Codex

by Adrian Dawson

  It would probably take a Quotient a matter of days.

  zebulun shall dwell at

  the haven of the sea

  Genesis 49:13

  MaryBeth took a little longer to answer the phone than Jack had hoped. Perhaps she had been asleep, or perhaps he was just feeling an impatience derived from his new-found excitement. All he did know was that he wanted her to come over as soon as possible and see what he had uncovered. Better still, what he might yet uncover. He tapped his finger impatiently as the number of unanswered rings crept steadily toward double figures. Behind him, a sliding drive emerged with monotonous regularity, a rubber-ended robotic arm carefully turning the page before it disappeared inside again. Following each pass the screen immediately displayed the hundreds of symbols that had been scanned and then overlaid recognition blocks as it translated them into a language the Quotient System could understand.

  “MaryBeth, it’s Jack.”

  “Where the hell are you?” MaryBeth asked, concern straining her voice. “And how the hell are you? How’s Daniel?”

  Jack had spoken to MaryBeth whilst he was still in Nicosia waiting for the F.B.I. jet to be re-fuelled for take-off. She had been as overjoyed as he that the child had been found safe and well and that the raid on the cult had been successful. She had also agreed that the marine’s suggestion of ‘Daniel’ as a name was little short of genius.

  “He’s fine,” Jack said. “He’s back at the ranch. I’ve left him with Nina for a while. I’m down in R&D with Agent Warner.”

  MaryBeth sounded surprised. “Shit, Jack, you’re not going to make a very good grandfather if you’re already back in R&D. What the hell are you doing there?”

  “Optical Character Recognition,” he offered bluntly.

  There was a pregnant pause. A lack of understanding. “O.C.R.? Why the hell are you doing O.C.R.?”

  “It’s a long story,” Jack said. “How quickly can you make it down here?”

  MaryBeth thought for a moment. Her response was pensive. “It’ll be an hour or two.”

  “I’ll still be here.” He closed the connection.

  Having landed at LAX, Jack and Warner had driven the still-sleeping child directly to the ranch and left him in the capable hands of his housekeeper. She was experienced enough, having had three children of her own, all of whom now had children of their own.

  By the time they were heading back to the campus it had been nearly two in the morning. Warner had nowhere to be, he said; it had long-since passed the threshold wereby Ellie would be expecting him home before morning. Besides which, he had been able to catch some more sleep on the plane whilst Jack had scoured the book for more hidden texts. As he would have to be up by five-thirty anyway, he figured it would be better if he did not bother going home to bed at all. If he did he would only risk waking Ellie unnecessarily, so he sent a text message to her cellphone instead. Just so that she would know where he was and that he was safe if she woke. It allowed him to follow along with Jack and find out if his computer system really was as good as he claimed; to see if it really could find this ‘primer’. If it could, then he really would have something to tell his wife come the morning.

  Jack had decided to utilise the spare Quotient system in D-11. Like everything else the company manufactured, the casing of the huge mainframe was moulded in IntelliSoft’s gently transparent corporate yellow. It stood like a towering monolith in the corner of a room littered floor to ceiling with similarly coloured screens, drives, scanners and wires. The humming of the machines seemed to make the walls resonate; interspersed only by the intermittent schwip-schwip of the PageScan system as it spoon-fed more information into its parent system and the gentle breaths of the two expectant spectators.

  The Quotient O.C.R. system was the same as those used in many offices for scanning typed copy, but possessed a more complex 96x96 pixel-per-character scanning matrix which could recognise fifty-eight languages from Hieroglyphics to Esperanto. Jack had set the software to scan the shapes as ‘HEBREW-ANCT’ and match them against known parameters which would then recognise an ‘a’ as an ‘a’ or, in this case, an ‘Aleph as an ‘Aleph.

  Once the scanning was complete, Jack could then launch a codebreaker program and ask it to search for known words in the resulting text string by looking for Equidistant Letter Sequences which might form the primer.

  After almost an hour the drive slid open for a final time and did not return. The final page had been input and the room fell into an eerie silence. After four further seconds of on-screen recognition, the immense text string was automatically saved to a ‘.TXT’ data file.

  “I still don’t understand why you would want to do this,” Warner offered with concern.

  Jack moved the cursor to another screen and double-clicked a folder labelled ‘APPS’ with the ergonomic yellow mouse. It still annoyed him that his computers were running MicroSoft’s Windows Xtreme system software. One day, if everything worked out, he promised himself that he would get his own Systems Division to write something even better and see if he could break Windows and OSX forever.

  “Unlock the code, you mean?”

  “Yeah, I mean... why the hell would you want to do that?”

  Inside ‘APPS’, Jack double-clicked on a file called ‘CDE/X.ELS.EXE’. The software fired up and presented him with a list of options. Jack checked the list and then moved the cursor to a menu labelled ‘LANG’, again selected ‘HEBREW-ANCT’ and imported the .TXT file that the O.C.R. software had compiled. When the string of symbols filled the screen, he pressed ‘EXECUTE’.

  “I don’t really want to unlock the code,” Jack explained, his mind still firmly focused on the system and his words hollowed by concentration. “I just want to know why Simon does. He’s played a game with me and now I think he wants to play it to a larger audience. As a chess player I need to pre-empt that; to try to understand his strategy.”

  In an instant a series of tiny red blocks appeared at set intervals across the letters; two apart, then three, then four, the system looking to compile acceptable words from letters that were consistently the same distance apart. It would not stop until it had checked right up to three thousand, its maximum scanning capability.

  “Why?” Warner asked. “You’ve got Daniel. It’s all over.”

  “Is it?” Jack asked rhetorically as he leaned back in his chair. His eyes were still firmly fixed on the recognition blocks as they moved like agitated cells through the body of the scanned text. “You never met the guy. I for one don’t trust him.”

  “So don’t give him the book.” In Warner’s tired eyes, it really was that easy.

  “I made a deal,” Jack offered, because Jack was a man of his word. But now, having made the deal blind, he had no option but to find out exactly how much it was going to cost him. All he could do now was wait. He had no idea how long the system might take to complete but he was not leaving R&D until it had. Until he held Simon’s primer in his hand.

  He turned to Warner, who was still looking nothing less than reluctant. “It might take a while,” he offered apologetically.

  Warner shrugged his shoulders and dipped his eyes. “I’ve got all night.”

  Suddenly Jack’s eyes came alive. He had an idea. “Fancy a game of chess?” he asked.

  “Can’t play,” Warner said with a smile. Because he knew that, given his line of business and his ability to skilfully surround an adversary, he really ought to have been a grandmaster.

  “Then why don’t you come and watch me play,” Jack smiled, his eyes wide and boastful. “I think you might just be interested in meeting my opponent.” He checked the screen again, saw that it was continuing with its long task, then extricated himself from his chair and walked toward the door.

  Whilst he had no idea where they might be headed at this time of night, Warner followed, his features still curled firmly in the direction of pensive apprehension.

  * * * * *

  MaryBeth was still at home, despera
tely needing to change before she could even contemplate a drive to the campus. The light from her first floor window fell across the soft sand of the beach below and twinkled like stars across the dying waves. The gentle lap-lap of the water was the only sound carried on the half-hearted breeze as it cut low over the ocean and caused the wiry grasses to dance erratically at the base of her white picket stairway.

  In the centre of that same light, his shadow running right to the water’s edge, stood a solitary figure. He had watched and he had waited until the time was right.

  And the time was now.

  Yet Zebulun felt a shame like none he had felt before. He could not believe what he had just done. In all his years of service he had never once felt the need and, even if he had, he would never have dared. Now, when his instructions were the most important that he would ever be called on to perform, he had done the unthinkable:

  He had questioned The Abraham.

  The great man had taken Zebulun’s indecision well, but that did not make him feel any better. When he had realised that his trusted servant was having a crisis of conscience regarding his instruction he had not told him to go ahead with the task, but nor had he told him to abandon it. He had simply quoted the scriptures; 1st Epistle of Peter 2:15 ‘For so is the will of God, that by well doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.’

  And in that one line Zebulun had found his answer.

  In the instant that The Abraham had closed the connection, Zebulun had felt the weight of God’s dismay resting on his shoulders. He was a doubter, a Thomas. He had chosen to question the Word of God. Somewhere inside he knew that as long as he lived he would never question it again.

  Silently, he walked across the dry sand and followed the gentle incline toward the house, his footprints collapsing behind him, then climbed the steps to the porch. The flyscreen was open but the door was locked. Zebulun removed the key that had been included in his sixth red envelope and silently stepped inside.

  Each of the downstairs rooms was in darkness, but his eyes were trained and he had no need for a torch. Such a crude device would only serve to announce his arrival. Dextrously he avoided the furniture and began to ascend the stairs toward the only light in the house; the light of an upstairs bedroom. MaryBeth’s spare room.

  The weapon he would need was, as ever, precisely where The Abraham had decreed that it would be. Hanging on gold hooks at the top of the stairs was an ornate Turkish Yataghan, a nineteenth century sabre. The handle was wrapped in the finest leather and the gold pommel encrusted with a band of precious jewels. He respectfully removed it from its sheath and slowly ran his finger the full length of the blade. First it was the metal which glistened in the moonlight that descended through the skylight, and then it was the deep red of his blood.

  It was perfect.

  Pausing outside the door to MaryBeth’s room reminded him once again of the day that he had slaughtered Seamus O’Brien aboard the Eternité. The first step of his journey into God’s new history. Like that day, he knew that once again he must strike hard and fast. There could be no warnings, no time allowed for reaction.

  The door was not closed fully but there was still no clear gap through which to check the whereabouts of his prey. He would be working blind and he took a deep breath in preparation. This was to be no ordinary task, this was to be the ultimate test of Zebulun’s loyalty. He clenched his fingers several times across the grip and raised his left hand to the door. He must not fail. Suddenly he pushed hard and before the door had fully slammed back against the wall he was inside, the sword held firm in front of his chest...

  The room was empty.

  His head darted left to right with the lightning fast movements of a startled animal. He did not realise immediately that his analogy would prove to be so correct; he was looking around as though it was he that had become the prey.

  “Zebulun!”

  He span around to see MaryBeth looking deep into his eyes. As he had expected, this was not the MaryBeth of IntelliSoft Public Relations. Dressed in an ankle-length black dress, her eyes were surrounded by dark red and black make-up and her hair fell in untied ribbons. It ran in strips down the sides of her face and then trickled over her shoulders like water running over black rocks. Her expression was a combination of pleasure, puzzlement and hatred, and the barrel of a .357 revolver was trained directly at Zebulun’s face. In stark contrast, his own expression was now one of shock. He could not believe that he had made exactly the same error that he had made on the Eternité. The same lack of control that had changed his life so many years ago was going to end it now. This time he had truly failed.

  MaryBeth did not allow Zebulun time to react. Before he could even begin to make a desperate lunge she pulled the trigger and hit him directly above the eyes. His forehead shattered and he fell backward, dead before he hit the ground. His blood splattered hard against the walls, then began to run slowly down the same red wallpaper and the same reproduction of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Adoration of the Magi that Jack had seen behind Lara’s head on the first digital transmission he had studied. MaryBeth knew that even now Jack was blindly unaware that his daughter had made that first call from MaryBeth’s spare room. The place she had stayed before she had been summoned by MaryBeth’s people to Kozlar.

  Just as The Abraham had instructed.

  She placed the gun in her left hand and crouched down to Zebulun’s lifeless body. Reaching into his inside breast pocket, her features contorting with anger. She felt for - and retrieved - a clear plastic bag. Inside was a solid gold plaque bearing the very inscription that she had already known it would:

  ~ KNIGHT TAKES QUEEN ~

  She started to sob. It was gentle at first - unsure - but it built steadily.

  Eventually, in a desperate fit of rage, she turned and hurled the plaque toward the window. The glass shattered and the metal square disappeared out into the night, eventually landing on the sand below with a gentle thump. Blinded by the light of realisation, MaryBeth screamed obscenities and span around the room ripping the ornaments from her shelves and smashing everything she could lay her hands on. She tore the paintings from the walls and threw a chair. It crashed through the already broken glass and landed on the beach a few feet from the plaque.

  Then, repeatedly and with as much force as she could muster, she kicked Zebulun’s dead body.

  “You bastard,” she screamed, saliva stringing from her lips. “You God-damned lousy bastard!”

  She took two reactive steps backward and collapsed against the wall, exhausted. Her breaths were deep and laboured and her hair now fell like a dark shroud across her snarling face, clinging tightly to the sweat that had accumulated on her skin. The sweat that had also diluted her eye make up and made it run like red and black tears down her glistening cheeks. Her head was tilted toward the floor but her eyes, consumed by an unholy anger, were still firmly fixed on her dead assailant. The ultimate in betrayal.

  Words of disbelief slithered like hatching snakes through tiny gaps in her tightly clenched teeth.

  “You bastard,” she sneered. “I can not believe you sent Zebulun to me.”

  now unto the king eternal

  1 Timothy 1:17

  Jack smiled. 8. Nxe6 ... was a good move. More than that, it was undoubtedly a very Lara move. But then again, as he’d selected ‘LARA.BERNSTEIN’ on the play menu, that should hardly have been surprising. When they had compiled the system software, Geoff and his team had analysed the computer records of every one of Lara’s games and entered them into the Quotient system. Utilising the play algorithms already stored, the system had then done all the necessary interpolation. The virtual Lara could, and would, make the same decisions his daughter would have made. Regardless of whether those decisions were right or wrong.

  This move, however, was undeniably right. Deep within her software, Lara had known that Jack had made mistakes from the outset, his mind failing miserably to focus on the task in hand. This pseudo-Lara had no s
uch problems. Nothing on her mind. She had capitalised on every error of judgment he had made. Right from move 1.

  1. e2-e4 c7-c6 2. d2-d4 d7-d5 3. Nb1-c3 d5xe4

  4. Nc3xe4 Nb8-d7 5. Ne4-g5 Ng8-f6

  6. Bf1-d3 e7-e6 7. Ng1-f3 h7-h6

  And now she had drawn him into sacrificing a crucial pawn.

  “Your move,” the smooth voice said. No emotion. Just a statement of fact.

  Jack had had no desire to play Sorkasnov again, though the system had given him the option. Nor indeed did he wish to play any one of sixty other tournament players whose games had been entered. He was here to be with his daughter. Or, at the very least, with his daughter’s memory. The pleasure was not just attained from watching the virtual rendition of her, but also from seeing the moves and remembering the games they had once played together. There weren’t nearly enough, but there were some and he would never forget them.

  “She was a beautiful young lady, wasn’t she?” Warner offered, relaxing in a chair at the side of the room. He had been watching the match from the outset, entranced by the technology. It was a new world. One that he had long-since accepted that he’d been far too late to embrace.

  Jack smiled. “Yes she was,” he said with pride. “Just like her mother.”

  It took a few minutes for Jack to formulate a response to Lara’s move.

  8. ... Qd8-e7.

  As he maneuvered the gold-plated piece into place, he knew full well that the move was clumsy. Tonight, however, it was the best he could manage.

  The virtual Lara smiled, as she had been randomly instructed to do, and made her move;

  9. 0-0 ....

  Castles kingside, her rendered hands switching the semi-transparent chrome pieces as the reflections recalculated on the board. If Jack captured with the queen now then the rook on e1 would have been a killer, so he played: