Professor Wintom was often quite stoic. To see him in such a state of agitation was a little bit disconcerting, to say the least. I mean, this was THE GUY. The number one microbiologist, by far, in the world. Perhaps even the universe. If there are alien microbiologists out there somewhere, I still think Wintom would give them a run for their money. He was THE G.O.A.T.
To see him like this scared me, frankly. This was a man I looked up to. Somebody who was solid and capable. To see him fall from a great intellectual giant to a sniveling idiot was not an easy thing to stomach.
Wintom started to shake nervously. He whispered almost sadly, “What do we do, Jenkins?” I slapped him and said, “Get ahold of yourself, man!” After the briefest moment of panic, I said, “I’m sorry I slapped you, sir. But if you were in my shoes, you would have done the same.”
He nodded knowingly while he pulled his phone from his pocket. Then he said, “Thanks for the slap, Jenkins. It was just what I needed. Just what I needed.” With sudden vim, he then spoke these words into the phone, “Get me Dr. Garrett. This is Wintom.”
“Do you suspect CERN had something to do with this?”, I asked. He held up his finger to signal me to be quiet so that he could hear Dr. Garrett on the other side of the phone line.
As he turned away from me for greater concentration, I heard him say, “Yes. Dr. Garrett, how are you? This is Professor Wintom. Yes…yes…haha! I will do that. I will do that. Well, I was calling to ask if any of your guys down there has been doing any, umm… special experiments, lately? You know, with the whole particle- smashing- thing you do down there, and all. Uh huh…yes…well, what I’m asking is…have you guys, you know, accidently opened a portal to another universe? You don’t say? Um hum…well, all I know is we are seeing some weird stuff over here. What? Little people. Yes, little people! No, no, no. Not like your Uncle Ted. Smaller…much, much smaller. About a million times smaller than a grain of salt. No, sir, I have not touched the stuff since 2020! Alright. Yes. Okay. Thanks anyway. We will. Tell Abigail I said Hi. Yes…yes…bye-bye.”
As he pocketed his phone, he turned to me and said, “They have no record of any portal openings, lately.”
“Lately?” I asked with incredulity.
“What?”
“You said, ‘Lately’.
Professor Wintom then became very quiet. The implications hung thick in the air.
