Inferno (Page 118)

“What is it you want to show me?” Langdon asked.

The man fixed Langdon with an unyielding stare. “Something that will leave no doubt in your mind that we’re all on the same side.”

CHAPTER 78

Langdon followed the tanned man through a maze of claustrophobic corridors belowdecks with Dr. Sinskey and the ECDC soldiers trailing behind in a single file. As the group neared a staircase, Langdon hoped they were about to ascend toward daylight, but instead they descended deeper into the ship.

Deep in the bowels of the vessel now, their guide led them through a cubicle farm of sealed glass chambers—some with transparent walls and some with opaque ones. Inside each soundproofed room, various employees were hard at work typing on computers or speaking on telephones. Those who glanced up and noticed the group passing through looked seriously alarmed to see strangers in this part of the ship. The tanned man gave them a nod of reassurance and pressed on.

What is this place? Langdon wondered as they continued through another series of tightly configured work areas.

Finally, their host arrived at a large conference room, and they all filed in. As the group sat down, the man pressed a button, and the glass walls suddenly hissed and turned opaque, sealing them inside. Langdon startled, having never seen anything like it.

“Where are we?” Langdon finally demanded.

“This is my ship—The Mendacium.”

“Mendacium?” Langdon asked. “As in … the Latin word for Pseudologos—the Greek god of deception?”

The man looked impressed. “Not many people know that.”

Hardly a noble appellation, Langdon thought. Mendacium was the shadowy deity who reigned over all the pseudologoi—the daimones specializing in falsehoods, lies, and fabrications.

The man produced a tiny red flash drive and inserted it into a rack of electronic gear at the back of the room. A huge flat-panel LCD flickered to life, and the overhead lights dimmed.

In the expectant silence, Langdon heard soft lapping sounds of water. At first, he thought they were coming from outside the ship, but then he realized the sound was coming through the speakers on the LCD screen. Slowly, a picture materialized—a dripping cavern wall, illuminated by wavering reddish light.

“Bertrand Zobrist created this video,” their host said. “And he asked me to release it to the world tomorrow.”

In mute disbelief, Langdon watched the bizarre home movie … a cavernous space with a rippling lagoon … into which the camera plunged … diving beneath the surface to a silt-covered tile floor on which was bolted a plaque that read IN THIS PLACE, ON THIS DATE, THE WORLD WAS CHANGED FOREVER.

The plaque was signed: BERTRAND ZOBRIST.

The date was tomorrow.

My God! Langdon turned to Sinskey in the darkness, but she was just staring blankly at the floor, apparently having seen the film already, and clearly unable to watch it again.

The camera panned left now, and Langdon was baffled to see, hovering beneath the water, an undulating bubble of transparent plastic containing a gelatinous, yellow-brown liquid. The delicate sphere appeared to be tethered to the floor so it could not rise to the surface.

What the hell? Langdon studied the distended bag. The viscous contents seemed to be slowly swirling … smoldering almost.

When it hit him, Langdon stopped breathing. Zobrist’s plague.

“Stop the playback,” Sinskey said in the darkness.

The image froze—a tethered plastic sac hovering beneath the water—a sealed cloud of liquid suspended in space.

“I think you can guess what that is,” Sinskey said. “The question is, how long will it remain contained?” She walked up to the LCD and pointed to a tiny marking on the transparent bag. “Unfortunately, this tells us what the bag is made of. Can you read that?”

Pulse racing, Langdon squinted at the text, which appeared to be a manufacturer’s trademark notice: Solublon®.

“World’s largest manufacturer of water-soluble plastics,” Sinskey said.

Langdon felt his stomach knot. “You’re saying this bag is … dissolving?!”

Sinskey gave him a grim nod. “We’ve been in touch with the manufacturer, from whom we learned, unfortunately, that they make dozens of different grades of this plastic, dissolving in anywhere from ten minutes to ten weeks, depending on the application. Decay rates vary slightly based on water type and temperature, but we have no doubt that Zobrist took those factors into careful account.” She paused. “This bag, we believe, will dissolve by—”

“Tomorrow,” the provost interrupted. “Tomorrow is the date Zobrist circled in my calendar. And also the date on the plaque.”

Langdon sat speechless in the dark.

“Show him the rest,” Sinskey said.

On the LCD screen, the video image refreshed, the camera now panning along the glowing waters and cavernous darkness. Langdon had no doubt that this was the location referenced in the poem. The lagoon that reflects no stars.

The scene conjured images of Dante’s visions of hell … the river Cocytus flowing through the caverns of the underworld.

Wherever this lagoon was located, its waters were contained by steep, mossy walls, which, Langdon sensed, had to be man-made. He also sensed that the camera was revealing only a small corner of the massive interior space, and this notion was supported by the presence of very faint vertical shadows on the wall. The shadows were broad, columnar, and evenly spaced.

Pillars, Langdon realized.

The ceiling of this cavern is supported by pillars.

This lagoon was not in a cavern, it was in a massive room.