The Lost Symbol

not what you’re looking for. They’re what we call black holes. Look at the file sizes. Absolutely enormous. They’re things like compressed archives of millions of e-mails, giant unabridged encyclopedia sets, global message boards that have been running for years, and so forth. By virtue of their size and diverse content, these files contain so many potential keywords that they suck in any search engine that comes anywhere near them.»

Katherine pointed to one of the entries near the top of the list. «How about that one?»

Trish smiled. Katherine was a step ahead, having found the sole file on the list that had a small file size. «good eyes. yeah, that’s really our only candidate so far. in fact, that file’s so small it can’t be more than a page or so.»

«Open it.» Katherine’s tone was intense.

Trish could not imagine a one-page document containing all the strange search strings Katherine had provided. Nonetheless, when she clicked and opened the document, the key phrases were there. . crystal clear and easy to spot in the text.

Katherine strode over, eyes riveted to the plasma wall. «This document is. . redacted?»

Trish nodded. «Welcome to the world of digitized text.»

Automatic redaction had become standard practice when offering digitized documents. Redaction was a process wherein a server allowed a user to search the entire text, but then revealed only a small portion of it — a teaser of sorts — only that text immediately flanking the requested keywords. By omitting the vast majority of the text, the server avoided copyright infringement and also sent the user an intriguing message: I have the information you’re searching for, but if you want the rest of it, you’ll have to buy it from me.

«As you can see,» Trish said, scrolling through the heavily abridged page, «the document contains all of your key phrases.»

Katherine stared up at the redaction in silence.

Trish gave her a minute and then scrolled back to the top of the page. Each of Katherine’s key phrases was underlined in capital letters and accompanied by a small sample of teaser text — the two words that appeared on either side of the requested phrase.

Trish could not imagine what this document was referring to. And what the heck is a «symbolon»?

Katherine stepped eagerly toward the screen. «Where did this document come from? Who wrote it?»

Trish was already working on it. «Give me a second. I’m trying to chase down the source.»

«I need to know who wrote this,» Katherine repeated, her voice intense. «I need to see the rest of it.»

«I’m trying,» Trish said, startled by the edge in Katherine’s tone.

Strangely, the file’s location was not displaying as a traditional Web address but rather as a numeric Internet Protocol address. «I can’t unmask the IP,» Trish said. «The domain name’s not coming up. Hold on.» She pulled up her terminal window. «I’ll run a traceroute.»

Trish typed the sequence of commands to ping all the «hops» between her control room’s machine and whatever machine was storing this document.

«Tracing now,» she said, executing the command.

Traceroutes were extremely fast, and a long list of network devices appeared almost instantly on the plasma wall. Trish scanned down. . down. . through the path of routers and switches that connected her machine to. .

What the hell? Her trace had stopped before reaching the document’s server. her ping, for some reason, had hit a network device that swallowed it rather than bouncing it back. «it looks like my traceroute got blocked,» trish said. Is that even possible?

«Run it again.»

Trish launched another traceroute and got the same result. «Nope. Dead end. It’s like this document is on a server that is untraceable.» She looked at the last few hops before the dead end. «I can tell you, though, it’s located somewhere in the D.C. area.»

«You’re kidding.»

«Not surprising,» Trish said. «These spider programs spiral out geographically, meaning the first results are always local. Besides, one of your search strings was ‘Washington, D.C.’ »

«How about a ‘who is’ search?» Katherine prompted. «Wouldn’t that tell you who owns the domain?»

A bit lowbrow, but not a bad idea. Trish navigated to the «who is» database and ran a search for the IP, hoping to match the cryptic numbers to an actual domain name. Her frustration was now tempered by rising curiosity. Who has this document? The «who is» results appeared quickly, showing no match, and Trish held up her hands in defeat. «It’s like this IP address doesn’t exist. I can’t get any information about it at all.»

«Obviously the IP exists. We’ve just searched a document that’s stored there!»

True. And yet whoever had this document apparently preferred not to share his or her identity. «I’m not sure what to tell you. Systems traces aren’t really my thing, and unless you want to call in someone with hacking skills, I’m at a loss.»

«Do you know someone?»

Trish turned and stared at her boss. «Katherine, I was kidding. It’s not exactly a great idea.»

«But it is done?» She checked her watch.

«Um, yeah. . all the time. Technically it’s pretty easy.»

«Who do you know?»

«Hackers?» Trish laughed nervously. «Like half the guys at my old job.»

«Anyone you trust?»

Is she serious? Trish could see Katherine was dead serious. «Well, yeah,» she said hurriedly. «I know this one guy we could call. He was our systems security specialist — serious computer geek. He wanted to date me, which kind of sucked, but he’s a good guy, and I’d trust him. Also, he does freelance.» «can he be discreet?»

«He’s a hacker. Of course he can be discreet. That’s what he does. But I’m sure he’d want at least a thousand bucks to even look — »

«Call him. Offer him double for fast results.»

Trish was not sure what made her more uncomfortable — helping Katherine Solomon hire a hacker. . or calling a guy who probably still found it impossible to believe a pudgy, redheaded metasystems analyst would rebuff his romantic advances. «You’re sure about this?»

«Use the phone in the library,» Katherine said. «It’s got a blocked number. And obviously don’t use my name.»

«Right.» Trish headed for the door but paused when she heard Katherine’s iPhone chirp. With luck, the incoming text message might be information that would grant Trish a reprieve from this distasteful task. She waited as Katherine fished the iPhone from her lab coat’s pocket and eyed the screen.

Katherine Solomon felt a wave of relief to see the name on her iPhone.

At last.

PETER SOLOMON

«It’s a text message from my brother,» she said, glancing over at Trish.

Trish looked hopeful. «So maybe we should ask him about all this. . before we call a hacker?»

Katherine eyed the redacted document on the plasma wall and heard Dr. Abaddon’s voice. That which your brother believes is hidden in D.C. . it can be found. Katherine had no idea what to believe anymore, and this document represented information about the far-fetched ideas with which Peter had apparently become obsessed.