Dan Brown - Origin

With reflections of firelight dancing on the burnished floor, the massive hallway took on an almost supernatural ambience. Julián could feel the ghostly presence of those sad souls who had carved this tunnel by hand, their pickaxes and shovels poised, toiling for years inside this cold mountain, hungry, frozen, many dying, all for the glorification of Franco, whose tomb lay deep within this mountain.

Look carefully, son , his father had told him . One day you’ll tear this down.

As king, Julián knew he would probably not have the power to destroy this magnificent structure, and yet he had to admit he felt surprise that the people of Spain had permitted it to stand, especially considering the country’s eagerness to move past her dark past and into the new world. Then again, there were still those who longed for the old ways, and every year, on the anniversary of Franco’s death, hundreds of aging Francoists still flocked to this place to pay their respects.

“Don Julián,” the bishop said quietly, out of earshot of the others, as they walked deeper into the passageway. “Do you know why your father summoned us here?”

Julián shook his head. “I was hoping you would know.”

Valdespino let out an unusually heavy sigh. “I don’t have any idea.”

If the bishop doesn’t know my father’s motives , Julián thought, then nobody knows them.

“I just hope he’s all right,” the bishop said with surprising tenderness. “Some of his decisions lately...”

“You mean like convening a meeting inside a mountain when he should be in a hospital bed?”

Valdespino softly smiled. “For example, yes.”

Julián wondered why the king’s Guardia detail had not intervened and refused to bring the dying monarch out of the hospital to this foreboding location. Then again, Guardia agents were trained to obey without question, especially when the request came from their commander in chief.

“I have not prayed here in years,” Valdespino said, gazing down the firelit hallway.

The tunnel through which they were moving, Julián knew, was not solely the access corridor into the mountain; it was also the nave of an officially sanctioned Catholic church. Up ahead, the prince could begin to see the rows of pews.

La basílica secreta , Julián had called it as a child.

Hollowed out of the granite mountain, the gilded sanctuary at the end of this tunnel was a cavernous space, an astonishing subterranean basilica with a massive cupola. Rumored to have more total square footage than St. Peter’s in Rome, the underground mausoleum boasted six separate chapels surrounding its high altar, which was meticulously positioned directly beneath the cross atop the mountain.

As they neared the main sanctuary, Julián scanned the enormous space, looking for his father. The basilica, however, appeared totally deserted.

“Where is he?” the bishop demanded, sounding worried.

Julián now shared the bishop’s concern, fearing the Guardia had left the king alone in this desolate place. The prince quickly moved ahead, peering down one arm of the transept and then the other. No sign of anyone. He jogged deeper, circling around the side of the altar and into the apse.

It was here, in the deepest recesses of the mountain, that Julián finally spotted his father and came to an abrupt halt.

The king of Spain was completely alone, covered with heavy blankets, and slumped in a wheelchair.

Inside the main sanctuary of the deserted chapel, Langdon and Ambra followed Winston’s voice around the perimeter of the two-story supercomputer. Through the heavy glass, they heard a deep vibrating thrum emanating from the colossal machine inside. Langdon had the eerie sense that he was peering into a cage at an incarcerated beast.

The noise, according to Winston, was generated not by the electronics but by the vast array of centrifugal fans, heat sinks, and liquid coolant pumps required to keep the machine from overheating.

“It’s deafening in there,” Winston said. “And freezing. Fortunately, Edmond’s lab is on the second floor.”

A freestanding spiral staircase rose ahead, affixed to the outer wall of the glass enclosure. On Winston’s command, Langdon and Ambra climbed the stairs and found themselves standing on a metal platform before a glass revolving door.

To Langdon’s amusement, this futuristic entrance to Edmond’s lab had been decorated as if it were a suburban home — complete with a welcome mat, a fake potted plant, and a little bench under which sat a pair of house slippers, which Langdon realized wistfully must have been Edmond’s.

Above the door hung a framed message.

Success is the ability to go

from one failure to another

with no loss of enthusiasm.

“More Churchill,” Langdon said, pointing it out to Ambra.

“Edmond’s favorite quote,” Winston chimed. “He said it pinpoints the single greatest strength of computers.”

“Computers?” Ambra asked.

“Yes, computers are infinitely persistent. I can fail billions of times with no trace of frustration. I embark upon my billionth attempt at solving a problem with the same energy as my first. Humans cannot do that.”

“True,” Langdon admitted. “I usually give up after my millionth attempt.”

Ambra smiled and moved toward the door.

“The floor inside is glass,” Winston said as the revolving door began turning automatically. “So please remove your shoes.”

Within seconds, Ambra had kicked off her shoes and stepped barefoot through the rotating portal. As Langdon followed suit, he noticed that Edmond’s welcome mat bore an unusual message:

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE 127.0.0.1

“Winston, this mat? I don’t under—”

“Local host,” Winston replied.

Langdon read the mat again. “I see,” he said, not seeing at all, and continued through the revolving door.

When Langdon stepped out onto the glass floor, he felt a moment of weak-kneed uncertainty. Standing on a transparent surface in his socks was unnerving enough, but to find himself hovering directly over the MareNostrum computer downstairs felt doubly disconcerting. From up here, viewing the phalanx of stately racks below reminded Langdon of peering down into China’s famous Xi’an archeological pit at the army of terra-cotta soldiers.

Langdon took a deep breath and raised his eyes to the bizarre space before him.

Edmond’s lab was a transparent rectangle dominated by the metallic blue-gray cube he had seen earlier, its glossy surface reflecting everything around it. To the right of the cube, at one end of the room, was an ultra-sleek office space with a semicircular desk, three giant LCD screens, and assorted keyboards recessed into the granite work surface.

“Mission control,” Ambra whispered.

Langdon nodded and glanced toward the opposite end of the chamber, where armchairs, a couch, and an exercise bike were arranged on an Oriental carpet.

A supercomputing man cave , Langdon mused, suspecting that Edmond had all but moved into this glass box while working on his project. What did he discover up here? Langdon’s initial hesitation had passed, and he now felt the growing pull of intellectual curiosity — the yearning to learn what mysteries had been unveiled up here, what secrets had been unearthed by the collaboration of a genius mind and a powerful machine.

Ambra had already padded across the floor to the massive cube and was gazing up in bewilderment at its polished blue-gray surface. Langdon joined her, both of them reflected in its shiny exterior.

This is a computer? Langdon wondered. Unlike the machine downstairs, this one was dead silent — inert and lifeless — a metallic monolith. The machine’s bluish hue reminded Langdon of a 1990s supercomputer called “Deep Blue,” which had stunned the world by defeating world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Since then, the advances in computing technology were almost impossible to comprehend.