NINETEEN
CLAUDE LAGRANGE ignored the increasing mound of newspapers piled up on his doorstep. Something about the Supernatural “Quakestorm” held zero interest, partly because he was not invited to the Pentagon's little party, whatever it was. Many miles from the Nevada test range, all the hyped-up warnings seemed overstated, that monotonous hysteria from the press concerning all things supernatural. They feared what they lacked the capacity to understand. His remote Nevada town was perfectly safe.
LaGrange sustained his purely scientific explorations down in his basement laboratory. His small particle accelerator would be next to worthless without his newly discovered catalyst to entangle dark matter and to upend the known laws of the universe. Anyone could smash particles against one a
