Rise of the Miser: Claus, #5

by Tony Bertauski

  Sometimes Jessica yearned to remain above for just a second, long enough for the distortion field to collapse, to see the stars glitter and the Northern Lights gleam. But to do so would jeopardize everything the elven lived to be. She was not one to do so for a glimpse.

  Even on this day.

  “Go on.” Jessica patted Dancer’s nose. “There’s more to eat.”

  She dodged the rack of antlers. Once fully human but not quite elven, Jessica and Nicholas were still full-sized people. Their quarters in the ice were sometimes tight. And on occasion they took a thwap from a reindeer turning too quickly.

  Dancer returned to the others for one final feed, one that would energize their ability to leap. A decision had been made. They would return to the mainland and Dancer didn’t like it. Neither did the other reindeer. Jessica didn’t need to be one of the caretakers who communicated with them to know that.

  She didn’t like it, either.

  A rack of antlers greater than all of the rest rose above the pack. The last of the elven scientists had fallen into a hole cut from the ice. The last entrance was larger than the rest. It waited for Jessica. She remained to watch the reindeer slowly inflate. One by one, their bellies expanded like balloons as their bladders trapped helium from their special feed.

  Dasher was the first to go.

  He bent at the knees. The ice crackled beneath his hooves. Through the warped distortion field he soared until he was a brown smudge that disappeared into the night.

  Vixen was next then Comet, then Prancer and Cupid, Dunder and Blixem. Dancer, the smallest of the herd but still towering over Jessica, looked back before she bent at the knees. Jessica nodded once and whispered an encouraging word. And then she too was a smudge soaring toward the mainland.

  The white landscape was almost empty.

  The largest of the reindeer remained on the ice, his jaw working to finish the last of his leaping feed. His eyes were dark and serious. His nostrils flaring. He snorted and pawed at the snow. Jessica shaded her eyes and he did it again.

  She needed to get below.

  Her shadow, long and sharp, disappeared from the snow. She paused a moment with her fingers on the ice. The hole would not collapse until she was all the way below. Shadows passed her opening.

  Jessica popped up like a sea lion scouting for danger. She had to see for herself. Her heart couldn’t take the weather of unknowing if she didn’t. The lead reindeer was bending at the knees when she finally looked, muscles bulging on his haunches. He launched like the others, but this time in the other direction.

  A streak marred the night sky.

  She dropped down and the hole sealed her inside. She would return to the elven and discuss what would happen next. They were honorable and wise and would never lie to her. But she just had to see it for herself. Just before Ronin leaped, she’d seen the silhouettes of three elven upon his back.

  “We’ll find him,” she whispered.

  KANDI

  7

  The other side of the resort was the B wing.

  Boring.

  Kandi and her dad each had their own glider. He balanced his tool bags on the back of his. Kandi leaned on her handlebars, eager to go. The hallway was the place to catch a breeze.

  The waterball fight was still going strong, as usual. Beyond that, there was a wall of powdered snow this morning. They blasted through that illusion and cruised through a mountain of shiny presents that tumbled behind them.

  A herd of reindeer stampeded ahead of them. Their rumps bounced and their antlers plowed through strings of Christmas lights that tangled up and dragged behind them. The reindeer parted as Kandi caught up to them. She could smell the musk of their hides and grassy lichen on their breath.

  Sandy appeared to be riding one of them. He wore a ten-gallon cowboy hat that swallowed his head.

  Her dad didn’t notice.

  He was lost in thought, immune to fun. He had been awake most nights since they arrived. She’d heard him leave the master suite twice last night, and he was awake when she got out of bed. His covers weren’t even wrinkled.

  He wore trouble like a mask. Whatever the reason he’d been asked to come to the island, it had challenged him. That challenge would own him until he beat it.

  They whizzed through the foyer. The reindeer vanished as they passed beneath the chandelier and entered the boring hall of B wing. The walls were beige and the floor freshly waxed. Not a single jingle bell or flying waterball. Kandi squinted to see the end of the hall, where a spot of color might exist.

  The glider slowed to a stop at a door on the right. Her dad stepped off with tool bags in hand and paused with his hand on the knob. The lock clicked in the doorjamb. No one was inside to greet them. He paused for some sort of recognition, whether it was facial or his palm print on the handle.

  “Grab my coffee, Kan,” he called.

  Kandi took the cup from his glider’s dashboard. Everything on this island was hot. How could he drink it, too?

  The room was dark and almost as big as the master suite. There were no windows looking over the jungle. Several monitors were lit up. She’d seen plenty of her dad’s analysis on the laptop, numbers grinding away and charts showing significant differences. This, though... she’d never seen a computer interface like this.

  It was bubbles.

  They floated up the monitors like carbonation, merging and growing, changing colors, spinning webs or popping. It looked like a sophisticated video game.

  “Air-conditioning,” she gasped.

  Kandi pressed her hands on the cold floor and her cheek against the back of a metal chair.

  “I’m in love.”

  Her dad was kneeling below a monitor as big as a garage door. He wasn’t worshipping the cooler temperatures or kissing the floor but rather tending to disemboweled wires and motherboards spilling from an open cabinet. The bench above him was set extremely low to the ground, barely a couple of feet, in fact. Even on his knees he had to bend over to tap at the laptops.

  “Can we sleep in here?” She hugged the chair. “Seriously?”

  She had been sleeping on top of the bedsheets. It took some getting used to, not cuddling beneath a thick comforter, but she couldn’t stand being covered unless it was a blanket of snow.

  I can’t believe I miss the cold.

  He retrieved something from his tool bag and strapped it around his head. There were pads touching his temples and another one on his forehead. She’d seen a set like it at home but never saw him using it. He closed his eyes and adjusted it.

  “What’s that?”

  “Mmm?” He opened his eyes when she repeated the question. “Oh, this is a new system. It’s a quantum computing system, whole new language. This is a sort of... thought projector. It makes for quicker executions.”

  “When did you get that?”

  “A while ago.”

  She didn’t like seeing something around his head or reading his thoughts. He was the one person in her life and she didn’t need his head scrambled by something new.

  “Those are data packets.” He pointed at the bubbles.

  He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was deep in the zone. He had entered a state of hyperfocus that would make a Zen monk jealous. He was a biophysicist with a background in artificial intelligence. Computer programming was a second language. But this was quantum computing with data packets that looked like Easter eggs.

  He touched one of the floating bubbles and it exploded in a series of smaller bubbles. Shifting them around with the tip of his finger, he drilled down the data packets and drew new connections between a group of yellow bubbles. They merged to form a larger red bubble.

  Her dad looked different. He was still in the zone, but she hadn’t seen this expression before. She’d seen him frustrated, seen him confused. But this looked like... awe.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Is there something I can do?”

  “Why a
re you doing this...” But he wasn’t talking to her. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  He ran his hand through his thick hair and studied several computers at once. She realized this was probably his idea of paradise. Not the beach or the sun but a lab full of computers and a giant monitor to challenge him.

  A grid flashed on one of the laptops.

  He swiped the screen and threw the graphics onto the large monitor. It was a map of the island. Hands on hips, he paced back and forth, manipulating the information with hand gestures. Kandi recognized the resort—it spanned from coast to coast—and identified the circle-shaped tower. But there were other buildings nestled into the jungle.

  And an extremely big one.

  “I need to see the power plant.” He looked up and pointed at a small building perched on the cliffs.

  “There’s a cart ready for you, Naren,” a voice said.

  Heether’s watching.

  Kandi tried not to think of that name. The mispronunciation was like an early morning alarm, but it was her island, her rules. And she was watching. No more picking her nose or farting. Not that she did either of those ever in her life. But just in case.

  Is she just a voice?

  There was no body to prove she was real, and artificial intelligence was pretty good these days. She’d seen what her dad had done with artificial intelligence in the past. But there was the woman walking toward the tower that one day, the one with the extreme sunburn. That was real.

  Or so it seemed.

  Her dad just grunted. He was already accustomed to Big Sister watching over him, maybe because he talked to her all night. He grabbed a few items from his tool bag and started for the door. Kandi followed.

  “Tut-tut, hon,” Heether said. “Your dad goes alone on this one.”

  He was already climbing onto a glider.

  “Why can’t I go?” Kandi said.

  “Adult eyes only.”

  Kandi hadn’t been given the kid card since she was in kindergarten. This vacation was already turning slightly boring. She hung out on the beach and helped her dad, which was okay. But now he was going to leave her behind.

  This trip’s about to take a big merry dump.

  “I won’t be long,” her dad called.

  He took his tools and hyperfocused work-face down the hall to explore the island. He’d be back in an hour, maybe longer. She was trapped in the resort in search of unlocked doors.

  At least she had air-conditioning.

  KANDI WAS NOT IN LOVE with the chair anymore. There was only one thing worse than being hot.

  The B wing.

  “Pssssst.”

  It sounded like a leaking balloon. Kandi spun around to see a big round head was peeking into the room.

  “What are you—”

  “Shhh.” He looked up and jerked his head. “She’s with your dad. But just in case.”

  “Who?”

  “The tall, dark and handsome guy. That’s your dad.”

  “No, I mean who’s he with?”

  “Who do you think?”

  The miser. She liked that name better than Heether.

  “You want to go on a ride?” he said.

  “No.” She flopped back in the seat. “No volcano slop.”

  “No, not that.”

  “You don’t want to go over the seven seas and mountaintops and light the chimney at midnight—”

  “That’s just something I say, it’s stupid. I’m talking about exploring for real.” He shook his twiggy hands. There were three fingers and a thumb on each hand, but the left one was missing the pinkie.

  “What happened to your finger?”

  “These are sticks, not fingers.”

  “Okay. What happened to your stick?”

  “What happened to your stick?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What are you?” She stood up. “And don’t say you’re a sandman.”

  “I’m this, that’s all. You’re that and I’m this. Don’t put me in a box, kid. So do you want a ride, yes or no?”

  “Can you look at this?” Kandi turned the laptop. The map was still on it. She’d studied it until she was bored.

  The sand dollars disappeared in a squint. “Bring it here.”

  “Come closer.”

  He pushed his finger through the doorway like he was dipping it inside. The stick vanished. Now he was missing a stick on both hands.

  “You can’t come in here?”

  “Some doors are locked.”

  “This one’s not.”

  “Clearly, it is.” He displayed the missing sticks. Jazz hands.

  Kandi swiped the laptop and threw the map on the big monitor. The sand dollars disappeared in another squint and he appeared to study it for nearly a minute. She stepped aside. She’d been looking at the map ever since her dad left. She was missing something. Something she’d like to discover.

  Sandy made a face, raised a finger, then said, “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s a map.”

  “I thought you already knew that.”

  “What are all those buildings for?”

  “I only know this one. Out there, that’s another universe.”

  “You knew the miser was with my dad.”

  “I always know where she is. She’s sort of god here.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” Kandi looked up, wondering if she heard that. “Why is she living in the middle of nowhere?”

  “You know Einstein? He’s an idiot.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Would you want to live with ants?”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Exactly.”

  She supposed he meant that the miser was so smart that everyone else was as stupid as ants. Or maybe it meant nothing. He looked at her with fully exposed sand dollars, as in yeah, she’s that smart. But there was a big gaping flaw in his argument.

  “Why did she call my dad? If she’s that smart.”

  A deep, round donut formed on his face, but nothing came out. The sand dollars buried for a moment. “Solid question,” he said.

  “You don’t know why she called him?”

  “Let me rephrase that. No.”

  Kandi paced the room just like her dad would do in deep thought. Sandy was saying something and then stopped. Nothing was making sense, not Sandy or the island or why she called her dad. Or maybe she was imagining a mystery. She was super bored.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked.

  “Are we playing a game, like fifty boring questions?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I know how to offer rides and entertain. Pretty much it.”

  “Entertain who?”

  “Obviously not you.”

  “Before I got here, who did you entertain?”

  “I’m trying to tell you. If you don’t want to play, then just sit there and kiss your chair. You’re in love with it anyway.”

  She had done that before he got there. “Are you watching me?”

  “The chair told me.”

  He jerked out of sight. The grating of his sandy bottom slid down the hallway. Kandi waited until it was almost silent. She was sure he would come back. He was as bored as she was. Has he been waiting for someone to entertain?

  She jumped up before it was completely silent, expecting him to be almost to the end of the hallway. The sandman was right outside the room, twisting his bottom half on the floor softer and softer. Jazz hands.

  “Let’s ride.”

  KANDI

  8

  The B wing was beige.

  It was the color at the end that drew her onward. A festive display decorated two enormous doors shaped exactly like the master suite where Kandi and her dad were staying—wreaths and ornaments and lights and marching nutcrackers and pinecones that reminded her of home.

  And music.

&nbs
p; Sandy pressed his gritty head against the door. The stick fingers curled into a loose fist and knocked. Kandi wondered how it made a sound since he was just an illusion.

  There was no answer.

  “He might be sleeping,” he said.

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I just said he might be sleeping.”

  “The music is blaring—”

  “Back up.” Sandy held out his branchy arms.

  The door cracked open and music poured out. They swung like heavy gates. The sun glared in the enormous window. Kandi peered beneath her arm to see Christmas trees and life-sized nutcrackers and a mountain of brightly wrapped gifts.

  There were no animated ornaments floating around the room, though. No projections of Santa and his reindeer crossing a make-believe sky or dancing cinnamon sticks. There were old-fashioned lightbulbs on the trees—big and glowing—and tinsel draped from the branches and fat candles flickering on tables. Kandi stepped toward the room.

  She was stopped by blinding pain.

  Something had punched her square in the nose. She covered her face. Tears involuntarily swelled up and hung from her eyelashes. She wiped them away and looked around.

  A smudge levitated in the doorway.

  She stepped carefully this time with her hands still folded over her nose. No one had hit her. It was a glass panel. She touched it with her finger. A steamy print faded slowly. It was so clear that it was virtually invisible.

  The room was a display.

  “Oh my goodness, are you all right?” A boy came rushing from behind one of the trees, carrying a large gift that was partially wrapped, the red bow trailing behind him.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure? You walked into it like it wasn’t even there.”

  “No, I’m fine.” She attempted to wipe the glass with her sleeve.

  “No, please. It’s all right. Someone will clean it.”