The Soul of the Matter (40 page)

Chapter 79

D
AYS
L
ATER,
M
ID-AFTERNOON

G
roggy from a lack of sleep and too many hours spent at the computer screen, Dan poured himself another cup of strong coffee.

He walked from the kitchen to his bedroom window to stretch his legs. A brisk wind whipped the trees and water. Long, thin, white clouds raced across the mostly blue sky.

None of it registered.

He was completely fixated on Stephen's files.

Except for a brief visit with Nancy, he'd spent all of his waking time since his meeting with Evans trying to understand Stephen's work.

What he had been able to figure out from Stephen's notes was mind-boggling.

DNA was indeed coded multiple ways. A section read one way, or through one translation mechanism, directed one outcome. Read another way, or interpreted with a different translator, it led to a different outcome, for a different purpose.

Cell processing was based on something that could be considered analogous to a computer operating system utilizing hierarchical storage systems, only it was for biological processes.

How all of this could have come about was inconceivable.

How it led to one species becoming another, through a myriad of small steps, was also challenging to understand, as redundant regulatory mechanisms operated to prevent, not enable, changes in the genetic code.

And what a code it was.

Algorithmic gene processing used input parameters, from a source yet to be determined, to drive physical development and body plans.

The odds of developing a single, simple protein, as astronomical as they were, were nothing in comparison to the specificity of neural arrangements in the brain. No learning could have taken place in utero that would allow a pony to be able to stand, see, and walk so soon after birth. That knowledge had to be either included in the genetic code or supplied by something else. As with the body plan, there simply wasn't enough DNA to specify all those neural connections without algorithmic processing. There was no conceivable path, without guidance provided at the time of its origin, to produce what DNA did.

Sitting back down at his computer, using instructions Stephen left in one file, Dan began to operate a program that apparently used information from DNA to illustrate the full cycle of human development
and
decline. If this was right, aging was programmed in, though to what end, Dan didn't know. Perhaps it was intended to keep the generations apart. Society wouldn't do too well if the older people, in the same physical condition as the younger, competed with them for companions and other resources. There wouldn't be much of a family structure, and things like love would be hard to develop and sustain. Biology reeked of purpose.

A variation of the human development programs also appeared to show humans' relationship to, and evolution from, their physical ancestors. A sequence of key parameters drove the representation of each species. The next in the series was blank. With the right input parameters, would they show what humanity was to become next?

All of what Dan had been viewing was driven by Stephen's converted data. He still hadn't been able to use symbolic code created from DNA to generate Stephen's data. That appeared to require passcodes that Dan did not possess and could not find. Perhaps it didn't exist and everything he was looking at was just a simulation Stephen had created. It was possible it wasn't really from DNA.

Yet everything in Stephen's files indicated that
he thought
it was real.

The physical sciences portion of Stephen's files, while smaller, was equally astounding, pointing to a physics more radical than previously imagined, though it meant nothing to Dan. Maybe the symbol that Stephen had drawn was a clue to something Dan was still missing. Probably Stephen hadn't had time to complete it, and maybe that was the way things were meant to be.

Everything screamed design, yet direct proof remained elusive. There was no signature with a name. It still came down to a degree of faith.

Whether there was a third set of data, he might never know. He had been unable to find the files and programs needed to re-create the processing environment that would generate it, if it existed. Perhaps that, too, was best.

What he already had, as far as he understood it, could be devastating in the wrong hands. That was responsibility enough for him.

And then there were the rest of Viktor's files. Although Dan didn't have the knowledge to comprehend most of what was in them, he found more copies of nuclear images. If Viktor did develop the technology to produce them, it was way too dangerous to be entrusted to any one nation, even the US. Just trying to find out if the technology was real could trigger terrible outcomes.

He had a decision to make. As long as organizations like The Commission existed, as long as human nature remained unchanged, could he seek out others to work with him on Stephen's files, or should he destroy them? It might only be putting off the inevitable, until someone else discovered, or was led, to what Stephen had, but that might be enough time to ensure the world's future.

His finger hovered over the delete command, rising and lowering in unison with his thoughts.

Instead, he displayed the symbolic code Stephen had created from DNA. Something about it drew him in, tugged at his mind, as if he had seen portions of it before.

Father Michael's words came back to him. Somehow, if what he was looking at was more than random in origin, he was its caretaker. That was not a responsibility to be tossed aside.

Since he could not re-create all of Stephen's work, he had not
found the near-absolute, scientific proof of God that he sought. But he could not deny what science and reason were showing him. There was more to life, and human origin, than randomness. If he didn't keep searching, it would be because he didn't want to know. And he might not get a free pass, from whatever existed, for that.

Chapter 80

I
t was odd to be in Stephen's HBC office later that afternoon, and sitting at his desk. He felt like he was intruding on the space of the spirit of his friend.

Dan had finally accepted Octavio Romanoff's request, and was conducting a thorough review of HBC's computer and network security. Also at Octavio's request, and for his own interest as well, he was searching the network for any remnants of Stephen's work files that had been missed. So far, he had found none.

He looked up as he saw Octavio passing by the open door. Octavio caught his eyes, pivoted back, entered, and sat down.

“Thank you for agreeing to do this. How is it going?” Octavio said in a cultivated voice full of quiet authority.

“I'm only partway through. Except for the usual smattering of minor vulnerabilities, I haven't found serious issues or evidence of any successful intrusions. HBC has done a good job mitigating its vulnerabilities.”

“Excellent! Were you able to find out anything about the attempted intrusions? They were disturbing, especially in today's world of aggressive theft of corporate secrets.”

“Not yet,” Dan said, omitting what he experienced before Stephen's death.

Octavio's eyebrows arched slightly before he said, “Do you think it was related to what the government investigators have described as Stephen's participation in espionage?”

A pained look crossed Dan's face. After an extended pause, he said, “I don't know.”

“You don't think he was involved in anything like that, either, do you?”

“No, I don't.”

“The investigators claimed that he was trying to trade government secrets for foreign, experimental medicine to treat his daughter's cancer. You were his close friend and went looking for that medicine. What do you think he was up to?” Octavio said, eyes focused like lasers on Dan.

“I believe that Stephen sincerely believed that DNA used advanced algorithms, and a code within a code, to generate the large amount of information needed to direct human development. He once showed me a program—he said it was based on actual DNA—to generate images of the human body.” Dan wanted to see Octavio's reaction, and what he was telling him was too general to be of use to anyone anyway.

“What do you mean, a code within a code?” Octavio asked, leaning forward.

“That beyond the basic role of genome encoding for proteins and other known purposes, the same DNA base pairs can be translated into what appears to be another code, for other purposes, using what appears to be sophisticated encryption-like translation to do it.”

Even though Dan had heard and thought about this before, hearing himself say it aloud sucked the air out of room, much as it had when Stephen first said it to him.

It was also clear that Octavio was genuinely stunned, his mouth agape.

“How could something like that come to be by chance, from the beginning of life?” Octavio said in a near stammer.

“I don't see how it could. It suggests that God exists and created it that way. Or some ancient aliens designed it and started life going on earth—and then made no future contact.”

“Which do you think it is?”

“I don't know. I'm predisposed to think of God as the creator, but that raises a lot of troubling questions for the way things are. If we're alien in origin, it would have helped having an owner's manual or something else like that.” Dan remembered the third set of informa
tion, the one that Stephen never completed translating—if in fact there was a third set and something to translate.

“We have to find all of Stephen's work!” Octavio exclaimed.

“Perhaps we have. We've both been looking for more. If it existed, we'd probably have found it.”

“Yet you believe that Stephen found something. Therefore, more has to exist.”

“Maybe it once did. It might have been lost in the MIT explosion. It could have died with a collaborator of his, Sam Abrams, in Seattle. Or it may still be here. Or perhaps someone has to find a way to re-create it. I don't know. I'm not a biologist and Stephen and I were estranged for years. Most of what I learned was after he died.”

Dan shared details he didn't have to, mixing in some misdirection, in an effort to gauge Octavio's reaction and see if there was something worth pursuing further with him.

“Who else knows this?”

“I'm not sure. A few. Not many. Certainly the organization Agent Evans called The Commission thought Stephen had found things worth obtaining. I bet the government investigators have that idea, too.”

“That explains the problems you've faced. You were fortunate to come out unharmed.”

“If you consider losing a close friend and having every aspect of your life exposed, unharmed, then yes.”

“Are you safe now?”

“Since everyone who was after Stephen's work knows I don't have it, I ought to be.”

“I've heard rumors about The Commission for years, though I didn't realize they'd go to such extremes. I thought they were nonviolent, a think tank. Supposedly, their main interest is transhumanism.”

“If that's all they're about, they're in for a big surprise,” Dan said.

“Why's that?” Octavio said blandly.

“Transhumanism is the merging of humans and machines. It treats the human mind as a supercomputer whose contents can be transferred from a biological existence to another, stronger, faster repository. Stephen claimed he found evidence that the brain wasn't
enough to produce consciousness—that we have immaterial minds, or souls. If he was right, unless people find the soul, and find a way to confer it on to other things, true artificial intelligence and transhumanism can never come about. We poor humans will remain imperfect mortals.”

“Dan, it's too much to believe that Stephen, mostly by himself, discovered this.”

“And yet we do exist, and something has to explain that, whether Stephen discovered any of the answers or not.”

“I think copies of Stephen's work must be somewhere.”

“I'd like to think so, but if you haven't found it here, where could it be?” Dan said.

“It's too important to the world to be lost. Imagine if there is more to it. That inside of us is the way to find our true origin and whatever that means about our purpose,” Octavio said.

“Yes, I want to know that, too. Forgive me for saying so, but your secular views are well known. Does that mean you believe that we're alien in origin?”

“I have no idea. Yet the universe is enormous. Life has to be throughout all of it. Some of it could be very advanced. I'd like to find out.”

“Right now, I'd settle for medicine that Ava might need someday.”

“Then let us both keep looking and see what we can find.”

“Agreed,” Dan said, extending his hand and shaking Octavio's.

Chapter 81

T
he mid-June sun hung over the horizon, just barely over the tree tops, casting its last rays into the western windows of Stephen's study.

Nancy sat on the window seat while Dan poked along the bookshelves, looking for clues—anything Stephen might have hidden.

“You're not going to give up?” Nancy asked.

“Not anymore,” Dan answered. He knew she meant both his outlook on the future and finding out the full truth about Stephen. She apparently had no idea of the extent of Stephen's work—what Dan already knew, and what might remain to be discovered—but it was better that way. Of that, Dan was confident. She already had enough to deal with.

“I knew that without asking,” Nancy said, smiling. “I have faith in you.”

“What did Trish say about Ava?” Dan said.

Both gazed toward the backyard, admiring the day's waning light as it slowly retreated from the sky. In the time she'd been back, Trish had stopped by the hospital several times, talked with all of Ava's doctors, reviewed medical reports, and visited her many other patients. Remarkably, and wonderfully, a treatment for which they initially had low expectations was proving highly effective for Ava.

“She's doing very well. While it's too early to know for certain, Trish is optimistic.”

“That's really great,” Dan said. Whatever treatment Stephen had once sought, it wasn't needed now and hopefully never would be, at
least for Ava, though he'd keep looking in case it was ever needed, for her or for others. “And her energy's coming back?”

Ava walked into the study and sat down at the piano. “See for yourself,” Nancy said. Trish followed and sat next to Nancy after a brief glance at Dan.

Ava began playing an instrumental version of “Thunder Road” with vigor, filling it with passion and life. Dan hummed softly to himself as she played, thinking of Stephen.

After she finished, Dan said, “That was beautiful, and so are you.”

Beaming, Ava came over and gave him a hug. “I know that you and Daddy liked that song.”

Dan picked her up, hugged her back, then lowered her slowly.

“Is it okay if I go downstairs?” Dan asked Nancy.

“Of course,” Nancy answered.

“I'll come along,” Trish said.

Together, Dan and Trish walked in silence down the stairs and into the theater room.

As Dan began to reassemble the wires and components of the theater system the investigators had taken apart, Trish said, “You were tremendous. It was amazing what you did in Italy.”

“You give me too much credit.”

“I don't think so,” Trish replied matter-of-factly. “What are you going to do with Stephen's work?”

Dan shrugged and replied simply, “Try to understand it.”

“What we've been through taught me a lot. Thank you.”

Their conversation's formal tone, and the lack of that full immediacy of her presence that he had felt during their travels, caused a sinking feeling in Dan that he fought to suppress.

“I can't imagine what you could have learned from me,” Dan said, trying to keep a light tone.

“What'd I learn? As someone who never really questioned myself, who felt secure in my views, it was an education to see and experience you and your incredible courage as you struggled with your place in the world. You were looking for honest answers and, without
flinching, you followed where you thought they led. It got me thinking as well.”

“It wasn't courage. It was the fear of what would happen to me if I didn't do it. And I did flinch. You just weren't looking when I did.”

“Lots of people get paralyzed by fear and lack the courage to try to become what they need to be. You didn't. Keep it up,” Trish said with words that clearly intended that he still, as he knew, had a ways to go.

She continued, “I'm sorry I can't spend more time with you now. There are things I need to get back to, things I've neglected. And I have to focus on Ava's treatment. But we should keep in touch. Ava will need us both. And you need space to continue your journey.”

Dan understood the full meaning of her words. Though they didn't surprise him, hearing them was like feeling a void in himself once more, though it passed quickly. They also reminded him that he still had to figure out who he needed to become, who he wanted to become, before he could truly be one with another, especially her.

Smiling, Trish put her arms around him, kissed him warmly on the check, and left.