Before the Storm
Ch 07 - Before the Storm
As Ellie, Ian and Donald left in one jeep, Alan helped Lex and then helped Tim into a seat. Dr. Grant was a bit awkward with children as they moved too much. The dirt that he was used to working with would stay still when he looked. These kids didn’t move much more than dirt, but the fact that they moved at all wasn’t something Alan wanted to deal with at all.
The two jeeps rumbled down a muddy path. Dense foliage from Isla Nublar’s natural flora was damply covered by the sultry air. The jeeps would often slap branches and water would fly off into the jungle. Each jeep’s tour guide offered unceasing information about the habitat and how it mimicked what historians called “An Orlando Summer,” which was known to be a favorite environment for most humans in North America.
The jeeps then announced that the tour would finally enter the free range section, and that they would see the world next. “The world when HUMANS RULED THE DINOTERRA!” the jeep exclaimed over rousing music.
The jeeps rolled down the path until a large gate ahead blocked their path. It was at least twenty feet tall and made of rough-hewn lumber with two flaming braziers at the top. A sign towered over it all and said “Quaternary Park”. The gate slowly hinged inwards, and the jeeps continued inside the park itself. The gate slowly closed behind them as they entered a new land.
Tim eagerly offered, “I want to see all the different types of humans. Normals, vegetarians and even a vegan!” His talons and snout were pressed on the jeep glass and fogging and clearing it with hyperventilating passion.
Dr. Grant said, “I wrote about the vegans in my last book. They were rare. Eventually hunted.”
Lex was confused, “Hunted? Hunted by whom? I thought humans were apex predators?”
Alan shrugged and offered, “There wasn’t much to write about. I didn’t find much in the fossil records. We believe they were hunted off for food by the carnivores during the post-volcanic times they called the ArmyGheddon. So, the fossil history is very limited.”
Tim added, “Oh, I read that book. Did you really think that vegans were hunted, Dr. Grant?”
Alan explained, “It’s not completely clear, Tim, but the media from the time showed ArmyGheddon was being prepared for. People would need to collect old shoulder pads from their favorite American Football teams. They’d dress in black leather, old sporting equipment, and generally get very creative about how they lived their lives compared to the past. It was a renaissance of art and dance as far as we can tell. Old ideas were thrown away in favor of just lots of black leather, shoulder pads and feathers? Feathers played a big role in ArmyGheddon fashion.”
Tim said, “That sounds right. Humans were amazingly creative when their resources started to dwindle after the volcanic eruption. All that fun chasing and dancing down the roadways? Humans fixed the world and then, after it almost destroyed them, they chose to celebrate. How amazing!”
Lex was not convinced, “Humans are dumb. I bet if I tried to hack one it would bleed and complain.” Tim stuck his gray tongue out at her and pouted a bit.
Dr. Grant tried to calm the excited kids, “Lex, humans are not dumb. They tried their best with whatever they had.” Dr. Grant looked through the front window and saw Ellie and Ian talking in the jeep ahead. He imagined what the conversation in that jeep was like and how it compared to his task now.
Ian told Ellie, “This park is doomed. Sooner or later, the world gets less complex and more ordered. All this mess will fall to order as the universe hates a mess.”
Ellie tossed her hair, exposed her neck, and looked at Ian, confused, “What are you talking about? The universe doesn’t have an opinion on anything. It just is.”
Ian shook his frills and said, “No, Ellie, the universe is moving together.” His talons were gesticulating and eight sharp claws added visual punctuation as he spoke.
“I’ve seen the data. All matter is heading to a single point in nature. Maybe not directly at every moment. Like right now in the jeep, we are moving in a certain direction…”
Donald offered, “… bankruptcy is the direction we’re moving in. That gate alone was overbuilt. How tall do humans get at most? 10-20 feet tall?”
Ellie laughed and said, “We’ve studied the NBA Player, which was said to be their very tallest members. Their work in pulling balls from baskets like magic entertained them all. As such, they needed to be tall as the magic basket was, superstition says, ten feet from the ground.”
Lex triumphed at this, “So dumb. Why put the basket up there when you can do magic just fine on the floor.”
Ian wanted to continue on his mathematics and offered, “Like mathematics, all this complexity will fall to my key dinopod mathematics called ‘order theory.’ It won’t matter where the basket is when all of the universe suddenly collapses in what I call the ‘Big Crunch’. The entire universe will hit the end state of ‘order theory’: a single point of infinite mass in zero space and time.”
Ellie tossed her hair behind her left ear hole and her frills held back the blond strands of hair, “‘Order theory’? What’s that? Sounds like philosophy and not science.”
Ian countered, “Let me demonstrate. May I have your upper talon?” Ellie shyly offered her talon and smiled as Ian grabbed it.
Ian put a drop of water on the back of her talon and they watched it roll off to the left, “Now, Ellie, when I drop another drop, what will happen?”
Ellie confidently answered, “No idea. There’s so many factors at play that even the smallest change can cascade to other things.” She secretly hoped the demonstration would involve more of her body parts but kept it sciency for now.
Ian let another drop fall and it rolled off to the left exactly the same way. He repeated the process several times and the result was the same.
“See. No matter how hard we try. Now that we’ve seen how this drop will react in this situation, the universe will either keep it the same, or make it more ordered or organized,” the mathematician noted.
Ellie blushed as the water tickled, with Ian’s talon still on hers, “How can this be? How does the universe know what comes next?”
Ian offered, “Here’s what my math shows. Everything has already happened and now we’re just moving back and forth through time. I’m not exactly sure how it works, but the universe knows where things are before they know themselves. It’s counter-intuitive, I know, but this has all happened before. Any other explanation involves crazy thinking like the universe has a plan and we have no agency at all. Nobody but a philosopher would think something that dumb.”
Ellie laughed and took her talon back as she heard a loud sound from outside the jeep:
‘OOOOOOOOOOOH! OOOOOOOOOOOH! OOOOOOOOOOOH! SORIIIIIIIICH! SORIIIIIIIIIICH!’
Ellie said to Ian, “Stop the jeep! I hear a human in distress!”
Ian managed to stop the automated vehicle and Ellie tried to run out. She was pretty spry and managed to get out of the jeep quickly with Ian’s help. She followed the bellowing noise that was even louder outside the vehicle.
‘SORIIIIIIIICH! SORIIIIIIIIIICH! OOOOOOOOOOOH! OOOOOOOOOOOH!’
Ellie ran to an opening where a huge human male was prone on the ground. It was overfed and fully covered three square meters of the grass undertalon. The human’s eyes were rolling in its head, and it was holding its joints in pain. Ellie put her ear on the human’s gut as it breathed in and out. She peeked inside the human’s clothing to properly sex it.
Dr. Grant from the other jeep ran up. His eyes widened with amazement, “This is a County Fair Goer. A male in distress. He’s in pain. Careful. Their health is always a bit fragile given their complex dietary needs.”
‘OOOOOOOOOOOH! OOOOOOOOOOOH! OOOOOOOOOOOH! SORIIIIIIIICH! SORIIIIIIIIIICH!’
Ellie looked at the poor beast and said, “I think it’s suffering due to something it ate. Maybe something it shouldn’t or normally doesn’t.”
There was a large pile of feces next to the huge human and Ellie pulled out some gloves. She dug her hands in deeply. Ian watched with admiration as Ellie’s passion was clear. She loved digging into this pile somehow.
Ellie pulled something from the pile and smelled briefly. Her face twisted at the ripe odor, “Fried pickles for sure. But I’m smelling foie gras as well. That shouldn’t be with the County Fair Goer. Probably got mixed up with a Gourmand or a Snobby Diner feed plan.”
Ellie looked up and a QP staff member came up to see what was going on. Ellie said to her, “Here’s the problem. Fried pickles and foie gras. It’s just too rich for the County Fair Goer. You should keep the pickles and maybe add some soft-serve ice cream or churros instead. He’ll be happier and the food is cheaper.”
Ian was amazed and asked Ellie, “Wow. You know a lot about humans. How long have you been studying them?”
Ellie smiled and dried off her hands on her very short shorts as serious doctors tend to do after washing up. “Years now. The feeding of humans in the 20th century was what I wrote my doctorate on. Dr. Grant and I are looking at all the different ways humans consumed their environment for food,” Ellie said with a smile.
“You should see how inventive they were. Things that look like day-glo wallpaper paste? They called it ‘cheese.’ Something vibrant yellow and spiked with stimulants, ‘dew from the mountains’! So poetic and so varied from our meat-focused eating.”
Donald held a cloth handkerchief over his snout and asked, “Can we please remain on the tour? Hammond will have a tantrum if we’re late. I hate to see him when he just lies flat and screams into the carpet. It’s just too sad to see an old man go like that in the end. He was so sharp as a younger man.”
Everyone commiserated with Donald and agreed to leave. The park employees took over care of the poor human as the rest of the dinopods returned to their jeeps.