The Misplaced Man: Who is in charge of his destiny?

by Nick James

  My legs creaked as I stood up. Age was creeping up on me. ‘I know you won’t. Now, let’s get to work, shall we?’ I shook his sweaty hand. Nervous much? I thought. ‘I’ll be checking your work weekly, so don’t worry if you see me accessing your system.’

  ‘Okay, Mike, and thank you again.’ Sam headed through the door, leaving another sodding paw print on it.

  I slumped down into my chair. This time it wasn’t tiredness, it was euphoria. Plans seemed to be falling into place. They would still be watching, but maybe not as closely. All I had to do was get my life together and pretend to be the perfect employee again.

  My phone buzzed. I groaned when I saw the name on the text. Behaving myself was going to be hard.

  Oi Peanut, Suzie is cooking. A night of food, drink and some drug raid booty, Tiger.

  Ah, well, I’ll change tomorrow. Tonight’s for fun.

  Chapter 13

  Stuart Goddard

  One little mistake, but do they let me forget it? So, I forgot to make an appointment. How did I know the Chinese bitch would get all shitty and involve her lawyers and the bloody Chinese embassy? Let the piss-take begin. It was funny for the first day, but now I was getting fucked off with it.

  First day back, what do I find? A half-eaten egg fried rice in my desk drawer. Also, some git had signed me up for Chinese lessons. Finally, and everyday so far, I found a Chinese takeout menu on my desk. I may have to kill Sam Blades.

  With that simple error my career had taken a step back, but there was a rumour that Blades was on the fast track and being given the chance to shine. I changed my mind; I would kill him.

  On the plus side, old Jones asked me to monitor the golden boy’s Internet usage and flow of emails. I thought it would be fun at first, but all he seemed to do was surf eighties music and film trivia, and email his bitch of a girlfriend or his mother who appeared to be living out of a suitcase all over the world.

  Although, on the first day back after the Christmas break, he did try to sign up his work colleague Dwayne Hicks to join the United States Marine Corps, but he was refused due to his age and not being a US citizen. Also, he sent away for brochures on UFO sighting tours for his team leader. I started to think he could be mental.

  I will find something to pin on him, and then I’ll kill him, I thought, chuckling to myself.

  Chapter 14

  Sam Blades

  6:00 p.m.

  It’s official, I am fucking pumped. Four months in the job, I’m already on the promotion ladder. Well, that’s what my boss, Richard, said. He couldn’t be wrong; he killed fucking Jaws. The files were all tucked away in my backpack along with a USB with some other information.

  I’m so happy that even the musical-raping busker can’t hurt me, the excitement is building as I sing away to ‘Smooth Criminal’. As the beat pulsed through my body and with a smile permanently on my face, I decided to scream, ‘Who's ya fucking daddy!’ I looked around and saw a few tears from kids playing in the garden of the orphanage. ‘Fuck, sorry, kids.’ Then I saw one of the little shits flip me off, but even that slight faux pas couldn’t change my mood.

  I was taken to my floor by the now kebab-smelling lift, which was banging out the good old Thompson Twins who wanted me ‘to hold them’, and they meant now. I boogied all the way to my flat door and entered like the stud I am, and there was my beautiful girlfriend already home.

  ‘Bunny!’ I called out, which made her frown at me. ‘Bow down, mortal, for your Lord and Master is home.’

  She placed her hands on her lovely hips and frowned even more. ‘Are you off your meds? What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Bunny barked back.

  As you can tell, we don’t have a swear jar in our home.

  ‘I, my love, have been given a special project for the coming year. If I can do it, then promotion calls,’ I explained with a smile.

  One of her beautifully sculpted eyebrows shot up, which was the physical cue that she thought I was spouting bullshit…again.

  ‘Okay, Sam, I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but you make a cup of tea for us while I open the windows to let the smell of bullshit out,’ she said mockingly.

  Women, so untrusting, I thought and started to make some tea. You lie to them forty or fifty times and they hold it against you. ‘Nope, it’s true, the “walking brewery” told me. He’s given me some of the celebrity accounts to look after.’

  A smile appeared on her doll-like face. With Bunny, a smile could mean many things – from happiness to the possibility of waking up without any balls. Made life exciting, yet painful.

  She walked towards me like a lioness across the Savannah Desert. ‘Really, celebrities?’

  ‘Yep, I’m on the up, baby,’ I bragged with a cheeky wink.

  She ran a nail down my chest. ‘Which celebrities?’

  I placed a kiss on her forehead. ‘Now, my love, that would be telling. As an employee of Shimmering Dreams, I cannot divulge such information,’ I replied smugly before handing her a hot cup of tea, hoping it wouldn’t end up over me.

  ‘Oh, Sammy, you can tell little ol’ me. Who am I going to tell?’ she asked coyly and let her nails play with the chest hair between the buttons on my shirt.

  I shrugged. ‘Sorry, Toots, work secrets.’ I skipped off towards my darling sofa.

  ‘You will tell me,’ Bunny replied with a knowing smile. ‘I guarantee it.’

  I laughed. ‘Not a chance. I will take these secrets to my grave.’ When I finished my sentence, I realised that maybe this wasn’t the best thing to say to her.

  ‘That might be the case, but, Sammy, I bet by Sunday night your secrets will be my secrets too,’ she predicted and took her drink into the bedroom for her post-work ritual.

  ‘Never, Bunny, not even Jason Bourne could get these secrets.’ I received the bird for my thanks. Chicks.

  ‘Dick!’ she shouted in return.

  The rest of the week went okay. The new accounts were quite easy, as celebrities always had the best security. You scanned the Web to see if any of the celebrities’ dreams had been placed online, then you check if they are theirs or just fakes. I tell you, I knew some of my dreams were strange, but people in the public eye step it up another level!

  Bunny kept pestering Thursday and Friday evening and then all day Saturday. If I’m honest, it was starting to boil my piss somewhat.

  ‘Sam, can you pop out to the shop and get some milk?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s eight p.m., bit late for going out into war-torn Barking, love.’ I was trying to watch Matt Damon get rescued…again. How much had it cost the US government to rescue that bloke?

  ‘Don’t you want me to make rice pudding for tomorrow, then?’ Bunny said, toying with my emotions.

  How could she? I jumped up. ‘Running all the way, my love!’ I called out. I ran to get my big boys’ clothes on. It’s never safe to walk around in shorts and a T-shirt at night in London, unless you want to earn money for doing certain favours. Julia Roberts, I am not.

  Luckily, I was back within twenty minutes. Mr Hamid’s food emporium was always well stocked and always good for a chat. So I trotted back with four pints of milk and a packet of pork scratchings. I knew I would hide the latter as Bunny thought I was a pig for eating deep-fried pig skin. So, what do I say to my young lady? Piss off! Obviously not to her face; after all, I want children one day.

  The flat was quiet when I got back, so it gave me time to hide my pig snacks and put the milk in the fridge. ‘Bunny, I’m back!’ I called out.

  My world then stopped as the bedroom door slowly opened and Cho fucking Chang walked out of our bedroom.

  ‘Hello, Harry. I know it’s been a while, but I was wondering if I could ride your broomstick?’ asked the sexy Ravenclaw.

  My mind was blank as my eyes roamed over Bunny’s/Cho’s Hogwarts uniform, even with the correct house tie. I watched her bend over to pretend to adjust her shoes. Hmmm…Ravenclaws are meant to be intelligent. How could she forget her panties l
ike that? Silly Cho.

  I watched her walk back towards the bedroom with the click-clack of her high heels and the sway of her hips. I was mesmerised by the way her long black hair danced down her back.

  She stopped at the door and pouted. ‘Come fly with me, Harry,’ she whispered.

  And that was that. After my broomstick was tired, my secrets became our secrets. Bloody witchcraft, can’t trust them. I love my life.

  Chapter 15

  Monday, 17 ?? 2020

  Sam Blades

  Today was always going to be a shit day. It was my brother’s birthday. Mum phoned from Peru where she was at some retreat helping homeless kids get tattoos or something. I didn’t really listen until we started to talk about my brother. In such a short life, he managed to have a lot of fun.

  I wish I could say that my phone was playing some my brother’s favourite tunes, but his taste was shit. I was glad that my ears would never have to hear that crap ever again. The busker at the tube was playing some type of music badly, but that didn’t stop me throwing some coins into his open guitar box, just to show the world I am not a total git.

  Leaving the music-hurting fool behind, I allowed myself a smile. Since Christmas I had been buying old foreign coins, which are non-legal tender, but still new enough not to be worth anything in pawn shops. Good lucking spending that, you ham-fisted song-rapist.

  The last couple of months had gone well for me. I was nailing it at work, even though a creepy fucker from internal security gave me bad looks all the time. Mark Wayward said he fancied me. Personally, I don’t think he does. Mark is just jealous of another man showing interest in me. My workmate really is a strange one.

  The only downside of the last few months was the fact that I couldn’t watch any of the older Harry Potter movies. After my night with Cho Chang/Bunny and when I see the aforementioned character in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, my body reacts in a way I feel uncomfortable with. I shouldn’t be having these feelings watching a film about a kid’s magic school. What made it worse was that my darling girlfriend released a new level of teasing.

  A couple of weeks ago, she sent me a text: Bonjour ’Arry Potter, I ’ave left Bill Weasley, I await you, love Fleur. It came with a picture of her in a powder-blue silk bathrobe and a blonde wig. Though that would’ve been fun, the bitch was in China on business.

  ‘Damn you, Bunny, damn you to hell,’ I muttered, and then started to sob.

  I walked into the office and saw that everybody was already there. Mark gave me his usual wolf whistle, Emily gave me a wink and a bright smile, and with a practised hand I continued our daily routine by picking up a peanut M&M and lobbing it into her vast cleavage making everybody cheer and giving her a morning snack.

  My boss was building the model fishing boat I had bought him for his birthday last month. In the card I wrote, Sorry it couldn’t be a bigger boat. He frowned when he read it, but I laughed – that was the main thing.

  Work had increased the amount of accounts I was dealing with – checking their security, and then taking glimpses of their downloaded dreams. Sometimes I wished I could take my eyes out and wash them. If it wasn’t for the privacy contract I had to sign, I would have had one bloke arrested; but you can’t do that to a member of the royal family.

  Then I had to make sure their phones hadn’t been hacked, which was easy enough with our software. Although, it didn’t help with some of the filthy sites they visited.

  And then I had to search all known websites to see if there were copies of the dreams. So far, so good. A lot of them claim they are the said celebrities’ dreams, but our lawyers soon go on the attack once we’ve checked them. They are subsequently removed or sued.

  Something I found out doing this job was that every dream downloaded from the customer’s brain via our app was imprinted with a line of code, which only allowed it to be viewed by our app and the owner of the app. That’s how we checked if the dream was real. If our software can’t find the code or a trace of it, then we know it isn’t ours. I wish I knew the ins and outs of it all, but it’s way beyond my skill set. Luckily, our system and software just scan it with a simple instruction.

  I managed to plough through the work once I’d got a handle on it; all the bosses seemed to be happy.

  Chapter 16

  Michael McAllister

  I must admit it, I’m bisexual. To be honest, it wasn’t a hard journey to come to that conclusion when you wake up in a hotel room with your transsexual Chinese girlfriend, your best mate who is a dodgy copper and his small, very willing but depraved now wife. I can’t remember the wedding, but that’s how we ended up in bed together. The bloody tequila.

  Well, it seems my plans came to fruition. Internal security shifted their efforts on to the minions, even though there was no proof of anyone stealing. There was still a constant flow of very personal dreams. The plus point was that unless there was a mirror involved or names, only the individual dreamer may recognise it. Apart from one star in America who dreamt that he was shagging himself in front of the mirror. Bye-bye film deal, and goodbye to the wife and kids. Rule one: if you’re a freak, don’t use our apps. I know I don’t.

  Anyway, the big boys from China wanted more and sent over a flash drive with my little China rose. The drive happily downloads anything while stripping out the company’s code, so even when it’s published the security personnel can’t tell if it’s ours or not.

  I pushed a little bit more by sending a couple of downloads from my patsy’s account, just to see what they would do; hence, why I was now stuck in a meeting with the higher-ups.

  Albert Kettering from external security, John Jones from internal security, CEO Charles Madison and little hungover me. By this point, Albert’s bald head was reflecting the sunlight right into my eyes. Jesus, what does that man use on his dome?

  ‘Right, come on. As I understand it we do have a leak, but the product hasn’t got any of our marks on it. Am I right, Albert?’ Charles said angrily.

  ‘Yes, sir, they have definitely learnt how to strip our code from the files,’ replied Baldilocks.

  Madison rubbed his face. ‘So, is it this Blades kid?’

  ‘I can’t see how. My department is checking everything he does. Blades is clean,’ Jones answered while looking around the room.

  Albert shrugged. ‘I say can him. At least two files of his have made their way onto the Net; he must be involved,’ he asserted.

  The CEO stood up and stared out of his large window overlooking all of London’s glory. Luckily, we couldn’t smell the Thames. ‘I’ve read the reports on this kid, and I can’t believe he’s involved. The two things that came from him weren’t even the best he had,’ Charles said puzzled, turning to lean against the window.

  ‘I agree, the work he’s doing is impeccable. His team leader says the same,’ I added, being the helpful soul I am. ‘I just can’t see it.’

  Madison turned to his head of external security. ‘What did you find out about his girlfriend’s family?’

  ‘Mr Shiny Head’ pulled out his diary and opened it. ‘Well, to be honest, sod all. My people were warned off. All I know is that they’re ex-Hong Kong police, department unknown, and they now run a takeaway in Birmingham, but that’s all.’

  The CEO paced around his vast office. ‘Right, keep watching Blades. If he plugs in a flash drive, I want to know why and what’s on it. Can we check his home computer?’ he asked us.

  ‘I can send someone in, off the books,’ said Albert, who received a nod from the big boss.

  In my head I was singing. The more they chased my patsy, the more I could get away with. ‘What about his girlfriend? Did we ever finish her security check?’ I asked, poking the bear called Jones.

  ‘No, we decided not to – but we can try again if you want?’ Jones asked the CEO while shooting me a look.

  The boss man stood thoughtfully. ‘Yes, send the same person, and make sure he does it correctly this time,’ he demanded. With that, the
meeting was dissolved.

  I headed back to my office with a song in my heart. Security were chasing a shadow of my own invention, and Mai was still in town. Time for a quiet night in.

  Chapter 17

  Stuart Goddard

  ‘Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!’ I spat as I saw the email from Jones.

  Stuart

  You must go back and carry out the security check on Miss Li.

  I have arranged it with her for tomorrow at 10am.

  Be professional and courteous.

  John.

  I started to bang my forehead on the desk. I swear they were setting me up to fail. I received smirking looks of amusement from other members of the team. Clearly, they all knew. Bastards, I thought as I stomped off and headed towards the lift.

  The doors opened on floor thirteen. With a big sigh, I headed past all the same coloured doors. I saw my destination and opened the door. ‘Blades…a word?’ I barked with a bit more irritation than I intended and waited for the man to come out into the corridor.

  ‘Ever heard of please, mate?’ he snapped at me as the office door closed behind him.

  I knew he was right, but Blades was a prick and so was that bitch of his. ‘Yeah, whatever. I’m doing a security check on your girlfriend tomorrow, so she’d better play ball,’ I snapped at him.

  Blades barked a laugh. ‘Good luck there, buddy. Walk in with that attitude, you’ll be walking out with your nuts in a carrier bag.’

  I stepped closer. ‘Just remind her that it’s your job at stake here. I don’t give a shit either way,’ I replied dismissively. I then turned and made my way back to the lift. Just as the lift door opened, I heard his reply.

  ‘Love you, too!’

  ‘Be careful, Blades, I’m watching you,’ I growled. My blood boiled as the lift took me back to my floor. I fucking hate Blades!