Binary Code

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dedicated
to

Nicole

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Binary Code

A scientific Novel

by Daniel Kaifetz

Notice: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental, with the exception of Major Bernard Francis Fisher, U.S. Air Force who is mentioned in the story.
Author’s note: This work is not about my writing skills, it’s about the story. Read the story and enjoy it.

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Foreword

The initial title for this work was “Soft Media”, which requires an explanation. While it does become an integral part of
this story, the technical term does not exist. The reason is that even though it is very plausible that media for data
storage of the type described herein as ‘soft media’ could certainly be created, there is no plausible use for it at the
present time.

In Chapter 7 the details of the concept of Soft Media are fully described, however I felt that was too long a wait to
understand what the title of the story meant, so the title was changed to Binary Code. Not everyone understands binary
code, but it is well known that this is the foundation of all computer languages and the basis for modern computing.

To assist the non-technical reader in grasping the basic concept of Binary code a comprehensive explanation is furnished
by the principal character in a conversation with his young niece, simplified yet very descriptive and accurate. This basic
knowledge will serve the reader well in understanding the plot of this narrative as it unfolds.

The setting of the story is at the offices of The Vertex Group, a computer software firm in Manhattan at the leading
edge of technology in the early 1990’s. Most technical information presented in this story is accurate, with very few
exceptions that are fictitious but plausible.

Cast of Characters:

NOTE: Actors suggested for these parts are to assist the reader in picturing the characters while reading the script.

 Sam Preston C.E.O. and founder of the Vertex Group
[Harrison Ford]
 A.J. Reynolds Director of Application Development and Vice President of the Vertex Group
[Matt Damon]
 Will Director of Operations of the Vertex Group
[Will Smith]
 Aristotle [Ari] Kingsley Billionaire client of Vertex Group, considered the wealthiest man on the planet.
[the late Anthony Quinn]
 Dr. Harmon Clemsford, PHD Head of Astrophysics Research lab at Vertex [Sean Connery]
 Stella Sam’s secretary
 Marie Celeste Sam’s wife
 Caitlyn Amber Sam’s niece
 Dr. Alexandra Johansen Senior G2 Systems Analyst
 Chuck Miller Corporate Pilot [Sam Sheppard or Sam Elliot]

Other characters: Polish janitor, Vertex Group employees and directors, G2 staff.

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Contents: Page 1
pg. 2
Chapter 1: Janitor scene in computer lab . pg. 7
pg. 13
Chapter 2: Caitlyn’s visit - Sam sees his niece. pg. 17
pg. 23
Chapter 3: Meeting with Ari - The project.. pg. 35
pg. 52
Chapter 4: G-2 Department - Brainstorming. pg. 60
pg. 73
Chapter 5: The gold watch - Janitor’s retirement. pg. 78
pg. 82
Chapter 6: The proposal - Dr. Clemsford’s plan. pg. 85
pg. 93
Chapter 7: The candidate - Lab testing with janitor. pg. 109
pg. 111
Chapter 8: The search - Global manhunt for candidates.

Chapter 9: The oversight - World caliber blunder.

Chapter 10: The meeting - Mission in jeopardy.

Chapter 11: A new player - The final candidate.
Chapter 12: Lighting - Sam’s boys come through

Chapter 13: Deathbed - The world watches.

Chapter 14: Final scene - The Revelation.

Chapter 15: Epilogue

Appendix

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Chapter 1

Large office building setting, high tech but very dated, empty of personnel, dark outside early evening.
A Polish janitor with long mustache is mopping the floors, old style galvanized mop bucket with wringer on casters and
full of water. A long row of 60’s era Cray and Univac mainframes are along the wall in the background, open reel tape
drives and lots of lights flashing, the room is very long with cubicles in front of the mainframes and a long, long hallway
where the janitor is working.
He mops his way closer to one of the cubicles, and as he approaches the workstation in the cubicle he hears a startling
beeping noise, turns around to see a flashing blue screen on the CRT monitor with large letters blinking :

Startled he backs away from the terminal but trips over his mop bucket, spilling a puddle of water in the hallway.
Cursing in Polish he mops up the spill and sticks his mop in the empty bucket, rolling it in front of him as he heads for a
door marked with a red EXIT sign at the end of the long hallway.
As he passes by each cubicle there is a flash of blue on each CRT monitor. He has his head down grumbling and doesn’t
notice, but the camera zooms in on the first screens showing the same SYSTEM FAILURE error message on the first few,
then just blue flashes in each cubicle as he gets further away, until the entire length of the hallway is glowing in blue
flashing screens in each cubicle.
Progressively each tape drive on each mainframe stops spinning, the lights go out on the Crays and Univacs, and the
whole 15th floor becomes silent.
15 years later, our story begins ….
End of Chapter 1.

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Chapter 2: Caitlyn’s visit

Setting: Sam’s office, top floor of the building , large corner windows with a fantastic view of the city skyline and Statue of
Liberty, very spacious office with tasteful decorating and uncluttered high-tech look.
Sam appears very busy when he gets a buzz on his intercom from his secretary Stella, his niece and her mother have
stopped by for a visit, does he have time to see them?

He replies “Yes, send them in” and clears his desk of some papers as the young lady and her mother come in, Caitlyn
rushes over to give him a big hug while he asks “How’s my favorite niece?”

Caitlyn replies “Uncle Sam, you know I am your only niece!”

Sam smiles and says “But you’re still my favorite. So what brings you two to the big city today?”

Caitlyn gushes out “Shopping !!!”, and her mother explains Caitlyn made the Honor Roll for 5th grade at the top of the
list so she is getting treated to a little shopping spree and a new dress for the special dinner she is being rewarded with
tonight.

Sam tells them both how proud he is of her, that she can have his job whenever she is ready to take over the company,
which makes Caitlyn giggle.

Caitlyn asks Sam if he could answer a question for a project she has to work on in her science class, he of course agrees.
She then asks “How do computers work?”

Caitlyn’s mother scolds her because her Uncle is far too busy to explain such a complicated question with all of his
important clients waiting, but he waves her off and says to Caitlyn “Let me see if I can answer your question…”

“Well Caitlyn, the most fundamental principal of how computers work is called Binary Logic.”

Caitlyn looks puzzled and asks “What’s that?”

“You see Caitlyn, computers are not very smart, they really only know how to do one thing, one very simple thing. The
only thing a computer can do is tell the difference between a zero and a one, which is Binary Logic.”

“Well uncle Sam” says Caitlyn as she is shaking her head, “maybe your computers only understand Pineapple Logic but
mine is much smarter then that. !”

“Caitlyn,” says Sam, “It’s called BINARY logic not PINEAPPLE LOGIC” as he can’t help but smiling broadly.

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“Well either way,” says Caitlyn, “my computer can do way more then that, it can play games, it can write and print
letters, it can solve math problems for my homework, it can even play music and show pictures and movies !”

Caitlyn’s mom is shaking her head, what has Sam gotten himself into trying to explain the principles of Computer
Science to a 5th grader in under 10 minutes !

“Believe it or not Caitlyn” Sam replies, “that is all done with Binary Code, just zeros and ones. Every game you play,
ever song you listen to, they are all stored in data on your hard drive, which consists of Binary Code. The CPU of your
computer, which is the Central Processing Unit, uses the Operating System to read all that data and then uses higher
level computer languages to make that information produce the images or sounds or calculations you expect your
computer to know how to do. Understand … ? ”

Caitlyn shrugs, replies “Sort of …” but seems uncertain.

Sam says “Let me show you…”, flips on a switch on his desk and a huge screen on his office wall is unveiled as a sliding
panel raises, a virtual keyboard appears on the bottom and in the top right an inset shows a video monitor of a camera
viewing a lab full of technicians in white coats. Sam clicks on his intercom and says “Clem, could you help me out for a
minute?”

After a moment a curly haired man with glasses and an uneven smile appears on the monitor, says “Yes Sam, what can I
do for you?”

Sam says “This is my niece Caitlyn, Caitlyn this is Dr. Clemsford, the head of all of our Research and Development and
the Director of the Astrophysics Lab where we create all the applications for NASA.”

Caitlyn seems very impressed and replies “Pleased to meet you Dr. Clemsford.” and he returns the greeting.

Sam continues “Clem, I would like you to briefly explain Binary Code to Caitlyn for a science project she is working on,
and also to begin grooming her to take over your position and mine at some point in the not too distant future.” Big
smiles all around….

“Give me a 10 x 10 grid on the screen Clem, and an input form with 0 and 1.”

“No problem Mr. Sam, coming right up” and it appears instantly as you see Dr. Clemsford typing on a keyboard in his lab.

Sam pulls out a red Laser pointer and says to Caitlyn “What was the first thing you learned in school, way back in
Kindergarten?” Caitlyn replies “The alphabet, I guess”. “And what was the first letter you learned in the alphabet ?”
to which Caitlyn replies “A of course!”.

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“Fine” says Sam, “lets send our computer to Kindergarten and see how Binary Code works. Now Caitlyn pretend each
cell on this grid Dr. Clemsford made for you is a light bulb, and Zero will be OFF and One will be ON. So let’s make the
letter A”.

Caitlyn catches on immediately and as Dr. Clem highlights each square of the grid, starting with the top left cell of the
top row, Caitlyn uses the laser pointer to click on Zero for the first 4 cells. Then she looks puzzled and Sam says “What’s
wrong?”

“Well,” says Caitlyn, “I want my letter A centered and there are an even number of cells in this grid so there is no middle
dot to light up, what should I do?” but before Sam can even answer she figures it out and says “ I know, I will make the
top of the A two dots wide!”.

Before long she has clicked her way through the whole grid and it looks like this:

0 0 0 0 11 0 0 0 0
0001001000
0001001000
0010000100
0010000100
0011111100
0100000010
0100000010
1000000001
1000000001

As she finished the exercise Caitlyn tells Sam “That took forever, your computers must be SOOOO slow !” He explains it
is just the opposite, because it is so easy for a computer chip to turn a Zero into a One it can do literally millions of
operations per second, soon it will actually be billions per second. Because when you get right down to it, no matter
how ‘smart’ or how powerful any computer is, it really only knows how to do one extremely simple thing, maybe the
simplest operation in the world.

Caitlyn’s animated expression shows she is catching on, and she rattles off a series of non-stop high speed questions
about games and pictures and movies and music, before Sam can finally get a word in while she catches her breath.
Caitlyn’s mother scolds her that they are taking up too much of her Uncle’s time but she pleads for just one more
example, would he show her how music is played?
“ Please, please, pretty please …. ?”

Sam agrees and gives Clem a few instructions, and a new screen appears with some notes and a grid of zeros and ones.
He then asks Caitlyn what her favorite song is, explaining he doesn’t know any of the new Pop stars that young girls her

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age like today. She says to him “You might be surprised, I bet you actually do know my favorite song, and it’s not one
that is sung by a teen idol or Pop star. It’s ‘America the Beautiful’.”
Sam is both surprised and at the same time very impressed, and before he can get through his next instruction to Dr.
Clem, he cuts him off and says “Got it Sam, coming right up.”
In a very easy to follow explanation Dr. Clemsford brings up each note of the song, breaks down the notes into pitch and
duration, shows how those values would be measured in Binary form, and before too long each note of each word of
the lyrics is highlighted as a box below it shows the pitch and duration of the notes and a table displays the binary code
for each. Each person in the room is staring at the screen as the zeros and ones fly by literally by the millions, with a
stirring version of the patriotic song playing, and as Sam turns and to look at Caitlyn’s lovely young face he locks in on
the deep pools of green color in her shining eyes, as the monitor’s images of the zeros and ones zooming across the
screen are reflected in her irises. At that moment it is crystal clear she has totally grasped in minutes what takes some
college students an entire semester, and when she blinks the mood is broken and the music stops.

Her mother apologizes for all the time they took, Sam is extremely sincere in how glad he was they stopped by, and as
they are leaving after her ‘Goodbyes’ Caitlyn whispers to her Mom “Am I really going to take over Dr. Clemsford’s job and
uncle Sam’s too ?”

When they had left Sam couldn’t help but thinking about how much Caitlyn reminded him of Marie Celeste, his wife from
what seemed a lifetime ago. A few weeks after he arrived in Viet-Nam she had informed Sam that she was expecting,
and a little under nine months later Sam managed to get Orders to come home for some advanced training with Special
Forces, and 14 days leave to be with his wife for the birth of their child.

At the time Marie was living in Chicago with her parents, and 3 days before Sam returned she was leaving her Doctor’s
clinic after a checkup, and got caught in the middle of an anti-war rally. Thinking she had time to get across the street to
the parking garage she crossed while the protesters were on one side of her and Chicago police in riot gear on the other.
Rocks began to be thrown, and the CPD returned fire by launching tear gas canisters at the mob. In the panic she faced
Marie Celeste suddenly felt pain in her abdomen, possibly the signs of a miscarriage, and dropped to her knees. A tear
gas canister landed inches from her face, and she inhaled so much of the smoke she was literally suffocated, only to be

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trampled as the anti-war ‘pacifists’ clashed with the advancing riot squad. By the time she was found by paramedics
treating the injured it was too late, she had lost her child and was fading fast herself. She died in the ambulance on the
way to the University of Chicago Medical Center.
The twisted irony of Sam surviving living Hell in combat and his wife dying at the hands of anti-war protesters was
something Sam refused to ever even let cross his mind.
End of Chapter 2.

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Chapter 3 – Meeting with Ari

Setting: Sam’s office and then the Board Room on the 59th Floor.
The Vertex group was recognized as the absolute cutting edge leader of development in the most advanced computer
applications on the planet, with a long list of clients as prominent as Lockheed, Boeing, the Department of Defense, and
even NASA.

Aristotle Kingsley was regarded as the most affluent and influential businessman in the free world, and was a billionaire
many times over. His almost endless stream of ventures and ideas and companies he founded required the keenest
minds and the type of innovations that took pure genius to develop, and usually had to be accomplished in extremely
critical timeframes. Although his demands for fast-tracking were legendary, so were the astronomical sums he paid for
the technological edge he always demanded.

It made perfect sense that Ari would seek out Vertex, and that the Vertex Group would thrive on Ari’s thirst for
technology and perfection. A few short years after Sam Preston had founded his startup company he and Ari had met as
guests at a space launch at Cape Canaveral, Sam being there because his company had provided a small but critical
application for the launch software and Ari being there just because he was Ari. Not only did a business relationship
form at that time, but over the years a very close personal relationship, based on almost infinite mutual respect and a
deep sense of loyalty each shared with the other, loyalty and admiration that only grew deeper and deeper over the
years of working together.

For those reasons, not because of the dollar signs, when Ari called Stella always put his call through to Sam no matter
how busy he was, his phone even had an special line which lit up when Ari was the caller.

With several lines holding, an intercom conversation going on with Dr. Clemsford in the lab, a screen full of data on his
monitor and a pile of papers with numbers and equations on his desk, Sam dropped everything when he saw the soft
glow of the amber light on Ari’s line.

“Ari, how the Hell are you… and where the Hell are you?” said Sam.

A crackly voice on a frail connection still boomed across 10,000 miles as Ari replied “I am in the Himalayas, a little
exercise for the body climbing K-2, then on to Kashmir for some exercise for the soul when I meet the Dalai Lama in two
days.”

Sam smiled as he replied “The usual thing huh Ari, funny that’s exactly what I had on my schedule last week ! So what
can I do for you my friend?”

Ari’s voice became much more serious, “I need a meeting with you Sam, and the sooner the better. By Friday I can be

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in New York, if I get off this mountain in one piece.”

“What about a little heads up Ari, something I need to know about before the meeting?” asked Sam.

“No” said Ari, “I will have to explain everything in person, I do not wish to discuss any of the details over the phone.
And I would like everyone at this meeting.”

Sam asked “By everyone you mean the Board of Directors, or do you also want all the Department Heads?”

“Sam, I mean everyone, your entire company.” said Ari.

“Ari, you can’t be serious, I have over 15,000 employees just in Manhattan, 75,000 in the Continental U.S. and twice
that world-wide. I don’t see how we can possibly all be in one meeting” replied Sam.

“Well do the best you can Sam, all the Department Heads for sure and all of your brain-trusts, and then as many of your
staff as you can possibly fit in one room, hell use the Ballroom on the 10th floor if you need to, then get the rest of your
people wired in with video and sound in all your offices, everywhere. I want them to be able to hear me and to see me
and I want to be able to hear them. Got it?”

“Sure Ari, I got it. See you on Friday.” said Sam.

“I have to go now my friend” said Ari with a hearty laugh, “my sherpa is yelling something about an avalanche, he
always worries too much! See you on Friday, have a bird meet my Lear Jet at the airport, 9:00 AM meeting your time.
Take care.”

Sam stared at the now silent phone for a moment, shook his head as if to confirm he had just had this bizarre
conversation with Ari, then buzzed Stella on the intercom and said to her “Stella, get Will up here immediately, this is
urgent.”

There was no telling where she might find Will, if he was even in the building, or in the country for that matter. He had a
habit of taking off on ‘missions’ that would have gotten most employees fired, but his results were always so incredible
it seemed better just to let him have free rein and get things done his way.

Will was the Director of Operations for one of the most dynamic corporations in New York, but he had grown up a tough
street kid with very little chance of any higher education. A devoted single mother pushing him to enter a summer
technology program for underprivileged kids from the wrong side of the East River had gotten him into M.I.T., and in a
short five years he came out with an MBA degree summa cum laude, and a six figure starting salary with The Vertex
Group.

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No matter how many times Sam was ready to chew him out over his methods, one fact remained and that was Will was a
master at getting things done. For him the difficult was easy, the impossible was at best a moderate challenge.

And Sam had a challenge for him all right, when he showed up surprisingly only a few minutes after Stella paged him,
Sam outlined Ari’s curious demand for the whole company being present or wired in to the meeting this coming Friday.

Will shook his head at Sam’s request, launched into the impossibility of that much connectivity being established over
such a wide area in such a short time span, even started calculating in his mind and out loud how many offices, how
many connections, how many staff members per connection, until Sam interrupted:

“Will, when I explained our situation to you, you had 72 hours to get this done. You just spent the first 45 seconds of
that 72 hours telling me it can’t be done, so you now have 71 hours 59 minutes and 15 seconds left. Get to work.”

Will headed for the door with a smile and shaking head as he said “You’re the boss Sam, you’re the boss.” That was all
Sam needed to hear, the conference would be exactly as Ari had requested. Now he was trying to figure out what the
subject of this conference would be, and why it was so important to Ari.

Sam buzzed Stella again and asked her to send A.J. in right away. A.J. Reynolds, 10 years Sam’s junior but as close to him
in running this corporation as two men could be, was the Vice President of the Vertex Group and Director of Application
Development, the heart of the company. His PhD from Stanford in Computer Science earned him the title of ‘Doctor’
but not a soul ever used that term around him, he hated it. Sam liked to call him his ‘X.O.’, the military term for
Executive Officer, second in Command after any military unit’s Commanding Officer, probably nostalgia for Sam from his
Tour of Duty as a young officer in the Marines during a war the country hated to remember.

Stella’s soothing voice on the intercom told him that his request would take a while. “Why” asked Sam, “are you busy?”
“No Sam” she replied, “it’s because A.J. is in Argentina. “

“What the Hell is he doing in Argentina ? We don’t even have any offices there !”

“Mr. Reynolds is in Argentina deep powder skiing in the Andes Mountains, Mr. Preston. It’s what normal people call a
vacation, which is what normal people do to get away from work and enjoy life a little.”

“I know Stella, I am familiar with the concept but I have never experienced it personally. Now would you please
explain to me why someone let my X.O. leave the office at a time like this without informing me?”

“You drove him to the airport last Thursday Mr. Preston” replied Stella.

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“Oh yeah, now I remember. Well get him back her A.S.A.P., and stop calling me Mr. Preston !”
Stella replied “Yes sir, Mr. Preston”, which of course made Sam smile.

____________________________________________________________________
THREE DAYS LATER, Friday 09:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time

Apparently there were no avalanches on K-2 and Ari’s arrival in N.Y.C. was precisely on time, picked up at JFK by the
Vertex Group’s Bell 410 which landed on the heliport atop their building exactly 90 seconds before the conference’s
scheduled start time. For Ari that was room to spare.

Will had achieved the impossible and the ballroom was packed with every chair available on the Lower East Side, 3785
Vertex employees present and the balance of the entire corporate operation in the building, in the U.S., and abroad were
wired in to hear and see every word spoken, regardless of their continent or Time Zone

Aristotle Kingsley had a commanding presence, something about him made you realize his namesake might only be a
small clue of the mind of such a brilliant person embedded in a personality that could only be characterized as
unforgettable. Sam briefly took the podium and introduced Ari, mentioned the obvious fact that something important
was about to be unveiled, and let Ari take over the meeting.

He wasted no time with small talk, all eyes were on him both in the room and miles away through the remote
videoconferencing Will had miraculously pulled together.

“I have a mission for this company, for Sam and A.J. and every Department Head and every technician and lab specialist,
every programmer and analyst, every secretary and copy boy and mailroom clerk, I have the biggest and most
significant project ever undertaken by this firm, and we are going to do this together.

“In fact this may certainly be without any doubt the biggest project ever undertaken by anyone, bigger then any space
launch, any war effort, any peace effort, any Nobel prize winning scientific endeavor, I truly believe in a few moments
every single person in this organization will agree me that this is simply the most significant project ever undertaken by
any group of human beings in the history of civilization.

“Why I have chosen the Vertex Group should be obvious, you have never let me down and I sincerely believe your
organization under Sam’s leadership comprises the most sophisticated assembly of intellectual and scientific brain power
available anywhere on this planet. And my confidence in Sam’s leadership is unquestionable.

“Before I unveil the scope of this task, which is quite simple, there is one small detail I must share with you. I am
dying.”

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If you have ever been in a massive assembly of people in a very large space and suddenly experienced an absolutely
unearthly silence you will truly understand the meaning of the phrase ‘You could have heard a pin drop.’ At this very
moment a pin dropping would have sounded like the Liberty Bell crashing to the floor, like a volcano erupting, like an
avalanche. The silence was totally riveting, almost unbearable.

Ari continued “I am not telling you this bit of information for sympathy or for your condolences, but to express to you
how critical this mission is to me, and to explain why I am enlisting your resources to accomplish this task.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am prepared to hire the Vertex Group to do what has never been done before, to determine if
the human spirit continues to exist after Death.”

The wave of shock that rolled over the stunned audience was enough that some people actually rocked back in their
chairs as it hit them and nearly fell over. The sound was a collective gasp of astonishment, tempered by the respect and
awe they held for the man at the podium that had just made a statement which had it come from any other person might
have seemed ridiculous. However coming from Aristotle Kingsley at this precise moment in this precise location and this
assembly seemed like a very serious proposal.

“There are two reasons for why I wish to do this with your help and with your nearly infinite resources and the amount of
pure genius you have access to. The first is that Life has been very good to me, my wealth and thirst for knowledge
have unlocked many of the secrets of this world and I have enjoyed my time on this godforsaken little rock we spend our
lives on. Now I wish to give back to the people of this planet a precious gift, a gift of knowledge, the answer to the
greatest question since the beginning of time.

“Secondly, from what my team of self-proclaimed brilliant physicians tells me, my time remaining here is coming to an
end soon. With all the travels I have done all over the world for over half a century I have always plotted my course,
checked the maps, known every detail of the jungle or mountain or whatever terrain I was about to face. So on my last
voyage I do not want to guess at what my destination holds for me, I want to know before I leave.

“To the possibly large number of you who think I have lost my mind, you are not the first to suspect this. However, to
prove to you how serious I am, let me coin an American expression of yours I have always found very quaint, let me put
my money where my mouth is. I am not certain of what my net worth is, the consensus of opinion for the last several
decades has been that I am the wealthiest man on Earth. Actually I may be able to put a figure on this for you, I have
never disclosed the actual numbers I pay so many accountants to manage, but I believe one of my associates I brought
here today may be able to shed some light on this. Charles … ?”

An thin elderly man in bifocals and gray hair comes over to Ari, opens a black leather Italian briefcase and hands Ari a
single page document, then returns to his seat.

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Ari continues “As of midnight last night my total assets amount to 189.7 billion dollars [1] United States Currency, give or
take a few billion depending on how the market is going this morning. Taking out a little to live on and enough for
adequate funeral expenses, let’s say I have 175 billion dollars I will leave behind when I depart. “
He turns to Sam, stares straight into his eyes, and states “Sam, that is what I am offering you, for the complete
resources of this firm, every man and woman on the payroll in every office and branch you have worldwide, working on
this project as many hours as humanly possible regardless of cost or any consideration of budgets of any kind. One
hundred and seventy five billion dollars Sam, the largest paycheck ever earned in recorded history.
“You may feel free to drill to the center of the Earth if necessary, fly to the Moon, enlist the Vatican, find Atlantis at the
bottom of the Ocean, hire every keen mind in the entire world to work with you, from every nation in existence, put
every project that can possibly be suspended on hold world-wide until you literally have the entire planet working on
this…” his voice rising as his passion increased, until he thundered with all his might “Just FIND MY ANSWER !”
“Sam I will wire the money to you by the close of business day, you have some work ahead of you, we should not delay.
I must bid you all farewell for the moment, I have a luncheon appointment in Monte-Carlo with a lovely Contessa who
always brightens my day when we dine together.”
“A.J., please have your pilot shuttle me back to JFK.” and in seconds he was on the elevator and gone.

[1] Currently (21st century) this would make Aristotle Kingsley’s wealth approximately double the wealth of the second most affluent person on the planet,
however compared to John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Cornelius Vanderbilt [all adjusted for inflation] $175B net worth would place Ari as
Number 4 all time. And if a moon landing was required for this project, the cost of the Apollo 13 mission [adjusted] was approx. 1.2 Billion.

End of Chapter 3.

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Chapter 4: Brainstorming

Setting: Sam’s office.

Sam was on the phone with Ari before his Gulfstream G-450 was even cleared for takeoff from JFK, and his mind was still
reeling from the shock of Ari’s astounding demand. Calming himself he spoke in measured tones and tried to hide the
shock and complete puzzlement from his voice, as he began his conversation with Ari.

“Ari we have been very close for a very long time so I am going to skip my first and most obvious question, which would
be ‘Are you serious?’ I know you well and therefore I do know you are serious, but why us, why expect a company that
deals in Computer Science and Astrophysics to be able to find answers to spiritual questions that have been around since
the beginning of time? Why not priests or philosophers or evangelists or mystics of yogis or swamis, why us?”

“Sam,” Ari replied as if he was speaking to a child, “this is not about spiritualism or religion or mysticism, this is simply
about science. I am simply asking you to find out where our spirit goes after Death, is there a continued existence of our
spirit after our body perishes. That is science Sam, and you already have the best damn scientists in the world working
for you, and by 12:01 AM tomorrow you will have enough money drafted into your bank account to hire many more
scientists, or anyone else you need. Sam, don’t just hire some of the greatest minds on Earth, hire them ALL. Now my
pilot informs me that we are cleared for takeoff so I have to end this call, I will be back in New York in exactly one week
for a follow up meeting, same setup and same time, tell Will he did a great job pulling this together for today’s
meeting.”

“And Sam, one last thing. You’re not just working for me on this one, I’m just the guy picking up the tab. You’re
working for all of mankind this time. Try not to lose sight of that if the going gets rough. Ciao my friend.”
______________________________________________
Setting: G-2 lab, the “Brain Center” of the Vertex Group.
The Astrophysics Department was commonly called G-2 by almost everybody at Vertex. It wasn’t just a clever double-
meaning, but actually a ‘triple entendre’ or triple meaning. The most obvious was that G-2 is the term for military
Intelligence services, and calling the staff of Vertex’s G-2 department ‘Intelligence’ was quite an understatement and
probably much more accurate then using that word to describe military spy types. Secondly the “2” in “G-2” was
actually the squared symbol, exponential notation to the second power, so it would be written out as G2 which word
had it meant ‘Genius’ squared, the geniuses of all geniuses. And finally urban legend attributed the ‘2’ in G-2 to be an
indication that to get in that department your IQ test had to score a number beginning with ‘2’, which of course meant
200+. Even in a group as high-tech as Vertex these members of G-2 were looked up to as the brain trusts of the entire
organization.

Sam turned to his G2 staff under the direction of Dr. Harmon Clemsford for the first post-Ari bombshell staff meeting,
hoping to find confirmation from these brilliant minds that Ari’s project was not something the Vertex Group could
conceivably take seriously.

13

To his utter amazement when he walked into the G2 Lab on the 57th floor he found the entire group engaged in scientific
discussions, the blackboards already full of equations, and they hardly noticed his entry.

Sam cleared his throat and said “Gentlemen…” which turned everyone’s attention to him standing in the doorway. Dr.
Clemsford, [Sam’s pet name for him was just Clem to poke fun at what a hillbilly sounding name he had if you shortened his
last name, although Clem took it as a sign of affection and didn’t seem to mind.] welcomed Sam and seated him in front of
a gigantic blackboard, which he began erasing, raising a few eyebrows as complex formulas began to disappear with no
concern for how much thought had gone into them.

Dr. Clem just took the floor and began a long rambling dissertation, totally catching Sam off guard as if he were
describing the scientific principles of rocket science he so often overwhelmed everyone with. He began “What we have
here Sam is a proposition that on the surface seems impossible to even know where to begin. However that sheer
impossibility of the mission does in itself give us very specific guidance on how to approach this project.

“What we are faced with to solve the problem Mr. Ari has hired us to unravel is very indefinite on many planes. We do
not know where to look for the answer, we do not know how to establish any form of viable communications that could
return data to us regarding the solution we seek, we do not know what tools or equipment would be suitable for this,
and we are seeking provable concrete scientific evidence in an area of knowledge that has eluded mankind since the
beginning of time.”

“Is that all?” asked Sam.

“No actually there are numerous other difficulties and unknowns, but they all point to the same thing. The first and
foremost principal of our research must be to apply the Principal of Diminishing Returns.”

Sam’s obviously puzzled look and Clem’s taking note of his expression embarrassed Sam, suddenly he felt more like a 5th
grader then Caitlyn had in his office earlier. Gracefully Clem continued by adding an explanation his colleagues did not
require, and he started with a diagram on the chalk board which he felt should make everything crystal clear, then
added some verbal clarifications for Sam’s sake.
His diagram looked something like this:

Dr. Clem’s Chart

14

Dropping the charade that he was explaining this to everyone in the room, Clem felt it would be more expeditious to
address Sam directly: “What we have here Sam if you will is a simple fulcrum effect, with the small red vertical line being
the fulcrum in this diagram. This represents the total body of knowledge available to man, essentially everything we
know about science. The value of ‘X’ in this equation represents how far beyond our normal scope of knowledge this
particular answer lies, and the vertical value shown here as ‘Y’ represents the measured difficulty of the problem we are
solving. The reciprocal result of multiplying X times Y in this equation is the value Z, which if we use the bottom of the
red fulcrum line as a baseline of the absolute minutest measurement of our knowledge, then ‘Z’ is the most probable
amount of acceptable values we can expect to solve for.”

Sensing his explanation was somewhat lacking he drew in a deep breath and continued: “In other words Sam, the ‘X’
value in this equation is how far from our normal level of scientific achievement this answer lies, and the value ‘Y’ is how
difficult it will be to find an answer since we don’t even know how to go about solving this problem. To describe the
scope of Mr. Ari’s quest as ‘Off the charts’ would be a significant understatement.

“Which brings us to the ‘Z’ value, what we can expect to solve for. The answer is using this equation we can ascertain
that to have any chance of solving Mr. Ari’s task we must strive for the absolute, most minimum, minutest possible
measurement of success.”

All the ‘brains’ in the room were nodding their heads and mumbling in approval how well Clem had explained their
situation to Sam. Not bad, coming from a man who could have explained the Theory of Relativity to a grade school
class with equal success.

Sam spoke up and said “Ok Clem, give me all that in very plain English, and the short version this time.”

Clem replied “Sam, what this means is that due to the supreme complexity of this task we can not overextend ourselves,
regardless of the unlimited financing and virtually unlimited resources. We must tell Mr. Ari in no uncertain terms that
we are scientists and cannot provide proof God or any other supreme being exists. We cannot prove there is a Heaven
or Hell or even Purgatory. We cannot prove there are such things as angels or reincarnation or just rewards or anything
of that sort.”

“But we may, we just may have a miniscule [he taps at the chart and already his colleagues are nodding their heads
collectively] …” clearing his throat he continues obviously beginning to show some emotion, reminiscent of Knute
Rockne giving a speech to the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, this being the Geek version if you will, “we may just have a
minute yet clearly achievable possibility of measuring and scientifically establishing without any doubt that a response
can be received and measured from the Spirit of a human being within a specified timeframe following their physical
death. This in turn would be empirical proof that there is an afterlife awaiting us.”

For the second time in one day, and probably only the second time in his life, Sam was dumfounded. He almost didn’t
believe what he had just heard, one of the most down to Earth [what irony to use that particular thought! ] scientific

15

minds of almost unrivaled brilliance and intellect was standing in front of him essentially ready to scientifically prove the
existence of afterlife for the human spirit.
He stood up, nodded at the G2 team and mumbled a faint “Good day, gentlemen.” and walked out of the room.
Returning to his office he poured himself a drink, very unusual behavior for a man whose nerves never failed him, and
after a few moments buzzed Stella and asked her to set up a conference with Clem and all of the G2 staff for Monday,
clear his schedule so he could spend the entire day in the lab. Also to include A.J. and Will and to have a direct line to Ari
open and available, with very specific instructions to Ari that he stay in one place for a change!
He thought of telling Stella to also invite his niece Caitlyn, maybe as a very bright 5th grader she would have some good
ideas they could use, but he kept that to himself.
Then he poured himself a second drink.
End of Chapter 4.

16

Chapter 5 – The Gold Watch

Setting: Sam’s Office, very early Monday morning.
Sam had planned on spending all day with Clem and the G-2 staff in their Lab, hoping to come up with enough data to
decide if this project was even possible to undertake. His entire company’s reputation was at stake. If he took on this
project and the press represented it as a wild goose chase, or worse yet as fleecing his number one client at a point
when Ari had obviously become unstable, he would be ruined, the Vertex Group stock would crash, and the corporation
would plummet from the top of the ladder to becoming a laughing stock. Even that scenario was something he could
live with, but the realization of the number of his employees who would be out of work, and all of investors and
everyday working people who had trusted him enough to invest their future in Vertex, that seemed like an untenable
risk to be taking.

On top of that dismal outlook was the fact that either way he chose to proceed on this project he risked crushing the soul
and spirit of the man he considered one of his closest friends on earth, Ari Kingsley.

Not only that, as Ari had put it at the close of their last conversation, the whole world would be counting on him this
time.

No matter how many times he ran it through his mind the answer was invariably the same each time:

“DON’T DO IT.”

It was a few minutes after 6:00 AM, the office was like a ghost town, the entire building just barely waking up as a
handful of staff wandered around on each floor preparing for their busy schedules. He enjoyed this time of day when he
had some solitude and a little quiet time to think, the calm before the storm type of feeling he knew so well. As the
golden orb of the sun rose up over the waterfront and the first brilliant rays lit up the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island he
cleared his mind of all thoughts and just soaked in the moment.

‘The moment’ turned out to last all of about 12 seconds as A.J. came in abruptly, pushing the door open with his shoe,
both of his hands full with steaming cups of Starbucks coffee. He had a fresh tan, looked like a photo from the cover of
GQ magazine, his appearance capable of consistently having clients underestimate his age by at least 15 years.

With a big grin beaming out about 1000 Watts he handed Sam his coffee in the cardboard cup and said “Morning boss,
what’s new?”

Sam nodded his thanks for the coffee and greeted A.J. with “How was the surfing in Brazil?”

“Great Sam, except it was skiing in Argentina, and I got called back 10 days early to put a fire out for you I guess.

17

What’s up, glitch at the NASA space station tests?”

“Not exactly A.J., geographically close but a little higher.” replied Sam.

“Hmm, higher then the Space Station, we writing some code to launch a probe to Mars ?”

“Higher A.J., our most illustrious client wants us to bring back a little bit of data from Heaven, so he can decide if it’s to
his liking up there before making a reservation.”

“That’s funny, “ said A.J., “now seriously Sam what’s up, whatever it is I’m rarin’ to go and I gave up ten days of glorious
deep powder nirvana to be here, let’s get down to business.”

“A.J., please sit down” said Sam pointing to a leather chair in front of his stainless steel and Mahogany desk.

“I wasn’t joking, or not much at least. Ari is dying. He wants us to use all the brainpower and resources we have, as
well as hiring every keen mind on this planet, to determine if there is life after death, or more technically as he put it ‘If
the Human Spirit continues to exist after the body dies.’

“He is dead serious [sorry], and he offered us his entire financial net worth minus a few billion to tide him over, which
apparently would amount to $175 billion dollars, give or take. He wants us to shut down every current project, put
everything we have going on hold, hire thousands of the most brilliant minds from all four corners of the earth, and
spend whatever it takes to get an answer.”

“Stella has a verbatim transcript of the Conference on your desk so you can get a feel for what you missed.”

A.J. was stunned but hid his surprise fairly well, didn’t say anything for about 90 seconds, then replied: “Well Sam,
let’s see what this is going to take. What is your plan so far?”

Sam looked troubled, “I have no plan A.J., none whatsoever. My gut feeling is to say NO, then run and hide. I am
afraid Ari will not take NO for an answer, and apparently he doesn’t have much time left. I thought we would spend the
day with G-2 in their lab, then we can say we honestly made an effort to come up with a plan and find a way to gracefully
bow out. There is no way we can take this risk and destroy this company over trying to find the Easter Bunny or some
such impossible quest.”

He looked at his watch, saw it was almost 7:00, stood up and said to A.J. “Let’s head down to the Lab, the G-2 team

always likes to get an early start and Clem has them pretty wound up about this. They already know the initial game

plan, if there is going to be one, is in their hands.” … Sam and A.J. head down to G-2.

18

Setting: G-2 Lab, lots of Sun mainframes and Cray supercomputers , terminals and workstations, huge blackboards, test
equipment, 12 or 14 young scientist in white lab coats.
Sam and A.J. enter and exchange greetings with Dr. Clemsford and the rest of the G-2 staff, very cordial and yet there is
a little nervous tension in the air.

Sam addresses Clem “Security mentioned to me that you and your staff just arrived so I know you haven’t had any time
to begin brainstorming on this dilemma, but I thought A.J. and myself should be present while we get started.”

He continues “What I want each of you ladies and gentlemen to understand is that I am not looking for a definite plan or
even an extremely general plan of attack at this time, I am simply asking for your initial well thought out combined
response on the foremost question in my mind, which is: Is there any possible way to undertake this project, any
scientific precedence that a quest of this nature could even be developed in a logical manner, regardless of the resources
we have available?”

Clem replies, “On the contrary Sam, we did not just arrive at 7:00 AM, we were here all night and each of us either went
down to the lounge on the 12th floor or home if we live nearby to take a quick shower and light breakfast, and we have
just returned to prepare our findings for you.”

Sam looked at Clem through narrowed eyes and says “Do you mean to tell me you have a plan?”

Clem responds “I do not know if it qualifies as a plan, but I do believe I have some proof of evidence that there is cause
to believe that theoretically our goal could be achieved.”

Sam’s eyes grow to the size of hubcaps, he looks at his watch and it reads 7:09, nine minutes into a day he envisioned
going on endlessly around and round in circles until ultimately the plan was abandoned, nine minutes and already Clem
has ‘some proof of evidence’.

“Clem, just for starters, could you tell me the general scope of where this ‘proof of evidence’ would be originating ?”
Sam asks while carefully measuring his words.

“Certainly Sam, it originates in human nature, and the consensus of most theologians is that all human nature is derived
from our Creator, and that all things in nature are created in the image of God, so I believe He has left us a clue.”

Sam repeats the words as if he were from another planet trying to understand our language “He has left us a clue….”

The intercom buzzes, Stella’s gentle voice interrupts Sam’s astonishment with Clem’s statement, and she says to Sam:

“I knew you had a busy schedule today with Dr. Clemsford so I scheduled that brief retirement ceremony for 7:30 so you

19

could get it out of the way before your work started to pile up. Will you be back in your office when Mr. Kolanowski
arrives?”

“Mr. Kolanowski ?” asks Sam puzzled.

“Yes Sam, the old janitor from the maintenance department is retiring today, gold watch and a $10k stock certificate,
you told me you wanted to do this one in person because he put in so many years here, he is going to be here at 7:30,
that’s in 12 minutes.” says Stella.

“Oh I remember now” says Sam apologetically, “but I think I will have to cancel. You better take care of him and give
him my best regards”.

Clem interrupts “Sam, we could use 45 minutes to get our notes organized, why don’t you go and then we can meet
around 8:30 and get started in earnest.”

Stella hears everything on the intercom and interjects “Well …. ?”

Sam replies “Be right there.” and clicks off the intercom. Looking over his shoulder as he exits the Lab he nods at Clem
and A.J. and says “8:30 A.M. sharp, and don’t forget to bring your Ouija [1] boards.”

[1] Originally a parlor game board by Hasbro, Inc., used for divining spiritual responses, regarded by some and having true occult and spiritual meaning.

___________________________________

Setting: Sam’s office and reception area.
As Sam walks in to Stella’s office which serves as his reception area he sees an elderly gentleman seated, long mustache
and wearing work boots with his old pinstripe suit, starched white collar on his shirt buttoned but no tie, gray hair neatly
combed, holding his felt hat on his lap. Sam puts his hand out and introduces himself to Mr. Kolanowski and invites him
into his office. Stella follows with a small gift box and a gold envelope.

“How long have you been with us ?” asks Sam.

Kolanowski replies “24 years Mr. Sam, I always loved to work here, you run a good company Mr. Sam.”

“Thank you. So you were a janitor for us 24 years, that’s a long time!”

Kolanowski replies “Not exactly Mr. Sam, I was Janitor for 10 years but then I have an accident one night and spill some
water on the 15th floor with all the giant computer machines, and my supervisor Mr. Murphy he tells me it is my fault all

20

the computer machines go kaplooey that night, so he moves me to the Boiler Room and I take care of the boiler and all
the Mechanical Room too for the last 15 years.”

“Very interesting,” says Sam, “do you by any chance remember exactly when that was Mr. Kolanowski, the date? I
know that it was a long time ago and it’s not really important, I am just curious.”

“I know exactly the date Mr. Sam, it was December 7th, 1976 Mr. Sam. I know that was the exact date because I study
American history to get my G.E.D. and then also to get my American Citizenship, you know Mr. Sam I am an American
Citizen of the U.S. of A. and I am very proud of that Mr. Sam, and I know all the dates that are important and December
7th , that was Pearl Harbor Day from World War II attack by the Japanese, and that is the date all the big computer
machines go kaplooey and they say it was my fault. You aren’t going to fire me on my last day are you Mr. Sam? I don’t
think I do anything wrong, and since then they never let me near any computers in this building again, honest !”

Sam smiles and tells Kolanowski not to worry, he is not going to get fired, just the opposite, he is being honored with a
very expensive gold watch and a $10k stock certificate. Stella gives Sam the small black velvet jewelry box and Sam
reaches across his desk to hand it to Kolanowski but the old man backs away from it and says “I am sorry Mr. Sam, but
watches don’t like me !”

“What does that mean?” asks Sam.

“Well Mr. Sam, every time my wife buys new watch for me, even a good one like Timex, and I put it on it stops working,
sometimes it even does funny things, the hands go backwards in circles, any watch I try to wear goes kaplooey. So I
don’t want to break this nice watch you give me, I don’t want to even touch it.”

“I am really sorry” says Sam, “if I had known we could have done something different for you. We can just give you the
value of the watch in cash if you prefer, I will have Stella get you an extra check for $250, if that is acceptable with you?”

“If it’s not too much trouble Mr. Sam, maybe I can just give the nice watch to my grandson, he is graduating from college
soon and he will be the first one in my family since we come to America to go to college and graduate, a good college
too Mr. Sam it’s called Columbia University, you ever hear of that?”

“Yes I have Mr. Kolanowski, it’s a very good school, you have every right to be very proud of your grandson. You can
give Stella your grandson’s name and address as you go out, she will take care of everything.”

Sam gets up and shakes the old man’s hand, thanks him very genuinely for his years of dedicated service, Kolanowski
telling him over and over “You are a good man to work for Mr. Sam !” They even give each other a long hug, very
unusual for Sam.

21

Stella leads Mr. Kolanowski out of Sam’s office and sits down at her desk to enter the information regarding his
grandson, when suddenly her computer screen turns blue and a message flashes across the display:

Stella buzzes Sam, tells him her PC just crashed and describes the error message. He tells her to get someone from the
Information Technology department to re-install her operating system and also check all the other workstations on the
network on this floor, and meanwhile take Mr. Kolanowski down the Personnel Department and get his file updated
with the contact information for his grandson.
The crash of Stella’s computer does not seem to concern Sam much at all, his mind is preoccupied with much more
demanding issues.
End of Chapter 5

22

Chapter 6 – Dr. Clemsford’s Plan

Setting: G-2 Lab, 8:30 A.M.
Part of Sam wanted to just become a spectator, and as he took his seat in the Lab facing Clem and his staff he pictured
himself just being seated at a movie theater, where a great story teller and a great director were about to sweep him
away in an interesting or hopefully even fascinating tale, just for the sheer pleasure of watching and listening and being
entertained … a story that held no consequences for anyone, that would require no decisions and have no
repercussions. A story so implausible and so far fetched that in an hour or maybe two or even three he could walk out
of this lab and give Ari a call and let him know his quest was impossible, that the Vertex Group was going to sit this one
out.

On the other hand he had witnessed the esteemed Dr. Clemsford, Nobel Prize Laureate and one of the most respected
scientists alive today when Clem really turned things up a notch, and he wanted to give this presentation his full
attention with an open mind. So he made a promise to himself to do his best to not be judgmental or have any
preconceived notions of what his response would be.

“Dr. Clemsford … ready when you are.” was all he said.

The first thing Sam noticed was that Clem had positioned himself at the back of the room, not directly in front of Sam,
which made him realize Clem was also addressing his staff, rather then having them behind him for support or backup.
Sam’s intuition immediately told him what he was about to hear was also going to be heard by Clem’s staff for the first
time, the G2 team who between them had enough PhD’s and magna summa laude degrees and even a few extremely rare
egregia cum laude honors to start their own version of Mensa. Sam marveled that the only possible conclusion was that
Clem had just listened all night, formulating his own plan but not discouraging the others from giving it their best, and
of the 13 brilliant minds in front of him at this moment twelve of them could have been the old janitor Kolanowski,
because the G2 plan he was about to witness was 100% pure Clemsford.

Sam snapped out of his reverie as Clem cleared his throat ready to begin, only to be interrupted before he even started
by A.J. barging into the lab, glancing at the Atomic clock on the wall [8:31:05] and sitting down immediately, right next
to Sam.

Clem cleared his throat again, as if to get a fresh start, and began to speak:

“Sam, I am first and foremost a scientist. The project you have asked me to consider may seem to most people to be a
fantastic proposition, but when you asked me for my initial thoughts I could only imagine how Wernher von Braun might
have reacted when President John F. Kennedy asked him to provide a plan to put a man on the moon. In my profession
we recognize von Braun as being without doubt, the greatest rocket scientist in history. His crowning achievement was to
lead the development of the Saturn V booster rocket that helped land the first men on the Moon in July 1969. Did he

23

have any doubts about JFK’s sanity in asking him to do the impossible, to do what men had only dreamed of, to do what
most rational minds at that time would have considered beyond the wildest imagination of what science was capable of?
I only met the man once Sam, von Braun not JFK, but that one time was enough for me to know from the moment the
President gave him his directive, von Braun just got out his slide rule and went to work until he achieved success.

“I now have my directive from you, or I am expecting it when you determine if the Vertex Group has made the decision
for this project to be a Go. I am about to give you my only logical ideas on this matter that I am positive I believe
completely. I have no empirical evidence or data, which to a scientist is like being caught in front of a large crowd
wearing only your boxer shorts, but I do have a theory I will share with you.

“Von Braun built rockets, I write code. I am primarily a programmer, still a rocket scientist but I don’t deal with fuel and
rivets, I deal strictly with math and physics and mostly, I deal with data. A space launch requires both kinds of rocket
scientists, von Braun’s kind and my kind. Now please listen carefully to the first assumption of my theory, because if
you are not in total agreement with this principal, which I can assure you has never been presented to you or crossed
your mind, then my theory will not hold water for you and therefore my discourse will be terminated.

“Just as rockets needed both von Braun doing the ‘nuts and bolts’ and myself doing the coding and number crunching,
the creation of the earth and the planets and the solar system also required both. The Creator and artist that made the
plants and animals and the beauty of waterfalls and the glory of the sunrises also wrote the genetic code that is in our
DNA, the algorithms that control the orbits of the planets and countless stars [how often do stars collide in our galaxy?
not once in the last billion years, that is not a coincidence, it is evidence of a damn good rocket scientist at work !]. Since
there was only one creator, unlike NASA where many of us worked together each with our special areas of expertise,
the only possible conclusion is that among his many and infinite abilities, God was also a programmer.

“If there is no contradicting evidence I will continue, or as they say at weddings ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace’.”

The whispers and nodding of heads among the rest of the G2 brains confirmed what Sam had suspected, that this was all
new territory for them.

Comfortable that the first premise of his theory was acceptable Clem continued: “My case for the First premise now
rests, and I conclude God was a programmer.”

“It may sound presumptuous but once it occurred to me that if God was also a programmer like myself, I couldn’t help
having the feeling that He must think like me. I soon realized that I had that backwards, actually I must think like Him.
Either way what matters most is that if I am right, then when it comes to programming I have some insight into what our
Creator may have felt when He wrote the code for what became our world, not just the Earth but the Solar System, the
entire Universe.

24

“My next conclusion will probably startle you, and moreover it will certainly puzzle you why it is so critical to my theory,
but for now just trust me that it is. I have deduced that there is empirical proof that God has a sense of humor. I could
go on for hours on this single point, but I will make my presentation of data brief: why did he put a mask on raccoons?
why are monkeys so hilarious? where did he come up with the sounds certain animals make, why do many animals have
so many ridiculous features, and people for that matter too? And forget about the mammals on dry land, what about
under the sea, come on ! Clownfish, blowfish, the list is almost endless. You may certainly have dozens of examples
already coming to mind, as humor is a very personal thing, so I will simply ask you now if you accept my second premise,
that our Creator has a sense of humor.”

The G2 group was smiling and trading examples back and forth in whispers, a few muffled laughs broke out, Hell they
probably knew the scientific genus and species of hundreds of animals Sam and A.J. had never heard of, but it was
obvious the consensus was total agreement with Clem. Sam noticed A.J. smiling, he either had envisioned an example of
God’s sense of humor or he was just marveling at Clem’s pure unpolished amazingly graceful way he had of letting his
genius shine through without ever appearing conceited. A remarkable man, that was for certain.

Comfortable that the group concurred with his second premise, Clem forged on:

“My next conclusion is the most critical so far, and in a way it is almost empirical data while the first two points may have
been partly conjecture. I say that because I personally have experienced this next phenomenon, unwittingly and
without any conscious effort on my part, so I can say for me it was almost an autonomous nervous reflex, something
that occurred without my making any deliberate effort to express this emotion. The emotion I am referring to is taking
pride in your work, and the greater the task, the greater the accomplishment, the greater the sense of pride has been.
Watching a space launch I am sometimes almost forced to make myself keep breathing or I will stop, I am so absorbed
and so fascinated and so full of an overwhelming emotion that I even had a small part in such a magnificent endeavor.
So now I will present my third premise, which is that after creating our world and the Universe, God was very proud of
his work. Some theologians may disagree with this and would chastise me because pride is not always considered a
virtue. However when a noble, unselfish act has been performed and the pride is not self-induced, but seems to be
impossible to ignore within us, as one must feel after saving a child from being crushed by a speeding car, then watching
the child skip and play and laugh and run to hug her mother. That is the sense of pride in accomplishment, without
vanity of any sort, that I am referring to. A young man who does welding for me on occasion, and does work of the
highest skill level I have ever seen, apparently has a limited vocabulary and only uses one word to describe anything he
does well, or anything he admires that others have done well, and that is “Nice.” Well gentlemen, I believe when He
was done, as the Bible says on the seventh day, and was pleased with what He had created, I believe like the young
welder one word was sufficient and God just said ‘Nice !’ .

“I could stop there and I believe we would be in agreement, but there is an even more compelling reason I can give you,
based on the work of Masters of many disciplines throughout the history of civilization. The mark of a Master in any field

25

is not just to create works of genius, but to make these objects more than functional, to add beauty. Look at Art, did
Michelangelo just do a painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or did he create a masterpiece by adding so much
more beauty than what would have just been adequate? Look at architecture over the last two millenniums, how often
do we see the marvelous examples of added beauty when just functionality of massive bridges or breathtaking
cathedrals would have been amazing enough, but with beauty of statues and carvings and graceful lines and superfluous
yet stunning artwork become masterpieces. In the field of physics how many mechanical wonders from the Roman
chariots to F-16 Fighter Jets have become masterpieces because of their sheer beauty in motion … in science was
Einstein content to just discover and unravel the Theory of Relativity, or did he show the genius of a true Master in

boiling it down to such a beautiful and eloquent work of art in it’s amazing simplicity of E = mc2 …. ? My conclusion, the

unmistakable sign of a Masterpiece is the Master adding beauty to what is already an amazing accomplishment. The
Earth does not need waterfalls or rainbows to have adequate water, the Sun could do it’s job without the magnificent
beauty of sunrises and sunsets, plants could pollinate without the beauty of flowers, yet our Creator added these and
countless other beautiful embellishments to his work because he was the greatest Master of all, and because he was
proud of his work.

“This then is my third premise, that God was proud of his work creating the Earth and the Universe. Premise
accepted… ?” Clem looked up over the top of his thick glasses but only for an instant, it was obvious beyond a shadow
of a doubt the premise was accepted by all, so he continued.

“These may seem like very unrelated principles, but I believe my next point will tie everything together. If we were to
study the history of science, which I have done all my life, throughout the course of mankind’s history the smallest and
also the greatest discoveries all share one thing in common: There are always clues. One scientist in Vienna that I knew
in the old days once called these clues “A nudge from God.” Very clever the way he put that, although other then that
one statement I never found him to be particularly brilliant. But just think about it gentlemen: Archimedes and the
bathtub, Sir Isaac Newton and the apple, the candy bar and the microwave oven…” Seeing a few puzzled looks Clem
explained “For those of you that didn’t know this fact, the idea of the microwave oven came to be by accident: in 1946
an engineer working in aviation development noticed a candy bar in his pocket had melted while working on something
completely unrelated to cooking appliances, and the microwave oven was invented, without which we would not have
popcorn in 120 seconds and it would be a great loss for all mankind.

“Back to my point, THERE ARE ALWAYS CLUES. Gentlemen, you may take as long as you like with this premise, I
cannot continue unless we are all in 100% unanimous agreement on this point. “

Clem went to the water cooler and poured himself a paper cup full and then sat down by himself away from the rest of
his staff, and just watched their reactions. There was animated discussion in quiet undertones, and one by one each
nodded their head, perhaps recalling every incident where they had hit the wall and run out of ideas and something had
popped up unexpectedly, giving them that one missing piece of the puzzle, the “Nudge from God”.

26

After a few minutes a young man stood up and addressed Clem: “Dr. Clemsford, we are all in complete agreement with
the four principles you have asked us to accept.”

Clem stood up and looked over at Sam and A.J., raising his eyebrows to pose the silent question if he should continue,
and Sam and A.J. both nodded in unison.

Walking over to the 14 foot long blackboard Clem began to methodically erase every formula and diagram covering the
surface, the remnants of last nights collective thoughts and theories. He then wrote his four principles in large neat
printing:

1. Our Creator was a programmer.

2. Our Creator has a sense of humor.

3. Our Creator took great pride in His work.

4. THERE IS ALWAYS A CLUE.

What happened next caught Sam totally off guard: The G2 team stood up and began applauding, and Clem looked like
he was ready to take a bow, but instead just let himself display a huge smile and nodded to his staff, then he sat down !
His colleagues had heard all they needed to know, they were not in the habit of being spoon fed conclusions they could
extrapolate themselves, and apparently this conclusion was so simple to grasp for each of them that they assumed Clem
had completed his presentation.

Sam looked at A.J. with bewilderment in his eyes, and A.J. just shrugged his shoulders, and said “Hey, I’m not the genius
around here !”, followed by his disarming smile. Sam thought, not for the first time, that A.J. had missed his true calling,
he should have been in films, the heir to the unrivaled charm and class of Cary Grant.

Snapping out of it Sam stood and addressed Clem, who already was cringing at the magnitude of the tactical error he
had just made in overlooking the fact his boss had not found the conclusion to his presentation to be as obvious as his
colleagues had found it to be. Somehow Sam managed to diffuse the situation with a sheepish grin, and then said to
Clem : “I am sure we all agree how incredibly obvious your conclusion is, but just for the record would you mind taking a
moment to go ahead and spell it out in simple terms ?”

Clem never did anything in simple terms, even the clerks at the Supermarket had difficulties understanding him when he
asked where the ‘gel dentifrice containing calcium hydrogen phosphates and hydroxyapatite or (Ca5(PO4)3OH) might be
precisely geographically situated within the confines of this establishment” instead of a simply inquiry ‘what aisle is the
toothpaste in ? ’. However this presentation was for Sam, not a grocery store clerk, so he took of his glasses, rubbed

27

his eyes and cleaned his lenses absent mindedly, and addressed Sam and A.J.

“Well, we have almost universal agreement throughout the history of civilizaton and around the world that the creation
of the universe was an incredible accomplishment, beyond anything else ever imagined.”

Quiet murmuring of agreement from the G2 team, now rooting for their leader to show he was as much of a statesman
as he was a scientist, and get his point across to Sam effectively but without dumbing it down or compromising.

“Secondly “ Clem continued, “ the sheer complexity of nature and biology and physics and astronomy all working so
smoothly indicates to any scientist that our Creator was a programmer. Not a computer programmer, like many of us,
but nonetheless he did program the flow of the Universe, from the tiniest strand of DNA in an amoeba to the harmony of
planets and galaxies in motion throughout the Cosmos, the most intricate application of Astrophysics ever
accomplished. So God was a programmer.

“Third, and any child could tell you this, God did not just create the Universe. Everywhere we look, through the naked
eye and from microscopes to massive telescopes we see the endless beauty of His work. Why? Because God was proud
of His work, that’s why.”

“The fourth and final principle, the key to my entire theory, is about clues.” He turns to the blackboard and hastily
draws a 12 x 12 grid with 144 blank squares, then shades in a few of the cells seemingly randomly, turns back to his
audience and asks “Who can solve this?” Quizzical looks and blank stares all around, but no hands go up. Clem
continues “In this room I am surrounded by some of the most brilliant minds I have ever been associated with, and yet
no-one here can solve this simple puzzle?”

A.J. speaks up and says “Dr., could you at least tell us what this is?”

“Certainly” says Clem, “I presumed it would be obvious to all of you, this is a Crossword Puzzle of course !”

A.J. then blurts out “But Dr., it’s impossible to solve, there are NO CLUES !”

“Correct!” shouts Dr. Clem as his voice cracks, and scribbles the word on the board in huge letters writing so hard he
breaks his chalk and finishes the word with a second piece :

“THERE ARE ALWAYS CLUES “. Throughout the entire history of mankind science has always consisted purely of the
extrapolation of conclusive facts from ambiguous clues. THERE ARE ALWAYS CLUES !”

28

He goes on “So in conclusion what we are trying to unravel here is a puzzle created by the most brilliant mind ever, an
intellect that surpasses the insignificant genius of all the most brilliant mortals in the history of mankind combined, a
genius who has shown us abundant and obvious evidence of His sense of humor, and a Creator who’s accomplishment
was so incredibly magnificent He took great pride in His creation.

“Programmer, great achievement, sense of humor, proud of his work.”

Nodding at Sam and A.J. he concludes: “There you have it, now we know what we are looking for.” and he begins to sit
down. A.J. stops him from sitting by holding up his hand and says “Which is what exactly Doc ?”

“Oh yes of course A.J., with this data there can be only one way to solve the mystery of the Universe, to witness the

signature of the Creator, we must find the Easter Egg.” [1]

Sam is startled and he is not even sure if his next thought was spoken out loud or just in his mind “I was close anyway, I
thought we might be looking for the Easter Bunny.”

Clem takes his seat, his younger colleagues stare at him with a look of admiration he has never seen on this level before.
Their respect for his brilliance was hard earned today, but it shows clearly on each of their faces. He nailed it, and he is
exhausted from the effort.

A discussion between Sam, A.J. and the G2 team ensues, all of Clem’s staff intervening to field the questions and
document the history in Computer Science of Easter Eggs, their significance as authenticating the signature of the
programmers, the White Rabbits and Back Doors that are the legends of geekdom, military and security issues cause by
this code on occasion. Their unanimous agreement with Clem, and Sam’s gradual reinforcement that this is almost a
universal ritual by the ‘Creators’ of computer software code since the inception of the era of computers.

It was brilliant, the sense of humor trait with the Raccoon’s mask, the analogy between writing software code and
creating genetic code, the principal is so rock solid it is hard not to buy into it. All signs point that God left an ‘Easter
Egg’, a single unmistakable clue, his signature hidden in a puzzle and yet probably in the most obvious possible place,
something no-one ever thought to look for in the thousands of years of searching for God, throughout Crusades and
Holy Wars, flying to the Moon with Grissom, at the bottom of the oceans with Cousteau, in Fighter jets with Chuck
Yeager, examining the Cosmos with Carl Sagan, we looked everywhere but not for the right thing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Easter Eggs are factual and have always been present in thousands of major software applications, including Microsoft Exel and many others. An

Easter Egg is an undocumented secret message hidden in any program. The search for them originally was by deductive reasoning, then urban legend clues,
and finally in later years through Internet leads. Many times the search is rewarded with a exceptional video animation, always leading to the Signature of the
application’s creator. Software developers do not normally have their names appear in the code they write, and these Easter Eggs were never approved by
corporations such as Microsoft, but almost always existed.

29

The meeting breaks for lunch, Clem is mobbed like a rock star by his colleagues, Sam tells A.J. he needs some fresh air
and grabs the express elevator to the rooftop. A.J. smiles at an attractive young secretary as he passes her in the hall
and takes the stairway to sprint up the 12 floors to his own office, get the heart pumping. He says out loud to no one in
particular: “Who would have ever thought Clem had that in him ?”

Setting: Sam’s Office, 1:00 pm

The world at The Vertex Group did not stop turning while Sam spent the morning in G-2, so he forced himself to take
some time and address a few critical issues that had cropped up. He called Will in so they could go down to Clem’s lab
and contact Ari from there, letting Clem give Ari a very brief and very oversimplified summation of their newly developed
game plan. Before they got out the door of Sam’s office his intercom buzzed with Clem on the line.

“Sam, Clem here. My staff and I wanted to discuss the Memo we just received that Ari had authorized a Bonus in the
amount of $1,000,000,000 [1 billion] dollars to the individual or individuals responsible for finding the solution to his
quest. There are 13 of us in G-2 and we have all agreed that one billion dollars is too extravagant an amount to be paid
for a job we are already getting paid to do [what a novel idea for Wall Street, not to expect a bonus at the expense of your
clients to do a job you are already being extremely well paid to do]. The team and myself would like to go on record that
we will only accept a bonus in the amount of one year’s salary per individual, not a dime more. At our current pay scales
that represents a total amount of three million, four hundred twenty five thousand, six hundred and fifty five dollars,
leaving a balance in the one billion dollar bonus of $996,574,345.00

“If Mr. Ari won’t take that back, and we doubt if he will, then we would like to establish a perpetual scholarship
endowment for underprivileged engineering students at each of our Alma Maters, which would be M.I.T., Stanford,
U.C.L.A., Cal Tech, Harvard, Rutgers, Swarthmore, Dartmouth, Colgate, Florida State ….. just kidding about Florida
State ! We will have personnel send you the documentation on the 13 universities along with a written waiver signed by
all of us.

“And Sam, in your honor, we are stipulating that these scholarships will only be available to Combat Veterans and the
children of these Veterans. We know that while you were serving your Tour of Duty and putting your life in harm’s way
along with 10’s of thousands of others, we were all too busy getting degrees and Doctorates to serve like you did. So
we would like to serve our country this way instead.”

Clem ended his impromptu and totally unexpected speech sounding quite choked up, and Sam was overwhelmed. Then
reality set in and he realized Clem and his group had just practically claimed the $1B bonus !

“Listen Clem, I am completely in awe of your group’s view of the Bonus, but I do have to remind you the bonus was not
intended to be awarded for a general plan, it is clearly spelled out that it will be paid to whoever develops the exact
procedure to be followed in finding Ari’s answer. Now I am onboard with the whole Easter Egg concept, once you get

30

past the goofy name, it is very sound. But that is just a theory and was only defined a few hours ago, now we have to
implement the search and find the clue, ‘God’s signature’ as you so eloquently put it. How long should that take… any
idea?”

Clem responded “For most scientists or Computer Analysts I would guess anywhere from a decade to a millennium, it’s a
big world out there Sam, and Creation occurred millions of years ago.”

“Great” Sam replied, “now you are telling me you need 10 years minimum but you already want the Bonus. What’s
going on Clem, you better explain yourself.”

Clem’s pitch rose about an octave as he replied “Sam, I am quite certain I specifically said to you ‘for most scientists’ it
could take at least a decade, but not for G2 , my team came up with it in about 58 minutes. Actually it’s not that hard
to find it once you are certain it exists. Sam, WE HAVE THE EASTER EGG!”

This was the third time in one day Sam had been totally taken by surprise, in Nam he would have been dead three times
over if he got caught off guard and ambushed this many times.

Forcing himself to remain calm he simply told Clem “I am on my way down.” Grabbing Will by the shoulder he blasted
through Stella’s office telling her to get A.J. down to G-2 immediately, and taking long strides was on the elevator
heading down to the 57th floor in seconds.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Setting: G-2 Lab, present are Sam, Will, A.J., Clem and Associates.
In an uncharacteristic manner Sam burst into the G-2 lab and skipped any formalities, getting right down to business with
two words … “Show me.”

Clem was ready, had determined it was critical that he be concise, that he would strive to keep Sam right with him
following every word. This wasn’t that complicated after all.

“Sam, once we knew there had to be an Easter Egg finding it was not that difficult. We chose to use a method often
found in old private eye films like Humphrey Bogart in the Maltese Falcon, in order to find the Clue that we were certain
God left behind we tried to find some evidence of what type of characteristics our Creator had, based on the
probabilities of our Four premises. The Pride in his achievement only served to prove their was an Easter Egg, as did the
final premise that THERE IS ALWAYS A CLUE, and in reality the first premise of God being a programmer was of little
value in finding the Easter Egg, only in making us more certain it must exist.

“This left only the second Premise to work with, that God had a sense of humor. Bearing that in mind, and picturing to
myself what kind of a Creator would take the time to put a mask on a Raccoon, I was certain our answer would contain a

31

definite element of irony, and I was also certain there was somehow going to be enough information available to find
our answer.

“Sam, please forgive me if in any way this sounds condescending, but are you completely on board with this so far?”

“Yes I am Clem, and thank you for asking. Please continue.” was his reply.

Clem went on “Keeping the humor and irony at the forefront of my thoughts, I was now leaning towards irony as being
the clever twist on this Clue, in view of what a serious matter this was for mankind, to find evidence of God’s signature.”

“The beauty of being convinced something is possible is that you then only have to analyze the information available to
you, in other words, when you are certain you have all the pieces necessary to acquire the solution, it saves the scientist
from looking elsewhere for more data which will not prove to be of any practical use.

“The next step was extremely simple, because we only have one piece of valid data that can be used to qualify our quest
for Mr. Ari’s answer, which is this: WE ARE SEEKING THE MOST DIFFICULT INFORMATION EVER SEARCHED FOR IN THE
HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE.”

“Now, applying the characteristic I had bet on initially, irony, to the task at hand, the highest level of difficulty ever
attempted in scientific endeavors, the answer jumped out at nearly all of us at the same instant.”

“You with me Sam ? I believe you can take it from here, and I would be honored if you would.”

Sam is not being led by the nose this time, he has grasped Clem’s theory perfectly. “Sure Clem, let me have a stab at it.
If our Creator was a Programmer, then you think like He does in many ways. If our Creator was proud of His work then
He signed his creation, and He wants us to find that signature if we look hard enough. We accept that our Creator had a
sense of humor and there is ample proof of that, and that is somehow a part of the solution, something unexpected,
something so simple or so obvious it is almost like a big trick being played on us.

“How am I doing so far Clem?”

“Excellent Sam, now bring it all home for us.”

“Clem I believe what you are driving at, if there is any irony or humor in this quest for proof of the human spirit’s
continuation after existence, the most complex question ever pondered…. then the solution will lie in the simplest
possible action that can be conceived of. A twist of fate if you will, that the most difficult achievement ever will be
accomplished by the absolute simplest of actions.”

32

The G2 staff were already on their feet, Clem was beaming from ear to ear, and expectantly nodded at Sam to state the
obvious culmination of his response, asking “And what will that be Sam?”

Sam stared right at Clem and replied straight-faced: “I do not have the slightest idea Clem.”

“Sam…” coaxed Clem, “you run this company, we have the greatest combined staff of computer experts in existence,
surely you can finish your brilliant grasp of my Theory, any Fifth Grader would know this.”

The words “any Fifth Grader” snapped away the haze of confusion in Sam’s overworked and overstressed mind,
recalling his visit from Caitlyn the other day and the exact words he had used with her, ‘maybe the simplest operation
in the world.’
“BINARY CODE…” were the words he heard coming from his mouth, but his mind was already reeling at the genius of
the collective minds in this room that had come up with this, the human spirit would be asked to perform the simplest
operation in the world, change a ZERO to a ONE, proving it’s existence in the afterlife, and their quest would be fulfilled.
The next hour was a blur for Sam, Will putting in the video conference to Ari, A.J. taking over to inform Ari that The
Vertex Group was on board, Clem giving Ari a crystal clear synopsis of the whole process, the whole G2 staff excitedly
bouncing ideas back and forth about how to train a ‘spiritual astronaut’ [everyone loved that term!] to flip a switch on a
computer back on Earth, and ‘perform the simplest operation in the world.’

They were right, they had earned the $1B bonus, in record time, and for everyone in that room at that moment their
lives were changed forever. The meaning of words like “Importance”, “Priorities”, “Timetables”, or “Obstacles” no
longer held the same definitions they had as recently as yesterday.

When they had a momentary period of calmness Sam asked Clem “How did you do it Clem?”

“Well Sam, I remembered a passage in the Bible from Sunday School as a young boy, the Book of Psalms I believe:

The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handy work!

That helped to convince me that God must have signed his work, absolutely must have left us a CLUE.

But I also think it was the Raccoon, I just couldn’t get that out of my head. The more I thought of that, the easier it
seemed, I just knew I was looking for something extremely simple, and finally it hit me, we see it all the time: Less is
More, Good is Evil, Big is Little, Ugly is Beautiful, Hard is Easy … so I knew the solution to the most difficult question of
all time had to be the simplest thing in the world. My staff has dubbed this ‘Clemsford’s Principle of Non-Coincidental
Opposites’, I can live with that !”

33

They were on a mission and they had the leadership, they had the skills, they had a plan, and they were armed to the
teeth with the ammunition they would need the most, the pure and limitless power of the human Soul. To use Marine’s
jargon, they were indeed ‘Good to Go’.
End of Chapter 6.

34

Chapter 7 – The first candidate

Setting: Sam’s office at first daylight.
There was no glorious sunrise this morning, the wet blackness of a rainy night just gave way imperceptibly to the wet
grayness of a rainy day. Sam actually enjoyed that ‘wet vinyl’ look the City took on when it rained, all the black asphalt
of the streets and avenues looking like they were just washed, the tall buildings shining like a sports car that just had a
bath.

Concrete, steel and glass …. all around him. The strongest materials combined with the weakest to make these giant
monoliths, he had never thought about that. Seems like lately everywhere he turned there were endless examples of
Clem’s ‘Principle of Non-Coincidental Opposites’. He could see the Brooklyn Bridge clearly, he loved that old bridge, had
studied the fascinating history of it’s construction, and he knew all the key facts by heart. Completed in 1883, a main
span of 1595.5 feet, it was the first steel-wire bridge suspension bridge and with a total length of 5,989 feet the longest
suspension bridge in the world from its opening until 1903, and it was a masterpiece of engineering.

The bridge was another remarkable example of Clem’s theory, flexible steel cables, the least rigid steel structural
material in existence holding up some of the largest steel beams in history. If the bridge was all made out of cable it
would be like a rope ladder and too flexible to carry traffic, if it was all steel beams it would be too rigid and would fall
apart from the stress of not being able to move and sway. ‘Non-Coincidental Opposites’ …. hmmm. Scientists must
take a special course their last semester at M.I.T. to learn how to come up with this stuff, “How to name your discovery
101 - subtitled: impress your friends and neighbors with scientific jargon they can’t comprehend”.

But he had to admit Clem’s reasoning was dead on, and the reinforcement of seeing Clem’s principle applied so
frequently and in so many unlikely places everywhere gave him more reassurance that he had some true genius running
around on the 57th floor.

His daydreaming had killed the first half-hour of the day, but Sam never thought of this early morning free thinking
period alone as wasted time, for him it was like charging up a battery, like checking your weapons before going into
action, he needed these moments alone with his thoughts.

The ‘alone’ part ended precisely at 06:14 hours when A.J. and Will came in together, discussing the merits of titanium
components for their motorcycles, both of them part-time racers who thought they needed the same equipment the
pro’s rode.

“Good Morning Commander” from Will was returned with a scowl from Sam and raised eyebrows from A.J., who knew
what was coming instantly.

“Will, a Commander is a United States Naval Officer with the Department of Defense Pay Grade of O-5 and wearing an
insignia of Silver Oak leaf clusters. First of all, I was never in the Navy, although I understand they do play a significant

35

role in our Military, I just never understood what that role was other then to ferry Marines around so they can do the
real fighting. And secondly do you see any Silver Oak leaf clusters on my collar?”

Both A.J. and Will knew more about Sam’s military career then he suspected, and knew he was a First Lieutenant in the
Marine Corps during the Vietnam conflict, and though he never had Silver Oak leaf clusters on his collar they both knew
he had a Bronze Star Medal with a “V” for valor on his chest at one time, along with the Purple Heart for being wounded
in action. Probably stuffed away in a drawer somewhere, and Sam had never talked about it, it was Stella that had told
them one evening when they were working late together and Sam was not at the office.

Will grinned with satisfaction at having riled up the tiger, and Sam acknowledged Will’s triumph with a slight smile while
shaking his head. “Gentlemen, we have a very big day. Is there any other senseless crap you wish to discuss before we
get started? “

Looking up as if he really expected an answer Sam made eye contact with each of them and held it for a few seconds,
then calmly said “I didn’t think so.”

Sam continued “Clem and I spent most of the weekend with his G2 staff working out our test procedures. Here is the
core of what we are searching for: It is well documented that certain human beings, Clem says in the vicinity of 0.5% or
one two-hundredth of the population, roughly 15 million individuals, have higher then normal magnetic fields in their
physiology. This has never been studied extensively but the most common theory is that there is high content of Iron
molecules in their bloodstreams, and as the blood circulates it puts those ferrous particles in motion, causing a magnetic
current. If you ever studied the cardio-vascular system, if my memory serves me correctly each of you did attend
college and probably even went to a few classes on rare occasions, the human cardio-vascular system flows in a counter-
clockwise manner. This apparently may intensify this magnetic field as it is diametrically opposed to the rotation of the
earth, which is clockwise.

“To put this in perspective, the powerful force of this effect which Clem refers to as Magnenomic-Kinetic Energy or MKE,
can be better understood if you visualize that the magnetic needle on any compass is being attracted to the Earth’s North
Magnetic Pole, which is thousands of miles away. Unlike radio waves which diminish over distance, magnetic waves do
not lose their kinetic energy over time or distance. Our plan is to harness this energy to send a signal and provide
scientific evidence of an afterlife.

“Clem and his G-2 staff, plus all the help he needs from all other departments, will be setting up a screening facility
where we can test candidates to measure their MKE levels. A.J. you will be in charge with coming up with the
candidates, Clem is going to give you a very intensive briefing on what attributes we are looking for and some other
criteria, he is expecting you at oh-eight-hundred hours [08:00] in his office.

“Will, you will be in charge of the logistics, screening the general population, getting the flow of candidates normalized

36

at a steady rate, expediting the traffic patterns in and out of the test area, managing every phase of getting the test
group’s results analyzed. For starters you will sit in on A.J.’s briefing then prepare a logistics report and meet with Clem
and I by 16:00 hours with that report completed.”

Will asks Sam : “How many people are we going to test ?”

Sam mumbles a reply that is hard to understand, “awwodem…” while reading a Memo he seems absorbed in.

Will looks puzzled, and asks “Sam, did you say ‘All of them .’ ? “

Sam nods his head… “Yes I did.”

Still confused Will asks for clarification “Do you mean all the people in this building? Sam, that’s over 5000!”

Sam shakes his head… eyes still on the Memo he is studying.

Will presses on, “Do you mean all the Vertex employees in New York Sam? That’s just over 15,000 people Sam !”

Sam shakes his head…

“Now hold on Sam, you can’t possibly mean all of New York City, that’s almost 8,000,000 people… we can’t possibly
screen 8 million people!”

Sam stands up, stares at Will, and in an even voice clearly says “What part of ‘ALL OF THEM’ did you not understand Will
?”

Will looks like an eight year old who is about to cry, and in a very quiet little voice he says: “You mean we are going to
screen all of the people in the entire world, and it’s my job to get them all here, is that correct Sir ?”

Sam sits back down, nodding his head, and replies “Well YES and NO Will, we are not technically going to do all off the
world, difficult geography, war zones, scarce population, unfriendly nations, that will amount to about 15% of the
planet’s population being excluded, and of the remaining 85% we have to figure on Clem’s favorite ‘Law of Diminishing
Returns’ which means about 60% percent of our effort would yield about 90 percent of returns, in other words skip the
real tough ones like the Outback or Antarctica, they would take too much of our resources.

“So what it boils down to is 48.5% of the world population, less then half of what you were thinking. Now that’s not
nearly as bad as what you thought, is it Will?”

37

Barely audible Will whispers in a squeaky voice, “No Sir Sam, that’s not so bad. It’s only 1.25 Billion human beings
scattered over 6 continents and 139.5 million square miles, it could be worse.”

“Secondly Will, “ says Sam in a very condescending tone, “you don’t have to bring them all here, we will be bringing the
testing facilities to every country in the world. Hope you like to travel Will, Stella is already working with the State
Department to get your clearances expedited. Ever see the film ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ ? Well you are going
to do it in EIGHT.”

“Gentlemen I believe Clem will be expecting us shortly, he’s always ready 20 minutes early. Let’s go down to G-2 and
take a look at what he’s got up his sleeve.”

The three men head out of Sam’s office and step in the Executive elevator. As the doors are closing Will asks Sam “Is Ari
aware we are going to be testing half of the population of the planet Earth?”

Sam replies, “Yes he is Will, it was actually his idea. He insisted on it.”

The Rosewood elevator doors close behind them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Setting: G-2 Lab, 57th floor, Clem’s office. Sam, A.J., Will and Clem are present.

Clem is very exuberant, greets everyone as they enter the Lab and escorts them to his office. Large office with a
stunning view of the City skyline from the huge picture windows, piles of books in every square inch of space, the
mayhem suits Clem’s personality very well.

Sam opens the conversation with “Clem, lets start by giving A.J. and Will the shotgun approach to what our overall plan
of attack is for this project.”

“Certainly Sam” replies Clem. “I understand Sam has already explained the MKE syndrome, which is what we are
searching for in our candidates. When we have a test group of candidates with significant magnetic kinetic force in their
makeup we will begin testing the magnitude of this force, and the effect it can have on computer media, the magnetic
storage devices that all computers read from and write to.

“In researching this phenomenon I went to our own records here at The Vertex Group to find any history of computer
failures that may be attributable to individuals with high levels of MKE. I was able to locate documentation on a major
crash of every mainframe computer on the 15th floor about 15 years ago, supposedly attributed to a janitor named ….”
He hesitates while shuffling through some of his notes…

38

Sam finishes Clem’s sentence with “Kolanowski, on December 7th 1976.”

Clem is visibly taken aback, and says to Sam “You just astonish me sometimes Sam, almost 75,000 employees in your
company and you know the name of every Janitor that ever worked for you , and you can remember the exact date of an
event that occurred a decade and a half ago, you are indeed a remarkable man.”

“Not exactly Clem, I just happened to meet Mr. Kolanowski a few days ago when he retired, and we actually talked
about the major crash of our computer base during that incident.”

“Sam” says Clem, “my research shows this to be a very significant incident of MKE disruption of magnetic media, it
would be exceptionally fortunate for us if this Mr. Kowalski...”

Sam corrects him with “Kolanowski”

Clem continues “Uh yes, if this Mr. Kolanowski truly is endowed with high levels of MKE and if he could be made
available for some testing.”

“Well Clem” says Sam, “that might not be too difficult, and I will tell you this: for what it’s worth he can’t wear a watch,
and when he got within about three feet of Stella’s workstation it crashed immediately with a corrupted Operating
System.”

“Remarkable Sam,” says Clem, “I would be very interested in meeting Mr. Kolanowski as soon as possible.”

Sam flicks on Clem’s intercom and buzzes Stella, she answers immediately.

“Stella I have an urgent little errand for you, check with Personnel Department and get Mr. Kolanowski’s address, you
remember that nice old man that retired last week…. ? Then get someone from Security and send them over
immediately to pick him up and bring him over here, straight up to G-2. Let him know it’s for some testing, just say it’s
standard procedure for anyone that retires, we don’t want to alarm him. And find someone in Security that doesn’t
look like a tough guy, we don’t want to scare him.”

Stella replies “Sam, everyone in Security looks like a tough guy, they are all ex – Secret Service or your old Special Forces
buddies from your Marine Corps outfit, they scare the Hell out of anyone even when they are trying to be nice. I’ll send
a pretty girl from the steno pool and a couple of your tough-guys in a separate car to follow her.”

“Good idea Stella, what would I do without you?” says Sam not even aware of the big smile she has put on his face.

“You would be lost” laughs Stella, “we all know that!”

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“All set Clem, now please continue” says Sam nodding to Clem.

“Very well, hopefully we will have an excellent candidate shortly if Mr. Kolanowski agrees to participate.”

“Damn !” says Sam. “Let me make sure he will agree to participate.” He buzzes Stella again.

“Stella, slight change of plans. Forget the story about the standard procedure for retiring, just tell him it would a
personal favor to me if he wouldn’t mind coming over here for a few hours. Then call disbursing and have a check cut
for him for … I don’t know… let’s do $1500, about five hundred dollars an hour. Better yet have them give you cash in
an envelope, all 100’s. And forget the Security guys, I’ll send up one of Clem’s G2 staff, and they can explain what we
are doing during the limo ride back here.”

“Got it Sam, much better plan.” replies Stella.

“Back to you Clem …” says Sam.

“Fine. Our goal, if Mr. Kolanowski can indeed crash a Univac mainframe computer just by walking by it, will be to test
and quantitatively measure this kinetic force he has in his system. This would then become the benchmark we use to
compare to our large database of candidates we test in the coming weeks, and in a short time we should have some solid
data on the range of this MKE force in various individuals from the weakest to the strongest. If Will does his job right
eventually we will have isolated a pool of those candidates around the world who have the highest magnitudes of
measurable MKE levels on the planet.

“By that time G2 will have developed a training regimen, where we will focus these candidates on harnessing this force
they have within themselves, rather then letting it just manifest itself on its own randomly. As they become more in
control of this force we will also be training them to increase the power of their MKE, much like physical training for
athletes or test pilots and astronauts.”

“Meanwhile while all this testing is going on, directed by you A.J. and relying on you Will for the logistics, my G2 staff
and I will be redefining the type of media that exists in computers at the present time.

“Within the first 96 hours of testing we expect candidates like Mr. Kolanowski will no longer be judged by whether they
can crash a Cray or Sun Microsystems Supercomputer, they will be focusing their kinetic energy on specially created
media to write data essentially via telepathy if you will. I find that a very appropriate term, tele meaning "distant" and,
pathe meaning "experience”, exactly what we are trying to accomplish. However to shed the undesirable connotation
of voodoo or spiritual hoaxes we will use the more scientfic terminology of neuroimaging, which is the science of
measuring the magnetic resonance of the human brain. Furthermore there is a great deal of new research being done in
Magnetoencephalography which could have some bearing on our testing procedures, while it may also be wise not to

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overlook recent breakthroughs in Positron emission tomography and Single photon emission computed tomography …”

“Excuse me Clem, you may be getting a little far afield from our objective… maybe you should rein things in a little. You
are talking to A.J. who majored in the art of seducing blonde co-eds at Dartmouth and Will, whose major at M.I.T. was
‘How to be a wiseguy’. Let’s stick to the basics, keep it simple please.”

“I apologize Sam, you are totally correct I may have gotten a little carried away, science just holds such endless
fascination for me.” replies Clem.

“Now as Sam said sticking to the basics” Clem continued, “as the measurable kinetic force in our candidates continues
to be tested, refined, and augmented, we will likewise be working on the properties of creating SOFT MEDIA.

“Do not feel amiss gentlemen if you have never heard of this, because at this point it does not exist. By next week it will,
and it will be created right here in G-2. We all understand that data on a computer is written to magnetic media, be it
hard drives, tape drives, or various forms of silicon memory chips and semiconductors such as dynamic RAM, DRAM, etc.
These devices for the most part are engineered to store data in memory securely, and are only affected by magnetic
forces in very close proximity, the heads of a typical hard-drive on a computer run a few millionths of an inch from the
magnetic surface of the disk, 1/100th the diameter of a human hair. By definition the very description of computer media
is Non volatile , obviously from the Latin ‘Not fleeting’ or as I prefer ‘not flying (as in flying away)’.”

“Our goal is to create volatile media that will be much easier to write to, at the risk and tradeoff of not holding the data
very long or very securely, for which we have coined the term ‘Soft Media’. It is much easier to make a handprint in wet
cement then after it is hardened, is it not?

“By exponentially increasing the volatility of the media we can simulate the sending of the MKE signal over increasing
spans of space and time. The downside is that with each new generation of Soft Media, much like the process of
enriching Uranium to go from standard properties to Weapons Grade, we will have to significantly secure the
environment around the media and the testing area, as the ‘softer’ the media gets, the more vulnerable it will be to

stray surges of tiny electrical energy compromising the media. For instance we have calculated that by Level V the

media will be so sensitive that without proper shielding the static electricity generated by a person combing their hair

anywhere in the same room would corrupt the media. By Level x we will no longer be able to have incandescent or

fluorescent lights in the same room as the media, or any mechanical devices using batteries such as clocks or calcuators.

By Level xv we will have to keep the entire test are shielded in lead meeting Department of Defense standards for

Radiation Shielding per spec 911.G.814. If our media enrichment goes beyond that we project having to move the entire
operation to one of the Pentagon’s underground bunkers developed during the Cold War, I understand Sam has already
put that request in with some of his cronies who are well positioned among the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

A.J. then poses the question to Sam, “I was wondering Sam, how far are we planning on taking this project, until Ari

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passes away or until we run out of his money?”

Before answering Sam clicks on the intercom and buzzes Stella, she answers promptly and he gives her these
instructions: “Stella, A.J. just asked a question and I want my reply broadcast over the P.A. system to the entire
building, and I also want a Memo to every employee of every department in every office of The Vertex Group to receive
it.”

As Sam clicks off the connection with Stella the company-wide Public Address system broadcasts Stella’s voice informing
all employees that Mr. Preston has an announcement for the entire company. Sam then asks A.J. to introduce himself on
the intercom and repeat his question, which he does.

Sam then answers A.J., knowing his reply is being broadcast throughout the entire corporation:

“A.J., I want to make it perfectly clear in no uncertain terms that The Vertex Group’s involvement in Mr. Kingsleys quest
will not end if Aristotle Kingsley is no longer with us, it will not end if Mr. Kinglsely’s funding for the project is exhausted
and we have to use every financial resource we can come up with to continue, it will not end if we lose all of our other
clients over this endeavor, our quest will not stop until we have the ANSWER our client has commissioned us to
determine. If not for him personally while he is still alive, then for posterity and for the entire human race.

“If any employee in this corporation is not totally on board with this directive then they are no longer needed on this
project, and if they are no longer on this project then they are no longer needed by this company because as of this
moment, this will be our ONLY project.” Calmly clicking off the intercom Sam then asks Clem to continue.

Clem resumes with “Let’s move on to the test apparatus, shall we? Please follow me gentlemen.” and he leads the
group out of his office into the G-2 lab, then to a back room which is dark. When he flicks on the light there is a bizarre
looking machine, fashioned like an archway similar to the metal detectors at airports you walk through before boarding a
flight.

It looks likes a cheap prop from a second rate science fiction B movie. A large meter and three lights, Green, Orange and
Red, are on a panel on the exit side of the arch. Clem flicks it on and asks Will to walk through the archway, the needle
on the meter budges almost imperceptably and returns to Zero, and the Green light flashes once and then stays on.

“Gentlemen,” announces Clem, “this is our MKE detector portal, and Will has just tested very close to zero, indicating
he cannot possibly be considered a candidate. An orange light and VU meter reading of 1200 to 9800 would have
indicated marginal values, and a Red light with a reading of over 10,000 would be exceptionally high and an indicator of a
successful candidate.”

Rather then being impressed the group is somewhat underwhelmed, and Will immediately turns to Sam and asks in a

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very agitated manner “Sam you can’t be serious. You want me to lug this reject juke box from ‘Back to the Future’
around the entire globe and get just shy of half the population of the planet Earth to walk through it, while I write down
the name and driver’s license of each person the light turns red for? No Way this is going to work!”

“Calm down Will, I think Clem is just having a little fun with you and jerking your chain.” Sam turns to Clem and says
calmly “Is there something else you would like to show us?”

“Yes Sam, there is. No one gave me a chance to explain, this rather nostalgic looking ‘reject’ as Will put it so callously
was our first generation of the MKE portal, to simply determine the parameters we required to build the real model.
Please come with me my hard-to-please comrades.”

Stepping into the Lab they went over to a work area where all 12 of the young G2 scientists were crowded around,
several of them with surgeon’s magnifying mirrors on their foreheads. On an stainless steel cart in their midst was a
small black box, about the size of a deck of cards. It appeared to have a camera lens in the center, three tiny L.E.D. lights
on the front colored Green, Orange, and Red, and a small antenna on the top. The back cover was off and the inside of
the tiny box was packed with circuits and computer chips and micro-wiring.

When everyone was around the cart Clem began with a tiny bit of arrogance in his voice, presumably somewhat
offending by the disparaging remarks concerning the previous exhibit:

“This gentlemen, is MKE-7, seven generations of refinement over the ‘reject’ Will just stepped through.” Nodding to a
tall blonde haired young woman who didn’t look a day over 19 but was probably actually in her late 20’s, Clem introduced
Dr. Alexandra Johansen, the Team Leader on the MKE-7 project. “Dr. Johansen, would you please give our esteemed
guests a briefing of the MKE-7 ?”

Friends and associates of Alexandra Johansen were never surprised at the reaction when she was introduced at parties
or social events and people asked what she did for a living, to which she invariably replied “I am a rocket scientist.” Most
people who give that response are countered with comments such as “No, really?” or “Wow” or “No kidding!”. When
Dr. Johansen stated her profession people simply nodded and usually said “Of course!”. She epitomized the stereotype
of genius and talent, although even with her large framed glasses, looked just a little too lovely to convincingly play the
role a ‘geek’. Somewhere things had got a little mixed up and this genius with a PhD in AstroPhysics also had something
about her that would have made most runway models extremely jealous.

She began her descriptive analysis of the MKE-7 like the Ian Fleming novels of Q describing some new spy device to
James Bond in a scene from 007 movies. Strictly business, no bragging, not even a trace of humor or eye contact, never
expecting her audience to be impressed. And yet she had spearheaded the project and brought this small mechanical
marvel seven iterations of technical refinement in less then 72 hours, something the best of the best at NASA could not
have managed in several weeks.

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“The MKE-7 weighs 28.350 grams, exactly one ounce. It is constructed of a Titanium case embedded with Kevlar
reinforcing fabric, and can withstand a G-Force impact of over 12g’s, it measures 1 cm. in thickness and has a 32x zoom
lens with integral motion detector sensors and face detection technology, provided by Carl Zeiss optics in Germany and
also incorporating some classified features from the research we did for the Department of Defense a few years ago.
The rate of flow the imaging system and MKE detection sensors can process individual profiles at is 52,000 per hour, or
just slightly shy of 1.25 million profiles per day. The sensors have a very sophistocated Integrated Duplication Supression
System, so any profile matching a previously recorded one will be averaged and preserved as a single record. This IDSS
system also checks the unique profiles it has detected against all other MKE-7 devices currently in operation and against
the entire database which will hold up to 3 billion records, performing these operations in 0.0025 seconds, to eliminate
any overlapping with other units. As profiles matching the criteria for acceptable candidates are found, their contact
information is matched to a database of facial scans from the U.S. Government mainframe records which are classified
and cannot be disclosed during this briefing.”

Johansen continues “The units are weatherproof, shockproof, require no outside power source and will run on the
single power cell embedded in the motherboard for a minimum of 100 days of continuous usage. The adhesive bonding
the unit to any material will withstand 125 kilograms of force but can also easily be detached by a mechanical mechanism
requiring a proprietary security code.

“We anticipate being capable of manufacturing 1500 of these units within 10 days of production time, giving us the ability
to scan 1500 x 1.25 million profiles per day, or 1.875 billion profiles in 24 hours, exceeding the total population of the
planet in under 48 hours under ideal conditions. With less then perfect conditions and travel constraints it is projected
the 1500 units we will have available will be functionally capable of scanning the entire population of this planet in exactly
EIGHT DAYS.

“Three hundred of these units will fit exactly in one standard sized suitcase and weigh 18.75 lbs or 8.505 kilograms,
making them quite portable. We have also designed five kevlar suitcases which could be dropped from an airplane at
32,000 feet without a parachute and suffer no discernable damage on impact to either the suitcases or the MKE-7 units.
We refer to these as Supercases.

“We feel it is best to leave it up to Dr. Reynolds” [A.J. cringes at the ‘Doctor’ but doesn’t say a word] “ to determine the
optimum deployment which obviously could be dispersed as 250 units per continent, all 1500 on each continent for 1/6th
of the time, or one unit per each 0.465 million square miles of the Earth’s surface. Thank you for your attention
gentlemen, are there any questions?”

Will just lets out a long whistle, grabs Dr. Johansen in a big bearhug and says “Now you’re talking Baby!” Sam just
shakes his head and raises his eyebrows looking over at A.J. for some reaction, as usual A.J. just shrugs his shoulders!

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