On the Edge of Chaos

Lucy

Lucy Malcolm stared out into the grey ocean and sighed, when her boss told her Costa Rica she envisioned blue skies, turquoise waters, Pina coladas and white beaches. Not sweaty fishermen, grey skies and rain. She turned around to look for Dr. King, and just saw his head duck into the cabin of the boat. He never liked being around this many people, he never had. She watched as Dr. Baselton ordered the fishermen around in Spanish, gesturing wildly at the equipment being loaded and shouting at them to be careful. She then turned her attention to Dr. Dodgson, who appeared to be talking to another woman—one Lucy had not met yet--, he then pointed to Lucy and waved her over.

"This is one of my grad students, Lucy Malcolm. Luce, this is Dr. Harding—she's a friend of Levine's. She's heading out to the island too and I have offered her a lift over."

Lucy felt her heart skip a beat. This was Dr. Harding, the Dr. Sarah Harding who was probably the most progressive animal behaviorists of this century. Lucy was a grad student—she was about 2 years away from finishing her doctorate on evolutionary theory and she had read almost every paper Harding had written. Harding had known her father—Ian Malcolm—he had been one of her thesis readers. Lucy felt her chest tingle at the thought that this woman had known her father, had worked with him, spoken to him. Lucy on the on the other hand barely remembered him

"It's wonderful to meet you, Dr. Harding." She said, extending her hand.

Dr. Harding smiled, "You can call me Sarah." She said, but did not return the handshake.

"Malcolm? You wouldn't be related to Ian Malcolm, would you?" Sarah asked

"He's my father, but I wouldn't know him. He left when I was 5." Lucy replied, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Sarah nodded as if she heard this information every day.

"Well, it's good to meet another Malcolm. Excuse me." She said, and then she stepped away from Lucy and started talking to Dodgson about the trip.

Lucy shrugged, and then decided to walk on board and find Dr. King—her lab partner and friend. They had both started working for Dr. Dodgson at the same time, and back at Biosyn they managed a small team of interns together. Dr. Howard King would always be a mystery to her—he was tall, young and very handsome—but he also had a dark past, one that he refused to talk about, actually he refused to talk at all. She knew Dodgson was starting to get frustrated with King's silence, but she had no idea why. King would sometimes talk to her, if they were alone and if he was in the right mood but that was rare.

Lucy boarded the ship and walked past the strapped down red Jeep Wrangler that held most of their field equipment, then turned to the left and walked down the narrow stairs that went into the ship's cabin. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of fish and mildew, but continued through the small cabin until she found Dr. King sitting on one of the beds and working on his iPad.

"Hey" she said

He jumped slightly, but then looked up at her and smiled.

"It's pretty busy up there. I haven't heard Dr. Dodgson yell like that since that incident with Boris in the lab." She commented, pointing to the ceiling.

Dr. King smiled and nodded, but he still looked nervous.

"The only good thing about that incident was that the fire seared off Boris's unibrow. He looked way less creepy with no eyebrows than he did with that one unibrow."

They both looked up as they heard the captain's orders to launch, and then they felt the boat's motor start with a low rumble.

"I guess we're headed off. Oh wow, I can really feel the motion down here. I think I'm going to head up. I've never done well with boats. Want to join me?" she asked