Clockworkers

by Ramsey Isler

  Ten more of the messages were actually relevant and important. She responded to them with as much thoroughness as each topic required. Some of them just needed a one-line reply. Others needed lengthy responses to ensure that her instructions were clear.

  That left fifteen more messages to deal with. These were the tricky ones—miscellaneous messages from various social networks, business message boards, automated alerts from her bank, and the like. It was normal fare. But there was one message that was quite unusual. Its title caught her eye and made her heart rate quicken. It read, “Miss Chablon, I have a billion dollar offer for you.”

  She read the “From” column, and saw that the message was from gbrundt@swema.se. Swema was a relatively new but very well-funded investment conglomerate. They were buying up companies like a celebrity on a shopping spree. And, they were Swiss.

  Sam paused. Her finger hovered above her mouse. Was it clever spam that had somehow made its way past her aggressive filters? Was it a virus? Or was it...possibly legitimate?

  She clicked on it, and read.

  Dear Miss Chablon,

  My name is Gunnar Brundt. I am General Manager here at Swema. I’d like to speak with you, in person, about an offer we are prepared to make.

  Best,

  Gunnar

  The message was terse, cordial, and revealed nothing more than necessary. Very Swiss.

  Sam sat back in her chair and released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding in. Eight minutes passed before she moved again.

  She reached out, placed her hands on her keyboard, and typed out what she felt would be the most important letter of her life.

  * * *

  Three days later, Gunnar Brundt arrived in Michigan. He gave Sam a pleasant call to let her know he had landed at the airport and would be arriving shortly. He spoke in perfect English accompanied by a Swiss accent that was everything Sam expected a Swiss accent to be.

  Once the chat with Gunnar was over, Sam beckoned Jessica to her office and told her to expect an important guest and to be sure that everyone was on their best behavior.

  “Who is this guy?” Jessica asked.

  “He represents Swema,” Sam said.

  Jessica’s eyes opened wide. “Shut up! Are we talking about an acquisition here?”

  “Maybe,” Sam said, “but keep a lid on it. This is still really early and I don’t want things mucked up.”

  “No problem,” Jessica said. “But we have to make sure everything is set up nicely. Take him to the conference room and I’ll have the place catered with the absolute best pastries. I know a guy.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Sam said.

  In 30 minutes, Jessica had the conference room table adorned with delicate baked goods and confections. The room smelled heavenly, and when Sam walked in she started salivating like Pavlov’s dog. The pastries and chocolates were all decorated with elaborate swirls, and many had fruit filling centers that shone in the fluorescent light. They were quite beautiful. But, even though Sam hated to admit it, they paled in comparison to Hax’s masterful cupcake artistry.

  Gunnar lived up to the famed Swiss timeliness when he arrived almost exactly when he said he would. Jessica and Sam greeted him cheerfully and led him on a tour of the office that Jessica had orchestrated carefully (the whiteboards scribbled with plans on how to counter the marketing plans of their Swiss competitors were wiped clean, among other things). When the tour was over, Sam escorted their guest to the conference room. Gunnar audibly gasped when he saw the spread of goodies on the meeting room table.

  “Do you...enjoy sweets?” Gunnar asked.

  “I do,” Sam said. “Some people say I enjoy them a little too much.”

  “What is life without a few indulgences?” Gunnar answered. His hand hovered over a tray packed with goodies while he made up his mind. After a few seconds he settled on a rectangular piece of white chocolate with a dollop of caramel in the center. Gunnar popped it in his mouth and chewed slowly. His eyebrows rose and he smiled. “This is richer than I’m used to.”

  “Really?” Sam asked. “Don’t Swiss companies have the finest chocolates available at all their meetings?”

  Gunnar laughed. “No, I am afraid not. But I wish it were so.”

  “Feel free to take some home with you,” Sam said. “Actually you can take all of them home with you. I’d be afraid to gain a few pounds with those things around here.”

  “Thank you,” Gunnar said. “But I think my wife would throttle me if I brought those around our children. They are energetic enough as it is. Shall we get down to business?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Let’s do that.”

  “As I am sure you are aware,” Gunnar said as he sat down, “Swema has been very active in adding promising companies to our portfolio.”

  “What are you offering?” Sam asked.

  “In short, we’re offering a lot of money,” Gunnar said.

  “Your email said something about a billion dollars,” Sam said.

  “Yes,” Gunnar said. “I really have very little tolerance for negotiation, so I prefer to be upfront. One billion American dollars is our first, best, and final offer.”

  “Is this all cash?”

  “Yes,” Gunnar said. “Paid in installments. A quarter billion upon signing of the contract.”

  “So what’s the catch?”

  “We expect you to stay,” Gunnar said. “This wouldn’t quite be a quick exit for you. We want to be sure we fully understand all of the very clandestine production processes you’ve come up with before we let you go.”

  “Interesting,” Sam said. “I’m not really used to working for someone else.”

  “Yes, we know,” Gunnar said. “But you’d have autonomy. As long as the profit goals are met every quarter, you would never hear from us. It would be just like running your own company, but with more capital at your disposal.”

  “Okay. Is there more?”

  “Quite a bit more,” Gunnar said as he retrieved a stack of papers from his briefcase. “We can go over the term sheets in detail now if you like.”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “I would like that.”

  They spent the next two hours going over every sentence in Swema’s proposal. There was a fair amount of legalese in there, but years of handling her father’s contracts and talking to Yusef had prepared Sam for this sort of thing. Swema’s terms were strict, but fair. Normally this would be a straightforward offer that Sam would be foolish to reject, but she was running an organization with elves behind the scenes. She needed the ability to run things secretly, and these documents implied far too much transparency for her tastes.

  “I’ll have to give this kind of offer due consideration,” she told Gunnar. “I’m sure you understand.”

  Gunnar nodded. “Of course. Take your time. We’ll give you thirty days to consider it.”

  “Sounds good,” Sam said. “We should eat more of these sweets.”

  Gunnar laughed and selected another piece of chocolate. “You have a very unorthodox meeting style, Miss Chablon.”

  “Most of what I do is unorthodox,” Sam said. “That’s why I am where I am.”

  “No doubt,” Gunnar said before he popped the chocolate in his mouth. He chewed quietly for a few moments before speaking again. “It may take some time for Swema to get used to your unique style, but I think we can manage.”

  “I hope so,” Sam said.

  Gunnar jerked his hand out, revealing a shiny red watch under his cuff. “Oh dear. Look at the time. I’m afraid I must head back to the airport for an appointment in New York.”

  “Is that an eighty-eight you’re wearing?” Sam asked with a coy smile.

  “Of course it is, Miss Chablon. We are all big fans of your work.”

  “Good to know. Do you need a ride to the airport?”

  “No,” Gunnar said as he packed up everything except the stack of contract papers. “Thank you, but I have a driver waiting for me. We will be in touch, yes?”<
br />
  “Yes,” Sam said. “Are you sure you don’t want another sweet to go?”

  “You are a bad influence,” Gunnar said as he grabbed a miniature cupcake. “One for the road. Bye now.”

  Sam escorted him back to the elevator, and they exchanged handshakes and smiles before Gunnar hurried away to catch his flight. Sam walked back to the conference room with a thousand thoughts buzzing in her head. Could she pull this off? Would the Kith work under Swema? Would she be better off rejecting the offer entirely and proceeding as planned? She was still wrestling with these questions when she walked back into the conference room and closed the door. She reached for one of the chocolates, and froze when she noticed that one of the chairs in the room was now facing away from the table. She didn’t recall it being in that position before. Then she noticed something else.

  The chair was moving.

  Her heart did a back-flip in her chest. Fear, confusion, and disbelief left her completely stunned and her brain had nothing to offer. Run? Hide? Yell? All options seemed equally good, and equally bad. Her mind locked up with no clear direction to take. All she could do was stand there as the chair continued to rotate.

  Hax was sitting in it.

  The defiant elf was sitting cross-legged in the chair with his hands folded in his lap and a lopsided grin on his face. Sam’s breath returned to her in a rush. Her chest rose and fell in fits and bursts. She collapsed in the nearest chair and tried to relax. “I swear you little bastards are trying to scare me into an early grave.”

  “I thought you would be used to this kind of thing by now,” Hax said.

  “You were not supposed to be in here,” Sam said.

  “Nobody said I wasn’t supposed to be,” Hax said.

  “It’s kind of implied,” Sam said.

  Hax shrugged. “Well, it’s neither here nor there now. I know what I know. I can’t un-know it.”

  Sam narrowed her eyes. “What do you think you know?”

  “I knowwwww that you’re going to sell the compaaaaaany,” Hax sang as he flung his arms wide and spun around in the chair.

  “You don’t know that. We were just talking. Nothing is final.”

  “Oh pish posh,” Hax said when his chair stopped spinning. “That’s a lot of money they’re offering! You’re going to sell. At least, you’re going to try to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t sell without us,” Hax said. “And maybe we have some terms of our own. Yes, maybe we do.”

  Sam took a deep breath. She unclenched her fists when she finally realized she had a death grip on the armrests of her chair, and when she spoke her voice was calm and measured. “What kind of...terms?”

  “We will have to have some cogitations on that,” Hax said. “But maybe we’ll need more workshops. Everywhere.”

  “Why do you want so many workshops?”

  “We have lots of things we want to do,” Hax said.

  “No, I’m not talking about the Kith. I’m talking about you, personally. Why do you want them?”

  Hax smiled and shrugged. “I just want to make sure every country is blessed with many Kith.”

  “I see,” Sam said.

  “I will leave you to read all those writings the Swiss man left for you,” Hax said as he jumped out of his chair. “We will discuss this again soon.” He then pranced out of the room with all the joy of a child skipping home on the last day of school before summer vacation. Sam wasn’t worried about him being spotted in the office. She knew he was crafty. She knew a lot of things about him now.

  He was too brazen. Too ambitious.

  Sam’s path was clear. Her mind was set.

  Hax would have to go.

  * * *

  “I need you to go to Zurich,” Sam said as she strode into Jessica’s office the next morning.

  Jessica stared at her blankly for a few seconds before asking, “For what?”

  “You’re going to represent Better in a negotiation for our potential sale to Swema.”

  “Me? But—”

  Sam put a finger on Jessica’s lips. “Shush. Yes, I know. I’m the founder. It should be me. I’m the big decision maker. Yadda yadda. I know all of that, and you’re right. I should be there and I will be there later. But right now I’m needed here. So I need you to do what you do best while I’m holding down the fort here.”

  “But this sale...I mean...”

  “You got the email I sent you last night, right?” Sam said.

  “Yeah,” Jessica said. “But it’s still kind of too much to take in. I mean...they’re talking about a lot of money but it’s not going to be easy. They do a lot of research before they finalize an acquisition, you know. They’ll get all up in our business.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Sam said. “That’s why I need you to go over there and start answering their questions while I clean up some things that might not look so favorable for us.”

  Jessica’s expression soured. “You haven’t been cooking the books, have you?”

  “No, of course not. Better Timepieces is completely legal. There are just some employee matters I’d rather not have unresolved during these negotiations. It’s just administrative stuff to prevent some potential ugliness. You don’t have an open house until you clean the bathroom, right?”

  Jess wrinkled her nose a little—her telltale sign that something smelled fishy. But she didn’t press the issue. “How long do you think I’ll need to be there?”

  “A couple of weeks maybe,” Sam said. “You’ll have a full travel budget. Get a first class ticket on a nice airline. Put yourself up in a nice hotel. Have some fun with that legendary Zurich night life.”

  “Well,” Jess said, “if you’re gonna twist my arm...”

  Sam smiled. “All you have to do is keep Gunnar and his partners interested. Then when you’re ready to come home I’ll fly over and seal the deal.”

  “You’re sure about this,” Jess said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Completely. Now go book your flight and find a hotel.”

  “Okay, I’m going. But promise me something before I head out.”

  “Huh?”

  “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

  “Jess, I promise that everything I’ll do will be absolutely brilliant. I’ll save the stupid stuff for when you get back.”

  “Good,” Jess said, “because I wouldn’t want to miss anything fun.”

  * * *

  It’s not easy to get rid of an elf.

  Throughout Sam’s life, she had read fairy tales full of troublesome elves, gnomes, and pixies who wouldn’t leave. Usually, evicting the little hellions required some secret knowledge. In the case of Rumpelstiltskin, for instance, the young maiden had to learn the fellow’s name in order to get rid of him. Even that simple child’s tale revealed the power that Kith names have. But that power is limited, and it only goes as far as the elves see fit. Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t forced to leave the poor farm girl alone; he chose to leave because he made a deal, and the Kith never back out on a promise.

  None of the pages in Samuel’s journal addressed the process of getting an elf to leave you alone. In fact, most of his notes were focused on trying to get the Kith to stay. He’d gone through great lengths to establish personal bonds with every Kith he’d met.

  So Sam decided she would have to do her own research on this one. That wasn’t so bad. After all, her father had left her detailed descriptions of his methods for sifting through centuries of folklore to find the truth. And he did pretty well, even without the one tool that Sam was convinced was going to make this task a piece of cake.

  She was going to Google it.

  * * *

  Take a moment to fully appreciate the Age of Information that we all live in. In this era, we can walk up to a machine, ask it a question, and it will give us answers from multiple sources. Thousands of years of human knowledge and wisdom are available to us at any moment. A
ll we need to do is ask the all-knowing Internet the right questions. Sam knew the questions to ask Google, but sifting through the answers was a different matter.

  Some of the tales she found said that the solution was simple: all one needed to do was ask the offending elf to leave, and they would. Sam very much doubted this. Piv and the others might leave out of simple respect for her father, but Hax was different. He would always stick around as long as something held his interest. If she told him she wanted him gone, that would only make him want to stay even more just to entertain himself through spiting her.

  So asking politely wouldn’t work.

  Sam dug deeper, and found other stories. One suggested that the only way to get rid of an unwelcome elf was to invite a pixie over. The pixie would annoy the hell out of the elf, and he’d leave. But then you’d be left with the problem of what to do with the pixie. Sam asked Piv about pixies and he assured her that they, unlike elves, do not exist.

  Sam kept searching. She explored countless elf-oriented websites, which she found to be quite a chore. Most of the sites were horrendously designed, with gaudy colors, animated sparkles, and the most ridiculous artistic renderings of tall, pale elves. She’d spent so much time with real elves that she’d forgotten the misconceptions the rest of the world had about them.

  The research took days. Sam lost track of exactly how long she’d been searching. In the daytime she was constantly busy with meetings, design sessions, keeping retailers happy, and financial forecasts. In the night she spent her time perched in front of her computer, sifting through thousands of Internet search results. Occasionally she would turn her attention to the local news just to stay connected to the outside world. The big story nowadays was a string of missing persons reports in the Detroit area. It wasn’t exactly unusual for people to come up missing in this city, but apparently things had been getting worse. As the days passed and the media dove deeper into the story, Sam’s daydreams of having an impressive luxury home began to include substantial security features.

  Tonight, her eyes were burning and she’d just finished her fifth cup of coffee. Rupert was sleeping at her feet and occasionally twitching and jerking as he chased the various creatures that occupied his doggy dreams. Sam felt a brutal pang of envy as she watched him enjoy his fitful sleep. She thought about joining him soon.