“You’re really almost done writing the program?” I asked.
My heart felt like it might thud to a stop. I could be crossing a line here, one I wouldn’t be able to retrace. But, maybe it was time. Frankie had already discovered the Bible in my desk drawer. He didn’t comment when he found it, and I didn’t offer an explanation.
“What I tell you at this point will have no bearing on your program—you’re sure?” I sat back in my chair and studied his face. He nodded and gazed at me with anticipation. I decided to go for it.
“Well, Frankie, the Bible tells us that God is the Creator of the universe, and we see His building blocks everywhere. He’s also called the Author of life. He wrote our DNA. He must have signed His work somewhere.”
His eyes twinkled as he drew out his words in hushed tones. “Dude…I mean, Dr. S…”—his mouth slipped into a smile—“that is, like…the most righteous thing I’ve ever heard.”
I couldn’t stop my cheeks from pulling back. Years of discrimination by university staff melted away at that moment. I wanted to hug the spiky-haired kid sitting across the table from me. Instead, I straightened the collar of my lab coat.
“Well, then, Frankie. I mean, dude. Let’s get to work.”
~}~~~{~
As a wave washed in, shattering the ice and dragging it out to sea, Gizile became self-conscious and reached up to feel the tip of her own ear. She had so many questions, now, but she dare not ask. Looking up at her master again, she found him staring at her.
“This one was kin to the last, did you see it, child?”
“I…no,” she stammered. “They seemed nothing alike.”
“Yet they both had strange creatures, a quest, and something else.”
“W…what was that, Master?”
“Slime,” he said with a twinkle in his eye that seemed completely unlike the master she thought she had known for six long months. “Now look!” he commanded, his gray manner suddenly returning.
She bit her lip and turned back to the water. It had already frozen again. And on the surface, a man in a red suit reached into a bag.
~}~~~{~
Old Saint Nick—Travis Perry
Old Saint Nick reached into the bag of toys around the corner of the hallway at the far left side of the ninety-eighth floor of the skyscraper. He drew out what looked like a miniature chimney. Hefting it onto his shoulder, he swung back around the corner and fired it.
With a flash, a chimney-hole shaped box flew from the end. Silver ribbons flapped in curls around bright, blue wrapping until the projectile smashed into an eight-legged alien down the hall.
Boom!
Green blood and yellow slime decked the halls. The creature screeched and squirmed for less time than it took Santa to slide down a chimney. Then, silent night.
More aliens, further down the hall, leapt over the body of their fallen comrade and rushed the Jolly Old Elf, hoping, it seemed, to overwhelm him with sheer numbers. Saint Nick didn’t miss a beat, popping off each one in turn with a gift from his Chimney Bazooka.
Suddenly, a thunk shook the ground behind Saint Nick. He whirled and saw an enormous alien, maw gaping. He froze. Before he could say, “MERRY CHRISTMAS,” a tip of a sword appeared through the alien’s belly. The sword tip moved sideways in two quick flicks, bisecting the monster.
The top half of the alien quivered and fell to the floor, revealing Santa’s savior—Rimbo the black elf. He wiped the green blood off his vorpal blade.
“Dude! You saved my life, man. You rock!” Santa’s voice squeaked.
“This game is OK,” said the elf, “but I’d rather be playing Grand Car Theft VR. That’s got real blood. And hookers.” The elf waggled his eyebrows.
“Dude! It’s Christmas Eve! Show some freaking holiday spirit!”
“Respect. So where do we go now?”
“I dunno, man. You’re a way better Rimbo than the computer. It always gets killed before this, so I’ve never made it this far before. I think we got just one more hallway.” The virtual red-suited Saint pointed toward the right.
“OK. You lead the way and I’ll cover your jolly fat butt!”
“Man, don’t talk about Santa’s rear end that way. It’s just wrong.”
“Yeah, whatever, dude.”
They hunkered forward into the hall. Saint Nick pivoted back and forth, pointing the chimney into the open doorways that lined each side of the hallway, attempting stealth in spite of his immense girth and bright-red “camouflage.” Rimbo walked backwards, behind Santa, his vorpal blade at the ready, his black tights and suit making him significantly less visible than his companion.
“Hey! You know, we’re like, basically the same as Batman and Robin,” said Rimbo, “except for them, the big fat guy wears a dark suit, while the little guy wears red.”
“Shhhh! Listen.” Both stopped walking and Santa cocked an eye at the ceiling. “Do you hear that?”
Just then the ceiling tiles broke apart and nasty-yellow-slimy-chomping-teeth aliens tumbled down, filling the hallway before and behind them. They were surrounded.
“HO!” shouted Santa, half-goofy, half-serious, chimney belching flames as he fired.
“HO, HO, dude!” laughed Rimbo, his blade severing those aliens foolish enough to approach him, as easy as a hot knife through butter.
Some of the aliens made leaps worthy of a basketball virtual reality slam-dunk contest. Still, Santa’s chimney blew them back. Things were dicier on the other side, where the monsters could easily advance to biting distance, despite the dark elf’s twirling blade.
Rimbo ducked and sliced and thrust with skill, nimbly avoiding even a tooth mark. But the severed body parts of those leaping at him from on high continued their forward momentum after he slashed and ducked, which caused them to slam into Santa’s back.
“Hey, man! I’m taking damage! Whassup with that?”
“You can feel that?”
“No, man, like, duh! We’re only wired for sight and sound. It’s my health meter, its going down, dude!”
“Sorry, man! I’m busy!”
The colored bar showed Saint Nick’s health, visible only from the inside of his virtual reality goggles, ticking down until it glowed red. But Santa stood his ground until the hallway cleared. Surrounded by severed and burned alien body parts, splattered with yellow and green goo, he turned to Rimbo.
“Dude! We cleared the level! Now we have to face the boss, up on the 99th floor. Then we’ll, you know, be done with Downtown World!”
“Cool! So let’s get moving.” They took the elevator up.
The elevator doors opened. Santa and the dark elf stepped out into a cavernous room, with glass ceiling and walls, suitable for a truly gigantic monster. Crystalline chandeliers provided only a dim overhead glow. They could see the sparkling nighttime lights of the metropolis out the windows, through the lightly falling snow. In the center of the room, a water fountain, of the sort you’d see in a city park, sprayed plumes of white high into the air.
“Santa Dude, the ceiling must be, like, fifty or sixty feet high.”
“Yeah. And I think this room takes up the whole floor.”
“So, where’s the boss?”
“I dunno. Hey, look! I think I see something on the other side of the fountain!” Through the white plumes of spraying water, at the opposite rim of the fountain, was a shape that might have been a man.
Rimbo pointed to himself then gestured a circling motion to the right. He pointed next at Santa, and then indicated a circling motion to the left. Santa nodded.
They eased their way around the four-foot fountain wall, each moving in the opposite direction, each peering through the obscuring waters, looking for any sign of movement from the figure on the other side.
There was none.
Then they were there, on either side of an old man. Tall and thin, with a long white beard, long white robe, and olive-hued skin. He sat on the edge of the fountain wall. He turned his head, focusi
ng his dark brown eyes first on Rimbo, then Santa.
“Whassup?” said the old man.
He hopped off the wall with youthful agility and stepped toward Santa, who put the open end of the chimney up to the old man’s chest. The man in white stopped moving.
“Kill him!” shouted Rimbo. “Kill him!”
“Something isn’t right here,” said Santa, confused. “Don’t move, old man, or I’ll blast you!”
“Blast him now!” yelled Rimbo. When the red-suited figure didn’t immediately respond, the dark elf leapt forward, his sword outstretched, to run the old man through.
Calmly, without even looking, the man fast-stepped to the side and reached out, grabbing the elf by the wrist of his sword hand. He held the sword away from himself and looked Rimbo in the eye.
“Look, man, I just want to talk to you guys a minute.”
Rimbo’s eyes widened. “I can FEEL your hand on my wrist.”
The old man let go of him. He glanced over to Santa, then looked back at Rimbo. “First, let’s settle who I’m not. I’m not the boss of this level. You won’t ever see me here again. But who we can call the ‘Boss of Bosses’ gave me a few minutes to speak with you dudes. He’s even granted me the ability to, like, speak your language.”
“Like,” said Santa, “what do you mean? You don’t, like, speak English or something? Where are you from? What are you doing hacking into my game?”
“I’m from a town called Myra, in Lycia, in what today is called Turkey. Not the turkey you eat, dudes. Back then we weren’t Turks. I grew up speaking Greek. Oh, hey, sorry for not saying so sooner—my name is Nicholas, though you probably know me better as ‘Saint Nick’.” He held his hand out to his left side, to shake Santa’s hand.
Santa kept the chimney leveled at the man in white. “Dude, I don’t know how you got in here. This game is supposed to be totally secure. You’d better get out. Now!”
“What a minute! Cody, this is, you know, the real Saint Nicholas here! I mean, whoa! Do you live at the North Pole and everything?”
“Erik, this guy’s not the real anything! He’s just some jerk that hacked into my system!”
“Are you playing online right now?” asked the old man.
“NO.”
“Then how could I hack into the game?”
Cody didn’t have an answer for that.
The old man still reached out toward him. “Won’t you shake my hand, dude?”
“No, I won’t.” But he did lower the chimney.
The man dropped his hand to his side and turned back to the elf, “Dude, you must be kidding about the North Pole, right? It’s, like, in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.”
“Really?”
“Word. Hey, and I don’t really ‘live’ anywhere. I died a long time ago.”
“Now he’s telling us he’s, like, a ghost.” Cody snorted.
“No, not a ghost—a vision. Hey, sorry, dudes, I don’t have time for this. I only got, you know, a minute left and I need to talk, OK?”
They said nothing in reply, but listened, faces turned towards him.
“I hate what people have done with this ‘Santa Claus’ thing, you know? It’s made Christmas so it’s about me. I mean, I did give presents to people, but not just on Christmas, and not just to kids. But that’s not all I did. I was a bishop, you know, a preacher, a church leader guy. And I never had elves or reindeer or a red suit or hopped down chimneys or anything like that. And I sure never wasted a bunch of aliens. And dudes, I was never, ever fat.” He eyed Cody’s virtual midsection. “I wasn’t even chubby.”
“You know why I gave presents?” At first, the question seemed like the kind you ask without expecting an answer. But he stared at them, waiting for a response.
Finally the elf said, “No, why?”
“Because Jesus helped people, by healing them. And his disciples had a moneybag, so they gave away money to people who, you know, really needed help. That’s why I gave presents, because Jesus did. And isn’t Jesus what Christmas is supposed to be about? And giving instead of getting? Kindness instead of cruelty? Right?”
They had no answer for him. The elf’s eyes drifted downward.
Old Saint Nick reached behind him and did a short hop to seat himself once more on the wall. “Anyway, dudes, Merry Christmas to you.”
With that he lifted his feet, swung around, and scooted off the wall into the fountain. He immediately sank down out of view.
Erik and Cody moved forward and looked over the wall. In the fountain, there was no sign that Saint Nicholas had ever been there.
“That’s it! I’m outta this game!” Cody/Santa reached up to his face, pulled off the Virtual Reality helmet, and…
~}~~~{~
He was back in his room. Erik pulled his VR helmet off too, and, for a brief moment, each looked into his friend’s eyes, not recognizing the teenage face in front of him.
“This thing is defective,” said Cody as he popped the Santa Claus Saves the Universe disk out of the Playcube VR. “I’m gonna get my money back.”
“I dunno, man. Did you hear what he said? He was, like, a vision.”
“No, man. He was bad programming.”
“Dude, I felt his hand on my wrist.”
“No, man. You imagined it. I almost fell for it, too. But, dude, this is just some programmer’s idea of a joke. That’s all.”
“But dude, I felt him,” Erik muttered. “Do you s’pose he was right about Christmas?”
“Dude, you aren’t thinking straight. It’s late. Let’s go to bed.”
Erik paused a moment, a thoughtful look on his face. “Sure, man. Hey, Merry Christmas to you.”
“Yeah, whatever, dude.”
~}~~~{~
“Master,” Gizile said as she turned. His stony stare almost made her abandon her question. But she pressed anyway. “Who were the men in the vision…or game…?”
“You know them by other names, child. Is that all you saw?”
“No, Master. I also saw this shared a word with the one before…what does ‘dood’ mean?”
Master Tok’s lips quirked into something approaching a smile, but he did not answer. She could hear the crackle of the ice setting, so she turned back. A man stared up at her. Gizile’s heart almost froze like the water below. After a quiet moment, she waved her hand in front of the man, but he did not see her. It was as if she were looking through the back side of a mirror, and he trapped on the reflective side.
~}~~~{~
Bob—P. A. Baines
Amazing how much blood a nick so small can produce.
My reflection stares back at me from the bathroom mirror. Dark bags under blood-shot eyes. Last night was my first decent sleep since I can’t remember when. I used to have no problem sleeping but these days I have too much on my mind. Work has become one big bag of deadlines.
My hair has been given the lying-on-my-head treatment and I look as if I have spent the evening at the business end of a wind-tunnel. What little is left of my hair seems to be rioting over the living conditions.
The razor is getting blunt. A blade a few days old is best—not too sharp. Craig at work keeps his blades in a cardboard pyramid under his bed. As long as the dimensions are the same as the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and pointing in the right direction. Swears it keeps them in perfect condition. I make a mental note to buy new ones as the spot of red pushes through the streaks of foam.
The tap in the basin is dripping and I make a mental note to have a look. Same mental note as every day for the past two weeks. My mental notes are getting out of hand. I make a mental note to organize my mental notes.
Water is wet.
Water falls from the sky.
We cry water.
Does the sky cry?
I pull a comb through my hair and select a shirt with fewer creases than the others. The ties all look the same so I choose the one nearest. Yellow blotches mixed with green splashes, blue globs, red streaks, and some colours I
can’t be bothered to identify. The result is chaotic but pleasing and possibly still in fashion.
I draw the tie over, through, round and down. It tightens against my windpipe. Who decided that a strip of cloth hanging from the neck looks good? Do I look more professional because of something that appears as if it has been subjected to a kindergarten painting lesson?
I slide into my jacket and wriggle until it sits comfortably.
Yes, very professional.
I wonder what Bob would think.
We wear clothes to cover our bodies.
Clothes keep us warm and dry.
The sun keeps us warm and dry.
Can we wear the sun?
The train is late, which does not surprise me. I check my watch. A graduation present from my parents. The second hand glides smoothly across the face. The station clock shows no seconds. Only minutes and hours count in a train station. Seconds are irrelevant when it comes to the mass transportation of people. Why does my watch regard seconds as important? I can’t remember ever using the second hand—except to make sure the watch is still working.
Someone speaking with a mouthful of crackers into a fan announces the late arrival of the train. I make out ‘train’, ‘late’, ‘platform’, and possibly ‘splib’.
The crowd gathers around me and moves as one organism towards the edge of the platform. I feel uneasy being so close to the front. What if the people at the back don’t stop pushing? Would the train be able to stop in time?
In the distance I hear the rumble of metal on metal.
Trains carry people.
People catch trains.
People catch colds.
Do colds carry people?
I find a window seat and gaze out. People are still boarding. Like cattle they amble obediently towards the doors. Personal space sucked in like a beer gut passing through a nightclub. Heads nod to i-pods. Fingers tap messages to unseen soulmates. Cell phones cry out like hatchlings demanding to be fed. Broadsheets crouch, waiting.