The second hand on the old-fashioned clock across the office clicked one step closer to the hour. Sam had bought it on a trip to England, paying some ridiculous sum for a Victorian grandfather clock that was almost certainly a late twentieth-century forgery worth a fraction of what he’d paid, but the thing’s bronze pendulums and its metronomic ticking could be soothing at those times when his stress levels shot through the roof. Hands folded on top of a huge pile of status reports on systems around the globe, Sam sat in reverie for a few seconds as the silver metal swept relentlessly to its zenith. Two A.M.