The Codex 97.1.128: Memory of a Hidden World (hard science fiction short story)

EDIT (2025/08/16): The complete French version (three compiled novels) is available on this link: 
https://zenodo.org/records/16886932

The last and third novel - in English language - of the universe, The Architects of the Code is available on this link: https://zenodo.org/records/16886844

In case you didn’t quite get everything, the analysis of the work: The Codex 97.1.128 is on this link: https://zenodo.org/records/16887445

Summary:

This is no longer the novel where you become the hero, but the short story where you become a mathematician, a physicist and a geneticist.

The Codex 97.1.128 is a hard science fiction work structured into three novels,  exploring a fascinating hypothesis: what if the genetic code were not merely a blueprint for building life, but also an ancient, universal message? This message, hidden within the human genome by a civilization extinct for millions of years, becomes accessible only through binary conversion and mirror inversion of a specific fragment of the code.

The simple mathematical sequence — 97, 1, 128 — points to a real star located in the Carina–Sagittarius galactic arm, at galactic coordinates l = 97°, b = 1°, r = 128 light-years.

An isolated researcher discovers this codon anomaly, where the motif repeats, translates into images, becomes sound, then celestial coordinates, plunging the story into existential vertigo: are we alone, or simply forgotten in a discreet corner of the Milky Way, shielded from sight or chaos?

First novel: The Great Erasure (https://zenodo.org/records/16101546, inside the Codex)
Second novel: The Codex 97.1.128: Memory of a Hidden World (https://zenodo.org/records/16101546)
Third novel: The Architects of the Code (https://zenodo.org/records/16886844)

Warning: this is a work of speculative fiction (hard SF), not a scientific document. However, all mathematical, physical and genetics sections presented within the story are designed to be verifiable and reproducible. Of course, copyright is fully secured :-)

About the Author 

Victoria Kayser-Cuny, a dual citizen of Canada and France, is trained in molecular genetics/molecular cytogenetics (post-graduate level), with advanced specializations in paleogenetics, exobiology, bioarchaeology, evolutionary genetics, particle physics, astronomy/astrophysics, and biochemistry  studied across France, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States. 

She has also taught STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and, since 2022, has been writing a newsletter on G.R.AI.N. — Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Nanotechnology on LinkedIn.

She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (whose members once included Charles Darwin), a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, a Full Member of the Genetics Society of London, and a affiliate member of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

A passionate practitioner of bookbinding and codicology, she has published several articles in French, including: “The Future of Codicology: From 13th-Century Chemists to DNA Fragment Data Storage” (2024, Quebec). She also collects books on mathematics and physics, and, like Michael Faraday, was once a bookbinding apprentice. 

Her interest in writing hard science fiction was sparked by a doctoral seminar at the Institut Pasteur, titled “Introduction to the Relationship Between Science and Society”, where the works of Ursula K. Le Guin were especially highlighted, but also personal: as a nod to her husband, who co-organized the 21st French National Science Fiction Convention in 1994, this book carries forward a family tradition of curiosity and imagination.

Petra is the author’s third given name, and Ai Rotciv is simply “Victoria” spelled backwards.

AI in this story

Victoria Kayser-Cuny published her first short story in 1999 in a French tech journal (Le Monde Informatique), exploring speculative themes long before AI became a writing companion for many people. She continues to craft her narratives independently, while occasionally using tools like ChatGPT for light proofreading — just as one might ask a colleague to review a final draft. The core ideas, structure, and writing remain entirely her own.