I myself while going to college looked only to what ultimate accomplishments this one man could find right in front of his nose. Never did I see the final mark of true worth to society or even my own self.
So as with the final semester of college was beginning Alex and I were still fast friends rooming and studying together. Unlike myself when the summer break came along Alex found work doing as per his ultimate vocation working for Kapco Pharmaceuticals. He worked for them mixing those assorted chemicals making and learning the properties with his one great thought in mind.
It was then in our last semester that I was offered as part of my final exam to venture north. More than just being local for me it was a trip north to the Yukon Territory of western Canada. There with others we were to work onsight with oil drillers seeking the riches of our mother earth.
It was when I informed Alex of my coming trip he told me to check on the parameters as per the climate and surrounding terrain.
His was a wise thought to which my short sightness had ignored. I did as so instructed checking with the science department as to the exact location of where we would be staying for six weeks. The people I asked seemed oddly irritated by my questions as if those hardships we were to find ourselves placed within was also part of our test.
I found that I as one of the group of students was to be singled off and sent onward to the small town of Carcross. The climate was just plain cold and everything there was fozen year round. Maybe worse was the insects which bred in pools and ponds of water which when mild in temprature they would breed and bite.
All this I told to Alex who could only shake his head as if all I learned he had rather expected.
He then asked me if I was willing to help him in an experiment. As for where I would be going in coming months from then it would offer time to prepare me for what was to come. His was to cause a change in my body chemisty. The changes he'd make should not be permenant yet for the time I was in the Yukon it could keep me better focused on the work I needed to accomplish.
Alex warned me of the extreme cold which one could expect. In his scheme of thought my physical body needed to become prepared for what was to come and then such extremes I might just ignor. He said I was lucky that the cold would be the only real problem as if it were the bugs, they might drive me plum nuts!
I checked even more with phone calls to the Hansen Oil companies regional office at a town called Watson Lake. Asking them of what housing one might expect and the general location of the drillhead.