Emerson had been working nonstop since he got the call last night. So many things had needed done in a very short amount of time. People he had to visit with. Documents that needed disposed of. And an entire house that needed to be relocated from the studs of the walls in. What a surprise that one will be for the bank when they foreclose. Opening the door to find they only have a shell of a house left. But that wasn't his responsibility. He had called in all of his crews for his part. He had taken care of what needed taken care of. That was his job. And he was the best at it.
Emerson had been the man to take care of everything for as long as he could remember. It had started out small. When he was in school he was the one who knew where the answer key for the big test was and how to get to it. He was the one who was never surprised by a pop quiz. There were no surprises in Emerson's world. Ever. He made sure of that. When he was in his 20's he became "that guy". You know the one. When you needed something done a friend would say, "Oh I've gotta guy." He was that guy. He knew everyone and everything. There was no problem he couldn't fix. No situation he couldn't get you out of.
Talent like that eventually catches the eye of people who need guys like that in their world. And Emerson became "that guy" to some very powerful people. He learned quickly that his particular talent and skill set could command a lot of money on the open market. He also learned that the people he was working for didn't like sharing talent so he could command even more money by keeping a closed market. But even though he had more money than he would ever need he still continued to work.
He liked the challenge. The puzzles that needed fixed. The pieces that other people didn't seem to see that needed moved to make sure everything ran the way they needed to. And that's how Emerson saw the world. A giant puzzle filled with pieces. Everything and everyone was just a piece to the puzzle. Something that needed dealt with to make sure the puzzle was always solved. Which wasn't easy. Imagine doing a 1000 piece jig saw puzzle in the middle of a tornado and you would get an idea of some of the challenges Emerson faced on a daily basis.
People didn't like to do as they were told. He discovered this very early in his life. He had a younger sister and realized quickly that telling her what she could and could not do rarely if ever worked, but getting her to do what he wanted by making her think it was all her idea always did. It was a good lesson for him and one he learned well. He was a master at getting people to do what they needed to do when they needed to do and be happy about it as well.
The only person it hadn't worked on was his wife. She seemed to figure out pretty early on in their marriage that he was guiding her decisions even when he was doing his best to make it seem as though they were all hers. She seemed to love to do things just to mess up his order. To make him sit back on his heels and have to start over again. And he thought that was probably why he loved her. She always surprised him. When the cancer took her away he looked at it as her one last "can't figure this one out can you?" poke at him, at his need to control the world and all the moving parts.
When she died he stopped working for awhile. His world had stopped making sense and he felt like there was no point to what he did. If he couldn't control the cancer that took his wife what was the point in anything else he did? He even went on a spiritual retreat to try and stop the buzzing in his head. When he met with the shaman he was expecting to see an old fraud who had figured out how to fleece the masses out of their money. Instead he met the real deal. The old man looked at him and nodded. "I see you." I see you? What was that supposed to mean? I see you. Emerson had puzzled over that for hours. Finally he went to the old man and asked what he meant by that. And the old man told him again, "I see you." Emerson said, "I get it, you see me. But what do you see?" And the old man said, "Everything. Just as you do. We see everything." and then in a less mystical tone the old man said, "Now stop feeling sorry for yourself, take the lesson in humility the universe has just delivered and get back to work."
And that's just what Emerson did. He got back to work. With his wife gone and his focus renewed he found that he was busier than ever. So many things needed put back to right. He had only been gone for a few months but in just that time there were things that had started to slip. People making decisions based on their own petty selfish needs instead of what was best for the group. He commanded even more money and received more power and took care of more and more of everything.
And when he got the call last night from his boss that they knew everything he knew what needed done. He moved the people that needed moved. Shredded the documents that needed shredded. Met with the most likely weak links in their chain and had some deep discussions with them. Some of those ended well, some of those did not, but by the time he was through talking everyone was on the same page again. There would be a few months of down profits while the system settled back out, but all in all it was a good day's work. Things would run well again. The only piece that bothered him was that he had not seen this coming. There hadn't been any inkling of a leak in their organization. Of a pending betrayal. He didn't know who had called his boss with the tip off or why. Those pieces he would explore later. After he got some sleep. And he would find the answer. Things had been set right but they should have never gone off course in the first place and this bothered Emerson. And Emerson did not like to be bothered.
.....
"You're next."
"Come on, it's stupid, I don't want to."
"Chicken? Come on...it's funny. Sometimes people will start to tell you all of their secrets. It's like a soap opera on the phone!"
"Fine...."
*click* "Yes?"
"They know everything. What are you going to do about it?"
"Understood. It will be taken care of."
*click*
"Well? What did they say?"
"That they would take care of it and then they hung up. See? It's boring! Let's do something else."
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