Boyd Morrison: The Midas Code

But before it went to the museum, it had one more use.

Tyler consulted the instructions he’d put on his smartphone and twisted the knobs on the geolabe. The dials turned and pointed in a new direction.

“This way,” he said.

They headed toward Eurialo Castle, a fortress built by Dionysius the Elder and then modified by Archimedes. It was claimed that the castle had never been conquered, thanks to Archimedes’ engineering skills, one of which was building a series of tunnels underneath the castle as a first line of defense against burrowing invaders.

“How’s your father doing?” Stacy asked as they walked.

“As ornery as ever and completely healed. Miles still wants him to join Gordian, but I’m not so sure about that.”

“I’m glad to hear things are back to normal,” she said. “I’m sorry Grant couldn’t be here.”

“Don’t be. He said he’s had enough of tunnels for a while. Besides, he’s eating up the challenge of designing a display case for the only radioactive museum pieces in the world.” After some legal wrangling over ownership, it was decided that the Archimedes Codex and the golden hand would become part of a traveling exhibit that would go first to the British Museum. Grant, whose torn knee ligament was nearly healed, was working with Oswald Lumley and his staff on how to properly preserve it.

The codex had become irradiated along with Jordan Orr while it was sequestered inside the Manhattan vault until the time-lock release. By then, Orr had suffered a lethal radiation dose. The doctors called it the worst case they’d ever seen and documented the horrifying details for medical journals. Orr lasted five excruciating days before finally succumbing.

The Midas hand survived the explosion intact, but the extremophile microbes did not. Apparently, radiation was the only extreme they couldn’t withstand. With Midas’s body now underwater, the king’s magical touch was gone forever.

But it was the codex that yielded a final secret, thanks to its being in Orr’s pack when the radioactive bomb had gone off. The radiation had caused some previously invisible text to fluoresce under UV light. It was a final set of instructions left by Archimedes, seemingly scrawled and then erased by the scribe before it was overwritten.

The instructions indicated that Archimedes had hidden something in Eurialo Castle, in a specially constructed tunnel that he had reserved for his own use. The geolabe would lead them to it.

“I know you’re a charming guy,” Stacy said. “But how in the world did you persuade the Italian authorities to let us dig at one of their historical sites?”

Tyler smiled. “Well, the FBI recovered a video from Peter Crenshaw’s email system. Apparently, it’s narrated by you and shows a chamber made entirely of gold somewhere under Naples.”

“And they believed the video? The chamber was flooded with boiling acidic water. Nobody can dive into it to confirm its existence.”

“Gordian happened to develop an undersea robot that can survive under those exact conditions.”

Stacy stopped. “You proved to them that it exists?”

“Last week. The Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage asked me to join them in making the announcement to the press, but I told them I had someone better.”

“They want me?”

“If you’re available next week.”

She launched herself at Tyler and planted a big kiss on him. For a moment, he forgot all about why he was here.

Just as abruptly, Stacy pulled away, her eyes lit with anticipation. Tyler was suddenly aware of the camera crew staring at them.

“Come on,” Stacy said. She lowered her voice so the crew couldn’t hear. “Maybe we’ll have even more to celebrate tonight. I have champagne chilling in my room. You’re welcome to share it.”

He didn’t know if she meant the champagne or the room. Maybe both, if he was getting the signals right. Ancient puzzles were so much easier to decipher than women.

“One more thing,” Tyler said. “They want you to talk in more detail about the writing on the chamber’s pedestal.”

“You mean about how Midas was originally from Naples?”

Tyler nodded. “The ministry seemed very interested in that part.”

The pedestal had confirmed the once mythical story that Midas had been a traveler in what was now Turkey and arrived in the ancient country of Phrygia just in time for his father, Gordias, to be dubbed king. Years later, after his own uneventful reign, Midas was riding his horse in the wilds near his palace and came across a previously unknown volcanic spring. He decided to take a swim, but when he got out with the help of one of his courtiers, the man died almost instantly. He fell into the water and turned to gold.

Midas’s ability became legend throughout the world, but he found it to be a curse. He could not even hold his beloved daughter again for fear of killing her.

The king of Persia had heard of the Midas Touch and wanted it for himself, so he set about to conquer the kingdom of Phrygia. Midas’s army was no match for the Persians, so he fled with his court back to his home of Neapolis. During the journey, his daughter fell ill and died, contrary to the myth in which he accidentally killed her. Midas, having heard of a hot spring hidden under the city, thought it would be a suitable tomb befitting his status, because he could adorn it with gold and preserve his daughter for time immemorial. His last loyal subjects excavated the chamber and interred him there when he finally passed.

Now Tyler and Stacy had one final treasure to unearth, but Tyler couldn’t imagine what else Archimedes might have hidden for them. This time, however, he was willing and happy to find out.

A local Sicilian archaeologist met them at the entrance to the tunnels that had already been excavated beneath Eurialo. She would be along to assist Tyler and Stacy and make sure they didn’t disturb anything they found.

The geolabe guided them through the catacombs to a spot that was otherwise unremarkable. The earthen wall they were supposed to dig through looked like all the others.

“You’re sure this is it?” Stacy said.

“Don’t ask me,” Tyler said, pointing at the geolabe. “Ask Archimedes.”

While the crew filmed, they dug into the wall, the archaeologist helping as well. An hour into it, Tyler’s shovel plunged into open air.

He shined a flashlight through the hole and saw some kind of chamber. Reinvigorated by the find, they widened the hole so that it was big enough for them to crawl through.

Tyler went first. As he crept into the hole, his heart pounded at the thought of what might be revealed about one of antiquity’s greatest intellects. What was Archimedes’ reason for creating this hidden chamber? When he was through the hole, Tyler stood and focused the light on a treasure as fabulous to him as Midas’s gold chamber.

Fearing eventual defeat at the hands of the Romans, Archimedes must have created this room to secure his most valuable possessions. He’d been right to worry about his legacy. According to the Greek historian Plutarch, when Syracuse was captured a Roman soldier burst into Archimedes’ study. Instead of surrendering, Archimedes defied the soldier and went back to his drawings. The soldier killed him, despite orders to capture the engineer alive.

The room before Tyler held dozens of mechanical devices more intricate and beautiful than he would have thought possible for an inventor of that period. One was a globe that showed the map of the known world at that time. Another device suspended the earth, the sun, and the planets so that they would rotate in their orbits. A third one could have easily been a counting machine, literally the world’s first computer.

Agog at the genius on display, Tyler knew that Orr had been after the wrong treasure all along. The wealth of amazing mechanisms in this one room would alter everything that historians had assumed about the scope of knowledge in the ancient world.