The Destiny Dealers- Originally posted by Adam Langley

It was time to concentrate. Time to get some work done. Beaumont felt that he had relaxed enough in this past week, and since after the summer holidays he would be too busy marking and overseeing detentions to have much time to work on his novel, he thought that it would be best to get a good start on it now, so that when September rolled around, he would be able to just carry on writing without having to worry about the planning or building up any momentum in the plot. At least that was the theory, anyway. This was his first novel.
He had it all planned out. The story would take place in a fantastic world not entirely unlike our own. People-that is to say, the characters of the novel-would be able to trade destinies. Say for example you wanted to be a rock star, but life had gotten in the way; you had missed an important audition, or you had never found the time to learn an instrument, or you simply knew someone who had become a famous musician and was jealous. (This would be the main character motivation of Marcus Trent, a rather pathetic individual who felt that he was “entitled” to the love of Corrine Maskall, the heroine of the novel, simply because he had known her longer than her new Musician boyfriend, the affable Liam O’Shaughnessy.) For a price, you would be able to exchange all the events of your life with someone else. So if you wanted to be a famous musician, you would trade lives with someone who had actually worked at learning an instrument and had made it big, or if you wanted to be an actress, you would trade lives with someone who had had the opportunities to develop the necessary skills. Personality-wise, you would still be you, complete with memories of your former existence to remind you that you were beholden to the Dealers (Beaumont had decided that “Agency” had become cliché), but as far as everyone else was concerned, your new life was the one you always had. At some point, Corrine would figure out that Marcus was not the person she loved and set out to find Liam-prompting the wrath of the Dealers and the now incredibly well-connected Marcus. Liam, meanwhile, would have no memory of Corrine at all-only those who wanted a new life remembered their old one-and the two would be forced to work together in order to uncover the truth of what was happening to them.
It was ridiculous pulp and Beaumont knew it. But he didn’t see the point of going through all the trouble of writing something if no-one was going to read it. The sort of rubbish he had in mind was all the rage at the moment-all that romantic fantasy dross. And unlike all those other novels out at the moment, with Witches and Vampires and God above knew what else, his idea was pretty unique. Positively original, in fact. Granted, there was a bit of the fantastic in there somewhere-any amount of technobabble he produced wouldn’t be able to disguise the fact that the process of exchanging lives with someone was basically magic at work-but if done in such a way that he avoided playing on the other tropes you saw in these kinds of stories….well, then what was stopping him revolutionizing the entire genre? He could join the ranks of the uber-successful, another Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, someone who had a truly original idea and had the skill to carry it forward, a household name with a big house and Film studios begging him for movie rights….
But first there was the act of writing the bloody thing.
*
Two days after he had decided to start his novel, Beaumont was sitting slumped in front of his laptop, staring at the blank page of the word document and wondering if it was worth going to get another cup of tea. He had spent the morning rewriting his opening paragraph, adding a word here, taking out a sentence there, before getting frustrated and deleting it altogether. He had gotten a piece of scrap paper out of the printer and had scribbled down a few rough outlines of the opening chapter, he had looked back over his original notes, but he just couldn’t find a way to begin. Should it be a prologue? A flash forward? A conversation between two unseen characters? Someone waking up in bed? One of Marcus’ concerts? Who knew?
Beaumont sighed, closed his laptop and padded into the kitchen. In his shorts, orange t-shirt, and bare feet he looked like an overgrown eight year-old. The only things that dispelled the illusion were his thinning hair, obvious paunch, and five o’clock shadow. (Beaumont had decided early on that he should be judged on his work, not his appearance. It made him feel rather bohemian. The classic eccentric genius, a man whose powerful mind and deep, perplexing emotions more than made up for his shoddy physical form. The fact that he lived in a three-bedroom suburban house and was a staunch Conservative voter was completely irrelevant as far as he was concerned. He looked the part.)
That’s enough for one day He thought to himself as he filled the kettle at the sink. I obviously can’t think of anything, so there’s no point sitting there trying to make myself write, because then it would just be a waste of time. Should just read a book, watch some TV, maybe go for a walk into town, see if I see anything that inspires….
The doorbell rang, cutting off his train of thought. Putting the kettle down to boil, Beaumont went to the front door and slowly opened it.
The first thing Beaumont noticed about the man was his glasses. They had thick, square, black rims, the kind you saw in cartoons or in fancy dress shops. The glasses were perched a slightly bulbous nose and framed a set of mildly inquisitive brown eyes. Scratch that-almost invasive brown eyes. The man was staring so intensely that Beaumont rather felt that he was being sized up for some unknown reason. The rest of the Man’s head resembled an upside-down egg; a completely bald head tapered down into a very narrow and pointed chin, with his ears almost comically sticking out the side of his head. Other than that, he was completely unremarkable, medium build, average height. He wore a grey blazer over a T-shirt urging Beaumont to “Keep Calm and Carry On”. His jeans looked artfully torn and scuffed, while his trainers were an almost impeccable white with pink piping.
The two men stood on the doorstep regarding each other for a few moments.
“Can I help you?” Beaumont asked after a few seconds of complete silence.
“Hmm, what?” The Man shook himself as though he had been dozing off. “Sorry, did you say something?”
“Can I help you?” Beaumont asked, a little louder this time.
“What? Oh! Oh yes, maybe you can.” The man smiled and held out his hand. “Jeremy Young, everyone calls me Jez, how do you do?”
Beaumont uncertainly took his hand “Matthew Beaumont, Mister…”
“Young. But as I said, call me Jez, everyone does”. Jez’s smile grew wider. “May I come in? Splendid!”
And with that, he pushed past Beaumont and strolled purposefully towards the kitchen. Beaumont followed him.
“Um, excuse me Mister Young, I don’t think I said you could….”
“What? It’s fine, I’m not going to steal anything. And please, for God’s sake, it’s Jez. Jez.” He turned on his heel and fixed Beaumont with a mock frown. “You know what? I was going to be nice and do it for you, but just for that, I’m going to make you make the Tea! “Mister Young”, honestly” he chuckled as he sidestepped into the living room.
Beaumont, momentarily thrown by Jez’s mocking tone and the situation in general, attempted to take a more objective view of the situation.
What the hell is going on?! Okay. Okay. Clearly, he doesn’t mean any harm. Beaumont thought as he peered round the living room door. Jez had sat down on the armchair across the room for the Television, and was looking around the room with an air of disinterest. Well, if he wanted to hurt me or something, surely he would have done it by now, right? He doesn’t look like the type to be violent at all. Saying that, nutters don’t exactly advertise the fact that-stop it. Stop it. He is not going to attack you. Now ask him what the hell he wants. Be a man!
Beaumont cleared his throat. “Um…er, Jez…excuse me…”
“Yes, Matt?” Jez glanced over his shoulder.
“Matt? Wait, no…Matt? No. Um. What do you want?” He asked in what was hopefully a much firmer tone.
“Oh, milk and two sugars would do me just fine, cheers, is that okay?” Jez replied brightly, getting up out of the chair and stretching. He moved over to the window that overlooked the main road, frowned, breathed on the glass and began rubbing it with his blazer sleeve.
“No, I meant…what are you doing?”
“Cleaning your window.” Jez called over his shoulder. “Well, wiping it down would be more accurate. Speck of dust. Sorry. Bit O.C.D about stuff like that, if you want the truth.”
“Oh. Right. Well then…” Beaumont suddenly remembered what he was trying to do. “I’m sorry, what do you want?”
Jez turned and faced him. Beaumont was slightly disconcerted to note that he had stopped smiling. God, I hope I’m not about to be beaten to death for not being good at housework.
“I’m here to ask you a question, Matt.” Jez said quietly.
“Oh yeah?” Beaumont slowly started walking backwards toward the kitchen. “What’s that, then?”
Jez started walking towards him. Beaumont increased his pace.
“What I want to know” Jez said as Beaumont found himself bumping into the kitchen sideboard “Is how you found out about us.” He was in the kitchen now as well, and showed no sign of stopping. Beaumont reckoned he was about two stones heavier than Jez-he was definitely taller. But would this make a difference? Up this close, Jez radiated energy. His whole body was like a coiled spring.
“Um…what? Found out about what?” Beaumont reached behind his back and began to grasp around for a knife, a rolling pin, anything that might stop Jez from coming any closer.
Mercifully, Jez paused. “Playing dumb, are we?”
“What? No, I…”
“Okay. Fine. We’ll do this the hard way.” Jez took a large step backwards. “Although, I warn you now, if you say “what” or “no” one more time, I will throw something at you. Understand?”
“You’ll throw…wait, what?” Beaumont spluttered.
Without warning, something very hard connected with the side of his head. There was a strange, almost musical tinkling sound, followed by a cascade of small, sharp pains on the left side of his face. Beaumont tripped and fell to the floor, hitting his head again on the sideboard on the way down.
The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was Jez.
“Told you.”
*
The room was upside down.
Beaumont groggily shut his eyes and opened them again.
Yes, the room was definitely the wrong way up. The sofa, the armchair, and the Television were all on the ceiling, which had somehow managed to grow a carpet as well. The floor, where all that stuff was supposed to be, was completely bare. Well, not completely-what was that large object that looked like a cocktail glass in the middle of the floor? The one with the long, dirty-white neck and peach fabric….oh, hang on. He was upside down. If the TV was on the ceiling, then by that logic, the living room light would be on the…
Beaumont shut his eyes again and groaned.
“Awake, are we? Good.”
The sound of footsteps. The smell of Coffee.
“Come on, mate, open your eyes. It’ll do you no good, the position you’re in. I mean, yeah, you will have a proper blinder of a headache once I put you the right way up again, but in my experience it’ll be worse if you have your eyes shut. Dunno why- you would have thought it would be the other way round-but that’s how it generally works in my experience. So come on. Ca-hhm on.”
Trembling, Beaumont forced himself to look. Standing completely the wrong way up in front of him was Jez, a relaxed, neutral expression on his face and two steaming yellow mugs in his hands.
Jez raised the two beverages slightly. “Coffee, from your cupboard. Sorry, didn’t really feel like Tea in the end. Had a biscuit as well. That okay?”
Beaumont said nothing.
“Nothing? Never mind.” Jez sighed. “To be honest, I don’t blame you for keeping quiet. I imagine all this must be a bit of a shock.” He looked around. “Don’t suppose there’s anywhere I could put these down, is there?”
Silence.
“Forget it. I’ll just put ‘em next to the Telly.” Jez walked over to the other side of the room and placed on cup either side of the screen. He turned back to face Beaumont. He raised his eyebrows. Suddenly, Beaumont found himself sliding slowly up-or he supposed down-the wall. Jez watched impassively as He slid across the wallpaper, and then, just as it seemed Beaumont was about to hit the floor, raised his eyebrows again. Whatever force had been holding Beaumont in place suddenly vanished and the writer collapsed head-first on the ground in a crumpled heap.
“Right then!” Jez said brightly. “Now that all that unpleasantness is out of the way, let’s get right to it then. How did you find out about us?”
Beaumont struggled upright and stood up. A wave of dizziness gripped him, sending sharp pains through his skull. Grabbing his head with one hand and groping for the wall with the other, he suddenly became aware of wetness on the left side of his forehead. He took his palm away and saw a few drops of dark red blood staining his fingers. He began to stutter again.
“I did warn you, you know.” Jez shrugged and sat back down in the armchair. “Sorry about the plate, by the way. Now back to my original question…”
“A plate?” The words somehow forced themselves out of Beaumont’s mouth. He stared at the other man, who had now crossed his legs and was flicking bits of dust off the cuffs of his jeans.
“Yep. Sorry.”
“You threw a plate at me.”
“That is what I said…”
“But…but how the hell could you have managed that? You were…you couldn’t have” Beaumont said “You were standing….I would have seen you!”
“Well of course you would have seen me. If I had used my hands. But I didn’t. So you didn’t.”
“You” Beaumont slowly replied. “You didn’t…you threw something without using your hands?”
“Yes.” Jez sighed exasperatedly. “I did. The same way I left you hanging while I went into the kitchen.”
“And…and how did you do that?”
“Simple, mate. I changed the fate of the objects in your home. First, I made it so that it was your plate’s destiny to hit you. Then, I did the same with your clothes-it was their fate to stick to the wall, and then become unstuck. You just happened to be in them, that’s all.”
There was a moment of silence.
“********.” Beaumont said.
“Okay, granted, I could have explained it better-”
“No, that’s…that’s rubbish! I mean, changing the fate of objects? That’s utter tosh!”
Jez peered over his glasses. “Tosh, Matt? Really? Have you met anyone under the age of fifty who still uses the word Tosh? Couldn’t you have just stuck with “********?” Bet you wish you did, now. I know I would.”
Something inside Beaumont changed in that moment. Through the fog of shock and confusion that had seemingly enveloped his brain since waking up stuck to the wall, there was a bright stab of rage. He didn’t know if it was his patronizing tone, the fact that he had injured him in his own home, or just the fact that he was a complete stranger and correcting his use of language, but Jez had crossed a line, and that gave Beaumont the strength he needed.
“Who the hell are you?” He barked. He glared at Jez. “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my house? Answer me! Get out!”
“Ooh-er!” Jez chuckled and shivered mockingly “Scared now! Jesus, you’ve not really got the hang of this “confrontation” stuff, have you? You could at least try raising your voice or something. You aren’t scary enough for all that “tranquil fury” bollocks…”
“I…wait, I was! I mean I am! I am yelling at you!”
“Really? You aren’t trying very hard, are you?”
“Well, I am!”
“Trying hard?”
“No! Yelling at you!”
A pause.
“Speak up.”
“Tell me who you are!” Beaumont’s voice cracked.
“Whatever.” Jez grinned. “Tell you what; it must be difficult to command the respect of a class if you can’t raise your voice. Those kids you teach must run rings around you, eh?”
“Look”. Beaumont said in (what he hoped) a low, dangerous tone. “You come in here, you somehow manage to throw a, a plate at me without me noticing, and then you stick me to the wall, and then you ask me-what, how I know anything about you? When it must be quite clear to you by now that all this is a fairly new experience for me. So…so yeah.” He struggled to come up with something else to say. “What do you want?” He concluded weakly.
Jez took off his glasses. He reached into his pocket, drew out a tissue, and started polishing the lenses. He did this with a kind of infuriating slowness; Beaumont thought his actions looked far too deliberate to be natural. Beginning to feel rather stupid just standing by the doorway, Beaumont moved into the living room and stood almost directly in front of Jez.
Yeah, okay. You want to get up close and personal? Beaumont thought, attempting to adopt the same tone of some of his more confrontational pupils. Wanna start something, that it? Okay. Okay. Let’s go. Let’s see how you like it when it’s the other way round, yeah? See how you like it!
No reaction.
Oh yeah, uncomfortable, aren’t you? You don’t fool me, whoever-whatever-the hell you are. You hate this. Want me to stop? Tough. This is my house. MY HOUSE. And I make the rules.
Jez put his glasses back on and glanced up at him.
“Help you?” He asked innocently.
Beaumont made an effort to puff out his chest. “Yeah. You could. By leaving.”
Jez raised his eyebrows. Beaumont, remembering what happened the last time he did that, took a step back.
“You want me to leave?”
“I…yeah, yea-yes I do. Leave. Now.”
“But you haven’t answered my question yet.” Jez said silkily. “You haven’t told me how you found out about us.”
“Found out about who?” Beaumont protested. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Oh come on, even after all that in the kitchen just then, all that just now waking upside down? You don’t know?” Jez stood up. Beaumont took another step back.
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Matt. You found out about the Dealers, didn’t you? You what, found one of our clients? Or maybe you were one yourself, weren’t you?” A triumphant note entered Jez’s voice. “Yeah, that’s it! You were some big high-flier, weren’t you? Got us to turn you into some nobody so you could get away from it all! Nothing to be ashamed of mate, you’d be surprised at how often that happens, but still-“
“WHAT?” Beaumont yelped. “No! No! No, you can’t be a Dealer. You can’t be a Dealer because I made you up! You can’t exist!”
“And yet, here I am, talking to you. And drinking your coffee. And eating your Bourbons.”
“This is a joke.” Beaumont let out a small, strangled laugh. “This is all a trick, isn’t it? Someone at school heard me talking-“
“You’ve told other people?” Jez interjected sharply. “Who?”
“No-one!” Beaumont suddenly found himself on the defensive. “I haven’t told a soul, I didn’t want anyone finding out I was writing a book, so…um”
“Yeah. Um.” Jez mockingly scratched his head. “Um, how could anyone use your book to trick you if you haven’t told anyone about it? Tricky”.
“Well” hesitatingly, Beaumont sat down on the sofa. “Well, that might be a logical-well, not entirely logical, per se, but there is bound to be an explanation as to why-well-all of this”.
“Yeah. There is. I just offered one.” Jez had taken a much harder tone. “You are a client, and you have found out your new life isn’t all it was cracked up to be. Now you can’t go back on it. You know that once we change things, they stay changed, so you decide to…I don’t know, blow our cover by writing some sort of ****** children’s storybook? Am I in the ballpark here?”
“No! I told you! I’ve never met a…a Dealer in my life, I made it up!”
“You must be psychic then” Jez snorted. “Let’s face it, how else would you know the things you do? How else could you be so accurate about the procedure, how it works?”
“I don’t know how the procedure works! For ****’s sake, I just started writing!”
“And I’m supposed to believe that, am I? I’m supposed to just take you at your word.”
Beaumont miserably stared at the floor. This was getting him nowhere. Jez obviously was not all he appeared to be. Whether he was telling the truth, or more likely (far more likely!) that he was a dangerous fantasist wasn’t clear, but what had been made clear was that he could hurt people. Hurt him.
It’s not fair. It was such a good idea. I could have been…if not for this…this bloody interruption.
“I’m telling the truth” Beaumont said, staring at the floor. “I’m telling the truth.”
Jez considered this and nodded. “Yeah, I know. We just needed to be sure, that was all.”
Beaumont’s head shot up. “What?”
Jez shrugged and started towards the door.
“What do you mean? Where are you going?”
Jez turned to face Beaumont. “Three years from now, after much procrastination and rewrites, your book finally hits the shelves. No-one pays the slightest bit of attention to it; hell, it doesn’t have Vampires or Superheroes or any of that rubbish, so your market just isn’t interested. Sad, really.” Jez suddenly looked strangely reflective. “But those are the times we live in, I suppose. No room for substance anymore, it’s all just the same gloss in different packaging.”
“Oh well.” He said, suddenly brightening. “Better reading those sorts of things than nothing at all, am I right? Course I am. Anyway” he said, cutting Beaumont off with a wave of the hand before he could interject. “Your book barely gets off the ground. However, it is a big enough security breach that our operatives need to go to ground. Can’t be too careful, you understand; what if some idiot we are trying to deal with sees the book and gets the idea to talk to the Papers or put something on the Internet? Worse, what if one of our own decides to go public? It would be anarchy! Because of you, we can’t trust anyone, not even our own. And like all good businesses, we rely on trust. So, in order to preserve that trust, and by extension our client base, we have to shut you down. Sorry.”
"Hey! Woah, woah, woah...wait. How do you know that my book will fl-"
"Mate." Jez looked over his glasses at him. "Have you not been paying the slightest bit of attention? My associates and I can manipulate Destiny. DESTINY. We know everything that is going to happen. Wouldn't be very good at our jobs if we weren't...what do you call it...Omnipotent? Omnipresent? One of those. Anyway-"
“But…” Beaumont tried to make sense of what he just heard. “But if I think it’s fiction, and the rest of the world thinks it’s fiction…”
“You would be surprised at just how many people know the truth.” Jez walked out into the hallway, talking over his shoulder. “You really would. How many actors, politicians, athletes or just loving family men suddenly lose their edge or go off the rails altogether? How many lives seem to be going brilliantly, and then just peter out? Side effects. People trade their crappy lives for new shiny ones, not realizing that it’s not life that’s holding them back; it’s their own neuroses or sense of entitlement, or whatever. It never crosses their mind to take some responsibility for themselves. They just give us the money and expect everything to be effortless.”
The sound of the door opening. Beaumont sprang up and dashed into the hallway. Jez was standing on the doorstep and closing the front door behind him.
“None of us really care about any of that, you understand” Jez continued. “As long as they pay, they can do what they please. Right, best be off. See you.”
“Wait!” Beaumont said. “Wait! What…what are you going to do? Was there a point to this?”
Jez opened the door a crack so he could reply. “The point of this exercise was to ascertain whether you were some sort of security leak or just some idiot who got lucky. Now that we know that, I can take the appropriate measures to ensure that your book never gets published. Ta-ra.”
“Appropria-What, no!” Beaumont darted forward and grabbed the door before it could shut. “Hold on a minute! You said that no-one would read it anyway! What does it matter if it never gets published? Can’t I just write it anyway?”
“Not now, you can’t. Not now you know about me and the rest of them. Oh, you could try and come up with a new idea, but we both know that your mind would keep coming back to this, today; you would eventually see this encounter as inspiration. Either for a book or to actually buy a new, more successful existence. And we can’t have that. Enjoy your coffee.”
“Hang on a minute!” Beaumont struggled with the door. “Why can’t I…what are you going to do?”
“Look on the positive side. You would have been disappointed if your book was published and no-one read it, right? But now you will never know that disappointment. So that’s a win, surely? Don’t worry, I’ll tell him to do all the marking and rubbish. You needn’t worry.”
“Who? What?-“
*
Matthew woke up before his wife. He stretched, got out of bed and walked to the Bathroom. As he urinated, he found himself thinking that maybe he should write something.
“Hey.” He called over his shoulder. “Hey, Debs.”
“What?” Debbie groaned from the other room.
“Do you think I should write something?”
“Write something?”
“Yeah, you know, like a book.” Matthew finished with the toilet and walked back into the bedroom. Debbie was now sitting up in bed, the faint outline of her pregnant belly just visible under the sheets.
“Matt, you don’t even read.” Debbie yawned. “In fifteen years of marriage, I have not even seen you even look through the paper. Remember when Lucy and Carl were babies? You didn’t even read them a bedtime story! Closest you got was to watch TV with them until you both nodded off, remember?”
“Right.” Matthew chuckled. “Yeah, of course. Don’t know what came over me, there.”
Debbie rolled her eyes. “Brilliant, glad we cleared that up. You off to work?”
“Yeah. Don’t think I’ll be back for dinner.” He pulled on a shirt and began hunting for his trousers, all urge to write forgotten. “So remind me again, when is Lucy’s dentist appointment?”