‘You’ve got a one-track mind,’ said Friday.

  ‘I do now you’ve pointed it out to me,’ agreed Melanie.

  ‘I’m coming in,’ said Friday. She reached up and grabbed the windowsill, jumped up so her torso was on the window frame and started awkwardly shimmying herself through.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Quantum. ‘This is very inconsiderate, Friday. I wish you’d contacted the team’s assistant to arrange an appointment.’

  ‘I’m not going to bother you,’ said Friday, as her balance point tipped over and she tumbled headfirst into her brother’s office. ‘I’m going to search her office. Is it –’

  ‘Freeze, police!’ bellowed a voice from behind her. But Friday didn’t have time to freeze because in the next instant she was grabbed from behind and yanked back out through the window. She hit the ground, and two large police officers landed on top of her. She couldn’t see much because a flak jacket was pressed into her face, but she could feel her arms being twisted and the cold steel of the handcuffs digging into her wrists as they were tightened.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Quantum.

  ‘You really don’t have to kneel on her,’ said Melanie. ‘She’s less athletic than a sea cucumber.’

  ‘Freitag Barnes,’ said the officer. ‘You are under arrest for resisting arrest.’

  ‘Resisting arrest!’ scoffed Melanie. ‘She didn’t get a chance before your goons jumped on her.’

  ‘It’s fine, Melanie,’ said Friday. ‘I wanted to see Mum anyway.’

  ‘Well, they can arrest me too,’ said Melanie.

  ‘What?’ said the officer. ‘There are no charges against you.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Melanie. She stomped on the nearest constable’s foot.

  ‘Ow!’ cried the constable.

  ‘There you go,’ said Melanie. ‘Now I’ve assaulted a police officer.’

  ‘Fine,’ said the senior officer. ‘Arrest her too.’

  ‘I demand that the questioning begin immediately,’ said Friday.

  She and Melanie had been taken down to the police station but, once there, the officers didn’t really know what to do with them. They were only fifteen, and they weren’t supposed to put children in the holding cells. So they were still handcuffed, but they were sitting on regular chairs in the open-plan office.

  ‘We can’t question you until you have a responsible adult family member or legal representative present,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘First of all, there are no responsible adults in my family,’ said Friday. ‘They’re all physicists. They’re not interested in anything physically larger than an atom. Secondly, I don’t have any legal representation. I’ve only been in Switzerland for forty-five minutes. I haven’t met any lawyers yet.’

  ‘I’m sure Daddy can get one for us,’ said Melanie. ‘If you let me use your phone. He’ll have the top lawyer in Zurich here immediately.’

  ‘Which brings me to my third point,’ said Friday. ‘I don’t want to wait for a top lawyer. I want the questioning to begin immediately because I’m the one who will be asking the questions. I don’t care what you ask me. I know I haven’t committed any acts of terrorism.’

  ‘To the best of your knowledge,’ said Melanie.

  ‘Okay, so I accidentally advised some terrorists one time,’ snapped Friday. ‘That actually makes me much less likely to do it again because I’m aware of the danger now.’

  ‘Yes, Friday,’ said Melanie. ‘I’m sorry to remind you of your dark time.’

  ‘Which brings me to my fourth point,’ said Friday. ‘As someone who lived with my mother for eleven years, I’m pretty sure that planning a terrorist event is beyond her. She never remembered laundry day. Or where she put her car keys. Or to put petrol in her car. If she tried to build a bomb, she’d probably forget to put explosives in.’

  ‘I can’t discuss the case with you,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘Of course, you can,’ said Friday. ‘I’m her legal representative.’

  ‘You can’t be, you’re fifteen,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘I really doubt the legal code has an age limit on legal representatives,’ bluffed Friday.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘But that would be because common sense precludes it.’

  ‘Has she asked for legal representation?’ asked Friday.

  ‘No,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘We offered her a publicly allocated solicitor, and she refused.’

  ‘There you go,’ said Friday. ‘She’s mentally incompetent. She needs a family member to be present to advocate on her behalf.’

  ‘She has a husband for that,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘He’s a theoretical physicist too,’ said Friday.

  ‘So?’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘Would you want a theoretical physicist acting as your legal advocate?’ asked Friday.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘You can’t browbeat me. I’m not letting a fifteen-year-old terror suspect talk to my other terrorism suspect.’

  ‘Sarge,’ a constable called over from the other side of the office.

  ‘What is it?’ asked the detective sergeant grumpily.

  ‘Her lawyer is here!’ said the constable.

  ‘Whose lawyer?’ asked the detective sergeant.

  ‘The girl’s,’ said the constable. ‘She’s demanding to be allowed to see her client.’

  ‘The girl just said she doesn’t have a lawyer,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘The brother brought her in,’ said the constable.

  ‘My brother?’ said Friday. ‘Which one?’

  ‘He had a silly name,’ said the constable.

  ‘That could be either of them,’ said Friday. ‘Was it Quantum?’

  ‘That’s the one!’ said the constable.

  ‘That would make sense,’ said Friday. ‘It was his window I was smashing when you arrested me.’

  ‘You’d better let them through,’ said the detective sergeant.

  Moments later a tall blonde woman wearing a grey skirt suit strode into the office. Quantum was following close behind.

  ‘Oh no, not her,’ groaned the detective sergeant under his breath. He evidently knew this lawyer.

  ‘Hello,’ said the woman, holding out her hand to Friday. Friday shook it, which was awkward because she was still wearing handcuffs. ‘My name is Ms Dekker. I am working on behalf of CERN. As you are a family member of three CERN staff members, I am here to act on your behalf, or rather your family’s behalf, because you are a minor and therefore their responsibility.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Friday. She liked this stern woman. It was refreshing to deal with someone so clearly competent.

  Ms Dekker turned on the detective sergeant. He leaned back slightly in his chair. He wasn’t a coward, but he instinctively wanted to create space between himself and this intimidating woman. ‘I insist you release my client immediately,’ said Ms Dekker.

  ‘I’m not releasing her. She’s a terrorism suspect,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘You have no evidence against her,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘You can’t detain a citizen indefinitely without evidence.’

  ‘Her mother is in custody for a terrorist act,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘And this one has a track record.’

  ‘She has a track record of never being convicted of anything,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘You can’t detain her without just cause.’

  ‘We need to question her,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘You arrested this child using excessive violence,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘When you had no reasonable grounds for arrest.’

  ‘She was climbing through a smashed window,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘The constables took evasive action to prevent her accessing a highly classified campus.’

  ‘Dr Quantum Barnes’ work is not highly classified,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘He’s been working on the same algorithm for four years without making any progress. The only thing of value you could steal from his office is his coffee cup.’

  Quantum glowered at having his work described so dismissively, but he didn’t say anything.

  ‘She smashed a window,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘But it’s our window,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘I am the legal representative for CERN. That window belongs to our organisation. We encourage scientific thinking. If a child wants to conduct a scientific experiment on the effects of Newtonian physics on a window when force is applied with a brick, then we celebrate that critical thinking. We don’t press charges.’

  ‘We have questions for her,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘And I’ve got questions for him,’ said Friday. ‘I’d actually quite like to stay and speak to my mum. Is she being detained here too?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘That is the next item on my agenda.’

  ‘I do have evidence there,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘Enough evidence to hold her.’

  ‘Trumped-up evidence,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘You’re hiding behind the overly elastic counter-terrorism laws to incarcerate an elderly lady.’

  ‘She’s not that old,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘She’s only fifty-five.’

  ‘She’s post-menopausal,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘She hasn’t eaten a nutritious meal in thirty years. She’s been living off instant noodles. Her bones are probably made of chalk.’

  ‘What exactly is the trumped-up evidence they have against Mum?’ asked Friday.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘It’s a highly detailed diagram of the Large Hadron Collider,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘I would have thought you’d be more protective of CERN’s intellectual property. Especially when it’s a piece of technology that could be used to replicate a black hole – potentially destroying the planet.’

  ‘You haven’t let me see the diagram yet,’ said the lawyer. ‘I don’t know if it is anything of significance. And I don’t see how you can know. Dr Evangeline Barnes is a once-in-a-generation genius. Ninety-nine per cent of the scientists at CERN couldn’t understand her work. They’re all specialists in very specific fields – almost no-one knows how the whole thing works. And yet you claim to understand the significance of her notes?’

  ‘We will get experts to decipher them,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘There are no experts who can understand her work,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘She is the expert. She is operating on a level far above anyone the police can afford to hire as a consultant.’

  ‘I’m not consulting the local high-school science teacher!’ protested the detective sergeant. ‘I’ve contacted NATO. I’m sure they can provide an expert who will understand the military potential of what she was selling.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘It’s ridiculous to suggest a foreign government would try to copy our experiment anyway. It cost 4.5 billion euros to build! And all it does is shoot tiny particles at each other. It’s not a weapon or an energy source. It’s the world’s biggest and most boring pinball machine.’

  ‘Then why was she selling the diagram?’ asked the detective sergeant.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘I haven’t seen the diagram. You see how this conversation is going? In a circle. It’s absurd.’

  ‘Why don’t you bring it out here right now?’ said Friday. ‘So we can see what it is Mum has been accused of trying to sell.’

  ‘Then you’ll all see the information,’ protested the detective sergeant.

  ‘The super collider is super complicated,’ argued Friday. ‘So long as we don’t take a photo of it, there’s no way we can memorise the diagram.’

  Melanie coughed. She knew this wasn’t true. Friday stepped on her toe to tell her to keep quiet about that.

  ‘If Mum hasn’t done anything wrong, it’s much better for you that we figure this out now,’ said Friday. ‘Because if it’s found that you wrongfully arrested a Nobel Laureate, the amount of money your department will be sued for will be huge.’

  ‘Nice use of legal threatening,’ Ms Dekker complimented Friday. ‘Have you ever considered studying law?’

  ‘No,’ said Friday. ‘There’s not enough scope for the imagination.’

  ‘Fine,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘Constable, fetch the diagram from the evidence room.’

  The constable disappeared. There was an awkward silence. Ms Dekker took out her phone and checked her messages. Quantum stared at his shoes.

  ‘This is where normal family members would make polite enquiries about each other’s health,’ Melanie prompted.

  Friday looked at Quantum and grimaced.

  ‘You know you should practise your being-normal skills,’ said Melanie. ‘You don’t want to end up like the rest of your siblings.’

  This was true. Friday took a deep breath and launched into an attempt at conversation. ‘So,’ she said to Quantum. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘What?’ asked Quantum.

  ‘As a sibling, I thought it would be an appropriate conversational gambit to enquire how you’ve been since I saw you last,’ explained Friday.

  ‘Oh,’ said Quantum. ‘I’ve just been allocated additional funding so I can do more modelling for my gravitational hypothesis.’

  ‘I didn’t mean your work. I meant your health,’ said Friday. ‘How is your health?’

  Quantum looked puzzled. ‘They’re the same thing.’

  ‘Urgh, your family is weird,’ groaned the detective sergeant.

  ‘Now you should enquire about my health,’ prompted Friday.

  ‘But I can see you’re well,’ said Quantum. ‘It is evident from your appearance, aside from the red discolouration around your nose ring, that you are in good health.’

  Friday whipped around and confronted Melanie. ‘You didn’t tell me my nose was red!’

  ‘I didn’t notice,’ said Melanie. ‘You’ve got a nose ring. Trust me, most people don’t look beyond that.’

  The constable returned to the room carrying a large clear plastic snap-lock bag. There was a white cloth neatly folded inside. The detective sergeant put on a pair of surgical gloves and took the bag.

  ‘Alright, I’m going to take this out,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘But no touching. It hasn’t been fully analysed by forensics yet.’ He opened the bag, carefully took out the diagram and spread it open on the table.

  Friday, Quantum and Ms Dekker all leaned forward to have a look.

  There was a circular drawing in the middle, and a complicated diagram alongside. But surrounding and inside the whole thing was a mess of equations scrawled hurriedly in every direction. Sometimes overlapping each other. With arrows shooting back and forth from one area to another.

  ‘Since you’re the brainiacs, you tell me – what is it?’ asked the detective sergeant.

  ‘It’s brilliant,’ muttered Quantum. He reached forward to run his finger along the line of an equation.

  ‘No touching,’ snapped the detective sergeant, smacking his finger away. ‘Just explain what this is.’

  ‘It’s her research,’ said Quantum. ‘She’s been working to incorporate gravity into the Standard Model. There are limitations inherent in the mathematical language we use to express physical truths. She has been working on a conceptual evolution that will circumvent this roadblock in our understanding. This here . . .’ He indicated one point at the bottom of a long scrawl of increasingly hectic mathematical symbols. ‘This could be it. She would need to run simulations. But it’s so elegant. It just might work.’

  ‘So she was selling crucial scientific breakthroughs,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘She was stealing intellectual property from CERN.’

  ‘No,’ said Friday. ‘Just because this is important intellectual property does not mean she was trying to sell it.’

  ‘It was on sale on the internet!’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘That’s where your theory starts to unravel,’ said Friday. ‘Because I know for a fact that my mother has no idea how to use the internet.’

  ‘But she’s a brilliant scientist,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘Everyone can use the internet.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Friday. ‘There are any number of basic everyday skills brilliant scientists fail to accomplish.’

  ‘I can vouch for that,’ said Ms Dekker. ‘Last week I had to counsel a secretarial assistant for throwing a thirty-two pack of toilet paper at her boss. He didn’t know how to change the toilet roll himself. He could fire a hadron at five times the speed of light, but he could never get the toilet paper to drop down in the unit when the first one was used up. So he would get his secretarial assistant to do it. After five years of working with him, she had been worn down. She snapped. As a result, we’ve had to institute a rule that no-one is allowed to ask anyone else to handle toilet paper on their behalf.’

  ‘Yes, that is the type of thing my mother would do,’ said the Friday. ‘She has zero practical life skills. There is no way she could put something up for sale on the internet.’

  ‘So she had an accomplice,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘In a way, yes,’ agreed Friday.

  ‘Your father?’ asked the detective sergeant.

  ‘Hah!’ laughed Melanie.

  ‘Have you met him?’ asked Friday.

  ‘No,’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘Barely a functioning adult,’ said Ms Dekker.

  ‘Hey, Dad’s knowledge of string theory is world class,’ said Quantum.

  ‘String theory doesn’t even involve string,’ said Ms Dekker contemptuously. ‘It’s so far removed from actual everyday reality, it might as well be a fairy story.’

  ‘Then who is she working with?’ asked the detective sergeant. ‘A spy? A lover?’

  ‘Ew, gross,’ said Friday. ‘No, I’m guessing a waiter.’

  ‘What?’ said the detective sergeant.

  ‘Well, you asked what this is,’ said Friday.

  ‘Yes, and your brother said it’s an important breakthrough in physics,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘And I know enough to know that could mean all sorts of real-world and possibly military applications. E=mc2 led to the atom bomb, didn’t it? People like Marie Curie and Albert Einstein come up with their clever theories and then other people use them to make weapons.’