Chapter 1014 Our Journey is the Sea of ​​Stars (2 in 1 Chapter)

The Gaia hypothesis is a theory created and promoted by two scientists from Britain and the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.

This theory views the Earth as a living, self-regulating planetary organism composed of humans, other animals, plants, bacteria, fungi, viruses, rocks, minerals and other substances.

This was a rather subversive theory at the time, and to some extent encountered resistance and even criticism from the mainstream scientific community.

Of course, today, some of the views in the Gaia hypothesis have been accepted by the mainstream scientific community, such as the impact of various life forms, including humans and microorganisms, on the climate.

Although there are still various debates and discussions about this hypothesis in the scientific community, it has quickly evolved into a fertile theoretical soil since its birth, and countless science fiction works, environmental protection concepts and cults have been born on it.

There is no way. The Gaia hypothesis is too consistent with the Western philosophical idea that everything is attributed to God. The name Gaia itself comes from the Mother Earth in Greek mythology, the first original god born from chaos (not activated), and is regarded as the original natural force that created all life.

Since the earth is a huge living organism, it must have its own will. Therefore, the idea that any human action that destroys the natural environment is blasphemy naturally arises.

Therefore, when the scientific community was still arguing about the Gaia hypothesis, especially when it was criticized and ridiculed by neo-Darwinists, countless people outside the ivory tower had added to it and even distorted and packaged it for their own use.

The most typical example is the movie "Avatar", the carbon neutrality theory advocated by Western environmentalism, and the more radical extreme environmentalism that regards human beings as cancer cells on Mother Earth.

After Jack gave everyone a general introduction, he continued with a constipated expression.

"All in all, the good news is that as a highly educated doctor, Rachel Horton is not so extreme as to believe that humans must be completely removed from the Earth's ecosystem."

"Just tell me the bad news." Danny couldn't stand this guy's suspense.

“The bad news is that she believes that the human population has become out of balance, seriously affecting the ecological balance of the earth and destroying the self-regulating ability of Mother Earth.

Rachel Horton believes that smallpox is one of the ways the Earth regulates itself. Humans have eradicated smallpox, which has caused a certain imbalance. This is a wrong behavior that needs to be corrected.

Jack opened one of the papers and read a quote from the Bible, "The four angels were ready to be released at this particular time and year to kill one third of the human race."

"She believes she is carrying out God's will by creating the great plague described in the Bible." Grandma Heidi murmured as she appeared in the conference room again at some point.

"Dr. Horton plans to leave tomorrow afternoon, which means she will carry out her plan tomorrow morning at the latest. Gentlemen, stop her by whatever means you use. I believe you will not let me down."

After saying this, the old lady, whose height was completely inversely proportional to her aura, disappeared outside the meeting room door as quietly as when she came.

After a while, Danny seemed to have learned to breathe again, and took a deep breath, "OK, let's think about how to stop a mad doctor's plan to destroy humanity. To be honest, is your supervisor always so elusive?"

"You are very afraid of Heidi." Cheng Hao saw through this guy's thoughts at a glance.

"Oh no, Ms. Heidi is a respectable elder. I respect her very much, yes, very much." Danny tried to explain.

"No, you are just afraid. Jack's attitude is real respect." Cheng Hao winked at him, and the others also had an understanding expression.

After a brief chat, everyone got busy. The first thing they did was to notify the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) to further strengthen security checks to prevent the recurrence of the previous situation where someone impersonated someone else and boarded the plane early.

Of course, traveling domestically and going abroad by flight are two different situations. Because of the existence of customs, this possibility exists but it is unlikely, at least not as trivial as before.

The most important thing is to prevent the other party from smuggling the virus out of the country. Although according to Jack's profile, this possibility is also small. A remote small country like Costa Rica is more like a hiding place, not a good place to spread the virus.

The next step is to check all large-scale activities that may be attacked tomorrow morning, whether open-air or indoors. The larger the scale, the greater the possibility of an attack.

After working almost the entire night, everyone was exhausted at dawn. More and more information was gathered from various sources, but none of them could clearly point to Rachel Horton's whereabouts.

"OK, it's almost 9 o'clock, and time is running out. I think we must have missed something." Danny waved his hand, pushed the laptop in front of him away, and rubbed his sore eyes hard.

"Are you talking about our sleep?" Cheng Hao covered his face and yawned. Unexpectedly, this caused a chain reaction, and everyone in the conference room yawned continuously.

Jack brewed who knows how many pots of coffee, looked at the bright sunshine outside the window, and felt a little impatient. "Why don't you all share your ideas? Maybe there will be some unexpected gains."

Danny wiped away the tears from his eyes caused by yawning and spoke first.

"It's still the Christmas holiday, with concerts, fashion shows, and discounts at shopping malls. There are crowds everywhere, but don't you find it strange? There will be more large-scale group activities on New Year's Day than there are now.

Why doesn't Rachel Horton just hide and wait until a big wave comes, such as New Year's Eve, when Los Angeles will be crowded with tourists from all over the country and even the world, and there will be targets everywhere. "

Danny's words made everyone fall into deep thought. Karen sorted out his thoughts and said, "You mean, Dr. Horton might have already chosen a target? A carefully selected large-scale event with a fixed date?"

"Maybe she planned to leave the virus at the international airport, which is full of passengers flying to all parts of the world, before leaving the country." Hannah frowned and expressed his disagreement.

"No, no, no, it shouldn't be that simple. The airport is not a good choice. When faced with the threat of a terrorist attack, it is the first place to be alerted."

Danny retorted, and was about to say something else when Jack suddenly had an idea, "You said that she might have planned all this a long time ago, right?"

He pulled up a record from his computer, "This is a credit card record for Rachel Horton from more than two months ago, when she spent a large sum of money at an office supply store.

When I saw this record yesterday, I felt something was a little strange. I called the store to inquire and found that she had purchased at least 300 Parker pens and notebooks as well as some school supplies. Do you think it could be related to the attack she was planning to carry out? "

"You mean her target might be children?" Danny suddenly felt a little creepy.

Cheng Hao shook his head and denied this conjecture. "But I remember that the smallpox virus quickly loses its activity in the air. This is not a good means of transmission."

"But spraying the virus on clothes is different." Karen quickly clicked on the next link, "Here is another order for 300 custom T-shirts."

"This fits her concept of communication, just like when the Spaniards gave the Indians clothes and blankets worn by people infected with smallpox." Hanna suddenly realized.

Danny then held his head and said dejectedly, "But she may have donated these things to the school a long time ago."

"Wait a minute." Jack opened the order attachment and displayed the specific contents. "These T-shirts have LOGO."

"'Future international leader'?" He murmured a line of small words above and directly opened the browser search box.

"High school graduates from 36 countries will gather together for a series of lectures and trainings aimed at promoting cultural exchange, enhancing understanding and tolerance, and promoting friendship?"

Danny was stunned. "She gave T-shirts with the virus to children from various countries, and then they passed the virus to their families when they returned home. This woman is absolutely crazy!"

“This event must be cancelled immediately.”

Hannah was about to pick up her phone, but Karen grabbed her wrist and said, "It's too late. The event started 20 minutes ago."

-

The "Future International Leaders" event is located in a corner of Hancock Park, next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which happens to be within the jurisdiction of the Wilshire Police Department.

When everyone arrived here, there were already crowds of people outside the venue. There were many activity stalls with awnings in the square, distributing various souvenirs and brochures. At least three or four hundred teenagers of different skin colors gathered around.

John, who had just arrived, saw Jack and the others and hurried over to greet them. "There are only two police cars here, and the others are still on the way. Do we need to activate the bomb attack plan immediately?"

Jack sighed, "It's too late. The CDC will arrive later and seal off the entrances and exits to prevent anyone from leaving."

John was a little embarrassed when he heard this. "The organizer has been notified to temporarily close the venue. Now most of the children are outside in the open square."

"Then block the surrounding roads, prohibit any vehicles from entering or leaving, and let the guys wear masks and gloves."

During the time Jack and John were talking, Danny beside him had already discovered the target, which was not Rachel Horton, but two teenage boys holding bags containing T-shirts.

"Put down what you're holding!" Danny shouted, shocking the two men so much that they stood there in a daze.

Cheng Hao quickly stepped forward and showed the police badge on his waist. Although it said "HPD" on it, no one would care about it at the moment. "Police, where did you get these T-shirts?"

"It's right there." The two little boys were obviously not Americans, but fortunately they could understand English. One of the tall and thin boys quickly threw away the paper bag containing T-shirts and stationery in his hand and pointed to a stall not far away.

A middle-aged white woman was smiling and distributing paper bags containing T-shirts and stationery to the students. Who else could it be but Rachel Horton?

"Stay here, John, call for support immediately." Jack was about to use the headset to call others, but it was too late. The commotion here had attracted the attention of people around.

Rachel Holden's face changed drastically when she looked over here, and she turned and ran.

"Karen, Hannah! She's trying to run away under the blue awning in the southeast corner." Before Cheng Hao finished his words, the middle-aged woman, who sensed something was wrong, had already merged into the crowd.

"Federal agents!" Jack shouted a warning, but was blocked by the panicked crowd.

"Damn it!" He simply transformed himself into Liu Xiang and stepped over the long tables under the parasols.

"Beige knitted jacket, black trousers." Jack shouted out the other person's clothing characteristics while running.

"We saw her!" Maddy Dix and Kensi Bly from another group replied, "There are too many people, we can't shoot! Be careful, she's trying to get in the car and run away."

Rachel Horton was seen getting into a silver SUV on the roadside and started the car.

The two little girls standing at the front of the car were talking with their heads down and hadn't realized what was happening at all. Fortunately, Karen and Hannah arrived in time and hugged them away from the spot, but they also missed the best opportunity to shoot.

"Fuck!" Seeing that he couldn't catch up, Jack cursed angrily, but then he saw a Dodge Charger with LAPD police car paint rushing out from the other side and slamming head-on into the SUV driven by Rachel Horton.

This powerful PIT hit, which was not in line with the style of California police, directly caused the SUV to turn 180 degrees. The left front wheel was immediately free and ran into the green belt on the side.

Jack rushed forward, exerted his extraordinary strength to pull open the already deformed car door, dragged the frightened Rachel Horton out of the car, and took the handcuffs off her waist.

"FBI, Rachel Horton you are under arrest."

The others finally arrived, and Karen and Hannah went forward to open the trunk of the SUV, and were relieved to see a small silver suitcase inside.

"We found the potion bottles! They're all empty!" Hannah put on gloves and opened the suitcase. Inside were 9 small glass bottles that were exactly the same as the ones he had obtained from Komescu in Hawaii.

John got rid of the airbag and got off the Dodge Charger, of which only the bumper was deformed. He shook his dizzy head and looked at Rachel Horton, whose face was as pale as death, with an expression of disbelief on his face.

"Why, why, how could you have the heart to do that to those children?"

Rachel Horton looked like just an ordinary middle-aged white woman, and there was even a hint of compassion between her brows.

She looked at everyone with compassion and said, "You don't understand. This world is already dying. We are the root of the problem. I just want to give the Earth a chance to fight back."

"By slaughtering billions of your compatriots?" John had not heard of the Gaia hypothesis that Jack had explained before, but he had met some similar extreme environmentalists.

"It took tens of thousands of years for the world's human population to grow to one billion, but now it only takes 10 years to grow from 70 billion to 80 billion. This is just a simple math problem."

Even while handcuffed, Rachel Horton still tried to make her point.

“Tsunamis, earthquakes, cosmic radiation, and of course nuclear wars and genocide, whether it is nature or human beings themselves, there are countless ways to destroy them. It is a miracle that humans have survived to this day.

While people like you fall into despair and try to prove your theory correct by destroying others, there are still some people who look up to the sky and see the sea of ​​stars as the journey of the future. "

Jack looked at the mentally ill woman with disdain and chuckled at her twice.

“Also, I don’t know whether you are intentionally ignoring the speed of human technological progress, or whether this kind of thing is not so intuitive and can be measured using simple mathematical problems.

But if you think you can’t solve certain problems, you can choose to die quietly and don’t block the way for others. ”