Frank Klus - Azaleas Don't Bloom Here

“Yes, sir.”

“Why do you think they don’t believe you?”

“They asked me if I was positive it was the Senator. I said I didn’t see his face, but they came out of his prep office. They said they’d take care of it. I spent the whole night waiting for them to come, and no police came. Then I waited for you to get here.”

“Okay, thank you. We’ll take it from here.”

After the page left, Trident’s secretary looked at him. “What do you think, Senator? Why haven’t the police come? Do you think Senator Moore really was kidnapped?”

“I’m going to take a look in his office.”

Moore’s prep office was just four doors down from his. Moore’s secretary was already there.

“There you are, Senator Trident,” Trina, Moore’s secretary, said. “I got here about a half hour ago and I can’t find Senator Moore. He’s been working here. He must have been here all night. He’s got a word processor and spreadsheet program open, his coffee cup’s still here, but no Senator Moore.”

“A page heard a commotion last night. She claims the senator was kidnapped.”

Trina gasped, holding her hands up to her face. “What do we do, Senator?”

“The police are on the way. Take the rest of the day off.”

Trident alerted building security, which conducted a thorough investigation, and alerted D.C. police, who finally came and did its own investigation; but it went nowhere. Moore had simply vanished.

“Hello.”

“Dr. Schmidt, its Horace Hayfield. My customers are starting to remember.”

“Hold it, Hayfield. Your name is familiar, but—”

“You sold me the machine and gave me training.”

“Oh yeah, yeah. Well, what’s the problem?”

“I just told you the problem,” Hayfield said in a deep southern drawl. Hayfield spoke slowly and deliberately. “My customers are starting to remember. I’ve been getting’ calls from parents for a week now about how their little angels are talking in their sleep, and waking up crying. What the hell is going on?”

“How many have you treated, and how many are starting to remember?”

“Hold on a sec. I’ve got that right… yes, here it is. I’ve had thirty-seven kids come in for treatment and seven are rememberin’. Now you told me this was impossible.”

“Impossible if you did the procedure correctly.”

“I did the procedure correctly. I did it exactly as you taught me, and they’re rememberin’. What the hell is going on?”

“Mr. Cornfield….”

“HAYFIELD!”

“Yeah… uh… Hayfield. It is critical that you disconnect all the neurons in the medial temporal lobe at the bright red image in the cerebral cortex. If you’ve done the brain scan correctly, this will be the activity of the latest probe. You must cut these connections through the ‘dialing down’ process.”

“Yes, yes. I know. You taught me all this during my training.”

“Yes, I know, but it is equally important you understand the process perfectly. Now, what is happening to the individual neurons is that you are blocking the receptor cells. This is only temporary. They still have memory of the pain since other neurons are involved here. As you finish the synaptic treatments you have to further treat the closed connections so that the synapse is weakened. Then, over time, the unused connections completely sever. If you’ve done the procedure correctly, they can’t ever remember. As time goes by the chance of remembering is reduced further until that memory is completely gone.”

“Look, doc, I don’t want to sound like a pain in the ass, but these kids are rememberin’, and I did the procedure precisely as you told me to. Furthermore, I’ve maintained a log of precisely what I did, and when I did it. Those kids left my tough love camp cured of bad behavior. Now, I’ve got parents talking about suin’ me and shuttin’ down my camps.”

“I’ll admit that there is a small chance of remembrance even if the procedure was done correctly, but there shouldn’t be any cognitive recognition of the treatment. It is just some echo of the treatment from the non-cognitive functions of the brain. I’ll talk to Dr. Grifton, and get back to you.”

This seemed to satisfy Hayfield for the time being, but Schmidt was worried. He gave Grifton a nootropic, and they sat down at a conference table. Grifton seemed to stabilize on a steady diet of nootropics that both doctors perfected.

“Fred, more patients are complaining of remembering their treatments. That Hayfield character was telling me that some of his customers are threatening a lawsuit because their sons and daughters are dreaming of the treatment. Have you thought any more about this?”

“There had to be something we missed,” Grifton said. “We know that the brain has a way of storing the same memory in different locations. If the neural connections aren’t blocked immediately after treatments, the very thought of the treatments create retrocognition.”

“The point is, Fred, what can we do about it? Further treatment is probably out of the question. According to Commandant Casimir, Sedratol prevented the memories of the treatments from Sandra’s dreams.”

“Yes, the dreams are a problem. When the person wakes up from a memory dream, and starts thinking about the dream, it could result in retrocognition. Sedratol is the only answer.”

“We can’t give him that. He’ll screw it up, and then his ‘little angels’ will really have problems. I have to tell Hayfield something. If I don’t, he’ll turn around and sue us. Casimir, not to mention Martinez, isn’t going to like that. That will mean trouble for us.”

“Couldn’t we give him a low enough dosage—call it a mild sedative?”

“But what dosage? That’s the problem, Fred.”

Schmidt could see that Grifton was having trouble concentrating again and didn’t answer. He looked troubled. “It’s okay, Fred. Get some rest now.”

“Sandy is missing,” Casimir said.

“For how long?” Captain Miller asked.

“I don’t know precisely. She wasn’t home when I got back to the house from work. There was no note. I stayed up most of the night waiting for her, and still no Sandy. I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll issue an all-Squad alert, Commandant. Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”

Eugene, Pamela, Ray, and Cassandra were in a motel room in northwest Minnesota. With the Hogs looking for them north and west, the four felt their best move was to go northeast, deeper into Minnesota. Retracing their steps was ruled out because they could be trapped. Moving to Minnesota gave them an opportunity to escape to Canada, but that would be difficult now that Pamela’s contact in Washington hadn’t responded to her call. The four gathered in Pamela’s room, around a round table in the sitting room.

“How’s our money?” Eugene asked.

“We’re fine on that end,” Pamela said.

“What about you guys?” Eugene asked, addressing Ray and Cassandra.

“Not good. We won’t have enough money to make it all the way there,” Ray said.

“Don’t worry,” Pamela said. “If you can get us out of this mess, I’ll pay you. If you can’t, then money is your least problem.”

They all laughed.

“Anyone have a plan?” Pamela asked.

“For now, we’re going to have to hang out in Minnesota for a while,” Ray said. “We need help. It’s the unknown that’s our biggest enemy.”