Origin

Langdon felt strangely uncertain, wondering if he had fully processed the implications of what Edmond was saying. Admittedly, this simulation would result in a massive paradigm shift and would certainly cause upheavals across many academic disciplines. But when it came to religion, he wondered whether Edmond would change people’s views. For centuries, most of the devout had looked past vast amounts of scientific data and rational logic in defense of their faith.

Ambra seemed to be struggling with her own reactions, her expression somewhere between wide-eyed wonder and guarded indecision.

“Friends,” Edmond said, “if you’ve followed what I’ve just shown you, then you understand its profound significance. And if you’re still uncertain, stay with me, because it turns out that this discovery has led to yet another revelation, one that is even more significant.”

He paused.

“Where we come from … is not nearly as startling as where we are going.”

CHAPTER 94

THE SOUND OF running footsteps echoed through the subterranean basilica as a Guardia agent sprinted toward the three men gathered in the deepest recesses of the church.

“Your Majesty,” he called out, breathless. “Edmond Kirsch … the video … is being broadcast.”

The king turned in his wheelchair, and Prince Julián spun around as well.

Valdespino gave a disheartened sigh. It was only a matter of time, he reminded himself. Still, his soul felt heavy to know that the world was now seeing the same video that he had seen in the Montserrat library with al-Fadl and Köves.

Where do we come from? Kirsch’s claim of a “Godless origin” was both arrogant and blasphemous; it would have a ruinous effect on the human desire to aspire to a higher ideal and emulate the God who created us in His image.

Tragically, Kirsch had not stopped there. He had followed up this first desecration with a second, far more dangerous one—proposing a profoundly disturbing answer to the question Where are we going?

Kirsch’s prediction for the future was calamitous … so disturbing that Valdespino and his colleagues had urged Kirsch not to release it. Even if the futurist’s data were accurate, sharing it with the world would cause irreversible damage.

Not just for the faithful, Valdespino knew, but for every human being on earth.

CHAPTER 95

NO GOD REQUIRED, Langdon thought, replaying what Edmond had said. Life arose spontaneously from the laws of physics.

The notion of spontaneous generation had long been debated—theoretically—by some of science’s greatest minds, and yet tonight Edmond Kirsch had presented a starkly persuasive argument that spontaneous generation had actually happened.

Nobody has ever come close to demonstrating it … or even explaining how it might have occurred.

On-screen, Edmond’s simulation of the primordial soup was now teeming with tiny virtual life-forms.

“Observing my budding model,” Edmond narrated, “I wondered what would happen if I let it run? Would it eventually explode out of its flask and produce the entire animal kingdom, including the human species? And what if I let it run beyond that? If I waited long enough, would it produce the next step in human evolution and tell us where we are going?”

Edmond appeared again beside E-Wave. “Sadly, not even this computer can handle a model of that magnitude, so I had to find a way to narrow the simulation. And I ended up borrowing a technique from an unlikely source … none other than Walt Disney.”

The screen now cut to a primitive, two-dimensional, black-and-white cartoon. Langdon recognized it as the 1928 Disney classic Steamboat Willie.

“The art form of ‘cartooning’ has advanced rapidly over the past ninety years—from rudimentary Mickey Mouse flip-books to the richly animated films of today.”

Beside the old cartoon appeared a vibrant, hyperrealistic scene from a recent animated feature.

“This leap in quality is akin to the three-thousand-year evolution from cave drawings to Michelangelo’s masterpieces. As a futurist, I am fascinated by any skill that makes rapid advances,” Edmond continued. “The technique that makes this leap possible, I learned, is called ‘tweening.’ It’s a computer animation shortcut in which an artist asks a computer to generate the intermediate frames between two key images, morphing the first image smoothly into the second image, essentially filling in the gaps. Rather than having to draw every single frame by hand—which can be likened here to modeling every tiny step in the evolutionary process—artists nowadays can draw a few of the key frames … and then ask the computer to take its best guess at the intermediary steps and fill in the rest of the evolution.