THE ADJUSTMENT CLINIC

“Roger, this is Dr. Harvey Brasher calling.” The phone rang about eight-times before Umbo answered.

“Yes. Is there anything new or anything wrong?” Umbo’s pulse increased.

“Roger, I want you to know that everything is going to be okay. We have several people going after the ones who hired Ramses to hypnotize you.” Brasher paused for the words to take effect.

“Hypnotize? What do you mean?” Umbo felt sweat flow by gravity from under his arms. He looked to make sure his office door was closed.

Brasher gave a capsule of the Noire and Ramses team and their selective hypnosis technique. “…and to sum up, we know who hired them. It was the competition.”

“The competition…Wilson’s? I knew something had to be from outside Wormwood. It is outside Wormwood isn’t it? I mean, we don’t have Wilson spies within Wormwood do we?”

“You don’t, but we do have agents inside Wilson. AC has infiltrated their group. I want you to play dumb for now. Don’t disclose you know how your antibiotic vials came to exist. If anyone asks, you still suspect sabotage and are finding out whom, what and why? Nothing more…understand? I wanted you to know this because I don’t want you to worry anymore. If Wormwood pressures you, tell them an agency is tracking the reasons for the manufacture snafu.”

“I don’t know what to say. How could I succumb to hypnosis?” He wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve.

“Remember the Motivation Seminar by Noire and Ramses?”

“Yes. It was an excellent presentation.” Umbo’s response was immediate.

“Really? Can you tell me in three sentences what the seminar was about?”

“Well, of course, it was about …” Umbo couldn’t muster any vocabulary.

“About what Roger?”

“Well, about…I don’t know.”

“And what about Ramses?”

“He’s outstanding and a great friend.” Umbo fired the answer faster than the one from the first question.

“I didn’t know you knew him before the seminar or that he was a good friend.” Brasher delivered the sentence slowly.

“You’re right. I never heard of him or knew him before. Oh my God, it was him! It was Ramses!”

“And Alicia Noire. Good, Roger. You had to deduce this yourself to absolve your mind of any further or lingering guilt.”

“Dr. Brasher, thank you so much.”

“Remember Roger, no one is to know about this until we tell you otherwise.”

“Yes, certainly. Thank you again.” They hung up and Umbo sat back and began remembering. He spoke to his desktop. “Yes, the breaks during the seminar, the drawings on the napkins and the phone calls. The glass membrane vial concept came from Ramses and Noire.” Umbo slammed his fist on his desktop. He sat back and finished wiping his face with his handkerchief. “And Wilson Medical Products devised the whole thing,” he mumbled.