Colin was in a vile mood when he dropped in to see Trevor. He'd run into Sophie down at the mall and, while she hadn't actually been rude, she'd definitely brushed him off. Who the hell did she think she was, anyway? He was a football hero while she was just a nobody. OK, a very pretty and intelligent nobody, but still. She should be flattered that he was trying to chat her up.
"Colin," said Trevor in greeting as Colin wandered into his workshop. "How's it going?"
"Bloody marvellous, if you must know," snapped Colin.
"Wow," said Trevor with a laugh. "Who's been yanking on your chain?"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," returned Colin. "What are you up to?"
"Well someone had put your nose out of joint," observed Trevor. "You look like a thundercloud looking for someone to rain on."
"Fucking Sophie. Who does she think she is? All I wanted to do was talk to her and she just brushes me of as though I was a nobody. What's she got against me anyway?"
"You don't suppose it's your arrogant attitude, the fact the you consider yourself god's gift to the female race and your vow to fuck every girl you go out with that might just be overwhelming her a trifle?"
"Ah. You think she might be a bit shy around me?"
Colin considered that. He hadn't really thought about it but possibly he was a bit too hot for Sophie. Still, she'd have to get used to it. He'd already decided he wanted her.
"Gotta be that," agreed Trevor. "It's either that or she thinks you're an incredible moron and is worried that it might rub off. You might let her know that profound moronicness isn't contagious. Speaking of which, I heard you managed to scrape a pass in the maths test."
"It was easy. The coach slipped me the exam the day before so I could go over the questions. I finished up getting my pass. Anyway, back to my question. What are you up to?"
Trevor indicated a bottle of pills on the bench.
"I'm analysing these. Good practice for my chemistry. You know my cousin works for a drug company? He let me have this sample of a new drug they're working on. It's supposed to be an amnesiac drug. They thought they could use it in place of anaesthesia when they want a patient awake during surgery."
"What's an amnesiac drug and why the hell would you want to be awake during surgery?"
"In some surgery, apparently, they feel they could do a better job if the patient was awake and able to talk to them, giving them intelligent feedback.
An amnesiac drug is one that makes you forget. Apparently this one works by blocking the receptors in your short term memory. Take one of these little suckers and you'll forget everything you do for the next hour."
"What, you pass out or something?"
"No. That's the beauty of these. You're still awake and aware of what's going on, but as soon as you stop doing something you forget about it. Like, you might decide to go and have a shower. You'll go and have it but as soon as you're dried and dressed you'll forget you had the shower.
I'm not kidding. Apparently during the human trials they gave a bloke one and left a note on his bed telling not to forget to shower. He saw the note and went and showered. When he came back to his bedroom he saw the note and went and showered again because he didn't remember doing it. My cousin said the poor guy took four showers before the effects started to wear off."
"Geez, you have to let me have some to give to my examiners. I can slip them one, have the exam, they forget about it and I tell them I took it and passed. They won't know otherwise."
"Unless they see your exam paper," muttered Trevor.
The two men talked for a while, discussing the coming football match. It was when Trevor took a bathroom break that Colin got his bright idea. If he acquired one of those pills and slipped it to a certain someone, she wouldn't remember anything that happened during the next hour. That raised some intriguing possibilities. He opened the bottle and slipped a pill into his wallet.
Colin spent the next couple of weeks keeping an unobtrusive eye on Sophie. He was quite shocked when she stopped one day and told him that if he kept following her around she'd get a restraining order and would he kindly piss off.
Fuming, he watched from a distance, finally deciding on a plan. Sophie liked to jog in the evening. After she'd finish jogging she'd drink a bottle of water and then take a walk around the jogging track to relax herself before heading home.
It proved a simple matter to wait until Sophie had jogged away and then to cross to her car, pick the lock and drop the pill into the water bottle. With the car relocked, Colin moved to an advantageous point and watched and waited.
Sophie returned from her jog, grabbed her water bottle and drank thirstily. Then she set off for her brisk walk around the park. She hadn't gone far when she saw that idiot Colin, leaning against a tree looking at her. She glared at him but didn't speak, just kept walking briskly.
A quarter of the way around the park Sophie saw that idiot Colin, leaning against a tree and looking at her with a funny smirk on his face. She glared at him but didn't speak, just kept walking while trying to ignore a faint memory that seemed to say something is wrong.
Halfway through her walk Sophie was approaching some trees when she saw Colin leaning on one. She ignored both Colin and the little voice that tried to shout, something is wrong.
As Sophie passed under the trees she found Colin falling into step beside her.
"Listen, Sophie," Colin said. "I know you're a little overawed by me but you needn't be. Really. Just give me a chance and you'll see what a nice guy I am."
"Overawed by you?" asked Sophie, feeling stunned.
