GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (32 page)

**********

Later that morning,
Francesca looked over to Paulina with interest.
‘Any luck?’

‘
Si,
it
looks like the shit is really is going to hit the fan here,
’ Paulina groaned.
‘
I’ll explain once
I
know more. Di San Angelo will need to be informed.
” She sighed and then rubbed her eyes.
‘
Say
,
what’s up with Jonathan?

Observing
the DBA as he spoke
intensely to fat Alfredo
,
another of the Application Developers
, Francesca shrugged and returned to her checks
.

Paulina studied the file “ptyq”
,
kn
o
w
ing that
this was the hiding file for the “netstat” command.
It will remove tcp/udp/sockets from and to specified addresses, uids and ports.
So the meaning of the digits at the beginning of these lines are
:

Type 0: meant, hide the user identification (the user
ID
).

Type 1: meant, hide the machine local network
IP
address.

Type 2: meant, hide the remote network
IP
address.

Type 3: meant, hide the local network
IP
port.

Type 4: meant, hide the remote
IP
port.

Type 5: meant, hide the Unix operating system
IP
socket path.

IP
addresses are
somewhat
like street address
es
.
The
y
are
basically a unique way of identifying anything on a computer network, be it a computer,
s
erver,
s
witch or
p
erson on the

Vatican or any foreign computer system
or
network
.

All these
restrictions
were being used
by the Trojan, which
had now compromised
vast
areas
of
the Vatican’s Noah System. Paulina worked
intensely, her brow furrowed with worry
.

*********

Francesca remembered
that
she had not checked her personal
e-mail
,
so she launched into her account using a smooth sweep of her mouse
and a swift
double click.
The egg timer began to flip on her screen as the
computer took its time
.
Unexpectedly
,
a small alert f
r
om “Mathew” appeared on Francesca’s console
. The message was
o
range
in
colour
and was
accompanied by a wailing siren sound,
indicating a degraded state.

“Mathew”
was failing over to “Mark”
’s
system and moving critical services, like e
-
mail
,
seamlessly
over. This backup ensured that
the
Vatican’s
many clients would
remain
in peaceful ignorance
of the
potential computer
crisis
occurring at IOR.

If “Mark” failed
,
then the services would move onto “L
uk
e”
,
and then
to
“John”.
However the chances of all
the servers
failing like that were negligible.

Immediately opening up the computer plan on her screen
and viewing the
problem area
,
Francesca
drilled downwards until she would see a computer simulation display of “Mathew”
.

She saw that
one of the
managed switches was also malfunctioning down in that area.

CCTV
had not been installed
down in the LG areas
because it was too dark to see anything
and the benefits would only be marginal
,
or so the accountants had advised.
Mathew was down
on
l
ower
g
round
basement area 2
(LG
B
2)
—
the Dungeons!
Clearly, the accountants had never had to visit LGB2 before....

‘
It l
ooks like we’ll have to check this out
, huh
Fran?’ Massimo spoke to Francesca, his calm voice
seeming
indifferent or complacent
. She reminded herself that
he had seen this
sort of failure
occur many times before and knew exactly how to sort
out
the problem.

Massimo
i
s on the ball
,
thought Francesca
appreciatively
. He was already
scanning
the communications side of things inside LG
B
2 area.
She decided to let him deal with the problem so that she could attend to her e-mail, happy to
pass the responsibility over
to him
on this occasion.

She cast a glancing eye from top
to
bottom of her inbox.
What
...
one from
Michaelangelo
’s pseudonym, Pope
!
It had been s
ent last evening
,
just about when she was leaving
for the night.
My
God
,
I hope he is al
l
right!
She quickly opened up the message and scanned its contents.

Fran,

You are in danger!
The phone is not safe. I cannot explain in this message
,
but be very careful from now on.
Leave this place if you can and do not come back!

Watch your back and take great care.
I will be in touch soon
...
.

POPE xx

P
.
S
.
Do not let
anyone
—
VIA or the
Gendarmerie
—
know
that
I have contacted you!

CHAPTER IV

ROOT OF THE GODS!

Cardinal Giovanni
Dalla Gassa
logged onto the super computer system.
The
super slow computer system
, that is,
he thought to himself.

A
s usual
,
the system is pitiful
again
today
.
T
hose technical people need to get their act together and speed things up
—the system’s
about as slow as one of the Pope
’
s
p
rayers!
He snickered good-heartedly.
P
ardon me,
L
ord. I was only thinking in jest.

In the last week he had made many preparations and
sent hundreds of
dangerous
missions
, some of which he’d been plotting for years,
to numerous parts of the globe
in his
attempt to find the three ancient relics of power called
the
Root of the Gods

The Order had come of age.
They had heard a rumour of the whereabouts of two other
r
eliquiae in relative
ly
recent times.
Th
eir
know
ledge
was kept secret and safe for years by the chosen few.
Whispers
pass
ed
from word of mouth
,
and
al
though none
of the relics were
yet in his possession
, h
e already knew when and where to find the first.
He would have to wait, however.

Over
three
hundred years had passed
since the reliquiae had been discovered,
and
a number of
different faiths were responsible for spill
ing
much blood for knowledge and whereabouts of the precious
items
.
This know
ledge
descended from one Order to the next in
near-
complete secrecy.
Despite
his high office
,
Dalla Gassa
was not above risk of exposure.
Acquiring
such sanctified
knowledge and power did not come without a heavy toll.

Distant rumours about the three
r
eliquiae
once were spoken in legends long ago and told in tales
,
which
were
in
part chiselled in tablets of stone
that had been
eroded
by
decades
of
wind and rain
,
and
were
later written in ancient languages on
paper
scriptures and scrolls
, on vellum, and in the minds of the secret-keeper
s
.
Th
e
story had been in existence for millennia!

And so the rumours
of the relics
endured death and deceit
,
for the most powerful of the three had been mentioned
again and again,
suspected to be
travelling with a holy bearer
who brought
a great gift to a promised land
in the mid-sixteenth century
.

Yet it had only been in recent years and with the aid of many billions of dollars that vast sums were channelled from countless
sources
in
the cardinal’s
quest for th
e
great knowledge
that would give him
absolute power.
New technology made it easy for Dalla Gassa to obtain the required sums essential to fund his holy
quest
. With great manipulation and care
,
collecting funds from sources all over the world was child’s play if one knew how to tap in.
The cardinal was one of those few who did.

It was said that possession of the links to God would be enough to tip the cosmic and spiritual balance in favour of the holder. Truth was difficult to distinguish.
What was fact and what was fiction?
Most likely it was another twist of fate.
Stories scribed in lost languages and etched pictures had ether worn away or lay decayed and had then been forgotten somewhere long ago
,
until now
.
The expedition had made the discovery and had
found his
dream.

It was said ominously by
s
haman that the
relics
were hidden in a distant land in “
nowhere to be found
.
”
The
men who
might
have
remember
ed
what this message really meant were since long dead. Whether silenced or
killed by
curse or disease
,
the legend and the rumours
had
bec
o
me blurred and almost forgotten.
What would become of him?
The cardinal
cared
nothing for the sacrifices he would be asked to make,
because the knowledge
a
nd power of these celestial objects would bring
him more than enough glory to compensate.

The man painfully opened
the
e
-
mail
,
a few weeks old
,
and read the correspondence.
Studying the latest detailed scanned images and roving his fascinated
eyes
over several ancient manuscripts
, the man became
engrossed in every part of their complex codices.
Furrows deepened in his forehead, corrugating with intensity as his passion washed over his mind.

The interpreted codices
...

T
hey will come first and smite

All will shake in terror

Cold is the land

Nowhere to hide

Is this really the legend?
What do the messages mean? What does it mean
?
His eyes then widened
,
observing the date that the
e-mail
had been sent.
The date
did not correspond with the date and time the images were taken!
The images were much older
....
Giovanni
Dalla Gassa suspected foul play
; he knew that
someone was holding back.
Now all contact
with the relics
had been lost!

If the sacred
r
eliquiae were hidden in nowhere
,
then when and where would they appear?
It was obvious to the Cardinal
that the information
was only a puzzle!
He would find the answer
—h
e would follow his dreams!

Now
,
in these days of ours
,
a great mystery was beginning to unfold
...
.