Professor John Humphries was nearing the end of a long and distinguished career. After gaining a first class honours degree in Physics from Oxford University he’d gone on to complete a doctorate in Quantum Physics at Imperial College London. Lured by the financial rewards offered by the American Government, he then spent several years working at the Californian Institute of Technology, followed by a brief spell at NASA working on the Apollo Moon Project. Having earned enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life he returned to England to take a lectureship back at his old college in Oxford. There, in addition to his lectures, he specialised in the field of quantum mechanics which, he would happily describe to anyone who dared ask, was the study of the laws of physics that govern the realm of the small (atoms, molecules, electrons, protons), and underlie the realm of the large, but rarely show themselves there. Despite a CV that would make the most modest of men brim with pride, the true purpose for him becoming a physicist still eluded him. His most recent works were largely theoretical, and whilst the arrival of modern computing allowed incredibly accurate modelling, theoretical was how most of his theories remained. The mysteries surrounding the origins of the universe were being hypothesised using fantastic new ideas that were the stuff of science fiction but for the most part they were still just theories. For him that was about to change. He was on the brink of what was without a doubt the most important discovery of all time.

The professor unrolled a satellite image onto his desk using various desktop items to weigh down the corners and stop it rolling back in on itself. He scanned the image intensely using his finger to follow the lines representing weather fronts. His finger traced a nasty looking swirl of grey-white cloud that partially obscured the barely discernible landscape beneath. He homed in on a small, dark patch no bigger than a penny, pressing his finger into it so as not to lose his place while reaching over with his other hand to grab a red marker pen from a cup weighing down one of the corners. He removed the top from the pen using his teeth and drew a broad, red outline around the dark patch. He opened one of the desk drawers and removed a twelve-inch steel rule. Placing the rule vertically through the middle of the dark patch, he slid it upwards until it reached the top of the page. After jotting down some numbers, he flipped the rule horizontally through the dark patch and slid it all the way to the left edge of the page where he jotted down more numbers. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a phone and entered the numbers using the key pad. Within seconds the display flashed up a result. He smiled at what he saw: 51° 25′ 38.87″ N, 0° 5′ 41.29″ W, West Norwood, SE27.” He tapped more numbers into the phone, this time putting the handset to his ear to wait for the response. While he waited for an answer, he scanned the map again focusing on the area around the black spot. There seemed to be a faint shadow off to one side of it but when he looked closer he realised it was another spot overlapping the first. His colleague answered the call. “Jim, the initial occurrence was somewhere in the town of West Norwood but I think there may have been two separate occurrences very close to each other. Do a media trawl to see if there have been any strange events reported there, or within the vicinity over the past two weeks. Pay the local newspaper offices a visit and see what you can find out there.” Before putting the phone back into his pocket, the professor called the person who was the real motivation for his latest research. His wife.