Angels Demons Chapter 6-8

6Sixty-four minutes had passed when an incredulous and slightly radiate-sick Robert Langdon stepped down the gangplank onto the sun-drenched runway. A crisp breeze rust conduct the lapels of his tweed jacket. The vindicated space felt wonderful. He squinted out at the lush green v full(a)lyey rising to s straight offcapped peaks all around them.Im dreaming, he told himself. Any minute now Ill be waking up.Welcome to Switzerland, the pilot said, yelling over the roar of the X-33s misted-fuel HEDM engines lead storying down behind them.Langdon checked his watch. It teach 707 A.M.You just pass six time zones, the pilot offered. Its a little past 1 P.M. here.Langdon reset his watch.How do you feel?He rubbed his stomach. Like Ive been eating Styrofoam.The pilot nodded. stature sickness. We were at sixty thousand feet. Youre thirty percent lighter up there. Lucky we only did a puddle jump. If wed gone to Tokyo Id mother interpreted her all the way up a hundred miles. Now thatll ge t your insides rolling.Langdon gave a wan nod and counted himself lucky. All things considered, the flight had been remarkably ordinary. Aside from a bone-crushing acceleration during take off, the planes motion had been fairly typical occasional minor turbulence, a a few(prenominal)er pressure changes as theyd climbed, but naught at all to suggest they had been hurtling through space at the mind-numbing speed of 11,000 miles per hour.A fistful of technicians scurried onto the runway to tgoal to the X-33. The pilot escorted Langdon to a black Peugeot sedan in a parking argona beside the control tower. Moments later they were speeding down a paved road that stretched out across the valley floor. A faint lump of buildings rose in the surmount. Outside, the grassy plains tore by in a blur.Langdon watched in disbelief as the pilot pushed the speedometer up around one hundred s eveningty kilometers an hour over 100 miles per hour. What is it with this guy and speed? he wondered.Fi ve kilometers to the lab, the pilot said. Ill have you there in two minutes.Langdon searched in vain for a seat belt. Why not make it three and get us there alive?The car raced on.Do you like Reba? the pilot asked, jamming a cassette into the tape deck.A woman st cunninged singing.Its just the hero-worship of being aloneNo fear here, Langdon theory absently. His female colleagues often ribbed him that his collection of museum-quality artifacts was nothing more than a transparent attempt to fill an empty home, a home they insisted would benefit greatly from the presence of a woman. Langdon unendingly laughed it off, reminding them he already had three rages in his life tokenisationogy, water polo, and bachelorhood the latter being a freedom that enabled him to travel the world, sleep as late as he wanted, and fuck quiet nights at home with a brandy and a good book.Were like a small city, the pilot said, pulling Langdon from his daydream. Not just labs. Weve got supermarkets, a hospital, even a cinema.Langdon nodded blankly and looked out at the sprawling expanse of buildings rising before them.In fact, the pilot added, we possess the jumbost machine on dry land.Really? Langdon scanned the estateside.You wont opine it out there, sir. The pilot smiled. Its buried six stories below the earth.Langdon didnt have time to ask. Without warning the pilot jammed on the brakes. The car skidded to a renounce international a reinforced sentry booth.Langdon read the sign before them.Securite. ArretezHe suddenly felt a hustle of panic, realizing where he was. My God I didnt append my passportPassports are unnecessary, the driver assured. We have a standing arrangement with the Swiss government.Langdon watched dumbfounded as his driver gave the guard an ID. The sentry ran it through an electronic authentication device. The machine flashed green.Passenger name?Robert Langdon, the driver replied.Guest of?The director.The sentry arched his eyebrows. He turned and checked a computer printout, verifying it against the data on his computer screen. Then he returned to the window. Enjoy your stay, Mr. Langdon.The car shot off again, accelerating another 200 footsteps around a sweeping rotary that led to the facilitys main entrance. Looming before them was a rectangular, ultramodern structure of glass and steel. Langdon was amazed by the buildings striking transparent design. He had always had a fond love of architecture.The Glass Cathedral, the escort offered.A church?Hell, no. A church is the one thing we dont have. Physics is the religion around here. Use the Lords name in vain all you like, he laughed, just dont slander any quarks or mesons.Langdon sat bewildered as the driver swung the car around and brought it to a stop in wait of the glass building. Quarks and mesons? No border control? Mach 15 jets? Who the hell are these guys? The engraved granite slab in front of the building bore the reactCERN Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucl eaireNuclear Research? Langdon asked, fairly certain his translation was correct.The driver did not answer. He was leaning forward, busily adjusting the cars cassette player. This is your stop. The director forget meet you at this entrance.Langdon noted a man in a wheelchair exiting the building. He looked to be in his early sixties. Gaunt and totally bald with a sternly set jaw, he wore a neat lab coat and dress shoes propped firmly on the wheelchairs footrest. Even at a distance his eyes looked lifeless like two gray stones.Is that him? Langdon asked.The driver looked up. Well, Ill be. He turned and gave Langdon an ominous smile. Speak of the devil.Uncertain what to expect, Langdon stepped from the vehicle.The man in the wheelchair accelerated toward Langdon and offered a clammy hand. Mr. Langdon? We spoke on the phone. My name is Maximilian Kohler.7Maximilian Kohler, director general of CERN, was known behind his back as Konig King. It was a title more of fear than reverence for the figure who ruled over his dominion from a wheelchair throne. Although few knew him personally, the horrific story of how he had been crippled was lore at CERN, and there were few there who blamed him for his bitterness nor for his sworn dedication to pure science.Langdon had only been in Kohlers presence a few moments and already sensed the director was a man who kept his distance. Langdon found himself practically jogging to keep up with Kohlers electric wheelchair as it sped silently toward the main entrance. The wheelchair was like none Langdon had ever observen provide with a bank of electronics including a multiline phone, a paging system, computer screen, even a small, detachable video camera. King Kohlers mobile mastery center.Langdon followed through a mechanical door into CERNs voluminous main lobby.The Glass Cathedral, Langdon mused, gazing upward toward heaven.Overhead, the bluish glass roof shimmered in the afternoon sun, casting rays of geometric patterns in the air and giving the way a sense of grandeur. Angular shadows barbaric like veins across the white tiled walls and down to the marble floors. The air smelled clean, sterile. A handful of scientists moved briskly about, their footsteps echoing in the resonant space.This way, please, Mr. Langdon. His voice gravided almost computerized. His accent was rigid and precise, like his stern features. Kohler coughed and wiped his mouth on a white handkerchief as he fixed his dead gray eyes on Langdon. Please hurry. His wheelchair seemed to leap across the tiled floor.Langdon followed past what seemed to be interminable hallways branching off the main atrium. Every hallway was alive with activity. The scientists who saw Kohler seemed to stare in surprise, eyeing Langdon as if wondering who he must be to command such company.Im embarrassed to admit, Langdon ventured, trying to make conversation, that Ive never heard of CERN.Not surprising, Kohler replied, his clipped response sounding har shly efficient. Most Americans do not see Europe as the world leader in scientific research. They see us as nothing but a quaint shopping zone an odd perception if you consider the nationalities of men like Einstein, Galileo, and Newton.Langdon was unsure how to respond. He pulled the autotype from his pocket. This man in the photograph, can you Kohler cut him off with a wave of his hand. Please. Not here. I am taking you to him now. He held out his hand. Perhaps I should take that.Langdon handed over the fax and fell silently into step.Kohler took a sharp left and entered a wide hallway adorned with awards and commendations. A particularly large plaque dominated the entry. Langdon slowed to read the engraved bronze as they passed.ARS ELECTRONICA AWARD For Cultural Innovation in the Digital Age Awarded to Tim Berners Lee and CERN for the invention of the WORLDWIDE WEBWell Ill be damned, Langdon thought, reading the text. This guy wasnt kidding. Langdon had always thought of the Web as an American invention. Then again, his knowledge was limited to the site for his own book and the occasional on-line exploration of the Louvre or El Prado on his old Macintosh.The Web, Kohler said, coughing again and wiping his mouth, began here as a network of in-house computer sites. It enabled scientists from different departments to share daily findings with one another. Of course, the entire world is under the impression the Web is U.S. technology.Langdon followed down the hall. Why not set the record straight?Kohler shrugged, apparently disinterested. A petty misconception over a petty technology. CERN is far greater than a global connection of computers. Our scientists produce miracles almost daily.Langdon gave Kohler a questioning look. Miracles? The word miracle was surely not part of the expression around Harvards Fairchild Science Building. Miracles were left for the School of Divinity.You sound skeptical, Kohler said. I thought you were a religious symbologist. Do you not believe in miracles?Im undecided on miracles, Langdon said. Particularly those that take place in science labs.Perhaps miracle is the wrong word. I was simply trying to speak your language.My language? Langdon was suddenly uncomfortable. Not to cross you, sir, but I study religious symbology Im an academic, not a priest.Kohler slowed suddenly and turned, his gaze softening a bit. Of course. How simple of me. One does not need to have cancer to analyze its symptoms.Langdon had never heard it put quite that way.As they moved down the hallway, Kohler gave an accepting nod. I suspect you and I will read each other perfectly, Mr. Langdon.Somehow Langdon doubted it.As the pair hurried on, Langdon began to sense a deep rumbling up ahead. The noise got more and more pronounce with every step, reverberating through the walls. It seemed to be coming from the end of the hallway in front of them.Whats that? Langdon last asked, having to yell. He felt like they were approaching a n busy volcano.Free Fall Tube, Kohler replied, his hollow voice cutting the air effortlessly. He offered no other explanation.Langdon didnt ask. He was exhausted, and Maximilian Kohler seemed disinterested in winning any hospitality awards. Langdon reminded himself why he was here. Illuminati. He assumed somewhere in this colossal facility was a body a body branded with a symbol he had just flown 3,000 miles to see.As they approached the end of the hall, the rumble became almost deafening, vibrating up through Langdons soles. They rounded the bend, and a viewing gallery appeared on the right. Four thick-paned portals were embed in a curved wall, like windows in a submarine. Langdon stopped and looked through one of the holes.Professor Robert Langdon had seen some strange things in his life, but this was the strangest. He blinked a few times, wondering if he was hallucinating. He was staring into an enormous circular chamber. Inside the chamber, floating as though weightless, were people. Three of them. One waved and did a somersault in midair.My God, he thought. Im in the land of Oz.The floor of the room was a mesh grid, like a giant sheet of chicken wire. overt beneath the grid was the metallic blur of a huge propeller.Free fall tube, Kohler said, stopping to wait for him. Indoor skydiving. For stress relief. Its a vertical wind tunnel.Langdon looked on in amazement. One of the free fallers, an obese woman, maneuvered toward the window. She was being buffeted by the air currents but grinned and flashed Langdon the thumbs-up sign. Langdon smiled weakly and returned the gesture, wondering if she knew it was the ancient phallic symbol for masculine virility.The heavyset woman, Langdon noticed, was the only one wearing what appeared to be a miniature para jump-start. The swathe of fabric billowed over her like a toy. Whats her little chute for? Langdon asked Kohler. It cant be more than a yard in diameter.Friction, Kohler said. Decreases her aerodynamics so th e fan can lift her. He started down the the corridor again. One square yard of drag will slow a falling body almost twenty percent.Langdon nodded blankly.He never suspected that later that night, in a country hundreds of miles away, the information would save his life.8When Kohler and Langdon emerged from the rear of CERNs main complex into the stark Swiss sunlight, Langdon felt as if hed been transported home. The scene before him looked like an Ivy confederation campus.A grassy slope cascaded downward onto an expansive lowlands where clusters of sugar maples dotted quadrangles bordered by brick dormitories and footpaths. Scholarly looking individuals with stacks of books hustled in and out of buildings. As if to accentuate the collegiate atmosphere, two longhaired hippies hurled a Frisbee back and forth while enjoying Mahlers Fourth Symphony blaring from a dorm window.These are our residential dorms, Kohler explained as he accelerated his wheelchair down the path toward the build ings. We have over three thousand physicists here. CERN single-handedly employs more than half of the worlds pinch physicists the brightest minds on earth Germans, Japanese, Italians, Dutch, you name it. Our physicists represent over five hundred universities and sixty nationalities.Langdon was amazed. How do they all communicate?English, of course. The global language of science.Langdon had always heard math was the universal language of science, but he was too tired to argue. He dutifully followed Kohler down the path.Halfway to the bottom, a young man jogged by. His T-shirt proclaimed the put across NO GUT, NO GLORYLangdon looked after him, mystified. Gut?General Unified Theory. Kohler quipped. The theory of everything.I see, Langdon said, not seeing at all.Are you familiar with particle physics, Mr. Langdon?Langdon shrugged. Im familiar with general physics falling bodies, that sort of thing. His years of high-diving experience had given him a profound respect for the awes ome power of gravitational acceleration. molecule physics is the study of atoms, isnt it?Kohler shook his head. Atoms look like planets compared to what we deal with. Our interests lie with an atoms nucleus a mere ten-thousandth the size of the whole. He coughed again, sounding sick. The men and women of CERN are here to find answers to the same questions man has been asking since the beginning of time. Where did we come from? What are we made of?And these answers are in a physics lab?You sound surprised.I am. The questions seem spiritual.Mr. Langdon, all questions were once spiritual. Since the beginning of time, spirituality and religion have been called on to fill in the gaps that science did not understand. The rising and reach of the sun was once attributed to Helios and a flaming chariot. Earthquakes and tidal waves were the wrath of Poseidon. Science has now proven those gods to be false idols. Soon all Gods will be proven to be false idols. Science has now provided answer s to almost every question man can ask. There are only a few questions left, and they are the esoteric ones. Where do we come from? What are we doing here? What is the meaning of life and the universe?Langdon was amazed. And these are questions CERN is trying to answer?Correction. These are questions we are answering.Langdon fell silent as the two men wound through the residential quadrangles. As they walked, a Frisbee sailed overhead and skidded to a stop directly in front of them. Kohler ignored it and kept going.A voice called out from across the quad. Sil vous platLangdon looked over. An elderly white-haired man in a College Paris sweatshirt waved to him. Langdon picked up the Frisbee and expertly threw it back. The old man caught it on one finger and bounced it a few times before whipping it over his shoulder to his partner. Merci he called to Langdon.Congratulations, Kohler said when Langdon finally caught up. You just played toss with a Noble prize-winner, Georges Charpak, in ventor of the multiwire proportional chamber.Langdon nodded. My lucky day.It took Langdon and Kohler three more minutes to reach their destination a large, tailored dormitory sitting in a grove of aspens. Compared to the other dorms, this structure seemed luxurious. The carved stone sign in front read Building C. creative title, Langdon thought.But despite its sterile name, Building C appealed to Langdons sense of architectural style conservative and solid. It had a red brick facade, an ornate balustrade, and sat framed by sculpted symmetrical hedges. As the two men ascended the stone path toward the entry, they passed under a gateway formed by a pair of marble columns. Someone had put a sticky-note on one of them.This column is IonicPhysicist graffiti? Langdon mused, eyeing the column and chuckling to himself. Im relieved to see that even brilliant physicists make mistakes.Kohler looked over. What do you mean?Whoever wrote that note made a mistake. That column isnt Ionic. Ionic columns are uniform in width. That ones tapered. Its Doric the Greek counterpart. A common mistake.Kohler did not smile. The writer meant it as a joke, Mr. Langdon. Ionic means containing ions electrically charged particles. Most objects contain them.Langdon looked back at the column and groaned.Langdon was still feeling stupid when he stepped from the elevator on the top floor of Building C. He followed Kohler down a well-appointed corridor. The decor was unexpected traditional colonial French a cherry divan, porcelain floor vase, and scrolled woodwork.We like to keep our tenured scientists comfortable, Kohler explained.Evidently, Langdon thought. So the man in the fax lived up here? One of your upper-level employees?Quite, Kohler said. He lose a meeting with me this morning and did not answer his page. I came up here to locate him and found him dead in his living room.Langdon felt a sudden chill realizing that he was about to see a dead body. His stomach had never been partic ularly stalwart. It was a weakness hed discovered as an art student when the teacher informed the class that Leonardo da Vinci had gained his expertise in the human form by exhuming corpses and dissecting their musculature.Kohler led the way to the far end of the hallway. There was a single door. The Penthouse, as you would say, Kohler announced, dabbing a bead of perspiration from his forehead.Langdon eyed the lone oak door before them. The name plate readLeonardo VetraLeonardo Vetra, Kohler said, would have been fifty-eight next week. He was one of the most brilliant scientists of our time. His death is a profound loss for science.For an instant Langdon thought he sensed emotion in Kohlers hardened face. But as quickly as it had come, it was gone. Kohler reached in his pocket and began sifting through a large key ring.An odd thought suddenly occurred to Langdon. The building seemed deserted. Where is everyone? he asked. The lack of activity was hardly what he expected considering they were about to enter a remove scene.The residents are in their labs, Kohler replied, finding the key.I mean the police, Langdon clarified. Have they left already?Kohler paused, his key halfway into the lock. Police?Langdons eyes met the directors. Police. You sent me a fax of a homicide. You must have called the police.I most certainly have not.What?Kohlers gray eyes sharpened. The situation is complex, Mr. Langdon.Langdon felt a wave of apprehension. But certainly someone else knows about thisYes. Leonardos adopted daughter. She is also a physicist here at CERN. She and her father share a lab. They are partners. Ms. Vetra has been away this week doing field research. I have notified her of her fathers death, and she is returning as we speak.But a man has been murd A formal investigation, Kohler said, his voice firm, will take place. However, it will most certainly shoot a search of Vetras lab, a space he and his daughter hold most private. Therefore, it will wait until Ms. V etra has arrived. I feel I owe her at least that modicum of discretion.Kohler turned the key.As the door swung open, a blast of icy air hissed into the hall and hit Langdon in the face. He fell back in bewilderment. He was gazing across the threshold of an alien world. The flat before him was immersed in a thick, white fog. The mist swirled in smoky vortexes around the furniture and shrouded the room in opaque haze.What the? Langdon stammered.Freon cooling system, Kohler replied. I chilled the flat to preserve the body.Langdon buttoned his tweed jacket against the cold. Im in Oz, he thought. And I forgot my magic slippers.