    Her face creased with concern. “Paul, are you all right?” she repeated. “You fainted.”
    It couldn ’t be Lauren. Lauren was dead. She had died in a mountain climbing accident two weeks earlier. He had attended her funeral, for God’s sake. He had stood in front of the urn with her ashes. He had….
    The memories were so vivid that it took a moment to separate them from the reality of where he was.
    I am in the CMS, he realized. Lauren and I came down here to check the detectors. But that was weeks ago, wasn’t it? Before the accident? Before the funeral?
    He took a deep breath. No, none of that happened. I passed out, I had a weird dream. In a moment, everything will be back to normal.
    “ I’m fine,” he managed to say. “Just stood up too fast.”
    Lauren continued to look down at him, one hand resting on his shoulder. Her touch felt strange, and not just because it was the first time she had ever touched him, ever showed something approaching actual concern.
    He felt as if he was being touched by a ghost.
    “ I’m fine,” he repeated, shrugging away from her and rising to his feet.
    “ Careful,” she warned. “Don’t get up too fast or it will happen again.”
    “ No. I’m all right now.” He did his best to smile. “Let’s go have that coffee.”
    “ You’re sure?” She continued to regard him anxiously. “You need to be more careful. You could have fallen.”
    “ It’s not that far to the bottom.”
    “ It’s far enough. Did you know that falling is the second leading cause of accidental death?”
    The word “death” sent a chill through him. “How do you know that?”
    “ I’ve done my homework. I’m a mountain climber.” She gave a coy shrug. “Well, almost. I haven’t actually climbed any mountains. Yet. But I’m going to climb Chamonix this weekend.”
    Chamonix. Paul felt the darkness start to swirl again. He lurched for the stairs, gripped the rail.
    Chamonix. That was where Lauren had died in his…memory? Dream? Premonition?
    He held himself erect, struggling to catch his breath. “Lauren, don’t go to Chamonix.”
    Her concern transformed into