The Midas Code

“Or something along those lines,” Tyler said. “But the most exciting part is that the codex provides evidence that Archimedes may have been the one who designed it.”

Grant grinned. “You mean, the guy who yelled ‘Eureka!’ when he created the Archimedes Death Ray?”

Stacy could tell by his smirk that he knew very well he was conflating two well-known stories about the inventor, engineer, and mathematician. “You are so close,” she said.

According to legend, Archimedes was in the bathtub pondering how to solve a problem for the king of Syracuse, his patron on the island now called Sicily. The king was given a crown that was supposedly made of gold, but he wanted to verify the claim without destroying the gift. When Archimedes realized that the material’s displacement in water could be used to discern its density, he ran into the street stark naked yelling, “Eureka!” which translates to “I found it!”

The king also called on Archimedes to design weapons of war to repel a Roman siege during the Second Punic War in 214 B.C. Historians of the time recount a death ray Archimedes invented that focused the sun’s light with such intensity that it made the enemy ships in the Syracuse harbor burst into flames. His feat couldn’t be duplicated in spite of many attempts, including experiments by students from Tyler’s alma mater, MIT, and TV’s MythBusters, so it’s assumed that the claims were exaggerated.

Nonetheless, Archimedes’ reputation as an inventor and scientist was so great that even such wild assertions were given credence.

“Not only does the codex describe how to design the geolabe,” Tyler said, his excitement obvious, “but it could be the only known copy of his long-lost treatise called On Sphere-Making. It has designs for dozens of mechanisms, not just the geolabe.”

Stacy wished she could be as excited as he was, but she was more worried about how they could use the geolabe to free her sister.

“This is all very cool stuff,” Grant said, “but what in the hell does it have to do with old King Midas?”

Tyler glanced at Stacy, and she shrugged for him to answer.

“We think the geolabe somehow leads to a map-a map that will show us where the treasure of King Midas is buried.”

Stacy pointed at the laptop screen. “This line says, ‘He who controls this map controls the riches of Midas.’”

“Ah, treasure!” Grant said, rubbing his hands together. “Now we’re talking. How does it work?”

Stacy leaned back and laced her hands behind her head. “We don’t know. There are two pieces of the instructions missing.”

“Remember when we were building that Swedish modular home-entertainment center you bought?” Tyler said. “The one with the missing instruction page? Same problem.”

“It’s good we’re engineers, otherwise it would’ve taken us more than a half hour to realize we’d put it together backward.”

“In this case, the missing pieces explain how to operate the device,” Stacy said. “The first step was to get all three dials pointed to the noon position, like calibrating a scale. Solving the Stomachion told us how to do that, but now we don’t know how to proceed. The codex talks about how there are three keys to deciphering the geolabe, and that they form some kind of safeguard so that the owner of the codex wouldn’t be able to find the map without the other two keys.”

“Like a password and fingerprint scanner on the same security system,” Tyler said.

“So the first key is the instruction manual for building and calibrating the geolabe, which we think may also be a version of the mysterious Antikythera Mechanism?” Grant said.

She nodded. “Now that we have the device built and we figured out how to calibrate it, we need the other two keys to operate it.”

“And the other two keys are…?” Grant said.

Stacy highlighted another section. “This part talks about a message that’s hidden. This word is steganos, which means ‘covered,’ and this one is graphein, which means ‘writing.’”

“Steganography.”

“Literally, ‘concealed writing.’ Whatever the message is, it’s concealed, and I think I know where.”

“The wax tablet that was separated from the codex before the auction,” Tyler said. “That’s the second key.”

“Let me guess,” Grant said. “The tablet’s buyer lives in England.”

“Right. The tablet was bought by a holding company called VXN Industries, which also happens to lease an estate in Kent.”

“Think the buyer will let you take a look at it?”

“That’s what we’re hoping. Stacy and I will drive out there to make our plea in person.”

“While I look for clues in as many pubs as possible?”

Stacy liked these guys. Even in a situation as dire as this, they lightened the mood to keep their spirits up.

“You wish,” she said, joining in. She scrolled to another part of the codex. “Here’s where it mentions the third key.”

“So what’s that mean for me?”

“You’re going to the British Museum,” Tyler said.

“A museum?” Grant said, as if he’d been asked to wade through a Dumpster full of trash. “What for?”