I have taken part in Nanowrimo three times before, and only completing it once. So when I thought about entering this year I decided to things a little differently! You see I love writing. I don't really care whether anyone thinks I am any good as I am usually my own worst critic, but there is one thing I am bad...really bad...at and that is actually finishing work. Even the one year taking part in Nanowrimo that did yield 50,000 words and past the target it didn't yield a finsihed story because I wrote more earlier in the planned story than I had anticipated and still to this day haven't finished it up.
So that being the case this year I have decided to do it a little more publically. Namely by publishing the chapters as I go throughout the month. I am hoping that it will both give me some motivation to keep going if I know someone is reading (one of you will be enough for me) and any inspiration from comments or suggestions as people (or person, again not shooting too high here) read along.
There is also the story itself. This is actually going to be a story that I first sketched out and wrote some snippets for over eight years ago now. I have just never forced myself to find the time to pull it together into something coherent. So I figured that this year was a good opportunity to take that story and finally let loose on it and hopefully turn it into something worthwhile.
Usually I edit my writing...a lot...so this will be an interesting experiment in that regard as well. Even when I have done this in previous years I always felt I couldn't show anyone what I wrote during Nanowrimo because it was unedited, it was raw, and I feared it was awful. So this is one factor that still has me doubting this is a good idea, but I really want to tell this particular story and well, I need to kick myself up the rear sometimes and force some forward momentum out of myself!
So this is it, forward momentum!
A slight dislaimer upfront as well, I do still have many of the original snippets I wrote for this story so I will be aiming for more than the 50,000 words if possible, only because I have some written already as my posts today will demonstrate there is already a prologue and a first chapter and scatterings of some other stages later on in the story (if they remain in the story as I write this time!)
The story by the way is called FATE Inc and I hope you enjoy it! (or at least what I finish of it!)
Friday, October 30
Thursday, October 29
FATE Inc Chapter One - Introducing Helen
Now that we have briefly met Mr Drewer and the teaser of a prologue, time to introduce our protagonist. Her name is Helen and she is about to have a very bad morning...
File #1 – Introducing Helen - The Morning After
Helen groaned as the alarm clock stung her head into as close a form a consciousness as her decidedly hung over head would allow. Except it didn’t sound like her alarm clock.
Groggily she looked up at the bedside table…except the bedside table wasn’t there.
It had been there when she went to bed.
In fact she couldn’t remember drinking last night, and certainly not as much as the pounding in her head or the taste in her mouth was telling her she had. Confused she rolled over…
She certainly didn’t remember anything about the naked man lying next to her.
It looked for all the world like her ex-boyfriend Marcus, but he was very much ex last time she had checked and didn’t have bleached blond hair. Rubbing her eyes she glanced out across her bedroom, except, in what was becoming an alarming trend already; it wasn’t quite the bedroom she recalled going to sleep in the night before. It had the same walls, height and dimensions certainly, but the walls had somehow changed colour and someone had painted over her adorable teak stained wooden floorboards with white emulsion.
She definitely hadn’t put that full-length poster of a scantily clad Britney Spears on the far wall either. Thoroughly confused she pulled herself up on the bed and noticed various items of her clubbing clothes…her little red dress that always had the desired effect and more worryingly her nice black lace bra strewn across the floor. She looked down at herself…she was naked. Which was odd considering she was absolutely certain she had gone to bed early, not to mention alone, and in her nice snug Winnie the pooh pyjamas with a steaming mug of hot chocolate.
This had to be a dream…a bad ‘what if’ type of dream she thought to herself.
She closed her eyes and opened them tentatively. The blond and now snoring version of her odious ex boyfriend was still there though.
Dazed and more then a little more confused Helen leant down and looked for her dressing gown. No dressing gown to be found. In fact, apart from the obviously hastily discarded party dress and underwear none of her clothes were there, not even the pile of dirty laundry she always left to accumulate for too long in the far corner.
Her wardrobe was missing too.
This was a very odd dream she thought to herself even if she did feel quite awake. Gingerly she pulled herself out the bed and reached down for her dress and pulled it on quickly, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable at being naked in the presence of the person she had come of late to see as a particularly loathsome specimen of a man. Although taking all the signs into account she hadn’t found him that loathsome last night, or at least in the last night that had preceded the ‘this morning’ she found herself in, despite the fact that none of this bore any resemblance to the ‘this morning’ she had been expecting.
“Snap out of it for Christ’s sake” she mused to herself, “I need to wake up.”
Instead it was her sleeping bedfellow that stirred. He turned around groaning and lazily opened an eye, glancing at Helen before slumping back in his pillow.
“Man I was hoping it had been a bad dream.” He muttered, “you need to go.”
Helen sat at the edge of the bed and just looked at him blankly for a second.
“I need to go? This is my flat!” She stammered.
He rolled over and raised an eyebrow, “Your flat? Jesus, I know some women can be clingy, but a one night stand does not give you residence.” He mumbled, rubbing his stubble slowly.
“A one night stand? Is that what you call it after all this time Marcus?”
“Pardon?” he looked at her quizzically, “when I go out for a night out with the lads and pull a total stranger for some not so great sex, yeah, I’d call that a one night stand.”
Helen wasn’t sure whether being labelled a total stranger or ‘not so great’ was worse.
“Look,” he continued, “I’m sorry ok, I used you, I wanted it, you were there and willing, I’m a bastard ok, lesson learnt, now get outta my flat.”
Whoever ‘this’ Marcus was he wasn’t any more of a morning person than she remembered him being.
“You really don’t know me do you?”
“What was your name again? Can’t say I remember last night much, no, I don’t know you.”
Helen glared at him, “we were together almost three years? Met on Holiday in Greece? You hate my sister? Any of this ringing any bells?” Marcus sat himself up and stared at her. “I think you have me mistaken for someone else lady, I really don’t know you.”
“You think I am in the business of going out and bedding total strangers after a boozy night?”
He glanced around the room before looking back at her, “I think that’s your bra hanging from my ceiling fan.”
Helen looked up and quickly snatched her underwear back down suddenly blushing profusely. “I’m really not like this…I don’t understand what’s going on…Marcus is this some kind of sick joke? This is my flat god damn it! I dumped you three months ago.”
“You dumped me?” he laughed, “you have lost it lady, look we met for the first time last night, you found me attractive and came home with me and were only too glad to rip my clothes off, beginning and end of story. Now please leave.”
Helen couldn’t help it, but started to sob into her hands.
“Christ woman, don’t turn on the waterworks now, look just leave and feel free to tell your friends you pulled a total pig, who turned you out in the morning and you never want to see me again.” He was right about the last part at least Helen thought to herself, “but this is my flat.” She sobbed.
“You’re getting on my nerves now,” Marcus got up and stomped round the room picking up the rest of Helen’s things and tossed them at her abruptly, “I won’t ask again, GET OUT!”
With that he unceremoniously grabbed her by the arm and lead her to the door. “I won’t ask again, OUT! You are seriously freaking me out lady”
Helen couldn’t keep up, Still crying, she couldn’t even bring herself to resist as he pushed her out into the hallway outside his flat and slammed the door behind her. She turned and started hammering on the door, “Marcus you bastard let me back in, this is my flat, I’ll call the police.”
She screamed.
Silence.
Apart that was, from the creaking of a door down the hall opening. “Are you alright young lady?” a voice inquired from the next door down.
“Thank god!” Helen thought to herself, it was Mrs Hudson, her neighbour, she would remember her and sort this whole mess out.
“Mrs Hudson, please my ex-boyfriend has stolen my flat somehow, please help me, call the police.”
“How do you know my name?” The old lady asked.
“Mrs Hudson? It’s me Helen, I’ve lived next door to you for two years now. You must remember me, I look after your cats when you go away to visit your son in Cornwall?”
“I don’t have a cat,” she said thinking for a moment, “or a son for that matter.”
“You don’t remember me either do you?”
The old lady looked at her strangely, “do you want me to call someone love? You look distressed.”
“No, I don’t think it would help.” Helen replied trying hard not to burst into tears again.
“If you’re sure,” shrugged the lady that might or might not have been Mrs Hudson, and closed her door.
Helen slumped down in the hallway and looked at the pile of stuff Marcus had ditched out with her. A black silk neck scarf, her bra, which she quickly slipped back on under her dress, a pair of Gucci shoes she didn’t remember owning, a small denim jacket and a small black leather handbag were all she had to go on.
The Gucci shoes were nice though.
Sighing she rummaged through the handbag hoping to find something, anything, that might tell her what the hell was going on. Much to her relief her mobile phone was there, and it was the mobile phone she remembered having. This had to be a dream she grumbled to herself as she made her way outside hoping to get some reception on her phone.
As the big black doors to the apartment block swung closed behind her she scanned the street, everything looked pretty normal. Everything looked like she had expected it to look like, although she couldn’t help shake the feeling that a tree or two had disappeared overnight as well from the row of neatly kept saplings that lined the pavement opposite.
She sat herself down on the sandstone steps and turned the phone on. Helen wasn’t totally surprised by the fact that her address book wasn’t on this phone, but at least she knew her mother’s number off by heart, it was as good a place as any to start. She dialled the number only to be met by a very formal female voice advising her that there were insufficient funds on her phone and she could top her credit up by pressing ‘1’.
“’My phone isn’t even pay-as-you-go” she muttered to herself as she flipped the mobile closed dejectedly and really hoped she was going to wake up soon.
“It gets easier don’t worry.” A coarse Irish accent sounded from behind her.
She looked up to see a slightly bedraggled looking man standing a few feet away. His dirty red spiked hair looked like it was in dire need of washing and shaving clearly wasn’t something he had done in a while. “Oh great,” Helen sighed, “now the vagrants want to chat me up, look I don’t have any change and can’t give you a cigarette so just piss off ok? I’m having a bad morning.” She snapped.
“Ow touchy this morning aren’t we?”
“Didn’t I just tell you to piss off?”
“Well, if you hadn’t noticed this is a public street, was just being polite.”
Helen glared at him with the type of ‘don’t fuck with me’ stare that suggested he might want to consider backing off, but the Irishman didn’t seem phased.
“Tobias Gordon at your service Helen.” He said making a lame attempt at a bow.
“For the last time piss off!”
“As you wish,” he shrugged and turned to leave.
Then it hit her, “Wait! How the hell did you know my name?”
Tobias stopped and looked round slowly with just the slightest hint of a devilish grin. “You just told me to piss off.”
Helen stood up and marched after him, “How did you know my name?” she demanded. Tobias faced her and she took a good look at him, his clothing wasn’t doing any more for him then his hair, a long dark leather jacket fell loosely to his ankles hiding beneath it a green woollen jumper that looked like it hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in some time. His worn blue jeans and a pair of heavy looking Doc Martens didn’t look any better.
“How do you know my name?”
“Someone told me.”
“Who?”
“Someone who knew you would be here, someone that knew you’d be turfed out of that apartment as a bad one night stand, and someone that has something to offer you.”
“You gonna tell me who this someone is or do I have to play twenty questions all morning with a tramp?”
“Good one, you’re handling this better then most, you gonna come with me or do I have to stand here and play twenty questions with someone doing a good impression of a prostitute?”
Helen self-consciously pulled the denim jacket up over her shoulders quickly and sighed. “Come with you where?”
“Just for coffee.”
“Just for coffee!”
“Is there an echo out here? That’s right, coffee is good first thing in the morning after the kind of night you’ve had.”
“I really don’t remember the kind of night I’m supposed to have had.”
“No, you won’t since you didn’t actually have the kind of night that you have found yourself having had this morning.”
Helen stared at him for a moment. If this was a dream it was the strangest dream she had ever had.
“Look, I know who you think you are, and those people obviously don’t. I know you think that’s clearly your flat, and whilst to you it is clearly your flat, it clearly isn’t at the same time. You don’t have any identification to show the police, and I can guarantee they won’t believe you,” he elaborated, “all I’m asking for is an hour of your time. Heaven knows you’ll have enough of that, and I’ll even pay for the coffees, so what do you say?”
Helen stared at him blankly.
“It’s just an hour, what have you got to lose? We can go to that nice place with the seats outside just down the street, plenty of people around, public and all that”
She shrugged, and was struggling to take it all in, she didn’t see that she had much choice but to join the bedraggled Irishman for a coffee. She wasn’t certain but something seemed to nag at her from the inside that she was supposed to follow him. Whatever it was didn’t explain why.
File #1 – Introducing Helen - The Morning After
Helen groaned as the alarm clock stung her head into as close a form a consciousness as her decidedly hung over head would allow. Except it didn’t sound like her alarm clock.
Groggily she looked up at the bedside table…except the bedside table wasn’t there.
It had been there when she went to bed.
In fact she couldn’t remember drinking last night, and certainly not as much as the pounding in her head or the taste in her mouth was telling her she had. Confused she rolled over…
She certainly didn’t remember anything about the naked man lying next to her.
It looked for all the world like her ex-boyfriend Marcus, but he was very much ex last time she had checked and didn’t have bleached blond hair. Rubbing her eyes she glanced out across her bedroom, except, in what was becoming an alarming trend already; it wasn’t quite the bedroom she recalled going to sleep in the night before. It had the same walls, height and dimensions certainly, but the walls had somehow changed colour and someone had painted over her adorable teak stained wooden floorboards with white emulsion.
She definitely hadn’t put that full-length poster of a scantily clad Britney Spears on the far wall either. Thoroughly confused she pulled herself up on the bed and noticed various items of her clubbing clothes…her little red dress that always had the desired effect and more worryingly her nice black lace bra strewn across the floor. She looked down at herself…she was naked. Which was odd considering she was absolutely certain she had gone to bed early, not to mention alone, and in her nice snug Winnie the pooh pyjamas with a steaming mug of hot chocolate.
This had to be a dream…a bad ‘what if’ type of dream she thought to herself.
She closed her eyes and opened them tentatively. The blond and now snoring version of her odious ex boyfriend was still there though.
Dazed and more then a little more confused Helen leant down and looked for her dressing gown. No dressing gown to be found. In fact, apart from the obviously hastily discarded party dress and underwear none of her clothes were there, not even the pile of dirty laundry she always left to accumulate for too long in the far corner.
Her wardrobe was missing too.
This was a very odd dream she thought to herself even if she did feel quite awake. Gingerly she pulled herself out the bed and reached down for her dress and pulled it on quickly, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable at being naked in the presence of the person she had come of late to see as a particularly loathsome specimen of a man. Although taking all the signs into account she hadn’t found him that loathsome last night, or at least in the last night that had preceded the ‘this morning’ she found herself in, despite the fact that none of this bore any resemblance to the ‘this morning’ she had been expecting.
“Snap out of it for Christ’s sake” she mused to herself, “I need to wake up.”
Instead it was her sleeping bedfellow that stirred. He turned around groaning and lazily opened an eye, glancing at Helen before slumping back in his pillow.
“Man I was hoping it had been a bad dream.” He muttered, “you need to go.”
Helen sat at the edge of the bed and just looked at him blankly for a second.
“I need to go? This is my flat!” She stammered.
He rolled over and raised an eyebrow, “Your flat? Jesus, I know some women can be clingy, but a one night stand does not give you residence.” He mumbled, rubbing his stubble slowly.
“A one night stand? Is that what you call it after all this time Marcus?”
“Pardon?” he looked at her quizzically, “when I go out for a night out with the lads and pull a total stranger for some not so great sex, yeah, I’d call that a one night stand.”
Helen wasn’t sure whether being labelled a total stranger or ‘not so great’ was worse.
“Look,” he continued, “I’m sorry ok, I used you, I wanted it, you were there and willing, I’m a bastard ok, lesson learnt, now get outta my flat.”
Whoever ‘this’ Marcus was he wasn’t any more of a morning person than she remembered him being.
“You really don’t know me do you?”
“What was your name again? Can’t say I remember last night much, no, I don’t know you.”
Helen glared at him, “we were together almost three years? Met on Holiday in Greece? You hate my sister? Any of this ringing any bells?” Marcus sat himself up and stared at her. “I think you have me mistaken for someone else lady, I really don’t know you.”
“You think I am in the business of going out and bedding total strangers after a boozy night?”
He glanced around the room before looking back at her, “I think that’s your bra hanging from my ceiling fan.”
Helen looked up and quickly snatched her underwear back down suddenly blushing profusely. “I’m really not like this…I don’t understand what’s going on…Marcus is this some kind of sick joke? This is my flat god damn it! I dumped you three months ago.”
“You dumped me?” he laughed, “you have lost it lady, look we met for the first time last night, you found me attractive and came home with me and were only too glad to rip my clothes off, beginning and end of story. Now please leave.”
Helen couldn’t help it, but started to sob into her hands.
“Christ woman, don’t turn on the waterworks now, look just leave and feel free to tell your friends you pulled a total pig, who turned you out in the morning and you never want to see me again.” He was right about the last part at least Helen thought to herself, “but this is my flat.” She sobbed.
“You’re getting on my nerves now,” Marcus got up and stomped round the room picking up the rest of Helen’s things and tossed them at her abruptly, “I won’t ask again, GET OUT!”
With that he unceremoniously grabbed her by the arm and lead her to the door. “I won’t ask again, OUT! You are seriously freaking me out lady”
Helen couldn’t keep up, Still crying, she couldn’t even bring herself to resist as he pushed her out into the hallway outside his flat and slammed the door behind her. She turned and started hammering on the door, “Marcus you bastard let me back in, this is my flat, I’ll call the police.”
She screamed.
Silence.
Apart that was, from the creaking of a door down the hall opening. “Are you alright young lady?” a voice inquired from the next door down.
“Thank god!” Helen thought to herself, it was Mrs Hudson, her neighbour, she would remember her and sort this whole mess out.
“Mrs Hudson, please my ex-boyfriend has stolen my flat somehow, please help me, call the police.”
“How do you know my name?” The old lady asked.
“Mrs Hudson? It’s me Helen, I’ve lived next door to you for two years now. You must remember me, I look after your cats when you go away to visit your son in Cornwall?”
“I don’t have a cat,” she said thinking for a moment, “or a son for that matter.”
“You don’t remember me either do you?”
The old lady looked at her strangely, “do you want me to call someone love? You look distressed.”
“No, I don’t think it would help.” Helen replied trying hard not to burst into tears again.
“If you’re sure,” shrugged the lady that might or might not have been Mrs Hudson, and closed her door.
Helen slumped down in the hallway and looked at the pile of stuff Marcus had ditched out with her. A black silk neck scarf, her bra, which she quickly slipped back on under her dress, a pair of Gucci shoes she didn’t remember owning, a small denim jacket and a small black leather handbag were all she had to go on.
The Gucci shoes were nice though.
Sighing she rummaged through the handbag hoping to find something, anything, that might tell her what the hell was going on. Much to her relief her mobile phone was there, and it was the mobile phone she remembered having. This had to be a dream she grumbled to herself as she made her way outside hoping to get some reception on her phone.
As the big black doors to the apartment block swung closed behind her she scanned the street, everything looked pretty normal. Everything looked like she had expected it to look like, although she couldn’t help shake the feeling that a tree or two had disappeared overnight as well from the row of neatly kept saplings that lined the pavement opposite.
She sat herself down on the sandstone steps and turned the phone on. Helen wasn’t totally surprised by the fact that her address book wasn’t on this phone, but at least she knew her mother’s number off by heart, it was as good a place as any to start. She dialled the number only to be met by a very formal female voice advising her that there were insufficient funds on her phone and she could top her credit up by pressing ‘1’.
“’My phone isn’t even pay-as-you-go” she muttered to herself as she flipped the mobile closed dejectedly and really hoped she was going to wake up soon.
“It gets easier don’t worry.” A coarse Irish accent sounded from behind her.
She looked up to see a slightly bedraggled looking man standing a few feet away. His dirty red spiked hair looked like it was in dire need of washing and shaving clearly wasn’t something he had done in a while. “Oh great,” Helen sighed, “now the vagrants want to chat me up, look I don’t have any change and can’t give you a cigarette so just piss off ok? I’m having a bad morning.” She snapped.
“Ow touchy this morning aren’t we?”
“Didn’t I just tell you to piss off?”
“Well, if you hadn’t noticed this is a public street, was just being polite.”
Helen glared at him with the type of ‘don’t fuck with me’ stare that suggested he might want to consider backing off, but the Irishman didn’t seem phased.
“Tobias Gordon at your service Helen.” He said making a lame attempt at a bow.
“For the last time piss off!”
“As you wish,” he shrugged and turned to leave.
Then it hit her, “Wait! How the hell did you know my name?”
Tobias stopped and looked round slowly with just the slightest hint of a devilish grin. “You just told me to piss off.”
Helen stood up and marched after him, “How did you know my name?” she demanded. Tobias faced her and she took a good look at him, his clothing wasn’t doing any more for him then his hair, a long dark leather jacket fell loosely to his ankles hiding beneath it a green woollen jumper that looked like it hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in some time. His worn blue jeans and a pair of heavy looking Doc Martens didn’t look any better.
“How do you know my name?”
“Someone told me.”
“Who?”
“Someone who knew you would be here, someone that knew you’d be turfed out of that apartment as a bad one night stand, and someone that has something to offer you.”
“You gonna tell me who this someone is or do I have to play twenty questions all morning with a tramp?”
“Good one, you’re handling this better then most, you gonna come with me or do I have to stand here and play twenty questions with someone doing a good impression of a prostitute?”
Helen self-consciously pulled the denim jacket up over her shoulders quickly and sighed. “Come with you where?”
“Just for coffee.”
“Just for coffee!”
“Is there an echo out here? That’s right, coffee is good first thing in the morning after the kind of night you’ve had.”
“I really don’t remember the kind of night I’m supposed to have had.”
“No, you won’t since you didn’t actually have the kind of night that you have found yourself having had this morning.”
Helen stared at him for a moment. If this was a dream it was the strangest dream she had ever had.
“Look, I know who you think you are, and those people obviously don’t. I know you think that’s clearly your flat, and whilst to you it is clearly your flat, it clearly isn’t at the same time. You don’t have any identification to show the police, and I can guarantee they won’t believe you,” he elaborated, “all I’m asking for is an hour of your time. Heaven knows you’ll have enough of that, and I’ll even pay for the coffees, so what do you say?”
Helen stared at him blankly.
“It’s just an hour, what have you got to lose? We can go to that nice place with the seats outside just down the street, plenty of people around, public and all that”
She shrugged, and was struggling to take it all in, she didn’t see that she had much choice but to join the bedraggled Irishman for a coffee. She wasn’t certain but something seemed to nag at her from the inside that she was supposed to follow him. Whatever it was didn’t explain why.
Tuesday, October 27
FATE Inc Prologue - Mr Drewer
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
- Alan Kay -
London – a cold March morning
Damp....
That’s the only word Mr Drewer could use to describe it, he hated the wet, but hated this even more. For all his years he couldn’t bring himself to like the London weather. At least with wet you knew where you stood, if it was raining you needed a good umbrella, or even better a roof over your head, preferably with four stout walls, and if you were particularly lucky a good log fire.
This weather though was just plain damp.
It wasn’t raining by any definition you could soundly argue with, say, a good current affairs presenter, but it got you wet, it got you saturated in fact, almost without you noticing. Mr Drewer couldn’t feel any rain drops against his cheeks, but his long grey jacket grew darker and darker as he trudged towards the underground station. His neat grey hair growing less neat, and more matted with every pace.
It was just damp, not even a drizzle really, you can feel a drizzle reasoned Mr Drewer, and this didn’t even impair your view sufficiently to qualify as fog.
He stuck his plain black umbrella above his head and continued, not that it seemed to help all that much as he walked through the damp. There weren’t many occasions when he welcomed setting foot inside an underground station, but this morning was one of those rare exceptions. Even this station was better then the damp. Lower Ormond Road, the one he used every morning, was particularly grim, even on a scale of other underground stations.
He shook the umbrella off purposefully as he descended the steps down under the pavement.
It was busier then normal, the damp always did that he mused to himself, but busy was preferable to damp. At any rate he was the stern looking type that meant most people gave him a wide berth even when space was at a premium. He walked exactly the same twenty-six paces that he took every morning to the gate that lead to the Victoria Line. He approached the two guards just like he did every morning and explained that he had lost his season ticket, was horribly late for a very important appointment, and asked if they would be kind enough to let him through.
They did, just as they did every morning.
Mr Drewer had that kind of effect on people.
Not all employees of the company had that particular ability, but Mr Drewer had developed it into an art form. Whilst ‘selling sand to the Arabs’ or ‘Ice to the Eskimos’ were both atrocious metaphors in his opinion, he had once convinced the Manchester city council planning authority that solar power was the way forward. In his defence the subsequent power shortages were preferable to the fallout that would have occurred had they chosen to build the nuclear power station instead.
He just had a talent for making people believe him, which was useful in his profession.
He often wondered if he had ever been as gullible as London Underground employees, or the members of the Manchester city council planning authority before he had been recruited into the ranks. Not that they had a London Underground four hundred and fifty six years ago, but if they had he really hoped he hadn’t been that weak willed.
He moved down to the platform, just in time to step aboard the train, the beauty of having inside information was that the trains were never late for you, even if they were for everyone else. He barely broke his stride as he marched through the doors and took his usual place on the third seat to the left in the fourth carriage from the front.
The chances of getting a seat every morning on the Underground are pretty much statistically absurd, let alone the same seat, but when you were in the business of logistics like Mr Drewer was it was surprisingly easy. Being at the right place at the right time was pretty much essential in his line of work.
He flicked open his copy of the Telegraph and scanned the headlines; it was always nice to read about the accomplishments of the other departments. Today’s highlights were the ending of two international conflicts, the start of a war, rising inflation and a last minute reprieve for the sub post office of a small village in Wales which had been due to close.
A local pensioner reported that it was ‘very sensible’ of the Post Office to keep rural services running for the community. Mr Drewer smiled to himself, if only they knew that all that fuss was over a single letter that would be sent next week by that pensioner, one Mavis Knowles, and absolutely had to get to it’s destination at a certain time. He knew that no-one would ever know that that letter was every bit as integral to the ongoing survival of the planet as the fact that the UN general secretary had been successful in his negotiations with militant rebels in the middle east.
The self-important politicians of the world would have a nervous breakdown if they knew their scheming and attempts at manipulation had about the same impact on the future of the planet as a single raindrop does in making a tree grow. Fate was funny like that; little things like Mrs Knowles letter often had a bigger impact then any of the latest trade embargos or political brinkmanship.
Working with fate, or F.A.T.E incorporated, as it was now known was even funnier, if you had a slightly twisted outlook on what qualified as humorous. Mr Drewer had just finished filling in the crossword as the train pulled up to his stop, he was never too sure why he felt obliged to fill in a puzzle he knew the answers to, but did so all the same. It was part of his routine and routine was important to Mr Drewer.
His mobile phone vibrated slowly as the train came to a stop. Flicking up and cover and reading the text message that had been sent to him he turned and smiled at the rather miserable looking lady who had been sitting next to him.
Well, it passed as a smile at least; good humour was not one of Mr Drewer’s stronger assets.
“Cheer up,” he quipped quietly, observing she was reading an article about a rollover Jackpot in that night’s lottery, “might be the day to buy a ticket, you never know.”
The woman stared back at him quizzically and raised an eyebrow. Londoners were not used to people speaking to them on the Underground, let alone strangers, unless they were inquiring as to the possibility of a charitable donation.
Mr Drewer shrugged and got off the train, glancing at his watch he noted he was almsot precisely thirty seconds later then he usually would have been. He picked up his pace slightly to compensate.
He did wish that they wouldn’t drop those last minute jobs on him. Whilst sure there was a very good reason the miserable looking lady needed to win the lottery that night, he did wish there had been a field operative available. He only had a certain tolerance for conversing with the masses, even if they didn’t feel inclined to converse back.
He wondered how the lady would describe him exactly when telling her children of the stranger that prompted her to buy that winning lottery ticket. He made a mental note to check her file later to make sure she wasn’t too unflattering when the time came.
He checked his watch as he stepped back out into the damp. Good, back on schedule, he thought to himself.
He turned and walked the short distance out of the Tottenham Court Road tube station and round the corner onto New Oxford Street before making his way down to Bloomsbury Way. The office itself was just another anonymous London building, but that of course was the intention. The beauty of London, and cities like it was that people rarely noticed things that lay right in front of them. People could come and go as they pleased and pretty much no-one would notice. The more observant might have noticed that those people coming and going from this particular office rarely seemed to change, and the even more eagle eyed that happened to pass by everyday might have noticed that those people never really seemed to age any either.
That was another perk of the job, or at least they called it a perk. Mr Drewer had gone through a phase of wishing that time had stopped for him a decade or two earlier then it did. The aches and pains of a fifty eight year old body were bad enough without them being preserved perfectly since the fifteen forties. He had become accustomed to it now. You had to really; being technically immortal would have been a fairly miserable existence otherwise.
The office itself appeared to be just another of the older office blocks of central London that had been ‘renovated’ in the Seventies and was now a fairly nondescript edifice of concrete and glass. Uniform grey blocks protruded out at odd angles at the side of each window. Mr Drewer was sure there was good reason for the architectural obsession with concrete at that time but couldn’t quite remember what. He couldn’t keep up with the work of all the other departments, but he distinctly remembered the company facilities manager apologising in advance for the eyesore, but explaining that it was vital to keep the building from looking incongruous with the rest of the street. If all their neighbours were going down the ugly concrete look then the company would have to follow suit. Not that it was seen as ‘ugly concrete’ at the time, misguided architects the world over were certain they were ushering in the ‘brave new world’ of the twenty first century.
Sometimes Mr Drewer wished he’d been able to warn them.
There were rules about things like that though; strictly not allowed the whole ‘letting them know their future’ thing. It was always far too messy. Walking up the steps to the office he had the strangest of feelings. The feeling that something was different, or misplaced...or quite possibly...just wrong. He paused for a moment to consider this, he didn't like such feelings creeping up on him. It wasn't normal and it was generally not indicative of him being about to have a good day.
He nodded to Tony the doorman as the door was opened for him and forced another of his weak smiles for the receptionist Hillary.
“Morning Mr Drewer,” she chimed, “there’s a new starter to be picked up today.”
“Really?” he asked, it wasn’t often someone in his position was surprised.
“Yes, the observation department do apologise,” she explained, “it was a last minute things apparently, something to do with conflicting interpersonal event horizons or something like that, you know how I am with the technical mumbo jumbo.”
“It was a cock-up then.”
“Yes Mr Drewer. Most likely”
“The file is on my desk?”
“Yes Mr Drewer, with your coffee.”
“Thank you Hillary, have a good day.” He said as he turned and entered the elevator, the door sliding open conveniently in front of him. Even amongst the other employees his sense of timing was regarded as unnerving. Mr Drewer never actually seemed to have to open a door, wait for a lift or stand aside for anyone coming the other way. It just kind of happened around him.
His days were always timed immaculately, you could say that he took everything that FATE Inc was about and crafted a perfectly efficient working day each and every day he entered the office. Not only was he not used to surprises he did not like them at all. So it was with slight annoyance that he eyed the brown manila folder on his desk when he entered his office on the fifteenth floor. He sighed and took a sip of his coffee for a moment before picking the folder up and scanning the summary page at the front. Noting that this one could have been picked up earlier, but was certainly a strange anomoly he made a quick note to ask Hillary to draft up a stern reprimand for whoever the duty manager was on the observation shifts recently, and another to send the file down to research to have them give it a once over, better safe than sorry.
Switching his computer on, he flicked open his old leather bound file-o-fax to see who he had available for the pickup whilst the grey machine whirred and kicked into life. It looked like he didn’t have a choice, it would have to be Tobias Gordon, hardly his preferred option for what was often a tricky assignment, but all his other greeters were otherwise engaged.
This kind of thing was why he hated surprises. He rapped his fingers nervously on the tabletop as he waited for the computer to let him log in. He was now eight minutes behind schedule as well. He just had to hope that Gordon wouldn’t make a mess of this one.
‘Hoping’ wasn’t something that came naturally to him either though….
- Alan Kay -
London – a cold March morning
Damp....
That’s the only word Mr Drewer could use to describe it, he hated the wet, but hated this even more. For all his years he couldn’t bring himself to like the London weather. At least with wet you knew where you stood, if it was raining you needed a good umbrella, or even better a roof over your head, preferably with four stout walls, and if you were particularly lucky a good log fire.
This weather though was just plain damp.
It wasn’t raining by any definition you could soundly argue with, say, a good current affairs presenter, but it got you wet, it got you saturated in fact, almost without you noticing. Mr Drewer couldn’t feel any rain drops against his cheeks, but his long grey jacket grew darker and darker as he trudged towards the underground station. His neat grey hair growing less neat, and more matted with every pace.
It was just damp, not even a drizzle really, you can feel a drizzle reasoned Mr Drewer, and this didn’t even impair your view sufficiently to qualify as fog.
He stuck his plain black umbrella above his head and continued, not that it seemed to help all that much as he walked through the damp. There weren’t many occasions when he welcomed setting foot inside an underground station, but this morning was one of those rare exceptions. Even this station was better then the damp. Lower Ormond Road, the one he used every morning, was particularly grim, even on a scale of other underground stations.
He shook the umbrella off purposefully as he descended the steps down under the pavement.
It was busier then normal, the damp always did that he mused to himself, but busy was preferable to damp. At any rate he was the stern looking type that meant most people gave him a wide berth even when space was at a premium. He walked exactly the same twenty-six paces that he took every morning to the gate that lead to the Victoria Line. He approached the two guards just like he did every morning and explained that he had lost his season ticket, was horribly late for a very important appointment, and asked if they would be kind enough to let him through.
They did, just as they did every morning.
Mr Drewer had that kind of effect on people.
Not all employees of the company had that particular ability, but Mr Drewer had developed it into an art form. Whilst ‘selling sand to the Arabs’ or ‘Ice to the Eskimos’ were both atrocious metaphors in his opinion, he had once convinced the Manchester city council planning authority that solar power was the way forward. In his defence the subsequent power shortages were preferable to the fallout that would have occurred had they chosen to build the nuclear power station instead.
He just had a talent for making people believe him, which was useful in his profession.
He often wondered if he had ever been as gullible as London Underground employees, or the members of the Manchester city council planning authority before he had been recruited into the ranks. Not that they had a London Underground four hundred and fifty six years ago, but if they had he really hoped he hadn’t been that weak willed.
He moved down to the platform, just in time to step aboard the train, the beauty of having inside information was that the trains were never late for you, even if they were for everyone else. He barely broke his stride as he marched through the doors and took his usual place on the third seat to the left in the fourth carriage from the front.
The chances of getting a seat every morning on the Underground are pretty much statistically absurd, let alone the same seat, but when you were in the business of logistics like Mr Drewer was it was surprisingly easy. Being at the right place at the right time was pretty much essential in his line of work.
He flicked open his copy of the Telegraph and scanned the headlines; it was always nice to read about the accomplishments of the other departments. Today’s highlights were the ending of two international conflicts, the start of a war, rising inflation and a last minute reprieve for the sub post office of a small village in Wales which had been due to close.
A local pensioner reported that it was ‘very sensible’ of the Post Office to keep rural services running for the community. Mr Drewer smiled to himself, if only they knew that all that fuss was over a single letter that would be sent next week by that pensioner, one Mavis Knowles, and absolutely had to get to it’s destination at a certain time. He knew that no-one would ever know that that letter was every bit as integral to the ongoing survival of the planet as the fact that the UN general secretary had been successful in his negotiations with militant rebels in the middle east.
The self-important politicians of the world would have a nervous breakdown if they knew their scheming and attempts at manipulation had about the same impact on the future of the planet as a single raindrop does in making a tree grow. Fate was funny like that; little things like Mrs Knowles letter often had a bigger impact then any of the latest trade embargos or political brinkmanship.
Working with fate, or F.A.T.E incorporated, as it was now known was even funnier, if you had a slightly twisted outlook on what qualified as humorous. Mr Drewer had just finished filling in the crossword as the train pulled up to his stop, he was never too sure why he felt obliged to fill in a puzzle he knew the answers to, but did so all the same. It was part of his routine and routine was important to Mr Drewer.
His mobile phone vibrated slowly as the train came to a stop. Flicking up and cover and reading the text message that had been sent to him he turned and smiled at the rather miserable looking lady who had been sitting next to him.
Well, it passed as a smile at least; good humour was not one of Mr Drewer’s stronger assets.
“Cheer up,” he quipped quietly, observing she was reading an article about a rollover Jackpot in that night’s lottery, “might be the day to buy a ticket, you never know.”
The woman stared back at him quizzically and raised an eyebrow. Londoners were not used to people speaking to them on the Underground, let alone strangers, unless they were inquiring as to the possibility of a charitable donation.
Mr Drewer shrugged and got off the train, glancing at his watch he noted he was almsot precisely thirty seconds later then he usually would have been. He picked up his pace slightly to compensate.
He did wish that they wouldn’t drop those last minute jobs on him. Whilst sure there was a very good reason the miserable looking lady needed to win the lottery that night, he did wish there had been a field operative available. He only had a certain tolerance for conversing with the masses, even if they didn’t feel inclined to converse back.
He wondered how the lady would describe him exactly when telling her children of the stranger that prompted her to buy that winning lottery ticket. He made a mental note to check her file later to make sure she wasn’t too unflattering when the time came.
He checked his watch as he stepped back out into the damp. Good, back on schedule, he thought to himself.
He turned and walked the short distance out of the Tottenham Court Road tube station and round the corner onto New Oxford Street before making his way down to Bloomsbury Way. The office itself was just another anonymous London building, but that of course was the intention. The beauty of London, and cities like it was that people rarely noticed things that lay right in front of them. People could come and go as they pleased and pretty much no-one would notice. The more observant might have noticed that those people coming and going from this particular office rarely seemed to change, and the even more eagle eyed that happened to pass by everyday might have noticed that those people never really seemed to age any either.
That was another perk of the job, or at least they called it a perk. Mr Drewer had gone through a phase of wishing that time had stopped for him a decade or two earlier then it did. The aches and pains of a fifty eight year old body were bad enough without them being preserved perfectly since the fifteen forties. He had become accustomed to it now. You had to really; being technically immortal would have been a fairly miserable existence otherwise.
The office itself appeared to be just another of the older office blocks of central London that had been ‘renovated’ in the Seventies and was now a fairly nondescript edifice of concrete and glass. Uniform grey blocks protruded out at odd angles at the side of each window. Mr Drewer was sure there was good reason for the architectural obsession with concrete at that time but couldn’t quite remember what. He couldn’t keep up with the work of all the other departments, but he distinctly remembered the company facilities manager apologising in advance for the eyesore, but explaining that it was vital to keep the building from looking incongruous with the rest of the street. If all their neighbours were going down the ugly concrete look then the company would have to follow suit. Not that it was seen as ‘ugly concrete’ at the time, misguided architects the world over were certain they were ushering in the ‘brave new world’ of the twenty first century.
Sometimes Mr Drewer wished he’d been able to warn them.
There were rules about things like that though; strictly not allowed the whole ‘letting them know their future’ thing. It was always far too messy. Walking up the steps to the office he had the strangest of feelings. The feeling that something was different, or misplaced...or quite possibly...just wrong. He paused for a moment to consider this, he didn't like such feelings creeping up on him. It wasn't normal and it was generally not indicative of him being about to have a good day.
He nodded to Tony the doorman as the door was opened for him and forced another of his weak smiles for the receptionist Hillary.
“Morning Mr Drewer,” she chimed, “there’s a new starter to be picked up today.”
“Really?” he asked, it wasn’t often someone in his position was surprised.
“Yes, the observation department do apologise,” she explained, “it was a last minute things apparently, something to do with conflicting interpersonal event horizons or something like that, you know how I am with the technical mumbo jumbo.”
“It was a cock-up then.”
“Yes Mr Drewer. Most likely”
“The file is on my desk?”
“Yes Mr Drewer, with your coffee.”
“Thank you Hillary, have a good day.” He said as he turned and entered the elevator, the door sliding open conveniently in front of him. Even amongst the other employees his sense of timing was regarded as unnerving. Mr Drewer never actually seemed to have to open a door, wait for a lift or stand aside for anyone coming the other way. It just kind of happened around him.
His days were always timed immaculately, you could say that he took everything that FATE Inc was about and crafted a perfectly efficient working day each and every day he entered the office. Not only was he not used to surprises he did not like them at all. So it was with slight annoyance that he eyed the brown manila folder on his desk when he entered his office on the fifteenth floor. He sighed and took a sip of his coffee for a moment before picking the folder up and scanning the summary page at the front. Noting that this one could have been picked up earlier, but was certainly a strange anomoly he made a quick note to ask Hillary to draft up a stern reprimand for whoever the duty manager was on the observation shifts recently, and another to send the file down to research to have them give it a once over, better safe than sorry.
Switching his computer on, he flicked open his old leather bound file-o-fax to see who he had available for the pickup whilst the grey machine whirred and kicked into life. It looked like he didn’t have a choice, it would have to be Tobias Gordon, hardly his preferred option for what was often a tricky assignment, but all his other greeters were otherwise engaged.
This kind of thing was why he hated surprises. He rapped his fingers nervously on the tabletop as he waited for the computer to let him log in. He was now eight minutes behind schedule as well. He just had to hope that Gordon wouldn’t make a mess of this one.
‘Hoping’ wasn’t something that came naturally to him either though….
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