The Carbon Trail (2 page)

Devon didn’t notice that his boss had only offered questions, not ideas. He answered cheerfully, pleased at the chance to show off.

“It’s like you said last week. Instead of just working on existing carbon allotropes, what if we applied what we’d learned to carbon-based life? Carbon is a key component for all life on Earth, including making up nearly twenty percent of the human body. Just think about it, Jeff. If we could create a new form of carbon in living organisms, the sky would be the limit!”

Mitchell struggled hard not to show his surprise. Messing about with living things! This was heavy stuff. And yet… it rang a bell somewhere in his head.

Devon stared into space for a moment and then shook his head. “It’s a dream. Sci-fi. No-one will never crack it. But just imagine the medical applications if we did.”

Mitchell startled at the word ‘medical’. Could it help explain his memory loss? He leaned forward eagerly. “Let’s focus on the medical side for a minute. Any further thoughts on that?”

Before Devon could answer the desk-phone rang. Mitchell motioned him to answer it.

“Yes?... What, now? …Oh, OK then.”

Devon dropped the receiver and sprang to his feet. “That was the Boardroom, they want us upstairs. I’ll grab my laptop; it’s got all the latest stuff.”

Mitchell’s cold sweat from earlier returned ten-fold. It wouldn’t take a company Board long to realise that he knew nothing. Bluff only worked so far. He scanned the office urgently for something that might help him, already knowing that he wouldn’t understand anything he found.

Devon re-appeared and one minute later they were heading for the twentieth floor. What happened there would stun them both.

Chapter Three

Karen read and re-read the hospital appointment letter, wondering how she would ever get Jeff to go, and whether she even wanted him to. If they didn’t attend then they would never know the truth, and maybe ignorance was bliss. If the truth was bad news then what good would it do to know about it?

She’d been noticing changes in him for months. At first it was just the odd word that made no sense, then whole sentences that didn’t fit. Jeff wouldn’t discuss it and she couldn’t make him, but she knew that there was something very wrong. Karen had told him that she was making the appointment, but she knew the man she married well enough to know how stubborn he was. Jeff wouldn’t take anyone’s opinion on anything, and even if he did he would never agree to what might come next.

Karen sighed heavily and placed the letter face-down on the desk, then lifted their ginger cat onto her knee, stroking its fur for comfort. She turned to look at her toddler daughter. She was playing happily on the floor, her blonde curls bobbing in the light. Emmie sensed her mother’s gaze and smiled up impishly, showing her small white teeth. Karen envied her childish innocence. It kept her safe from the hard choices in life.

She knelt down beside her small daughter and lifted a wooden block, adding it to an already high tower. The little girl clapped her hands, easily pleased, and her eyes sparkled just like her father’s did when he laughed. Karen’s eyes filled with tears and she turned away quickly, before she spoiled her daughter’s happy game. After a moment she pushed her sad thoughts firmly to one side and turned back to enter her three-year-old’s world. She would be an adult later; when she had to.

***

Mitchell led the way from the elevator and their feet sank into the thick carpet of the twentieth floor. The reception’s walls were covered in soft grey tweed, and marble tables and exotic plants were scattered all around; the place reeked of power and money. They walked towards the visitors’ desk under the gaze of a bored looking blonde. The woman looked them up and down disdainfully, her baleful stare a security scan. Finally she pressed a button and waved them towards a set of smoked-glass doors.

The doors slid back to reveal a short corridor and within seconds they’d reached the maple door at its end. Devon stopped, hesitating. Mitchell leaned past him and knocked the door hard, opening it on ‘enter’. Both men were stunned by the sight that greeted them.

Three sides of the large Boardroom were made of ceiling-to-floor glass, yielding a view over Manhattan like nothing Mitchell had ever seen. The Goldman Sachs Tower stood straight ahead of them, glinting in the morning sun. It seemed so close that they could have leaned down and patted its roof like a child’s head. Further left the West Street Building appeared, a testament to Gothic style, showing that New York had room for both the old and new. Mitchell stood in the doorway drinking it all in. He was dragged from his sight-seeing by Devon’s cough, reminding him of where they were.

They turned to see an oblong conference table fringed with chairs. Three men of varying ages and uniform prosperity were seated on them. The tallest one stood and gestured them to sit, then he wandered to a coffee halt, indicating two cups. Mitchell shook his head but Devon took a cup for comfort, nursing it gratefully between his hands.

Mitchell scanned the men carefully, assessing them just as they assessed him. One was slim and saturnine, dark–haired and olive skinned. He looked Spanish. No, Brazilian. Mitchell wondered how he could be so sure. The second man was short and round, with thinning hair and a hooked nose. He could have been from anywhere, but his prominent jaw and perfect teeth made him American through and through.

The tall man took his seat again and clasped his tanned hands together, resting them on the table. White metal squares glinted at his cuffs, bearing the logo N.S. Mitchell wondered if the S stood for Scrabo. The guy certainly acted as if he owned the place.

Neil Scrabo was slim and muscled, his grey hair slicked back from his forehead in a style favoured by men of wealth. His eyes were small and looked perennially unsmiling. The whole impression was of pure steel.

Scrabo stared at Mitchell coolly, as if summing him up. They held each other’s gaze until Devon finally spoke, uncomfortable with the vacuum. He talked quickly and opened a folder that Mitchell hadn’t noticed before, distributing A4 sheets covered with equations and graphs. Devon’s tone was more hushed than earlier, as if he was in church, or the headmaster’s office. His face said it was the latter.

The young scientist spoke for a full five minutes without drawing breath, outlining the point that their research on carbon had reached. Then he paused, waiting for questions. There were none, only the same cool silence that had greeted their arrival. Finally Neil Scrabo unclasped his hands, ignoring Devon completely and fixing Mitchell with a challenging look.

“Everyone has this! The whole world has been researching Graphene for a decade.” The grey-haired man lurched forward. “We need something new, ahead of the curve. Not just the same bloody stuff!”

He slammed his palm hard against the table and Devon jerked back, caught unawares. Mitchell didn’t flinch, just tensed imperceptibly. The man was a bully and Mitchell knew with sudden certainty that it wouldn’t work on him.

“We pay you both handsomely, the government gives you subsidies and you’ve had every research facility that a scientist could ever want. Yet after five years this is all you have?” He looked pointedly at Mitchell. “You came from Harvard with the best references I’ve ever seen, Mitchell. Live up to them!”

Devon babbled in self-defence, protesting that a breakthrough was closer than they thought, then Mitchell’s baritone broke suddenly through his noise. Mitchell’s next words shocked everyone, including him. Instead of displaying the ignorance that he was certain he would, he started talking knowledgeably about carbon atoms and bio-variability, words that an hour earlier he was sure he didn’t know.

Mitchell nodded Devon to pull up a diagram of carbon, watching as the structure rotated on the laptop’s screen. He pointed to its small atomic size and spoke at length about its abundance on earth. After a ten minute lecture on carbon’s potential Mitchell had managed to quieten them all. He paused and poured himself some water, taking a slow sip and making them wait, then he turned to his host and half-smiled.

“You know that there are several forms or allotropes, of carbon? Graphene is one of the newest, with different properties.”

Scrabo nodded, curious as to what Jeff Mitchell would say next. Mitchell was proving a worthy adversary. It surprised him; scientists weren’t normally known for their balls. Mitchell kept talking.

“I’m convinced that we can make even newer forms.”

The short man sat forward, his face reddening. “What use is all this? Financially, what use is it?”

Mitchell glared at him. The man was so blinded by dollars that he couldn’t recognise the breakthroughs that the research might bring. Before Mitchell could respond the saturnine man did it for him.

“Don’t be a dickhead, Murray! If they make a new form of carbon, think of the possible applications. It could make us a fortune.”

Murray’s eyes opened wide in realisation and Mitchell could see him doing the sums. Whoever discovered the next allotrope of carbon held a fortune in their hands. Devon stared at his boss incredulously. They’d been talking about new allotropes downstairs, but making them was still fantasy! Mitchell ignored Devon’s stare and carried on.

“
Carbon is the fourth-most-abundant element in the universe and a
ll known life on earth is carbon-based. Including human life. Our bodies are almost one fifth carbon. I’ve been developing a new form of carbon in living organisms, based on known research but much more advanced. It’s early days but…”

He paused and looked pointedly at the water carafe. The olive-skinned man jumped up and refreshed his glass and Mitchell took a sip before continuing, watching his audience as he talked. Scrabo was leaning forward now, his hands clasped so tightly that his tanned fingers were white. Gone were the hostile words of earlier, replaced instead by urgency and greed. They had an audience now, instead of an inquisition.

Mitchell looked at the three men in turn, not knowing what would emerge from his mouth next. He was as curious to hear it as they were. The words didn’t disappoint him.

“It has the potential to alter the physical properties of living organisms in ways that….well; let’s just say that they look very promising.”

Mitchell stopped abruptly and watched their reactions. They ranged from awestruck to base. Devon was leaning forward, gawping, completely unaware that Mitchell had actually managed to develop such radical work. They’d just been theorising when they’d talked about it downstairs! The short man started running algorithms, all of them financially based. Mitchell watched as his thoughts externalised, covering his round face with greed. The Brazilian looked astonished.

Only the grey-haired leader didn’t blink. Instead, Neil Scrabo relaxed until the colour returned to his hands. A smile twitched at his lips and he sat completely silent as noisy questions filled the room. Scrabo let the babble run on for a moment and then raised a hand, stilling the noise. Then he asked the only question worth asking.

“What do you need?”

Four words that deserved a hundred answers; money, staff, equipment, the list went on. Scrabo was surprised by Mitchell’s reply.

“Nothing. Just time. Ask me again in three months.”

Scrabo nodded and Jeff Mitchell stood, signalling Devon to follow and bracing himself for a flood of questions during their five floor descent. Questions that he knew he could answer now, without any idea where the words were coming from.

Chapter Four

By the time they’d reached his office Mitchell had had enough of Devon’s inquiring mind. He grabbed his jacket from the cupboard and descended the fifteen floors to the street, inhaling the autumn air gratefully. Mitchell stood watching Manhattan’s traffic, its speed a blur of yellow cabs and lost tourists then he looked through it, to the still centre of the busy street.

On a small island between the carriageways sat an oasis of flowers and trees. The trees were straight and tall, stretching skyward as if they were reaching for the sun. The flowers at their feet danced like pretty children, turning their faces towards the crowds for anyone who chose to see. Mitchell gazed at them for a moment and then turned sharp right, following the sidewalk instinctively towards his goal. He had no idea where he was going but his morning had been so full of shocks that he’d stopped being surprised by anything that he did.

Mitchell walked for a full five minutes, guided by some internal GPS. First straight, then right down Laight Street and right again, until he entered a small square whose sign said Regan Plaza. He walked on, finally stopping when he reached a small café. Its window was bowed, with lead-glass tiles lined-up along the base. Small tables decked with red gingham sat inside and a matching awning extended over the square. It looked like something from a Dickens’ novel. Mitchell stood admiring the coffee-shop’s quaintness for a moment then he pushed open its low front door, smiling as he was announced by a tinkling bell. A beaded curtain hung to one side of the dim room, its colour matching the gingham. The whole place felt welcoming, but despite that the café was empty, with no patrons or staff to direct him to a seat.

Mitchell took a seat by the door with his back to the wall, eyes watchful. He was surprised when an old woman emerged from the kitchen, rustling the curtain’s beads as she passed.

She was small, as women of her age often were, with a softness that passed beyond her plump face. It was smooth and unlined, yet her age was stamped like a hallmark on her brow, years of life seared into its pale skin. The woman smiled at him in greeting and Mitchell recognised her, but with no idea from where. She peered closely at him through the gloom and her smile widened, her heavily accented greeting saying that they were friends.

“Jeff! It is so good to see you. We had thought that you were lost.”

Mitchell smiled and stood, pulling out a chair for her to sit. The old woman spread her long skirt wide, smoothing down her apron before she sat, then she gazed curiously at him.

“Where have you been, Jeff?”

Her accent was Eastern European; Russia or the Baltic States. Mitchell resisted the stereotypes that it provoked and stared at the woman calmly. She took his silence as a prompt.

“Last night. Where were you? We waited until two. We were sure that some harm had touched you.”

Her smile changed to an anxious look and she lifted a worn, brown hand, resting it gently against Mitchell’s cheek. He felt no urge to recoil, letting her hand rest there for a moment and covering it warmly with his own. Mitchell compared his reaction to the old woman to his response to Devon’s backslap that morning and smiled. He loved this woman and she him, he could feel it. But who was she? Mitchell searched for the words to frame an open question, one that would glean information while giving none. He needn’t have worried; the woman’s next words told him everything that he needed to know.

“Ilya said that I was being foolish. Daria he said, the boy will be having love. He can’t always be working for our future.”

It told Mitchell a lot. She was called Daria. From that and the man’s name he knew his guess at Russia had been right. She obviously played some mothering role in his life. And Ilya? What role did he play? And what was the future they were all working towards? Mitchell knew that he couldn’t ask questions without giving away the fact he remembered nothing, so instead he merely nodded. Daria smiled again, a wide, crooked smile that radiated love, then she stood up slowly, age making her frail.

“Now you will have Pelmeni; I made some fresh this morning. Then you will tell me of your wife and child and make me young again.” She waved dismissively at a door that Mitchell hadn’t noticed before. “Your work can wait for today.”

***

After a lunch of bread and dumplings Mitchell stood to leave, no better informed about his work there than when he’d arrived, but learning more about himself by the minute. After he’d eaten he’d walked towards the door the woman had waved at, only to be stopped by her chiding him to take a day’s rest. He would have to wait to find out what lay behind it. Promising to return the next day Mitchell pulled the front door behind him and walked briskly from the square towards the main street.

He was involved with Russians in some way; but how? Who was Ilya? Daria’s son perhaps? She couldn’t be running the café alone; her struggle as she’d carried in the food had shown Mitchell that she needed help in every way. What was his role in this mysterious future? Had he helped them with money, or were they related in some way?

Mitchell stopped and gazed at his reflection in a shop window. His dark-blonde hair, six-feet-plus height and blue eyes were all American; there was no doubt of that. Except… perhaps his eyes were set at a slight angle, his cheekbones a little too high? He shook his head and laughed at his imagination. He was about as Russian as Oreos. As Jeff Mitchell stood laughing he completely missed the sedan behind him, following him back to work.

***

The rest of Mitchell’s day was spent batting off Devon’s endless questions, and his own. The time passed in a flurry of meetings with juniors, and interrupted attempts to switch on his PC. At four o’clock he gave up and grabbed at the rescue afforded by the ring of his desk-phone.

“Hello. Jeff Mitchell.” The more times he said his name the less familiar it felt.

“Hi, honey.”

The soft, east-coast lilt that came down the line made Mitchell glance quickly at the photo on his desk. The smile that had greeted him that morning beamed back and he said his wife’s name softly.

“Karen.”

She laughed and her high cadences wrapped themselves around him, pulling him back to that morning when she’d towelled him dry.

“Don’t sound so surprised! Are you ready to go, babe? I’m parked out front.”

“Go?”

Karen sighed in mild frustration and then stopped herself, keeping her tone light.

“Don’t you remember? We’re going to see a kindergarten for Emmie, unless you don’t want me ever to practice law again?”

She laughed again, to soften the effect of her words. Mitchell smiled at the normality of her chatter, after the day of puzzles that he’d just had.

“I’ll be down in five.”

He dropped the phone; feeling strangely excited by the family evening that lay ahead, as if it didn’t happen to him every day. It was closer to the truth than Mitchell knew.