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“More photos from Richmond up on Friendface,” Roy says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone get paler on holiday to Florida.”
Jen leans over his shoulder to watch him click through the album. “The sun’s reflecting off him into that small child’s eyes.”
“We never should have let Richmond out of his room,” Moss says from his desk. “One day he’s walking around the office, the next he’s taking vacation time to go on holiday. Now we haven’t got anyone watching the lights in there.”
“What, those lights that just go off and on?” Jen asks. “Someone’s got to watch them?”
Moss nods gravely. “Roy and I just don’t have the qualifications.”
“Oh, don’t be silly. How hard can it be?” Jen turns to Roy for confirmation, but he shakes his head.
“Moss is right. Richmond may look from a distance like all he does is creep, but that room is keeping all of Reynholm Industries running. All of Great Britain, maybe.”
Moss scoffs. “Try the entire flippin’ space-time continuum.”
Jen sobers, marveling at yet another IT thing she has no understanding of. Then she remembers the first IT thing she marveled at and had no understanding of. “Oh, you’re messing with me, aren’t you! This is just like with the internet!” Jen gets up from her desk and flings open the red door. “I bet these are just the light switches, or something, and you’d have me believe they control the whole country.”
“Jen, I wouldn’t—” Roy says, but it’s too late. Jen flips the second switch from the left, and then the whole room goes dark.
“It was just the…” Jen trails off. Jen trails off because that’s not her voice. She tries it again, because this isn’t making any sense. “It was the lights,” Jen says, except it’s not her voice that comes out, it’s quite clearly Roy’s.
She flips the switch the other way. The lights flicker back on, and Jen leaves Richmond’s room with great haste, slamming the door behind her. She stands facing the door for a moment and looks down at her hands. They’ve got… hair on them. Hair! And her arms, and she’s wearing jeans and—oh, God—she turns around and Moss and Jen are staring back at her, except that’s wrong, because she’s Jen, and Moss is sitting at the wrong desk, anyway, oh, God.
“I don’t think that was a light switch, Jen,” Moss-Jen says. Jen’s own voice sounds oddly nasal coming from Moss-Jen’s mouth.
Jen walks over and lets herself fall onto the couch. Roy’s legs don’t even all fit on it. “No shit, Moss,” she says into the cushion. No shit.
***
Roy opens the red door again and studies the board of switches. “Which of these did you hit, Jen?”
Jen raises her head from the couch cushion morosely. “Second from the left.”
Roy flips it up and down several times. The lights do flicker on and off, but the IT department remain well and truly swapped. Roy slams the door and sits back down, leaning back in the chair and putting his feet up on the desk. “Fucking hell,” he says. “We are shit out of luck.”
Jen giggles. “Sorry, sorry. I know I should be freaking out about being in your body and everything,” she says, “but that is freaky. Moss, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before!”
“You certainly haven’t,” Moss says. He stands up and smooths down his blazer.
Jen finds herself suddenly and extremely grateful that it isn’t Roy in her body. She has a feeling he would not be so… professional. Even knowing that Moss is going to have to change clothes and take showers as her, and, and— “God, what are we going to do?”
“I told you, Richmond is a professional man. We’ll have to wait until he gets back,” Roy says.
Jen rolls over onto her back. “I’m still hoping I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and all of this will have been a terrible nightmare.”
Moss leans against the doorframe, clearly trying (and, if Jen’s being honest, succeeding) to look womanly. “I knew when I got into the IT game that a zany, body-swap type situation was a risk.”
Jen props herself up on her elbow. “This sort of thing is common?”
“Yes, keep up, Jen. I always thought I’d end up in a zany, body-swap type situation. Just not like this. Never like this.” He turns to Jen and Roy and—there is one and only one way to put this—he smolders. Never has such panache and raw confidence exuded from Jen’s tastefully-lined eyes.
Jen blinks it off. “Are you going somewhere, Moss?” she asks. “Because I really think we ought to avoid leaving the office today as much as possible. I don’t want anyone to find out what’s happened.”
“Yeah, Moss, come on, sit down,” Roy says.
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” Moss zips up his jacket. “I’m a strong, independent woman who will not be told what to do.” With that, he yanks Jen’s scarf from its hook and takes his leave.
***
Moss steps out into the sunlight and blinks for a moment on the sidewalk in front of Reynholm Industries. Now that he’s out, he isn’t exactly sure where he wants to go. This is only the second time he’s ever bunked off from anything, and it’s not like he can go back to the mall again. He’s been ruddy banned!
...Moss has been banned, that is. Unless there’s something Jen isn’t telling him, the current body he’s occupying has no such restrictions. He might even catch up on Grand Designs later tonight. Moss wobbles a bit in his heels, but walks confidently to the bus stop. Thanks to his mother’s shopping circulars, he knows for a fact that there’s a sale on at Marks & Spencer, and there’s no better time to top up his collection of women’s slacks than the body-swapped present.
Moss is dutifully comparing prices on black and dark-blue slacks when a woman in a suit taps him on the shoulder.
“I don’t need any help!” he says immediately. “I know what I’m doing, thank you!”
The woman laughs. Her hair is pulled into a tight blond bun at the nape of her neck, and the suit she’s wearing is clearly more expensive than anything sold in this store. “I don’t work here!” she scoffs. “I work for an agency. Have you ever considered modeling?”
“Er,” Moss says.
“I’ll take that as a no. But you really could, you know. Model, that is. You’re not at all conventionally attractive, of course, but your energy is just off the charts! So confident, I love it.”
Moss shifts on his feet. “Thank you?”
“You absolutely must give me a call,” the woman says, pressing a business card into his hands. “I’ll be waiting!”
Moss tucks the business card into his pocket and watches the woman leave. She doesn’t even buy anything.
***
Moss sets down his shopping bag and sits down behind his computer. “You are not going to Adam and believe what’s just happened.”
Roy stops on the way back from the kitchen, crisps in hand, and peers into the bag. “You bought women’s slacks?”
“Yes, I did buy some women’s slacks. On a smashing sale, I might add.” Moss sits contentedly for a moment before remembering his much more interesting news. “But that’s not the astonishing news! I got an offer from a modeling agency.”
“No,” Roy says. “Our Jen? A model?”
“I was surprised myself, Roy. But it’s all about the confidence these days, apparently. The attitude. You’d best prepare your gardening tools, because I have got attitude in spades.”
Jen scoffs. “It’s probably just some sort of scam,” she says. “There’s all sorts of people like that, hanging around malls, trying to sell women into pyramid schemes or something. Did she make you buy any lipstick?”
“No!” Moss fishes in his pocket. “She gave me her card. I might call her back tomorrow, play it cool,” he adds casually. “Don’t want to seem too keen.”
“Oh, please don’t call her back, Moss,” Jen says. “I’ve read about all the things models get up to. I don’t want my body developing bulimia and a cocaine addiction, if you please.”
“I am going to treat your body like a temple, Jen. A temple.”
Jen laughs uneasily. “Not too much like a temple, alright?”
***
Jen is saved from hearing exactly what Moss’s plans for her one earthly body are when the phone rings. She glares at Moss and picks it up. “Hello, IT. Of course, I’ll be right up to fix it. Have a nice day!”
Jen sets down the phone, and Roy is already rolling his eyes at her.
“Would it kill you to be polite to people?” she says. “Marjorie on fourth is just having some trouble logging on.”
“Yes,” Roy answers, flipping open a comic book. “Yes, it would.”
“And what are you doing now?” Jen says. “Aren’t you going to fix that girl’s computer?”
Roy looks up over the top of his comic. “I’m not going to fix anything. You said you’d be right up!”
“Oh, Roy, you have to help me. I don’t know anything about com-puters.”
“You’ll be fine,” Roy says, like someone might say it’s fine to throw a baby into the deep end of a pool. “Just go up there and trying turning it on and off again.”
“But what if something’s really wrong with her computer?”
Roy laughs. A lot.
“Look, if you’re really that nervous, I’ll go up with you, hang back in case you need anything.”
“Thank you, Roy.”
They ride the elevator up to floor four, and Roy stays back in the hallway while Jen finds her way to Marjorie’s desk.
Roy is leaning against the wall, wondering if Moss’s body will allow for the bucket of chicken he was planning on eating for lunch, when a girl walks by. Roy’s seen her around the seventh floor before: blond hair, tight skirt, high heels. Anna, maybe. Roy watches her walk by, until it becomes evident that she’s not walking by, she’s walking to. To him.
“Hi there,” Anna says, standing in front of Roy and twirling her hair.
Roy looks around. The hallway is completely deserted. “Me?”
“Yes, you, silly.” Anna steps close enough that Roy can smell her perfume and grabs Roy by the short tie. This is about the only time he would agree with Moss’s assessment of his style as sweet. “What are you doing after work today, Maurice?”
“After work!” Roy squeaks. “I’m, er, doesn’t matter,” he says. “I can cancel it.”
“Really?” Anna sounds less like she doesn’t believe he could have a social life and more like Christmas has come early. “You usually play board games with your friends on Tuesdays.”
“I do,” Roy agrees. “But I’ve, er. My friends all… died. Yes, they died. In a... car crash. Very sad.”
“Oh, dear, I’m am so sorry. I hope you’re alright. Would you like to come ‘round for dinner tonight, then? That might cheer you up.”
“Round for dinner,” Roy says, breathless. He nearly accepts before remembering that it’s not him Anna wants to have dinner with, it is—inexplicably—Moss. He thinks about Jen’s death glare at Moss, and then he thinks about having to go on a date as Moss, or do other things as Moss. God does he want to accept, but it would be so… weird. Roy grits his teeth and says, loyally, “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Really? That’s great. Better than all the other times girls on seven asked you out,” she adds sheepishly.
All the other times? Roy doesn’t even know what to say. He doesn’t even know if he’s ever made a girl sheepish before, and here is Moss, apparently turning down girls from seven on the regular.
Anna doesn’t seem to notice his dumbfoundedness. She’s already clicking a pen and jotting down her number on a post-it. “Call me!” she says, and then she folds up the post-it and sticks it into his shirt pocket. Anna walks away down the hall, and Roy doesn’t even remember to watch her leave. The second Anna turns the corner, he collapses against the wall. What just happened?
Jen comes down the hall then, looking like she’s had about as strange an encounter as Roy.
“How’d it go, then? Alright?”
“More than alright!” Jen says, looking more than a little smug. “Her computer was already plugged in and turned on, but I got her back online anyway.”
“So what was the problem then? Did somebody disable the firewall again?”
Jen cackles. (Roy didn’t even know he had that kind of vocal range.) “I don’t know! That’s the thing, Roy, you know I don’t know anything about com-puters, but something just came over me.” Jen shivers. “I imagine it’s what being possessed feels like. Or being blackout drunk, that’s what it is.”
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Okay? I’ve never felt so alive! Roy, I think this could be my calling. I know I make my job as relationship manager look easy, but—”
“Oh, sure, you make doing nothing look easy.”
“Yes, I do, thank you, it’s nice to have some recognition every once in a while. But I could get used to fixing things.”
“I bet you just got lucky. It was a fluke,” Roy says, not sounding convincing even to himself.
***
Moss is knee-deep in a game of online Scrabble when Jen and Roy come back down. “Hello!” he says, not looking up from the board. He’s about to play zombify on a triple-word square for a score of 81 when Roy thrusts a piece of paper in his face with what appears to be a phone number on it.
“Aha!” Roy cries.
“What’s that, the new emergency number?”
“Not unless the emergency is this Tuesday night for dinner!”
“How is that an emergency? Are you expecting a cooking fire?”
“Oh, please, he doesn’t cook,” Jen says from the couch.
“Yeah, I don’t— Hey, I know how to cook. Some things. Toast. Anyway, that’s not the point. Anna from seven asked me—you—out this week! And she said girls from seven are always asking you out.”
“No,” Jen says. “Really? Anna from seven?”
“I hope you didn’t accept,” Moss says. “You know I play board games on Tuesdays.”
“I told the lovely lady I’d think about it.”
“Well, I’ve thought about it, and the answer’s no,” Moss says, rather hoping this will be the end of the conversation.
“No? I don’t understand you, Moss,” Roy says. “Women are apparently crazy for you, why aren’t you going out on dates all the time?”
“I prefer to spend my enormous romantic charisma elsewhere, thank you very much.”
Jen frowns. “On… more beautiful women? More beautiful than the girls on seven?”
“Or are you dating someone else?” Roy asks. “It’s not…” He looks suddenly ill. “It’s not Jen, is it?”
“No!” Jen scoffs.
Moss nods. “No, Jen and I have held amorous congress just the once. That was quite enough for me, thanks. Not really looking for that sort of female companionship anymore.”
“Oh come on Moss, don’t give up on women just because you had the misfortune of sleeping with Jen here.”
“Hey!”
Moss considers mentioning that Jen and Roy haven’t asked how he feels about male companionship, but decides instead to focus on the issue at hand. “Roy, don’t go leching around too much in my body, I don’t want you encouraging them.”
Roy sighs. “I already tried. It’s just no fun anymore when the girls actually like me. There’s no game to it!”
“God, listen to the both of you,” Jen says. “Men!”
***
Moss checks his watch. It’s nearly five, and he’s spent the better part of the afternoon repairing his second largest pair of glasses. Today’s the deadline for a Project Daedalus, the newest design for that thing Reynholm Industries makes, and Douglas’s big call with Japan. He was expecting the phone to be ringing off the hook all day, but his work has gone uninterrupted. Something isn’t right.
“Roy, did you fix the video conferencing in the meeting room?” Moss asks.
“No, why?”
“We haven’t got any new tickets about it all day.”
Roy clicks around on his computer. “Come to think of it, we haven’t. We haven’t gotten any tickets all day.”
“Well, that’s certainly odd,” Moss says. He takes out a compact mirror from his desk and brusquely re-applies his lipstick. He’s a quick learner, thank you very much, and in the short time he’s been in Jen’s body, has gotten quite good at applying lipstick tastefully and where it should be. This time is no exception—that is, until Jen stumbles into the office, and Moss flinches.
“Oh, come off it—” Moss is more than a little peeved to have gotten lipstick outside of the lines, but he breaks off when he sees the state that Jen is in.
Jen staggers into the room and collapses onto the couch. She has a five o’clock shadow and her eyes are red-rimmed, as if she hasn’t slept in days.
Roy gets up and kneels next to her on the couch, pushing the games controller out of the way on the floor. “What happened to you?”
“I fixed it,” Jen says. Her eyelids droop.
“Fixed what?”
“Everything.” Her head falls limp in Roy’s arms.
“What d’you mean, everything?” Moss says, standing up himself.
Roy shakes his head. “She’s passed out. You don’t understand, Moss, she was like this earlier, too. It’s like she’s possessed or something.”
“What are you saying, Jen made her way through our entire backlog of tickets in some kind of stupor?”
“Well, I don’t know, yes! Stranger things have happened.” Roy adjusts his glasses.
“Switching bodies is one thing,” Moss says, shaking his head. “The color copier on floor six is—”
Jen jerks awake. “Cyan!” she cries, before returning to her fitful sleep.
Moss puts his hand to her forehead, and it’s warm. “It’s overwhelmed her system,” he says sadly. “This, Roy, is Jen’s Blue Screen of Death.”
The two of them finish up for the day, closing out all the tickets Jen managed to fix. Moss drapes a coat over Jen’s shoulders, and turns out the light in the office. Richmond is due to be back the next day, but what Jen needs now is a good, hard reboot.
***
The next morning, Moss arrives to find Jen and Richmond on the couch together, catching up. Jen looks much better than yesterday, the tried and true method of turning it off and on again having worked its usual wonders.
Richmond looks well. He doesn’t look like someone who’s come back from a week on holiday in Florida, but for him, he looks well. A white ruff covers his wrists and neck, and on his usual white facepaint are small Floridian flags in the place of tears. By the time Roy walks in, ten minutes late and yawning, Richmond has shown them the note from his doctor saying this week should have filled him with enough Vitamin D to stave off Rickets for an entire year.
“I’m happy to hear that, Richmond, really,” Jen says, “but we have a much bigger problem here.”
Richmond nods. “Ah yes, the body swap.”
“Yes, the— how did you know?” Jen says, looking down at her very-much-still-Roy body.
“It’s obvious, really.” Richmond shrugs. “Just textbook.”
“Well then, can you fix it?” Jen says. “I can’t live like this.”
Roy and Moss nod along.
“Moss’s mother is driving me mad.”
“Modeling is not the glamorous lifestyle Zoolander led me to believe it would be.”
“The only way to break the curse,” Richmond says, looking dramatically off at the office’s fourth, mysteriously bare wall, “is true love’s kiss.”
“What?!” Jen looks horrified. “I’m not in love with either of these two idiots!”
“Hey!” Roy says, crossing his arms. “We’re not idiots! And I’m not exactly standing in line to kiss you, either.”
Jen turns to Richmond. “How are we supposed to switch back if none of us are in true love?”
Richmond shrugs. He seems to be enjoying this.
Moss stands, and draws himself to his full height. He’s in Jen’s tallest pair of heels, which helps, even though they give him terrible blisters. “I’ll do it,” he says.
“It’s not really a one-man thing, mate,” Roy says.
Moss strides across the room, dips Roy like a tango dancer, and lays one on him. They kiss for a full minute, which Moss remembers as the time it takes for twenty-nine police cars to drive by. He lets go of Roy, seeing the same shock he had seen on Roy’s face that day at the gas works reflected back in his own features. It didn’t work.
Roy touches his mouth. “True love?”
Moss shrugs. “I thought I’d give it a go. Can’t be, I suppose, if it didn’t switch us back.”
“We could, er, try it again though. Couldn’t we, Moss? Just in case it didn’t take.”
“You goth bastard, why didn’t it work!” Jen cries.
“Only joking!” Richmond says, laughing in three soft, precise syllables. He opens the red door and takes a quick look at the panel of flashing lights. “It’s just this lever here.”
The lights in the office flicker again, and Moss has the unexpected sensation of waking up from a nap. He blinks a couple of times, and adjusts his glasses. His glasses! Richmond’s only gone and ruddy done it!
Jen, back in her rightful body, crushes Richmond in a hug. “Oh, Richmond, thank you! You don’t know what it was like to be in Roy’s body, it was just disgusting.”
“Hey!”
“Jen here didn’t believe you had the expertise,” Moss says, shaking his head.
“Yes, well, I’m sorry for thinking you sit around in the room behind the red door all day, Richmond, but it really looks like you do.”
“It’s alright,” Richmond says. “I took that room for granted once, too. It was five years ago, ere the eve of Friday the thirteenth…”
Richmond monologues on. Moss has learned by now to tune him out. That was certainly a zany adventure, but he’s ready for things to get back to how they were before. He sits down at his desk, and pulls out a circuit board that’s been malfunctioning. But he stops, screwdriver poised, when Moss notices Roy lingering in front of his desk.
“So, how about that second go?”
Moss puts down his screwdriver. Maybe not completely how they were before. “I thought you’d never ask.”