• CHAPTER  73

On board The Mendacium, Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey’s hands were trembling. She watched the video in the provost’s study, and although she had seen some terrifying things in her life, this inexplicable movie that Bertrand Zobrist had made before his suicide left her feeling as cold as death.

On the screen before her, the shadow of a beaked face wavered, projected on the dripping wall of an underground cavern. The silhouette continued speaking, proudly describing his masterpiece—the creation called Inferno—which would save the world by culling the population.

God save us, Sinskey thought. “We must …” she said, her voice quavering. “We must find that underground location. It may not be too late.”

“Keep watching,” the provost replied. “It gets stranger.”

Suddenly the shadow of the mask grew larger on the wet wall, looming hugely before her, until a figure stepped suddenly into the frame.

Holy shit.

Sinskey was staring at a fully outfitted plague doctor—complete with the black cloak and chilling beaked mask. The plague doctor was walking directly toward the camera, his mask filling the entire screen to terrifying effect.

“ ‘The darkest places in hell,’ ” he whispered, “ ‘are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.’ ”

Sinskey felt goose bumps on her neck. It was the same quotation that Zobrist had left for her at the airline counter when she had eluded him in New York a year ago.

“I know,” the plague doctor continued, “that there are those who call me monster.” He paused, and Sinskey sensed his words were directed at her. “I know there are those who think me a heartless beast who hides behind a mask.” He paused again, stepping closer still to the camera. “But I am not faceless. Nor am I heartless.”

With that, Zobrist pulled off his mask and lowered the hood of his cloak—his face laid bare. Sinskey stiffened, staring into the familiar green eyes she had last seen in the darkness of the CFR. His eyes in the video had the same passion and fire, but there was something else in them now—the wild zeal of a madman.

“My name is Bertrand Zobrist,” he said, staring into the camera. “And this is my face, unveiled and naked for the world to see. As for my soul … if I could hold aloft my flaming heart, as did Dante’s Lord for his beloved Beatrice, you would see I am overflowing with love. The deepest kind of love. For all of you. And, above all, for one of you.”

Zobrist stepped closer still, gazing deep into the camera and speaking softly, as if to a lover.

“My love,” he whispered, “my precious love. You are my beatitude, my destroyer of all vices, my endorser of all virtue, my salvation. You are the one who lay naked at my side and unwittingly helped me across the abyss, giving me the strength to do what I now have done.”

Sinskey listened with repulsion.

“My love,” Zobrist continued in a doleful whisper that echoed in the ghostly subterranean cavern in which he spoke. “You are my inspiration and my guide, my Virgil and my Beatrice all in one, and this masterpiece is as much yours as it is mine. If you and I, as star-crossed lovers, never touch again, I shall find my peace in knowing that I have left the future in your gentle hands. My work below is done. And now the hour has come for me to climb again to the world above . and rebehold the stars.”

Zobrist stopped talking, and the word stars echoed a moment in the cavern. Then, very calmly, Zobrist reached out and touched the camera, ending his transmission.

The screen went black.

“The underground location,” the provost said, turning off the monitor. “We don’t recognize it. Do you?”

Sinskey shook her head. I’ve never seen anything like it. She thought of Robert Langdon, wondering if he had made any more headway in deciphering Zobrist’s clues.

“If it’s of any help,” the provost said, “I believe I know who Zobrist’s lover is.” He paused. “An individual code-named FS-2080.”

Sinskey jumped up. “FS-2080?!” She stared at the provost in shock.

The provost looked equally startled. “That means something to you?”

Sinskey gave an incredulous nod. “It most certainly does.”

Sinskey’s heart was pounding. FS-2080. While she didn’t know the identity of the individual, she certainly knew what the code name stood for. The WHO had been monitoring similar code names for years.

“The Transhumanist movement,” she said. “Are you familiar with it?”

The provost shook his head.

“In the simplest terms,” Sinskey explained, “Transhumanism is a philosophy stating that humans should use all available technologies to engineer our own species to make it stronger. Survival of the fittest.”

The provost shrugged as if unmoved.

“Generally speaking,” she continued, “the Transhumanist movement is made up of responsible individuals—ethically accountable scientists, futurists, visionaries—but, as in many movements, there exists a small but militant faction that believes the movement is not moving fast enough. They are apocalyptic thinkers who believe the end is coming and that someone needs to take drastic action to save the future of the species.”

“And I’m guessing,” the provost said, “that Bertrand Zobrist was one of these people?”

“Absolutely,” Sinskey said. “A leader of the movement. In addition to being highly intelligent, he was enormously charismatic and penned doomsday articles that spawned an entire cult of zealots for Transhumanism. Today, many of his fanatical disciples use these code names, all of which take a similar form—two letters and a four-digit number—for example, DG-2064, BA-2105, or the one you just mentioned.”

“FS-2080.”

Sinskey nodded. “That could only be a Transhumanist code name.”

“Do the numbers and letters have meaning?”

Sinskey motioned to his computer. “Pull up your browser. I’ll show you.”

The provost looked uncertain but went to his computer and launched a search engine.

“Search for ‘FM-2030,’ ” Sinskey said, settling in behind him.

The provost typed FM-2030, and thousands of Web pages appeared.

“Click any of them,” Sinskey said.

The provost clicked the top hit, which returned a Wikipedia page showing a picture of a handsome Iranian man—Fereidoun M. Esfandiary —whom it described as an author, philosopher, futurist, and forefather of the Transhumanist movement. Born in 1930, he was credited with introducing Transhumanist philosophy to the multitudes, as well as presciently predicting in vitro fertilization, genetic engineering, and the globalization of civilization.

According to Wikipedia, Esfandiary’s boldest claim was that new technologies would enable him to live to be a hundred years old, a rarity for his generation. As a display of his confidence in future technology, Fereidoun M. Esfandiary changed his name to FM-2030, a code name created by combining his first and middle initials along with the year in which he would turn one hundred. Sadly, he succumbed to pancreatic cancer at age seventy and never reached his goal, but in honor of his memory, zealous Transhumanist followers still paid tribute to FM-2030 by adopting his naming technique.

When the provost finished reading, he stood up and walked to the window, staring blankly out at the ocean for a long moment.

“So,” he finally whispered, as if thinking aloud. “Bertrand Zobrist’s lover—this FS-2080—is obviously one of these … Transhumanists.”

“Without a doubt,” Sinskey replied. “I’m sorry I don’t know exactly who this FS-2080 is, but—”

“That was my point,” the provost interrupted, still staring out to sea. “I do know. I know exactly who it is.”