“Mmmmmorning toughie.”
Keel woke up the next morning with a soft, yet firm naked body molded against him like a warm tropical ocean wave. Long, black silk was strewn over his chest, concealing the angelic face underneath.
After dining alone the previous evening, he had gone for a walk down Jasper Avenue into the downtown area. There had been a time when the city’s social scene had left the area, but the last few decades had brought them back. The castle-like Fairmont Hotel Macdonald Edmonton had been restored overlooking the river valley and Canada’s largest not-for-profit theatre was located right in the heart of downtown on 101st A Ave. The Citadel Theater was a combination of five performing spaces: Shoctor Theatre, Maclab Theatre, Rice Theatre, Tucker Amphitheatre and Zeidler Hall. Looking up at the building, you couldn’t help but be impressed, especially at night. Its all-glass construction, combined with the evenings shimmering lights made it look like an in-city formation of the beloved Northern Lights.
Passing along the sidewalk, Keel took in the year’s schedule of events. There was a always a Shakespeare play going on, but it seemed the main theme this year was teens. It was a program to promote and support teens with mentorship and development by offering workshops in playwriting, production, directing and designing.
She would be interested in this he had thought.
Continuing along, Keel came upon a sight that held a special memory. The Francis Winspear Concert Hall, opened in September of 1997. It wasn’t because of the Davis Concert Organ, the largest concert organ in Canada, the crown jewel of the center and it wasn’t because of its extraordinary acoustics.
“Morning Sing”, replied Keel.
It wasn’t that he was a lover of the arts, but that she was. It had been to the remarkable building that Keel had taken his musical angel to on their third date to see the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra during the Pops series. After that evening, they both knew it was over for them – they were stuck with each other, and couldn’t be happier about it. It was now 2 years later.
It had taken them four months after that third date for the two of them to finally sleep together. There had been no hurry, plus, she had been raised in an extremely conservative family.
That night, that moment of sudden deep passion and reckless abandon had also come with spectacular tragedy. Sing had received a phone call from her godfather who told her that both of her parent’s along with her older brother had been killed in a freak boating accident. Their bodies had been discovered and pulled from the Straits of Johor off the coast of the Malay Peninsula. Their yacht had been found anchored 5 km away. No cause of death had been determined.
Sing had fallen into Keel that night, first for support and comfort, and then for the need to feel something other than pain and anguish. They had made love that fitful night until she had fallen asleep. Keel had stayed awake, unable to find slumber while Sing’s tears continued to roll onto his chest, even in sleep.
The next day, they said a sorrowful goodbye when she boarded a flight to go see her family one last time. One last time to say goodbye to them. One last time to visit the family home. At that moment, she thought perhaps one last time to visit her country of birth. Once last time to the small, yet immensely beautiful island city-state of Singapore.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Chapter 16 - Sing
Monday, June 18, 2007
Chapter 15 - light and sweet
Walker had now relegated himself to sitting on the floor behind Dr. Johns’ desk with his head resting against the top right drawer. He was just starting to doze off when a sudden burst of noise roused him and caused him to inadvertently bang his head off the drawer. As if suspended in time, he remained motionless, listening for any reaction from Karson to the bang. Hearing nothing, he gazed around the corner of the desk, rubbing his head.
What he saw though appeared to be very interesting. Karson’s back was to Walker, but he appeared to be holding a sheet of paper, and shaking. Suddenly, Karson pulled what looked like a small mp3 player out of pocket and moved directly in front of his laptop. When Karson reached behind the computer, Walker realized it had not been a mp3 player, but a memory stick. He had one himself in his pocket right now. He used to keep all updated files on it and assumed Karson must have done the same.
Walker knew that whatever had suddenly gotten Karson all wet with excitement was now being transferred onto the memory key. Sure enough, one minute later it had been. The small key was then slipped into Karson’s right left pocket of his jeans and the used beakers and flasks were quickly rinsed out.
The last thing Walker saw was Karson dashing out the door with the sheet of paper in his hand, partially wrapped around a flask containing something. This time however, Karson remembered to lock the door behind him.
After listening one more time to the sound of footsteps briskly moving down the hall and away from his position, Walker reached up to the top of the desk and hauled himself up. Giving his legs a quick stretch, he wondered what had gotten Karson’s panties all in a bunch.
Giving a quick look around, two test tubes were in a nearby sink that looked like they had been rinsed out, but a few white bubbles indicated that Karson had used some bleach, and not just water. Looking over at the laptop, Walker noticed that something was off. Something just didn’t feel right. The screen was on and the monitor hadn’t shut off, so the password protect feature hadn’t kicked in yet. That in itself was strange, that Karson would leave his computer in that state, but that wasn’t it either.
One small window was still open, but it wasn’t a folder window. It was a message window.
“What the fuck?”
‘All Contents Have Been Successfully Deleted.’ Why the hell had Karson deleted all of his files?
Shaking his head in wonderment, Walker gave the work area another once over. Settling his eyes on the machine next to the computer, Walker’s eyebrows slipped upwards. He reached out the computer’s keyboard and tapped out a few keys. Sure enough, there it was. Karson had accidentally set the printer to make two copies. And one of them was sitting two feet to his right in the printer basket.
Walker straightened up and leaned over to pick up the second printout. Bringing it to his face, his eyes scanned over the data. It was a breakdown of what must have been in the flask that Karson carried out of here. At the bottom of the page was a general summary of the petroleum chemical breakdown.
It took about five seconds. “Holy fucking hell. He did it.” What had caught Walker’s eye was the sulfur content.
It read out at 0.4%.
Karson had not only successfully separated the oil from the sand and turn it into a lighter viscous oil, but had managed to change it into its original underground crude form. He had managed to change the heavy viscous Alberta biticum into light, sweet crude oil. Oil that was equivalent to the kind found in the Middle East.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Chapter 14 - lunch in 20 minutes?
Hiding behind Dr. Johns’ desk, cowering like a beaten dog, Walker had been seething for having to do it. If word had gotten back to Johns that he had been here, uninvited, the repercussions would have been severe. Now, a brief moment of pleasure hearing Karson swear to himself.
Karson wasn’t as smart as he thought he was, thought Walker. I, Walker Stromberg was the deserving one. He had as good as an idea as anyone. He was a star on the lacrosse team. He was the one with all the connections. Karson had no connections. He was as average as you can get. He was a, … a nobody. He wasn’t even a second glance. He was shit.
“You will pay, you motherfucker,” Walker whispered to himself.
Staring down at his swirling black sand, Karson noticed the second liquid filled beaker that he had brought back from Jay’s lab. He had forgotten all about it. In it was a cloudy white cocktail that Jay had provided, just in case. Jay had placed a stopper on the top of this one. Not so much as to prevent any spillage from Karson walking with it, but to prevent any from spilling onto Karson’s. Jay had provided only 2 mg citing the hazards of working with it. It was an enzyme enhancer that, depending upon the subject plant’s chemical composition, could make it very poisonous and 1000 times more acidic that it was in its present form. It was normally used in retrieving fossilized plant enzymes for data collection and analysis. Right now, if any were to reach Karson’s skin, it would mean a painful trip to the hospital.
Figuring his brilliant idea had been a bust, and seeing as he had the cloudy liquid sitting there, Karson decided he might as well use it.
Exhaling a heavy breath, he put down the flask containing the diluted, yet still useless biticum. Next, he put on some work gloves and picked up the second tube containing the enzyme enhancer. With as gentle a touch as he could muster, Karson carefully and slowly twisted off the stopper. Just as the plastic top left the rim of the glass tube, Karson realized Jay had not told him whether or not its aroma was poisonous.
Hesitating a moment, and not suddenly keeling over in a painful and agonizing death, Karson continued.
“All right. Let’s see if you do anything for me.” And with that, Karson poured all of the enzyme enhancer into the flask of black sand. Instantly, the color altered a bit to a slightly lighter shade of dark, but that was about it. Closing off the top of the flask with a stopper, Karson gave it a quick shake as he walked over to the Orbit 1900 Heavy Duty Shaker one more time. He dropped it in, left the same settings and hit start. Watching the machine work, and without much optimism, Karson figured he’d be meeting Digger for lunch within 20 minutes.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Chapter 13 - Mixtures
Karson ran down the hallway with an even more pronounced look of restrained expectation on his face. Reaching the door, he once again missed that it hadn’t locked it. Instead, he moved straight to his work area setting two fluid filled chemistry beakers down onto the counter.
He had called his friend Jason who he knew would be working in his Archaeology lab, working on his thesis paper. A paper that aligned well with his environmental views. He was tracking environmental effects and changes over the last 10,000 years in western Canada, more specifically, the Province of Saskatchewan.
One aspect of that study related to plant life and Karson knew that. He had called up Jay and inquired whether or not he knew how to isolate and perhaps enhance botanical enzymes. While staring at the orchid on Johns’ desk, Karson realized why it had been holding his attention. He had suddenly recalled seeing a Canadian Geographic special on how some plant enzymes actually broke down and separated the contents of the soil in which they were in growing in, in order to manufacture the most ideal environment for themselves. The most creative and efficient of the plants to accomplish this were orchids.
Jay wasn’t familiar with this information, but certainly could rustle up the necessary chemical cocktail that Karson was looking for. He also didn’t ask any questions. He just gave some last unsolicited, but useful advice as Karson was on his way out.
Now standing in front of his laptop, Karson picked up the piece of orchid that he had cut off and proceeded to gently pull of the flowers petals. The beautiful blue’s and other assorted colors, although spectacular to look at were of no use, but there was no reason to rip them.
What Karson was after, from remembering the program, was the stem. It was in the stem where these environment-changing enzymes housed themselves. It was from the stem that they made their way down to the roots in finally into the soil.
How holding a naked 3 1/2 inch stem, Karson cut off a single piece of 1/8-inch length. As with many things in nature, great power sometimes comes in very small sizes. This smaller piece, Karson then placed in a clean glass flask. Next, he added 100 mg of the purplish cocktail that Jay had provided. He then took the flask with the combined elements swirled it around in his hand as Jay had instructed him to. The color was now a light greenish hue. Next, he took a sample of the newly created mixture and, after depositing it into a test tube, he dropped it into a mass spectrometer. After first checking to make sure his laptop was connected to it, he hit the start switch. Ten seconds later, the breakdown of results appeared on his monitor. Interesting.
The samples of biticum he had were kept on a shelf against the west wall, over near Dr. Johns’ desk. Karson walked over and picked up a small jar sample, never once taking his eyes off of it. Total concentration. Back at his counter, he opened the jar and the familiar odor of tar hit his senses. Using a plastic tongue depressor, Karson scooped up a small amount of the molasses-like spread and deposited into another flask. He then picked up a pipette and drew up 10 mg of his newly formed greenish mixture and extinguished it into the flask containing the biticum.
He then took the flask with the combined elements and placed it into an Orbit 1900 Heavy Duty Shaker, setting it to 1000 rpm. Karson hit the start switch. After 30 seconds, the Shaker stopped and Karson removed the flask. Removing it from the machine, something like a black sandstorm swirled in front of him. He recognized it for was it was. Nothing more than soaked biticum. After checking with the mass spectrometer, his thoughts were confirmed when this second set of results appeared on his laptop. Another bust!
“God damn it,” muttered Karson to himself. “What a stupid idea.”
Pissed off from wasting his time, wasting Jay’s time and from still having a headache, Karson took the remaining purplish cocktail and dumped it down the sink. He rinsed out the beaker and set it down. He would have to make sure he returned it to Jay later.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Chapter 12 - listening through the wall
Karson’s research had been focusing on the ‘in situ’ side of the oil sands extraction side. The problems involved in this were the expense and difficulty of blasting steam down into the sandy oil pockets found below the surface, but also the expense of refining the extracted oil. Currently, it cost about $12 per barrel compared to the approximate $4 for the sweet crude of the Middle East. High oil prices, with barrels reaching over $50 each had certainly made oil sand extraction profitable, especially for the Province of Alberta, which had been seeing provincial revenues from oil royalty’s reach upwards of 7 billion dollars. But on a global scale, that was peanuts. That was nothing.
Walker had followed Karson right into the engineering building, but had gone off to his own workstation, located in the adjoining room from where Karson was. His work, oddly enough also focused on the Alberta Oil Sands Project, however Walker had preferred to above ground and concentrate on the open-pit mining. He was working on improving the mechanical conveyer belts that were a big part of moving the black sand to extraction plants. So far, the improvements he had come up with were so minor that the cost to refit the belts would outweigh any profits. Frustration was a constant sensation in Walker’s mind.
He was just going to throw some music when a low mumble came flowing through the wall from the other side. Adjusting his hand away from the stereo and towards his workbench, Walker braced himself and leaned in towards the wall, turning his head slightly in an effort to point his right ear in the direction of the sound.
It was Karson’s voice all right. But who was he talking to. After so much hatred, he could pick up on that voice immediately, even if the words were unintelligible. He didn’t think anyone else was in there with Karson. Maybe Dr. Johns was in there. The two of them. In there chatting away about Karson’s work. John’s had barely given Walker any time as of recent. His hatred of Karson was gradually spilling over to the good doctor.
Still leaning into the wall, Walker realized he was only hearing one voice though. No one else was in there. Not Johns, not that friend of his, or any of them. Karson was on the phone. But something was catching about his tone. Karson didn’t sound excited, but intrigued about something.
The mumbling sound ended with the sound of a low bang, the phone being hung up. Silence followed for about twenty seconds, and then Walker heard the hinges of an old door being expanded and compressed, concluding with a click. Quickly paced footsteps told Walker that Karson had taken off in a run. Something had gotten his blood up.
“Are you sure you’re not too busy? Thanks buddy. I’ll be right over.” Karson hung up the phone with a look of restrained expectation on his face. Grabbing his bag, he then walked over to the door and left, moving in a fast jog down the hall. Karson hated running, but the phone call had him momentarily forget that fact. The phone call had also momentarily made him forget to lock the door on his way out as well.
Walker waited about a minute. He was sure Karson had forgotten to lock the door. There had been no pause between the door closing and the sound of running footsteps leaving. Trying the door confirmed that. Walker opened it and stepped into Karson’s workroom. Although they were in the same department and both were graduate students, they did not, or at least were not supposed to have access to each other’s rooms. Dr. Johns believed in privacy and research security. The only anomaly in this was that as Dr. Johns’ number one student and fellowship winner, Karson got the extra privilege of sharing Johns’ workspace.
After a brief scan of the room and satisfied that he was alone, Walker first walked over to Johns’ desk. He had been in this room before, but only to meet with Johns and for only minutes at a time. That same picture of his wife was on there, only this time some ridiculous looking flower was hovering above it. It was multi-colored, but heavy with blue. The petals looked unusual. In fact, the whole thing looked unusual. It was a single flower acting like a potted plant. Must be exotic Walker thought. The stupid thing was even deformed. A small section hadn’t grown in on the bottom right side, which made it look, well, retarded.
An explanation for the deformity was explained when Walker moved over to Karson’s work area. Next to his laptop was the missing piece of flower. Running through Walker’s mind was, ‘what the hell is he up to?’ Glancing at the blank monitor, Walker wondered about his luck. He clicked the space bar and the monitor lit up. ‘Damn,’ it had reverted to password protection mode while Walker had been looking at the cut piece of orchid.
Walker hadn’t noticed how much time he had spent over at Dr. Johns’ desk looking at the photo, then the orchid and then standing in front of Karson’s work area until he heard the sound of footsteps again. Only this time, they were not moving away. They were moving closer, and quickly.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Chapter 11 - Stromberg
Walker Stromberg had been at RATT the night before with his lacrosse buddies. He was 6’ 2”, a solid 200 lbs with wavy blond hair down to his shoulders and a chiseled jaw. He was a ladies man. The fairer sex gravitated towards him like cash to a casino. The top ‘attackman’ on the U of A lacrosse team, Walker also came from money. Old money. His great great grandfather had made his mark during the days of the Klondike gold rush and then in oil when Alberta was first realized as the ‘Texas’ of Canada.
He had it all, except the fellowship with Dr. Johns. Karson Delly had scooped him on it. It wasn’t the future job prospects that the fellowship guaranteed that had pissed him off. His future was already set through the family’s network of companies. No. It was the family’s pride and honour that had been trampled on in Walker’s eyes. And his father had let him know it.
Walker was sure the fellowship had been in the bag. How could he not be? He was a Stromberg. But then Johns had gone and named Karson. That was something he couldn’t let go without a consequence, without some sort of payback. Beating Karson to a pulp would have been just too easy, and too unsatisfying. That aggression had been taken out on the lacrosse pitch, to the horror of the other teams. Three players had already been made guests of their local hospital this season.
Walker’s opportunity came soon after the start of the new semester and it came with a phone call. A man, identifying himself only as Mr. Williams, had made a proposal of utter simplicity with accompanying rewards and what Walker was truly looking for. The destruction of Karson Delly’s future. Mr. Williams had told Walker that he was with a watch group that tracked research associated with natural resources at each university in North America. They had no fellowship to offer, but they have a perk – bonus arrangement to offer.
The deal was sealed when $10,000 suddenly appeared in Walker’s account the same day. All he had to do was keep an eye on Karson’s research progress and submit updates once a month, or earlier if necessary. Since Walker worked in the same building anyway, and since his father had reduced his standard of living as a punishment for not getting the Fellowship, it had been an easy sell.
Walker had had a few beers last night as well, but he was not suffering, as he knew Karson was now. Seeing Karson hold the bottle of iced tea to his forehead in the 7-11, Walker had wanted to smash it over his head. He had considered turning around and just heading home, figuring Karson wouldn’t be very productive today, but he had some work he could do himself, so continued along.
Karson put the half empty iced tea bottle on his work counter and sat back in his chair. Today was going to be a struggle. The head pills were slowly separating the hangover from his head, but the tiredness would be there all day he knew. Separation. That was the key. Like how a pill worked. Separating the sickness from the human body. Like penicillin, one of the great discoveries in history. A botanical wonder. What if?
Letting his mind wander on that last thought, Karson found himself staring over at Dr. Johns’ desk. Something was holding his attention. The desk was a typical steel work desk that belonged in a laboratory. It was perfectly organized in keeping with Johns’ character – a neat freak of the extreme kind. A layered file organizer was on the front left corner, a picture of his wife on the right corner with a potted orchid accompanying the picture. The orchid. Dr. Johns had brought it in the day before. It had been an anniversary gift from his wife. That was what was holding his attention.
Chapter 10 - head pills
About a block down from his apartment building, Karson stopped into a 7-11. With his head still pounding from last night’s bender, he decided a bottle of iced tea was needed to wash down a few more head pills. Focusing on work was going to be a struggle today. Opening the door the convenience store brought a momentary stay of relief as the air conditioning washed over his face. It suddenly felt like he had dunked his head into a sink of cool water. He quickly went over to the back of the store and located the shelf with iced tea on it. Opening the cooler door, he grabbed a bottle and held it to his forehead, eyes closed, enjoying the cool air from the open door and the cold condensation from the bottle as it suddenly hit the warmer temperature of the store.
Feeling momentarily better, he opened his eyes slowly. Leaning against the open cooler door, he caught a glimpse of something in the reflection. Someone outside the store was looking in, their hands cupped around their face to block the sunlight as it pressed against the store glass. He’s looking for someone, at least I think it’s a he, thought Karson. His eyes a little cloudy from the headache. It had looked like a dark shadow against the window. He closed his eyes again for relief. Wait a minute! Whoever it was, was looking directly at me. What the hell. Karson quickly opened his eyes and looked towards the side window where he had seen the figure. There was no one there. He shook his head out and rubbed his eyes and looked again. Still, there was no one there. Had he been mistaken? Maybe they hadn’t been looking at him. Maybe on one had even been there. Perhaps it was just a shadow of something that was outside. Closing his eyes one more time, Karson closed the cooler door and moved towards the counter. It must be the hangover. God his head hurt. Paying for his iced tea, Karson walked out of the 7-11 and onto the sidewalk.
Not a good way to start the day, Karson, he thought to himself. He would have to hold Digger off for a while. It was just getting too painful to go drinking these days. Each day as he got older seemed to extend the amount of time it took to recover from those nights of drinking. Whereas before he would back in tiptop shape within a few hours, nowadays the average recovery was two full days. Thankfully Professor Johns wouldn’t be in today though. He was down in Calgary on business – no doubt getting wined and dined by CHOMAC for his moonlighting work. If he were lucky, perhaps the professor would take him down with him as well one time. Although he had never heard of any instances when the professor had done so with anyone else in the past. My lucks not that good. That was Karson’s last thought as he turned into onto campus grounds and headed for the science building.
About a block behind him, walking cautiously but keeping pace, a man kept an eye on Karson. He had in fact been looking in the window at the 7-11, but only momentarily before he ducked in behind the store and waited for Karson to leave. He had been watching Karson ever since he stepped out of his apartment building and knew he had a bad hangover. The man following Karson had watched him drink until 3am the night before at RATT.
