– “My God, Richard, how much are you paying for this per night?”
Katsu was standing in the middle of the living room, his arms spread out wide. Greene looked at him from across his desk. Hoskins watched from behind his mentor speechless.
– “Vic, I didn’t know you were in Johannesburg. Another book tour?”
Katsu smiled. Everyone in America called him Victor, from his Japanese name Masaru meaning Victory.
– “No, no, Richard. I came here to give you a hand.”
Greene chuckled. “Vic, don’t think I don’t appreciate your offer but I really don’t see how you can help me. The mathematics involved are not from your level.”
Katsu looked at Hoskins with a big smile. “Ah, this is what I love from the big man. Always insulting you without even appearing to do it.”
– “I’m just stating a fact.”
Katsu approached the desk and pulled out a chair.
– “Richard, you misunderstood me. I’m not here to help you solve that error of yours. I’m here to help you solve a bigger problem than that.”
Greene waited for what might be coming next silently.
Katsu looked into Greene’s eyes. “Richard, I’m gonna tell you what have been bugging me for the last 10 days or so. Just listen to me first and we can talk after, alright?”
Greene did not move, neither Hoskins.
Katsu smiled. “Okay. When I first heard about LIGO’s detection of the waves from South Africa, my reaction was the same as yours. I said to myself ‘No way’, that must be a mistake. I know, I know. I’m the fiercest proponent of parallel universes and I denied it when an exceptional event here on Earth may help me confirm their existences. So I tossed the notion aside until I remembered something that I’m sure have not gone unnoticed by you and Hoskins. The LHC experiment that same night. The one that had created microscopic black holes by accident.”
Katsu saw the uneasiness in Greene and Hoskins’ expressions and knew he was on the right track. Katsu leaned back against his chair and crossed his fingers on his chest.
– “Alright then. Now that you know that I know, let me give you the short version. I know about the three losers who had been attacked by an inaudible sound between here and Elizabethtown. I know that it was a mediocre woman physicist who just happens to live in that town who had first found the gap in your equations. I know there are bizarre reports of medical cases from that same town and I’ve heard stories about the ‘white sorcerer’ from the black slums. Do you want me to continue or do we understand each other?”
Greene looked defeated. “What do you want Vic?”
Katsu let out a laugh of satisfaction.
– “Richard, whatever came through the barrier looks human and can control electromagnetic radiation. It might even be able to see the electromagnetic radiation. It is impervious to the law of physics in our universe—”
Hoskins could not resisted. “Wait, Victor. If it is impervious to the law of physics in our universe, how comes it doesn’t float in the air or make a dent in the concrete every time it walks?”
Katsu looked at Hoskins with a disappointed air then turned to Greene. “Is he this stupid all the time?”
Hoskins was ready to say something when Katsu held up his hand. “Hoskins, what I meant was that it has more energetic potential than us. If you scream with all your might, I might be able to hear you from two blocks away but not farther than that. If it screams with all its might, who’s to say it can’t cause a sound twice or ten times the volume of the sound generated by a sonic boom? Who’s to say that its scream won’t cause buildings to collapse and puncture all the inner eardrums of everyone from ten miles around?”
– “The same can be true for its strength and its sight,” added Greene, “it can hold an egg or crack something with its fingers that no human is capable of even with iron tools, or it can see whenever it wants particles as small as quarks.”
– “Wait, wait!” Hoskins got more and more excited, “If it can see electromagnetic radation then it means that it can see what the particles or waves are doing, am I right?”
Greene and Katsu nodded.
– “Wow! So it can tell us why quantum objects behave the way they do and why macroscopic objects also behave they way they do?”
Katsu smiled while nodding his head appreciatively.
Hoskins could no longer speak, “So basically, it… it can see the quarks, the superpartners, the Higgs boson… it… it can tell us if the elementary particles are strings or not… it can tell us how many dimensions exist in our universe… it basically knows the ultimate laws that govern our universe!”
Katsu felt the need to interrupt Hoskins here. “With its knowledge, we will be able to write down at last the final theory. We will be able to explain any phenomena happening here on Earth and in the farthest galaxy. We will be God.”
– “We?” Greene asked.
Katsu stopped. He looked shocked. The two men stared at each other in silence for a long moment.
Slowly, very slowly, Katsu recovered his smile.
– “Richard, it is ‘we’ or tomorrow, the whole world will know about the beast and every government on this planet will start hunting it down and your name will remain in the annals of physics as the man who had searched in vain for the final theory.”
Hoskins looked at his mentor who finally nodded.
– “Great!” Katsu said, “Hoskins, why don’t you call room service and order us a somptuous dinner while Richard and myself talk about a few details?”
Hoskins had barely lifted the receiver from its hook when the door of the suite opened and Katz walked in. He stopped when he saw the Japanese man.
– “Katz, go ahead. You can talk. He’s with us.” said Hoskins.
Katz nodded. “We’ve found the woman who was with the man you’re looking for. She’ll be able to tell us who he is.”
Katsu looked admiringly at Greene and Hoskins. “My God, I’ve under estimated you people. Hoskins, tell room service to add another cover for our friend here.”
