FATE Inc - Chapter Five - Life Lessons

Helen had sat there for over two hours now and had the same concepts that Tobias had explained to her over coffee explained again. In detail, in excruciating detail in fact. All delivered by Mrs Peabody, a lady who was seemingly passed by when the proverbial charisma was being handed out. Grey haired and very formally dressed, primarily in various shades of dark grey and an ugly dirty green that Helen could only describe as reminding her of a chalkboard, Mrs Peabody had the type of personality that could probably cancel out Tobias' in a kind of strange matter against anti-matter kind of way.

She was probably in her sixties, at least she looked to be in her sixties. Which century the lady was actually born in Helen wasn't willing to risk guessing at this stage. There wasn't anything specific about her that gave Helen any clues either. A short and stout lady with quite unusually broad shoulders. The wireframe glasses that were perched on her nose gave her an almost threatening look of a disapproving school teacher who had just learnt that the summer holidays had been cancelled.

The lady was being thorough that was for sure, she just lacked the skills with which Tobias had put Helen at ease. They say things like that are all in the delivery and Helen thought that this Mrs Peabody could have learnt a thing or two from the Irishman about actually trying to win over your audience rather than having to take it all in spite of your delivery. Unless, that is, you are the type of person that judges such delivery by the number of pretty but pointless slides that have been prepared for the occasion. In that case the woman was a genius because Mrs Peabody definitely had slides, lots of slides. Many of them even had very relatively elaborate diagrams and there was even some sparing use of clip-art here and there.

The room itself was fairly drab. It could have been any office building anywhere in the world. Although the dreary décor and choice of colours for the walls screamed government building to Helen. Her father had been a civil servant and she remembered spending many an afternoon playing with her colouring books in just such an office when being taken to visit her father at work. She couldn't recall why it was she spent enough time at her father's office that she remembered it so vividly.

The chairs were comfortable enough, which was probably a good thing given that Mrs Peabody was fast approaching her hundredth slide already.

Helen was definitely starting to pick up on the vibe that Tobias had not been the first choice for being sent to greet her. Every now and again Mrs Peabody would raise an eyebrow skeptically and comment on Tobias having been surprisingly efficient this time when Helen explained that she had already picked up on a topic and was ready to move on. Helen was also picking up on the vibe that Mrs Peabody suspected that Tobias' improved performance could be attributed to the fact that Helen was not an unattractive young lady.

Still Mrs Peabody did agree that Tobias had covered all the essentials and that Helen seemed to be be coping well with what she called the 'adjustment period'. Helen wasn't sure that she had any choice other than to cope, but she thanked the lady none the less and smiled and nodded as she felt was appropriate to indicate that she was still paying attention.

“See I told you I wasn't a total waste of space.” Tobias quipped as he came back into the room to deliver them both some more coffee, “Come on admit it Mrs P, I did the job textbook this morning didn't I?”

“Credit where credit is due young man,” Mrs Peabody nodded, “You didn't do too badly today at all. Far better than the last time you greeted that tall fellow, what was his name again?”

“Durden, Gary Durden,” sighed Tobias, “Will people ever let me live that one down?”

Mrs Peabody shook her head slowly, “I doubt it young man, I doubt it.”

“Who was Gary Durden?” asked Helen.

Tobias quickly interrupted just as Mrs Peabody looked like she was going to answer, “Absolutely no need to go into that now is there Mrs P. After all have to finish getting our new recruit here up to speed don't we?”

“I suppose we do, I am sure we can regale the young lady with your tales of ineptitude at a later date. We do have to get this done and get you set up now don't we Helen?”

“I don't know, I could spare the time to hear a tale of his ineptitude.” Helen smiled, and just for a moment she thought she saw a slight smile forming on Mrs Peabody's lips too but Tobias was quick to change the subject again.

“Come now ladies, no need to be picking on me. I am sure we need to be getting you set up in one of the apartments Helen. You must be wanting a shower about now, and I am fairly sure you will be wanting to get out of the hooker's attire for sure.”

As much as she was enjoying his obvious discomfort at having to dodge what was presumably an embarrassing story, he did have a point. She would definitely appreciate being able to get into some clean clothes after a nice long hot shower. “That would be nice actually. I am fairly sure I stink of things I don't remember doing, and didn't get to enjoy, in the first place.”

“You do a little dear yes.” Mrs Peabody confirmed quietly. Helen wasn't quite sure if she was being rude or just honest. These people seemed to have a slightly more blunt approach to things than she was used to. They didn't seem to have much time for political correctness. “But don't fret about it,” Mrs Peabody continued, “We have an apartment ready for you. The relocation team have already replaced your wardrobe as best as they could. It is waiting for you in the apartment when you get there.”

“What floor is she on?” Tobias asked

“Twenty second floor, a nice spot.” Mrs Peabody replied, “far higher than many new arrivals get. Not that there are many differences between the apartments but the view is certainly better once you are up that high.”

“Wait a second,” Helen interrupted, “what did you mean by replaced my wardrobe? And where exactly is this apartment?”

“In relation to your first question,” Mrs Peabody started to answer, “when we have people arrive we have some of the observation technicians look through the archive logs and see if they can ascertain what objects were in your possession before the timelines collided and left you disconnected. We find that it often helps the new arrivals to acclimatise if we can provide them with some familiar objects or clothes. So we try and provide as many of them as we can. After all, up until yesterday they all existed in this time-line as well. Now obviously some of the really personal objects are impossible, but we can usually get our hands on most things. Replacing the clothes is usually the easiest part.”

“What do you mean that some personal things are impossible?”

“Well, things like photographs for example. Now you never existed in this time-line so any pictures of you that did exist up until the collision were now never taken in the first place.”

For the first time since she had met Tobias on the steps of what used to be her apartment block Helen felt the urge to cry. She wasn't distraught or anything of the kind, and for some strange reason she felt like she really didn't want to let Tobias see her cry, but the idea that no-one else had any memories of her any more suddenly hit her. She could almost reconcile what was happening to her, but the thought that her parents didn't have a daughter or her best friend Amy presumably had a different best friend now, made her sad in a way she hadn't felt before. It was a very empty feeling and one she immediately decided she wanted to siphon off and keep firmly tucked away where it couldn't tug at her heartstrings.

She wasn't part of anyone else's memories any more. That was a fairly comprehensive way for the universe to write you out of life she thought. The fact that she still had those memories, but couldn't share them, was almost like being cruelly teased. Good memories were best shared, at least that is what she had always thought. She wondered if her friends and family had a better life now that she didn't exist. They would at least, she supposed, have very different lives for her absence. She could think of dozens of very stupid things that she had talked Amy out of down the years, she really hoped that whoever was Amy's best friend now had also been able to steer her away from some of those possible personal calamities.

Mrs Peabody had said that she couldn't contact her parents, or any of her friends as they wouldn't know her in any way, shape or form and would most likely conclude that she was some mad stalker. The thing was, that the time-lines were apparently close approximations of each other, and the people that existedin this reality, who now had no knowledge of her, would probably be fairly close to the people she had known during her previously ordinary life. So she would know some details of things, or be close enough, so as to genuinely really freak someone out if she approached them. Helen had to agree there are few scarier things than complete strangers who know things about you that they shouldn't. So it was all better off firmly repressed and ignored.

“Ok, but some of my other stuff is there? At this apartment?”

“Yes dear they are,” Mrs Peabody nodded, “the team try and find as many things as they can. Decorations and such, books, curtains, whatever they have gleamed from the archives. It isn't always a great deal, but something is better than nothing.”

“I'll be interested to see what they managed to get for me. This apartment though, what is the catch? Do I have to pay for it?”

“You are part of the company now dear, so you don't have to pay a penny. The company will cover everything for you while you are under our employ.”

“Wait just a second, I haven't agreed to anything yet. Who said I was going to work for you?”

“Of course you haven't decided yet dear,” Mrs Peabody assured her, “but we still extend that generosity to all new arrivals. You have the apartment at your disposal while you make up your mind about working for us or not.”

“Does anyone ever turn you down?”

“It has been known,” Mrs Peabody nodded, “but not all that common I would say.”

“There was one a few years ago,” Tobias added, “his name was George as I recall. It was all a bit much for him. He almost ran out of here screaming. He took to living as one of those mime artists in Covent Garden. You know the ones that pretend to be robots or statues and such. That way he doesn't have to talk to people, and people don't really talk to him. That is how he chose to deal with things.”

“Where does he live?”

“Hostels I think, the type of places he can pay for with the cash he earns from the tourists.”

“So if I decide I can't or won't work for you then I don't get to stay at your apartment place?”

“Correct,” Mrs Peabody confirmed sternly, “We aren't heartless, we will give you some time to make a decision, but a month at most. After that you have to start assignments for us or make your own way in the world.”

“What exactly would these assignments be?”

“We will go through that in more detail when you come back in the morning. I am sure you would rather get some rest and get out of that dress? Tomorrow we will do some short tests, aptitude type of tests, and see what kind of role in the organisation you are most suited to. For now though Mr Gordon here will get you set up with some supplies and show you to the apartments.”

“Supplies?”

“Just some essentials, think of it as a welcome gift from us to you,” Mrs Peabody smiled, “Mr Gordon will explain more. I'll look forward to seeing you again in the morning dear.” With that Mrs Peabody got up from the table and made her way to the door, “I am sure you will have a great career here ahead of you young lady. Bright types like you usually do well. Mr Gordon I trust you can see that she gets to the apartments without any difficulty?”

“That I can manage Mrs P.” Tobias grinned.

“Goodbye Mrs Peabody, I guess I will see you tomorrow?” Helen asked as Mrs Peabody opened the door and walked out into the corridor.

“That you will young lady. Have a pleasant evening. Bright and fresh tomorrow, I have a feeling you have potential. Let's hope we see some evidence of it in the testing.”

It struck Helen that, as far as she could recall, no one apart from her mother had ever suggested she had a bright future before. None of her previous bosses had used the words 'great career' or 'potential' anywhere near a sentence with her name in it. Unless it was going to be directly preceeded by the words 'she will never have'. She wasn't precisely sure what she might be being judged on here either. It wasn't as if these people had much to go on just yet. Maybe it was all relative, Helen thought to herself, and the fact that they already thought she has potential probably says more for the collection of clearly crazy people that must be working here. Maybe potential around here just equated to not running out of the building screaming and never returning, left to live through eternity as a mime in Covent Garden. Still, she mused to herself, it was nice to get a compliment. She could get used to being seen as having potential.

Rolling along nicely so far...

Tonight was spent doing a little editing and correcting a few obvious errors in the text so far in addition to finishing off Chapter Four...I did promise myself I wouldn't do too much of the editing and correcting before it was all done, but with me posting my progress there were just some things I had to tweak as silly mistakes always annoy me! Nicely ahead on the word count so far so even building up some slack for the almost inevitable wall that will come at some stage during the month. A good start is always welcome! Hope you have been enjoying the tale so far..I am having to resist the temptation to jump ahead and write scenes I really want to get into that I know are coming up but am trying to be disciplined and make sure I finish the chapters in sequence.

FATE Inc Chapter Four - 42 Bloomsbury Way

It certainly didn’t look like it should be the offices of an organisation proclaiming to control the fate of the universe itself, although Helen wasn’t exactly sure what she would have expected the headquarters of such an organisation to look like. If you had asked her though, she was fairly sure that she wouldn’t have suggested that the entrance to such a building would be a set of rather plain looking clean glass doubles doors, that looked to be freshly cleaned and polished almost to a sparkle that seemed at odds with the rather overcast weather. Next door seemed to be a fairly run of the mill off-license on one side and a small sandwich bar on the other that looked like it had experienced better days. If it took a lot of people to run the universe and organise fate itself and if a lot of those people worked at this office they seemingly didn't buy that many sandwiches.

The building could have been almost any office block on almost any street within central London. It wasn't hidden or trying to hide behind some kind of 'front', it was just there for all to see. It even proclaimed, in a neatly printed white vinyl sign with stark black letters, ‘F.A.T.E Incorporated’. There looked like there was an intercom too, and some kind of access system, the type of things you would see at the door to any regular, average office building.

“People generally just presume we are a posh media company or something equally pretentious” Tobias shrugged noting the look on Helen’s face, “haven’t seen anyone ask what we do, ever, the local pizza place even delivers.”

“Hiding in plain sight or something like that?”

“Pretty much,” the Irishman smiled, “not that we wouldn’t know if someone was on to us.”

He reached into his pocket and produced a little plastic swipe card that would have passed neatly through the security device at the side of the door if it wasn't for the small chunk of chewed gum attached to the side of the card that it had picked up in his pocket. Tobias muttered to himself in what Helen presumed was actually Irish and irritatedly flicked the gum off with his index finger so he could use the card, allowing him to open the doors and usher her in. It struck Helen that it was possibly the first time she had actually heard someone speak Irish, apart perhaps from in a movie, she knew a few people who were Irish, or claimed to be, but she had never actually heard them speak their own language.

“Ladies first”

A short non-descript corridor led to an elevator. Apart from a couple of potted plants flanking the elevator doors there was not much else to distinguish the entrance from any other office entrance Helen cared to remember. For some reason she was still expecting something more elaborate. She wasn't sure how it was supposed to be elaborate but it wasn't supposed to be so ordinary looking. For some reason she was slightly disappointed that everything seemed, at least at first glance, to be normal. She expected a mysterious organisation that secretly plotted the evolution of man to be a little bit more, well, mysterious.

It wasn’t that she was worried, which surprised her slightly, given that she was walking past a set of doors that had just locked behind them in the company of a genuinely weird stranger into a building whose residents she didn’t have the first clue about. For some reason though, and as much as she was trying to fight it with rational thought, she was beginning to get a most peculiar feeling that she was supposed to be here. It wasn’t anything she could put her finger on exactly, but as they passed a second set of finely polished wooden doors and along another immaculately kept white walled corridor Helen couldn’t help shake the strange feeling that she didn’t have anything to fear...which she thought was patently ridiculous given the circumstances.

The corridor opened out into a wide circular reception area with a large window that looked down onto the street below, a wide arcing white desk sat at the far end of the room and a pretty young girl, who at least looked to be in her early twenties smiled sweetly at Tobias as he greeted her and ushered Helen towards the large leather seats that ran along the wall under the windows.

“This the new recruit?” The blond girl asked returning Tobias’ smile.

“Yup, one in the same, expect old Drewer is expecting us.”

“He is, just sign here,” the receptionist confirmed sliding a black plastic clipboard across the desk, “Why were you picking her up? Not often we see you here apart from Fridays.” Helen wondered what was so special about Fridays.

“No idea,” Tobias shrugged, “they don’t tell me, you know me, just get on and do what they ask of me, a willing servant and all that. Are they ready for us now?”

“Not quite yet, Drewer called some extra meetings this morning. He said you should just wait in the operations area for him to be ready.”

“Hold on a second, did you just say that Drewer called extra meetings?” Tobias said looking more than a little bemused, “like as in unscheduled, unexpected meetings? Mr Drewer called an unexpected meeting?” he repeated the sentence as if the words didn't go together in his mind.

“I know,” the receptionist replied, almost lowering her tone to a whisper and leaning towards Tobias, “took everyone by surprise, first time in thirty years, they say something must have happened this morning.”

“Interesting, guess it’s above our pay grade to know what it is.”

“Everyone is talking about it, caused quite a stir, but if anyone has been told yet they aren’t saying, its just been the higher ups that have been in there so far, apparently even Nixon was there. I saw Jenkins rushing about as well.”

“and that is never a pretty sight” Tobias quipped drawing a smile from the receptionist.

As the pair continued to chat Helen watched the people that passed by, presumably other members of staff since they didn’t stop at the desk and simply used their cards to pass through the large black door behind the reception. No one seemed to give her a second glance despite her current state. She could only suppose that having a clearly bedraggled and slightly dubiously dressed young woman sitting in their reception wasn’t out of the ordinary, or maybe she wondered if it wasn’t out of the ordinary for clearly bedraggled and slightly dubiously dressed young women to be with Tobias.

He struck her as the type who might work a certain rugged charm.

Everyone she had seen so far looked normal enough though, aside from a few out of style haircuts and one man whose fashion sense was apparently wedged firmly in 1970-something.

Tobias came back and sat down beside her, “They asked we wait here a little, hope you don’t mind, some meeting of the bigwigs apparently.”

“Guess I don’t have much of a choice but to wait now do I?”

Tobias smiled, “Very true, very true.”

“How many people work here?” Helen asked figuring she may as well make polite conversation while she waited to learn exactly how her life had been turned upside down in the space of a few hours.

“At this office? I am not sure to be honest,” Tobias answered obviously trying to think, “a few hundred maybe, I think there are around three or four thousand of us in all, not counting the seers.”

“The seers? Those are the ones with the power I presume.”

Tobias nodded, “They call it ‘The Vision’ but yes, that’s the seers”

“Do they work here?”

“Here? No, no one but the higher ups know where they are, rumours are its some secluded monastery in Italy or something, hides a hi-tech network hub, all the information the seers provide gets computerised now so the brains here get it instantly.”

“So how do you know they actually exist?”

“Heh, a frequent doubters question,” Tobias grinned, “well strictly speaking I guess I can’t say that I do know for sure, but what I do know is that the predictions, wherever they might come from are accurate. So does it really matter if it’s a person, a machine or a goat that provides them?”

“A goat?” Helen laughed out loud enough for the receptionist to look up and smile at her.

“I just always found the thought of all this universal truth crap coming from some random farm animal amusing.” Tobias explained, the grin on his face widening.

Just then a group of a dozen or so young men and women bustled down the corridor, busily chatting to each other and rustling the papers and notepads that were wedged under their arms or carried neatly by their sides. One of them was speaking into a rather old looking dictaphone that was probably fashionable sometime in the 1980s. Another who looked to be in his seventies tapped furiously on an iPhone. The last member of the group was straggling a little behind on account of the fact she was carrying an old typewriter in her arms. No one else seemed to show any sign of thinking that carrying a typewriter around might be a strange thing to do in a modern office.

“That’s the morning horoscope meeting breaking up,” Tobias explained, “happens every morning, they plan the damn things out a few months in advance, far too much effort for my liking.”

“Horoscopes?”

“Yeah, natural outlet for our creative types, think we employ half the horoscope writers in the world at last count. It’s by far the most cost effective manner of manipulating the type of people that believe in that stuff. People are much more open to suggestion if they believe its ‘written in the stars’ as it were” Tobias winked

“So you write what you want to happen?”

“Well no, pretty hard to be that specific, its not as if we want everyone going off doing stuff they might not otherwise. Look at it this way, if we need someone to pay attention to a total stranger for some reason they are much more likely to stop if they have read their horoscope and it said something like ‘a stranger will bring joyous tidings’, its just playing on peoples hopes and fears I guess”

“Does it work?”

Tobias shrugged, “The suits upstairs tell us that it does, they always like to present these little pie charts and the like with titles like ‘percentage horoscope efficiency’ and stuff like that. I have absolutely no idea how they come up with the numbers though, maybe they make them up to make us feel more efficient and motivated.”

Helen couldn't help but pick up on the sarcasm with which the Irishman delivered the line. “I imagine keeping immortals motivated in the long term can be quite a task.”

“Funny,” Tobias grinned, “hadn’t ever thought of it that way, personally I’m happy with the beer on Friday they buy for us, then again I am a fairly simple guy.”

“Beer on a Friday?”

“Company perk, once a week they go out and fill the fridge in the recreation room with beer, one of them big American fridges too, you know the type, all metallic and shiny like you only used to see on American sit-coms, I love that thing. It even has the ice machine on the front, that's cool.”

Helen smiled, “So that’s what the receptionist meant when she said they don’t often see you apart from Fridays.”

Tobias nodded, “I am a creature of habit and drinking is one of my more consistent habits.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“It's in the Irish blood, all those years of stereotypes do have their roots in some fundamental truths you know.”

“Can I ask you a personal question Tobias?”

“That depends what the question is really. You are free enough to ask, can't guarantee I'll answer.” Tobias chuckled, “have to maintain some of the air of mystery don't I?”

“You said we were both immortal right?”

The Irishman nodded slowly, “That I did indeed.”

“So how old are you exactly?”

“Now there is a question,” Tobias smiled, “To be honest I don't know exactly. Give or take a couple of years I am about one hundred and sixty years old. They weren't so big on birth certificates back in rural Ireland in those days so I don't actually know my birthday.”

“So when do you celebrate it? Or do you stop celebrating your birthdays after that many years?”

“Stop celebrating? You did get the bit about me liking a drink didn't you? I will always celebrate. Don't laugh, but I took to celebrating it on St Patrick's Day. A bit of a cliché I know, but for the longest time I was the only Irishman in this office so it kind of made sense that the paddy's birthday would on good old Saint Paddy's day.”

“So you are actually originally from Ireland then?”

“That I am,” he answered, “managed to stowaway on a grain boat and get my sorry arse to England during the great famine.”

"So to ask a personal question again," Helen continued, "when and how did you end up working here?"

“To be honest, that is kind of fuzzy for me too. I don't exactly know, I think it happened at some point in the months after I arrived in Liverpool sometime in the winter of eighteen fifty-one. Since I didn't have any real anchor in the world I didn't know anyone was missing me for quite a while.”

“What do you mean? How could you miss the fact that you had vanished from the world and no-one knew you?”

Tobias grinned, “Well I wasn't as popular back then. Truth be told I was completely unknown, new to the country let alone the city. I had no friends and I was living on the street so didn't even have a landlord to be chasing me for rent. So I don't actually know when it happened precisely.”

“How did you find out?”

“I bumped into a lass from Leeds that I had kind of had a tumble or two with a few months before at one of the poor houses I dossed in for a while. When she didn't know me from Adam I knew something was up.”

“You mean you met a girl you had slept with before and she didn't give you the time of day? That is what told you there was a problem?” Helen smirked.

“Don't give me that look,” Tobias laughed, “That had never happened to me before, pretty sure that it hasn't happened again since either if you must know. I am a fairly memorable type in that regard even if I do say so myself. So yes, that little encounter did tell me that something was up. I had no idea what exactly was happening though.”

“So how did you end up here?”

“They came and found me. It wasn't like it is now of course. When a seer managed to locate a new arrival back in those days it could take days, weeks or months for them to get an operative out to meet up with you. They didn't even have a London office in those days so they ended up sending a guy from Belgium of all places to fetch me. I was actually one of the first people to work in this office when they founded it not long after.”

“This office has been here since then?”

“Pretty much,” Tobias explained, “apart from a brief period during the blitz where we had to evacuate out the city, we have been here the whole time. It's a good location, nice and central.”

“I would have thought people like you would have been able to prevent any bombs landing on you during the war. Controlling fate and all that, doesn't that have some perks?”

“One, I never said we controlled fate, we just influence it,” Tobias explained waving a finger in Helen's direction, “two, war brings with it chaos. War is one of those wild cards, apparently conflict generates way more variables than normal, and involves far more personal timelines interacting on a daily basis. It is far harder for them to see things properly in a war of that scale. At least that is what they say.”

“I see, did you get to stay somewhere nice outside the city during the war then?”

“Small place called Bletchley Park,” Tobias grinned, “you might have heard of it.”

“Isn't that where they broke the codes and such?”

“Exactly, there were some really interesting people there I tell you. First time some of ours had to marvel at the ingenuity of the regular genius types. In a weird way I actually enjoyed those years, even if I did miss the old city.”

“It must be interesting getting to witness so much history.” Hearing Tobias talk was starting to make Helen consider the possibility that this whole situation might not be as bad as she first feared. Providing she was willing to accept that she must be crazy to be accepting all this in the first place.

“It can be I suppose, I don't really think of it that way. It can get boring too though, I tell you some decades can drag. I thought the damn nineteen seventies were never going to bloody end.”

Before Tobias could elaborate any further the receptionist called him over and said that Mr Drewer was going to be busy today, so they should report to Mrs Peabody who was going to do what they called the 'debriefing', that they asked all new arrivals to do. Helen figured she may as well play along and see what happened.

FATE Inc Chapter three - Morning Meeting

Mr Drewer was beginning to dislike this day more and more.

There were few things that irritated him more than the unexpected but one of them was when the unexpected made people anxious. Anxiety was rarely productive in his experience. Anxious people were generally irritable, annoying and worst of all stopped making rational, reasoned decisions and started being emotional. Mr Drewer much preferred it if anxiety could be avoided completely.

Unfortunately for Mr Drewer there was certainly a lot of anxiety to be found in the control room at this precise moment in time. Mostly it was almost visibly emanating from the poor central observation technician that had three of the company's most senior managers pacing around him and asking him lots of questions he generally didn't seem to have any answers for. Well, to be precise one of them was pacing, but Malcom Jenkins, the companys most senior observer, was pacing with more than enough ferocity to more than make up for that Mr Drewer was quite comfortable standing calmly at the back of the room.

It didn't help that Jenkins was not the smallest of gentleman in girth and a man of his stature pacing ferociously made for an amount of sweat, and with it body odour, that just reminded Mr Drewer of another good reason for anxiety being best avoided.

The manilla folder and the unexpected new arrival this morning had been just the start of things that Mr Drewer was going to have to tolerate today. No sooner had he dispatched Tobias Gordon to intercept the new arrival than he had received several phone calls from a very anxious observation department informing him that there was something going on that he should probably be aware of. That as it turned out was an understatement, a rather serious one, and it wasn't just something that he needed to be aware of, it was something that Jenkins most definitely needed to be aware of as well, and Mr Drewer had thought it prudent to involve Mr Nixon as well, the companys head of security. So now the three of them had left their secretaries hastily cancelling their meetings and clearing their schedules while they had made their way down to the control room to try and get the details of what had actually happened.

It wasn't so much that the three of them didn't understand what they were being told. They were all experienced and would be the type of employee that would generally be referred to as having been 'around the block' more than a couple of times. It was more that what they were being told didn't make any sense. It was one of those situations where what was happening shouldn't have been possible but clearly was happening. It couldn't be denied, had been checked, double checked and triple checked and was most definitely not an error or a false positive. It had happened. It just shouldn't have been possible.

Mr Drewer felt it was his responsibility to try and focus people. There must be something they were missing here. Things like this don't just happen. People is his line of work know full well that nothing actually just happens any more. The universe may have its own ebb and flow but for centuries now there have been people pulling at the strings, they didn't always know what they were doing, or what the results would be, but they were there pulling and poking. Whatever had happened in the hours between him leaving the office the night before and this morning had probably not just happened.

He had asked the observation technician, who clearly wished this hadn't happened on his shift, to explain again slowly.

“It's like it all just started to unravel sir,” explained the technician, whose name was Tim Watkins and according to the personnel report Mr Drewer had retrieved from the system before starting the meeting was a pretty normal member of staff, as normal as any of them were at any rate, “It started out slow at first. The night shift noted some slight variations in the far fringes of the possibility map. Nothing that we hadn't seen before, at least that's what we figured to start with, just some minor adaptations in some of the more obscure time-lines, but it accelerated.”

“and now the central timeline actually ends again?” Mr Drewer asked, repeating the question he had asked several times over the last ten minutes hoping someone had made a mistake.

“Yes sir, within an hour it went from extending out beyond our longest perception projections as it has been for years and then suddenly it was just ending. You could actually see the graphs moving on the main display. It was like the timeline was just shrinking, some kind of cascade effect. All the surrounding lines started retracting first, and some even completely collapsed, then before we had even had a chance to confirm those periphery retractions the central timeline started to collapse.”

Mr Drewer stroked his chin pensively, “how is that even possible?”

“Just what I wanted to know, exactly what I wanted to know” Jenkins interrupted, clearly exasperated, “this is beyond any tampering that I have ever seen. I mean how long did it take us to prepare the big twist in eighty-nine?”

“Two years, nine months, two weeks, four days and about three hours, give or take six minutes.” Mr Drewer answered almost instinctively in a way that clearly made the others in the room uncomfortable, “and two hundred and sixteen field operatives.” he added for good measure.

“Your precision scares me sometimes Drewer,” Jenkins muttered, “but that is exactly my point. Even if the opposition somehow managed to pull off a major coup, I have never, ever, in over a hundred years serving as chief observer, or in any of the records going back to the formation of the company, seen anything like this. We know what it takes to shift the timelines even a little, months of work, lots of time, resources and operatives and at best that usually only gives us a chance of moving things in the direction we wanted. Watkins how is this possible?”

Watkins didn't seem to be sure whether he was actually supposed to answer that since it was clear none of them knew. “We honestly don't know sir. I have checked over the data several times.” he said stammering a little, still clearly nervous, “This has been confirmed by all the regular cross processing rules. I even ran it past three of the old mystics just to be sure and they all show the same thing.”

“We have never seen a timeline ending this early either,” Jenkins interrupted again, still pacing backwards and forwards behind poor Watkins, “I mean the timeline ending this year? That is plain insanity, the earliest date we have ever seen before this morning was in 2248, and even that I am not sure was an accurate reading. I mean we all know 2252, and the importance there, but we have managed to keep that at bay for two decades now. Did you check the corollary data Watkins?”

“Ye sir we did.” Watkins answered quickly, “twice actually, just to be sure.”

Jenkins seemed to pick up his pace, “We need to control this, I presume we have this information under lock-down.”

“Of course sir. Procedures were followed to the letter, as soon as I was aware of the scale I called you all immediately. The readings aren't made available till after processing anyway as you know, so this hasn't reached beyond the actual seers themselves and the senior observer on shift, Leah James last night, and me on this morning. I gave the processors the emergency cover data as instructed by security protocols, so the rest of the company should be in the dark.”

“I presume your people have confirmed the same thing as the observers Mr Nixon?” Mr Drewer inquired, looking toward the head of security on the other side of the room, who had so far just listened and remained silent.

Mr Drewer respected Mr Nixon immensely, he was not one given to panic or anxiety, something he personally thought was essential for someone who looked after the company's security. He was aware that many people considered Mr Nixon to be someone that any normal person, even immortal people, should be well within their rights to be scared by and afraid of. Not just because of what he did, but also because at six foot four he was an imposing and very well built man. The type of man you immediately presumed knew several ways to kill you with his bare hands. He also had the most startling eyes. Even Mr Drewer had to admit that Mr Nixon's eyes could easily unsettle you. Maybe it was just the jarring nature of seeing a tall Indian gentleman with sky blue eyes, something you just weren't used to seeing, but they weren't just blue, they were the most startling, piercing and unnerving sky blue you could possibly imagine. The kind of eyes that in this day and age you might have presumed were a result of the person wearing some of those fake contact lens, only if in this case his eyes had been like that since the time of the crusades by all accounts.

“Yes we confirmed it as well,” Mr Nixon replied. He actually preferred to be referred to as just Nixon, but had given up trying to get Mr Drewer to drop the mister some time ago, “It does indeed seem like like this was some kind of sudden event, we had no inkling something was up. All the usual channels were as normal security wise, we haven't even heard a peep out of any of our contacts. No street chatter, even the carnival folk weren't twitchy before this morning.”

“Nothing at all? I don't like nothing, don't like the sound of that at all,” Jenkins muttered, “do you think this could be sabotage? Could they have done this?”

Nixon shook his head slowly, “I doubt it, to me this seems like some kind of freak paradox or naturally occurring time shift, it's not without precedent. I want to have some of my guys look through the patterns first before I make any judgements, but we might be dealing with something the universe has decided to throw at us.”

“You don't suspect anything at all?”

“Not from the opposition anyway. If anything the early reports I am getting show a distinct lack of activity there. If this was some kind of mass manipulation attempt they would have needed to mobilise a lot of operatives or agents and I just haven't seen any evidence of that.”

“That's if you people are doing your jobs right.” Jenkins snapped to a sudden silence in the room. Poor Tim Watkins was seemingly very uncomfortable at the thought of being caught in a managerial crossfire, particularly if Nixon was involved.

Nixon though just laughed quietly and smiled, “Now you are just being ornery my friend. There is absolutely no need for us to lose our tempers and throw about blame. As I see it there is no blame to allocate here yet.”

“Precisely,” Mr Drewer echoed, “Malcolm please do try and calm down. However we do need to try and ascertain exactly what we are dealing with. I for one have no intention of seeing the world come to an end on my shift. Besides I have a holiday booked in the Seychelles for January and it would be most inconvenient if the world came to an end before we even get to Christmas.”

FATE Inc Chapter Two - Cappuccino and Quantum Physics

Helen had sat there and listened for over an hour as Tobias explained what exactly had happened to her and how exactly they came to be there sitting across from each other and how exactly he knew all of this information in the first place. She was hearing the words he was saying in between the sips of his cappuccino alright, but she wasn’t quite taking it all in. As he finished trying to explain things for the second time she looked at him blankly again, something she had been doing rather a lot of since they had sat down at the coffee house.

It was one of those places that probably wanted you to consider it trendy and an attractive place to get your caffeine intake but you knew full well there was most likely another half dozen of them with slightly different yet almost identical styling within walking distance. A dishevelled looking tramp and a slightly bewildered, possibly hungover, but not unattractive brunette who might just still be wearing the same clothes she went out in the night before made for the most peculiar of breakfast partners. What the strange Irishman had been trying to explain to her was something far stranger then any of the theories about why they might be sat there together that had been forming in the minds of the other customers of the coffee house.

“So let me get this straight,” she interrupted him in full flow. “when you say that I don't really exist any more you don't mean that I might be dead, I'm just not alive?”

“Exactly, not dead, think of it more as being ‘misplaced’ by the universe. Let me explain again, did you understand what I explained about how time works and the parallel theory?”

Helen shook her head slowly, “not exactly no.” Which wasn’t entirely true, she was beginning to grasp what he had been trying to explain, even if she found it unbelievable, going over it for a third time wasn’t going to hurt.

“Ok, let me break it down again slowly. Every choice every person makes has a number of possible outcomes yes? When your alarm clock goes off any given morning you could get out of bed there and then or you have the choice to lie in, keep sleeping and not go to work. That choice would mean that your day will play out in a very different way. Your life might even be very different, imagine you got fired for sleeping in for example, what you have is two or more very different scenarios of what might happen as a consequence of your decision.”

Helen nodded. “That much I can keep up with.”

“Good. Well, you see some freak, and they don’t tell front line guys like me the actual how of this bit so I don't know the details, figured out that it was possible to predict all these outcomes and with sufficient time and inclination you could, well, predict the future, or at least see all the possible futures as parallel time lines, as it were, that branch out from each and every decision. You getting this?”

“I think so.”

“Fine, now the problem with that is that there is quickly an incalculable number of possible futures with so many things interacting, there isn’t even a number big enough to describe the possible outcomes. In fact anyone who did have this ability was actually stark raving mad, they went insane with the amount of insight they got into all the possible futures. They had a really hard time telling which was the actual reality they lived in.”

“but someone did figure out a way?”

“Bingo! Now you're getting it. You see they discovered two things, firstly that it was possible to predict the most likely of these multiple futures but that these futures changed so quickly that the calculations changed almost every damn second.”

“Wouldn’t that make it impossible then?”

Tobias nodded, “if we were all normal yes it would be impossible, but not everyone is normal. Turned out that certain people through the course of history found they had a natural ability to not only comprehend these possibilities, but to predict them to a degree and not to be driven mad by the visions. They could switch it on and off as it were.”

“so they are kind of like fortune tellers?”

Tobias laughed out loud, “nah, those hacks? Those hacks are pure wannabes mostly, with one or two exceptions but that's not the point here.”

“Alternate futures and predicting the future I can just about wrap my head around,” Helen said sighing, “but what the hell happened to me this morning!”

“Yes, that’s the bit people always struggle with,” the tramp nodded, “what happens, in so far as I can ever get my head around it, is that from time to time all these possible futures reach a point, a paradox, they kind of collide and the timelines get themselves all ‘confused’ as it were. When that happens, something, or in your case, someone, can fall through the cracks.”

“Fall through the cracks?”

“Yeah, goes missing, drops out of the reality it is supposed to be in, and ends up stuck between them all. So things might end up in the right reality, this reality, but things have changed and what was might not be anymore. When the possible futures meet things can end up in the wrong timeline or disconnected from any timeline.”

“Disconnected? What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Well usually its just a pen or a pair of socks, something that isn't really missed or it's loss is dismissed as accidental. Now obviously sometimes, very rarely it’s something more substantial, something like you, or me.”

“Socks?” Helen said sceptically, “you are comparing me with socks?”

“No, but where do you think all those odd socks go to? Don’t just vanish into thin air you know.”

Helen chuckled softly, the Irishman had a certain rough charm to his words, an honesty that was somehow reassuring in as much as anything could be reassuring under the circumstances.

“Look what happened was that you got removed from history because our future, the real future, collided with another possible future where previous events meant you never existed, but obviously you did, thus you end up here in limbo. Alive and well, but with no past and no future, at least not in the real future”

“The real future?” Helen asked confused, “how the hell do you know which is the ‘real’ future if there are all these limitless possibilities?” She suddenly felt like she was getting into this, she wasn’t sure why but something was clicking.

“Now your thinking like us Helen, that’s good. To be honest I’m kinda fuzzy on this bit.”

“Fuzzy?” Helen raised an eyebrow, something told her that explaining this wasn't something that the Irishman was used to.

“Don’t give me that look, I just do the leg work, the guys upstairs are the brains,” he scowled, “Anyways it turns out that they realised that there was one true time thread carrying on through all the chaos and all the other possible alternate timelines were just ‘ghosts’ indicators of what might be., but they came across a problem…”

“What kind of a problem?”

“Well, it all ended, there came a point, would have been around the year 2252 by all accounts, that the world would just have ceased to exist, all the alternates time lines stopped with the end of the this one time line, the real timeline. So they realised that if they could change that one true timeline they might be able to avoid this end and sure enough with a little tinkering the true timeline is now running into infinity. It’s our jobs to keep it that way.”

“Stop!” Helen sighed grabbing a cigarette and lighting it up anxiously, “you’re crazy.”

“Maybe, but being immortal has that effect,” he smiled.

“That’s not funny, how can you be immortal?”

“You are too now,” he reminded her, “you are still here in flesh and blood, because well, you existed in the true timeline up to this point, but now you don’t because the true timeline was infected by another one and viola, limbo, you exist but you don’t. No-one knows who you are, and time doesn't recognise you any more to find the time to organise your death.”

“You mean I can't die now?”

“Well, I exaggerated a little there, you can actually die in the right circumstances, not sure what all the conditions are, but you can't be reckless and think walking in front of a bus won't hurt because it very much will. You still feel pain, just not in the same way and being disjointed has some other side-effects.”

“Side effects?”

“Not the time to be going into those,” Tobias muttered waving his hand randomly, “what we really need to get down to is whether or not you accept all this?”

“I’m not exactly sure what it is I am supposed to accepting.”

“The job, to work for FATE Incorporated and do your bit.”

Helen nodded, although she wasn’t sure why, none of this made much sense at all and she was fairly sure she’d wake up any minute now. She closed her eyes hoping to open them to find herself back in her nice pine floored bedroom.

No luck, just the bedraggled Irishman making shapes in his cappuccino froth with a fork.

Helen sighed, “FATE incorporated? Fate is a business now?”

“For want of a better word yes, I guess it is. Not into profit or anything like that though, our only mandate is the survival of the one true timeline.”

“You do realise how crazy this all sounds don’t you?”

“Totally, newcomers always have trouble adjusting, perfectly understandable given the circumstances. It was worse before people had episodes of Star Trek as reference to even prepare them for the possibility of shit like this” Tobias grinned, “you try explaining time and space mechanics to a seventeenth century farmer and then you’d understand, hell at least people these days comprehend the possibility” Helen couldn’t shake the feeling the wiry Irishman was somehow enjoying her obvious discomfort at the situation.

“Look,” he went on, “another hour, let me take you to the office, you can see your own file, realise that I’m not stark raving mad, and we get a move on.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“It is, you don’t really have a choice, unless you particularly like being homeless, penniless and having no identification. Your options are pretty slim I’d say. Although…” he paused, looking her up and down, “I could put you in touch with a decent pimp in King’s Cross if you’d rather.”

Helen coughed and threw him the kind of look that could stop a charging bull at ten paces.

“Just joking,” Tobias smiled raising his arms in mock surrender, “they are always telling me I need to improve my people skills.”

“Whoever they are, they are not wrong.” She retorted, “This has to be a crazy dream.”

Tobias laughed, “There isn’t a substance still around strong enough to induce shit like this now is there? Opium had quite a kick to it back in the day, but…” he trailed off almost wistfully

Helen slumped back and tried to compose herself, suddenly conscious of the fact she was still wearing her rather more revealing than is appropriate for breakfast clubbing clothes. She tried to comprehend why she was even listening to this bizarre Irishman, let alone allowing herself to believe that he might just be telling her the truth. If this was happening to someone else she’d probably have found it funny, she was a little warped like that. She almost smiled thinking about it like that, this would be a great prank to play on someone if it weren't for the whole waking up in a totally different world to the one you went to sleep in thing.

“Did my friends put you up to this?” she asked suddenly

Tobias just shook his head slowly, “listen, you can’t rationalise what just happened to you, no matter how hard you try. I understand that. Thinking it is a prank, even an elaborate one is a pretty common reaction amongst you newcomers. Come on though Helen, how would anyone have gotten you into bed with your ex, changed your locks and changed your phone? And do you really think they would have managed to convince old Misses Hudson next door to play along?”

“No, I suppose not.” Helen said, sighing deeply again and letting her head sink into her arms in front of her on the table.

“Listen, how about this? Come with me, see the office, then if you still don’t believe me you can walk away.”

“I need to go powder my nose” She said getting up quickly.

“At this hour of the morning….oh wait, that’s a polite way of saying you need a piss isn’t it…sure, we have all the time in the world.”

Helen made her way through the café to the toilets at the back, all the other patrons looked normal enough, the black cabs and couriers fighting each other for space on the road outside looked normal enough and an hour’s worth of coffees were fast convincing her that if this were a dream she’d have woken up quite a while ago.

She sighed again; the signs weren’t good at all. She glanced back at the table and Tobias grinned back at her. Whilst she didn’t buy all this ‘fate’ crap she didn’t see she had many options open. It wasn’t the first conclusion she would have reached for to explain the morning’s events but it was all she had to go on. Hangovers didn't get this bad, she was fairly sure she hadn't gone crazy, and for all the insanity of the words she heard coming out of his mouth, something told her that this Tobias character wasn't some kind of talented con man. In fact she had a strange feeling that lying wasn't one of his strengths at all. There was nothing else for it, once she had relieved herself of the other effects of having four big mugs of cappuccino already she may as well go and see what this office was he was talking about...

Welcome to my little experiment!

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!)

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.