CERN. In 2004, I think. Everything was beige in that world. Walls, ceilings, floors. The corridors. One door, however, opened onto a flight of stairs that led down to a disused underground tunnel.¹ The fluorescent lights there were faulty and flickering, the walls stained and damp to the touch, the ceiling lined with bunched and twisted cables.²

Stepping over black pools of standing water and past broken metal walkways, the chill in the air only added to the sensation of having crossed from one world into another.