"This wasn't a discussion at all! I didn't get to say a single word from start to finish!"
"This is outrageous!"
"Can't someone talk some sense into him?"
"It's no use. He won't listen. I've stressed this many times: CERN set up a project to study the 750 GeV resonance peak and spent an entire year on it... at least more than half a year! And what did we get out of it? God, now he actually wants to go down that road all over again!"
"At least CNN wasn't wrong. He's an obsessive lunatic when it comes to science..."
The meeting had clearly ended on bad terms.
A group of people emerged from the conference room, some expressionless, others visibly furious, talking as they walked without making any effort to lower their voices.
Noticing the indignation on Professor Whittle's face, Professor Frank Wilczek, who had been waiting beside the elevator, hurried over and stopped him. Whittle was the director of Brookhaven Science Associates and a permanent United States member of the IMCRC Council.
"What happened in there? Didn't the meeting only start an hour ago? Why did it end so quickly?"
"A meeting? Does he have even the slightest respect for this council? That didn't deserve to be called a meeting!"
Waving his fist and roaring, Professor Whittle said furiously, "I'm going back to New York. I'll make sure those people at Brookhaven Science Associates who still harbor illusions about the people of Hua Nation get a good look at how they flaunted that pathetic little scrap of authority they'd finally managed to acquire at this sacred physics conference!"
Frank Wilczek stood rooted to the spot, dumbfounded, as he watched Professor Whittle storm away.
His instincts told him that something extraordinary must have happened in the past hour. Otherwise,