Clockworkers

by Ramsey Isler

  “Uhm...”

  “You did,” Sam yelled. “You look like a damn twelve-year-old and you went out and drove a car. With no license.”

  “I had to test it,” Piv said with a shrug.

  “Did anybody see you?”

  “Of course not. Nobody sees me unless I want them to.”

  Sam let out a heavy sigh and adjusted the seat. “That was really stupid. You shouldn’t have done that. Something bad could have happened.”

  “Could have,” Piv said. “But didn’t.”

  Sam glared at him. Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed to slits. But she kept her tongue still, and went back to examining the car. When she could find nothing else to complain about, she stuck the key in the ignition and gave it a turn. The car came alive with a throaty rumble. She tapped the accelerator, and the engine growled.

  She swiveled her head to look out the driver’s side window, intending to compliment the elf on his work. But he wasn’t there. She craned her neck to look out the rear window, but still saw no sign of him. She heard a click to her right, and turned to find Piv sitting in the passenger seat, with his seat belt on.

  “Safety first!” he said, giggling.

  Sam groaned and shook her head as she pulled her own seat belt on. “I suppose I can’t convince you to stay here.”

  “Nuh uh,” Piv said, shaking his head.

  “Fine.”

  Sam hit the garage door button on her key chain and waited until the door was fully open before she grasped the shiny gear shifter and put the car into drive.

  “If I stomp on the gas,” she said, “everything will be fine?”

  Piv nodded emphatically. “Yes. There will be no performance problems.”

  “We’ll have to test that,” Sam said. She eased out of the garage, made a quick left turn, and headed towards an isolated side street.

  “You don’t think I fixed it properly?” Piv asked.

  “That’s not it,” Sam said. “I just know how machines have a tendency to do things their builders didn’t intend.”

  “Maybe when they’re built by human hands,” Piv said. “But my work always does exactly what it’s supposed to.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Sam said. She turned right, and quietly eased onto the empty street she had picked out. As soon as the car was pointed straight, she stomped on the gas pedal. The car bolted forward, and the force of acceleration pushed Sam back into her seat. The speedometer arced smoothly towards 60.

  The imp next to her just smiled and clapped his hands.

  Sam said nothing to the beaming little elf in the passenger seat. She focused on her driving, paying special attention to every sound and movement of the car. She quickly ran out of street to race on, and she eased the car back to a reasonable speed. She turned around to head back home, and when they arrived back at the garage she got out of the driver’s seat to stretch. Piv followed, gracefully jumping out of the passenger side window and sliding onto the hood to stare at her back. Sam turned to him and marveled at how the elf had delivered exactly what she requested...in less than a day.

  “Are you satisfied?” Piv asked.

  “Yes I am. You did a very good job.”

  “Thank you. I suggest we move on to something more challenging.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Sam said as she gave him a mischievous smile. “I have a very special project for you to work on. Something that no one else has ever done.”

  “I know that look,” Piv said. “Your father used to give me that look when he was scheming. Such a schemer, he was.”

  “But you always went along with his schemes,” Sam said.

  “Because they were always fun. Will your schemes be fun too?”

  “Most definitely, my little friend. More fun than you can imagine.”

  “I look forward to this,” Piv said.

  “I bet you do,” Sam said. “Anyway, I’m assuming that all I have to do is keep you fed and interested, right? Is that enough to make it worth your time?”

  Piv frowned and said, “You can’t put a value on my time.”

  Sam laughed. “Time is money, my naive little friend. That’s how us big people work.”

  Piv paused for a moment. He scratched his chin and his little nose scrunched up in contemplation. Finally, he said, “Do you remember when you were a little girl, about ten years old, and your father brought you outside to watch the...oh what do you call it. The...eclipse! Yes, the eclipse.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Sam asked.

  “Quite a bit, but you don’t understand yet,” Piv said. “Just answer my question, and you will soon see.”

  Sam rolled her eyes, and said. “Yes. I do recall when my dad took me to see the eclipse.”

  “Describe it to me,” Piv said.

  “I don’t know. I guess...I remember thinking how...amazing it was to see the sun just go away. Dad bought some special glasses so we could look up and watch the whole thing. He explained it all to me. Sometimes I look back and think that was the moment when I really got interested in science.”

  Piv asked, “What price would you put on the time you spent together on that day?”

  “You can’t put a dollar sign on something like that,” Sam said.

  Piv nodded. “Exactly.”

  “I see what you’re trying to say,” Sam said, “but that’s different. That moment was special.”

  “Every moment is special,” Piv said. “Each moment of each day is priceless, because once it’s gone, there is nothing in this world that can bring it back. Time is the only thing that any of us really have, and once our time us up, there is no way to get more. I have seen many more sunrises than even the oldest of your kind, and I have never wasted a single one of those precious moments. That is why I’ll never understand why you people trade time for something as worthless as little slips of paper with numbers on them.”

  “So...you’re basically telling me I don’t have to pay you anything,” Sam said, smiling.

  “I’m telling you more than that, but if that’s what you choose to hear, it is close enough.”

  “I like this deal,” Sam said, turning her attention back to the shiny, sleek Mustang. “You’re going to be an amazing asset without costing a dime.”

  “Oh I only said you don’t have to pay me,” Piv said. “I didn’t say there wouldn’t be a cost.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Sam said. She turned back to look at the elf, but he was gone again.

  Sam shook her head blew hot air from her mouth. “I’m getting real tired of these disappearing acts.” But, all things considered, she was still in a very good mood. She locked the garage and made her way into her home office. She locked that door too.

  She walked over to the fireproof safe she’d placed here years ago and entered the security code on the dial pad. The safe unlocked and revealed its contents—a stack of documents that Sam hadn’t seen in years. She retrieved the manilla folder at the top of the stack, sat down, and spilled the folder’s contents on her desk. The papers were covered in mechanical schematics, each finely drawn in impeccable detail.

  Sam looked at them, and smiled.

  Chapter 8

  Sam slept soundly that night. There are few better sedatives than an assured mind.

  When the sun rose, Sam woke up, stretched, and yawned. Rupert, lying next to her bed, raised his head and stared at her blankly.

  “Where’s your little buddy?” Sam said. “You guys didn’t have any private conversations while I was asleep?”

  Rupert lowered his head and covered his eyes with a paw.

  “I see how it is,” Sam said as she swung her legs off of her bed, slipped on her house shoes, and shuffled into the kitchen.

  The house was quiet, as usual, and there were no signs of Piv. Sam peeked into the garage and found nothing out of place. The Mustang was still there, and there were no signs the elf had taken any joy rides during the night.

  Sam searched
the dining and living rooms for any sign of strange or supernatural happenings. But nothing was out of the ordinary. Was the elf asleep? Do elves sleep? She made a mental note to sift through more of her father’s book for answers to these questions later today. But for now, she knew exactly what she needed to do to get her talented little friend’s attention.

  “Piv,” she said, “come out and let’s talk.”

  “What do you want to talk about?” a voice said behind her. She turned and found Piv in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the kitchen table just like he had on the night he revealed himself to her.

  “Were you there all this time?” Sam asked.

  Piv shook his head, and smiled.

  “Are you going to tell me how you showed up over there so fast?”

  Piv shook his head again.

  “Fine,” Sam said. “All in due time, I guess. Anyway, we need to chat about something. I have another project for you.”

  “Splendid!” Piv said.

  Sam smiled. She couldn’t help it. The elf was too darn silly. “I’m going to go get something,” she said. “Stay here. No disappearing.”

  “Very well,” Piv said.

  Sam went back into her room and grabbed the packet of papers she’d been staring at last night. She returned to the living room and handed the stack to Piv. The elf giggled with glee as he pored over his new prize, but his facial expression soon shifted from a beaming smile to a look of utter bewilderment.

  “What is this?” he said.

  Now it was Sam’s turn to smile. “This is the world’s most advanced clockwork system.”

  “I don’t remember seeing this before,” Piv said.

  “Really?” Sam said. “I guess there were some things Dad didn’t share with you after all.”

  “That would not surprise me,” Piv said. “Where did this come from?”

  “Me and my dad,” Sam said. “We worked on these designs for years. It was the best thing we ever did.”

  Piv took a few of the schematic sheets and spread them out in front of him. His eyes flicked over the detailed drawings and descriptions and his brow furrowed in intense thought. “This is...quite...puzzling.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from you,” Sam said. “Let me give you a little more background. The Chablon Method for clockwork was designed to give watches more functionality while still maintaining the tradition and artistry of mechanical parts. When I was younger, my dad was always fascinated by pushing the limits of how many complications he could fit into a watch.”

  “Complications?” Piv asked.

  “It’s a watchmaker term,” Sam answered. “The word refers to a feature that the watch has besides telling time; stuff like an alarm, or a calendar, or the current phase of the moon. Anyway, Dad and I felt the thinking in the field was really limited. Watchmakers weren’t really innovating. They just tried to cram as many complications onto the face of the watch as they could. They weren’t thinking of ways to make the watch become more than a simple gadget that couldn’t do much more than a 20-year-old electronic wristwatch.”

  “So,” Piv said, “you found a way to add more complications by making the watch more...complicated?”

  Sam laughed. “I guess that’s one way to put it. You see, the Chablon Method does something special. It makes the watch transform. The face of the watch isn’t just a simple display mechanism like in most watches. It’s comprised of dozens of tiny plates that shift, rotate, and move to create a mosaic of different displays and functions.”

  “I see,” Piv said. “So all these parts are like...layers. Stacked on top of each each other, and they slide and twist into place to perform whatever function the wearer just chose.”

  “Exactly,” Sam said. “Look at this design here.” Sam pointed to a drawing of what appeared to be a normal watch. “On the surface, this looks like the basic watch face that everyone is familiar with. But like I said, it’s actually not one piece. It’s a bunch of tinier multifaceted pieces that form whatever we want you to see. The seams are very tight and set along the dial lines, so it gives the appearance of being a perfectly smooth, unbroken face. But when our watch wearer wants the watch to show something different, like a full calendar for the current month, all they have to do is click a button. Come here, let me show you.”

  Sam led Piv to her laptop on the dining room table. She double-clicked on a file in a folder labeled “Projects”. In a few seconds, a video appeared showing a 3D rendering of a watch spinning in a white void. The movie displayed a simple dial with hour, minute, and second hands. Then the watch face burst into action. The tiny plates that comprised the watch face folded out like flower petals, then shifted and twisted as they flipped into a new configuration. The old watch face was gone, replaced by a new design that showed a full calendar for the month of October.

  “Magical,” Piv said.

  Sam smiled. “Honestly, it feels good to have some kind of validation for the design. We never showed it to anyone besides the patent office people when we applied for the patent, which we got.”

  “Why didn’t you ever make these watches then?” Piv said.

  “No one would’ve been able to build it,” Sam said. “The degree of accuracy required in the manufacturing process is insane. For a long time I thought no one would ever be able to build it. Then you came along.”

  Piv smiled. “This does sound like fun times.”

  “I’m glad you think so. So do you think you can really pull this off?”

  “Pull what off of what?” Piv asked.

  “Do you think you can successfully build a watch that uses the Chablon Method?”

  Piv peered over the designs again, holding the papers out at arm’s length. “Maybe. There are many teeny weeny pieces here. It will be tricksy, even for a Kith. But I will try.”

  “I suppose that’s all I can really ask for,” Sam said. “How about you take some more time to get familiar with the designs while I set you up with the materials you’ll need in the garage. I’ll head into the office late today, but while I’m gone you can try to tinker with things.”

  “Mmhm,” Piv mumbled as he returned his attention back to the designs.

  Sam left him to his work, and went off to prep the garage for the elf’s next great achievement.

  * * *

  Eighty thousand dollars.

  That’s roughly how much it cost Sam to stock up the garage with the necessary materials for Piv to build his first Chablon Method watch.

  She’d picked out most of the materials from the stockroom at Better Timepieces, but there were many parts that simply didn’t exist anywhere else, so the elf would have to machine them himself. Sam trusted that he had the skill to do that, since he’d been helping her father with tricky watch repairs for decades.

  And he was, after all, an elf.

  Sam provided Piv with plenty of raw aluminum, steel, brass, and spare industry-quality jewels for the bearings. But the bulk of the expense came from the new manufacturing equipment—a Leitz precision jig borer, a Schaublin lathe, a 4-axis CNC mill and an optical comparator. Each machine was specialized for manufacturing the tiniest metal pieces with extreme accuracy. There was enough equipment in that garage to open another small watch shop if she wanted. Sam felt fully confident that Piv would have more than enough to do the job.

  It took a week to get everything ready, and during that time Sam still went to Better Timepieces to handle shop business. A number of interesting repair projects came in, and sometimes they kept Sam’s mind from daydreaming about what Piv might be up to in her garage. Today she was focused on a tricky repair for an Omega, and Yusef was there with a pile of papers in front of him and a mangled pen in his mouth, as usual. He looked up from his work and said, “What’s been up with you?”

  “What do you mean?” Sam said.

  “You seem distracted lately. Something on your mind?”

  “Nope,” Sam said.

  “Jess came by this morning,” Yuse
f said to her. “She was shocked that you weren’t here. I told her that I was shocked too...the first time it happened. But I’ve gotten used to it now.”

  “So I’ve been coming in late,” Sam said. “What are you going to do, tell the boss?”

  “I’m not trying to give you a hard time, okay? I’m just a little concerned. This isn’t like you.”

  “Yusef. I’m fine. Worry if you see me around here crying all the damn time.”

  “Actually,” Yusef said, “I’d prefer that. If you were crying that would make sense after all that’s happened recently. If you weren’t at the office at all, that would make sense too. But you’re doing the opposite. You come in sporadically, and when you do come in you spend half the day in this absentminded haze with a silly grin on your face.”

  “Daydreaming at work is odd now?” Sam asked.

  “For you it is.”

  “Yusef, things are fine. I’ve just...discovered something new that has given me a reason to be excited about life again.”

  “Ah, I see,” Yusef said. “So you’re on drugs.”

  Sam glared at him.

  “It’s okay,” Yusef said. “Everybody experiments at some point. I mean, back in college I—”

  “I’m not on drugs you dumb ass,” Sam said. “I’m going to tell you this one more damn time. I’m fine. I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine. Now stop trying to be my therapist and get back to the work I pay you to do.”

  “Okay then. I’ll keep it professional. So you won’t mind me asking a professional question about where some of our stock blanks and dies went?”

  “They’re at my place,” Sam said. “I’m doing some work at home.”

  “I see,” Yusef said.

  “Don’t worry,” Sam said. “If I were going to take stuff from the office for my drug habit, I wouldn’t go for the steel blanks. That wouldn’t buy very much meth, ya know.”

  * * *