Jonathan Taylor: Meyer-Hofmann AG

Outnumbered. Two against one isn’t fair, the boy thought.

Hope briefly filled his heart as the grip on his neck was released and air flooded his small lungs, accompanied shortly thereafter by a heady feeling of euphoria. Then a mask was pressed firmly onto his face, and the sound of hissing gas reached his ears. The image of the man became fuzzy and distant, and the hissing was replaced by the beat of his own pounding heart. He felt very tired, terribly tired, and at 3:41 am, ten-year-old Adit Singh lost his life.

The second man broke with protocol and turned on the bedroom light. They had to check the scene. Without a word, both men busied themselves, applying first aid to the first man’s wound and cleaning the blood from the boy’s face and the bedroom floor. There was a reddening around the child’s neck, but there was nothing they could do about that. They placed him carefully back in his bed, replaced the duvet, and made for the basement. Despite the fact that the family was dead, the men proceeded with caution. They checked each room with military precision before entering the cellar.

“Maybe a fire would be better?” the first man suggested. The original plan had been to tamper with the boiler so that its exhaust fumes entered the house. It was not the newest model, and the rental agency had told their sources that it needed replacing.

“No, there is no time. Let’s hope they don’t look any further than the boiler,” said the second.

“The boy’s injuries?”

“Bad parenting or a schoolboy fight.”

They would stick to the plan. Both men nodded confirmation of the decision.

At 3:55 am, they left the house.

Michael Jarvis sat in his study at the antique replica desk. Sunlight flooded the room through the window behind him, gravity-defying dust particles dancing in the sun’s rays, illuminating the two pieces of paper that lay before him. Each was given a halo of reflected light, as if magnifying their importance. He pressed them flat with the palm of his right hand, ironing out their creases against the red leather inlaid surface. Written on high-quality paper, the second letter was embellished with a deeply embossed letterhead. He contemplated the effect these pieces of paper could have on his future, should he allow them to. Aligning them at right angles to the table, he sat back and let out a long breath. Unusual feelings coursed through him, feelings that were not completely unknown to him, but that he had rarely felt with this intensity before. Michael had experienced happy moments in his thirty-nine years on the planet, but he had also had more than his fair share of miserable times, enough to make him wary of good news. Life’s lessons had been harsh and left him insecure, a character trait he was not proud of, but powerless to change. In his experience, the lamentable by far outweighed the wonderful, and far too often, his negativity managed to take the gloss off his successes. Next to his academic career, the only real success, in his eyes, had been his marriage. He was, however, also certain he only had his wife to thank for that. Even on his wedding day, he had found himself doubting his happiness, wondering when it was all going to go wrong. If the bride would turn up, if she would say yes, and after she had indeed uttered those immortal words, whether she would not wise up and inevitably leave him. The euphoria that was bubbling up inside him now seemed immune to this negativity. Exhilarated by the opportunities the letters promised, even his logical, cynical, antipathetic mind had to accept that this was very good news indeed, and it was completely of his making.

Turning the second letter over and over in his hands, he juggled the options in his head.

It would mean change, but me and change are old friends, he told himself.

Michael had spent his early childhood in care, at state facilities or foster homes throughout the UK. Abandoned at the age of five by a mother he hardly remembered, his moods and tempers had not helped to win him the sympathy or affection of any adoptive family, until he was eleven years old. But after a tenth altercation with potential foster parents, he had made the conscious decision to hide his feelings in the future. This decision had immediately borne fruit, and his new adoptive parents had been more than he could ever have hoped for: loving, caring, even doting over him. That was until the birth of their own child, three years after his arrival. Things had changed. They became more distant, palming him off on friends and neighbours whenever possible. But they had honoured their commitment to him, and he bore them no malice. Michael had discovered an ability to adapt to his environment over the years, and an IQ of 132 helped him to fly through comprehensive school with eleven A Grade O-levels by the age of fifteen. The qualifications earned him a scholarship at the influential Harrogate boarding school Deacons, a welcome escape for both Michael and his parents. He had reacted to their distance with a distance of his own, and by the time he started boarding, they were barely speaking. Although he still saw his adoptive family during bank holidays and vacations, they had all subconsciously decided that boarding school was not such a bad thing for him. Five A grade A-levels later and a second scholarship, took Michael to Leeds University to study IT. Michael had his choice of Universities at the time, but Leeds was the only one prepared to cover his living expenses. IT is a subject that every spotty pubescent boy will tell you is close to their heart. Michael was no exception. Hours of video games and days without sunlight had only inflamed the acne that had disguised his good looks and kept his head in the books until he was twenty years old. Girls discovered him after a friend’s friend cut his blond mop of hair and turned the nerd into a dreamboat overnight. Looking back at his history, he had to admit that change had been more of an ally to him than a foe.

Both letters had arrived by registered post that morning; one was from EITA the ‘European Information Technology Association’. The EITA had nominated him for an award, and not just any reward, the most prestigious award in the industry. It recognised achievements that used IT in new and innovative ways. Michael’s achievement was to integrate an IT solution into the world’s largest paper mill. Solving problems was Michael’s passion, and he had been building and repairing things as long as he could remember. Starting with his beloved Action Man toy, and ending with the destruction of the boarding school’s washing machine. He saw his job as just a well-paid hobby. This project had been a real challenge; he had spent six months living on site in Toronto, Canada, at a paper manufacturer. The Mill had retained the services of his employers, Heggerty IT Solutions, to solve a serious and expensive problem in manufacture. The brief was to minimise the effect on production of rips and tears in unprocessed paper during the manufacturing process. This simple but large problem cost the industry millions, and Heggerty believed they had the man for the job. Michael spent weeks just watching and learning the manufacturing process, until he understood every single step. Freshly milled paper is pressed, rolled, and dried on huge rollers and conveyor belts. It is this stretching and pressing process that regularly led to the paper tearing, which required the entire production to stop until the tear could be manually repaired. Michael had not only solved the problem, he had produced a system that became the industry standard. A combination of stress sensors and cameras were installed to monitor the paper manufacture, detecting weaknesses in the paper before they ever became breaks in the roll. These weak points were then driven to one of the numerous repair stations integrated into the machinery, which sprayed a preparation onto the paper that strengthened the weakened area. The complete system worked without any human interaction and was controlled by software written by Michael for the task. That job had earned him a raise and his company a multimillion-dollar service contract, which now promised to proffer even greater rewards.