Origin (14 page)

Near the guards, the only other person standing was museum director Ambra Vidal, who seemed to be shifting uncomfortably as she watched Kirsch’s presentation.

Contented with his position, Ávila closed the slit and refocused his attention on his crucifix. Like most crosses, it had two short arms that made up the transverse bar. On
this
cross, however, the arms were magnetically attached to the vertical stem and could be removed.

Ávila grabbed one of the cruciform’s arms and forcefully bent it. The piece came off in his hand, and a small object fell out. Ávila did the same on the other side, leaving the crucifix armless—now just a rectangle of metal on a heavy chain.

He slid the beaded chain back into his pocket for safekeeping.
I’ll need this shortly.
He now focused on the two small objects that had been hidden inside the arms of the cross.

Two short-range bullets.

Ávila reached behind him, fishing under his belt, pulling from the small of his back the object he had smuggled in beneath his suit jacket.

Several years had passed since an American kid named Cody Wilson had designed “The Liberator”—the first 3-D-printed polymer gun—and the technology had improved exponentially. The new ceramic and polymer firearms still did not have much power, but what they lacked in range, they more than made up for by being invisible to metal detectors.

All I need to do is get close.

If all went as planned, his current location would be perfect.

The Regent had somehow gained inside information about the precise layout and sequence of events this evening … and he had made it very clear how Ávila’s mission should be carried out. The results would be brutal, but having now witnessed Edmond Kirsch’s Godless preamble, Ávila felt confident that his sins here tonight would be forgiven.

Our enemies are waging war
, the Regent had told him.
We must either kill or be killed.

Standing against the far wall in the right front corner of the auditorium, Ambra Vidal hoped she did not look as uncomfortable as she felt.

Edmond told me this was a scientific program.

The American futurist had never been shy about his distaste for religion, but Ambra had never imagined tonight’s presentation would display such hostility.

Edmond refused to let me preview it.

There would certainly be fallout with the museum board members, but Ambra’s concerns right now were far more personal.

A couple of weeks ago, Ambra had confided in a very influential man about her involvement in tonight’s event. The man had strongly urged her
not
to participate. He had warned of the dangers of blindly hosting a presentation without any knowledge of its content—especially when it was produced by the well-known iconoclast Edmond Kirsch.

He practically ordered me to cancel
, she remembered.
But his self-righteous tone made me too incensed to listen.

Now, as Ambra stood alone beneath the star-filled sky, she wondered
if that man was sitting somewhere watching this live stream, his head in his hands.

Of course he is watching
, she thought.
The real question is: Will he lash out?

Inside Almudena Cathedral, Bishop Valdespino was sitting rigidly at his desk, eyes glued to his laptop. He had no doubt that everyone in the nearby Royal Palace was also watching this program, especially Prince Julián—the next in line for the throne of Spain.

The prince must be ready to explode.

Tonight, one of Spain’s most respected museums was collaborating with a prominent American atheist to broadcast what religious pundits were already calling a “blasphemous, anti-Christian publicity stunt.” Further fanning the flames of controversy, the museum director hosting tonight’s event was one of Spain’s newest and most visible celebrities—the spectacularly beautiful Ambra Vidal—a woman who for the past two months had dominated Spanish headlines and enjoyed the overnight adoration of an entire country. Incredibly, Ms. Vidal had chosen to put everything at risk by hosting tonight’s full-scale attack on God.

Prince Julián will have no choice but to comment.

His impending role as Spain’s sovereign Catholic figurehead would be only a small part of the challenge he would face in dealing with tonight’s event. Of substantially greater concern was that just last month, Prince Julián had made a joyous declaration that launched Ambra Vidal into the national spotlight.

He had announced their engagement to be married.

ROBERT LANGDON WAS
feeling uneasy about the direction of this evening’s event.

Edmond’s presentation was skating dangerously close to becoming a public denunciation of faith in general. Langdon wondered if Edmond had somehow forgotten that he was speaking not only to the group of agnostic scientists in this room, but also to the millions of people around the globe who were watching online.

Clearly, his presentation was devised to ignite controversy.

Langdon was troubled by his own appearance in the program, and although Edmond certainly meant the video as a tribute, Langdon had been an involuntary flash point for religious controversy in the past … and he preferred not to repeat the experience.

Kirsch, however, had mounted a premeditated audiovisual assault on religion, and Langdon was now starting to rethink his nonchalant dismissal of the voice mail Edmond had received from Bishop Valdespino.

Edmond’s voice again filled the room, the visuals dissolving overhead into a collage of religious symbols from around the world. “I must admit,” Edmond’s voice declared, “I have had reservations about tonight’s announcement, and particularly about how it might affect people of faith.” He paused. “And so, three days ago, I did something a bit out of character for me. In an effort to show respect to religious viewpoints, and to gauge how my discovery might be received by people of various faiths, I quietly consulted with three prominent religious leaders—scholars of Islam, Christanity, and Judaism—and I shared with them my discovery.”

Hushed murmurs echoed throughout the room.

“As I expected, all three men reacted with profound surprise, concern, and, yes, even anger, at what I revealed to them. And while their reactions were negative, I want to thank them for graciously meeting with me. I will do them the courtesy of not revealing their names, but I do want to address them directly tonight and thank them for not attempting to interfere with this presentation.”

He paused. “God knows, they
could
have.”

Langdon listened, amazed at how deftly Edmond was walking a thin line and covering his bases. Edmond’s decision to meet with religious leaders suggested an open-mindedness, trust, and impartiality for which the futurist was not generally known. The meeting at Montserrat, Langdon now suspected, had been part research mission and part public relations maneuver.

A clever get-out-of-jail-free card
, he thought.

“Historically,” Edmond continued, “religious fervor has always suppressed scientific progress, and so tonight I implore religious leaders around the world to react with restraint and understanding to what I am about to say. Please, let us
not
repeat the bloody violence of history. Let us
not
make the mistakes of our past.”

The images on the ceiling dissolved into a drawing of an ancient walled city—a perfectly circular metropolis located on the banks of a river that flowed through a desert.

Langdon recognized it at once as ancient Baghdad, its unusual circular construction fortified by three concentric walls topped by merlons and embrasures.

“In the eighth century,” Edmond said, “the city of Baghdad rose to prominence as the greatest center of learning on earth, welcoming all religions, philosophies, and sciences to its universities and libraries. For five hundred years, the outpouring of scientific innovation that flowed from the city was like nothing the world had ever seen, and its influence is still felt today in modern culture.”

Overhead, the sky of stars reappeared, this time many of the stars bearing names beside them:
Vega
,
Betelgeuse
,
Rigel
,
Algebar
,
Deneb
,
Acrab
,
Kitalpha
.

“Their names are all derived from Arabic,” Edmond said. “To this day, more than two-thirds of the stars in the sky have names from that language because they were discovered by astronomers in the Arab world.”

The sky rapidly filled with so many stars with Arabic names that the heavens were nearly blotted out. The names dissolved again, leaving only the expanse of the heavens.

“And, of course, if we want to
count
the stars …”

Roman numerals began appearing one by one beside the brightest stars.

I
,
II
,
III
,
IV
,
V
…

The numbers stopped abruptly and disappeared.

“We don’t use Roman numerals,” Edmond said. “We use
Arabic
numerals.”

The numbering now began again using the Arabic numbering system.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …

“You may also recognize
these
Islamic inventions,” Edmond said. “And we all still use their Arabic names.”

The word
ALGEBRA
floated across the sky, surrounded by a series of multivariable equations. Next came the word
ALGORITHM
with a diverse array of formulas. Then
AZIMUTH
with a diagram depicting angles on the earth’s horizon. The flow accelerated …
NADIR, ZENITH, ALCHEMY, CHEMISTRY, CIPHER, ELIXIR, ALCOHOL, ALKALINE, ZERO
…

As the familiar Arabic words streamed by, Langdon thought how tragic it was that so many Americans pictured Baghdad simply as one of those many dusty, war-torn Middle Eastern cities in the news, never knowing it was once the very heart of human scientific progress.

“By the end of the eleventh century,” Edmond said, “the greatest intellectual exploration and discovery on earth was taking place in and around Baghdad. Then, almost overnight, that changed. A brilliant scholar named Hamid al-Ghazali—now considered one of the most influential Muslims in history—wrote a series of persuasive texts questioning the logic of Plato and Aristotle and declaring mathematics to be ‘the philosophy of the devil.’ This began a confluence of events that undermined scientific thinking. The study of theology was made compulsory, and eventually the entire Islamic scientific movement collapsed.”

The scientific words overhead evaporated, and were replaced by images of Islamic religious texts.

“Revelation replaced investigation. And to this day, the Islamic scientific world is still trying to recover.” Edmond paused. “Of course, the Christian scientific world did not fare any better.”

Paintings of the astronomers Copernicus, Galileo, and Bruno appeared on the ceiling.

“The Church’s systematic murder, imprisonment, and denunciation of some of history’s most brilliant scientific minds delayed human progress by at least a century. Fortunately, today, with our better understanding of the benefits of science, the Church has tempered its attacks …” Edmond sighed. “Or has it?”

A globe logo with a crucifix and serpent appeared with the text:

“Right
here in Spain, the World Federation of the Catholic Medical Associations recently declared war on genetic engineering, proclaiming that ‘science lacks soul’ and therefore should be restrained by the Church.”

The globe logo now transformed into a different circle—a schematic blueprint for a massive particle accelerator.

“And this was Texas’s Superconducting Super Collider—slated to be the largest particle collider in the world—with the potential for exploring the very moment of Creation. This machine was, ironically, positioned in the heart of America’s Bible Belt.”

The image dissolved into a massive ring-shaped cement structure stretching out across the Texas desert. The facility was only half built, covered with dust and dirt, apparently abandoned midway through its construction.

“America’s super collider could have enormously advanced humankind’s understanding of the universe, but the project was canceled due to cost overruns and political pressure from some startling sources.”

A news clip showed a young televangelist waving the bestselling book
The God Particle
and angrily shouting, “We should be looking for God inside our hearts! Not inside of atoms! Spending billions on this absurd experiment is an embarrassment to the state of Texas and an affront to God!”

Edmond’s voice returned. “These conflicts I’ve described—those in which religious superstition has trumped reason—are merely skirmishes in an ongoing war.”

The ceiling blazed suddenly with a collage of violent images from modern society—picket lines outside genetic research labs, a priest setting himself on fire outside a Transhumanism conference, evangelicals shaking their fists and holding up the book of Genesis, a Jesus fish eating a Darwin fish, angry religious billboards condemning stem-cell research, gay rights, and abortion, along with equally angry billboards in response.

As Langdon lay in the darkness, he could feel his heart pounding. For a moment, he thought the grass beneath him was trembling, as if a subway were approaching. Then, as the vibrations grew stronger, he realized the earth was
indeed
shaking. Deep, rolling vibrations shuddered up through the grass beneath his back, and the entire dome trembled with a roar.

The roar, Langdon now recognized, was the sound of thundering river rapids, being broadcast through subwoofers beneath the turf. He felt a
cold, damp mist swirling across his face and body, as if he were lying in the middle of a raging river.

“Do you hear that sound?” Edmond called over the booming rapids. “That is the inexorable swelling of the River of Scientific Knowledge!”