This is the first work of a series of novelettes / novellas. It can be read as a stand-alone story.

The story alternates between two parallel universes. One in which the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) particle accelerator was canceled before being completed (as in our universe) and one in which the SSC was completed and is in its first year of operation. The problem is that the working SSC isn't providing any data to justify the expensive project - and therefore may be discontinued. The reason the SSC isn't getting useful results is that the high energies are somehow causing brief connections between the two universes - so the anti-particle beams aren't colliding in the universe with the working SSC. Meanwhile, the anti-particle beams that are jumping to the universe with the canceled SSC are causing some issues there.

Oddly enough, the anti-particle beams that appear in the canceled SSC provide an opportunity to get some of the scientific results that the SSC was intended to look for. Plus, anti-particle beams from a parallel universe provide other scientific opportunities not originally scheduled for the SSC.

It's a nice story, but not great. It's mostly a scientific "what if" scenario. In addition to the scientific investigations, it does present us with the scientists' dealings with government funding, and other complications that can interfere with scientific work.