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.