Steve Hopley

Steve Hopley was an employee at Joyriders.

He was a bit younger than forty and liked eighties rock. He was good with technology.

He was an alcoholic. His wife threatened to never let him see her or their kids again if she ever smells booze on his breath again.

He found a solution by using the alien body-swapping device to binge-drink in a transplant's body. He did it in secret from his boss, Garry Fletcher, whom he was mortally afraid of. To do that, he figured out how to set a timer on a transfer back from the transplant's body. He didn't mind that Fletcher considered him stupid.

Exploring the machine's functions, one Tuesday in October 2016, he accidentally did a full transfer of John O'Donnell's consciousness into Ram Singh's body. After that, he briefly transferred himself into April MacLean's body and drank so much vodka that she came to school completely drunk.

Not only was Ram's consciousness now permanently transferred into O'Donnell's body and vice versa, but Steve's tampering with the timer accidentally woke Ram too early. Ram almost managed to fool Steve into thinking he was O'Donnell. Only Fletcher's arrival prevented Ram from escaping.

After Fletcher left, Ram threatened to harm O'Donnell's body and escaped from Steve after all. While alone, Steve found a way to reverse the body swap between Ram and O'Donnell, accidentally saving Ram's life by putting O'Donnell back into his body being run over by Fletcher's car.

After Fletcher returned, he organised an expedition aimed at capturing two aliens, Charlie and Miss Quill, to help him with the alien machine they had been using. He sent two of his clients, James Banks and Barry Taylor, as well as Steve, to control the bodies of Charlie's friends, with Steve getting the body of Matteusz Andrzejewski this time.

When the three returned bringing Charlie and Miss Quill with them, Ram, who managed to take control of Fletcher's body, ordered Steve to transfer Banks and Taylor out of Tanya and April and into their intended targets for the day and then transfer himself out of Matteusz. When Steve returned to his own body, Ram broke his nose and gave him over to Miss Quill for interrogation.

She scared him into wetting himself, telling her how to find the list of Fletcher's clients and showing her how to operate the body-swapping machine. (PROSE: Joyride)