The world flickered. The hallway appeared to be, briefly, flooded up to her ribcage. She could see bright sunlight sparkling over the surface of a wave that was rushing towards her, just beginning to swell as it headed towards shore. She instinctively closed her eyes as the wave washed over her, and the sensation of being in the water vanished. When she opened her eyes again a moment later, the water was receding slightly towards another wave.

She glanced behind her. The wave was rolling towards the other students and Dr. Smith, but then the apparent ocean flickered and disappeared.

"Ah," She looked at Nikolai and said, as deadpan as she could manage, "I don't think that was entirely here."

The hallway was completely dry. Whatever hologram or trick or whatever had just happened, it had just been visual. Then it happened again, this time looking more solid, flickering more, fading more quickly. The breaker dissolved into nothing before it reached them at all. 

Mia froze, heart pounding. Whatever this was, it was not usual. Worse, it wasn't predicted. No simulation that they had run had predicted... well, whatever this was. 

The phantom ocean came back, this time with the visual receding away from her down the hallway in successive and accelerating waves. She shook her head as the vision flickered and then stopped again. She felt another odd pulse through her soles.

"What the actual hell?"

Alan's voice echoed shakily in the quiet hallway. No one seemed inclined to answer. Mia couldn't answer. She did not know, actually, what the hell was going on. So she glanced at Nikolai, squared her shoulders, and walked forward to the cyclotron chamber.

Nikolai went through the door first and walked out onto a small landing, Mia following. The two of the stood looking over the Cyclotron room, which was about the size of a high school gymnasium. The floor of The Pit, as it was commonly called, was about 10 feet lower than the floor of the hallway, and could be reached by either a wheelchair lift to their left or a flight of stairs to their right. As they entered, the flickering started again. 

A seafloor superimposed itself briefly above the floor of the laboratory. For the briefest instant, Mia saw a school of fish, which dispersed quickly as a shadow passed above them. She could now see that the ocean vision seemed to be rushing in towards on the shadow, which was moving rapidly towards the south wall. It was a bit like a radar blip in a movie, only in reverse, with a band of alternate reality growing steadily more solid as it rushed toward... not the shadow. Toward the thing casting the shadow. For just a moment, she saw what looked like an enormous bull shark, then it disappeared just before it would have hit the south wall.

Mia had grown up surfing in Nag's Head, North Carolina. She wasn't a terribly passionate surfer, and the cold Massachussets water hadn't been worth waking up for, but in her teens she had spent a lot of time out on the water. She had seen a few sharks, mostly black tips, but never one anywhere near the size of this one. It was at least 15 feet long, with the short snout and a gigantic rounded body typical of bulls. It was also flying, which was unusual. If she knew beaches, behind her was a long, sloping beach, in front of her was a wide, shallow channel. Past the east wall somewhere would be a sand bar or a reef, which would be a prime surfing zone. The shark was hunting in the channel.

Which she was standing in. She tried to come to grips with the situation, the reptilian parts of her brain were screaming at her reason that there was definitely a threat present, but she couldn't really process it. After all, the shark was not only gone, but it absolutely couldn't have ever been here.

"Maybe you should come down here," Nadim said calmly, from the base of the stairs. "It's under the sand. I think it might be safer."

Mia headed down the stairs with Nikolai. They stood next to Nadim, who was calmly recording the room.

"I'm not sure any of this is registering on the phone," he said. "It doesn't show on the screen. Still, you know, why not?"o I 

Alan, Nevin, and Dr. Smith all came down the stairs to join them. Dr. Smith looked annoyed, Nevin bemused, and Alan seemed to be on the edge of panic.

"Nadim," Dr. Smith began, "Would you kindly tell me what the... what is going on?"

"Yeah man," Alan chimed in, "Why did you stop answering the intercom?"

Nadim looked around the room, keeping his back pressed against the wall.

"Well, you know, I am not at all certain what has happened." He replied. "The experiment started, and then there was this... I'm not sure of the word... like a heartbeat, you know?"

"Yes," Nevin said, a touch of annoyance in his tone, "We felt that too. What happened down here?"

"Well of course I saw... it was like the ocean came out of the chamber. In a big... like a shell, you know? And I turned around to watch it go and saw the shark. So I came over here, because here is under the sand you know. It is a very large shark." 

"What do you mean, 'here is under the sand'," Nevin demanded. "Here is in the cyclotron chamber."

"Yes, but here is under the sand when the ocean comes. Although it has been getting smaller."

"The ocean has been getting smaller?"

"No, the amount of ocean that comes is getting smaller. It is centered on the shark now, not on the experiment."

"So you are seeing a shark now?"

Mia watched this exchange with increasing annoyance. Nevin wasn't a stupid man, not entirely. He was actually a brilliant man in a lot of ways. He was also almost preternaturally obtuse at times, especially when he was being told something he didn't want to here from someone he didn't want to hear it from. Lately she had been relying on Nikolai to tell him when he was wrong, which was frustrating as hell but what could she do? 

She shot Nikolai a look, Say Something.

But it was Dr. Smith who interupted.

"I believe I saw some fish in the hallway," He said, his voice tight and scared. "I don't know that a shark is any more unbelievable. Dr. Singh, what have you observed?"

"I saw a shark." Mia replied. "It looked a little like a bull shark, but bigger."

"Dr. Chernyshevsky?"

"Shark." Nikolai agreed. "Also fish. The fish were not so big."

Smith looked across the chamber. The beam run had powered down now, but there was a shut down sequence that had to be gone through. 

"Mr. Haddad, have we shut down the equipment?"

"Well, no. Not yet."

"Ah."

And for a long moment, that seemed to be basically it. Then there was another pulse, and again they could see, more briefly this time, light refracting through water. It was a big like watching a scan line on a photocopier, the alternate reality being revealed in a curved line about 6 feet thick, moving towards the north wall. Mia got the sense that something was focusing... this view of the ocean had been getting tighter, first in a spread that had slowly worked in from the hallway, now in this very tight band that was rushing towards... the shark.

The shark swam lazily through the air in the middle of the room, about 5 feet above the floor. They could see light on its back, the shadow play of underwater illumination. It cast no shadow, but a fine spray of water trailed it, leaving the floor wet. It was simply enormous, the length of an SUV and powerfully built. Outside, or in the water, it wouold have looked big. Inside a room, and particularly in the air, the sense of size and power was overwhelming. It swept towards them, turning a few feet away from where they stood against the wall, a little above and in front of them, turning to follow along the invisible ocean floor. A few seconds later and a few feet from the south wall, it disappeared.

"Bloody. Hell." Nevin breathed.

Alan spoke for the first time since arriving in the basement. "I think I'm going back upstairs now."

He was gone immediately, dashing up the staircase and through the door. They heard his feet pounding down the hall, fading as he went up the hallway stairs. 

Mia stood frozen. She had wanted to run too, but she couldn't. Fear and fascination were keeping her rooted. Also, she was safe in this spot. Hiding from the giant predator felt right. Getting its attention by moving felt wrong.

Nevin snorted. "Typical." He started up the stairs as well, walking calmly.

He stopped at the landing and looked back over the room. There was another pulse, another rush of water image, and the shark returned, heading south to north this time, closer to the east wall, fading out of site near the center of the chamber.

Nevilled snorted. "Someone's having one off on us, that's for sure."

The hit was shocking in it's speed and brutality. One instant there was a brief impression, as if Nevin were standing in water about up to his shoulders. In the next, his body sort of leapt outward into the air above them, blood spraying from his severed arm as it tumbled down the stairs, the sharks teeth clamped hard around his ribcage. Mia saw blood beginning to soak his shirt as he flew through the air above them. She had a moment of eye contact. He opened his mouth to scream and then he was gone. The shark was gone. Nevin's left lower arm was not gone. It was sitting on the third step, a few feet away, slowly leaking blood onto the stairs.

And that did it. In a moment, they were all running, pounding up the stairs, flinging open the door, stumbling over each other in absolute mindless panic, hurtling towards the second floor and safety.