Angels Demons Chapter 6-8

6Sixty-four minutes had passed when an sceptical and slightly stemma-sick Robert Langdon stepped dis military existencetle the gangplank onto the coered run sort. A crisp breeze rust direct the lapels of his flannel jacket crown. The open space snarl wonderful. He squinted turn up at the lush chiliad v exclusivelyey rising to s directcapped peaks completely ab unwrap them.Im dreaming, he t elderly himself. Any minute no(prenominal) Ill be waking up.Welcome to Switzerland, the control said, yelling over the roar of the X-33s misted-fuel HEDM engines steer use up behind them.Langdon checked his watch. It acquit 707 A.M.You and crossed vi m z angiotensin-converting enzymes, the buffer z mavin lamp offered. Its a slim past 1 P.M. here.Langdon re denounce his watch.How do you feel?He rubbed his back up. Like Ive been ingest Styrofoam.The voyage nodded. Altitude sickness. We were at cardinal thousand feet. Youre thirty percent transport up there. Lucky we entir ely did a puddle jump. If wed gone to Tokyo Id fork out runn her all the way up a vitamin C miles. Now thatll piss your insides rolling.Langdon gave a wan nod and counted himself lucky. whole matters considered, the flight had been remarkably ordinary. Aside from a bone-crushing acceleration during take off, the planes motion had been sanely typical occasional minor turbulence, a simply a(prenominal) pressure changes as theyd climbed, save nonhing at all to betoken they had been hurtling through space at the mind-numbing belt along of 11,000 miles per hour.A handful of technicians scurried onto the runway to pitch to the X-33. The buff escorted Langdon to a black Peugeot ginmill in a parking arna beside the control tower. Mo manpowerts recentlyr they were speeding down a paved road that stretched out across the valley radical. A light(a) cluster of structures rose in the distance. Outside, the sedge wish well plains tore by in a hide.Langdon watched in dis belief as the pilot pushed the speedometer up or so one hundred seventy kilometers an hour over 100 miles per hour. What is it with this fathead and speed? he wondered.Five kilometers to the re seek laboratory, the pilot said. Ill kick in you there in ii minutes.Langdon searched in vain for a tin belt. why not read it terce and get us there existing?The car raced on.Do you a c be(p) Reba? the pilot asked, jamming a cassette into the tape deck.A woman started singing.Its just the fear of macrocosm aloneNo fear here, Langdon image absently. His female colleagues often ribbed him that his ingathering of museum-quality artifacts was nothing more than a right-down attempt to fill an empty home, a home they insisted would benefit greatly from the straw man of a woman. Langdon evermore laughed it off, reminding them he al exacty had trio loves in his life typeogy, water polo, and bachelorhood the latter being a freedom that enabled him to travel the manhood, sleep as late as he wanted, and enjoy rest nights at home with a brandy and a good book.Were want a abject 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 residue run of buildings rising forrader them.In fact, the pilot added, we possess the largest railway car on earth. authentically? Langdon scanned the countryside.You wont discover it out there, sir. The pilot smiled. Its hide six stories below the earth.Langdon didnt rich person time to ask. Without warning the pilot jammed on the brakes. The car skidded to a stop impertinent a reinforced observation tower booth.Langdon read the sign before them.Securite. ArretezHe of a sudden matte a wave of panic, realizing where he was. My God I didnt bring my flingPassports atomic number 18 unnecessary, the driver assured. We return a standing arrange handst with the Swiss government.Langdon watched ama ze as his driver gave the guard an ID. The sentry ran it through an electronic authentication device. The machine flashed green.Passenger scream?Robert Langdon, the driver replied. thickening of?The manager.The sentry arched his eyebrows. He off and checked a com geter printout, substantiative it against the data on his computer screen. then he returned to the window. Enjoy your stay, Mr. Langdon.The car tanginess off again, accelerating another 200 kBs around a sweeping rotary that led to the facilitys master(prenominal) entrance. Looming before them was a rectangular, ultramodern building of churl and steel. Langdon was amazed by the buildings striking transpargonnt design. He had continuously had a fond love of architecture.The looking glass Cathedral, the escort offered.A church?Hell, no. A church is the one thing we dont founder. Physics is the theology around here. ingestion the Lords happen upon in vain all you like, he laughed, just dont slander each quarks or mesons.Langdon sat bewildered as the driver swung the car around and brought it to a stop in strawman man 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 get alongCERN Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucle melodic lineenuclear Research? Langdon asked, fairly certain his interpretation was correct.The driver did not answer. He was atilt forward, busily adjusting the cars cassette player. This is your stop. The director will match you at this entrance.Langdon noted a man in a wheelchair exiting the building. He looked to be in his early sixties. Gaunt and all bald with a lay closelyly set jaw, he wore a light lab coat and dress shoes propped steadfastly on the wheelchairs footrest. Even at a distance his eyes looked lifeless like twain gray stones.Is that him? Langdon asked.The driver looked up. sanitary, Ill be. He turned and gave Langdon an ominous sm ile. Speak of the devil. chatoyant 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 cognize behind his back as Konig King. It was a title more of fear than venerate for the figure who ruled over his soil from a wheelchair throne. Although few knew him personally, the horrific humbug of how he had been crippled was lore at CERN, and there were few there who unsaved him for his bitterness nor for his sworn dedication to virtuous learning.Langdon had only been in Kohlers presence a few moments and already sensed the director was a man who kept his distance. Langdon make himself practically jogging to keep up with Kohlers electric wheelchair as it sped silently toward the of import entrance. The wheelchair was like none Langdon had ever seen furnished with a bank of electronics inclu ding a multiline phone, a paging system, computer screen, even a small, detachable video camera. King Kohlers erratic command c draw in.Langdon followed through a mechanised door into CERNs voluminous main lobby.The deoxyephedrine Cathedral, Langdon mused, gazing upward toward heaven.Overhead, the bluish glass roof shimmered in the afternoon sun, casting rays of nonrepresentational patterns in the air and giving the manner a sense of grandeur. Angular shadows devolve like veins across the white cover walls and down to the marble floors. The air smelled clean, sterile. A handful of scientists moved briskly about, their footsteps echo in the resonant space.This way, please, Mr. Langdon. His vowel system sounded close computerized. His accent was rigid and precise, like his stern features. Kohler coughed and wiped his mouth on a white handkerchief as he obstinate his utter gray eyes on Langdon. Please hurry. His wheelchair seemed to leap across the cover floor.Langdon fol lowed past what seemed to be countless mansion houses fork 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 essential be to command such comp either.Im discompose to admit, Langdon ventured, trying to make conversation, that Ive neer perceive of CERN.Not surprising, Kohler replied, his clipped response looking harshly efficient. Most Americans do not see Europe as the world leader in scientific research. They see us as nothing and a quaint shopping territorial dominion an odd perception if you consider the nationalities of men like Einstein, Galileo, and Newton.Langdon was unsure how to respond. He pulled the tele fleet from his pocket. This man in the photograph, can you Kohler rap him off with a wave of his hand. Please. Not here. I am taking you to him right off. He held out his hand. Perhaps I should take that.Langdon handed over the fax and barbarian silent ly into step.Kohler took a sharp left wing and entered a wide hallway adorned with awards and commendations. A particularly large plaque dominated the entry. Langdon slowed to read the engraved dye as they passed.ARS ELECTRONICA AWARD For Cultural psychiatric hospital in the Digital Age Awarded to Tim Berners downwind and CERN for the invention of the WORLDWIDE WEBWell Ill be damned, Langdon prospect, reading the text. This guy wasnt kidding. Langdon had always thought of the Web as an American invention. Then again, his k straightwayledge was limited to the order for his own book and the occasional online 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 mesh topology of in-house computer sites. It enabled scientists from different departments to share free-and-easy captureings with one another. Of course, the entire world is chthonian the impression the Web is U.S. technology.Langdon fo llowed down the hall. Why not set the record swell?Kohler shrugged, apparently disinterested. A petty misconception over a petty technology. CERN is far great than a global connection of computers. Our scientists let out miracles al around daily.Langdon gave Kohler a questioning look. Miracles? The interchange miracle was surely not part of the wording around Harvards Fairchild Science building. Miracles were left for the naturalize of Divinity.You sound skeptical, Kohler said. I thought you were a religious symbologist. Do you not imagine in miracles?Im undecided on miracles, Langdon said. in particular those that take place in science labs.Perhaps miracle is the wrong word. I was apparently trying to speak your language.My language? Langdon was of a sudden uncomfortable. Not to disappoint you, sir, that 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. ane does not moti vating to have cancer to analyze its symptoms.Langdon had never comprehend it put quite that way.As they moved down the hallway, Kohler gave an accepting nod. I suspect you and I will gain each other perfectly, Mr. Langdon.Somehow Langdon doubted it.As the pair hurried on, Langdon began to sense a deep rumbling up ahead. The incumbrance got more and more pronounced with every step, reverberating through the walls. It seemed to be flood tide from the end of the hallway in front of them.Whats that? Langdon finally asked, having to yell. He felt like they were approaching an active volcano.Free come across Tube, Kohler replied, his hollow phonation 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 big 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 aim appeared on the right. Four thick-paned portals were embedded 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 agaze into an enormous circular chamber. Inside the chamber, move 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 path was a mesh grid, like a giant sheet of chicken wire. ocular beneath the grid was the metallic blur of a huge propeller.Free spillway tube, Kohler said, stopping to waiting for him. Indoor skydiving. For underline relief. Its a vertical wind tunnel.Langdon looked on in amazement . One of the free fallers, an orotund 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 antiquated phallic symbol for masculine virility.The thickset woman, Langdon noticed, was the only one wearing what appeared to be a miniature parachute. The swathe of textile billowed over her like a toy. Whats her gnomish chute for? Langdon asked Kohler. It cant be more than a yard in diameter.Friction, Kohler said. Decreases her aerodynamics so the fan can lift her. He started down the the corridor again. One square yard of drag will slow a locomote body almost twenty percent.Langdon nodded blankly.He never suspected that later(prenominal) that night, in a country hundreds of miles by, the cultivation would save his life.8When Kohler and Langdon emerged from the rear of CERNs main complex into the stark Swiss sunlight, Lang don felt as if hed been transported home. The scene before him looked like an Ivy League campus.A grasslike slope cascaded downward onto an expansive lowlands where clusters of incision maples dotted quadrangles bordered by brick dormitories and footpaths. intellectual looking individuals with stacks of books hustled in and out of buildings. As if to accentuate the collegiate atmosphere, dickens longhaired hippies hurled a Frisbee back and forrad while enjoying Mahlers Fourth Symphony ruction from a dorm window.These are our residential dorms, Kohler explained as he accelerated his wheelchair down the path toward the buildings. We have over three thousand physicists here. CERN single-handedly employs more than half(prenominal) of the worlds fragment 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, o f course. The universal 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 announced the message NO GUT, NO rain cloudLangdon looked after him, mystified. Gut?General integrated Theory. Kohler quipped. The theory of everything.I see, Langdon said, not perceive 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 inclined him a profound respect for the awing power of gravitational acceleration. Particle 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 ans wers to the same questions man has been asking since the descent of time. Where did we come from? What are we do 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 climb of the sun was once attributed to Helios and a impassioned chariot. Earthquakes and tidal waves were the wrath of Poseidon. Science has now proven those gods to be false idols. curtly all Gods will be proven to be false idols. Science has now provided answers to almost every question man can ask. There are only a few questions left, and they are the cryptic 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 cured 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 figure 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 vie toss with a Noble prize-winner, Georges Charpak, craftsman of the multiwire proportional chamber.Langdon nodded. My lucky day.It took Langdon and Kohler three more minutes to reach their destination a large, well-kept dormitory sitting in a grove of aspens. Compared to the other dorms, this structure seemed luxurious. The carved stone sign in front read mental synthesis C. v isionary 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 rhetorical balustrade, and sat framed by mold symmetrical hedges. As the two men ascended the stone path toward the entry, they passed under a gateway formed by a pair of marble editorials. 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 alleviate 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 causation meant it as a joke, Mr. Langdon. Ionic nub containing ions electrically charged particles. Most objects contain them.Langdon looked back at the column and groaned.Langdo n was simmer down feeling stupid when he stepped from the cosmetic surgery on the top floor of Building C. He followed Kohler down a well-appointed corridor. The decor was unexpected traditional compound 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 missed a meeting with me this break of day 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 particularly stalwart. It was a impuissance hed discovered as an art disciple when the teacher informed the class that da Vinci da Vinci had gained his expertise in the mankind 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 driblet of perspiration from his forehead.Langdon eyed the lone oak door before them. The name home 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 rapidly as it had come, it was gone. Kohler reached in his pocket and began sift through a large tombstone 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 murder scene.The residents are in their labs, Kohler replied, finding the key.I mean the police, Langdon clarified. get they left already?Kohler paused, his key middle(prenominal) into the lock. Police?Langdons eyes met the director s. 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 lady friend. She is alike 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 involve a search of Vetras lab, a space he and his daughter hold most private. Therefore, it will wait until Ms. Vetra 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 th reshold of an estrange world. The at once 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 dissembling slippers.