Notes
Soundtrack suggestions:
The end of Malcolm's and Guillaume's conversation:
- Malcolm's Journey - John Williams, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Up to 00:50).
-o-
"... Why do complex animals die out? Why don't they just adjust? Physically, they seem to have the capacity to survive. There appears to be no reason why they should die. And yet they do.
"What I wish to propose is that complex animals become extinct not because of a change in their physical adaptation to their environment, but because of their behaviour. I would suggest that the latest thinking in chaos theory, or nonlinear dynamics, provides tantalizing hints to how it happens.
"It suggests to us that behaviour of complex animals can cease to be responsive to the environment, and lead to decline and death. It suggests that animals may stop adapting. Is this what happened to the dinosaurs? Is this the true cause of their disappearance? We may never know. But it is no accident that human beings are so interested in dinosaur extinction. The decline of the dinosaurs allowed mammals – including us – to flourish. And that leads us to wonder whether the disappearance of the dinosaurs is going to be repeated, sooner or later, by us as well. Whether at the deepest level the fault lies not in blind fate – in some fiery meteor from the skies – but in our own behaviour. At the moment, we have no answer. But I have a few suggestions..."
The conference was held in Wheeler Auditorium, located in a century-old Neoclassical-style building right in the heart of the campus of Berkeley University. The auditorium being the latter's largest, the university had naturally chosen it to host the conference of a personality such as Ian Malcolm. With his leather jacket and black pants, he evoked a rock star to Guillaume Vuillier. He attracted crowds like one because there wasn't a single unoccupied seat left in the auditorium and the WDMC group had been lucky to find some in the middle rows.
While listening Malcolm carrying on with his analysis of chaos theory applied to evolution, Guillaume discreetly scanned the audience.
He had noticed earlier that the first rows were mostly occupied by women who, being among the first to arrive, had sat there in order to be closer to the professor and it was not surprising. Rather well preserved for his age, Malcolm was popular with the fairer sex, not only among women of his generation but also among students. Guillaume was certain that he had recently shaved off his beard in order to please his many female admirers. The mathematician even had a few at the World De-extinction Monitoring Center and near its director, Peggy and several of her female colleagues listened to Malcolm with the greatest attention.
Among the audience, there were also several people, mostly students, who wore T-shirts that mocked InGen or Jurassic World. Guillaume had seen one with the sentence Iurassica mundi delenda est written on it and another that parodied the logo of Isla Nublar's fallen park by replacing the park's name and the Tyrannosaurus skeleton with the name Fisti World and a clenched fist respectively. Not only these listeners were also very attentive, but they seemed to almost hang on the professor's every word, frequently nodding their heads in approval.
One of the few people who didn't seem to find the lecture to his liking was a man in a shirt and tie and with tousled hair, seated in the far corner of the auditorium, opposite of the university cameraman who was filming the conference so it could be later uploaded on the university's website. Slumped in his seat with his face glued to his fist and his head half oriented towards the middle of the audience and Guillaume, the man obviously had all the trouble in the world to not fall asleep.
Malcolm shifted on the dais.
"But even more important," he said, "is the way complex systems seem to strike a balance between the need for order and the imperative to change. Complex systems tend to locate themselves at a place we call 'the edge of chaos'. We imagine the edge of chaos as a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy. It is a zone of conflict and upheaval, where the old and the new are constantly at war. Finding the balance point must be a delicate matter – if a living system drifts too close, it risks falling over into incoherence and dissolution; but if the system moves too far away from the edge, it becomes rigid, frozen, totalitarian. Both conditions lead to extinction. Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the edge of chaos can complex systems flourish..."
In the audience, heads were nodding. This was familiar thinking to most of the attendees. Indeed, the concept of the edge of chaos was very nearly dogma at the Santa Fe Institute and among the professor's disciples. Several of the attendees were taking notes.
At eleven o'clock, Malcolm finished his speech and came the question and answer session. From the lecturer's point of view, there had been only the predictable objections: that mass extinctions were important; that human beings owed their existence to the Cretaceous extinction, which had wiped out the dinosaurs and allowed mammals to take over. As one questioner had pompously phrased it, "The Cretaceous extinction allowed our own sentient awareness to rise on the planet."
Malcolm's reply was immediate.
"What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence of it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told – and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs'. The reason is that beliefs guide behaviour, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behaviour may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question."
When the clock showed noon, the dean announced the end of the lecture and invited the audience to leave. But as he exchanged a handshake with Malcolm, part of the audience converged towards the dais, each carrying a copy of one of the books the professor had written. The latter laughed and took the microphone again:
"I would love to sign autographs but unfortunately I can't. I have to lunch too, you know. But let me suggest you to try intercepting me if you ever hang around the Santa Fe Institute. You might be lucky if I'm in the mood."
Slightly disappointed, his admirers turned around and headed for the exit. Higher up in the auditorium, Guillaume and the other employees of the WDMC had also stood up and refolded their seats.
"See you this afternoon," the employees of the WDMC said to their director.
"See you this afternoon."
And they left, leaving him alone in the row with his bag slung over his shoulder. He had explained to them earlier that he had asked if he could meet Malcolm after the conference and that he accepted.
Before going downstairs and meeting the mathematician, Guillaume took his phone out of his bag, opened its case and turned it on to check if he had received any important messages in the meantime. Suddenly, someone bumped into him and the cell phone fell from his hands, falling on the folding seats to his right:
"Oh, sorry," mumbled a male voice behind him.
Guillaume let out a slight irritated sigh and began to search for his phone among the row of folding seats. He didn't see it, but the man who had bumped into him jumped over the folding seats and crouched down to look for the cell phone under them. Seeing a disheveled hair and a shirt and tie, Guillaume realized that it was the man who had spent most of the conference dozing at the back of the room.
"Ah, here it is..." The man finally said after several long seconds of searching.
Shortly after, he sat up, revealing to Guillaume his cheeks eaten away by a two-day stubble and his features marked by fatigue. He handed the phone to its owner.
"I'm really sorry," he added.
"Thank you," Guillaume answered in a rather cold tone.
The man gave an embarrassed smile.
"Have a nice day sir."
"Have a nice day...," the WDMC director wished him back, still in a cold tone.
Then the man left, heading for one of the exits near the dais. Guillaume looked around the auditorium's rows and exits. He was the last listener in the middle of the folding seats and wondered why the man in the shirt and tie had passed through his row when there was hardly anyone in the others when he had jostled him, but also, above all, why he had not taken one of the exits at the back of the room, much closer to his place than the row where the WDMC director stood.
On the dais, a woman waved at him while Malcolm chatted with the dean and several of the university's professors. It was Beverly, the mathematician's assistant, with whom Guillaume had arranged the interview. Stepping onto the platform, he greeted the small group.
"Professor Malcolm."
The mathematician stared at him.
"Hello, you are..."
"It's Mr. Vuillier," his assistant told him. "From the World De-extinction Monitoring Center."
They shook hands and then Malcolm exclaimed:
"Ah yes, the Frenchman! The former Interpol agent. Sarah recently told me about you."
"Yes, I met Dr. Harding when she passed at the centre last month," Guillaume replied. "She has been a long-time collaborator of the WDMC, since its earliest days."
"I wonder how she manages to still be passionate about dinosaurs after all the events from the last twenty or so years. I guess she must have told you about our little getaway to Sorna and our burst of heroism in San Diego?"
"She did."
Guillaume mingled with the small group and discussed with Malcolm and the professors about the questions asked at the end of the lecture. Fifteen minutes later, Malcolm finally took leave of the academics and invited Guillaume to have their talk outside.
"Have you seen the other survivors again since the incidents?" Guillaume asked as they left the iconic Sather Tower behind and began to walk through Memorial Glade, a green space located over a hundred meters north of Wheeler Hall.
To their left was the university's main library and on the large lawn that stretched to their right, several students were sprawled out in the grass in small groups, enjoying the good weather and taking a well-deserved rest after the recent period of final exams. Hearing them speak, some looked up and the two men heard "Hey, look. It's Ian Malcolm.". However, seeing that he was in the middle of a conversation, no one dared to disturb him and those who saw him just watched him pass by.
"I suppose you mean Professors Grant and Sattler as well as the others? I haven't seen them since twenty or so years. Yet, Sarah met Grant and Doctor Brennan when the three of them worked for the Center and were studying the first dinosaurs-related data from the Five Deaths. Maybe I should have stopped by and said hello or invited him for dinner when I had the chance. That was rude of me. A big family reunion where we could remember the good old days and our island misadventures... It's not a bad idea when you think about it. It might even be nice… I liked Doctor Sattler, she had nice legs… Do you know what she became?"
"I think she is a university lecturer and researcher on the East Coast. Back then, the Centre also offered her to be a fellow scientist but she declined the offer."
"She seems to have totally left InGen's dinosaurs behind her. It's totally understandable."
Reaching the end of Memorial Glade, they came to an intersection and stopped momentarily to let a cyclist pass before continuing, turning left. Malcolm then remembered about the other survivors.
"I saw Hammond's grandchildren briefly before my little excursion to Sorna. All I know about them is that they stayed away from InGen. And that only did them good. Imagine if they had meddled in its affairs and sought to gain influence within it. The power struggles would have crushed them or worse, made them so unrecognizable that it would have horrified the good old John if he was still alive."
They turned right, passing between Moffitt Library and California Hall.
"As for my other companions in misery from 97…," the mathematician continued, "… Nick Van Owen… vanished into thin air after our return from Sorna. I heard he did some jail time afterwards... There was also that big game hunter hired by Ludlow. Ah… I no longer remember his name."
"Roland Tembo," the WDMC director said.
"That's it. Tembo. I don't know what happened to him."
"I met him years ago in a bar in Kenya. He has since died of cancer. Do you know the adage which says that the worst poachers make the best gamekeepers?"
"I've heard similar things."
"Well, that sort of applied to our great white hunter friend. After the turn of the millennium, he gave up sport hunting and invested heavily in the conservation of African megafauna."
"His experience on Sorna must have had something to do with it," Malcolm said as they passed in front of Chan Shun Auditorium. "These islands and what they contain can change a person. I'm in a good position to know that."
"This is what I have seen in some of the survivors of Jurassic World's Fall. It saw heroes rise..."
"And lunatics showing their true colors... When I first saw the pictures and read the articles in the press, God… Next to it, the Jurassic Park incident looks like an episode of Daktari. And I'm the one saying it... We reached a point of no return I'm afraid, Hammond's dream has been corrupted to the core. To think that it all started out as a simple family theme park on an island off Costa Rica. And that's where we are now… Power struggles, conspiracies, and a lot of violence and death… Basically an HBO show with dinosaurs instead of drugs, warring kingdoms or defective robots."
"The Butterfly Effect. A pebble thrown on one side of the ocean leads to a tsunami on the other."
"Exactly," Malcolm said. "Who are those survivors you met?" He asked after a short silence.
"Claire Dearing and Owen Grady. I mostly spoke with her."
"The Queen of the Ashes and the Raptor Whisperer? Two fine specimens, and they seem equally crazy. How did you meet them?"
"During a reception at Benjamin Lockwood's Manor, last March."
Walking past the large building that contained not only Chan Shun Auditorium but also the Natural History Museum, they stopped in front of the latter's entrance stairs. Next to it was a parking lot where Beverly waited for the mathematician's return. With the Santa Fe Institute being located in a former convent built on the heights east of the campus, Malcolm resided in the area and Guillaume knew he was not bothering him significantly.
"I see…," the mathematician said thoughtfully. "I suppose you also saw Susan Lynton and Alistair Iger at this reception?"
"Yes, but I didn't speak to them," the WDMC director answered.
"You were lucky. I dealt with them in Washington when the Senate made its decision about the surviving animals of Jurassic World. Simon Masrani had his flaws but at least I didn't want to punch him when I debated with him at the United Nations in 2000."
"Did you meet Benjamin Lockwood?"
"No, and I only heard about him for the first time after the San Diego incident, when he became CEO of InGen after Ludlow died. Hammond never told me about him, neither when I was a consultant for InGen, nor during our visit on Isla Nublar, nor when he summoned me to his residence in New York before he sent me to Isla Sorna..."
"Odd," Guillaume observed, "as Mr. Lockwood likes to tell that he and John were the best friends in the world, that Jurassic Park was their idea etc.…"
"It's indeed curious that John forgot to tell us about his so-called best friend and partner. If you want my opinion, there is something troubling about this."
"Maybe they were on bad terms at that time? I did some little research in the meantime and found that Lockwood was on Ludlow's side when Operation Harvest and the San Diego Incident happened."
"Surprise, surprise... Something must have happened at some point, before that disastrous visit of June 1993… I would wonder what but to be honest, I'm no longer interested in Hammond's various quarrels with his friends and relatives."
Looking behind Malcolm, towards Sather Tower, Guillaume then saw the same man in shirt and tie who had jostled him in the auditorium. He was half hidden behind the foliage of some small tree bordering the path and although he had a telephone on his ear and was answering from time to time to some conversation partner on the line, Guillaume knew that it was more or less playacting and the fact that the man watched them from time to time more or less confirmed his suspicions. He had indeed noticed that he had followed them since Wheeler Hall, turning around or pretending to be a simple walker whenever the director of the WDMC looked behind him. He looked down at his shoulder bag, intending to check his phone once back in San Francisco. Guillaume wondered who this man was, why he was spying on him and for whom?
"I've given enough with InGen…," Malcolm resumed. "I must admit that you have courage, for having accepted this director position. I think you're going to have a lot of work to do."
"It's already the case and things are going to get worse before they get better."
Malcolm nodded.
"Let's hope that nothing goes wrong in Costa Rica."
As the end of their interview approached, Guillaume offered:
"You know, the World De-extinction Monitoring Centre also hires mathematicians. If you wish, you can become a fellow scientist of the WDMC."
"Thank you for your offer, but I'm going to decline it," Malcolm replied. "For the moment, I don't know what else I can bring... I might reconsider it later. For now, I think I'll just write more books."
He looked at his watch.
"Oh, the clock is ticking. Beverly will grumble again... I regret to inform you that we have to end our interview."
He held out his hand to the WDMC director.
"Farewell Professor Malcolm," the latter said while shaking hands with him, "speaking with you was a pleasure."
"All the pleasure is mine, Mr Vuillier. I'm going to wish you good fortune for the future, you will surely need some."
Then he left for the nearby parking lot, leaving Guillaume in front of the museum's entrance.