At the very moment she pictured herself being carted off by an army of tiny robots, something skittered to her right, and she jumped. She squinted in the dark, but when the sound faded away and she realized no robots were coming for her, she breathed out a sigh of relief and moved on.
At least, she tried to. The hem of her coat caught on an exposed nail. She shoved her hand beneath her leg to unsnag herself, and as she adjusted her weight, the board beneath her slipped, and the nail scraped her thigh.
“Mmph!” She stifled a cry. Her leg throbbed in pain. How many ways could she injure herself in one night?
The answer came immediately as she rolled away from the nail, off of the board, and onto the ceiling. The drywall gave way beneath her, and she crashed down into a very strange room.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Santa Command—Main Frame
December 25th
0200 hours
At that moment, Phil didn't care where Tracy was. He didn't care what she was doing. He didn't care what secrets she was learning. All he cared about was getting that computer back on line.
He quickly did the math in his head. The Alabama Command center was in charge of 187 different Santa routes. That was 160,000 houses! With two and a half hours to go, that meant there were still about 40,000 houses without presents. If he didn't get the Main Frame up immediately, they would fail. For the first time in the history of Santa Claus, the big guy would not complete his rounds.
First, Phil pulled the plug on the computer, hoping a simple restart would get everything going again. It did not. The blue screen returned and started flickering, almost like the computer was laughing at him.
Phil gripped the sides of the desk and let out an “Arggh!”
“You should have come with me when I asked.” Erlek stood to the side grinning smugly. “Then you wouldn't be in this mess.”
“Correction.” Walt appeared in the doorway, his body a shadow against the brightly lit hallway. “You wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't insisted on bringing that little girl here.”
And now Walt's here, Phil thought. Just great. At least his boss couldn't do anything before he fixed the computer. Phil was the top programmer at Santa Command, and the only one who could fix it.
Walt stood blocking the door with his hands on his hips. “Every control room is at a standstill. We have no clue what people are seeing out there! It's our job to keep the secret. If we fail, what do you think my boss is going to do?”
Phil's blood pounded through his veins, and he wondered if he was going to have an early heart attack right then and there. He didn't worry so much about being fired, because he knew that was going to happen. He had joined Santa Command to help keep the secret, and that's what he was going to do. “I'm on it. Just give me a few minutes.” He pulled a small spiral notebook and pen from his pocket and wrote down the error listed on the screen.
“Can I do anything?” Beth asked.
Phil sighed with a small amount of relief. At least there was one person who wasn't trying to send his blood pressure through the roof. In fact, there was something she could do, and Phil had the power to order it. “I need some more time.”
“Time?” Beth asked like she wasn't sure she'd heard correctly. At Santa Command, that word carried a lot of weight.
“Do you have any idea what you're doing?” Walt asked.
“Yes.” Phil answered both of them as he calculated what he thought he needed and not a second more. Still, he struggled with getting the words out of his mouth. Stopping time was tricky. It didn't always work out as planned, but at the moment, it was the only way. “I need half an hour.”
Erlek blew out a low whistle. “Glad I'm not you.”
Phil wanted to strangle the creature, but instead chose to focus on the computer screen. As Beth was leaving the room, Phil called back over his shoulder. “And do me a favor. Take the Inkling with you.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tracy
Tracy sneezed as the fluffy white insulation settled around her like snow. Well, at least something at Santa Command reminded her of the North Pole.
“Ouch,” she said as she sat up and brushed dust out of her hair. Her tail bone was sore as well as her right arm. Again. She flexed her fingers. At least nothing was broken this time. She pushed herself off of the broken pieces of ceiling and to her feet.
She was in a square room, empty except for a large, oval shaped mirror mounted to the wall. The room had no windows, and the lights were out, but there was light coming from the mirror. It gave the room a soft, yellow glow like a living room lamp at night.
Tracy couldn't look away from the mirror, like it contained every happy memory in her life all rolled into one. She walked slowly toward it, even though the feeling in her bones told her to go for the door or find her way back to the attic. She needed to find out what the deal was with the mirror. Why did it glow like that? Why did she want to reach out and touch it?
As she got closer, the yellow light shivered, then swirled into an image, not a reflection, but a picture of a library. It was a lot like a trick she'd seen in Belle's house at Disney World, and she wondered if Santa Command had the same designers.
Once the picture stopped shifting, Tracy gaped at how welcoming everything looked. There was a red arm chair sitting next to a crackling fire. Green garland and red bows were draped across the mantle. The floor to ceiling bookshelves were stuffed with books. It was as if someone had reached into her mind and came up with the perfect reading room.
It was so detailed, she was certain she was looking through a window and not a mirror. But if the mirror was actually a door into another room, why not just build a door? Why go to the trouble of making it seem like a magical entrance when everything else in this building was fake? And why did her stomach feel so tingly when she looked at the mirror?
No, it wasn't tingles. She was just tired. The computer back in the other room had said it was around 2 am. No wonder the chair, with its fuzzy overstuffed cushions, looked so inviting.
But the presence of a comfy chair didn't explain why the room and the mirror were there in the first place. She knew in her gut the answer had to be important. Think, Tracy, think. What does this room have to do with Santa Command?
All of the people she had met seemed more interested in computers than in how their workplace looked. And if any of the Santas saw it, they wouldn't remember anyway. Besides, Tracy had the feeling the Santas weren't shown anything besides the dressing room and their sleighs. Get them in and out. Have them do their job, wipe their minds, then send them home, with stupid, fake memories.
Tracy had a crazy urge to step through the mirror just to feel what it was like in that library. It wasn't curiosity. It was more like a pull in the center of her body, tugging at her from the other room.
She put her hands on the sides of the frame in order to stop herself. She had other priorities—get to her Santa's sleigh and get home—but her body wasn't listening. Her breath came in quick little bursts. She tightened her fingers around the smooth wood. She shook her head, but instead of clearing her mind, her thoughts grew fuzzier.
One by one, her fingers let go of the frame, and her arms dropped loosely to her side. All on its own, her right foot stepped through the mirror, and the rest of her body had no choice but to follow.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Santa Command—Main Frame
December 25th
0205 hours
Phil's fingers flew across the keyboard. The entire Southeastern sector was frozen in time, Santas included. Fortunately, those inside Santa Command were immune to it, and he was able to work. He'd already restored the system. A virus had been uploaded to the computer, and he was pretty sure who had done it. His heart hammered wildly in his chest as he wondered how one little girl had managed to screw everything up so thoroughly.
Beth stood behind him and watched over his shoulder. She had come back to confirm that she'd
gotten him the extra time. Erlek had not come back with her, and Walt had gone back to his office. Beth's presence, along with the others' absence, calmed him enough to focus on his task.
There were nine systems to reboot. He did the most critical ones first—sleigh power, navigation systems, and the Santa program. When those were done, and he had verified that all of the Santas were back on track, he activated the GPS in the Santa coats. That had been added a few years back as a security feature when one of the Santas fell out of his sleigh, and it had taken twenty-five minutes to find him. They'd stopped time that night too. Phil remembered with a shudder how close they'd come to disaster.
“Okay, I think we're good,” Phil said. “Can you get time started again?”
Beth stepped out of the room, then returned a few moments later. “We're back.”
As the GPS came on line, Phil watched the United States map on the screen light up with dozens of red, blinking dots, including his own sector. He exhaled with relief, hoping that he hadn't created another slew of problems.
Now, to find Tracy. He zoomed in on their area, focusing on Santa Command. Most of the dots in the building were motionless—those were the coats still hanging in the dressing room closets— but there was one dot moving through a room at the other end of Command.
Moving. Moving. And then it was gone.
Phil blinked, hoping his tired eyes were playing a trick on him. Of course he knew it wasn't a trick. There was only one room in Santa Command where Tracy could disappear like that, and no adult could follow her.
He slowly turned to Beth and saw the same panic on her face that he felt in his gut. That little girl had a knack of making the worst choice every single time. There was only person who could retrieve her now, and there was no guarantee that he'd be willing to try.
“Beth, I need you to make a phone call.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jared
Jared lay in his bed, bouncing an orange foam ball against his bedroom door. He liked to do that when he couldn't sleep, and this time, Beth wouldn't be home until dawn to fuss at him.
She had called several times, but thankfully, she stopped just after midnight. No, wait. He thought too soon, because her ring tone blasted out of his phone. It was lodged somewhere in the pile of dirty clothes at the bottom of his closet, where he had been ignoring it all night. She could talk to his voice mail. Maybe he could change the message to state that he was eleven and far too old to have her checking on him every hour.
While his phone rang and beeped, he bounced the orange ball against his door forty six times. But then, he missed the ball, so he had to get up anyway and decided to find his phone, just so he could shut it off.
He dug through his clothes, tossing shirts and sweaters behind him until his fingers touched something hard and plastic. He fished it out of the pile, then realized it wasn't his phone. It was a CD. His stomach twisted when he saw it. He'd buried it for a reason, but he hadn't buried it deep enough.
His phone trumpeted with a text, but he barely heard it. The memory of a long ago Saturday afternoon filled his mind. His dad had popped the CD in his stereo, proclaiming that it was time to introduce Jared to the best band in the world. From the very first chord, his dad sang loudly and jumped around the living room playing air guitar while Jared rolled his eyes and complained. His dad, enjoying himself too much to stop, patted Jared on the shoulder and proclaimed, “One day, son, you'll cherish memories like this.”
“Not likely,” Jared said back then.
And not now either. He blinked, willing the memory to vanish. Of all of the Christmas gifts he had ever received, this one had been the cruelest. He spied his trashcan across the room. It would be so easy to just throw the CD away. Could he do it?
Another text came through, and he dropped the CD, like it had burned him. His phone lit up among the pile of clothes.
We need your help. Can you come? Please?
Ordinarily, he would have ignored Beth's request. He didn't want anything to do with Santa Command, but tonight, he couldn't sit in his room anymore, not with that CD staring at him.
He picked up his phone and texted back.
I'm on my way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tracy
The moment Tracy stepped into the library, she felt warmth spread through her body, like she had walked into a dream. She wanted to curl up in the chair, dangle her toes near the fire, and settle in with a long book.
Once again, Tracy wondered what this room was doing at Santa Command. Did they use it to train the Santas how to get up and down chimneys? That was another item on her list she needed to figure out for her project. As quickly as the thought entered her mind, it was gone, replaced with the sweet smell of cinnamon coming from a plate of cookies on a small table between the chair and fireplace.
She realized how hungry she was and took one. As the Snickerdoodle melted in her mouth, she sank down into the comfy chair and lazily picked up a book from a stack on the table. She traced her fingers over the maroon and gold cover, then flipped through the crinkly, yellowed pages. The words were handwritten in fancy cursive, and some of the letters didn't look right, but Tracy didn't have to read it all to know what it said. She had memorized the poem long ago—‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.
Her father recited it every year on Christmas Eve just before they all went to bed. She always chimed in, reciting her favorite parts with him.
The watercolor drawings in the book were comfortingly familiar. The dad in the stocking cap had black hair and thick eyebrows just like her father. The fireplace had one red stocking and two green ones just like at her house. There was even a long brown sofa like the one she slept on when she was eight years old, hoping to get a glimpse of Santa.
“Weird,” Tracy said.
She pulled her feet up under her and reached for the cup of hot chocolate that was sitting on the table. She didn't remember it being there before, but figured she must have missed it. It had mini marshmallows floating in it and a cinnamon stick for stirring, just like her mom always made it. She gulped the drink down, then set the cup on the table and curled up into a ball with the book clutched to her chest and her eyes closed.
As she drifted to sleep, she thought less about her science project and Santa Command and more about the feeling the library gave her, that she was home and safe and happy.
Her dream started with her living room and the brown couch and the fishing line tied around her finger. It was Christmas Eve, and she was waiting for Santa to slide down the chimney. She was lying on the couch with her eyes closed, but was too anxious for sleep. Every time she heard a noise, she would peek at the fireplace with one eye. It wasn't until the house grew completely silent that he showed up.
“I'm here, Tracy,” came a soft, low voice from across the room.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Santa? I've been looking for you.”
He laughed in that merry way of his. His belly even shook. It made Tracy smile to see that he was just like the poem described him. “I see that. What can I do for you?”
“I need…something.” But she couldn't remember what. She knew it wasn't a toy or a book or a doll. It was something much more important.
“Did you send me a letter?”
“No, I don't think I did.” Tiny memories tugged at the corners of her mind, but they wouldn't form a complete thought. “A letter wasn't enough. It wouldn't work.”
Santa sat down on the sofa beside Tracy and sighed. “I get that a lot. Some kids have wishes, others have troubles.”
“Yeah. A trouble, and I need you to fix it.”
Santa wrapped his large, weathered hand around Tracy's small one. “You know,” he said in a way that made him seem very wise and very weary, “there are some troubles that even I can't fix.”
“I know that, but I'm pretty sure you weren't the one that was supposed to fix it.” Tracy shook her head. It was like she had a hundred
different puzzle pieces floating around in her mind, but they were from a bunch of different puzzles, so only a few pieces matched up. “It was something I had to do, but it had everything to do with you.”
“Are you sure you don't need me? Sometimes, plans have to be modified.”
Tracy looked up into Santa's soft blue eyes, and was comforted by what she saw. Centuries of kindness and wisdom had been etched into his very core. This was Santa. Maybe he did hold the answer to her problem. She just had to figure out what the problem was.
She rubbed her fist across her eyes. “I should go back to sleep,” she said. Maybe her brain wouldn't feel so muddled in the morning. “Will I be able to find you when I wake up?”
“Most people wouldn't be able to, but I'll bet you're a little different than most.”
“Thank you.” Tracy laid her head on a fuzzy green throw pillow and as she drifted back to sleep, she heard Santa shuffling around in the living room, doing his job as only he could.
Tracy didn't know how long she slept. There could have been other dreams, but they were the unimportant kind, usually filled with talking spatulas and shifting landscapes. The dream about Santa sneaked through, his words stuck in her brain as if he had stitched them there.
Sometimes, plans have to be modified.
“Tracy?” A popping sound came from nearby. “Hello?”
Tracy rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, then blinked. Standing before her was a boy about her age. He was bigger than her though, like he might be a football player in a year or two. His hair was cut in a short, blonde buzz cut, and his head was tilted like he'd been calling her name for a while.
He snapped his thick fingers in front of her eyes, confirming her thoughts.
Tracy Tam: Santa Command Page 6
