THE ULTIMATE EXPERIMENT: A SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY, PART XII

                                Restarting The Ultimate Experiment

                                     An unpublished short story

                              THE UNLIMATE EXPERIMENT

Donald Ball was at work when his phone rang.

“Hello, Dr. Ball?”

“Yes, this is Dr. Ball.”  He did not recognize the voice.

“This is Virginia Madison.  I’m a visiting nurse.  I have been taking care of George Stewart.”

Ball knew immediately the purpose of the call.

“George Stewart passed away today.  He told me it was very important that you know when he died.”

“Thank you for calling.  He was a good man and friend.  He will be missed.”

“He was a good man.  Good-bye.”

Donald Ball hung up the phone.  He sat alone in his office a long time thinking of what might occur.  He felt a chill of anticipation.

                                                       * * *

Two days later John Coolidge, a graduate student working for Dr. Ball, sat at the computer console connected to the Super-Kamiokande detector.  He had seen what the computer images of past neutrino events looked like and detected a few events himself.  He was reading a physics textbook when the alarms began to sound.  As he looked at the monitor, he said out loud, “Holy shit, I’m going to be famous.”