The Soul of the Matter Read Free

together, he questioned his decision.
    Unsettled, Stephen rose from his desk, walked to the window, and looked out into the darkness. His office was on the top floor of the ten-story Human Betterment Corporation building, on the southwest side of Cambridge, overlooking the Charles River. HBC, as it was generally known, was one of the world’s leading biotech corporations, focused on understanding the human genome and developing genetic-based treatments. As its president, he was in charge of all its research, though the work he was doing with Alex was outside his HBC work and unknown to them.
    Though it was after midnight, and the sky was blanketed by thick clouds, swaying street lights illuminated the patches of snow and ice scattered across the gray lawn. In the shifting light, it created the impression of turbulent waters—or of a troubled soul.
    Returning to the desk, he picked up a flat, glass paperweight etched with the yin-yang symbol. In good, the seeds of evil. In evil, the seeds of good. He turned it over a few times, wondering how much more he’d have to compromise in his pursuit of knowledge and goodness.
    Alex was one of his smaller concerns. Twenty minutes earlier, believing they were still a long way from cracking the code, Alex had walked into Stephen’s office, pointed to the adjacent conference room, and said, “We need to talk.”
    Without responding, Stephen had followed Alex into the room. A long, dark oak oval table, surrounded by brown leather chairs, took up the majority of the ten- by twenty-foot area. A whiteboard covered most of one of the long walls. Alex stopped in front of it.
    Alex was barely five foot seven, with a round physique, and his wavy gray hair streaked with traces of black was pulled into a small ponytail. With his baggy clothes, and a craggy face adorned with black, hornrimmed, glasses, Alex resembled a gnome. But Alex had a fearsomely sharp mind. For thirty-five years, he’d taught physics toPhD candidates at MIT. He’d also used his exceptional mathematical skills to master advanced cryptology. Both of Alex’s skill sets were indispensable to Stephen. Without them, Stephen never would have been able to crack the codes. Alex had also provided the technology to perform and protect their work.
    Picking up a blue marker, Alex said, “Look. We know that a dozen complex elements form the last code,” as he rapidly drew complex shapes on the white board.
    â€œYou still don’t like calling them symbols.”
    â€œTo be symbols, they have to be symbolic to someone or something. And since you claim the origin of most of the coded information is from DNA, and I’m not ready to accept the connotations of that, I’m not going to call them symbols.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with a complete understanding of science and reason that points to something much bigger than us?”
    â€œGive me concrete proof and then ask me the question.”
    â€œBreak the code and you’ll have your proof. There’s only about a half billion permutations. What’s the big deal? Get to it,” Stephen said facetiously.
    â€œFour hundred seventy-nine million, one thousand, six hundred, to be precise. There must be something that can help us narrow down the possibilities to a manageable number.”
    Yes, there is, Stephen thought. And that morning, he had become the only person in the world to know it. Now he was about to decode what could be the Rosetta Stone of all of life. Only there was much more to it than that.
    â€œWith luck, we’ll figure it out in the next few days, before we’ve moved to the new computer infrastructure,” Stephen said, referring to the planned migration off HBC’s network to something new Alex was setting up. While Alex’s encryption had kept their work hidden from prying eyes, it wasn’t strong enough to withstand a determined examination, and they couldn’t keep pressing their