Inferno

“You are gazing up at me from the shadows. Your eyes are mournful, and yet in them I sense a veneration for what I have accomplished. You understand I have no choice. For the love of Mankind, I must protect my masterpiece.

         It grows even now…waiting…simmering beneath the bloodred waters of the lagoon that reflects no stars.

         And so, I lift my eyes from yours and I contemplate the horizon. High above this burdened world, I make my final supplication.

         Dearest God, I pray the world remembers my name not as a monstrous sinner, but as the glorious savior you know I truly am. I pray Mankind will understand the gift I leave behind.

         My gift is the future.

         My gift is salvation.

         My gift is Inferno.

         With that, I whisper my amen…and take my final step, into the abyss.”

As the Prologue closes and Bertrand Zobrist leaps to his death, Brown lays down the first pieces of the novel’s puzzle and utilizes colorful vagaries to disguise references to future moments in the plot. Zobrist’s love for the unnamed figure (later revealed to be Sienna) watching him hints at the love between them that inspired his work while the capitalization of “Mankind” epitomizes Zobrist’s humanist moral code. The use of the phrase “the lagoon that reflects no stars” will serve to add prominence to itself later when it is included at the end of Zobrist’s riddle poem.

“She checked her silenced weapon, and stared up at the window where Robert Langdon’s light had just gone out.

         Earlier tonight her original mission had gone horribly awry.

         The coo of a single dove had changed everything.

         Now she had come to make it right.”

The reader’s first introduction to Vayentha paints the image of a cold-blooded killer, misleading the reader into assuming Vayentha is a murderous villain. The inclusion of her poring over a weapon before looking to Langdon’s window in the same sentence further directs the reader’s assumptions down this path. Previously in this chapter, Langdon was also told he had suffered a gunshot wound to the head hours earlier. Taken in conjunction with Vayentha’s reference to a failed mission, the weapon in her hand, and the determined manner in which she states her intentions to make her failed mission right, Brown aligns the reader’s thought process with what will soon be Langdon’s.

“He had been called many things—a soulless mercenary, a facilitator of sin, the devil’s enabler—but he was none of these. The provost simply provided his clients with the opportunity to pursue their ambitions and desires without consequence; that mankind was sinful in nature was not his problem.”

In his introduction, the provost’s use of ignorance as a primary excuse for his choices and actions is on full display. By placing the blame squarely on his clients—and later mankind as a whole—he washes his hands of any responsibility for the wrongdoings he has facilitated his clients to commit. This steadfast belief in the power of his neutrality and his success in leveraging it for his own gain up until the events of the novel is notable as he seems to assume all his clients intend to do ill with the privacy he grants them while his downfall in the novel stems from a client who initially intended to do good.

“Langdon found a clipping from a small-town newspaper.

         THE CURSE OF BRILLIANCE.

         There was no photo this time, but the story told of a young genius, Sienna Brooks, who had tried to attend regular schools but was teased by other students because she didn’t fit in. It talked about the isolation felt by gifted young people whose social skills could not keep up with their intellects and who were often ostracized.

         Sienna, according to this article, had run away from home at the age of eight, and had been smart enough to live on her own undiscovered for ten days. She had been found in an upscale London hotel, where she had pretended to be the daughter of a guest, stolen a key, and was ordering room service on someone else’s account. Apparently she had spent the week reading all 1,600 pages of Gray’s Anatomy. When authorities asked why she was reading medical texts, she told them she wanted to figure out what was wrong with her brain.”

Langdon is first introduced to Sienna’s extraordinary mental prowess via paraphernalia placed around her (fake) apartment. By providing this background via a neutral and perceivably objective third party and describing the hardships of a child, Brown seeks to inspire as much sympathy in the reader for this situation as possible. While it will play prominently in any response to Sienna’s actions later on, it also primes the reader for a contradiction when they encounter the later realization that Bertrand Zobrist suffered the same ostracization at the behest of Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey.

“Rumors had circulated that this particular client had suffered a psychotic break over the last few months, but this video seemed to confirm those rumors beyond any doubt.

         Knowlton knew he had two choices. He could either prepare the video for delivery tomorrow as promised, or he could take it upstairs to the provost for a second opinion.

         I already know his opinion, Knowlton thought, having never witnessed the provost take any action other than the one promised a client. He’ll tell me to upload this video to the world, no questions asked…and he’ll be furious at me for asking.”

After reviewing Zobrist’s video, which he has been tasked with releasing to the world, Laurence Knowlton of the Consortium is plagued by a difficult choice. He is deeply concerned that Zobrist’s actions could lead to untold suffering, yet he is also shackled by the provost’s and the Consortium’s rules on information compartmentalization and the rule of completing assigned tasks without question. Knowlton’s predicament illustrates an unintended consequence of the provost’s amorality, especially given his powerful position: Those who follow him will be obligated to follow his lead as they encounter their own crises, even if doing so is not their first choice.

‘‘‘Sir?’ the analyst said, breathless. ‘We have new information.’ Her voice cut the morning air with a rare intensity. ‘It appears Robert Langdon just accessed his Harvard e-mail account from an unmasked IP address.’ She paused, locking eyes with the provost. ‘Langdon’s precise location is now traceable.’

         The provost was stunned that anyone could be so foolish. This changes everything. He steepled his hands and stared out at the coastline, considering the implications. ‘Do we know the status of the SRS team?’

         ‘Yes, sir. Less than two miles away from Langdon’s position.’

         The provost needed only a moment to make the decision.”

As the novel nears Brüder’s introduction and the WHO’s first intersection with the Consortium, Brown misdirects the reader by laying down implications that the two separate factions are working in unison. By using the language of ‘Langdon’s precise location is now traceable’ instead of ‘the WHO/SRS can now trace Langdon’s location,’ the reader is led to believe this development works in the provost’s favor when in fact it is a backbreaker for his plans. The language used also avoids revealing that the SRS team was already en route to Langdon’s position, giving the impression that they are simply another arm of the Consortium’s vast body of resources, acting as a backup to Vayentha’s stealth-assassin tactics.

“The man reached into a bag and pulled out a small, sealed envelope. ‘The contents of this envelope provide access to a safe-deposit box in Florence. Inside the box, you will find a small object. If anything happens to me, I need you to deliver the object for me. It is a git of sorts.’

         ‘Very well.’ The provost lifted his pen to make notes. ‘And to whom shall I deliver it?’

         ‘To the silver-haired devil.’

         The provost glanced up. ‘A gift for your tormentor?’

         ‘More of a thorn in her side.’ His eyes flashed wildly. ‘A clever little barb fashioned from a bone. She will discover it is a map…her own personal Virgil…an escort to the center of her own private hell.’”

As with Sinskey’s flashbacks, this scene between the provost and Zobrist serves to paint a malevolent portrait of the latter via his choice of cryptic language. He uses such words as “devil,” “thorn,” and the phrase “her own private hell,” all of which combine to create an ominous affect. The reader’s misconceptions at this point will later serve Sienna’s argument that Zobrist was not an evil or murderous man but misunderstood.

“‘A glance at coming attractions,’ Langdon announced. ‘This frightening character here is where tonight’s journey will end. This is the ninth ring of hell, where Satan himself resides. However…’ Langdon paused. ‘Getting there is half the fun, so let’s rewind a bit…back up to the gates of hell, where our journey begins.’

         Langdon moved to the next slide—a Gustave Doré lithograph that depicted a dark, tunneled entrance carved into the face of an austere cliff. The inscription above the door read: ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE.

         ‘So…’ Langdon said with a smile. ‘Shall we enter?’

         Somewhere tires screeched loudly, and the audience evaporated before Langdon’s eyes. He felt himself lurch forward, and he collided with Sienna’s back as the Trike skidded to a stop in the middle of the Viale Machiavelli.”

Many of Brown’s novels—and especially those in the Robert Langdon series—provide a secondary service as vessels for the delivery of history lessons on focused subjects. Here, Brown’s use of flashback and leveraging of Langdon’s position as a professor allow him to deliver a theatrical overview of Dante’s work that remains relevant to the plot and themes of the novel at hand. In this passage, he succinctly combines this theatre with a reference to Gustave Doré and a reference to one of Dante’s most famous passages while also establishing an allegorical “clock” for the reader to watch as the story progresses.

“Langdon advanced slides to show a detail of the Malebolge and then took the audience down through the ditches one by one. ‘From top to bottom we have: the seducers whipped by demons…the flatterers adrift in human excrement…the clerical profiteers half buried upside down with their legs in the air…the sorcerers with their heads twisted backward…the corrupt politicians in boiling pitch…the hypocrites wearing heavy leaden cloaks…the thieves bitten by snakes…fraudulent counselors consumed by fire…the sowers of discord hacked apart by demons… and finally, the liars, who are diseased beyond recognition. Langdon turned back to the audience. ‘Dante most likely reserved this final ditch for the liars because a series of lies told about him led to his exile from his beloved Florence.’

         ‘Robert?’ The voice was Sienna’s.

         Langdon snapped back to the present.

         Sienna was staring at him quizzically. ‘What is it?’

         ‘Our version of La Mappa,’ he said excitedly. ‘The art has been changed!’”

In a second flashback to his presentation to the Dante Society of America, Langdon walks through the 10 pits of the Malebolge. While particularly useful in his decoding of the “CATROVACER” message, it is also noteworthy that while most circles of hell in Dante’s work are themselves subdivided into smaller sections describing ever more specific sins, the Malebolge (or Eighth Circle), is the only one the novel describes in detail. This may be because—while both the Malebolge and Cocytus contained fraudulent sinners—the Malebolge is where Dante specifically placed those who promoted impersonal, systemic deceptions for their own gain (versus Cocytus, where the deceptions turn into outright betrayals). Dante includes both religious and secular figures of fraud in the Malebolge, which may have appeared especially prominent to Zobrist as these individuals were the ones who most often worked against him.

‘‘Think of the implications. As you know, your World Health Organization has again increased its forecasts, predicting there will be some nine billion people on earth before the midpoint of this century. Animal species are going extinct at a precipitously accelerated rate. The demand for dwindling natural resources is skyrocketing. Clean water is harder and harder to come by. By any biological gauge, our species has exceeded our sustainable numbers. And in the face of this disaster, the World Health Organization—the gatekeeper of the planet’s health—is investing in things like curing diabetes, filling blood banks, battling cancer.’ He paused, staring directly at her. ‘And so I brought you here to ask you directly why the hell the World Health Organization does not have the guts to deal with this issue head-on?’

         Elizabeth was seething now. ‘Whoever you are, you know damned well the WHO takes overpopulation very seriously. Recently we spent millions of dollars sending doctors into Africa to deliver free condoms and educate people about birth control.’

         ‘Ah, yes!’ the lanky man derided. ‘And an even bigger army of Catholic missionaries marched in on your heels and told the Africans that if they used the condoms, they’d all go to hell. Africa has a new environmental issue now—landfills overflowing with unused condoms.’” 

The Robert Langdon series’ staple theme of Western scientific advancement versus Euro-Christian tradition is specified to the plot of Inferno in this passage. As Sinskey defends the WHO’s work providing contraceptive resources to developing nations, Zobrist counters with the hard reality that the religious establishment of the Catholic Church carries an outweighed level of influence in these same regions. He is flustered that Sinskey cannot see what she deems to be an adequate effort is barely a pittance against the religious powers’ efforts.

“‘So tell me, in your vision of a sustainable future, what is the ideal population of earth? What is the magic number at which humankind can hope to sustain itself indefinitely…and in relative comfort?’

         The tall man smiled, clearly appreciating the question. ‘Any environmental biologist or statistician will tell you that humankind’s best chance of long-term survival occurs with a global population of around four billion.’

         ‘Four billion?’ Elizabeth fired back. ‘We’re at seven billion now, so it’s a little late or that.’

         The tall man’s green eyes flashed fire. ‘Is it?’”

At the close of the chapter, Zobrist offers Sinskey and the reader hard numbers for what he hopes to accomplish: a reduction of the population totaling three billion people. Through his continued use of cryptic language, Sinskey and the reader are led to believe that he hopes to achieve this end by killing three billion people rather than reducing that number over time via limiting the birth rate. The exact fraction of three-out-of-seven billion also plays into this misdirection later, when the novel relates that the Black Death killed a comparable one-third of the European population, a figure Sienna claims Zobrist was fixated on.

“Langdon gave the man a pained smile – more of a wince – and motioned apologetically toward the symbols near the door. ‘Toilette,’ he declared, his voice pinched. It was not a question.

         The custodian hesitated a moment, looking ready to deny their request, and then finally, watching Langdon shift uncomfortably before him, he gave a sympathetic nod and waved them through.

         When they reached the door, Langdon gave Sienna a quick wink. ‘Compassion is a universal language.’”

Professor Robert Langdon is an unconventional action hero, far flung from characters like James Bond or Jack Reacher, whose serialized action anthologies the Langdon series closely resembles. For example, while Bond and Reacher are both military trained and are often caught up in combat sequences, Langdon almost never carries arms, engages in hand-to-hand melees, or uses military tactics of any kind to achieve his ends. Instead, his relatively common athleticism and propensity for resourcefulness are the most powerful tools in his arsenal for navigating difficult situations, such as the above manipulation of a custodian in order to gain access to a restricted area.

“For Bertrand Zobrist to describe the Black Death as the best thing ever to happen to Europe was certainly appalling, and yet Langdon knew that many historians had chronicled the long-term socioeconomic benefits of the mass extinction that had occurred in Europe in the 1300s. Prior to the plague, overpopulation, famine, and economic hardship had defined the Dark Ages. He sudden arrival of the Black Death, while horrific, had effectively ‘thinned the herd,’ creating an abundance of food and opportunity, which, according to many historians, had been a primary catalyst for bringing about the Renaissance.”

As Langdon first learns of Zobrist’s ideology, he recalls that the basic mathematics underneath his flawed intentions has been commonly accepted as correct by modern historians. This knowledge feeds into the predicament later offered by Sienna when she describes to Langdon the moral conundrum of saving the human species by killing half the population versus sparing that half in the short-term for the guarantee of humanity’s extinction in the long-term. Faced with this crisis, Zobrist’s determination in his actions creates an urgency for the reader to answer the conundrum themselves, though they may find doing so difficult.

“‘This way,’ Langdon declared, dashing off toward the iron globe.

         Robert! Sienna followed against her better judgment. The corridor clearly led deeper into the museum, away from the exit.

         ‘Robert?’ she gasped, finally catching up to him. ‘Where are you taking us?!’

         ‘Through Armenia,’ he replied.

         ‘What?!’

         ‘Armenia,’ Langdon repeated, his eyes dead ahead. ‘Trust me.’”

This cliffhanger showcases Brown’s usage of riddling language to maintain the reader’s interest through the plot. By including this line prior to identifying the room Langdon and Sienna are moving through as the Palazzo Vecchio’s Hall of Geographical Maps, Langdon’s declaration is seen as both illogical and puzzling. Combining this with the murderous perception of Langdon and Sienna’s pursuers, Brown pushes the reader forward via the twin effects of tension and incompletion.

“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.’”

Sienna outlines an evolutionary view of the mechanism of human cognitive denial. While necessary for survival, this trait is central to what she and Zobrist perceive as the human inability to address the overpopulation crisis. Taken another way, this statement could also imply that the only reason moral crises are so difficult to address is because of an overreach in one otherwise useful cognitive-genetic mechanism. Small contradictions in the human biological structure, such as this one, add weight to the idea that biologically self-aware individuals, such as Zobrist and Sienna, could be tempted by a belief structure like Transhumanism, which seeks to “correct’” these contradictions artificially.

“‘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 imagine something happening… doesn’t mean it won’t.’

         ‘You almost sound like you’re a fan of Zobrist.’

         ‘I’m a fan of the truth,’ she replied forcefully, ‘even if it’s a 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.”

While describing the ways in which denial presents itself in large organizations, such as the WHO, Sienna first reveals a sliver of her sympathies with Zobrist’s ideology to Langdon. Langdon particularly notices the contradiction in Sienna’s affect with these statements and the way in which she seems to apply her emotions selectively and consciously to certain aspects of their dialogue over others. The reader might notice this is similar to Zobrist’s way of speaking found in the Prologue and in Sinskey’s flashbacks—his same combination of determined passion and selective detachment, in conjunction with his vagaries of speech, work to bias Sinskey harshly against him.

“O you possessed of sturdy intellect, observe the teaching that is hidden here…beneath the veil of verses so obscure. Seek the treacherous doge of Venice who severed the heads from horses…and plucked up the bones of the blind. Kneel within the gilded mouseion of holy wisdom, and place thine ear to the ground, listening for the sounds of trickling water. Follow deep into the sunken palace…for here, in the darkness, the chthonic monster waits, submerged in the bloodred waters…of the lagoon that reflects no stars.”

This riddle poem, written by Zobrist and found on the inner brow of Dante’s death mask, is the central puzzle and narrative “railroad” that guides the story from its introduction in Chapter 58 through the ensemble’s discovery of Zobrist’s “ground zero” in Istanbul’s cistern in Chapter 91. Of note, the riddle is written in “nine revolutions of symmetrical clockwise Archimedean,” meaning the poem is written in a spiral that is read clockwise, outside-to-inside, which contains nine layers of text. This is clearly meant to invoke the nine circles of Dante’s hell, replicating his movement from the outer-to-innermost rings. The mask is also what Zobrist referenced earlier as Sinskey’s “thorn,” meant to serve as her “Virgil.” By situating it on the inner brow of Dante’s mask, Zobrist promotes the poet from the guided to the guide in the tour of the medieval world leading to his own Inferno.

“Their first night together had been the first step of an incredible journey.

         I became more than his lover. I became his disciple.

         ‘Libertà Bridge,’ Langdon said. ‘We’re almost there.’

         FS-2080 nodded mournfully, staring out at the waters of the Laguna Veneta, remembering sailing here once with Bertrand… a peaceful image that dissolved now into a horrific memory from a week before.

         I was there when he jumped off the Badia tower.

         Mine were the last eyes he ever saw.”

Written soon after a chapter featuring Dr. Ferris’s point-of-view, as well as one linking FS-2080 to both the provost and Zobrist, this chapter is written in such a way as to imply that FS-2080 is Dr. Ferris rather than Sienna. At the same time, the deeply romantic link between these two characters is established, and the passage hearkens back to the Prologue, revealing that FS-2080 was the mysterious “you” Zobrist was referring to before he jumped to his death. While stoking suspicion for Dr. Ferris and FS-2080, this moment also hints to the reader that the latter may not have been completely aligned with Zobrist’s ideology, which could assist in creating a dissonance between the reader and Langdon et al when the other characters come to believe that Sienna intends to release Zobrist’s “plague.”

“Powerful arms in long black sleeves were reaching into the well like the thrashing tentacles of some hungry monster, grasping at the man’s legs, pulling him back toward the window.

         ‘Run, Sienna!’ shouted the struggling man. ‘Now!’

         The G**sy saw their eyes lock in an exchange of pained regret…and then it was over.

         The man was dragged roughly down through the window and back into the basilica.

         The blond woman stared down in shock, her eyes welling with tears. ‘I’m so sorry, Robert,’ she whispered. Then, after a pause, she added, ‘For everything.’

         A moment later, the woman sprinted off into the crowd, her ponytail swinging as she raced down the narrow alleyway of the Merceria dell’Orologio…disappearing into the heart of Venice.”

Once again, Brown’s strategy of avoiding revealing his “twist” characters’ POV wherever possible is on display in this passage. As Sienna and Langdon are forcibly separated by Brüder at the end of their race through St. Mark’s tomb in Venice, the reader only receives the above admission from Sienna secondhand via the Romani woman who has helped her out of the well. By placing this POV on an otherwise uninvolved third party, Brown can hide any other character’s strong emotional response to this moment, if there are any nearby able to respond. In this case, he uses the Romani woman to display Sienna’s confession without needing to put the reader inside Sienna’s head.

“Langdon found himself studying the faces around him, trying to imagine the intricacies of each person’s life.

         The masses are made up of individuals.

         He closed his eyes, turning from the window and trying to abandon the morbid turn his thoughts had taken. But the damage was done. In the darkness of his mind, an unwanted image materialized—the desolate landscape of Bruegel’s Triumph of Death—a hideous panorama of pestilence, misery, and torture laying ruin to a seaside city.”

In this moment, Langdon comes to understand the most important argument against the application of Malthusian principles in population control: “[T]he masses are made up of individuals.” Although Langdon cares for the future of humanity arguably just as much as Zobrist, his morality also demands the right to individual sovereignty be granted to each member of the human species. Because of this, Zobrist’s methods—insofar as they deny and negate this sovereignty for the sake of a collective survival-above-all—are unacceptable to Langdon. In this moment, he answers Sienna’s kill-half or doom-all conundrum from earlier in the novel.

“‘Medusa and the entire class of chthonic deities live underground because they’re associated directly with Mother Earth. In allegory, chthonics are always symbols of—’

         ‘Fertility,’ Langdon said, startled that the parallel had not occurred to him earlier. Fruitfulness. Population.

         ‘Yes, fertility,’ Sienna replied. ‘Bertrand used the term ‘chthonic monster’ to represent the ominous threat of our own fecundity. He described our overproduction of offspring as a monster looming on the horizon…a monster we needed to contain immediately, before it consumed us all.’

         Our own virility stalks us, Langdon realized. The chthonic monster. ‘And Bertrand battled this monster…how?’

         ‘Please understand,’ she said defensively, ‘these are not easy problems to solve. Triage is always a messy process. A man who severs the leg of a three-year-old child is a horrific criminal…until that man is a doctor who saves the child from gangrene. Sometimes the only choice is the lesser of two evils.’ She began tearing up again. ‘I believe Bertrand had a noble goal…but his methods…’ She looked away, on the verge of breaking down.”

Sienna explains the significance of Zobrist planting his “ground zero” under an image of Medusa, liking the term “chthonic” to the problem of high fertility. The word “chthonic” is also similar to the character Cthulhu from the works of H. P. Lovecraft, whose name was likely designed to echo the term, and whose capacity for horror stemmed from his uncanny nature, capable of driving insane those who attempt to fully understand him. Zobrist may likewise be alluding to the chthonic monsters not only because of their relationship with fertility but also to echo the maddening moral contradictions in attempting to address the problem they represent.

“The provost felt strangely adrift, knowing that in the coming days the world would be blanketed with news of a catastrophe in which he had played a very specific role. This would not have happened without me.

         For the first time in his life, ignorance no longer felt like the moral high ground. His fingers broke the seal on the bottle of Scotch.

         Enjoy it, he told himself. One way or another, your days are numbered.

         The provost took a deep pull on the bottle, relishing the warmth in his throat.

         Suddenly the darkness lit up with spotlights and the blue flashing strobes of police cars, which surrounded them on all sides.”

While at first believing he has eluded detainment by Sinskey, the provost admits to himself for the first time the fault in his moral protocol. Serving as a juxtaposition to his manner utterly devoted to his code at the beginning of the story, standing in a position of power aboard the Mendacium, this final scene finds the “facilitator of sin” barely clinging onto his freedom and relying entirely on the independent skill of his organization to extract him. In a final moment of poetic justice, his vain attempt at confession and repentance while believing he might continue heading the Consortium is cut short by his capture, confirming that its coming is too little, too late.

“‘Sienna, any meaningful debate about this virus will require context. Dr. Sinskey and her team will need to develop a moral framework to assess their response to this crisis. She obviously believes you are in a unique position to add to that dialogue.’

         ‘My moral framework, I suspect, will not please the WHO.’

         ‘Probably not,’ Langdon replied, ‘which is all the more reason for you to be there. You are a member of a new breed of thinkers. You provide counterpoint. You can help them understand the mind-set of visionaries like Bertrand—brilliant individuals whose convictions are so strong that they take matters into their own hands’”

After coming to recognize that her blithe defense of status quo tactics in population control has fostered the very conditions that inspired an extremist such as Zobrist, Sinskey—with some persuasion from Langdon—invites Sienna into the dialogue at the Geneva summit. While the novel does not describe the goings-on at the actual summit, it can be assumed that those present will include, for the most part, world and organizational leaders who have heretofore been guilty of the same denial-based indifference as Sinskey in addressing overpopulation. By bringing in Sienna—both an expert in Zobrist’s techniques and a proximal follower of his ideology—Sinskey hopes to avoid striking a stalemate in the post-Inferno virus debate and come to a moral conclusion her organization and others can stand behind.