Sienna had been walking in total silence beside him for several minutes, and Langdon glanced over to make sure she was okay. She seemed miles away, probably trying to accept the fact that she had just killed the woman who had been chasing them.
“Lira for your thoughts,” he ventured lightly, hoping to pull her mind from the image of the spike-haired woman lying dead on the palazzo floor.
Sienna emerged slowly from her contemplations. “I was thinking of Zobrist,” she said slowly. “Trying to recall anything else I might know about him.”
“And?”
She shrugged. “Most of what I know is from a controversial essay he wrote a few years ago. It really stayed with me. Among the medical community, it instantly went viral.” She winced. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”
Langdon gave a grim chuckle. “Go on.”
“His essay essentially declared that the human race was on the brink of extinction, and that unless we had a catastrophic event that precipitously decreased global population growth, our species would not survive another hundred years.”
Langdon turned and stared at her. “A single century?”
“It was a pretty stark thesis. The predicted time frame was substantially shorter than previous estimates, but it was supported by some very potent scientific data. He made a lot of enemies by declaring that all doctors should stop practicing medicine because extending the human life span was only exacerbating the population problem.”
Langdon now understood why the article spread wildly through the medical community.
“Not surprisingly,” Sienna continued, “Zobrist was immediately attacked from all sides — politicians, clergy, the World Health Organization — all of whom derided him as a doomsayer lunatic who was simply trying to cause panic. They took particular umbrage at his statement that today’s youth, if they chose to reproduce, would have offspring that literally would witness the end of the human race. Zobrist illustrated his point with a ‘Doomsday Clock,’ which showed that if the entire span of human life on earth were compressed into a single hour … we are now in its final seconds.”
“I’ve actually seen that clock online,” Langdon said.
“Yes, well, it’s his, and it caused quite an uproar. The biggest backlash against Zobrist, however, came when he declared that his advances in genetic engineering would be far more helpful to mankind if they were used not to curedisease, but rather to createit.”
“What?!”
“Yes, he argued that his technology should be used to limit population growth by creating hybrid strains of disease that our modern medicine would be unable to cure.”
Langdon felt a rising dread as his mind conjured images of strange, hybrid “designer viruses” that, once released, were totally unstoppable.
“Over a few short years,” Sienna said, “Zobrist went from being the toast of the medical world to being a total outcast. An anathema.” She paused, a look of compassion crossing her face. “It’s really no wonder he snapped and killed himself. Even sadder because his thesis is probably correct.”
Langdon almost fell over. “I’m sorry — you think he’s right?!”
Sienna gave him a solemn shrug. “Robert, speaking from a purely scientific standpoint — all logic, no heart — I can tell you without a doubt that without some kind of drastic change, the end of our species is coming. And it’s coming fast. It won’t be fire, brimstone, apocalypse, or nuclear war … it will be total collapse due to the number of people on the planet. The mathematics is indisputable.”
Langdon stiffened.
“I’ve studied a fair amount of biology,” she said, “and it’s quite normal for a species to go extinct simply as a result of overpopulating its environment. Picture a colony of surface algae living in a tiny pond in the forest, enjoying the pond’s perfect balance of nutrients. Unchecked, they reproduce so wildly that they quickly cover the pond’s entire surface, blotting out the sun and thereby preventing the growth of the nutrients in the pond. Having sapped everything possible from their environment, the algae quickly die and disappear without a trace.” She gave a heavy sigh. “A similar fate could easily await mankind. Far sooner and faster than any of us imagine.”
Langdon felt deeply unsettled. “But … that seems impossible.”
“Not impossible, Robert, just unthinkable. The human mind has a primitive ego defense mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It’s called denial.”
“I’ve heard of denial,” Langdon quipped blithely, “but I don’t think it exists.”
Sienna rolled her eyes. “Cute, but believe me, it’s very real. Denial is a critical part of the human coping mechanism. Without it, we would all wake up terrified every morning about all the ways we could die. Instead, our minds block out our existential fears by focusing on stresses we can handle — like getting to work on time or paying our taxes. If we have wider, existential fears, we jettison them very quickly, refocusing on simple tasks and daily trivialities.”
Langdon recalled a recent Web-tracking study of students at some Ivy League universities which revealed that even highly intellectual users displayed an instinctual tendency toward denial. According to the study, the vast majority of university students, after clicking on a depressing news article about arctic ice melt or species extinction, would quickly exit that page in favor of something trivial that purged their minds of fear; favorite choices included sports highlights, funny cat videos, and celebrity gossip.
“In ancient mythology,” Langdon offered, “a hero in denialis the ultimate manifestation of hubris and pride. No man is more prideful than he who believes himself immune to the dangers of the world. Dante clearly agreed, denouncing pride as the worstof the seven deadly sins … and punished the prideful in the deepest ring of the inferno.”
Sienna reflected a moment and then continued. “Zobrist’s article accused many of the world’s leaders of being in extreme denial … putting their heads in the sand. He was particularly critical of the World Health Organization.”
“I bet that went over well.”
“They reacted by equating him with a religious zealot on a street corner holding a sign that says ‘The End Is Near.’ ”
“Harvard Square has a couple of those.”
“Yes, and we all ignore them because none of us can imagine it will happen. But believe me, just because the human mind can’t imaginesomething happening … doesn’t mean it won’t.”
“You almost sound like you’re a fan of Zobrist’s.”
“I’m a fan of the truth,” she replied forcefully, “even if it’s painfully hard to accept.”
Langdon fell silent, again feeling strangely isolated from Sienna at the moment, trying to understand her bizarre combination of passion and detachment.
Sienna glanced over at him, her face softening. “Robert, look, I’m not saying Zobrist is correct that a plague that kills half the world’s people is the answer to overpopulation. Nor am I saying we should stop curing the sick. What I am saying is that our current path is a pretty simple formula for destruction. Population growth is an exponential progression occurring within a system of finite space and limited resources. The end will arrive very abruptly. Our experience will not be that of slowly running out of gas … it will be more like driving off a cliff.”
Langdon exhaled, trying to process everything he had just heard.
“Speaking of which,” she added, somberly pointing up in the air to their right, “I’m pretty sure that’s where Zobrist jumped.”
Langdon glanced up and saw that they were just passing the austere stone facade of the Bargello Museum to their right. Behind it, the tapered spire of the Badia tower rose above the surrounding structures. He stared at the top of the tower, wondering why Zobrist had jumped and hoped to hell it wasn’t because the man had done something terrible and hadn’t wanted to face what was coming.