The Soulmate System

2. Soulmates are Chosen Regardless of Personal Preferences

...and found himself falling from the building, his hair flailing aggressively against the wind. He watched the building as he fell, the Child of Death following him down every floor from every pane of glass.

'Does that even make sense?' asked Dylan, who leaned back into his desk chair. 'But...he has to die.' Knowing he was behind in his work, the man had thrown himself into a new short story, fueled by an angry desire for revenge against Bryce from two weeks ago. But Dylan cracked a wicked smile as his character split in two on the corner of a moving van. 'Serves you right for being an ass, Houghton.'

He paused and sighed, closing the document; he noted the time on the digital clock in the corner of his screen. "I have a meeting," he mumbled, blinking and bringing his gaze back to the computer screen to complete a line of coding.

"Dylan." He turned to see Chris standing at the entrance of his cubicle. "Our meeting is happening now." Dylan nodded, collected his things, and proceeded to one of the conference rooms.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, sir," said Stevenson, watching as Dylan sat down. A smartly dressed man on the television monitor glanced over the project crew. "Our web designer just arrived, so we can now proceed to discuss – " The man's face froze on the monitor, the smooth image pixelated beyond recognition.

"I couldn't hear you after the web designer arrived," the man noted, his voice broken and disappearing for moments as he spoke. The image froze on him gesturing to Dylan sitting in his usual seat towards the room's left corner; that moment made Dylan stir in his chair. His project partners, even Stevenson, all eyed the web designer.

"This is Travis," whispered Chris, gesturing to the man next to him. "He's our project analyst."

"I know Dylan," said Travis, grinning. "How goes it, mate?" He and Dylan shook hands roughly.

"I'm fine, Travis," said Dylan back, rubbing his eyes.

"You know each other?" asked Chris, his eyes darting between the two men.

"We worked on the...'Henderson Oil' account together. Like...what, almost two years ago, right?" asked Travis.

Dylan nodded. "That project's the reason why I hate everything." His eyes wandered to his other project members –Amber, Chris, and Travis. 'Well, most everything.' Then his eyes wandered to Bryce sitting opposite him.

"Sorry, sir," Stevenson continued. "Now, with Mr. Matthews here, we can proceed to discuss what we've done with your startup thus far." Stevenson turned and gestured to Amber. She stood and produced a poster displaying several different marketing aspects.

"Now, you wanted a, uh, subdued marketing campaign," Amber explained, pointing to the several graphs that outlined the man's company's present financial year. "Unfortunately, your fiscal means of doing so would bring you teetering towards bankruptcy, if the spending amount you've quoted to us is correct." She paused, hoping the man would reply to the comment, but the frozen face onscreen said nothing. "That..." She side glanced Stevenson, who encouraged her to keep going. "...that also means that, with what you've wanted – "

The man glitched, the contours of his face fuzzy like a child's watercolour self-portrait. The screen turned black, indicating no reception.

This pattern of talking, the screen freezing, the connection lost and repeating continued for another thirteen minutes before the man onscreen sighed. "This is impossible," he began, fingers pressed against his temples. "I'm not paying to not hear what you can do for me."