You hear muffled sounds as you're bumped and dragged up the stairs. You're breathless as the hood over your head clings to your face. You hear a voice, deep and gravelly, the same one you heard before this misadventure started. With a grunt, you're pushed into a seat.
A meaty hand wrestles with the hood and finally cool air touches your face. You blink at the bright lights and the figures finally come into focus. A large rotund figure sits behind an expensive desk. By his side, the meathead that you last saw at the door of your apartment.
The executive continues writing notes and shows more interest in his laptop.
With a sigh you say, "What the fu…" It's all you can get out before the exec gestures at you and you feel a heavy hand bounce off the back of your head. You turn and flinch as you see someone even bigger than the guy flanking the exec raise his hand again.
The exec looks up at you, steepling his fingers together. "So Mr…" he snaps his fingers a couple of times and the heavy to his right mumbles something under his breath. "Mr. Reid, I understand you make your living as a photographer."
You nod slowly as he thumbs through a folder on his desk.
"Well it's remarkable that you can afford a penthouse apartment in the city, a brand new sports car and, oh my, a yacht all on a photographer's salary. You must have some sort of supplemental income source."
"Hey, why don't you cut to the fucking chase," you bark, then feel a slap to the face from the goon behind you.
"I understand you've made a handsome profit in gambling, both legally and otherwise," the exec says.
"Yeah, so what? You kidnapped me to give me a lecture on illegal gambling?"
"Who am I to judge," the exec responds with an almost mocking calmness as you scan the room for a possible escape route, "but it would be an awful shame if your luck were to run out."
At those words, your eyes dart back to meet his. "What did you say?"
"Tell me, Mr. Reid, how have you been doing lately?"
There was no denying it, you had suddenly been losing money left and right. You had come to rely on some healthy earnings from regular gambling activities. You began in online poker, nearly 10 years ago now, and before long you were making thousands of dollars a month, more money than at your day job. Lately, it had been mostly sports gambling, but now you were on the worst streak of your life and the comfortable lifestyle you've gotten used to was now very much in jeopardy. Every single bet you made for the past two months lost. It was uncanny, beyond just bad luck. Something was up. Could this guy have something to do with it?
"I'm doing fine," you grumble as your mind continues to race. There's no way he could be behind it, no way he could be rigging dozens of sporting events all across the country, and all just to screw with you? Your train of thought is interrupted by another slap across the face.
"I don't appreciate being lied to," the exec says. "What I have for you is an opportunity to turn your fortunes around."
You look at him more intently, trying to figure out what he's trying to suggest.
"What do you mean?"
"As I'm sure you're aware," the exec says. "Gambling can be so much more lucrative if the odds are tipped in your favor, just the tiniest bit. I'd like you to help me tip those odds."
"So are you telling me that you're rigging games? How many people are you paying off? And how do you expect me to help?"
He smiles as the goon next to him holds up a gun-like device that looks like a mixture between a starter's pistol and a ticket scanner. "With this…and some technology that we, ahem, acquired from a small company that, shall we say, went under, we can put you into the body of an athlete and you can nudge the results in our favor."
You can't help but laugh at this absurd proposition. "What is this a joke? Even if your bullshit story was true, I wouldn't help you in a million years."
The exec sighed and tapped his finger on the table. "You know we could make this very difficult for you."
"I don't give a shit!"
The exec gestured again and the meathead to his right left the room only to return with another man struggling against the guy. He pulls the sheet of the man's head and you gasp.
"Josh!" you scream at the sight of the man struggling against the goon. No one knew you were gay, but after you had met Josh several months ago, you began quietly dating and were now falling in love with him.
"Well I see you've met," said the executive. "Let me lay this out for you as simply as I can. You can walk away and I can expose you as an illegal gambler, a tax cheat and a homosexual. You'll lose everything. Or you can help me and earn money that will make that online poker shit look like fucking chump change."
The exec comes out from behind his desk and takes a seat directly in front of you. "You can take over the bodies of professional athletes. Josh can do it with you. You'll make more money than you ever dreamed possible." He pauses and looks at you both. "And I'm sure the two of you can find something fun to do in those bodies after the game's over. The choice is yours."