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.