Heartbreaker - Episode 1

Stalkers And Business Plans

Even from the corridor I could hear the phones ringing at the startup. Daisy rushed in and picked it up, taking a message. I just strolled in straight to Ryan's office.

Oh, and I slapped Tom on the head as I walked past.

"What the-?" he said jerking up from his monitor.

"Stalking me?" I said, pointing an accusing finger at him. "Tracking me?"

"Oh, that."

"Zip it."

Ryan ran out and met me. "Great. You're here. Come on in.

He practically dragged me by the arm, and I noticed that phones were ringing constantly. The mobiles, the landlines.

"Listen," Ryan said as if he had run a couple of miles, "Since yesterday, all the customers you handled left five-star reviews on our app. They wrote about their breakup, how easy it was. Then some blogger tweeted about a review and it blew up."

"The review site? Or the app store? Kablowie?" I said.

"Not literally. It went viral! No, not really viral. It just hit a nerve. We got reporters from every tech-site wanting a quote about our new stealthy service."

"So? Just give them one. You're good with words."

He was way too excited about this. "No! You see, I was planning to stop servicing breakups. We rewrote the TOS and everything-"

"Is that the bit where I skip and tick my soul away?"

"Precisely. But then people got raving mad about this breakup service. We got threats to get sued! A priest went on the radio and ranted about me!"

I squinted. "Your words say one thing, but our face says another. You're happy about this. Are you having a fever?" I gasped, covering my mouth. "A stroke maybe?" I slapped him lightly. "Can you feel me slapping you? Anything? How about on the left?"

"I'm fine! I've never been better Eris. Don't you see? This has struck a nerve. After four failed startups, I finally have a service that has the potential to go viral."

"Sooo... You don't want to cancel the breakups," I said wearily.

Ryan tossed a few papers in the air and they tumbled around us. "Cancel? Oh my lovely Eris, I'm gonna rebrand and commit!"

The papers landed lazily.

"Cool," I said and turned around gripping my bag. "Let me know how it goes."

He chased after me and I spun around. "Eris. Eris. I want you to work on this."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Really. You've been amazing at this. We can't handle the stress of it. Orders are coming in as we speak."

"Huh. Nice," I said, sitting down. "It's not like I got any other job offers."

"Okay, so listen to this. We rebrand ourselves, to... Wait for it... Heartbreaker," he said, presenting it with his hands.

I smiled. He was so dorky. But it was kinda cool.

"We'll get a logo of a broken heart and everything," he added.

"What about the investors?"

"The investors will jump at this opportunity! I mean, negative press? Free marketing? Gah!"

"Okay. I assume I'll handle the breakups?" I asked.

Ryan nodded.

"There's an issue I noticed yesterday," I said. "Look, half of the clients didn't seem to believe me. I managed to convince them, but we are bound to get people who think we are scamming them or something. Apps won't cut it for this Ryan. This needs face-to-face."

Daisy gulped and we both turned to her. She had gone pale. "You're going to walk up to total strangers and ruin their lives?"

"I'm not the one ruining it!" I defended myself at her. "Their loved ones are!"

"But... It's love! And..." Daisy said, but the waterworks started.

Remind me to never invite Daisy to watch any chick-flicks at my place. I have a feeling the tissue costs would bankrupt me.

Ryan was taking notes and mumbling to himself. And me. But mostly to himself. "Okay, you got it. I hear you. This limits the scale I wanted to work with..."

"Ryan, this won't work as an app. As an online discreet service, sure. That's a bonus. You might as well fire Tom right now and scrap the BadNews app," I said, faking my concern.

Tom leaned back on his chair and exclaimed, "Hey!"

"Sorry dipshit, it's true," I told Tom.

"Don't- It's fine Tom, we still got a whole new site to code. Don't listen to her," Ryan said and turned back to me, taking notes. "Eris, go on."

"We also need physical proof. Our customers need to send us something personal for their companions, so we can validate our claim that this is real."

Ryan bit his pen. "Like a... Photo! No. A sweater she knitted for him!"

"Sweater. Right. If you're my grandma. No, I'm talking about something small and intimate. A fridge magnet from a trip, a watch, a sexy thong."

Tom leaned back on his chair again and eyed me, right on cue at the mention of sexy thongs.

"Perv!" I yelled at him.

Ryan kept on mumbling and scribbling. "Uh huh. Yeah, we can do this, with parcel collection, Athens only. Uh huh."

I bit my lip. It seemed I had him in the 'make it rain' zone. So I said, "Plus I'll need a car. A blue one."

"A blue car," Ryan repeated writing it down. Then he looked up at me, "What? You can't drive."

"Yes I can!"

"Oh no you don't. Okay, taxi service it is for now, and we'll see in the future. These will be limited in the city anyway, so the range is small," Ryan said, and then sat back in his CEO chair and started making spreadsheets.

I swear, those Steve Jobs biopics made this process seem a lot more interesting than it really is.

"Uh huh," he mumbled. "Yeah, I can whip up a business plan for this. Okay. We can get this started. We'll send an email requesting the personal item, and charge them, oh, extra 15 euro for that. We'll have the first batch collected tomorrow."

"So? We're on?" I asked, and I had to say I was a little excited.

"We're on. Eris, by tomorrow morning, you're a heartbreaker.