The Great Dan Brown Game!

The sun was just setting over Washington D.C. when Robert Langdon walked into the dusty room in the creepy house on the Potomac River. Evangeline Kelly, the absolutely gorgeous graduate student who had followed Langdon on his adventures thus far, followed close behind. She was thinking about how much Langdon looked like a cross between Harrison Ford in tweed and Tom Hanks.

“The thing is,” Langdon said, searching for the light switch, “that if anyone knows about the secrets of early American history, it’s Prof. Benjamin Franklin Gates…” 

“Present,” said a voice.

Evangeline jumped. She was shocked, surprised, and scared by this voice that came from seemingly nowhere. 

It was a man—a man in a wheelchair. He looked like Nicholas Cage if you had Photoshopped his picture to make him look 90 years old. The man in the wheelchair was 90 years old, but he didn’t look it. 

“Oh, good to see you here, Professor,” said Langdon, who was also a professor. “I’ve always wondered why you live in this big house on the Potomac River, all by yourself, in the dark.” 

“I hate light,” said Prof. Gates, wheeling forward in his wheelchair. “I’m like a vampire.” 

“Would you call it—crepuscular, Professor?” asked Robert Langdon.

“Excuse me,” said Evangeline, “but what does crepuscular mean?” 

“It’s a big word, my dear,” said Prof. Gates. “We sometimes call big words sesquipedalian. But crepuscular means ‘of, resembling, or relating to twilight.’ It is often used in zoology. And it would be well known if it weren’t suppressed by Noah Webster in 1827.” 

“Suppressed?” asked Evangeline. “Noah Webster?” 

“Why, yes,” said Prof. Gates. “The majority of linguists now know that a man called Noah Webster wrote An American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828, in which he intended to eternally change the language forever. He, for example, wanted women to be spelled wimmin, and machine to be spelled masheen.” 

“Oh my God,” said Evangeline, horrified and frightened. 

“I know, I know, Professor,” said Robert Langdon, “but we’re here to talk about this.” 

Langdon removed a codex from his European carryall. “What is this?” he asked. 

“Why, Robert,” said Gates putting on his glasses, “you’re a symbologist. You should know what this is. It’s the original draft of the U.S. Constitution, written at the Second Constitutional Convention by Thomas Jefferson in 1776. According to Irish-born Charles Thompson, it went missing immediately after George Washington was elected president later that year. Why—” He paused pensively, as if in deep thought. “After all, you know that my book on Washington, The Washington Enigma, published by Doubleday to enormous popular acclaim, is what lost me my teaching position at Oxford and Cambridge. Why should you have brought this to me?” 

“Here,” said Robert Langdon, pointing to a line on the Declaration.

“Ah,” said Professor Benjamin Franklin Gates, intriguedly. “‘Hereinafter and unto all time, the MAN known in theʃe and Aʃsorted Timeʃ and Placeʃ as GEORGE WASHINGTON ʃhall be banned and exiled from Entering the United Stateʃ of America.’ Yes, yes, very intriguing indeed, Robert…” 

“I don’t understand,” said the ravishing Evangeline, confused. “Why would George Washington be exiled from his own country?” 

“Well, you see, Evangeline, Prof. Gates has this theory…” Langdon started to explain.

“Well, you see,” said Prof. Gates, his eyes lighting up and gleaming, “even though the United States government has long tried to deny it, the fact remains that Benedict Arnold and George Washington were one and the same person.”